On the other hand, I watched every single episode of Defiance, and that show is a disappointing mess of loose plots and characters that seem to have been stolen wholesale from every other genre television show that has been popular in the last decade or two. Yet if anybody else says that, I feel like I need to jump to it's defence with thoughts like 'Hey! Grant Bowler and the guy who played the mine owner were really good! And it had some interesting ideas in it... Kind of...' Which I think strikes at the heart of the whole thing. Defiance, in reality, was a great tapestry of really inspiring ideas and some fairly abysmal ones, barely woven together to make a rather mundane whole, and already coming apart at the seams. Yet I hoped against hope the inspiring elements, the performances that were great, the design and lore that was actually good would win out. You know what, I'll still be there in the Summer when series 2 comes around, hoping the same hopes, because on some level I'm clearly some strange, televisual masochist that will never, ever learn. Heck, maybe I'll even bring you guys along for the ride! Blogs on Defiance, truly I am a generous and kind hearted writer to bring you such gifts!
Sarcasm aside, Dracula isn't quite that bad, but if anybody asked me to give it a solid recommendation I'd struggle to call it good. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like. As you can see from the trailer above, it's all very slick and polished (although for my money, I much prefer this Sky Living one which I sadly can't embed. It's what drew me into wanting to watch the series in the first place.) and I like the underlying premise and the basic plot. Count Dracula comes to London, posing as an American industrialist to unravel the organisation that tore his mortal life apart. It's something with so many possibilities, and they revel in toying with them. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about Dracula being on the side of the Angels, but as the series has progressed I find myself asking... Who are the angels in this scenario?! This is a much more meaty dynamic than anything Defiance ever came up with and arguably enough to justify watching too.
It also sparked my interest because the TV show was the second utterance I'd heard of the phrase 'Order of the Dragon'. Now in my 2013 retrospective, I mentioned West Wind Miniatures - A fine company, who make fine products, and if you have any interest in wargaming, hobby craft or Victoriana/historic campaigns then you should be doing yourself a favour and at least give their line a gander. As it turns out though, thanks to Westwind I already had an Order of the Dragon - Except... They were Dracula's posse. His boys. His crew. His other generic term to make Dracula sound like a gang leader in inner-city Birmingham. Yet in the show they seemed to be an order of vampire hunters who were set up to be his main antagonist. Add to that the fact that certain characters clearly had very different roles than what I understood them to be from other Dracula infused media I'd consumed, and I was very confused indeed.
So I did the smart thing.
I went back to the book.
Now before you get any ideas, no, the purpose of this blog is not to drag the TV series over hot coals because it's not a faithful adaptation of the book. Like I said, the premise and main plotline? Absolutely fine. I love it. It's not supposed to be a straight up adaptation of the book, it's intended to be a soft modernisation using more sophisticated story telling techniques to tell the story of the character at a slightly different slant. Upon reading the book though, a few stark contrasts came to mind and a few things that had been sat in the back of my brain, nagging at me, refusing to let me enjoy the show whole heartedly did come to light.
To jump right into that latter category, let's talk about the women! The novel features two main characters, Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. There's also Mrs. Westenra, who plays a more minor role, but not enough to really be ranked on the same level as these two. Lucy is a very sweet girl, beloved by the majority of the male characters (indeed, two of them proposed to her and one went on to marry her) who at times can come across as more of a story element than a character in her own right. The Westwind line identifies her miniature as 'The Lost Love', which is very apt really. Stoker does not imbue Lucy with a very strong or terribly unique personality beyond being a doe-eyed, dutiful damsel, but he epitomises her as the very essence of innocence, beauty and sweetness - So when tragedy befalls her, it really takes it's toll, both on the characters and the readers. As to Mina, we'll get onto her a bit later.
The television show also features Lucy and Mina, but it also has a third, new character who... I honestly cannot remember the name of without looking it up. I wanted to call her Lady Jane Grey, but a quick search reveals her surname to be Weatherby, and me an idiot for muddling fictional characters up with English royalty. In the TV show, we see Lucy become a more selfish and manipulative character, while Lady Jane is... Also extremely selfish and manipulative. You see, there is a very good reason I couldn't remember her name - And that is because if it wasn't for the fact Lady Jane fought vampires, had a lot more sex and was a touch older, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between these blonde schemers. In fact, there have been times when I've mistaken Lady Jane for a re-imagining of Mrs. Westenra herself, which became very awkward when the two of them started to get rather more, ah, intimate on screen. For as much as I want to roll my eyes at Lucy's fey, aristocratic girly-girl attitude in the book, her characterisation in the series is in some ways worse. It's not more complex, it's not even any more mature, it's like they just gave her a complete tonal shift and set her down to cause trouble, and given how closely aspects of her personality resemble Lady Jane's - She comes across as rather redundant at the time of writing.
