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42. Gay all of it! (Dracula) · The Book-Watchers

0:00
Yes, that's us anyway, what's up, guys? Welcome and welcome back
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to another episode of the book Watchers. Yeah, you are joined today by
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two of your most favorite gaze of all times. Yeah yeah, Jacob of
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course, and look loser you mean ween, I'm a wiener. Hi,
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it's yo, boy, Devinbut they come to you live, not live,
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they say the radio state, they say college. When I'm on the radio
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for a whole semester. That was a day all the time. But Hi,
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how are you? Let's go? Is poppin' well? Gome to you
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live from a pre recorded audio from two bedrooms of the Nerdy Gaze. Yeah,
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yeah, So today we are what do we do? Last week?
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We did? We did Salem's Lot, Salem's Lot, that's right, we
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did salems a lot today to keep on the vampire theme. Uh, it
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is going to be a hot Oh no, did I not save it?
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Oh shit? Did I know? Sure? D regular Salem's Lot? Uh?
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Oh, I was so passed if I did not saved the episode from
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Salem's Lot. Oh my god, you have a did I not hold on?
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It might be my downloads? Hold the fuck up? Why not?
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Twenty third? And then this one was the twenty six and this you didn't
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save last week's episode? I did not say last week's episode? You poor
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I think I did. Wait, hold up, let me double check,
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because I did save one on Wednesday, and I'm like, was that book
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Watchers or was that Spook? That was Spook? So no, I did
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not save Sunday's episode. I can't believe I didn't save it. I thought
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I did, Yeah, recording of it. No, it did not.
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I did not. You can get mad at me. I did not.
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You who are well? That whole thing that will episode is a messy thing.
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I want to do it again like that. That was a That was
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a messy episode for me because that was that was that was the universe saying
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don't save this episode. I mean, we could just say it. We
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don't have to like, we don't have to like redo it. We don't
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have to do salens a lot. No, okay, so hi, last
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week we would have done Salem's Lot, but my ass to forgot to save
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it. So today we're star darting the theme of vampires my God with Dragula.
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Honestly, we should have just started with Dracula anyway, because it's Dracula
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Yeah, it's Dracula. You're right, You're right, it's Yeah, it's
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Dracula. It's one of the oldest, it's the one of the oldest vampire
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novels. Yeah, of course, Carmela, I think is older, but
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yeah, Carmela does predate it. But Dracula is arguably more popular and more
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well and more well known. So we're gonna be talking about Dracula first now,
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and we'll be continuing this vampire theme. How are we gonna be doing
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this song. We're just gonna do a bunch of vampire novels. Oh,
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we could do well. Salem's Lot's out of the question now, and Salem's
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Lot is kind of boring anyway, so we're not y'all ain't listen too much
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with that one. Here's let me let me just we'll just do a basic
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rundown, Okay, SAMs Lot vampire comes to a small small town in what
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was it main called Jerusalem's Lot, or known by the locals of Salem's Lot.
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This this vampire begins feeding on the townspeople and eventually the entire town gets
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turned into vampires, except for an author and a little kid who both managed
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to escape and when they come. They eventually do come back to Samuel's Lot
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because they're all like, yeah, we can't leave it like this, and
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they set a fire to try to burn the whole town to the ground and
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kill the vampires in it. And when the book ends left open ended,
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so there's no real it's not really clear whether or not what they did worked
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or not. However, Stephen King himself did allude to the fact that that
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did not work. So Sam's Loot and Nutshell pretty much pretty much. And
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yes, it was adapted into a movie a long time ago. I never
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watched it because which is I think it's a good thing we didn't save that
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episode, because it's the whole theme of book watchers is we review both the
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book and the movie that it was that was based off of the book.
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And I couldn't find salem Slot anywhere streaming or otherwise. It was then was
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the universe saying don't keep this episode. Yeah, And don't don't get me
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wrong, Stephen King great author, love a lot. I love his books,
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just you know, like many other authors, you have your hit you
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have your hits, and you have your misses. And I personally think Salem's
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Lot was a mess. Yeah. Yeah, So now this is gonna be
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the first, not the first, but it's what we want. I guess
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one of the first episodes that I front that front running, I am taking
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the reins to Yes, so for the so ladies and gentlemen, then will
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be the one reviewing Dracula today? Yes, because it was my idea to
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do Dracula because actually I know what brought up the whole conversation. I guess
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it was Salem's Lot and they're like, oh my god, let's do vampires.
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So to start things off, we're doing the story of course Dracula by
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Bram Stoker. Now well context Soker Bram Stoker or Abraham Stoker was born in
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Dublin, Ireland, in on November eighth, eighteen forty seven, a fellow
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irishman. And there's a lot of gosh, where do we even begin.
