#mina and jonathan

[avayarising]

When Mina refers to the sealed diary as ‘an outward and visible sign’, she is referencing St Augustine: ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace’.

This is the definition of a sacrament. Mina’s trust in Jonathan, and his in her, is holy, and a means of grace for them, one to the other.

[heatherfield]

To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.

My Top Obscure/Under-Appreciated Ships [13 of ?] ↳ Jonathan and Mina, “Dracula"

[darklinaforever]

It's pretty crazy how many people I see hating the 1992 Dracula, for not being faithful to the source material ? I mean... There's no truly faithful adaptation of Dracula yet made at this point, so why is this adaptation getting the most hate for it ? What if the film was poorly written, but it isn't ? It is very well done overall. Essentially, it takes inspiration from the source material to create its own story and that's okay, as long as it's done well. And I might get haters in the face (I'm used to it) but that's what I think.

Also, the romance between Dracula & Mina rocked my childhood and I find it magnificent.

On top of that, the film has some great things to say about cinema and religion in general. I know there are a lot of problems with Coppola, but I'm focusing exclusively on the film as a whole. And you know what ? Liking this film does not prevent me from loving the novel and the original romance of Mina and Harker, hoping one day to see a faithful adaptation. Both are possible. It's fiction after all. Does it at least exist outside of me people who like the source material and the 1992 adaptation at the same time ?

[cdr200]

Jonathan even spent 37,000 Ahn on the prototype...

[everythinandanything]

I can just imagine what Lucy's first assessment of him was during the Bestie Screening.

"Woooooooowww, he's a nerd.

Mina will love him."

I love in Lucy’s letter to Mina she says “but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one, except, of course, Jonathan” so glad he passed the bestie test and is allowed to know the secrets

[minaharkerdailymirror]

[see-arcane]

Mina: "Alright, everyone pinkie swear right now to put Vampire Me down if I hop the line between death and undeath."

Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad: "Depressing, but sure, absolutely."

Jonathan:

Mina: "...Jonathan?"

Jonathan: "Yes?"

Mina: "Will you promise to slay me if I get vampire'd?"

Jonathan: "Mina, I will not lie to you."

Jonathan:

Mina: "Jonathan. I need you to look me in the eye and promise to murder me martyr-style if I get too undead."

Jonathan: "Fine. I can promise to kill."

Mina: "Me? Vampire me?"

Jonathan, making unbroken eye contact with the four guys who just promised to behead and impale his wife if she stops being human enough: "I guarantee there will be killing involved if Vampire You happens."

[piannpire]

castle dracula arc my beloved

original:

[everythinandanything]

This is why I always pretend Mina is being sarcastic when she mocks the New Women movement. Because not only is her and Jonathan's relationship more in line with New Woman ideas, it's the only option that makes sense for literally everything else about her character.

Like, her and Lucy are having brunch, and a guy walks up to them ranting about how they are outside without a chaperone and about women becoming more independent. When he leaves, Mina turns to Lucy-

"*gasp* oh no! Women are starting to advocate for premarital sex! What is the world coming to when a woman's worth isn't judged by her purity?!?!?!

[Mina's face grows in mock horror]

"Oh no, oh god no no no. Soon they will be the ones proposing!!!!!!!!!!"

[Pretends to have a heart attack while Lucy almost chokes on her food from laughing so hard]

The Harkers' marriage has much in common with what New Woman authors and their male allies were positing as an ideal union, one founded on "love and trust and friendship." (29) Friendship is a recurring theme in New Woman discussions of marriage. In an 1884 letter to Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis muses, "the best kind of union between a man and a woman is a sort of camaraderie ... between two people who care about the same things, who are going the same way, & can walk arm and arm, & kiss & encourage each other on the way." (30) Though most New Woman authors shared Caird's view that such a companionate union was "well-nigh impossible" in the present day, Stoker is more optimistic. Possessing the "love, respect, intellectual likeness, and command of the necessities of life" required for an "ideal" marriage, the Harkers could "look clear through one another's eyes into one another's hearts." (31)

In treating Mina as his peer, Jonathan Harker is most unlike John Seward, whose dealings with Lucy demonstrate an inclination to perceive a woman's beauty rather than her brains. Yet Seward, though not a New Man, has the potential to become one.

