After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Who is the Real Dracula? The Bloody History

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

This is the incredible history of Dracula, from medieval ruler Vlad the Impaler, to Bram Stoker and the Victorian theatre world. Get ready for a very bloody history indeed!Anthony tells Maddy the story this week.Written by Anthony Delargy. Edited by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here.

Wendy's has a new breakfast deal. Mix and match two items of your choice for only $4. Breakfast wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small seasoned potatoes or small hot coffee. Choose two for $4 at Wendy's. Available for a limited time at participating Wendy's in Canada. Taxes extra. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. And today we are sinking our teeth, see what I just said? I see, I do.

Into the history behind the myth of Dracula. And just a warning up top, this is going to get pretty graphic. Are we ready? Settle in. Let's go. The stories that follow are some 600 years old. They are translated from one of the oldest surviving versions of the story of Vlad, Prince of Wallachia, perhaps better known as Vlad the Impaler, or Prince Dracul.

But be warned, what follows is not for the faint-hearted, so if you'd rather not enter the world of the Impaler Vlad, then now might be the time to turn back. of the impaler Vlad, then now might be the time to turn back. Okay, now that the others have gone, this history can begin. It comes to us from Nuremberg and dates from 1488. In the year of our Lord, 1456, Prince Dracul, Dracula, did many dreadful and curious things. He had some of his people buried naked up to the navel and had them shot at. He also had some roasted and flayed.

He had a large pot made and boards with holes fastened over it and had people's heads shoved through headfirst first and upside down, and imprisoned them thus. Then he had the pot filled with water and a big fire made under the pot. Thus the people cried out pitiably until they were boiled quite to death. He had all kinds of peoples impaled sideways, Christians, Jews, heathens, so that they moved and twitched and whimpered in confusion like frogs. Afterwards, he had their hands and feet also impaled. He observed in his language, oh, with what great skill they move. He had his amusement in this way. Another time,

some Italian ambassadors were sent to him. They bowed and removed their hats in his presence, but they kept on the berries beneath them. He asked them why they did not take their berries off. They said it was their custom and that they did not even remove them for the emperor. Dracula said, I wish to reinforce this for you. He immediately had their berries nailed firmly on their heads so that they would never fall off again and their custom would remain. Prince Dracul had children roasted. These their mothers had to eat. He cut the women's breasts off. These their husbands had to eat. Afterward, he had them all impaled. Now soon after this, the king of Hungary captured him and kept him for a long time in severe captivity.

Afterwards, he let himself be baptised publicly as a Roman Catholic and did great penance. um wow yeah no this is this is the comedy Maddy. This is the definitely no deaths in this one. This is like, okay, so we've got Prince Dracul, Vlad the Impaler, living up to his name. I knew that he had a bloody history, but that was quite intense. Yeah, no, it's, and also it's written in this real 15th century way that's like,

and then, and then this happened. And actually here's just a list of a billion things he's done. Here's an everyday matter of fact list of all these incredibly brutal things. But then, at the end, he converted to Catholicism and now he did loads of good things. So actually, you don't need to worry about it. Now, if I were to say, like if I said to you, Dracula or a vampire, let's say what what are the images it conjures up what are your what are your experiences with dracula well it's interesting because i always struggle with vlad the impaler being the sort of foundation i agree with this for dracula because impaling people

it's not the same ain't the same thing i mean it's very bloody there's literally you know there's a lot of real body shock horror if that was a film it would be you know pretty grim but this is not the fanged man with the cape holding it up over his eyes this is not the guy who can turn into a bat and sneak through your bedroom window to seduce you and drain you of your blood i'm assuming these tropes come much later on. So why is there that link between the vampire that we know today as Dracula, as a cultural idea, a cultural trope,

and Vlad the Impaler? It's a good question. I think it comes to us from Stoker, and will come to Stoker, but you're absolutely right. This is so much more than Vlad the Impaler. And actually, some of the Vlad the Impaler links are pretty tenuous. So there is a school of thought, and it's often medical school of thought, that goes

that we have a medical history for this and that being proferia. And so you may have heard of proferia in terms of george iii and the madness of king george but it was essentially a blood disease and it encouraged different symptoms such as sensitivity to light so that's that was one of the things that was associated with it are you telling me that george iii was a vampire well you can draw your own conclusions from this one but also fangs in addition to facial disfigurement, that might have come out. There would be dental disfigurement as well.