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There's a lot of context with this author and some of his works, especially
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with Dracula that kind of uh pokes at the fact, oh maybe, uh
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is this he's a gay man. He's a closet gay man. Closet gay
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man who yes, yes, well it's definitely a closet gay man. Because
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Dracula is queer as hell. At the base level of Dracula, you can
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interpret Dracula as a allegory for him wanting to be with a straight man,
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but he sees himself as a monster because of it. Okay, the vampire,
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because we're soon gonna find out that Dracula has a weird fascination with Jonathan
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Harker and at one point says, this man belongs to me in a very
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predatorial way, and more and more of a this seems more than just a
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biting of the neck and sucking of the blood moment here. So there's a
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lot of queer history going on with Dracula. And I don't think it's ever
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been technically said that the author himself was a gay man, but there are
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a lot of little hints and nods pointing to that this man might have been
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in the closet. Granted, this would be the first time a horror writer,
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an old school horror writer, would be gay. Mary Shulley herself,
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the writer of Frankenstein, for Frankenstein's Monster, is a lesbian. So it's
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not the first time you see a very famous classic horror novel. Pretty much
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in the Gothic horror era of writing, be gay. So there's all of
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that, and I will get into more of the queerness of Dracula as we
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go through the story, because it's very apparent if you know where to look
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or when you really think about it, it's very It very much points to
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that. And when I read the story back in the day when I was
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a lot younger, my late teen years, I didn't really see it because
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I always thought it as a animal versus his prey. But the well,
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the older I got and the more obviously I've worked on myself and got more
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comfortable with my own sexuality being a bisexual man, I started seeing started reading
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in between the lines love Dracula, especially Recula stuff, as well as just
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horror in general, because if you don't know, horror is built in the
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backs of the queers. Just saying what I saw, stand by that statement.
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We went and have the horror, we have the horror genre we have
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today without the gaze period documents before. I never heard that sigma before.
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It's not like you said it like a dozen times I did I have in
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this episode that I did. I did. That's part of the contact.
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Shut up you, it's all documentary of it. Watching on shutter, It's
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cool now again, Tonedy g Dracula because we all here for vampires. And
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then Helsing yes, and Helsing is in the book. You don't know now
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you know. So the story of Dracula starts out with the character known as
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Jonathan Harker. He is the main character throughout throughout the book for the most
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part. He is a young English lawyer and he's traveling to Castle Dracula in
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the eastern European country known as Transylvania to meet with the nobleman known as Count
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Dracula about a real estate transaction. All live from England. So as Harker
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gets his way to the countryside, he meets a bunch of local peasants.
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Now this is a broad overview of the story. There are some things that
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are basically hitting the key points and the more the meat of the story.
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So he's in the country. He gets to the countryside and you see,
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and he meets a bunch of the peasant locals, and they warn him about
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his journey or his destination to Castle Dracula. They give him crucifixes, they
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give him charms, they give him anything and everything to ward off evil.
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And he's not very well versed in the local language. But the only thing
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he hears or that he translates through the words strange words that they're saying to
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him. He translates him later to vampire, and they're like, what the
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fuck we mean vampire. It's just a man for a transaction. I'm meeting
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right wrong. Uh So, from there, Parker was to meet Dracula's meet
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Dracula at a carriage, just planned to pick him up. We're not drag.
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Dracula was gonna send a carriage for him. They take him up to
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the castle from the town that he's residing, and of course the peasants are
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just like, oh god, you're you're fuck dude, you'reas like, dude,
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he's that's evil shit up there, bro, here's a crucive six,
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here's a cross. Don't go up there. At one point, what a
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little old lady was telling him, don't go up there, go home,
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turn back around. You can turn back around right now and you don't have
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to ever go up there. And he's like, no, I have to
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go up and she's like, well, if you're gonna go up there,
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here's a crucifix, fucking take this, you're gonna need it. It's holding
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holly up there, and he meets the count's carriage as planned by the date,
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because he was supposed to be at some absurd hour in the middle.
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I think it was like in the middle, like early early morning or late
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at night. It was one of the two, but it was at some
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absurd hour. You meet with this carriage, and the journey to the castle
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is fun is a very loose word for that journey, because he comes across
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a bunch of angry wolves at one point. He uh, the journey was
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not an easy ride. Well, what's funny though, is about the wolves
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and the person that's driving the carriage. And there's also when we get when
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we get more in detail. But it is also a weird connection with wolves
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and Dracula and how is Dracula a were wolf? Question mark? Were wolves
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the idea of a werewolf come from vampires? Question mark. But then you
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know, uh, in terms of like in Bram Stoker's lore, which is
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loosely based off of you know, European vampire myths, street boys like that,
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they're also supposed to be they're also shape shifters, so so it's really
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not it's not an issue of him being a and act like the like the
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origin of werewolves, but more just like he can shape shift into a wolf.
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Yes, so you can shape shift into a wolf. But there's also
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some context, historical context that Stroker got his inspiration for him to do this.
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It's a little weird. It's the werewolf and the vampire can get a
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little murky depend on where you are in the world. So that's why you
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when you always see a vampire or a werewolf in a story, there's usually
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if there's another monster or something try to kill him. It's usually the opposite
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because they have a long, like intertwining history between those two, between the
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werewolves and the vampires. But there is some I'll have to find it again,
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but there is some context that kind of blurs the line a little bit
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between the two. Do I didn't Draculas a werewolf? Now I don't.
