How Mina Murray Became Dracula's Girlfriend 

Failure to know how to read a map disclaimer* got mountain ranges mixed up. I am allowed one a year. xx

Jonathans willingness to become a vampire alongside Mina is SO romance and that any adaptation would throw that away for a boring love triangle is a crime. Jonathan literally survives the nightmare that was his time at dracula's castle, comes away bedbound and unable to even speak of it, sees the horror of Lucy's transformation and Dracula's unfolding plans and STILL. loves his wife so much that he would follow her into vampirism? WHAT kind of the-horror-was-for-love does Dracula have that Jonathan doesnt. the DEVOTION. the WILLING WALK INTO HELL. the ROMANCE.

"Sometimes the hot vampire boyfriend is not the best choice" Sometimes it is the slightly unhinged, white-haired malewife who would rather go to hell than abandon you

TBH, if anyone had a romantic connection with Dracula, it was Johnathan. I mean, man had to be rescued from Dracula's Brides by Dracula, who yells "This man belongs to me" and had lines like "Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:- 'Yes, I too can love'"

"My feminism does include letting women lie down." As a bedbound woman, I appreciate that.

People want Mina to have a hot vampire boyfriend while ignoring that the in-text avenue exists to give her a hot vampire husband. Just turn Jonathan and let them be adorable forever.

“The movie by Sophia Copolla’s dad” that flew by and was so funny and so perfect.

Calling Dracula his own servant reminded me of the scene where the carriage driver does a runaround quick change to open the door as Dracula like he’s Danielle in Ever After.

It really is something that Bram Stoker gave us a surprisingly egalitarian picture of a happy Victorian marriage in Jonathan/Mina, and subsequent adaptations of his work completely fail to do anything cool with that.

So interesting to hear you say that Mina is the first final girl in gothic literature. She's the only person bitten by Dracula in the novel who doesn't die or become mad. She survives because she stays true to what she believes to be right. Dracula alienates people, he literaly wants to make Mina into a vampire wife he can manipulate. The vampire by essence drains people of their souls, the blood is just a vessel ; Lucy was more naive and innocent and her character wasn't as strong as Mina's. Mina's the og it girl really, she survives Dracula because even when he drains her of blood, her strength of character and values don't diminish. Even Van Helsing and the masculine characters are not as strong as her, it feels so good to finally have some respect for my girl around here !

i think the eroticism angle of dracula could be explored in his and jonathan's interplay of seduction and manipulation rather than anything between dracula and mina but hollywood isn't ready for that i guess

Another thing I appreciate is that while both of them are symbolically assaulted by Dracula, Jonathan is the one that gets the “rape and revenge” story. He’s gaslit, assaulted, and toyed with for months before managing to strike back and escape, chases Dracula across the continent, gets his own “fang” weapon (the kukri) with the explicit desire to bite Dracula back, and then culminates the story by bodily throwing Dracula’s coffin out of the wagon and staring him dead in the eye as he slits his throat with the kukri.

I was today years old when I learned that Lucy would have picked polyamory if she could. Honestly, the fact that she and Jonathan get shafted as a result of Mina being turned into Dracula’s LI was always the most frustrating part for me. They didn’t deserve the hate.

Can I just say: Let Lucy have her harem of himbo husbands damnit. But in all seriousness you perfectly captured how I feel about adaptations of Mina's character across media and my growing frustration with it. It's like people take out all the things I love about Mina and throw them aside in favor of hooking her up with Dracula. Not to mention how often this also comes at the expense of John's character because people have to twist him to make him the less appealing option and destroy what is in actuality one of the most healthy relationships I think I've ever read in a book.

Another character that's horribly butchered by movies is Van Helsing. The book version is a kind, soft-spoken, empathetic, deeply devout man who always takes into account the emotional wellbeing of the group. He has so much empathy for Jonathan, Lucy, Mina and Arthur. The 1992 film version, though played excellently by Anthony Hopkins, comes off as a complete psychopath.

I first read Dracula in college and fell in love with the pieced together style it was written in. I love the idea of Mina compiling all the written records after the adventure is over and collecting it in an organized volume. Also, my man Quincy also deserves justice for how every adaptation steals his killing shot on Drac and gives it to someone else. My guy died a hero and the Harkers named their baby after him. Quincy Morris is the only valid oil tycoon nepo baby.

There really needs to be a version of the story where it's an explicitly stated bi polycule being harrassed by Dracula. I want that pls.

