# What was Dracula's end game in moving to London? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400 "2019-09-17T20:37:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/81 "2019-09-20T21:15:56Z")
It’s clear from the novel that Stoker’s Dracula can go out in the daylight - he does so at one point. The letters/diaries/memoranda style is a clumsy narrative device - it’s hard to remember who the ‘I’ currently is. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/82 "2019-09-20T21:38:48Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > [Dracula 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_2000) Well, it has Dracula fly by plane, but it’s not an adaptation of Stoker’s novel, and has the plane fly it from Carfax to Louisiana(!) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/83 "2019-09-20T21:39:21Z")
At least compared to how Dracula is later depicted in the novel, when Harkness first arrives at the castle Dracula is, comparatively speaking, starving. The odd infant or two snatched at a moment of opportunity seems to be the best he can do. Perhaps the countryside is indeed quite well warned of vampires. Also when he enters and leaves the castle he has to crawl out in his humanoid form. But by the time he arrives in Whitby (having presumably feasted on the crew) he is able to assume the form of a “black dog”; and later of course the stereotypical bat. As well as looking rejuvenated. His power definitely seems to have grown by then. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/84 "2019-09-21T00:19:29Z")
I thought Stoker brought Drac to London because he had used up all the local color in his travel guide to Transylvania. It’s been a while for me, but didn’t he pad the wordcount with a recipe for goulash? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/85 "2019-09-21T00:58:45Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > It’s clear from the novel that Stoker’s Dracula can go out in the daylight - he does so at one point. When he visits the London zoo; although at the castle he would always disappear before daybreak. W.A.G.: Dracula’s dormant periods are “rest” of some sort. Either being in daylight costs him precious energy, or he can only “recharge” during the daytime. Once he was in England and had far more access to “food”, he didn’t have to be as frugal. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/86 "2019-09-21T01:54:32Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I thought Stoker brought Drac to London because he had used up all the local color in his travel guide to Transylvania. It’s been a while for me, but didn’t he pad the wordcount with a recipe for goulash? The very first page of the novel has Jonathan Harker fondly recalling his dinner of _paprika hendl,_ or chicken paprikash, known to every citizen of the state of Wisconsin. He even makes a note to “get recipe for Mina.” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/87 "2019-09-21T01:57:38Z")
**CalMeacham @76:**. Not to mention Renfield’s (Dwight Frye’s) lovely emergence from the hold in the 1931 movie version. A high point in an otherwise disappointing movie. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/88 "2019-09-21T01:59:43Z")
I always figured “Vampires can’t cross running water” to mean rivers, streams, brooks, or particularly agitated street puddles. Is the ocean considered “running water?” ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/89 "2019-09-21T13:26:58Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > No, Frankenstein was very far from being the first horror novel. > > There was a whole genre of Gothic Fiction or Gothic Horror in the second half of the 18th century, not only in English but in other European languages. Many hundreds of Gothic novels were written before Frankenstein. > > [Gothic fiction - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction) It’s been suggested Frankenstein is the first work of Science Fiction. Cites: Wikipedia entry; In Our Time: Frankenstein, > **[BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Frankenstein](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051n6)** > > Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/90 "2019-09-21T14:23:48Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > a lot of myths ascribe vampires with strong OCD-like compulsions, such as having to stop and count the number of seeds their victim just dropped on the ground, or pausing to tie the shoelaces on a pair of untied shoes before attacking their victim. _Dracula II: Ascension_ used this trope. It was not as useful as the humans hoped it would be. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/91 "2019-09-21T15:09:17Z")
> [@road\_lobo](#): > > It’s been suggested Frankenstein is the first work of Science Fiction. > > Cites: Wikipedia entry; In Our Time: Frankenstein, > [BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Frankenstein](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051n6) It all depends where you draw the line between SF and fantasy, and how you define them. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan both consider Johannes Kepler’s _Somnium_ (1634) to be the first work of science fiction. See the History of Science Fiction [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_fiction). ---
