5 misconceptions about Count Dracula that I think vampire fans should know

I am a Vladaholic

You know, after all of my past mytakes going over controversial or otherwise serious subjects, I wanted to cover something a little more relaxed. I have always been a huge fan of all things Dracula. Since I had my first taste of the Dracula fandom I have learned several things about the count that many adaptions of the original novel have effectively beaten down to a pulp and extent that few people know about them.

1. All of Dracula's powers are standard abilities for a vampire

5 misconceptions about Count Dracula that I think vampire fans should know.

This is a mistake that I can forgive pretty mercifully as all the adaptions of the novel don't go over this at all. Even in the original book, it's only covered a small handful of times. But it's there. Once in chapter 18...

The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.

and again in chapter 23..

He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

Now, what is Scholomance? According to Romanian legend, somewhere in the carpathian mountains, there is a school of magic run by the devil. It was here that Dracula's family recieved education in the Arcane arts. Knowing this, it becomes clear that some abilities of Dracula's are not vampire abilities, but magic that he learned when he was still a human. Although what abilities are from his magical scholarship and which are from his vamirism are still unclear.

2. Bram Stoker only took inspiration from Vlad Tepes

Ehh, not really. More like he took a whole bunch of Romanian folklore and past vampire novels and put them in a blender. We already covered Scholomance. There was also the 1819 short story Vampyre which featured the wealthy and charming young vampire Lord Ruthven from which Stoker borrowed the sophisticated charm of the vampire from. There was the 1847 epic, Varney the Vampire from which Stoker took some vampiric powers and traits from to give to Dracula like super strength and hypnotic abilities. Finally, the last notable thing I can find was the 1872 novella, Carmilla from which Stoker got some of the sexual nature of his vampires from. All in all, Stoker took only a little bit of inspiration from Tepes.

3. Dracula was in love with Mina and likewise

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... oh my god I'm crying. No. That is just plain old fashion NOT TRUE. The reason Dracula bit Mina was NOT to make her his. It was because Dracula wanted revenge on the other protagonists for breaking into his house and making his resting places uninhabitable. He didn't care about her at all. Likewise, Mina hated Dracula. While she DID want to save the soul of the man Dracula once was, she still hated the Count for what he was doing.

4. Dracula looks like a middle aged man with black hair that is slicked back

One of the many things that Bela Lugosi did to Dracula to completely f*ck him up for everybody. This is a complete lie. The novel states...

[Dracula's] face was a strong - a very strong - aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddines's showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

I have only found a few good images that match the original Dracula's description. One of them being..

5. Dracula spoke in a goofy sounding Romanian Accent

Yet another way that Bela Lugosi took the original Dracula and shoved the pickle of lies up his ass. If you watch the 1931 Dracula, the character of the Count sounds completey stupid and ridiculous on all possible levels and definitions of the term. While the novel does say that Dracula's speech is strangely toned, it also says that the count has a near perfect grasp of English.

That's pretty much it.

Yea, that's all the big ones there are surrounding the Dracula character. Feel free to give opinions and tell me if I missed anything.