Warning: SPOILERS for Netflix’s Dracula.
Netflix’s Dracula wildly diverges from the original Bram Stoker novel and here are the key differences. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, Dracula originally aired on BBC One in the UK and is structured identically to Sherlock by being comprised of three 90-minute episodes. In Dracula, Danish actor Claes Bang takes on the titular role as the nefarious vampire who seeks to maintain his eternal life and reap devastation in his wake.
Set in 1897, Stoker’s Dracula has been a best-seller for over a century and essentially wrote the rules of the vampire novel, which pits humans crusading against a powerful supernatural monster. Told via journal entries, letters, and telegrams, Stoker’s tale begins in Transylvania before the horror shifts to England. After the two female leads, Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray (Harker), are victimized by Dracula, the men in their lives, led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing, concoct a plan to fight back against the vampire. They eventually chase the Count back to Transylvania and slay him outside his foreboding castle.
Dracula episode 1, “The Rules of the Beast”, begins in a similar fashion to Stoker’s story with a few changes: the tale is told from the point of view of Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), the English solicitor who escaped his fate as a prisoner in Dracula’s castle. Recounting his story to a nun named Sister Agatha (Dolly Wells), Harker came to Transylvania to negotiate Dracula’s purchase of the Carfax Abbey estate in England. There are some surprising alterations, such as Harker trying to navigate Dracula’s labyrinthine fortress and encountering only one of Dracula’s vampire brides, Elena (Lujza Richter), instead of the novel’s three. After Harker escapes Dracula’s castle, however, the series really starts blazing its own path and goes in some genuinely surprising directions.
Dracula episode 2, “Blood Vessel”, reimagines the ill-fated voyage of the Demeter, the ship that transported Dracula to England and this journey also ends in a completely different manner from the book. Though Dracula does reach his destination, the vampire doesn’t arrive in the version of England he was expecting or prepared for. Curiously, despite a shocking time jump to present-day London, Dracula episode 3, “The Dark Compass”, adapts the Count’s seduction of Lucy only to conclude in a completely different way from Stoker’s novel. Here are the most significant changes Netflix’s Dracula made to the classic story.
Van Helsing Is Now A Woman - But She’s Still Dracula’s Nemesis
The big twist in Dracula’s first episode is the revelation that Sister Agatha’s surname is Van Helsing, which makes her a gender-swapped version of the vampire’s arch-nemesis. In Stoker’s novel, Professor Abraham Van Helsing was a Dutch scholar, but Dracula turns him into the co-lead character: a sharp-witted nun who earns Dracula’s respect and admiration. While he is never romantically inclined towards her, Dracula is still so enamored by Agatha that he promises to “make her last” and he brings her aboard the Demeter so she can join him in England - despite Agatha fighting back and plotting the vampire’s demise all along. Ultimately, sparing Agatha’s life led to Dracula’s undoing.
In Stoker’s novel, Dracula mainly preys on and victimizes women but Agatha - and later, her identical descendant, Dr. Zoe Helsing - are openly defiant towards the vampire, which makes them intriguing and worthy adversaries to Dracula. Even when the Count has the upper hand, both female incarnations of Van Helsing never surrender to Dracula and they eventually use the vampire’s own blood to deduce how to defeat him. Unlike in Stoker’s novel, where a horde of men defending Lucy and Mina felled Dracula, it’s now two versions of the same formidable woman who takes out the Count.
Mina Murray Isn’t Important In Netflix’s Dracula
Surprisingly, Mina Murray (Morfydd Clark) is not the central female character in Dracula as she is in the novel. Indeed, fans of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula recall the love story between Mina (Winona Ryder) and Dracula (Gary Oldman) as the focal point of the film. However, Netflix’s Dracula does away with Mina after the first episode and the Count himself thinks little of her, dismissing her as unimportant; he’s actually much more enamored with “Johnny” Harker than he ever is with Mina.
Mina’s main importance is later revealed to have happened during the interim 123 years while Dracula slept beneath the sea; after she escaped Hungary and returned to England, Mina used her family’s money to set up the Jonathan Harker Foundation, which eventually evolved into the organization that employed Dr. Zoe Helsing and captured Dracula when he arose in 2020.