You can tell Princess has been deep in the victorian lit research hole when she comes up for air throwing around words like swarthy LOL

Thing is, the men of the book repeatedly talk themselves into not sharing information with Mina, first because she is a woman that should be protected and not be made aware of the horrors of the world and later due to the established link with Dracula. And EVERY SINGLE TIME this goes HORRIBLY. Not just when she gets bitten. When the boys go to Europe to hunt down the fleeing Dracula, they fudge it. They only get back on track after they reunite with Mina and she tells them what the next logical steps for Dracula would be and what logically they should do to get him. And some other instances. EVERY time they stop including Mina, things go downhill, fast.

Lucy being transformed by Dracula is one of the scariest parts of the book, and is often left out in adaptions. That mother-daughter relationship is really key to the horror. And also adds so much tragedy to Lucy’s death

Can we talk about how infuriating it is that people insist on romanticizing dracula and mina's relationship when Dracula literally symbolically rapes her in the book?!

Yes, we stan Jonathan!!!! With too many adaptations we are robbed of his sweet-british-cinemon-roll-turned-white-haired-anime-boy-wife-guy energy. Also, Mina is probably one of the best & badass written characters, yet most adaptations treat her like shallow eye-candy for the villain?

It's weird that it's always played for sympathy, when if Dracula is able to resist turning Mina into a vampire, that means he isn't literally devoid of conscience, he CHOOSES to be evil all those other times. Also, he totally stole this from the Mummy, the reincarnation romance was his whole thing!

In another universe fandom could've made Jonathon and Mina an early version of Rick and Evelyn of Mummy fame.

It's been amazing to see Daily Dracula revive people's interest in the original book and the original versions of the characters; wherein Lucy is everyone's beloved sweetheart and what happens to her is an undeserved tragedy, where Van Helsing is a kooky old mentor figure rather than a baddass vampire hunter, (we kinda owe that to Peter Cushing) where Mina and Jonathan are one of the strongest and most egalitarian couples in Victorian literature and both of them as a unit are really Dracula's true nemesis, and where Drac himself is ... kinda just a total bastard. No lost love, no tragic backstory, just an abusive monster of domineering cruelty and hunger. NGL I also miss THAT Dracula from the interpretations. Total Bastard Dracula is not only an actually vile, scary bad guy, but also allows the protagonists to feel like a heroic found family struggling to defeat an unstoppable evil who has hurt and traumatized them (especially Mina, Jonathan and Lucy)

Yeah i read dracula daily last year and i was so disappointed when i found out that mina is shafted in most adaptations. I love Mina and Jonathans romance and it sucks they try to replace it with Dracula, which she has zero chemistry with and was allegorically sexually assaulted by

I would love a female camaderie focused adaptation with the girls at the center and Dracula as just the sexually predatory antagonists. I also really dislike the trend (often present in fandoms even when the narrative doesn't do it) that there is ONE female character we must root for, the other is only there to make her look better by comparison. We're not allowed to like, enjoy, appreciate, support, root for multiple women and I hate it.

Side note: can we talk about Lucy for a second? Why is there never a dracula adaptation that actually focuses on Lucy? Lucy was a beautiful, charming, popular lady with many suitors. She was kind and well-loved, with her and Mina being from two completely different backgrounds. They portrayed Lucy as this shallow, vapid character or this outrageously promiscuous one. Now don't get me wrong, I am a promiscuous woman myself so this is not from judgment, it's not fair to Lucy's character. Lucy is a well-loved socialite in the upper cusps of Victorian society: her being sleazy or cheap would have been SCANDALOUS in that time and certainly Sir Arthur Holmwood wouldn't have married her. She and Mina represented two aspects of the "ideal Victorian woman" and Lucy was curious and unfortunately susceptible to Dracula's influence. He turned this wonderful and kind woman into a child-eating MONSTER, Lucy's death was the catalyst for uniting everyone together to defeat dracula. That's why seeing her become this seductive, wantan, violent thing is so horrifying for the men who try to drive a stake in her heart, she's just a shell of what she was. He murdered Mina's best friend, and she always forgives him? I've heard interpretations that Lucy was the one he was truly after and Mina was for revenge, corrupting a loyal and devout Christian woman to punish the rest but I don't know. Lucy is never developed enough and you never feel anything for her death. It's horrifying and awful, and her character is never developed enough for you to feel anything apart from "yay she's out of the way." It sort of perpetuates this role that the "easy one" is the one who is discarded and used and the one who "resists" is the one he TRULY wants: this age-old "playing hard to get" scheme. I understand it, I do but not at the expense of painting Lucy in this shallow, slutty light where she is not worth anything at all. I'm not trying to lecture people into not liking their tropes, but I just wish Mina was developed more than just "ooh but he's so alluring." The bram stoker one sort of makes sense since she is his reincarnated lover, but the rest of them like WAHHH. Not to mention Quincy Morris, Mina and Jonathon literally named their CHILD after him and we have absolutely no idea who he is, he has maybe 2-3 lines if not ommitted entirely in every version.