Blood drinking. Now, it's not so much blood drinking, but the urine would be dark in colour, often quite a purpley-red colour. And so that was seen as blood-like. And then some people would drink the urine. The proferia sufferers would drink the urine, so therefore it would be linked to drinking blood.

And this is all pre-Vlad, by the way. And it was an aversion to garlic as well, if you had proferia sufferers would drink the urine, so therefore it would be linked to drinking blood. And this is all pre-Vlad, by the way. And it was an aversion to garlic as well, if you had Proferia. And then, yeah, then other things like the fear of the crucifix and things. But that was because the interpretation was that they were afraid of dying. So it's not a literal fear of the crucifix.

But come to Vlad. So Vlad is born in 1431, and he's the son of the nobleman Vlad Dracul, who you would have found in modern day Romania. He is called the son of the dragon. Now, unfortunately, in their native tongue, dragon also could mean devil. So this is where you're getting some of these darker things coming in.

So it's, you know, it's building up. Immediately, they're a family with a not great reputation yeah although although he is in transylvania or you know areas that are modern day transylvania and it is it is a time and an area that's full of violence the ottoman empire is constantly incurred incurring on the edges of this land. As a matter of fact, Vlad, when he was 11, I think it was, he was taken hostage and he was kept hostage by agents of the Ottoman Empire. And he was used as a bartering tool for Vlad II

to side with the Ottoman Empire. And so, you know, he's experienced some stuff that by no means is an explanation for what we're about to experience. But one of the things that I think is most disturbing. So we get to June 1462, right? And the Turkish army is approaching where Vlad and his family are held up. Is he an adult now? He is indeed. He's not a hostage. He's out of his hostageness. He had, I'm going to get my figures right here, 23,844 captives impaled in a semicircle as the Turkish army were approaching his lands. And that was to stop them going any further. Now, it was...

It would put me off. I know, it'd make you go, let's not go that way. Intense summer heat too, by the way. So they're rotting, they're stinking, the flies are around. It's bad. I'm not buying this figure. That's a very specific amount of people. How do we know this in, what are we in? The 15th century. Yeah, no, the amount of people.

Come on. I mean, why does it end in a four? I mean, I love it as a detail, but 23,844. Yeah. No, it doesn't make any sense. 23,844, wherever that number has been picked from i think it's very much part of lad's mythology as this is getting you know together later on as a historical figure because there's obviously so much myth here there's so much augmentation expansion of the story there's so much fictionalization put onto it as a historical

figure what do we think was going on with him the violence that he meets out in order to maintain his power the fact that it has this legend born of it that morphs in different ways in european culture but is always monstrous he is a monster yeah as a real human being a real historical historical person, what's his deal? Is he a psychopath? Is he monstrous? Was he doing, you know, was he impaling 10 people? And it's been, I mean, that's not great, but is it just being exaggerated? I mean, it has been exaggerated. It's definitely been exaggerated.

However, this reputation grew up in his own time too. So this isn't just something that's coming about, you know, in the Victorian era or whatever. This is something that's happening in his own lifetime. And for that to be happening in what is a relatively violent period of time and geographical location because of the conflict that's happening between the Ottoman Empire and these lands in Eastern Europe. There's some truth in it.

There must have been something in it where somebody went, now he's a badden. That's a bit extra what he's doing there. And to prove it, there is an account of him burning a whole Transylvanian suburb in a winter raid. And so he has them impaled and he sits amongst this scene of carnage and he's mopping up the blood of the dead with bread okay so we there's the blood okay a point to make here maybe so in the story that you read at the beginning he is he's converted to christianity is and this idea of consuming blood and you just said there he's mopping it with the bread that feels like a christian ritual that's like yeah yeah the body and the body and blood of christ yeah so that idea of mopping up the blood and consuming it it's monstrous but it is also part of an existing christian ritual it is and especially if you bring that transubstantiation into it.

