Tuesday 27 March 2012

Dracula: The man behind the myth...

Count Dracula, probably the most famous villain of all horror. He has been portrayed in all aspects of the media books, films, even breakfast cereals! We all know who he is. But do you know where he came from? How it all started?

Count Dracula was first depicted in 1897 in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The story tells of how Dracula attempted to relocate from Transylvania to Britain, and the resulting battle between him and a group of people led by Van Helsing. This wasn't the first showing of the vampire, as there have been many stories and myths about bloodsuckers going through the ages. But Stoker really did start the vampiric phenomenon we see today. Although the book was praised by critics it wasn't an immediate bestseller. Victorian readers appreciated the story but it did not become significant until the art of film making boosted its reputation.

Now we all know (don't we?) that Count Dracula is a completely fictional character but it has been widely believed that he is largely based on Vlad III Dracula better known as Vlad the Impaler.
Vlad was a Transylvanian born Prince of Wallachia. He got the nickname "Impaler" due to the fact that he would torture and kill anyone he considered useless to him, His favourite method would be to impale them on a sharp pole and then leave them to die. It is rumoured that over 40,000 people suffered that fate by his order.  It was also said that Vlad drank the blood of his victims. But there is no evidence of this and it was probably started being spread after the Dracula connection became popular.

The word 'dracula' means "Son of Dracul" (dragon) is actually derived from a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dracul (dragon) that swore to defend Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire form the Ottoman Turks. The father of Vlad the Impaler, Vlad II was inducted into the order in 1431 because of the victories he had claimed against the Turks. From then on he wore the badges of the order and when he became ruler of Wallachia he even had the dragon symbol stamped on his coins. Bram Stoker was known to have had limited knowledge on Romanian history but it is unknown as to how much fact he inserted into the fiction.

Dracula has since become one of the all time most popular characters in history. It has spawned many films such as Dracula, Dracula and would you believe Dracula. There have been a total of 217 films made with Dracula playing a major part, that's second only to Sherlock Holmes (223 films).  The first film was made in 1922 it was called "Nosferatu" they avoided copyright issues by changing the names of all the books characters, as they could not get permission from Stoker's widow. 

Count Dracula is one of the few villains everyone loves. His character has spawned a wave of fascination throughout the world. Vampires would be nothing without him.  From him spawned Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Legacy of Kain series, Blade, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and even the sparkly losers from Twilight. Without him none of these hugely popular shows and games would ever of began. You know who to thank for their popularity and it sure as hell isn't Robert Pattinson.

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