Formerly /u/Zagorath on the alien site.
Weapon durability is frustrating, but it ties into what I think is so awesome about Dark Cloud. That being that its RPG mechanics are based not around your character but around your weapons. With upgrading the weapons’ different stats, doing a status break, and building them up into completely new weapons. It’s really unique and I think it’s a shame that I’ve never seen it done elsewhere.
A little off topic, but if you’re interested in recs for other games from that era, I highly recommend the early PS2 title Dark Cloud. It’s not exactly a mascot game like the ones you named, but it’s kinda close; the biggest comparison it had at the time of release was the Zelda series.
Here’s a list of the references explained by the Notes of my copy of the book. (As a side note: if you are so inclined, it looks like a version similar to mine, with notes by Maurice Hindle but without the preface by Christopher Frayling, are available for download on Anna’s Archive.)
The Extra History YouTube channel has an excellent series on Vlad III. The complete series is available in one video here. With the exception of the Lies video where they go over errata and stuff they left out for pacing & timing reasons.
She’s a total badarse in the novel too! It’s just that she’s a badarse by Victorian women’s standards—transgressing just a little outside the bounds of what would be normal womanly behaviour.
Not much to say here. “Pop” is a type of popular concert, and “parti” is a marriage prospect, from French apparently. If anyone from France could let me know how that derives, I’d be interested to know.
Je parle un peu francais, mais je ne connais pas du tout ce mot avec cette connotation. Est-ce que c’est lié à “partir” ?
Oh wow, good spot! I never made that connection!
Not a lot here, and tomorrow is blank entirely as Mina awaits Lucy’s reply. Mostly just a functional introduction to the two women, with some hints about their personalities (and the excuse for the conceit of the epistolary format), and a little more exploration of the modern technology theme.
Well, today’s is a little chunky, though much shorter than this one. But tomorrow is very short, and then there’s none on the 10th, and another short one on the 11th. So it’s definitely viable to get caught up before the end of the week.
Ah, the shaving scene. This really is a classic. I doubt there’s an adaptation of Dracula that doesn’t try to do either this scene exactly or something like it. And it’s no wonder, because Stoker’s writing here is so amazingly vivid and evocative.
A possibly useful note from the endnotes Maurice provides in my copy is that in Norse myth, berserkers were thought to transform into bears or wolves, similar to werewolves. (Technically, I believe, that would be berserkers and ulfsarks, but the idea is there.)
Dracula’s monologue at the end here feels like it might have been an addition made quite late in the game, after Stoker decided to tie his novel into the real-world historical figure of Vlad III.
one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground…his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them
Pretty damn specific stuff about the events of Vlad’s life.
It’ll be a while now before we see Jonathan again. But don’t worry, because tomorrow is the first time we break from book order and we get introduced to Mina and Lucy!
and strangers will frequently “fill in the blanks” with their own assumptions
Yes, but a large number of strangers with different life experiences can help cancel out any one person’s personal baggage.
Just think of it as having extra time to deal with this entry before 8 May goes up.
♪ Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways. ♫ Indeed, a huge amount of that song is lifted pretty directly from this passage. “How few days…make up a century”, “I seek not…mirth”, “the winds breath through the casements and the battlements are broken”. But earlier in the 7 May entry seems to be referenced by Fresh Blood, though that song takes place mostly later. “I am master and Boyar”, and the overall theme of needing to move to England where he can blend in and be unknown. I think the extent to which Frank Wildhorn is able to lift nearly word for word from Stoker’s text is a testament to the poetic quality of Stoker’s writing, and fits well especially when it’s Dracula whose dialogue is in this poetic style, given his age and nobility.
Ah, and again a reference to the importance of modern technology. Dracula reads a Bradshaw’s Guide, a list of train timetables.
Purfleet, for reference, is in eastern London.
The song Solitary Man might reference how Dracula says he “seeks not mirth”, but I think his claim not to seek “much sunshine” and “sparkling waters” is probably more relevant here, as hints as to his nature.
Yup, exactly. I’m trying to put them up at a variety of times so people who are active at different times are more likely to see it.
Posted at about 5 am AEST.
Yeah the blue flames are interesting and there are a fair few discussions online about what’s going on with them.
I think this answer on a question technically about a film adaptation, but which mostly tries to answer from the book’s perspective, is the best I’ve found. With the exception that the answer doesn’t acknowledge that in all likelihood the driver is Dracula.
A little more context for anyone not aware. Epistolary just means it’s like the book equivalent of the Blair Witch Project. It claims to be written not by some outside author like most books, but to be the literal transcriptions of the characters’ diary entries, letters, news articles, and phonograph recordings. All of these are of course dated in-universe, with the first of Jonathan Harker’s diary entries taking place on 3rd May. So we’re reading through it as it happens.
Days 1 and 2 are very short, and there isn’t any entry on 6 May, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up if you want to join in on 7th May.
Minor correction: the days don’t actually match up to “chapters” of the book. Chapter 1 is made up of 3, 4, and half of 5 May. Chapter 2 is the 2nd half of 5 May, 7 May, and the 1st half of 8 May. I’m not 100% sure as I’ve never read the book this way before, but I believe later on, doing it this way will actually mean we read it slightly out of the normal reading order, too, especially as relates to the news articles and shifting POVs.
you mean FOR cats not OF cats, right? … RIGHT?!?
Yes. The endnotes in my copy specify that it’s mostly made of horse meat.
Burger’s “Lenore”
The notes say that the line mentioned here is never actually uttered. Instead, what is actually said is “the dead ride fast”. Several times.
Of old the Hospadars would not repair them
Yes, it was the name of the rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia from the 15th century to 1866.
The “Servians” is just an old term for Serbians.
HAHAHA! 🤣 Those character descriptions are brilliant!