Mythological/Legends/Religious Figures combo thread

docsilence said:
On the Dracula/religion thing, I know Besson is problematic these days but I am curious how he handles the whole Dracula as religious allegory thing the upcoming film uses. There is some ripe storytelling for "this world is awful and it doesn't have to be, fuck your god for ignoring my prayers" that some interpretations of Dracula like to lean into. "If you insist on making faith transactional, then I am changing the terms of the deal and making it everyone's problem."
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While there certainly is some potential for storytelling there, I have a near-zero hope that Besson's film will be anything worth watching. From interviews I've read, he apparently thinks the whole "Mina is the reincarnation of Elizabeta" thing is from Stoker's novel, which it definitely isn't. In the book, Dracula is pure evil, and Mina's reaction to him isn't "oh, you're so romantic! I love you!". I think Besson watched the Coppola film and thought that was what the book was about, since he said "There's a romantic side in Bram Stoker's book that hasn't been explored that much. It's a love story about a man who waits for 400 years for the reincarnation of his wife. That's the true heart of the story, waiting an eternity for the return of love". Ummm...no...that crap isn't in the novel at all, and it's obvious you've never once read it if you think that! Dracula's dead wife isn't once mentioned in the book, nor is there any hint that Mina or Lucy are reincarnations of anyone at all!

I guess the upside is, with knowing that Luc is a freaking creep, it makes it far easier for me to skip this one.
 
TheGillMan said:
Dracula's dead wife isn't once mentioned in the book, nor is there any hint that Mina or Lucy are reincarnations of anyone at all!
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One million per cent, THIS.

Like I’m going to have to be a bit crude, here: Dracula rapes Lucy, repeatedly. Dracula rapes Mina, repeatedly. He performs these rapes while literally consuming their bodies for food. Part of what makes the rapes horrible is the women cannot resist because Dracula has that awful hypnotic power that forces them to participate against their will. Stephen King once said the true horror of Dracula is “I will rape you with my mouth and make you love it.” There is absolutely zero romantic love involved, certainly not from the women. The only romance in the novel comes from the lengths the protagonists will go to protect each other. Dracula himself is not now nor ever was a “sympathetic” character like the Frankenstein creature or Quasimodo. And it’s not “aww, he’s a beast and can’t help himself” either. Dracula is sentient, highly intelligent, and every awful thing he does is on purpose and with full knowledge of the suffering he will cause. He *wants* to hurt people. He does not see people as his same species. Mina and Lucy are livestock to him. Nothing more, nothing ever more. In fact, he explicitly states that coming after Mina is revenge for the heroes “killing” vampire Lucy. He’s not in love: he’s a vindictive, sadistic psychopath.
 
I actually listened to the audiobook and then watched the Coppola version almost back to back and it's funny how Coppola took so much of it directly from the book but then HUGE key storytelling points he completely fabricated or misinterpreted. It's a very strange dichotomy the way some of it is ripped from the pages but a lot of it is just fan fic.

The book's Dracula is just a flat out creep monster. There's nothing even remotely romantic about it. And his death is kind of flat and uneventful in a way that putting down a rabid dog should be.
 
One downside to the Four Horseman calling their company that is trying to search for Four Horseman of the Apocalypse action figures. I feel as though someone must have made these over the years.

Also, there was another Kickstarter around the time D13 did theirs called Almighty Legends - https://almightylegends.com/ - it did fund, but the figures are still forthcoming - they unlocked a Gabriel and an Azrael. These seem to me to be more in the "gamer" style but wanted to mention them.
 
AceofKnaves said:
The idea of Dracula as anti-Christ figure is of course baked into the material, and many folks have run with it. Often that just means “Dracula is a creep and also probably an incel” (thanks Coppola), but I have read some interesting interpretations where Dracula is framed as quasi-heroic against the “greater evil” of Christian forces, and that is interesting.
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Missed this earlier - Dracula as romantic anti-hero or Jesus stand-in doesn't do it for me but I do like the "fuck your church, you want a monster, now you have one" angle some interpretations have.
 
docsilence said:
It's a very strange dichotomy the way some of it is ripped from the pages but a lot of it is just fan fic.
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That’s why I always say it includes (most of) the key characters and events from the novel, but is actually one of the *worst* adaptations of the novel itself. Ironically, most classical adaptations of Dracula get, like, EVERYTHING wrong but generally get the character of Dracula himself right on. Lugosi and Lee look essentially nothing like the novel’s character, but they do often act like him. Hilariously, Oldman neither looks nor acts like the novel’s character, even with his little mustache. It’s a great performance, but it essentially has nothing to do with Dracula from the book, at all.
 