**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:** [September 21, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/92 "2019-09-21T15:25:48Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > The very first page of the novel has Jonathan Harker fondly recalling his dinner of _paprika hendl,_ or chicken paprikash, known to every citizen of the state of Wisconsin. He even makes a note to “get recipe for Mina.” Leonard Wolf and Leslie Klinger both included recipes in their annotations. It is, indeed, a “very thirsty dish.” ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/93 "2019-09-21T16:19:49Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > I read it about 3 years ago and _my impression_ was that he was looking for a new hunting ground and London was growing with a large transient population of anonymous lower class workers. They’d be easy prey and no one would miss them. This was an alternative to his minions to going further afield for human food among a fearful Transylvanian population. Makes sense, but going after Lucy was not a good idea if this was his plan. > [@GMANCANADA](#): > > Of course, aside from that author being a Brit, that doesn’t answer the question of why London? Especially given that crossing the ocean would have been fraught with danger for him. > > That’s the main thing the struck me as silly about the whole plan, even if you’re a vampire, when your ship sinks in 200ft of water and you’re nailed in a coffin in the cargo hold you’re screwed. Big cities like Paris or Berlin would make way more sense. London makes sense given other comments that Stoker is writing what he knows (London) and it bringing the horror home to his readers. But yeah, Paris or Berlin would be better as he’s still on the continent. If shit hits the fan he could flee all the way to Siberia on his own if needed. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/94 "2019-09-21T16:21:22Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > No worries. You did give all that neat London information. > > Stoker uses an interesting mixture of fictional and real locations and businesses. Carter-Paterson, the transport company that Dracula uses to haul his coffins to Carfax, was an actual firm that readers of the time would have recognized. Likewise, The Spaniards, the pub that Van Helsing and Seward visit after their first encounter with the vampiric Lucy on Hampstead Heath, was a real pub (and still exists, according to wikipedia). These are interesting touches of reality in the midst of the various fictional law firms and estate agents that the characters deal with. Does The Spaniards play on this little bit of fame at all? That’s a neat bit of history. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/95 "2019-09-21T20:57:56Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > London makes sense given other comments that Stoker is writing what he knows (London) and it bringing the horror home to his readers. You’ve got to remember that gas-lit Victorian London, which seems almost Gothically quaint to us today, was contemporarily seen as the epitome of a brave new world of science, reason and progress. Steam engines! Dynamos! Electric arc lights! Telegraphs! For some medieval horror like Dracula to appear there was as jarring as if the first colony on Mars were to be afflicted by witchcraft. Van Helsing even makes a speech rationalizing Dracula’s apparent supernatural nature as perhaps something that science just hadn’t caught up with yet. ---
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/96 "2019-09-21T22:00:37Z")
For a take on Dracula moves to London and _isn’t_ thwarted, there’s Kim Newmans **Anno Dracula**. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/97 "2019-09-21T22:34:45Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > You’ve got to remember that gas-lit Victorian London, which seems almost Gothically quaint to us today, was contemporarily seen as the epitome of a brave new world of science, reason and progress. Steam engines! Dynamos! Electric arc lights! Telegraphs! Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was facing chronic threats from ethnic national independence movements. The Hapsburgs had been on a downhill spiral, arguably since the Thirty Years War, and certainly since the Napoleonic wars. London, on the other hand, was the capital of an empire that ruled a quarter of the globe, and was still growing. As a military conqueror, or as a vampiric predator, London was where the action was. I think he chose the sea route in order to avoid having his coffins opened by customs inspectors at every border crossing. He knew who to bribe in the Balkan countries, and the convenient storm and shipwreck enabled him to sidestep the British customs agents. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/98 "2019-09-21T23:19:54Z")
Actually the real story is that Chas Chandler the bassist in the animals saw him in new york and thought he would be a ginchy pop star and paid his whole way. It didn’t work out but he kept at it. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/99 "2019-09-22T00:41:16Z")
Ziggy Stardust stole his entire _schtick_ from Dracula. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/100 "2019-09-22T01:22:02Z")
I can’t believe no one’s used the words (although they’ve used the concept): Fresh blood! I found Stoker’s novel surprisingly more readable than I expected. I’ve read a lot worse 19th c. novels. Anyone read _Pamela_??? Oops, just googled – _Pamela_ is actually 18th c. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400.md?page=6)