# Dracula Reflects **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615 "2015-04-02T12:01:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/21 "2015-04-02T15:07:06Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Bowie knife and having his head cut off–interestingly, NOT by wooden stake, despite what many people believe. > > Dracula appears in broad daylight at least three or four times in the novel, to no apparent ill effect. The Bowie knife pierces his heart, and he crumbles to dust, _at the moment of sundown._ This has lead to the speculation that Dracula did not actually die at the end of the novel. Buffy the Vampire Slayer played on this when she fought Dracula at the beginning of the fourth season. She stakes him, and he crumble to dust. The Scoobies exchange their quips and leave. A moment later, Dracula starts to reintegrate from the dust, and you hear Buffy say something like, “Really? We haven’t even left yet.” \>poof\< He crumbles to dust again. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/22 "2015-04-02T15:14:26Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > I hope this doesn’t stray to far afield, but I don’t it rates a solo thread. > > anywho, why do so many interpretations try to for some romance between Mina and Dracula? I’ve read _Dracula_ many, many times and I simply do not see it. Am I naive and missing some subtle clues with my man brain (heh)? It’s not there. Dracula historian David J. Skal ( **Hollywood Gothic** and many other books, as well as his DVD commentaries) is adamant that the character of Dracula as drawn by Stoker is NOT a romantic one – he’s a Darwinian, bestial predator. Heck, even his “wives” complain that he doesn’t love anyone. Nevertheless, ever since Polidori wrote _the Vampyr_ (which people thought was by George Gordon, Lord Byron), people have romanticized the elegant, titled vampire who’s also darkly romantic and attractive. It goes against the novel, but people keep injecting it into the dramatizations. It sells. Consider, also, that in stage and screen dramas you need to have motivations for your characters and reasons for them to interact. Stoker’s book really is a mess with too damned many characters, most of whom have no obvious connections with each other, and where chance and coincidence plays too big a part in bringing them together. Most adaptations prune the cast list and switch around their relationships in order to bring some order to this mess. It’s interesting to go through the various stage and screen adaptations to see how they did this – the John Badham/Frank Langella 1979 Dracula, for instance, has Lucy as the daughter of Van Helsing (!!). The 1931 Tod Browning Bela Lugosi film has Renfield instead of Harker as the one who visits Dracula in Transylvania. And so forth. There is no romance between Mina and Drac in the book. Or in most screen versions. But they interact, so there has to be a reason for it. The aforementioned Badham/Langella has Mina sexually attracted to Dracula. The Coppola version has Mina as the reincarnatioin of Dracula’s wife (an idea they probably lifted from the Dan Curtis/Jack Palance TV version written by Richard Matherson, where Lucy was the reincarnation of his wife. The idea of a vampiure falling for a woman because she’s the reincarnation of a lost love predates this – it was used in Curtis’ own soap opera _Dark Shadows_. I’ve written a history of the trope, whicvh is too long for this margin to contain. So Mina falls in romantically with Drac because we need a reason for them to have their drama, and because , all of Stoker’s efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, the Darkly Romantic Byronic vampire is a powerful trope, and Sex Sells. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/23 "2015-04-02T18:15:46Z")
One other thing that occurred to me – one nugget of fact from the book and most film versions might help fuel speculation about a romance between the Count and Mina – he sees the picture of her in Harker’s locket and comments upon her lovely neck. Watching _Nosferatu_ last night, I got the clear impression that he wasn’t thinking “Sexy!” when he saw that neck. He was thinking “Lunch!” I’m sure Skal would agree. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/24 "2015-04-02T19:54:14Z")
Another example just hit me of a vampire being reflected. It’s not Dracula himself this time, although it IS in one of the filmed versions of **Dracula**. again, it’s the Badham/Langella 1979 version. When Van Helsing (Played by Laurence Olivier!!! But he was clearlt “slumming”) goes in search of the resurrected vampire Lucy (who’s his _daughter_ in this version of the story), he first sees her _reflected in a pool of water_. Maybe he gets a break because it’s water, and not a man-made mirror. But, IIRC, Dracula already had a scene with a mirror earlier on in the flick. If so, it’s not entirely consistent. I’ll have to check my copy tonight. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/25 "2015-04-02T20:36:43Z")
Glad to know I’m not missing anything obvious. _Dracula_ is still one of my favorite books. I also have _Dracula’s Guest_ somewhere around here. Most of the movies are hit or miss. I do look for the mirror thing but can’t recall noticing it before. I have noticed that most of the movies drop Quincy Morris or Lord Godalming. One movie dropped Jonathan Harker, which was so jarring I didn’t bother to finish it. I’ve never seen _Nosferatu_ but did watch a movie about _Nosferatu_ a few years back. I love the old school Vampires. ETA: Whatever you do, don’t watch Dracula: The Untold Story. The movie is an abomination with no redeeming value. ---