AceofKnaves said:
That’s why I always say it includes (most of) the key characters and events from the novel, but is actually one of the *worst* adaptations of the novel itself. Ironically, most classical adaptations of Dracula get, like, EVERYTHING wrong but generally get the character of Dracula himself right on. Lugosi and Lee look essentially nothing like the novel’s character, but they do often act like him. Hilariously, Oldman neither looks nor acts like the novel’s character, even with his little mustache. It’s a great performance, but it essentially has nothing to do with Dracula from the book, at all.
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I'm waiting for a book-accurate version where Harker goes apeshit over discovering paprika, honestly.
 
That's the biggest issue I have with Coppola's version. It has so many elements that are direct from the book, and those things are incredible...but in the end he changes the biggest element of Stoker's story which is the fundamental essence of who Dracula is as a character. I honestly hate that shift away from Dracula as a completely evil monster to a sympathetic, romantic figure that seemed to spring up in the 1970s onwards. Dracula, more than any of the classic monsters, is the one who is truly irredeemable.
 
AceofKnaves said:
This is certainly more aligned with the historical figure, famously excommunicated from two different Christian sects.
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I think that's why I like it. The church has always been good at making monsters.
TheGillMan said:
That's the biggest issue I have with Coppola's version. It has so many elements that are direct from the book, and those things are incredible...but in the end he changes the biggest element of Stoker's story which is the fundamental essence of who Dracula is as a character. I honestly hate that shift away from Dracula as a completely evil monster to a sympathetic, romantic figure that seemed to spring up in the 1970s onwards. Dracula, more than any of the classic monsters, is the one who is truly irredeemable.
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Modern society loves nothing more than a redeemable monster. Those stories can be fun but I kinda wonder if we're in some kind of cultural psychosis about it. I mean I get sexy vampires, but I also didn't need to know WHY Cruella DeVille kills puppies. The woman kills puppies. That should be sufficient reason to not like her.
AceofKnaves said:
Dracula has no servants, so he made all those delicious dinners for Harker himself!
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All this AND he can cook! (I love the way Harker in the novel is like wait a minute, I haven't seen a single other person here in WEEKS)
 
docsilence said:
Modern society loves nothing more than a redeemable monster. Those stories can be fun but I kinda wonder if we're in some kind of cultural psychosis about it. I mean I get sexy vampires, but I also didn't need to know WHY Cruella DeVille kills puppies. The woman kills puppies. That should be sufficient reason to not like her.
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Oh yeah...the trend of making characters like Cruella and Maleficent into sympathetic anti-heroes is REALLY annoying. A huge part of what made those characters so entertaining in the first place is that they are SO clearly the evil bad guy you love to hate.

I get the appeal of seeing a tortured villain finding redemption, but come on...there has to be a limit with this crap! Fine, Darth Vader is redeemed by his son's love...I can get behind that...but if someone does a story where Palpatine turns from his evil ways I think I'm just going to pack my bags and go live with a pack of wolves or something.
 
AceofKnaves said:
Indeed.
And I think we have a cultural problem with “redeeming” monstrous characters, that has permeated into “real life” way too much. We could do with far less apologism and re-writing of the deeds of evil men.
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Sort of an aside, I think your use of quote marks on "redeeming" is really appropriate because I find *actual* redemption stories pretty interesting. Not like, telling a monster's tale in such a way that they seem justified or misunderstood, but rather telling what happens when you want to stop being a monster. One of the most interesting parts of the Castlevania show was the notion that all the death and such there is basically Dracula falling off the wagon after he'd decided to try not being a colossal shitbag for 5 minutes.
 
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