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Again, I agree, I think he's a he's a shape chapter that likes
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to take the form of a wolf, of a very large wolf, for
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whatever reason, for dramatic effect. But yeah, there is some want yeah,
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if you want, like to look up more of like the origins of
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were wolves, Like one of the earliest stories about a man turned into a
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wolf is actually king likeeas Oh yeah, well I'm not sure, Han,
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it's either king like hold on like cheon from uh it is so king lacan
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is Ah he was. He was a king of a city of ancient Greek
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city of like Husura of Likesuru, and he is believed to be the very
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first werewolf because he uh Zeus like graced his kingdom with his presence one time.
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And of course, you know, king had to follow the the general
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law of hospitality and make sure that the king of the gods was well take
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care of. But like uh like Kean was understandably doubtful, like is this
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guy really Zeus? So the thing about like like Chon is that he was
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a fucking psychopath. So in order to test Zeus to see if he's really
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a god, he fed Zeus flesh, human flesh, and depending on the
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myth uh you follow, depending on which story you follow, the flesh that
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he the human flesh that he tried to feed Zeus was actually the flesh of
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his own children, like like him's own children, wow, like he slaughtered
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his own children and Fetis tried to feed to Zeus. But Zeus, being
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a god, knew immediately what was going on, and understandably was pissed and
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cursed like him to take the shape of a wolf. I did not know
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that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a more like that was just just
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a rough general idea of what the story is of that story. But like
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you can definitely find more about it online and you do your own research.
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But that's not what we're talking about today. No, where Wilse would be
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another time, because there are a bunch of books for that too. Oh
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yes, So back to Jonathan Harker's journey. Yes, he gets attacked by
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nearly attacked by a bunch of angry wolves on his way up to the castle,
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and upon arriving at the quote unquote crumbling old castle, janky ass looking
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piece of shit, Harker finds the elderly man known as the Count Dracula.
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He this old man is very well educated, and he's very hospitable gentleman,
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and he's very welcoming to Harker. But it becomes very apparent and very apparent
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indeed after a few days of staying there, because there's certain rules around the
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castle that Harker has to follow. Don't go in certain wings, don't go
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in certain rooms. You're more than welcome to go in these certain parts of
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the guys, like the library, blah blah blah. He's only a lot
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of to go to certain areas. And his uh, Dracula sleep schedule is
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the opposite of Harker's. So when he's asleep, right to close away,
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good vice versa. Harker starts catching on there some weird stuff going on here,
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and it becomes very apparent to him that he is a prisoner of the
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castle now, and he's writing letters to his fiance Beyonce. They're not married
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yet, or is it? Are they married yet? I can't remember and
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Jonathan married yet or their fiance. I think him and me I worked just
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fiances. I think they're just fiance. So he's writing letters to her during
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this whole time, and but yeah, he effectively figures out. He kind
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of comes to conclusion, I think I'm a prisoner in this castle. And
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Harker starts investigating everything in this castle and Dracula, and the more he learns,
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the more uneasy he becomes throughout this whole story, and he realizes that
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the Count possesses these supernatural powers and intentions, especially with him, that very
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and make him very uncomfortable and like, oh shit, I didn't get the
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fuck out of here. One night in particular, he is sleeping and he's
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nearly attacked by a three beautiful gorgeous women serving. These women are serving cut
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they're serving mama. We all three of these women are like fondly over him,
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and one was like, oh fresh meat. One touches him, dragon
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goes in the background, or so uh well, the last seven is Draculae.
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He comes in. He basically tells the three women back the fuck up.
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This is my man, this is mine. He is mine, he
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is not yours. Here's a sack of a dead baby. Eat it.
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That's the other thing. People end up dead and the village below and babies
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go missing and shit. So there's the whole fucking I'm saying. Oh,
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there's also how I forget it wasn't there a whole incident where he got to
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the castle or some shit and someone dropped and someone like killed a child.
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There was, Yeah, there was like a thing where like they did tell
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him about it, like a child, like a child had gotten missing before
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he had gone up there. And I think they either found its corpse,
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like it's dead corpse or uh, I forgot I think it was when he
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was in town he came across another then oh, there's a missing child or
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whatnot, and he left it up the bag and he gave it to the
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three women and you can assume that was the child and the three vampire women
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had at it at the corpse or whatever it was. Yeah, well keep
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going because there's like, there's a reason why all these children are going are
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going missing. So and he tells the vampires that course belongs to him,
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and fearing for his life, Parker attempts to leave the castle by climbing down
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the walls. Now, from this point we jump over to England and Mia
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is uh Mina Mina, Mila Mina Mina. He's betrothed he she is with
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her friend Lucy, and Lucy apparently has been receiving marriage proposals from three men
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doctor John us. Oh god, I say that name Sward uh s w
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A R D. Wait, what's her name? What was the name?