Jonathan being willing to become a vampire to stay with Mina makes me go crazy! They are so in love!

Fun fact about Dracula's "brides", they're never called brides in the original novel. It is unclear what their exact relationship to him is. It is sometimes speculated that the blond one is his wife and the two that resemble him are either his daughters or sisters.

The fact i had to read Dracula to learn about "Mina Harker compiles the text of Dracula to inform the boys they're in Dracula" is astounding. The fact i was not ever told "Mina realizes she can use Dracula's powers against him" is wild. The fact that NOONE talks about Mina Harker saying, quote, that due to her husband's schedule she's "A TRAIN FIEND", clearly exhibiting a clear special interest in the things, is downright ludicrous. Mina Murray-Harker best girl, hands down.

Yesss!!! I LOVED Mina and how alive she was, how she rallied everybody, how she was partnering with her husband, not just a passive object. Thank you for calling this out!

It really shows both my age and the type of fandom spaces I frequent b/c as someone who has never read or watched Dracula I fully thought Dracula and Jonathan were the forbidden romance of choice. Hearing that most adaptations are fully making up shippy Mina/Dracula lore when Jonathan is the one trapped in his house and playing cat-and-mouse is really shaking everything I thought I’d gleaned secondhand.

I reread Dracula recently and was surprised to find how smart, competent, skilled, powerful, passionate and compassionate Mina was. She provided leadership with her mental and moral strength and even expressed pity for the curse suffered by the vampire. Nothing like the helpless victim portrayed in so many of the old vampire movies.

I like that you point out the simple goodness of the human characters in the book, something that's missed by pretty much everyone who reads the story. Dracula himself isn't even really a "character" - he's a walking, talking force of nature - a shapeshifter, amorphous, protean. He represents a terrifying intrusion of unknowable evil that these mundane and happy people - Harker's a real estate agent, for God's sake - must now grapple with and change themselves in order to defeat. I'm not going to lie, when you talked about how Jonathan would rather become a vampire himself than leave Mina, I teared up a little...

Here's how you get Mina a vampire boyfriend, without Dracula - have it be that Jonathan was turned at Dracula's castle.

No, because we watched the '92 movie at school and that made me indifferent to the book for years, partly because I thought Mina was ungrateful and selfish. Then I read the book and mourned all the time I lost without knowing the real Mina, her amazing resourcefulness, and her wholesome relationship with everyone around her. This video speaks to my soul, thank you!

I wrote a paper on Dracula movies back in grad school, and I felt the need to write early in the essay that "a person under a spell cannot give consent" to illustrate that none of the Dracula interactions are not consensual.

This video has restored the years of my life that were stolen from me by the decades of takes I've seen defending Coppola's film as the "definitive" adaptation for Dracula. Seriously no lies in this entire vid. Mina is simply THE best. When I recommended this book to a friend, Mina was the first and only characrer they talked about and that stupid hairy palmed loser barely came up in the conversation. She desperately deserves an adaptation that places her at the central focus, her and Lucy too frankly. I've always felt it was a missed opportunity to never see Lucy and her suitors displayed as the healthier parallel to Dracula and his three "brides", who to the audience are all just nameless conquests stripped of not only their souls, but even the simple dignity of getting named. As overbloated as The Count's legacy may be at this point as some apex monster of monsters in pop culture's mythology around him, I'd kill to see a more honest Stokerian interpretation where he's truly just the ignorant, trifling, "child brained" pest that he is who depends more upon the privileges of his status (particualrly over Jonathan) and the socially encouraged ignorance of the supernatural that allows him to thrive... arguably more than any of his actual powers do. He doesn't deserve an audience's sympathy, we ought to be saving that for the motley crew of queer/autistic/mentally ill weirdos that he could've never hoped to account for in the collateral damage of his master plan.

