#gothic hoverwolf

[arbitrarity]

the wolf, sticking his head into Lucy's second-floor window:

[atundratoadstool]

Fun fact: In the typescript for the novel, there is explicit mention of a verandah the wolf is hopping onto, which is how it busts through Lucy's second story window. Why Stoker deleted that so we're just left with the bizarre image of a gothic hoverwolf is one of those mysteries of literature never to be solved.

[lakegenevaslumberparty]

aside from the somehow-forgotten GOTHIC HOVERWOLF, two things I can’t get over about today’s post:

- Waking up from getting attacked by a giant wolf , dizzy with blood loss, under her mother’s dead body,  Lucy’s first thought as soon as the maids help her sit up is about their comfort.   She wants them to get some sherry and get to feel safe first, she doesn’t ask even one of them to stay with her, just having them leave her, alone, in her now wide-open room.  No wonder they all love her; she treats them like a priority. And I’m sure they’d have stuck with her, if they hadn’t been doped out. 

- who put the laudanum in the sherry.  I may not like Mom Westenra, but I don’t see any reason for her to do that unless she really was Drac-thralled.  it would make it harder to monitor her own dosing, and if she wants sherry with her opiates she could always just drink the sherry?? so Who. How.  Did Renfield do it somehow?? was Lucy’s mom Enthralled? one of the maids?? what happened

- Mina’s letter, ;__;  We’ve never heard a word about the Murray family; at this point I’m completely sure that Mina’s as much an orphan as Jon (or Lucy, now). Mina has no family to share her joy, no one to write to about her stress or her fierce love or her hopes. She has Lucy.  I’m sure she’s been completely swamped with the general Everything, and the nature of friendships is that they allow a certain laxity in correspondence-- Mina knows that Lucy knows she’s been busy with the wedding and Jon, Mina assumes that Lucy’s  been busy with her wedding plans and her mom’s health, there’s no reason at all to worry, she just wants to share joy with her Person, probably the only other person on earth right now who’ll be interested in her news just for love of Mina, the way Mina is interested in all Lucy’s news. But Lucy’s not there. Lucy isn’t dead yet (I am SURE she’s not Gone until Quincey’s given her blood too) but she’s already gone, too weak even to read her best friend’s letter. She won’t even get that proxy joy. Mina won’t be able to share that with anyone, because the friends she’s going make are going to come in a time when that happiness has been blasted apart. Dracula is destroying Mina’s whole life and she doesn’t even know Draculas Exist yet. I’m not really Scared with Dracula right now but I am crying in real life, why is this all so awful, what cursed the Harker family??