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The first the guy? The she got three Lucy got three marriage proposals,
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right, first guy's name was doctor John. It's Ward s E W A
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R D. Stewart, Yeah, Stuart Arthur Homewood and an American named Quincy
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Morris. Uh. Though saddened by the fact that she must reject two of
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these men, she accepts Arthur's proposal. Now Mina visits Lucy at her seaside
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town and uh wit whippy whippy whippe. And a Russian ship is wrecked on
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the shore near the town with all its crew and captain crew missing and the
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captain's dead. The Demeter, the Demeter. If you don't by the time
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this thing comes out, the movie, the last Voyage of the Demeter will
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already hit theaters. And that's what the movie is about, that journey because
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Dracula gets on that boat. You down anyway. I can't wait, no,
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because, like God, damn it, I'm looking forward to that movie
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so bad. It's coming out at when the end of this month, right
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August. August was September, yea relatively soon next couple of weeks at the
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time of this recording. Yeah, so we're looking forward to that. Hell
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yeah yeah. The ship comes up to the shoreline of the seaside town in
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England, where's missing, captain's dead. The only sign of life aboard is
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this is a large dog that bounds ashore and disappears into the countryside. That's
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suspicious at all, of course not no. The only cargo, the only
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cargo in the ship is a set of fifty boxes of earth of earth shipped
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from Castle Dracula. Not long after Lucy homegirl to Harker's betrothed, she suddenly
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starts sleepwalking, and one night Mina finds Lucy in the town cemetery and believe
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she sees a dark form of glowing red eyes bending over Lucy. Lucy then
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becomes pale and very ill. Done done she bear, And then when she
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gets a closer look, she bears two tiny little red marks on her throat,
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from which neither the doctor nor Mana can account for how she got those.
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Where do these little marks come from? That's weird? So the doctor
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one of her patrothed mind Joe, Lucy's betrothed for people that try to propose
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to her. Uh, he got in contact with his old mentor professor.
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But then Helsing, Oh I love in Helsing so much, so good,
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so suffering from a brain fever. You jump back the Harker. Harker appears
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in the city. Uh, Budapest, Did I say, yeah, Budapest
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Mina goes to join Budapese. Yeah, dude, you watch a Black Widow.
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If you watch Black Widow, you'll fight as an American. You'll learn.
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Try to pronounce Budapeste. Oh, Budapesche. You're right, you're right,
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You're right. He appears in the city of Budapese. Uh Mina goes
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to join him. Then, when Helsing arrives in the city of with b
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and after his examination of Lucy, the orders I heard chambers covered in garlic
29:06
in a traditional charm against vampires for time. This this seems to word off
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Lucy's illness, but then she begins to recover, but her mother, unaware
29:19
of the garlic's powers. Garlic I always found out finding that garlic and vampires
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are a thing. That's how you know, lady and gents, I'm not
29:27
a vampire because I love garlic too much. Unwittingly removes the plants from the
29:34
room, so his mother comes ins. What's all this garlic here? Augh,
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move this garlic out of here, shakes it all out, and Lucy's
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is just sitting there in a room open for an attack by whatever bit hurt
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I mean, I think you can put you in two the gereon want better,
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y'all. So the doc Da and Van Helsing spends several days trying to
30:03
revive Lucy, performing performing four blood transfusions. Their efforts ultimately resulted in absolutely
30:18
jack shit. Nothing worked the men. One night, the men let down
30:23
their guard and a wolf breaks into the house shop because Lucy's mother a fatal
30:29
heart attack, and the wolf attacks Lucy, killing her. So Lucy's dead,
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y'all. She did she a corpse? And really what to answer the
30:41
question why does garlic repel vampires? It's not so it's more of a superstitious
30:51
belief than part of the actual myth. But it's long been known that garlic
30:56
has strong antide uh like antibiotic properties, and many people believed that vamporism is
31:07
a result of a blood disease. So by carrying garlic around they can somehow
31:14
ward off the disease. That's one way. Yeah, no, I mean
31:19
that's interesting. That's interesting that they use garlic, that garlic was used for
31:23
that try to ward off vamprism. Interesting. More, you know, kids,
31:30
more, you know, thank you, Jacob, you more and welcome
31:34
to pop in with these little tidbits and chat. Keep yourself busy. That's
31:41
what I've been doing. So from there after, Lucy is dead. The
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bitch is dead, Ben Helsing, Yeah, Van Helsing went up to uh,
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checked her body, looked at the others and said, don't quote me
31:53
on this, gentleman, but I think this one is deceased. She's a
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corpse. She dud so between, which leads to Homewood, the doctor and
32:08
Morris, the three men that patrothed to her proposed to her. They go
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to her tomb. Right, ben Nelson convinces the other men that Lucy belongs
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to the quote unquote undead. In other words, she has been transformed into
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whatever bit her aka Dracula bit her. So the bitch is a vampire.