THANK YOU. This is a video I clicked on the second I saw it. I'm a huge Dracula novel fan and have been saying this for years. Mina and Jonathan have such a beautiful relationship, and her ACTUAL dynamic with Dracula- their mirrored traits and the fact that Dracula was drawn to and harmed the people she cared about- is far more interesting than trying to force her to actually be in love with him, to have a pre-existing connection with him, and making Jonathan out to be the worse choice in comparison to him. This shit goes deep! Even Bram's descendant, Dacre Stoker (alongside screenwriter Ian Holt) even wrote a sequel to Dracula... which completely butchers every character (figuratively and literally- Jonathan is written to be abusive and then is killed off) in favor of pushing a Dracula and Mina love plot! (because of course, Dracula lived. Of course). They *say* it's based off the book and the movies, but it's clearly, 100% the 1992 FFC adaptation, down to the detail of Lucy being a redhead. The "reincarnated vampire lover" trope can probably be traced back to Dan Curtis' original Dark Shadows from 1966. They introduced a vampire, Barnabas Collins, who had a whole plot with a girl in town having a strong resemblance to his long dead past lover. It became HUGE, and brought the show's dwindling ratings way up. He became one of the most beloved characters of the whole show. He was introduced like, 200+ episodes into the run and was not supposed to stick around long, but he completely stole the show. Now he's the main thing people think of when they think Dark Shadows. Dan Curtis even did a Dracula adaptation in 1974 and, of course, included the reincarnated lover trope. Because if you know what brings in the viewers, why wouldn't you? (Blacula also used the trope in 1972, I would presume at least in part inspired by Dark Shadows. It's more obscure these days, but it was highly influential and well known back then). It's everywhere now. It hurts me to see it become an inseparable part of how Dracula is seen by the majority of the population. I get that dark, bad boy romance is big, and the monsterfucker appeal, but it's the pairing of Mina with someone who hurt her and her loved ones so deeply and even forced himself upon her when her love with Jonathan was so devoted and pure that makes me so opposed to it. Dracula had way more sexual tension with *Jonathan* than he ever did with Mina, but no one wants to adapt THAT. Also, the most accurate Dracula adaptation? Alucard 2008 and I'm not joking. It was made on a shoestring budget, has modern technology, Dracula is called Alucard, and it's set in the town of Nilbog... but otherwise covers the novel well. It's 2 1/2 hours. I love it so much and think any Dracula fan should watch it. Good luck finding it though, lmao.

I have this running theory that Mina as Dracula's reincarnated love interest is the result of Dracula and Mummy adaptations eating each other's tails. Over the past thirty years, more Dracula adaptations have absorbed Imhotep's "I have crossed oceans of time to find you" backstory, while Mummy films have given the Mummy Dracula-like powers, albeit with an Egypt and/or desert theme.

THANK YOU for this! I've been railing against this trope for decades but you put it so eloquently. Justice for Mina, Lucy, Quincey, Jonathan, and Arthur!

I think the most upsetting thing to me about how Mina has changed from the book is that the scene where Dracula drinks from her and is caught is very much meant to be and is read as a rape allegory. So it’s therefore upsetting to see her effective rapist become her lover in adaptations

*slams fists on table* THANK YOU!!! Mina being reduced to Dracula's reincarnated lost love in so many adaptations does her character such a disservice. She arguably is the most important person in the vampire hunting crew. And fantastic points made about Lucy being innocent and pure while still being very polyamorous. (anyway, thanks for making this video, I'm literally starting a graphic novel adaptation of Dracula next month that focuses on the girls and this is helping me get HYPED)

I thought there was no going back after Keanu's british accent, but this video actually makes me want to know more about Jonathan's original character.

“Sometimes the hot vampire boyfriend is not the best choice.” - Team Jacob

I would love to hear you comment about the "girlfriending" of Irene Adler in all of the various Sherlock Holmes adaptations that have been pissed out over the years. It kind of irks me that the only woman in the Sherlock Holmes canon who successfully bests him at his game is constantly nerfed into a snarky love interest that Holmes invariably gets to outsmart in all of these dumb stories. (The recent BBC adaptation being the worst.)

I haven't finished the video yet, but I would argue this trend of shafting the female's actual love interest in favour of the problematic gothic byronic vampiric male character is also repeated by fandom too when the narrative doesn't give it to them. I don't think this is restricted to women, but main characters are often not seen as their own by fans, but just for them to project on the character and so they want them to be with who THEY are horny for even at the cost of the character itself.