Although we should say that in terms of Christianity, it's wine and not blood. Yes, well, here you go. That's exactly the distinction I was going to say, because what we have here is a battlefield. And so it might be picking up on tropes that are far more polite, let's say. But the tropes here are very human, not divine.

And so we have humanly blood spilled in the ground and he is eating. And as a matter of fact, I have an image of this for you. So this is from the time, well, just shortly after, but we're still talking 15th century. And it comes to us from Germany. So that lets us know that it's spreading. So we're talking 1488 for this image. So that lets us know that it's spreading.

It's spreading. We're talking 1488 for this image. So we're, you know, kind of 20 years later. So in time honoured after dark tradition, give us an hour go of it there, Maddy. Tell us what you can see. Oh my God, there are so many elements to this. Okay, so it's an engraving. It's probably a woodcut.

There's sort of, I would say, three areas. So in the background of this scene we can see a nice castle and some trees and hills. We're in a landscape here. In this landscape there are wooden stakes sticking up from the ground into the air with sharpened points and there are numerous bodies impaled on them in various poses, in various extents of distress. on them in various poses in various extents of distress in the foreground on the left hand side we have possibly a servant i suppose chopping up bodies and looks like cooking them over a fire and on the right we've got a figure who i assume is vlad the impaler yeah he sat at a table which given the horror of the scene,

he's got a tablecloth on the table, which I think is very polite. And he's feasting. He's got a cup and a plate. He's feasting on, presumably, these bodies. It's a pretty, overall, it's a pretty grim scene. There's cannibalism, there's impaling, there's the cooking of bodies,

there's the chopping up of bodies. See the hand underneath the table as well, actually, clearly he's been consuming so much, he's just kind of thrown it away. And there's a foot there as well. Yeah, yeah. But it feeds into, what we have been talking about, okay, maybe not 23,000 bodies, but it feeds into this idea that he is at the centre of chaos. But is he a vampire? From any of this... What are your criteria, though? Well, what are you getting that says vampire to you in this depiction?

Because he is the person... He's a cannibal, but maybe not a vampire. He's a cannibal, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, he's a cannibal. And I guess cannibalism and vampires are linked, but it's not explicit, though, because they don't eat the flesh, necessarily, although that's not the only criteria

for cannibalism, of course. But the stake through the heart thing is part of vampire lore, obviously. Yes, we've got that with the impaled bodies. But here's the other thing. Okay, this blood story was around the dipping of the bread and blood was around very shortly

after he was alive or even potentially in his lifetime. But it's not the same thing as we saw with the bloody countess, remember, where she was drinking blood The bread and blood was around very shortly after he was alive or even potentially in his lifetime. But it's not the same thing as we saw with the bloody countess, remember, where she was drinking blood to remain youthful. And maybe that says something in itself. He's not doing that. What is his motivation just to horrify his enemies? Again, though, I think it comes back to that Christianisation,

but it's a bastardisation of it, I think. But Christianisation, but it's a bastardisation of it, I think. This transformation that you consume something of your enemies or the people that you have power over, you physically consume part of them and it gives you power. And I think that is vampiric. Yes, that's true. That's really true, actually. I still don't... You're right, but I still don't get... To me, he's not as frightening

as a vampire is i wouldn't like to meet him no and we ain't going to because it's not 14 60 whatever yeah but yes i i know you mean he he feels very human to me nonetheless i think that's my point he feels like it's grounded in earthly things and humanity. And so that's the tension here. But if we fast forward a little bit, and let's go to the 19th century, it's quite a big fast forward. Let's go to the 19th century and perhaps a vampire figure

that we're a little bit more familiar with. I feel like Vlad's story gives us all the ingredients for a vampire story, but it doesn't necessarily cook them up in the way that we need. And I feel like the next story is going to give us that complete recipe. Yes.

We'll be right back. at Wendy's. Available for a limited time at participating Wendy's in Canada. Taxes extra. Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr. Six wives, six lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. To be continued... But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily, I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and, with giant's power, draw it back. Her blue eyes transformed with fury, her white teeth champing with rage, and her fair cheeks blazing red with passion.

