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calliopes_pen) wrote2017-02-20 08:06 am
calliopes_pen) wrote2017-02-20 08:06 am
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Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula
So as promised, I read Powers of Darkness, by Valdimar Ásmundsson, and translated by Hans De Roos (which he accomplished with the help of many, many others, based on the credited people in the end of the book) and basically catalogued all the differences I could catch between what was formerly known as Makt Myrkranna, and the Stoker version.The biggest two differences are the fact the castle portion is far longer, while everything after that switches over from epistolary to a rushed format with an omniscient third person narration. Jonathan becomes Thomas. Mina becomes Wilma. Lucy becomes Lucia.
-New characters added include a deaf and mute housekeeper/daytime protector for Dracula, showing that there’s at least one other mortal in the castle. Lucia gains an uncle named Morton. Hawkins has another agent named Tellet. Dracula has a circle of vampires in his control that feels a bit like a cult...and some of the vampires resemble apes, because they (and Dracula, according to a revelation somewhere in there) are in actuality likely evolved half men and half animals. In spite of the whole turning to dust thing when killed.
-The Countess is Dracula’s cousin, and yes there’s mention that it’s an incestuous relationship. There is a mention that Dracula had and lost three wives, so let’s pretend those would have been the mortal versions of the three women in the Stoker version. Thomas gets several clandestine meetings with the Countess, and Dracula keeps on interrupting.
-Thomas Harker spends an even longer time wandering the corridors of the castle than Jonathan did in the Stoker version. He also stumbles into a sacrificial area in a hidden temple in a locked room in a deserted corridor in the castle, as one does. He can also reach it via a spot pushed in the floor of his closet, since the trumpets worry him later.
-In the moment when Thomas cuts himself shaving after not having seen Dracula behind him—from the sound of it, Dracula actually had glowing red eyes at that point, and his hair literally stands on end. Dracula grabs his throat, and tears open his shirt. “…would have probably bitten my windpipe had my rosary not gotten in the way. He must have been momentarily possessed.” Thomas is fine with it, and just simply decides the Count is “not of sound mind.” The mirror doesn’t go out the window, but into a furnace/fireplace.
-Unlike the Stoker version, Thomas opted to bring a revolver with him in this version. He thinks about it quite a bit upon the appearance of wolves on the way to the castle, but doesn’t go digging about in his luggage to find it. Later, Dracula goes to light candles, Thomas freaks out about something, and grabs his revolver before he calms down. Dracula then takes him on a long tour of his portrait gallery. He never actually uses it at any point in the novel.
-Dracula doesn’t want to just bite people, but overthrow the governments for all of Europe, while wearing a military uniform and not a cape.
-In this version? After Thomas sees the Count go scaling down the wall like a lizard, he pulls out a revolver, makes sure it’s loaded, drinks some cognac to steady his nerves and--crawls back into his bed to hide. He also couldn’t tell it was Dracula due to a hood over the head.
-The next morning Thomas opts to use a small telescope to see if anyone was on the roof where the hooded Dracula went. He finds a woman, dead, with her neck ripped out. In this version, since there’s no baby for the brides (who aren’t there) there is also no mother that Jonathan saw getting devoured by wolves. It’s this instead. He notes someone must be told, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s locked in and a prisoner.
-At one point, Thomas explores the castle and bumps into a large mirror between windows, which sounds like it almost resembles the one in the flashback in Dracula (1968). There aren’t any mirrors (aside from the one thrown out the window upon the interruption of Jonathan shaving) in the Stoker one. Thomas goes through so many corridors that he gets dizzy and feels faint, before he ever reaches fresh air. It is noted that the night air causes illness.
There is also a nearby waterfall, near the main gate. Upon discovering this, a vampire attacks and either tries or does bite his throat, because there’s a mention of a mark later. He believes he imagined it until he notes his shirt was torn open. After more walking and another passageway, he finds a chapel with the bones of sacrifices.
-Another thing different in this version: After ending up in the southwest corner of the castle after this wandering, Thomas sees a family mourning the murdered woman of earlier as they find the body. He watches as they stake her with the branch of a mountain ash before they carry her off. After that, he resumes his wandering.
