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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2624 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 28, 2022

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Not exactly on point, as it's another example of an actual "revisionist" work, but it's one of my favorites.

The Vampire Tape by Fred Saberhagen is a retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula from the Count's perspective. One of the constraints on the tale is that Jonathan Harker is an honest narrator in his letters from Stoker's book; it's just that he misinterprets what he sees, jumps to incorrect conclusions, and otherwise presents the Count in a bad faith light...at least, according to Dracula himself. Reading between the lines, Dracula is not nearly so innocent as he protests, but also not the monster that the "courageous...though rather dull" Harker and the "imbecile" Van Helsing describe.

“The vision of Van Helsing as a vampire is one before which my imagination balks; this is doubtless only a shortcoming on my part; he may have been well fitted for the role, since as we have seen he had already the power, by means of speech, to cast his victims into a stupor.”

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