My Dracula Reactions
May. 15th, 2022 06:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrIn case anyone is interested, here's the reaction posts I made when I read the first 17 chapters of Dracula a few years ago. It's in book order, covering events up to the 30th of September, so there's a LOT of spoilers.
And since a few people asked, a shorter, equally spoilery discussion of why I stopped reading:
SPOILERS
It was Lucy's death. Not just the fact that she died at all, but the way it happened. It's all VERY maiden/whore dichotomy, with the men manfully murdering her once she becomes an Evil Slut polluted by the influence of an Evil Foreigner >:( It's such a gross 19th century sexist trope, the sweet and innocently flirtatious girl doomed to excruciating death for not being enough of a Good Sensible Girl. I could tell I'd spend the rest of the book resenting Mina for being implicitly held up as the kind of Good Girl who doesn't die, even though I did like Mina a lot on her own merits. And of course resenting all the dudes who killed her!
I've spent the three and a half years since I read it pondering a fixit game where you have multiple opportunities to prevent Lucy's excruciatingly drawn out Doom. Or let her have FUN as an evil slut, regaining her agency instead of being Forced To Do Evil but still having supernatural powers. Dracula gets to have fun! Let the vampire ladies have fun too!
And since a few people asked, a shorter, equally spoilery discussion of why I stopped reading:
SPOILERS
It was Lucy's death. Not just the fact that she died at all, but the way it happened. It's all VERY maiden/whore dichotomy, with the men manfully murdering her once she becomes an Evil Slut polluted by the influence of an Evil Foreigner >:( It's such a gross 19th century sexist trope, the sweet and innocently flirtatious girl doomed to excruciating death for not being enough of a Good Sensible Girl. I could tell I'd spend the rest of the book resenting Mina for being implicitly held up as the kind of Good Girl who doesn't die, even though I did like Mina a lot on her own merits. And of course resenting all the dudes who killed her!
I've spent the three and a half years since I read it pondering a fixit game where you have multiple opportunities to prevent Lucy's excruciatingly drawn out Doom. Or let her have FUN as an evil slut, regaining her agency instead of being Forced To Do Evil but still having supernatural powers. Dracula gets to have fun! Let the vampire ladies have fun too!