-As a footnote mentions as well, in Stoker’s version, Jonathan scales the outside wall, enters a room and finds gold. In this, Thomas explores, finds gold, and then just finds a door back to the dining room, which is unlocked for a minute. That’s when he notices a bite, and decides he is famished actually, and should have a bit of food after all that excitement. The woman serves him, locks him in, and he just smokes a cigar.
-Thomas gets upset on May 12th when he awakens to the Count looming over him beside his bed. The Count tells him to take off his clothes, but we are not being taken down the slashier path. Thomas obeys, and is simply told he fell asleep with his clothes on and he wished to make him more comfortable. He thinks about that lie later, and finally recalls what really happened.
In the Stoker version, Jonathan willfully defies Dracula and chooses to sleep where he shouldn’t; in this version, Thomas couldn’t help it, and from the sound of things was placed in a trance by the Countess based on how vague it all is for him after he feels lips on his throat. Dracula interrupts, and says something that Harker doesn’t understand. So we don’t get “This man belongs to me!”
Speaking in German, after she’s gone, Dracula merely demands to know what Thomas thinks he’s doing there and holds a lamp to his face. In the Stoker version, Jonathan fainted in horror (from the baby in the bag, which doesn’t appear here), and was then carried back to his room by the Count. Here, it’s implied Thomas might have been bitten, or was just mind controlled for a minute. He tries to stand, but is commanded to lie down and does so. Dracula examines him, stroking his forehead and throat, and asks him if he was bitten in his sleep. And that is the last he recalls until he sees the Count standing beside his bed.
He is then commanded to sleep, and obeys. It is unclear if Dracula himself ever bites him. Whatever the case, Jonathan was never bitten in the Stoker version; he just came quite close to it.
-Thomas asks to go and Dracula wishes him to stay longer, tempting him with rare law journals…and it does actually work, leading to this passage, which made me laugh in spite of his weird situation. “I am now starting to write an essay for the Law Journal on the legal procedures of Hungary, past and present. The Count was right when he said that his library was an inexhaustible treasure for a lawyer.”
While I do love books myself, I’m quite certain that I would have fled into the daylight at the first opportunity, and not just resumed cataloging things.
-The Countess keeps meeting up with Thomas, and trying to get him to remove his cross. He resists her very quietly, and says no once. Cue a series of other attempts, all silently thwarted! I did find it funny when he opens the door preparing to leave his room one night, holds up a lantern, sees her there beckoning him, and basically just sighs, turns around, and closes the door since he can’t do much else to resist her allure. Granted, he mentally called her to him at least once after realizing how weak he was, and she interrupts him mid-sentence when he’s writing in his journal. It was uncomfortable for him. Dracula keeps on breaking them up.
-In Dracula, Jonathan sees the Count scaling the wall wearing Jonathan’s travel clothes. In this, Thomas sees someone else doing that. In Dracula, Jonathan tries to kill the Count with a shovel and only leaves a mark on the forehead; in this, Thomas sees the Count asleep during the day in a coffin, and…decides to turn right around and go back to his own room.
-In Dracula, Jonathan is told he can leave one night, but wolves are howling and leaping for the door as it slowly opens and he begs Dracula to close it. In this, Thomas is only told it’s safer inside at night; no wolves.
-Thomas seems to find a way out of the castle on June 24th, and is on the verge of escape: “but then an irresistible desire overwhelms me and I cannot control myself any longer.” He wanted the Countess, so there went that escape plan.
-Dracula gives Thomas a ring, and he feels odd and I can only assume the ring hypnotized him or something. He almost blacks out and is dizzy just from looking at it. Later, he’s supposed to leave for Budapest via a coach prior to Dracula’s departure, and begins packing, and is overwhelmed by the desire to wear it. He puts it on, feels funny and that something is burning through his veins, sort of recovers and flings it away from him, sitting in a chair in a stupor, and then…just goes back to bed. Honestly, I had wondered if it would turn him into Dracula’s secret mind controlled agent, but it didn’t.
He oversleeps by probably over an hour, and is alone in the castle save for the Countess. Eventually, after another couple attempts to leave but not really feeling like it, he makes a rope out of the sheets and climbs down. He falls, and ends up with total amnesia and brain fever, along with a great dose of hysteria…none of which is shown, for the moment he falls is the last of the journal format. Also, that way he escaped and the amnesia bit feels a little like the Czech version that I watched last year online. Hrabe Drakula (1971) was the name of that one.
