# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/101 "2019-09-22T02:31:34Z")
The children of the night. What music they make! I suggest that you all watch _Love At First Bite._ I do not drink…wine, and I do not smoke…shit. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/102 "2019-09-22T02:49:15Z")
Seems like if everyone wore a choker covered with crosses, they’d have nothing to worry about. That, or a suit like Matthew Lesko’s, covered in crosses in lieu of question marks. ---
**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:** [September 22, 2019, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/103 "2019-09-22T03:06:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The children of the night. What music they make! > I suggest that you all watch _Love At First Bite._ > > I do not drink…wine, and I do not smoke…shit. George Hamilton, right? How the hell can you have a tan Dracula? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/104 "2019-09-22T05:30:59Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > George Hamilton, right? How the hell can you have a tan Dracula? 🙂 Don’t think. Just…accept. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/105 "2019-09-22T06:40:04Z")
From the point of view of the author, it seems obvious that a conceit had to be found, in order that conversation could continue in English rather than Transylvanian. From the point of view of a predator, (as is hinted above) a city full of well-fed, wimpy, unaware prey must be infinitely more tempting than a rural landscape sparsely populated with strong wily peasants weaned on stories of your horrors and how to fight/avoid them. And as has also been said, London had shipping, which meant a larger population of transients, who would not be easily missed or tracked down. He could feed for years without anyone suspecting, if he was smart about it. But the OP is correct that the book doesn’t go much into his logistical problems. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/106 "2019-09-22T06:52:11Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > George Hamilton, right? How the hell can you have a tan Dracula? 🙂 In the Dracula melieu, sunlight only removes powers, it doesn’t otherwise harm the vamp. If he wants to sunbathe, he can…he just can’t mind-whammy potential victims, or change into a bat. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/107 "2019-09-22T14:11:03Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > George Hamilton, right? How the hell can you have a tan Dracula? 🙂 William Marshall managed. 🙂 [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacula#/media/File:POSTER_-_BLACULA.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacula#/media/File:POSTER_-_BLACULA.jpg) ---
**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:** [September 22, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/108 "2019-09-22T14:28:05Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > William Marshall managed. 🙂 > > [Blacula - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacula#/media/File:POSTER_-_BLACULA.jpg) **The King of Cartoons** is a vampire? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! (“Vampire” is today’s secret word!) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/109 "2019-09-22T18:36:06Z")
There’s also plenty of brown vampires in From Dusk Til Dawn. ---
**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, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/110 "2019-09-22T21:59:22Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > George Hamilton, right? How the hell can you have a tan Dracula? 🙂 Tanning beds. That wasn’t a period piece, it was contemporary to when it was released, right? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/111 "2019-09-23T16:13:20Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Victorians \*wrote \*really wordy letters. Victorians wrote really wordy, period. ---
**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 23, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/112 "2019-09-23T16:20:55Z")
Did Dracula share in the life energy his brides obtained from drinking blood? If so, this would make Dracula essentially a “blood pimp”. ---
**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 23, 2019, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/113 "2019-09-23T16:59:45Z")
> [@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? Chicken Paprikash. But he didn’t actually give the recipe, a la Diana Mott Davidson – he was giving local color. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/114 "2019-09-24T16:36:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy’s coffin. [Archer]Are we doing phrasing? Because I think we should bring back phrasing.[/Archer] ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/115 "2019-09-24T16:37:58Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Seems like if everyone wore a choker covered with crosses, they’d have nothing to worry about. That, or a suit like Matthew Lesko’s, covered in crosses in lieu of question marks. If it was a priest you could call him The Diddler. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/116 "2019-09-24T16:46:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The idea that anyone bitten by a vampire becomes a vampire when they die doesn’t work mathematically. Dracula has been in Transylvania for hundreds of years. If everyone he bit turned into a vampire, there wouldn’t be any non-vampires left. Unless everybody in the vicinity of his castle is onto him, and both blocks his attacks with garlic and crosses, and they are super-diligent about burying anybody he bites with a stake thru their heart or a mountain rose on their breast so they can’t get out of their coffins. So maybe the pickings have gotten so slim for Dracula that he wants to relocate to London, where nobody believes in him and he can start biting people more freely. Van Helsing does state that in the book, though, when he’s trying to get Arthur on board to kill Lucy. > [@](#): > > When they become such, they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like the ripples from a stone thrown the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. So Van Helsing is wrong, and there’s a manner to making more vampires than just being killed by one, or Dracula is destroying his prey after death, lest they become too numerous and attract attention of forces powerful enough to destroy him. Lucy may be a risk as she’s new and is too feral, perhaps, and so can create vampire after vampire. They just killed Lucy. I’m a little more than halfway through, and the story is at least picking up a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/117 "2019-09-24T17:03:06Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > So Van Helsing is wrong, and there’s a manner to making more vampires than just being killed by one, or Dracula is destroying his prey after death, lest they become too numerous and attract attention of forces powerful enough to destroy him. The Transylvanian locals probably helped with this. They’d know enough about vampires to know what to do if a body showed up with little holes in its neck. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/118 "2019-09-24T18:03:29Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Van Helsing does state that in the book, though, when he’s trying to get Arthur on board to kill Lucy. > > So Van Helsing is wrong, and there’s a manner to making more vampires than just being killed by one, or Dracula is destroying his prey after death, lest they become too numerous and attract attention of forces powerful enough to destroy him. I’ve read one vampire novel (I believe it was _Citizen Vampire_ by Les Daniels–vampirism during the French Revolution) in which the vampire would steal his victim’s hearts after killing them, to prevent them from rising as vampires themselves. A string of bodies with their hearts torn out says “homicidal maniac,” whereas a string of newly made undead says “Vampire on the loose, grab the stakes and crucifixes!” Which is the last thing he wanted people thinking. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/119 "2019-09-24T18:18:31Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Seems like if everyone wore a choker covered with crosses, they’d have nothing to worry about. That, or a suit like Matthew Lesko’s, covered in crosses in lieu of question marks. Not necessarily. "Oy, yenta, you've got the wrong vampire!" ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400/120 "2019-09-24T19:28:03Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > So Van Helsing is wrong, and there’s a manner to making more vampires than just being killed by one, or Dracula is destroying his prey after death, lest they become too numerous and attract attention of forces powerful enough to destroy him. Yes, the geometric progression involved in “everyone who is bitten by a vampire becomes a vampire” means that the notion is a mathematically impossible pyramid scheme. Sort of Amway, but with fangs. I wonder if anyone has written fiction that takes it seriously, where eventually everyone is a vampire and there is nobody left to feed on. Van Helsing says they can’t eat anything but blood - I guess that would be vampire apocalypse, unless they can feed on each other, and that violates the law of entropy. > [@](#): > > Lucy may be a risk as she’s new and is too feral, perhaps, and so can create vampire after vampire. Lucy is only a vampire for a few weeks, but she is biting children like crazy, enough to make the papers. Which again highlights the preposterousness of the whole thing. There are, what, half a dozen children bitten by the “bloofer lady”? Dracula is in England for a few weeks, and already he has a dozen competitors attracting attention to his scheme. > [@](#): > > They just killed Lucy. I’m a little more than halfway through, and the story is at least picking up a bit. Yes, IMO it gets going better. Until the final pursuit, which could be cut by half with no loss. I love the novel, and I have read it several times, but it’s not exactly paced like Indiana Jones. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-draculas-end-game-in-moving-to-london/840400.md?page=7)