When Mina telegraphs to announce her arrival, John is far from pleased: she is a distraction from the important work of reading the papers Van Helsing has given him. "I must get her interested in something else," he determines, and "I must be careful not to frighten her" (195). Mina's appearance--"a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl" (194)--fits his stereotype of a woman needing protection. When Mrs. Harker asks to see his account of Lucy's final days, Dr. Seward declares, "Not for the wide world!" (195). "Why not?" she asks, and, realizing (with the same acuity Lucy possessed) that he is "trying to invent an excuse" for demurring, is charmed to see him, "with the naivete of a child" and "unconscious simplicity," blurt out an excuse whose truth he realizes only as he speaks it: he cannot let her listen to his account of Lucy's death because he has dictated it into his phonograph and does not know how to locate it in the cylinders (196).

His grimaces and exclamations of "That's quite true, upon my honor" and "Honest Indian!" underscore his boyishness. Bemused, Mina replies that, in that case, he must let her type out all his notes. The doctor cannot argue. Begging her pardon and admitting that she is "quite right," he makes "the only atonement in [his] power" by entrusting her with the cylinders (196). We need have no secrets amongst us," she tells him; "working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark" (197).

Impressed by her "courage and trust," he embraces her modus operandi. By the end of the evening, he has accepted on equal footing the woman he at first dismissed as an annoying distraction whom he must "be careful not to frighten," telling her, "We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task" (198). [...] In this scene, we glimpse the future Caird envisions, "when men and women shall be comrades and fellow-workers as well as lovers and husbands and wives." (32)

Winstead, K., Mrs. Harker and Dr. Van Helsing: Dracula, Fin-de-Siecle Feminisms, and the New Wo/Man

[wiliecoyotegenius]

big day today

[iamnmbr3]

Remember the bit in the book that's like -

Jonathan Harker: The only good vampire is a staked vampire.

Mina: I got bitten. I'm turning into a vampire.

Jonathan: No. We're turning into a vampire. Satan here we come.

[treespen]

More things that get left out of Dracula adaptations

Van Helsing pulls 29 year old Dr Seward's ear like he's still a schoolboy

There's a relationship-establishment flashback between Van Helsing and Seward

In it, Van Helsing accidentally gets cut with something unclean. His then-student Seward immediately drops everything to start sucking on the wound raw

At one point, Seward asks to become his "pet student again."

Dracula has a big, permanent scar on his forehead from Jonathan Harker's shovel

Arthur Holmwood saying "Tally ho!"

Transylvanians conclude that the delirious, amnesiac Jonathan Harker is English due to "his violent demeanour."

Despite attempts to keep low profile, Dracula gets into the news twice in two months (in one of them as a missing dog)

Dracula getting misreported as a dog because English people have never seen a wolf

London newspapers treat Lucy's vampire attacks on children as a meme among kids because they don't believe in vampires

Dracula gets sworn at by a British sailor solely because he thinks Dracula is French

Van Helsing baffled why British sailors keep talking about blood and bloom (it's swearing)

Van Helsing is friends with real-life turkologist traveler Arminius Vámbéry, who is his source on the Dracula family

Van Helsing is friends with Hans Christian Andersen and references The Ugly Duckling

Van Helsing getting one-upped by MinaHarker every single time he says something sexist about her intelligence

Dracula failing to destroy the evidence against him because Mina backs up her files

Jonathan getting so mad he hunts Dracula down the walls like a spiderman with a machete

Mina and Jonathan kissing on the mouth in front of everybody

Quincey Morris spontaneously gifting Mina the Victorian equivalent of a MacBook Air

Quincey Harker

[heatherfield]

UNCLEAN, adj. [insp]

“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.” To this [Jonathan] spoke out resolutely:— “Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!” —Dracula by Bram Stoker

Friends 'til the End [x]

[tiffycat]

hot girl summer vs jonathans's no good very bad business trip

[bl00dfroma-fairy]

[vivienvalentino]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula — 1992, dir. Francis Ford Coppola