But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hellfire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires. The thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him and then motioned to the others as though he were beating them back. It was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper,

seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room, he said, How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all, this man belongs to me. So no points for guessing which this is from. I'm settled in for the whole audio. Oh, look, I'll do the whole thing. Let's go. So this is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

It is indeed. Now, I lived for a long time in Yorkshire and I would often drive across the moors to Whitby, which, of course, is where Dracula's ship is shipwrecked and he comes ashore in England for the first time. So I feel like Dracula has, Bram Stoker's Dracula anyway, has a special place in my Yorkshire missing heart. Interestingly.

Your heart is missing. It's missing Yorkshire. That was a very strange phrasing, wasn't it? I love, so every year in Whitby there's a goth festival. Yes. Which I accidentally took my little nieces to once I love, so every year in Whitby there's a goth festival. Yes. Which I accidentally took my little nieces to once. Nice. And they were absolutely terrified and far too young to go.

We did not realise it was on. It was fantastic. Would go again. But when this festival happens, I mean, literally hundreds, if not thousands of goths and people dressed in incredible costumes come to Whitby. And when they go, they go up to the the church which is on the top of the hill and there's the monastery ruin there and it's all incredible and so many people come that actually

there's loads of damage done to the graveyard and it's a real problem and I think there's been talk about and maybe this has been implemented of making a fake copy to scale of the graveyard so that people can experience that. Because the damage has got so bad that the bodies, because it's on top of the cliff, are moving. Are moving.

And some of them are ending up, there's landslides and they're sliding into people's gardens. Don't bury people on hills. It's not great. If time has taught us anything. Yeah. It's not.

But I didn't realise they were going to do a replica but they do have signs up don't they saying there is no grave here chill out guys it's such a sassy note on the church door

so it literally it's typed up as well I think it says like stop asking us where Dracula's grave is he's not real and he's not buried here I love it

and there's some really nice pews in that church by the way so I'd now go in oh incredible and loads of little maritime details loads of anchors everyone i think there may even be some mermaids in there you know oh probably we need an after dark trip

to whitby okay so getting back to bram stoker yes dracula bram stoker all i know about him is that he wrote dracula and that he's irish and i don't really know much else beyond that so can you fill in the gaps yeah i mean he is irish he did write Dracula. Yeah, yeah, all of that is true. I've done my homework. That's all we need to know. I can go home now. There's a few bits else to him that I think are interesting in the context of this story.

One being that he married in 1878, rather, Florence Belcombe, and she had been not engaged to Oscar Wilde previously, but she had been matched with him and that didn't quite work out. Much to his dismay and hers, I'm sure. Yeah, well, yeah. And funnily enough, there were also insinuations around Stoker as well.

Some kind of queer leanings, insinuations there too. So that is interesting, but she was apparently a great beauty and Wilde was sorry to lose her, I think. It was not something he was delighted about. Well, it's interesting that you say about potentially Bram Stoker's queerness because I do think the story of Dracula in his hands

becomes quite queer and Dracula himself is, I think maybe for the first time, I don't know, but certainly in this story is a very sexualised character and he is sexually attractive to all the characters in the story, male or female. It doesn't matter. He's this really seductive person who draws people in. And I wonder how much Bram Stoker was playing with his own feelings in that or his own sexuality in some way. We'll talk about that in just a minute, actually, because it does potentially come into it.

He was, this is kind of, maybe we're reading too much into it, but it's relevant in some ways. But he was bedridden with a mystery illness when he was a child. It started at the age of seven and then he just made a complete recovery. It just went away. But he was very, very sickly as a child. Again, are we imposing that back? You know, we know he wrote Dracula and this gothic thing. I mean, I think we can, with some certainty,

say that that would have developed his imagination. Sure, absolutely. He would have needed to go into a world of his own imagining in order to escape being bedbound. What most people don't know about him, however, is that he was very much a theatre person. And he ran theatres. He ran the Lyceum, where The Lion King is now.