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So the men remain unconvinced until they see Lucy praying on a defenseless child,
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because apparently vampires love to eat children. So and so I just wanted to
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this was the important fact I wanted to mention earlier. But I why she
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get to this part. So the blood of a baby or young children is
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very pure. It has purifying and restored properties to a vampire. So when
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Jonathan first encountered account Dracula, he Dracula looked like an old, decrepit man,
33:20
like an elderly man. So, and the thing is is, because
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Dracula is immortal, he cannot really age or die. But vampires technically can
33:32
be affected by age if they don't have a sufficient enough amount of blood.
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So since Dracula decided he wanted to leave, he wanted to leave in a
33:42
better state, so he started, he started kidnapping and consuming children's blood in
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order to restore his youthful appearance. Yes, because he was getting that's a
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fact. That's something I did. Happened to leave out that he was getting
33:57
younger as the story went on, when it was back with Parker in the
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castle. Yes, And there's a point when Parker was found and brought back
34:08
to England. Him and Mina were spending time in a park and I hope
34:14
I'm not jumping too far ahead for you, Devin. But Mina, in
34:19
her letters to Lucy, writes that he notices a gentleman in the park and
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he and he gets really freaked out and says he's so much younger, like
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something like along the lines of like he looks so much he's younger than before.
34:35
Yeah, and this is referring to the fact that because Dracula had regularly
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consumed children's blood, he he restored his own youth. Yes exactly. So
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from there you see Lucy praying on de Vincel's child. Now we know the
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context of white children, and and from there which convinces them that they must
35:04
destroy Lucy. So they agree to follow the ritual of the of van helsing
35:08
that he is proposing to ensure that lucy soul will return to eternal rest.
35:14
While the undead Lucy sleeps, they take a steak and put it through her
35:21
heart. The men then cut off her head and stuffer the mouth with garlic.
35:25
After this deed is done, they pledge destroy of Dracula himself from that
35:30
point forward. That point on, yep. And I just also want to
35:35
say when they uh, when they stuff when they stake her, cut off
35:38
her head and stuff her mouth with garlic, this not only success like successfully
35:45
kills her like for real, for real, but they also there's they also
35:50
noticed that it almost seems like her corpse and her very spirit itself was finally
35:55
able to rest because they could just all they could see it like her more
36:00
go like as a vampire. She looked un she had this unearthly beauty to
36:04
her. But you know, in nature, anything that's like extremely beautiful is
36:08
often very dangerous. Yep, deadly, very deadly. But they could it's
36:14
almost like when once they do that, they could see her body were like
36:19
almost like return to its more humanly self. Yeah, and they can and
36:24
they could feel her presence, like her spirit, and they could tell that
36:30
what they'd done had finally put her to rest. Yeah, exactly. So
36:37
Lucy's dead, dead, dead, she deceased. She literally corpse had less
36:44
corps with garlic. Yum, I guess you do you? So then we
36:53
jumped to now married, Mina and Jonathan return to England to join the force.
36:59
Join forces with the others. Mina helps Vin Helsing collect the various diary
37:04
and journal entries that Harker and the Doctor and the others have written, attempted
37:08
to piece together a narrative that will lead them to the Count himself, learning
37:15
all that they can about Dragicula's affairs. beIN, Helsing and his band track
37:20
down the boxes of earth that the Count uses as a sanctuary during the night
37:25
from uh Dracula's castle. So they basically took a bunch of dirt from Transylvania
37:30
and transported it with him, so his effort seems to be going well from
37:44
there. Then one of the doctor's mental patients, Renfield, let's draculate into
37:50
the asylum where the others are staying, allowing the Count to pray upon Mina
38:04
dun dundun dun dun. As Mina begins to slow lead change into a vampire,
38:12
the men sterilize the boxes of Earth, forcing Dracula to flee to the
38:17
safety of his native Transylvania. The men pursued the Count, dividing their forces
38:24
and tracking him down across the land and see dedication yea dedication. Ben Helsing
38:31
takes Mina with him. During all this, of course, they cleansed the
38:36
castle by killing the three wives of Dracula and sealing the entrances with sacred objects.
38:45
The others catch up to the Count just as he is about to reach
38:50
his castle, and Jonathan and Morris Quincy Morris use knives and a fucking butcher
39:02
dead deceased. Yeah, yeah, Jacqulo's death was very brutal. Earlier like,
39:20
I'm sorry, I was distracted by something, but did you When they
39:24
were beginning their quest to chase Dracula across Europe, ben hell Singh did a
39:34
purifying rite, yes, on every member of the party, and you know,
39:39
just like a quick little blessing and they have the father son and Holy
39:42
Spirit forgive you, I forgive you of your sins, my son and my
39:45
daughter, things like that, and you know Catholic tradition, they either like
39:50
sealed the deal with putting a little bit of folly water on your forehead or
39:53
like you know, touching your forehead with a piece of the white bread the
39:58
Manna m hm, right, and the Communion basically the Communion bread. And
40:02
when he did that to Mina, because she was already like she I think
40:07
Dracula actually fed her his blood. Yes, I think that's how that attack
40:13
transport. Yeah, and when he did that, it made her unclean.