I love Dracula. When asked which I preferred, Dracula or Frankenstein, I always say Dracula BECAUSE of how amazing Mina is. She's a vibrantly self-aware character who allows herself to grieve, how to allow the men to do their thing as she understood them, being able to buckle down and do her part, and how frequently the men praise her but never in a 'strong female character' way. Gods, so many modern authors could learn from Stoker.

My corgi's name is Mina Barker (instead of Harker - went with the Maiden name) - completely inspired by the character in the book. She is strong, brave, smart and loving (both my dog and the character). Thanks for highlighting what a hero Jonathan is. Have never seen him get justice in any film adaptation!

Coincidentally, we just played a RPG AP last night where we players got isekai’d into the Dracula novel, and unsurprisingly, the player who was Mina was the most level-headed of all of us.

I've been enjoying the Re: Dracula podcast and I am struck by how Mina is just ON it. She's organised, forward thinking, strategically minded, and knows a heck ton about train schedules. My kind of woman! 😊

“If you don’t know those train schedules how are you going to save London from the undead?” PREACH!! #Minastan4life

"...by Sophia Coppola's father." Love it.

Still surprises me that people read Dracula without realizing that Stoker was attracted to guys.

The "she don't love herself" ABSOLUTELY KILLED ME HOW DARE YOU 😂😂😂

Mina’s modern treatment gives me real “Persephone was actually okay with Hades kidnapping her cuz it’s hot!” and I *hate* it. Also, yes. Team Kikyo.

I’m an old lady, honestly old, graduated high school during the Carter administration, found you because your title was intriguing. Stayed because you’ve done a lovely well thought out video here. Mina is no MarySue and deserves better than Girlfriend of BadBoy, too, so yay you. That said, I’m bemused every time, from the old lady perspective, to watch you young’uns talk about what’s iconic vampire, when my Vampire Phase happened before Anne Rice. At the time there was almost nothing vampiric out there except Dracula and a few Dracula honorifics. Which I basically memorized, that’s how few there were. And I wrote a small thesis for my Gothic Horror lit class freshman year on the topic of how Dracula would not have been able to spare the blood needed to sustain (ahem) erection. (Frank Langella’s movie was out around that time, and it was sexy. *He* was sexy. He could make his eyes jiggle, uncanny, anyhow.) I was young. Things change. I guess vamps *can* spare the blood nowadays. Wink.

The phrase "the goth novel version of Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt" made me choke on my water! Don't drink and laugh, kids...

I’m a #1 Jonathan Harker defender. Than went through so much and still helps fight Dracula after everything is true bravery. Sometimes the vampires aren’t the ones you should go for my friends.

THANK-YOU!! It pains me every single time there's a Dracula adaptation and Mina is enough a nothing side character or Dracula's romantic interest, like have they even read the book!? The answer is no; bc if they had they'd realize Mina is the protagonist AND the strongest, smartest chracter of the batch. Ugh, just absolutley frustrating to see this woman go from incredible badass heroine to damsel in distress.

I've read some of the contemporary reviews for Dracula, and was surprised to learn that it was not a big success initially. Critics and audiences in England disapproved of some of the things you mentioned in the video. British heroes taking on a foreign threat played well, but they didn't like that the team that hunted down Dracula contained a woman in a prominent role, an American, and was led by the Dutch Van Helsing. They suggested it might have been more popular with a somewhat smaller cast (wink wink) or if had been published earlier when these types of "exotic" inclusions would have been more thrilling. The play remained more popular than the novel in England, but the novel took off in other English-speaking countries where the "diverse" Dracula hunters were a perk rather than a turnoff.

AHHHH I love this so much!! Thank you for making this! I read Dracula for the first time last month and I couldn't get over how Mina deserved better. When I finally took a look at the various popular adaptations - I was so mad! I haven't been able to find anyone else who also sees Mina's story in the same way that I did. Mina is an incredible character and her relationship with Johnathan is actually so much more interesting and appealing than turning her into a plot device or arm candy for Dracula. She's a badass final girl who deserves better and you basically summed up all of my thoughts haha. THANK YOU lol #JusticeForMina

Im so glad you did this essay. It freaking drives me crazy that Mina is changed from a badass vampire hunter to a victim. Grrrrrrr.