**Author:** ![Recusant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@Recusant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recusant)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/26 "2015-04-02T20:47:25Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > We see five vampires destroyed in Stoker’s novel–Lucy, Dracula’s three brides, and finally Dracula himself. None are killed in exactly the same way. > > Lucy is staked, her head is cut off, and her mouth is stuffed with garlic. > > The three brides are staked, and their heads are cut off. They crumble to dust upon having their heads removed, so no garlic stuffing is necessary or even possible. > > Dracula, as stated, is stabbed through the heart with a Bowie knife, while simultaneously having his head cut off with a Kurkri knife. He also crumbles to dust instantly. > > The one thing that all Stoker’s vampire deaths have in common, then, is NOT the stake, but the severed head. I find that interesting. Something to bear in mind is that Stoker wasn’t making all this up out of thin air; many mythologies have had vampire-like creatures, and Stoker borrowed many details from many of them. Abhartach (who many claim Stoker borrowed the most from) wouldn’t stay dead until you killed him with a sword made of yew, buried him upside-down at a crossroads, and placed a massive stone (surrounded by thorns) atop it. Factor in his blood-drinking tendencies, and add this physical unstoppability to the mind of Vlad Tepes, who spent most of his time as ruler whupping Ottoman jannisaries (by this time, trained-from-kidnap-age soldiers) with whatever turnip farmers he hadn’t gotten around to impaling yet, at one point (as Stoker noted) crossing “the Danube and beat[ing] the Turk on his own ground”; you’ve got yourself a recipe for a truly frightening, memorable villain. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/27 "2015-04-02T20:52:15Z")
I don’t have a cite for this, but I know I’ve read: Staking the vampire is not fatal to the corpse, ( 😕 ) it keeps the V in the coffin until you can finish the dirty work–severing the head, filling the mouth with garlic, turning the head around to face backwards, and throwing the coffin in running water. The blood that spews during staking was just taken by the vamp and has to go _somewhere_ when you make the hole (they probably bloody their drawers, too; no I’m not gonna go look). If you staked the V two minutes after sunrise, you could go home, take a six hour nap, come back ten minutes 'til sundown, and V would still be in the coffin, thrashing around like a frog on a stick. How the stake holds the vampire in the coffin, I can’t say. Even if you pound it through the casket, would the wooden stake grab the coffin somehow for a mechanical fastening? Just a comment about Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein: That was MY movie, from the time I was 5 YO on. Seen it probably 4 dozen times in the past 50 years. I have never noticed that reflection you’re referring to until about 2 years ago. :eek: I thought someone was pulling a fast one on me. “Kommst du mit mir, Papa.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/28 "2015-04-02T21:24:22Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > Glad to know I’m not missing anything obvious. _Dracula_ is still one of my favorite books. I also have _Dracula’s Guest_ somewhere around here. Most of the movies are hit or miss. I do look for the mirror thing but can’t recall noticing it before. > > I have noticed that most of the movies drop Quincy Morris or Lord Godalming. One movie dropped Jonathan Harker, which was so jarring I didn’t bother to finish it. I’ve never seen _Nosferatu_ but did watch a movie about _Nosferatu_ a few years back. > > I love the old school Vampires. > ETA: Whatever you do, don’t watch Dracula: The Untold Story. The movie is an abomination with no redeeming value. I haven’t seen it yet. But, completest that I am, I probably will. It looks like the people who made it never read Stoker, and got their background information exclusively from watching the Coppola version. And they hired someone who looks like a heftier version of Inigo Montoya to play Drac. “Hello. My name is Vlad Tsepec. You killed my wife. Prepare to die.” ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/29 "2015-04-02T21:41:24Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > [Nitpick] Some people do address this. For example, on the TV show _Being Human_ vampires don’t show up on cameras. In the Saint-Germain series of novels they don’t show up in photographs, requiring vampires that travel a lot in the modern world to have busts of their heads by which to obtain passport photos. So yes, some people have addressed that [/nitpick] I had an idea for an SF/fantasy short story once, set in the future, about an android vampire hunter. Since his eyes were technically cameras, his prey was invisible to him. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/30 "2015-04-02T21:42:46Z")
Every time a vampire looks in a mirror, what he’s actually seeing is Harpo Marx. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/31 "2015-04-02T21:58:51Z")