40:20
So when when Van helsing put the Communion bread on her forehead, it actually
40:25
burned her. And there was this whole dramatic scene like everyone was really shocked
40:30
and Manea freaks out and she's like unclean. I'm unclean. But once they
40:37
kill once they track down Dracula and they kill him, it ends the curse
40:42
for her. Yeah, it keeps the whole tradition of you kill the main
40:46
you kill the main vampire, the others will cease to be vampires because they're
40:52
all tied to him. So I can see where they were that modern day
40:58
trope came from. Was yes, because that kind of happened to Mina.
41:02
Is that she's not she lost her vampiresm when Dracula died. Yeah, he
41:09
gets brutally murdered, and that's pretty much the end of I'll thought of like
41:13
Mina not being a vampire anymore. Yeah. Yeah, and everyone lives happily
41:24
ever after. Yeah. Uhh uh oh, I thought you cut out,
41:57
you wouldn't sun. Yeah, my my internet went for a second. So
42:00
what I miss? I heard you say. And they lived happily ever after?
42:05
Yeah, And then I was just waiting for you to respond, and
42:07
I was just like, hello, Yes, they lived happily ever after?
42:14
Or did they? No? They dead? He's dead. He's dead,
42:19
dumb deceased. And that is the story Dracula. Now more's our context.
42:29
Dracula is based on a person named Vladimir. Yes, Vladimir deche, Prince
42:43
of Walakia or wait, Wallakia was in modern day Transylvania, right, Uh,
42:52
it's wait is Transylvania actually even a country? I know that's probably a
42:57
dumb question. Is that actually a tree? Uh? Great, now you
43:05
got me. You got Transylvania. Transylvania is a region in Romania. Okay,
43:12
that's why I thought. I'm like, isn't that Romania's what was what
43:19
Lakia? Then that's a good question because like I know, it's like there's
43:25
a lake. I'm pretty sure it was like in modern day Romania. Yeah,
43:32
yes, because Transylvania is a region in Romania that has the that's where
43:37
the legend of Dracula came from, the fortress, got it? Yeah?
43:40
Yeah, so Romania because I thought it was Romanian. Okay, cool sons,
43:45
right Romania. Yes, it's a region, but not necessarily a nation,
43:52
our country. But yes, so I would love to go to the
43:59
cowl of glad Lamir, Right, that's a real place you can go to
44:07
by the way too. Yeah, I know, but yeah, Dracula was
44:14
inspired by real historical figure Vladimir Depeche of w Lakia, which is now modern
44:21
day Romania. Yeah, was also his name, yep, because the way
44:29
he dealt with his enemies was by impaling them on big ass steaks. His
44:34
enemies, his town folk, his peasants, you know, looked at them,
44:39
why he would impale you, right. And the funny thing is is
44:44
that modern day Romanians, like you know, when they teach their history to
44:49
their kids, it's not in the negative light. He's he's considered a hero
44:55
in their country, Like, while the rest of the world looks at him
44:59
like, oh my god, he's a fucking like a fucking sicko because you
45:05
know the way he like just because of how brutally he treated you know,
45:10
he treated his enemies and other and other people. But when you look at
45:16
it Lee from an objective standpoint, he actually did what it took to protect
45:22
his country. Yeah. And the method of impaling, ah, you know,
45:29
sticking up impaling people on stakes was a great deterrent because it kept like
45:35
the Ottomans from invading. Yeah, because they tried to invade and they they
45:40
came across just they were coming back to his cast, his castle, and
45:45
they found all of those Ah, they found all the stakes with people on
45:52
it, and suddenly like they're like, yeah, actually we're in the wrong
46:00
We're in the wrong place. Yeah, I think we took I think we
46:04
took a left turn. We showed one right, Yeah, let's go somewhere
46:07
else. Y'all sorry about that. No, no, no, this isn't
46:13
my bad. Yeah, we're sorry. You have a great day. You
46:21
have great day, sir. Don't need to get up, don't need to
46:24
tell your cards. Same paylas, we'll see yourselves out. Thank you.
46:29
Yeah, okay, okay, thank you bye buy. But yeah, Dragula
46:37
and in modern day culture and popular culture has inspired, Like, there's so
46:44
many different movies, games, TV shows that he has appeared in. Of
46:52
course, you have the obvious like the nineteen when did that When did that
46:55
movie come out? Brow Soaker's Dracula. Oh that was ninety ninety two,
47:07
ninety two, yeah, with Gary Oldman as Dracula. Yes, yes,
47:13
love, and of course Caller Reeves as Jonathan Harker Yeah, so good,
47:21
and Winona Ryder Asmina Harker. Yes. But aside from that, there there's
47:27
been so many other things that have been inspired by this book. There's been
47:31
several Dracula movies, including Dracula I'm Told with Luke Evans, love that one,
47:38
Dracula two thousand with Gerard Butler. Yeah, and then of course He's
47:45
Dracula has made appearances in so many different other movies and TV shows. Of
47:52
course you got ben Helsing, like, yeah, you have ben Helsing where
47:58
he's just a total queen. Oh, he's a total queen, total queen.