I'm okay with Coppola having his own take on this public domain story. But why does everyone else have to do the same thing? It's a public domain story with the most used public domain character in all of fiction--write your own take on him, dammit! Great video Princess!

HELL YESS I ADORE BOOK MINA SHE'S SUCH A BADASS also!!! one adaptation I 100% adore is the re: dracula audio drama version!! in the same way as dracula daily, its posting every documented day and all the voice actors are *phenomenal*, as well as the audio editing, it gives me chills/pos

I've never read the book but your assessment of Jonathan and Mina reminds me of Rick and Evie in The Mummy 1999. I think a modern Dracula movie could see them teaming up to defeat the seductive monster who's ruining their lives.

Aw I really liked the initial title about Mina being turned from Protagonist to Romantic Prop for Dracula. It's what drew me to this video!

i've been wanting a decent analysis of Dracula and especially the romanticisation of his and Mina's relationship for so long, thank you for delivering! i think it's abundantly clear in the October 3rd entry that Dracula assaults Mina in a way that is suggestive of SA: him threatening Jonathan's life if she doesn't submit, speaking of drinking her blood as taking his pleasure, and pushing her to drink his blood in a way that is described as a child forcing a kitten's nose into milk to make it drink. i listened to Re: Dracula this year, the podcast form of Dracula Daily, and there is just no way you can listen to Mina's screams of horror and think there is any possibility of a romance there.

Thank you for this!! Dracula is the most adaptationally distorted book ever written and it kills me. I really hope we get a film version someday that does Jonathan and Mina justice!

I just finished reading the original book and I was shocked to see that there's no romance between Dracula and Mina! He's pure evil and "r@pes" her. And also Jonathan is great and so supportive of her throughout it all.

Thank you! For me as a Romanian, Dracula is a fraught topic. I think I first learned about him when I saw the ads on TV for the 1992 movie (must have been about 7 or 8 when they aired it) and it gave me endless nightmares. I haven't read the book, cause 've felt saucy about it, but your video is definitely making me want to read it :D (just selling the book as a bisexual polycule story really is good advertising to specifically me!) After many years avoiding vampire fiction, I've felt ready this year to give it a chance. Great video!

THANK YOU! Dracula makes for an amazing, genuinely off-putting villain, so just let him be one! Mina and Jonathan are *such* a badass power couple, and we need more of that. Mina is not the only damsel either -- for a while, Jonathan is as well! I love the scene where they take a walk and Jonathan is the one who holds onto her arm, which was seem as strange and emasculating, but Mina doesn't care! She lets him hold onto her arm because she loves her silly little guy and is there for him. Besides, the angle of the human characters esentially being a vampire hunting dnd party is something that absolutely needs to be focused on more, i love my unlikely mismatched vampire killer brigade

Massive Dracula book fan! I have been AWAITING this video for 37 years

I think while Van Helsing is easy to see as a conventional hero Jonathan is more of a survivor. He survives against the odds but struggles to get over the experience. He can seem like a wimp from a traditional macho perspective but he fills an important narrative role. A big part of what makes the vampires in Dracula scary is how they terrify Jonathan at the start. One of the things I liked about him and Mina is that they're comfortable accepting help from each other. The idea that Mina was into Dracula after the really horrible way he'd killed Lucy made Mina seem callous and a bad friend. I never liked that.

It's such a breath of fresh air to recognize the feminism that is inherent in novels and classic literature where women were not necessarily empowered in the way modern women are. Yes, Mina was a woman of her time, but that does not mean she was useless, off in the corner fainting onto her chaise. She didn't balk at gender conventions of the time, or judge Lucy for fitting into an ideal of womanhood. She was a loving wife to her husband; she was feminine; and she aligned with the many social standards of the time, but that doesn't mean she was not also courageous, intelligent, outspoken, and strong. Women don't have to be overtly sexual in order to be empowered, and I think that is something adaptations struggle with. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Dracula from the Final Voyage of the Demeter is the most iconic Dracula of the newest years

I love vampirism fantasy and obviously I love Dracula. So I cannot begin to explain how much I hated Coppola's adaptation. All those changes that even significantly reduced the terror of Stoker's book are a disgrace. I loved this video for pointing out what a terrible decision was to change Mina's relationships.