And actually, my husband worked at that theatre for a long time as theatre manager. And he was, Bram Stoker was theatre manager a long time before my husband was. And he was the assistant of an actor, Sir Henry Irving. And Irving was the owner of the Lyceum. But Stoker ran it for him on his behalf. And he also helped him in other things. He acted as an agent for him. There was other things that he was involved in.

But there are some people more recently who think rather than Vlad being that much of an inspiration actually that it was Henry Irving himself who was the inspiration. Now again, I'm not saying Toon or From is probably a collection of all of it

but Irving apparently had, and this was commented at the time, a demonic control over him, over Stoker. And Stoker had written about Irving's reading of different monsters in theatre, in 19th century theatre. And he described those readings as that Irving had given a wonderful impression of a dead man fictitiously alive with eyes like cinders glowing red. So it brings in this idea that we see with the Count later that he's got these animal-like eyes. He talks about wolf's eyes, I think, at some point. But also this incredible magnetism.

Someone who other people are absolutely drawn to. And obviously this is the kind of relationship that Stoker and irving had whether it was a sexual relationship or not there's obviously some level of obsession there and attraction yes and a power dynamic that we see with dracula and his victims and the people around him that he is able to exert some kind of control over them. That's fascinating. And what's really kind of sad as well is that Stoker, to keep the rights of Dracula, to keep the dramatic rights, he had a reading of it at the Lyceum and Irving played Dracula.

And afterwards he said to him, you know, what did you think? Do you think there's a dramatic future for this? Which, of course, we know there have been now. But the only thing that Irving has recorded as saying back to him was that it was dreadful. Yeah, I know. It's sad, isn't it?

I know. So apparently this was very much that kind of dynamic between them. Irving being the famous, Stoker wasn't famous in his own lifetime. And keeping Stoker down. And keeping him down in his place. Which is a very vampiric thing to do. Well, yeah. And so when I read that,

I'd never heard that theory before, but when I read that in preparation for this, I kind of went, oh, I'm buying that so much more than the Vlad thing. Of course there's elements of the Vlad thing coming in, but this idea of kind of a succubus that's taking from you and that's costing you something. And then actually it's not so much about the guts and gore

and the blood. It's about really intimate, small-scale human relationships, actually. And the other thing to realise as well, this is obviously important when we think about it, because Stoker didn't invent the vampire. He invented Count Dracula, butoker didn't invent the vampire. He invented Count Dracula, but he didn't invent the vampire because there were vampires in literature

from the 18th century, we think, is kind of the... Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampires. Yes, Camilla. Camilla. Is that what it's called? There's an incredible indie film adaptation of that. It has Greg Wise amongst other people.

He's the only actor i could think that to name but okay so he he doesn't create the vampire but dracula becomes the archetypal vampire going forward and he endures into all these other retellings yeah and i think the the idea of dracula that we're left with today that kind of the vampire as we know him because let's move beyond dracula because dracula is a a person, a figure in theory, right? But the idea of that vampire is very much Stoker's idea, I think, overall. There is the blood drinking, there is the perpetual life, or at least a very extended life.

Siring is a thing that we come to know. Well, that's, I mean, that's so fascinating that there's this idea of vampiric reproduction that's separate from human quote-unquote natural reproduction i will say stoker doesn't invent that that that predates stoker but yes the point still stands yeah and this this idea of yes as you say siring other vampires transforming other people through a bodily exchange, bodily interaction, but also one that is ritualistic, which feels semi-religious to me. It's about sex.

It's all these things mixed together. And I think, okay, so Bram Stoker isn't the father. He hasn't sired the vampire. Yeah. Stoker isn't the father, he hasn't sired the vampire. Yeah. But he gives us a distilled, concentrated version of that that I think is the version that endures. Yeah.

Why is it in the 19th century then? Rather than, okay, we said it begins in the 18th century, but what happens in the 19th century that makes this so pertinent? Well, I think we can, on the one hand, you can look at it as being part of this sort of broader gothic tradition so we have all kinds of monsters coming into play and we've got this idea of a tension between the polite veneer of society and something sexier and more dangerous going on. I'm thinking about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example, being the perfect example of that dichotomy in one character. Think about the Brontës writing.

