[ SECRET POST #4758 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4758 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[The Witcher]


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05.
[Mass Effect Trilogy]


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06.
[Emma (2020)]


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07.
[Saiyuki]














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #681.
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.

Comments

[philstar22]

Okay, so, Dracula doesn't have sex with anyone. Dracula kills and drinks the blood of people of all genders and sexes. So bi-homicidal seems an actually accurate term? I haven't watched the adaption yet, but if it is keeping sex out of it altogether and not sexualizing Dracula, I'm all for that. If he's still flirting and coming on to just women, that's not cool. But it doesn't sound like that's what Moffat is doing?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's possible to have a good version of Dracula that doesn't treat Dracula as erotic on some level. It definitely wouldn't be a faithful adaptation of the source text.

[philstar22]

Erotic in the sense of flirting to get people into his web so he can drink their blood and/or turn them, yes. Actually having sex with them or actually really being sexually attracted to them himself, no. And that's where most adaptions get it wrong. Dracula uses sexuality for homicide purposes, but he doesn't actually care about sex himself. There is no evidence he himself feels any sexual attraction to anyone of any gender.

[(Anonymous)]

If you think what Dracula does can accurately be called "flirting", I'm not sure you've actually read the book, either.

[philstar22]

Well, what word would you use? I'm not sure there really is a word to accurately describe it. Whatever it is, it is all an act. He's certainly not actually sexually attracted to anyone. He just wants their blood. For him it really is all about the homicide.

[(Anonymous)]

If I were Moffat I would simply not feel the need to establish that Dracula isn't bisexual in the first place

[(Anonymous)]

At its extreme, it's seduction. Dracula isn't batting his eyes at potential victims or asking if it hurt much when they fell from heaven, ffs.

"Eroticism" describes very accurately and well. And if you think the story of Dracula just about blood or "all about the homicide"... I'm sorry, but you don't get it. It's impossible to separate the blood drinking from the eroticism and to a lesser extent, the sexuality behind it.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it can be strictly speaking true that Dracula is not bisexual as a character, and still be a stupid thing for Moff to say that he's "bi-homicidal and not bisexual", because it's running away from the eroticism that's inherent and necessary to the character, and the non-heterosexual nature of that eroticism.

[(Anonymous)]

Now you have obviously read the book.

[philstar22]

The eroticism is an act, though. The homicide is the point. Dracula isn't a sexual being in the sense that he himself is sexually attracted to anyone. He uses eroticism to get what he wants. But that's not what's in it for him. He's not about the eroticism, he's about the blood and the homicide. To call him bisexual is to suggest that he's in some way sexual. Most adaptions have made him so, but he isn't.

[(Anonymous)]

The eroticism and sex is absolutely part of the point of the character even if it's not part of his internal motivation

[(Anonymous)]

Book!Dracula isn't really that erotic, though? He's not sensual or seductive or any of that. He's demonic, and threatening, and makes people uneasy and fearful from a standing start. With Jonathan he made some pretense at being human first, but he's still strange and cruel with hairy palms and huge eyebrows, and every close encounter Jonathan has with him reeks purely of violence and nothing else. The Brides talk of love, but Dracula in that scene is described as purely demonic and just scares the shit out of Jonathan. With Mina, too, it's just violence. He threatens to murder her sleeping husband if she makes a sound, hypnotises her into not moving while he 'placed his reeking lips' on her throat, and then physically forces her to drink his blood in turn. There's nothing erotic in it. It's pure violence and horror.

Suave!Dracula is a movie thing. Book!Dracula is just a monster. An occasionally well-spoken one, but he's here to terrorise people, not seduce them in any way, shape or form.

[philstar22]

There is a bit of the erotic tied up with the violence and the horror. But the violence and horror is what he truly, actually is at his core.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, arguable, but it didn't read that way to me? Beyond the intrusive, physical nature of how vampires hunt, there's nothing of lust at all in the equation. None of his victims feel anything but fear and horror during their experiences. Even when he hypnotises them to drink without their knowledge, they remember the experiences as bad dreams and wake feeling sick and hurt. There's no forbidden lust or anything. There's just fear and horror.

[(Anonymous)]

Seconding this SO HARD.

For all that one anon keeps throwing around their snide little "you sound like you haven't read the book" accusation, the person itt who's coming across as being most influenced by subsequent interpretations of the text is them.

[(Anonymous)]

Just to be clear, there's more than one anon who thinks that Dracula is etoic. Possibly because the book is really erotically charged. "Dracula represents the threatening allure of foreign / queer sexuality" is practically the least controversial thing you can say about the book.

[(Anonymous)]

Except no? I'm not saying Book!Dracula is a sexual beast of a character. He's not suave, he's not a seducer like in many movie adaptations. But to say that the eroticism is an act is just... wow. He's not putting on an act just to trick people, it's part and parcel of the character, as it is written, in the social context of its time. This... isn't even remotely controversial.

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't appeal to everyone erotically, but it's definitely erotic. You don't have a scene where a man forces a woman's head down to do something forbidden (in this case, drinking his blood) without both violence AND eroticism.

[(Anonymous)]

... If you're... into that? To me that read as more brutish horror, but I guess a LOT of people get off on that.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate to break it to you but all the scenes you mention are erotically charged

[(Anonymous)]

For you, perhaps.

[(Anonymous)]

This is very much true.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, no. Dracula is often thought and portrayed as some kind of erotic fantasy, but that is not actually the case. It might be wishful thinking, but that doesn't make it reality.

[(Anonymous)]

Seconding this.

[silverr]

The term "bi-homicidal" is a ridiculous neologism; "homicidal" is perfectly adequate.

Moffatt should stop trying to be clever.