After the castle section is ended, Powers of Darkness switches completely over to third person narration, and is as brief as it’s possible to be.
-In Dracula, the reason for Lucy’s sleepwalking is something hereditary. In Powers of Darkness, it’s suddenly mentioned that it’s because Lucia’s father was promiscuous. I have read folklore to that effect, but it’s odd here.
-The proposals from Quincey, Arthur and Seward to Lucia/Lucy are completely omitted and mentioned in passing in the course of one paragraph. There is no detail to Lucia and Wilma’s friendship, so I prefer Mina and Lucy’s. Dracula randomly meets Lucia and Wilma in the cemetery, under the alias of Baron Szekely. He’s in a “talkative mood” but little of what’s discussed is made known to the reader. The only specific bit that’s actually dialogue is that the Count believes Lucia is psychic, and believes she should hone her talents--she goes to a fortune teller and sees Arthur kiss a woman on the cheek, but it was only his sister.
-Not one single person sees bite marks on Lucia's throat, from what I could tell. And I think the Count visited her sickbed.
-Instead of the maids being dosed with laudanum, one housemaid is murdered in the garden. There is no suspense when Lucia is attacked, and her mother dies, or during the transfusions of blood, because it’s just like the proposals and not really expanded upon. No dialogue, no POV, just the omniscient narrator at that bit.
-After Lucia dies, there’s a difference. Unlike Lucy, she doesn’t become the Bloofer Lady. She doesn’t get staked. She doesn’t bite children. Arthur apparently slept in the room with her body, saw her revive and smile at him, and he passed out. So…Van Helsing decides to keep the lid off the coffin when they bury her, just in case she was buried alive. There is no occurrence of “poor communication kills” as there was with the Stoker version.
-Wilma receives word of Thomas’ supposed movements, which were really the guy dressed like him (the imposter is killed off, in a passing mention in one paragraph, and I don’t think Wilma ever knows; I might be wrong) and goes to Budapest. In something like three paragraphs, Hawkins tags along, they go to and enter the castle, and Wilma hurts her leg and goes to a convent….which, coincidentally, is the same one Thomas is in.
She becomes his pen pal from down the hall, and never recognizes his handwriting. Wilma bumps into Sister Agatha, learns where they found the guy, and never figures out it’s Thomas. Eventually, she wants to visit with him. When they see each other, they both faint. And then in a few more vague paragraphs they get married, Hawkins dies of heart disease, and Wilma and Harker end up in Vienna in passing, apparently to consult with a not named Sigmund Freud, and Thomas is told just to not think about what caused the amnesia. A bit later, they spot the Count in the street. There is no dialogue of “It is the man himself…but grown younger!” However, like Jonathan, Thomas goes to sleep on Mina’s shoulder and forgets the sighting.
There is a passing mention from Van Helsing of Arthur being ill ever since Lucia was buried, and that he thinks the Powers of Darkness are rising. Neither he nor Lucia are ever mentioned again, so I guess she’s at large and he may have been bitten and doomed? I don’t know. Suddenly, after a talk with Van Helsing, Thomas’ memory returns. After Thomas regains his memories, it feels like Wilma is promptly forgotten.
-As I stated in a comment on Livejournal, there is no Renfield in this version. The Countess appears to Seward and either bites or hypnotizes him—since he feels life draining and is woozy, it could be either. Later, there’s the dinner party with Dracula where he passes out in a chair and wonders if he was hypnotized and what all the weirdness was.
-Off panel, Seward goes mad and “leaves the asylum in chaos.” I have no idea how he left it in chaos since we leave the party and switch to that later, and it’s mentioned in passing just like that. However, Van Helsing and Thomas go to check in and see Seward and Quincey mostly naked and dressed in rags, with the latter dealing with a head wound out on the front lawn.