You've got Heathcliff and then his opposite, Linton, who are both Vyfer Cathy's hands in Wuthering Heights. And they're, on the one hand, the sort of wild man who's all rugged and he's part of the landscape and he doesn't adhere to any kind of moral values or societal rules and then you've got linton who's this kind of premed performative you find this throughout 19th century literature and i think we can see dracula as part of that i think there's something as well about exoticism in the 19th century about empire about othering dracula is a foreigner yes he's from

europe but he's he comes to british shores on a ship there's a shipwreck there's a lot there about 19th century anxieties about the world and traveling in the world the fact that dracula travels in his coffin but he has to have uh transylvanian soil about the sort of the the literal practicalities of traveling on a globe that's shrinking all the time but there's something i guess a conflict between the old world that dracula comes from because in bram stoker's version of course he is already i think centuries old and he's yeah he he comes from a sort of misty deep past that is never quite we don't know yeah and very much Vlad the Impaler era but he comes into a world of modernity and he disrupts that I guess and he he interferes with its technology interferes with its rules. And there's something maybe there about, yeah,

modernity and history, civilisation and chaos. OK, so do you want to talk about modernity? Yes, please. Are you going to give me some modern vampires? Let's go to some modern vampires. See if you recognise it. So let's go for it. Edward in the sunlight was shocking.

I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. God, get a hobby. OK, his skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip. He's still flushed. Anyway, literally sparkle like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. What are scintillating arms? Okay, wait. His glistening pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep,

of course. A perfect statue carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal. carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal. Now and then, his lips would move so fast it looked like they were trembling. But when I asked, he told me he was singing to himself.

It was too low for me to hear. Okay, pause. And why is he muttering and singing? Can I just say that you are mocking the beloved... No, I'm not mocking anything. ...of teenage girls in the 2000s everywhere. Me included. I'm confused, but I'm not mocking. Okay, we're going to go again. Next, next bit. knees, unwilling to take my eyes off him. Weird. The wind was gentle.

It tangled my hair and ruffled the grass that swayed around his motionless form. The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence. The meadow paled next to his magnificence. I take back all my comments about wanting the audiobook of Bram Stoker. I want the audiobook of this. Paled next to his magnificence. Okay. He's very magnificent.

When I looked up again, his eyes were open, watching me. Butterscotch today. Lighter, warmer after hunting. I don't scare you, he asked playfully. Oh, let me do it again then. I don't scare you, he asked playfully. He's let me do it again then. I don't scare you, he asked playfully. He's very calm.

He's a leprechaun, yeah. He's a gay Irish leprechaun. But I could hear the real curiosity in his soft voice. No more than usual. Oh, that's no more than usual.

This girl lives her life in constant fear. The gender politics of this book are bad. He smiled, wait wait he smiled wider his teeth flashed in the sun ah here that's a lot okay so we're into the twilight territory now these this is twilight twilight books okay i'm to confess something now. Go on. Whilst I admit that these books are not the great works of literature that one might expect, I do routinely watch the films.

They're my comfort films. Even still? I do, I do. And then sometimes I move on to the Twilight fan fiction classic that is Fifty Shades of Grey. That's Twilight fan fiction? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is so, we can talk about this because it's so interesting in terms of vampirism in that because, of course, the vampire element is stripped out of it. I haven't seen that now or even read it, so I don't know anything about it apart from whips. I know what we're doing this week. We are watching this. Okay, Maddy.

Fifty Shades of Grey is Twilight fan fiction. It is Twilight fan fiction. Yeah is Twilight fan fiction, yeah. It's the same story, only with no vampires and lots of equipment. Okay, Twilight. I suppose, in lots of ways, Edward Cullen, who we've just heard of in this scene, he is... His lovely magnificence. Well, he is the ultimate...