48:04
Where is gaggle of women? Uh huh he just he's just rolling in
48:07
pussy. Oh he want but he wants that Van Helsing yeap. And uh
48:16
you have there's a whole video game based on Liken that where he plays Dracula.
48:24
He's the main character in Castlevania. And then of course you have the
48:28
Castlevania Netflix TV show. I fucking love that shows so good. And by
48:36
the time this is posted, the next season of Castlevania, the Netflix TV
48:42
show will be out the next It's a sie side series, yes, yeah,
48:49
ready Svember, Yes, September twenty eighth, question mark. I think
48:54
some of these and so ready, and I think this season is going to
49:00
be centered around uh Trevor's son. Yes, so it's not gonna be Trnvor
49:12
Belmont. It is God. What's his name? I have no ideat uh
49:19
h Castlevanian Nocturne. That's a new series. Huh yeah, yeah. Hello
49:30
hello, hello, hello, I'm here. Hello hello, oh oh hello
49:49
hello, can you hear me? Yeah? What the fuck? Was.
49:54
I was looking at my internet like wait did my internet cut out? And
49:58
then you dipped and I was like, oh, like hello, hello,
50:04
anyway, continue on? Yes? Soight, uh, I'm trying to look
50:14
at the kid's name so to do Ric Richter or Richter richteror Belmont. Yes,
50:30
and this is gonna be taking place during the French Revolution. We love
50:37
a French Revolution. Yes, let me see how on? Uh is he?
50:47
Wait? Is this Trevor's son? And so Trevor and Sipha's son.
50:54
I think so. We'll find out when when the show comes out. But
51:05
yeah, so anyway, Castlevania has won until was originally a video game and
51:08
then now it's now it's a TV a popular TV show on Netflix. Oh
51:14
god, there's so much. Yeah, there's there's so much that Dracula himself
51:21
has inspired. Ah. He's even like starting and everything. Ah. But
51:34
yeah, also, have you ever watched Renfield? Watch Riddenfield? Oh?
51:39
I just watched it. It was so good. Nicholas Cage is Dracula and
51:47
Nicholas what's his face? As Renfield? So good? Yeah, vampires are
51:55
everything. Yeah, it's just Draculas, Like Nicholas Cage is Dracula is just
52:02
toxic as fu love it. I mean, that's that's pretty accurate the direct
52:07
I say, he's very toxic. Oh yeah, of course. If you
52:13
want to read more about Dracula, you can always read the actual book,
52:17
or or you can be like me and have the book and then go out
52:22
and discover that they made a manga the original story. So there's a company
52:28
called Manga Classics. It takes old stories like Dracula, Frankenstein, God Briden,
52:37
Prejudice, Lenham is a rob a bunch of those stories, takes the
52:42
original text and makes them into manga Hamlet, all of the William Shakespeare stories
52:49
are in manga form. And I bought it thinking, want to see,
52:53
Okay, how accurate is this? Do they actually take the text and they
52:58
turn it into manga ditch anything like they modernize? How accurate is it?
53:02
And I was reading Dracula let me tell you, let me tell y'all,
53:06
it's pretty accurate. So if you don't want to sit there and read an
53:08
actual like book book of Dracula, you're more and welcome to read a manga
53:14
based around the actual story of Dracula, because it's accurate to a tea on
53:16
what happens in the book that's entertaining as hell. The artwork is fabulous.
53:23
Keep that in mind. For you all who don't like to read books of
53:27
classic stories but you love comics from manga. Manga classics is the option for
53:32
you. This is not sponsored by God. I wish it fucking was.
53:36
I love that. I also have Frankenstein in this format, as well as
53:43
some of the Shakespeare stuff. Future knowledge for y'all if y'all want to go
53:47
looking. But before we end today's episode, what's your favorite iteration of Dracula
53:54
and film and TV? Uh the nineteen ninety two Dracula movie Gary Oldman portrayal
54:06
of Dracula. Okay, it's a tie between him and the Van helsing Dracula.
54:13
I love how they're both. I love how they're both like eccentric,
54:17
they're both queens. Yeah, and oh my god, just can't I can't
54:22
get over that fucking hairstyle from uh, Gary Oldman's one. I know it's
54:28
so ugly and I love it, just like ugh, like tell me,
54:36
like tell me drag queens. Don't try to like, don't use that hairstyle.
54:42
Some times it's fine. I think I'm pretty sure I've seen that hairstyle
54:45
many times. Oh that Jacob coming for drag queens, right, for drag
54:52
queens. I mean, I'm just saying, like I'm pretty sure there's been
54:57
plenty of drag queens and even hell just regular queen and using that hairstyle.