As a result, they (minus Seward and Quincey) head off to Carfax…at sundown. Dracula wakes up on cue, sees Thomas and this is Thomas’ death scene in its entirety: “In a flash he jumped out of the coffin and attacked him, hacking and slashing at his chest. All became dark before Harker’s eyes, but in the same moment the Count fell lifeless, swimming in his own blood: Van Helsing had stabbed him through the heart with a dagger.” From there, Dracula is a small heap of dust.
-The Countess is never seen again. Dracula’s minions are still alive, but scattered, and it’s stated that a few of the people in his power/employ that are important people have vanished, too. As previously stated, Lucia and Arthur are never seen again, and are forgotten. Thomas is dead. Wilma isn’t bitten. Quincey lives, and it’s mentioned he was questioned by police and then released. Seward burns to death in his asylum off panel. Van Helsing seems to simply wander away after he kills Dracula.
-Nobody goes to Transylvania following a chase across Europe by train, unlike in Stoker’s novel. It stays in England, and little Quincey Harker isn’t going to be born in this version of the story, given that Thomas is dead and Wilma is…wherever Wilma wandered off.
All in all, I like that Jonathan/Thomas’ part in the castle is expanded, and agree with other reviews I’ve seen that the rest should have been expanded, too. It feels too rushed. I prefer Dracula’s speech to Jonathan of “What devil or witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood flows in these veins?” over him telling Thomas about the life of the Countess. It’s worth reading, for the sake of the curiosity value.
I’m almost tempted to throw Powers of Darkness on the list of ‘maybe I’ll nominate it’ for Yuletide 2017 whenever the time rolls around again, just so the vague portions could be expanded upon. I might not since there’s already something Dracula related I wanted to nominate at that point, but the option to read what in the world happened to Arthur and Lucia is something I’d love to see. That, or what Seward actually did that caused chaos in the asylum prior to him burning it all down.
Den of Geek’s review (with the history of how this book came to be) can be found here. They also note the Countess going for Thomas is a bit like how Horror of Dracula (1958) later did it, and I agree. Lit Hub’s review is here.
no subject
LOL. As you say, there are moments when other things like self-preservation should come before love of books! Also, wow, everyone winds up having a pretty terrible fate in this one! And Seward is having a lot of action off-screen here. (I'd imagine, to be honest, that since he's in charge of the asylum, merely running off would leave it 'in chaos' in itself - doubly so, of course, if he destroyed or took with him any accounts or money or something like that.)
However, Van Helsing and Thomas go to check in and see Seward and Quincey mostly naked and dressed in rags, with the latter dealing with a head wound out on the front lawn.
Between this and the bit where Dracula wants to get Jonathan/Thomas naked, I'm not sure I believe you about this not being the slashier version! (It does kind of sound as if Stoker and the translator were pretty much fanficcing everything - it's an AU, let's kill everyone off this time! Plus, bonus slash and hurt/comfort and disappearing the women.)
Thanks for the list! It was very interesting to read. (I was curious, but not at a level of reading the book (yet, anyway) and this is great - I still need to re-read the original more steadily at some point.) :-)
no subject
Between this and the bit where Dracula wants to get Jonathan/Thomas naked, I'm not sure I believe you about this not being the slashier version!
Tbe bit where Dracula is trying to get Thomas naked--I have seen a fanfic exactly like that, too! I don't recall the title, but Jonathan wakes up like that and is then forced to drink from Dracula and becomes a vampire utterly devoted to him.
Thanks to reading Kim Newman's review of Powers of Darkness yesterday, I learned that when it was originally published, it was in small chunks at a time in newspapers. Not originally as a book; presumably by the time (over a year in newspapers) Thomas gets out of the castle, people just wanted it to end. So the bare minimum of details to get it done faster.
And hey, there's a teeny fanbase for Quincey/Arthur at least, since they spent the time together sharing a bed just prior to the attack on Mina from Dracula. Why not one for this version of Seward/Quincey. (I remember Assimbya made a list of all the pairings that could work from the novel--I'll find it for you. Here we go.)
Something else that might have left the asylum in chaos--letting the patients free to attack everyone, and orderlies confused and trying to close them back up as Seward follows and lets them right back out.
no subject
Not originally as a book; presumably by the time (over a year in newspapers) Thomas gets out of the castle, people just wanted it to end. So the bare minimum of details to get it done faster.
Ah, yes, that would make some sense of it.