After reading (and loving) the novel Dracula I’d been excited to check out the Coppola movie and literally couldn’t get through it because I was so annoyed at how they tossed out the narrative for the Mina/Dracula “”romance””. I’m hopeful that the upcoming Karyn Kushuma adaptation will give the novel/character justice

This video is PERFECT. You get it!!! My wife and I have a monthly rant about how so many fans and adaptations fail Mina & Jonathan & Lucy, and I am so vindicated by your video essay. I have a baby now, I don't have time for bad takes about the Harkers! And thanks to you there are finally some good takes on the scene. Thanks for the fun and thoughtful video essay (as always)

Justice for Mina and Lucy. I dream of a visual media adaptation or reimagining that let's Mina and Lucy be closer to who they are in the text. Also, that acknowledges that Arthur and John become husbands after Quincy dies. I just... I have so much love and appreciation for the relationships between Arthur, Quincy, and John and I despair at how often it's overlooked. More positive representation of male intimacy and friendship.

i have been obsesseddddd with dracula all year bc i read it for the first time and i am going as mina for halloween. she is so brave and kind and the only competent character in the entire book. i was just looking up reference photos for my costume and i opened youtube and saw this :’) so excited princess never misses!!!!!

Thanks for making this video, adaptions making Dracula made into some kind of love interest/romantic figure always bothers so much, especially after reading the book where he isn't that way at all.

After watching the Hammer Films Dracula with Christopher Lee recently, I'm fully on board with the link between Dracula and Mina being that Jonathan tried to kill him and did kill his hot vampire gf so he went "Oh word? Aight Imma turn you, then sail all the way to England to steal yo girl". We love an extremely petty villain.

I’ve had in my little brain vault for a while to write a story with a Mina, vampire Lucy, and their men all being in a little polycule and fighting supernatural creatures together

Thank you for putting a finger on what always weirded me out about "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and the sexualization/romanticization of the Mina/Dracula relationshiip.

"👏Lawfully 👏 wed locked 👏 sex" thank you for this the sexy Dracula/Mina depictions in like all adaptations have been bothering me since Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula have blown up

Thank you Princess!!! I've watched a ton of dracula adaptations and always end up incredibly disappointed just for this exact thing. I remember when I watched the Coppola one I was so angry because of what they did to the Mina I remembered from the book, taking from her her leadership and courage and ugh, it's truly so annoying. Also when I read it I felt Dracula's dealings with Mina were more a punishment to Jonathan than interest on her. Anyways, thank you so much for this video!

I feel like the reason Mina acts the way she does towards Dracula in the 90's version is that that movie seems to be less interested in exploring well developed characters and their dynamics with one another, and more in exploring general themes through the characters and their interactions. So Mina doesn't have a "relationship" with Dracula, as much as for her, Dracula represents unwanted, dangerous but irresistible desire, which is part of the human condition, so she reacts to him not like she would react to another individual she has a relationship with, but the way an allegorical person reacts to their own human condition.

THANK YOU Mina is a great and her relationship with jonathon is great, I hate when adaptions make Jonathon a shit or have Mina be “too good,” for a loser like him, the dude went through way too much hell escaping draculas castle just to be treated like this. And like, the obvious rape allegory of Dracula forcing himself on women should be obvious to literally everyone Instant like Edit:also as a side note, as a historical nerd, I am sick of the comparisons to Vlad Draculesti in pop culture, Stoker very clearly took the name and and location and nothing else, he was only excited by the fact “Dracula meant Son of the demon,” without knowing the connection to the actual origin, son of the dragon, and while Romanians love making money off the Dracula tourism, they generally don’t like comparing their national hero to a literal bloodsucking monster. Edit: also also, I think Bram Stokers glorification of the English characters is interesting because Bram Stoker himself was Irish He was Protestant so is probably what we’d today call “Anglo Irish,” and avowed unionist, but he was writing for a Victorian audience and he knew the kind of characters they’d love to root for.

I remember my friend asking me since I told her about rewatching the Gary Oldman movie after having listened to fhe OSP reading streams of the book, she asked “oh does the book go into further detail about Dracula’s past and his wife?” And I said “no Dracula doesn’t have a wife, there is no love triangle, loving possession or sympathy for the Devil type of deal in the book. Dracula isn’t even sexy half of the time. He just gets younger after having fed. The book and the movie are two different beasts”

Oh my God thank you so much for bringing justice to my girls (and boy Jonathan)! Mina is one of my favourite heroines in fiction, and seeing her reduced to the monster who almost destroyed her and her loved ones love interest has always bothered me. We need a Dracula adaptation that actually depicts her as the badass bookworm she is!