55:02
Right, it's big, it's poofy, it takes. It's just it's in
55:06
business for itself then as uh huh. And yeah, though, like you
55:17
know, of course Dracula will always be a classic, but I feel like
55:22
a lot of people avoid Dracula because of how mainstream he is now and they
55:27
try to go for like the alternative shit in terms of vampires, and like,
55:36
since we're gonna be doing a series of vampire novels, leading, I
55:39
don't know how like how long do you want to do vampire novels for like
55:45
keep up the theme of vampires, you just want to do it for a
55:46
month, or you want to like do it for a while. I think
55:50
we should do it the initial for the month of October, So I think
55:57
that would be a good point. Then kind of go off and if we
56:00
find out and if we find something else that's vampire related, like oh my
56:04
god, let's do it, and we come back to it. But yeah,
56:09
if we can do a month, Let's say we do a month.
56:14
Yeah, all right, okay, because we got the next I got,
56:19
we got the next two weeks planned out. We just need one more and
56:24
a Tiff wants to do well. She's mentioned interview with a vampire several times.
56:30
I don't know if that. Yeah, we see when we see them
56:37
this week, we could we could ask and see this something they want to
56:40
do because I can go get that book. We're doing Carmela, and uh,
56:47
we're gonna do Carmela too, right, Yes, we are going to
56:52
do Carmela, but that'd be in two weeks, and that would be another
56:53
episode. I will be front running because we gotta do the first vampire story
57:01
ever written in publication anyway, lesbian vampire herself. I inspired Dracula. Yeah
57:13
yeah, And then of course next week we're going to be doing Thirty Days
57:17
of Night. At the very least, we're going to be doing the first
57:22
issue, the first volume, which is the one the movie is based off
57:25
of, Yes, and it it's all it's a part of a trilogy.
57:32
So like I personally am going to be like I'm probably gonna end up buying
57:37
the next couple issues, the next two issues this week to read them because
57:42
it was good. Oh yeah, they're good, They're so good. And
57:46
then after I read those, I'm probably gonna end up buying the other the
57:51
Dead Space trilogy. There's a thirty Days of Night Dead Space, So these
57:55
vampires in Space love that. Yes, Thirty's Night is next week in some
58:02
form, at least the original mini series, but if both of us or
58:07
one of us or whatever reads further on into the story, we'll be talking
58:13
about that as well as well as the movie. There is a sequel to
58:15
the movie thirt Days and Night, but that's not important because it's not that
58:19
good. There's also a series, but again, yeah, yeah, so
58:23
the so the original movie will be the one we talk about in correlation to
58:28
the mini series, and then we decided to go on further. We'll go
58:31
on further, but at least get that at the bare minimum here. So
58:39
Also, my favorite iteration of Dracula is Van Helsing's Dracula, because that is
58:45
nostalgia as hell, salgic as hell. If you want to hear a whole
58:49
episode of a bunch of US hosts talking about Dracula of Ben Helsing, go
58:55
over to spook Ocalypse, and we did a whole episode on ben Helsing that
59:00
is already upload on there. So if you want to see a bunch of
59:04
uh people going, oh my god, this is so fucking good ugh Gay
59:07
Awakening, ugh by Sexual Awakening, it is so because that movie is iconic
59:14
and amazing. Henyfather thoughts. If you haven't read bram Stoker's Dracula, and
59:25
I don't do it. I don't know what the hell you're doing with your
59:28
life, but you need to, like stop what you're doing and go read
59:30
it. You gotta read the classics, my guy, my peoples out there,
59:34
you gotta read the classics, the old school Gothic horror. They paved
59:37
the way for the authors of today. Educate yourself. Okay, yeah,
59:45
because it's because of bram Stoker's Dracula that inspired so many other authors to write
59:51
their own vampire novels. But I mean, hell, believe it or not.
59:53
Even Stephanie Meyer, you know, she had to take she to inspiration
1:00:00
from those kind of these kind of vampires. But she was just like,
1:00:04
I want to write my own, so I'm gonna make it to where vampires
1:00:07
glitter, which we can go into a whole conversation on why I don't think
1:00:13
it's that bad. I have an idea to do, but that's for another
1:00:16
episode if we ever do that, which God only knows if we are,
1:00:22
I don't know. I'm not gonna suggest if we're going to the movies.
1:00:24
We're going to the movie someday on spook, so look forward to that.
1:00:29
But we are probably gonna end up doing them at some point. I'm sure.
1:00:35
Yeah, we're probably gonna end up doing them here uh after, like
1:00:42
you know, we're probably gonna end up doing them here on book watches too,
1:00:44
because you know, oh, I'm sure at some point, I'm sure
1:00:47
it's gonna come across all of them eventually if we have nothing better to do.
1:00:52
Yeah, exactly. So on that note, thank you guys for listening
1:00:57
today's episode of Ooky Spooky Dracula. Whereas next time we talk about some more
1:01:01
ooky spookiness of a town full of vampires that kill and when this little Alaska
1:01:06
town is in thirty days a night, it's fucking terrifying until then, bye
1:01:13
bye. This time, I'm actually gonna say it, I swear