Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2016-10-30 03:57 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2016-10-30 03:57 pm
[ SECRET POST #3588 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3588 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 62 secrets from Secret Submission Post #513.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!
(Anonymous) 2016-10-31 01:48 pm (UTC)(link)I'm definitely reading it with modern goggles and sensibilities, but my problem is not really with what Mina does, but what she is as a 'character'.
The male characters are proper characters. Even though I think they are a bunch of borderline idiotic douches, who sadly become more and more indistinguishable the longer they work together, they are still proper characters. None of them, not even Morris, is one-dimensional. They all have their own thoughts, motivations, conflicts etc.
Mina (and Lucy as well) on the other hand never goes beyond being an empty mouthpiece. She is clever and resourceful and morally upstanding, yes, but she is all that only because she is supposed to be the perfect companion for Harker and later Van Helsing and the others. Every thought, action, motivation she has is 100% focussed on and subservient to the male characters and their stories. She has no story herself.
She only knows shorthand, maps, schedules etc. to assist Harker. There is no hint at all, that those are her own interests. Later on the guys need someone to justify their planned, cold blooded murder as the morally superior and above all Christian thing to do, so Mina swoops in with her 'we should have compassion with Dracula's lost soul and free it from its undead body' spiel. Then she solves the puzzle, because the men need the puzzle solved. But she might as well be a machine. That's why I called her a tool. She is a plot device who has no motivation, thought or conflict of her own.
I have no idea who Mina is, if you take the male characters out of the equation. Because she's a facade with nothing behind it.
Even her supposedly so deep friendship to Lucy is utterly empty to me. It's like Stoker watched two female acquaintances having a chat for five minutes, and then believed he suddenly knew everything about female friendships. I mean, calling someone a sweet, poor dear roughly 200 times doesn't make it a friendship. How are two empty vessels supposed to connect to each other?
I'm still kinda happy though, that so many people like her, tbh. Because the general consensus that Mina is the true hero instead of Van Helsing makes me feel a lot better with my hatred for him. :D
Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!
One other thing, it really wasn't "cold-blooded murder" to destroy Dracula. He was already dead; they were destroying a vampire, not killing a human being. You make it sound like what they were doing was bad. Not sure if that was your intent.
Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!
(Anonymous) 2016-10-31 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)Although I do find the semantics interesting, when you have to sneak 'undead' into the dead/alive dichotomy to justify your actions. But that's certainly not specific to Dracula, pretty much all monster fighting fiction does that or something similar. And I think it's generally worth questioning why the third category is there, when its necessity is questionable. Nevertheless, I wouldn't bother with that for Dracula, maybe if we were discussing more 'serious' lit, but nah, not for this.
Stoker himself obviously felt like it needed further justification, since he put the whole releasing the original soul business on top of it.
Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!
Really? I think it's a useful distinction. Vampires (like zombies, etc.) are dead. They have died and they no longer metabolize or grow. But they're animated and dangerous, unlike the corpses of most people who have died. "Undead" may or may not be the best word, but having a descriptor for creatures in that limbo is useful IMO.
I thought the "original soul business" was part of the overall incorporation of traditional and dogmatic Anglicanism and Catholicism in the overall story. I also thought it was kind of nice that even Dracula had peace at the end, and that a distinction was made between the living man Count Dracula, as he had been however many centuries ago when he was actually alive, and the vampire, whose cruel actions were part of the feature of his being undead, and not a reflection on what the actual man was like. In other words, the choices a vampire makes are not in any way made by the person who the body belonged to before it died.