I seriously cackled when you said, “there is a deep evil spreading across London that has something to do with… landlords,” and then I lost it when you said “I am DOWN with the sickness, ooh-wa-ah-ah-ah-ah.” 😂😂😂

Massive Dracula fan here! Mina became one of my all time literary faves when I read the book. So I was weirdly put off when I saw the "Dracula A Comedy Of Terrors" play in NYC. It's new this year and utterly fabulous....except they switched the girls' names???? Like, "Lucy" was married to Harker, seduced by Dracula, and gets to go on the vampire hunting quest. "Mina" was played by a man in drag (hilarious, truly), had NO suiters because she was homely and awkward, came on to Dracula, and the first to be turned. I just kept thinking...WHY??? these women are not interchangeable! Why switch the names?? Anyhoo, love all the points you made in this! Your videos are always a treat!

This year, there's been a podcast adaptation of Dracula called "Re: Dracula," which has been absolutely amazing; it's basically a serialized dramatic reading of the novel. The actors are all fantastic, the sound design and music are incredible, and there's some big names in it, so you should check it out! Anyway, in the podcast, Mina is played by Isobel Adamakoh Young, who is a Black woman, and I think this adds some very interesting subtext to her character. For example, after Dracula bites her and performs the "vampire baptism" in which he forces her to drink his blood, in the original novel, we already get a sense of Mina's emotional labor. She's accidentally burned by a communion wafer (which ward off vampires in the book), and feels guilty, as she believes the mark means she has been rejected by God. Of course, Jonathan comes to her defense and never blames her for being assaulted, but she still feels pressured to be perfect and useful despite how much pain she's been through. Mina, who is already intelligent and extremely capable, always feels the need to prove herself, and when this element of racial subtext is included in Adamakoh Young's performance, there's a sense that she doesn't just feel this pressure due to her gender, but also due to racial pressures as well. It's also very obvious when Van Helsing condescends to her at first and underestimates her intelligence; the podcast uses the same text as the book, so while in the text, this is due to gender and not to race, but again, with Adamakoh Young playing Mina, we get the sense that by challenging Van Helsing's perceptions of her, she's confronting both sexist and racist stereotypes, and that Van Helsing's "benevolent sexism" also carries an undertone of racism as well. On the subject of "Dracula" and race, it's very interesting to me how the modern Dracula fandom interprets racial diversity in the characters. Not only is Mina commonly depicted by fans as dark-skinned, Quincey and Jonathan are also often depicted as POC as well. There's also interesting modern interpretations of the theme of race and ethnicity within the book; while Dracula is sometimes interpreted as a demonization of immigrants and foreigners in England, he can also be interpreted as a colonizer obsessed with his own racial superiority, and a reflection of England's own fears of being on the receiving end of its own colonialism. Tumblr has a big "Dracula" fandom, and one thing I see discussed there a lot is how while Jonathan is prejudiced towards the eastern European ethnic groups he encounters, putting trust in local traditions instead of English customs is what ends up saving his life when he accepts the crucifix from the Transylvanian peasants in the beginning. And while the Romani characters are depicted as villains in the book, I've also seen sympathetic interpretations of them as well. The fandom also places a big emphasis on the bonds between the protagonists, and- while shocking for Tumblr- usually doesn't see Dracula as sexy, but rather as an abusive creep bent on destroying everyone's happiness. It's a really fascinating community, and it's really neat to see how a large group of young, typically left-leaning people engage with this text.

Thank you for reminding me that John set the bar so high for my future husband as a teenager ❤. So happy when I found him

I had a sudden vision of a remake of 99’s Mummy in 50-100 years with Evie falling in love with Imhotep when Rick is Right There. (And yes I do know the original movie had that plot line but when there’s a love story that’s so wholesome and iconic, you don’t mess with it!) So yes. Thank you so much for this. Having Mina be in love with her and her friend and lover’s abuser is… yeah. Gross.

I love this analysis and 100% agree. Dracula is one of my favorite novels of all time, I adore Jonathan and Mina, and it's so disappointing that no one has managed a faithful adaptation, because there is so much good material to draw on.

The Inuyasha ED playing over all the reincarnated lover snippets had me absolutely dying each time sksksksksk!!!

I know you were saying John Seward, but I kept hearing Stewart and it was causing both the late night host and the green lantern to pop in my head.