Exploring Some Open Issues in Dracula

I'm not sure if its's the season of the year or something else but I've definitely been in a bit of an undead kick of late. The picture here shows what my front yard looks like as we approach Halloween, with a nice zombie apocalypse in the making. Tragically, my elder daughter has told me I'm not allowed to keep the zombie display going until Thanksgiving, even with my offer of equipping them with pilgrim duds. Though my yard is decorated by zombies I've been thinking more about vampires.

I recently reread Dracula and I've been going through some of Pelgrane Press' vampire-centric Night's Black Agents, especially the Dracula Dossier. One thing I've been thinking of is some open issues introduced by the novel Dracula, all possible fodder for gaming or stories. It's worth noting that books like The New Annotated Dracula has some great ideas for some of these open issues.

One thing I wonder about is just what Dracula was hoping to achieve by his move to England. I mean sure, he gets lots of new people to drain of blood but he goes through a large amount of effort for a brief trip that does not go very well for him. I've seen one suggestion that Dracula was engaging in an elaborate suicide. The most simple answer is he simply did want to go to a more cosmopolitan land and terrorize one of the world's greatest cities. Going for something you mind find in a game like Vampire: The Masquerade is that Dracula found himself on the losing side of a war with a rival vampire.

Also consider the character of Peter Hawkins. He is the solicitor that Dracula engaged but due to gout Hawkins sent Jonathan Harker to Dracula in his place. Hawkins dies shortly after Harker returns to England. Is everything as it seems? Or was Hawkins aware of Dracula's nature? And if so, were they true partners? Was he killed to remove a loose end?

What of Mina and Jonathan? In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen we find the two have divorced, Jonathan unable to deal with her "relationship" with Dracula. I find this a reasonable possibility - Jonathan seemed far more affected by Mina's problems than she herself did. What of their son? One thing I find myself wondering is if their son Quincey had encounters with the undead - the Great War seems a great possibility for such an encounter. Doing a little googling, I see there is a novel entitled Bloodline, by Kate Cary, which does indeed feature Quincey Harker in the Great War.

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