He's a vampire in the traditional sense, that he's incredibly beautiful, he's really attractive in the traditional sense that he's incredibly beautiful. He's really attractive. People are drawn to him like a magnet, but he's also dangerous. And of course, there's that contrast, that conflict between beauty and danger, I suppose. And this is the ultimate expression of that. And what could be more appealing to a teenage girl than a dangerous bad boy with very nice hair not just teenage girls yeah teenage everyone although and some adults too i'm sure i'm sure but why to wrap

up then i mean this was huge and obviously i skipped over what i wanted to put in was and rice interview the vampire like that was i loved that and still love that. That's what I rewatch sometimes. But why has the vampire endured? Why is that still selling books, selling movies? You know, we talk, Vlad always comes up. I think we've been slightly misdirected with Vlad, actually.

I think there are elements there that come through, but I don't, for me, instinctively, it doesn't feel like it's the right thing. There are older Eastern European traditions that are coming in. There's medical things. And then, of course, the gothicism of the 19th century.

So, like, why has it endured so much? I think that one of the most appealing things about vampires is that they feel like they exist in our world and in the twilight universe of course they do and they're hidden they're hidden in our world yeah there are these clues that they're there they're incredibly beautiful i love in the twilight books i mean we could do a whole podcast on the on twilight but i love we probably couldn't could, but we couldn't. I'd need a different co-host for that, I think. You know, these fully grown, beautiful adult humans who are now vampires continue to go to high school

and they just keep repeating it and no one asks any questions. So this idea that if you look closely, you can notice them, but they are just there living normal lives, but draining everyone of literal blood, but of their sort of life force. But also they draw people in and you can become kind of trapped by them, I think. But especially thinking about the Twilight series

and of Bram Stoker's Dracula, that you can put yourself in that position, that you might be so attracted to them that you allow them to drink your blood because that's the other thing as well about the Dracula myth right that he he attacks people and he drinks their blood but often people offer themselves up to him and that it's a transactional thing that he promises people immortality he promises to make people into vampires and again back to this idea of siring people which comes up so much in twilight because there's obviously the bizarre storyline which seems to be more sort of um christianized warning about teenage pregnancy but anyway you

know this this this sort of complicated mythology around how vampires reproduce how they multiply what their law is and i mean that in terms of their folklore but also in terms of their rules their law how they go about in the world and how they keep themselves secret i think twilight offers a very complete world with very set rules in that regard and it's quite a compelling version of of the the dracula myth i suppose well before twilight was even a twinkle in stephanie mayor stephanie mayor's eye i was petrified of vampires when i was a child it was the thing i remember crawling into my mum and dad's bed when i was like four or five years old i started school and one of my friends was like you know vampires are real because my cousin saw

one in dublin once and i was like well if your cousin saw one we're all fecked what was it doing in dublin i don't know it was asleep in a coffin in a house i remember that much and I was like well if your cousin saw one we're all fecked what was it doing in Dublin? I don't know it was asleep in a coffin in a house I remember that much and I was petrified and I would yeah I'd get into

I'd cross over into my parents room and just be like and they wouldn't even be in the bed but I was like if you think that I'm sleeping in that room my own when there's a vampire

wandering around Dublin I'm not even from Dublin but it's too close were you anywhere near Dublin? no well a good hour and a half from it and I was like no we're not having this today. So they're frightening too, right?

Like that's what you're saying. They're actually petrifying things. But deliciously frightening. I think that's the thing that they have so much appeal. And maybe for children they're scary, but there's something of a sexuality around vampires as well. And I think that's why for a teenage audience, it was such a big deal when the Twilight books and films came out. And that's why for a teenage audience it was such a big deal

when the Twilight books and films came out and that's why it did so well and I think for any readers now of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the element of sex and attraction in that is as powerful as some of the scariest elements of it. I think we can leave it there Maddy. I think we can. Let us know

why you find vampires attractive It's not that I don't but like so many people do who is your favourite vampire my favourite on screen vampire has to be Gary Oldman in the Coppola Dracula

no mine's Brad Pitt clearly what's his name oh yeah or Tom Cruise in that film yeah but more so Brad Pitt though I'm more of a Tom Cruise person really

yeah we can debate this didn't know you had no taste. Thank you very much for listening to and watching After Dark. Leave a review. Leave us any comments as to why you fancy vampires, as I said. And we will see you again next time with more tales from the darker side of history.

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