I agree that the folkloric reason for the stake has been lost in pop culture. The original point of the stake is to pin that bloodsucking freak to the ground, so that when he arises to feast on the blood of the living, he’s staked to the ground and can’t get up and you’re all, “Think again bat man”. To really kill the vampire there’s some additional step you’d have to do–find the hidden location of his heart and destroy it, silver bullet (or is that werewolves? (or only movie werewolves?)), garlic up the ass, or whatever. But the “wooden stake in the heart=instant dusting” is so firmly entrenched in modern pop folklore that it’s never going away. Thanks Joss. It’s as bad as the Sontarans having a weak spot on the back of their heads so they can’t retreat. Does any modern stake=dust story try to justify it with in-universe logic? Or is it always just “everyone knows”? ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/32 "2015-04-02T22:08:22Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But the “wooden stake in the heart=instant dusting” is so firmly entrenched in modern pop folklore that it’s never going away. \ ::Vampire C.M. Burns: You’re fired! (turns to dust):: ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/33 "2015-04-02T23:17:00Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > I’ve never seen _Nosferatu_ but did watch a movie about _Nosferatu_ a few years back. You absolutely should do if you care a bit about classical silent films and the Dracula myth, it’s public domain and you can watch it [here on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzubFvBsA). ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/34 "2015-04-03T00:51:36Z")
I seem to recall the film \*\*\*Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter \*\*\*(no idea about the book) had a little conceit I hadn’t heard before. That silver, the metal, was a magical issue for vampires and a silver bullet or other silver weapon would be fatal. Derived from the same magical issue a glass mirror with a silver backing would not cast a reflection of a vampire. Any other reflective material would. T MF-2L ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/35 "2015-04-03T01:16:32Z")
Either Nova or Secrets of the Dead had a show about a “vampire” found in a mass grave of plague victims. It had a very good overview of European vampire folklore. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/36 "2015-04-03T03:53:46Z")
I did a partial survey of my collection. The Badham/Langella film does indeed have the mirror scene, with Dracula not reflected in the mirror. But it _follows_ the scene with _Mina_ Van Helsing as a vampire reflected in the water. (There is so much wrong with that name that it hurts to write it – Mina rather than Lucy, and Van Helsing rather than Westenra). The dialogue it almost identical to the interchange between Dracvula and Van Helsing from the stage play, but weirdly re-arranged, and with the intent completely changed. The 1958 _Horror of Dracula_ completel eliminates any scee with a mirror. It’s even weirder than the 1979 film – Harker is not a solicitor arranging real estate in Britain for the Count, but has been hired as a librarian to live there. He apparently doesn’t have to take a boat to get to the Count – only a coach. The shaving mirror scene is in the DanCurtis/Jack Palance version. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/37 "2015-04-03T15:22:39Z")
Asian vampire stories make more sense. The vamp may appear as a beautiful woman, or a handsome man, but it’s an illusion. Their reflection reveals their true appearance. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/38 "2015-04-03T16:42:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I did a partial survey of my collection. The Badham/Langella film does indeed have the mirror scene, with Dracula not reflected in the mirror. But it _follows_ the scene with _Mina_ Van Helsing as a vampire reflected in the water. (There is so much wrong with that name that it hurts to write it – Mina rather than Lucy, and Van Helsing rather than Westenra). The dialogue it almost identical to the interchange between Dracvula and Van Helsing from the stage play, but weirdly re-arranged, and with the intent completely changed. If they establish that vampires don’t have reflections in that last scene, I would think the water reflection was a mistake. Well, either that, or it’s something about mirrors–maybe the silver? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/39 "2015-04-03T16:55:29Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > I had an idea for an SF/fantasy short story once, set in the future, about an android vampire hunter. Since his eyes were technically cameras, his prey was invisible to him. On the other hand, I recall one story where a vampire set up a video camera connected to a monitor so they could see themselves to comb their hair correctly without a mirror. I think in any universe where vampires don’t show up on camera that would prove all the “superstitious natives” who worry that a camera would steal their soul were right. Any picture of a person could be used to work malevolent sympathetic magic against them. Bottom line, to tell what sort of rules your universe uses, before allowing Dracula to take a picture of you take a picture of him first. If he shows up in the photo, then fine, let him take the picture. If he doesn’t, do NOT let him take your photo. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615/40 "2015-04-03T16:59:07Z")
In the Louis Jordan version, the mirror scene happens at Castle Dracula: Harker is shaving and the Count comes up behind him. Harker, of course, doesn’t see him in the mirror and nicks himself. Dracula takes the mirror from Harker and says something about mirrors being unreliable, runs his hand across it, showing no reflection, and drops it out the window. Bad video effects almost ruin the scene, but you get the idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dracula-reflects/716615.md?page=3)