Dracula Never Attacks The Convent In The Novel
Like in the novel, Harker flees Transylvania and finds sanctuary in a convent in Hungary (in Stoker’s story, Dracula had already left for England before Jonathan escaped). Mina joins Harker in Hungary and they are married there, but that’s not at all how events in Netflix’s Dracula transpire. Instead, Mina poses as a nun and joins in on Agatha’s interrogation of Harker before Dracula attacks the convent to get Johnny, his “bride”, back. Dracula massacring all of the nuns in the convent, killing Harker, and sparing Mina while holding Agatha in his thrall never happened in the novel, so these count among the Netflix series’ biggest divergences.
The Demeter Voyage Is More Important In Netflix’s Dracula
In Stoker’s story, the harrowing sea voyage of the Demeter is told through frantic ship’s log entries and newspaper clippings as the crew disappear one by one until the vessel runs aground in England and Dracula makes landfall disguised as a wolf. “Blood Vessel” reinvents the Demeter’s journey to have been orchestrated by Dracula, who handpicked the passengers as a form of dress rehearsal for how he would ingratiate himself into English high society - and, of course, he intended to kill everyone aboard the ship.
But in Netflix’s Dracula, the Demeter never makes it to England, thanks to Agatha sinking the ship, killing herself and Dracula - or so she thought. Dracula also invents new characters and a new backstory for the Count, who knew the younger Grand Duchess Valeria (Catherine Schnell) fifty years before they met again aboard the Demeter.
Netflix’s Dracula Time Jumps To 2020 London
Dracula’s biggest - and most controversial - break from the novel is easily the shocking time jump in “The Dark Compass” that brought the vampire to London circa 2020. In this way, Dracula completely left the novel behind but the series also laid the foundation to make the conceit work: Reinventing Dracula’s blood-drinking so that it gives him the memories of his victims (“blood is lives”), this allowed Dracula to instantly learn and understand the modern world and technology by ‘absorbing’ modern-day people via their blood.
Dracula having a cell phone, Skyping, and finding his victims by swiping through dating apps may seem jarring, but the logic for the vampire quickly making himself at home in 2020 was built into the series. Further, the novel’s Renfield was reinvented as Frank Renfield (Mark Gatiss), Dracula’s lawyer (from the same firm that employed Jonathan Harker), who fell under the thrall of his dark lord and ate flies just like the character created by Stoker.
Lucy Westenra Is Tied To Dracula’s Greatest Weakness
Despite the time jump, Dracula still depicted its version of the vampire corrupting Lucy Westenra (Lydia West) and turning her into the Bloofer Lady. However, in Dracula’s version, Lucy was never best friends with Mina Murray, and she’s engaged to Quincey Morris (Phil Dunster) instead of Lord Arthur Holmwood. But in both versions, Jack Seward (Matthew Beard) is a doctor who is enamored with Lucy and Seward ultimately kills the Bloofer Lady, though he did it with the help of Holmwood, Harker, Quincey, and Van Helsing in the book.
Stoker’s novel merely makes Lucy a tragic victim of Dracula, but Moffat and Gatiss’s series digs deeper and ties Lucy to the Count’s ultimate weakness: Westenra has no fear of death (or Dracula) and this is the opposite of the Count’s secret shame, which is what makes Lucy so seductive to him. This is the reason why Dracula considered her to be the best bride he ever had.
Understanding Dracula’s Weakness Is Integral To Defeating Him
In Stoker’s novel, Van Helsing researches the mythology of the vampire and how to kill him. This leads to his team destroying the 50 boxes of Transylvanian soil Dracula brought to England to replenish his powers. (Instead, the destruction of the boxes happens aboard the Demeter in Dracula episode 2). The book ends with Van Helsing and his men racing Dracula to Transylvania and killing him with knives. But Netflix’s Dracula goes far beyond the book and the series’ main goal is to explore the true source of Dracula’s weaknesses and explain how they manifested into his three main rules: not being able to enter somewhere unless invited, sunlight being lethal to him, and Dracula’s fear of the cross.
Dracula dreading the cross is integral to defeating him because the crucifix symbolizes his secret fear of dying and his shame of not having the courage to face death. Netflix’s Dracula ultimately makes the vampire into a more complex villain and the series rewrites the vampire’s legend and rules so that all of his limitations are intimately tied to the Count’s fear of death. Zoe/Agatha forcing Dracula to confront this fear became the means to finally making the immortal monster muster the courage and choose to die - by drinking Zoe’s cancerous blood, which is poison to the Count. However, Dracula’s ending left wriggle room for him (and Van Helsing) to potentially return for season 2, something Stoker’s novel does not do.
Next: What To Expect From Netflix’s Dracula Season 2