Mina Harker though, is a much more interesting case. In the book, Mina is the loving and faithful wife of Jonathan Harker, who works as a school mistress. She is portrayed as resourceful and practical, yet the fingerprint of a woman's role in polite Victorian society (especially in regards to her husband) is imprinted as heavily on her forehead as the red mark that embellishes it in the later part of the book. Mina knows her limitations as a woman, and she accepts them. On the surface, the Mina Harker of the series is much more progressive. She refuses to be an accessory to Jonathan, and has a much more progressive occupation as she is training to be a Doctor. The problem is, she's also a massive flake. True, Jonathan in the series is even more of a massive flake than she is, but the point stands - If the chips were down and the stakes (a-heh-heh!) were high, I'd want novel Mina in my corner every time.
The fact of the matter is, for as progressive as the series creators have tried to make Mina's character - Insofar she hasn't really done all that much. At all. Really, the series seems to make her as much of a plot device as Lucy was in the book at times. By some strange co-incidence, Mina resembles Dracula's wife, who died centuries before her own birth, and when the two meet? She falls for him. She falls hard. And that... Is about the extent of her storyline. Trying not to succumb to the Count's dark charms, while trying (and failing) to keep her marriage with Jonathan alive. Meanwhile, over in that Victorian text they're all adapting, Mina is strong, resourceful, brave and every bit as part of the adventure as the men that surround her. In fact, it only seems to be when the men decide it's a good idea to cut her out of proceedings (and she, naturally, agrees because... Hey, that's just what a polite, well spoken woman does!) that things become really problematic for them and the Count truly gains the upper hand.
I think for me, the disconnect comes because Mina in the series is clearly a character they are pushing as progressive, yet ultimately she shows so little personality or even practical thought outside of her three love interests. We're told she has drive, we're told she has ambition, but in reality she's eternally reacting, and every idea she has seems to have been spurred to life by John, by Lucy or by the Count himself. In the book however, Mina may well be mindful of her role to society and her comparative status to her husband and their male friends, but she's the spinning dynamo that keeps the group together. They'd be thoroughly screwed without her. For me, it casts a whole new perspective on her role in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially why Alan Moore chose her as the leader of the little band of misfits. It's simply an extension of her role in the novel, as that brave and gallant woman at the heart of everything.
Perhaps as the series progresses, the Mina of the television show will begin to show some of those traits, however I don't think I'll be holding my breath. If only because there's another significant flaw the series suffers, and that is the other plot. The one that's not brilliant, or fun, or really does anything but get in the way - Yet in some ways is far more central to the show than the revenge plot I talked about earlier. That, my friends, is the love triangle. Well, I call it a triangle, it's more of a love polygon.
You see, the Count, posing as American business man Alexander Grayson, loves Mina as he believes she's a reincarnation of his dead wife. Mina loves the Count, because maybe she is! Or maybe it's because her husband is a raging, ignorant dumbass, or because, as we discussed earlier, she's a touch of a flake herself. Jonathan loves Mina, and has loved her for years, wanting to make her his adoring wife and... At times going about it the complete wrong way (see raging, ignorant, dumbass comment above). Okay, so far, so soap opera! However, the kinks really do come out when it's revealed that Lucy also loves Mina, and is trying to win Jonathan's heart to get back at Mina for spurning her, while at the same time Lady Jane is using Lucy to get at Mina through John because she's fallen head first for Grayson while it's clear that he only has eyes for Mina.
And this is where the wheels come off for me.
Honestly, I don't mind big, entangled, intricate love stories. They can add spice to an interesting narrative, and help to further the emotional development of characters. The problem? Most of these characters just aren't likeable or altogether very well defined. I think you're ultimately supposed to be rooting for Mina and the Count to rekindle their lost love, but it's a hard sell when the Count is at times a charming socialite and at times a ruthless monster. It's also hindered by the fact that Mina and John had a nice, normal thing going on and as much as I dislike John's character - He was really coming around to his wife's needs before the Count stepped in. Of course, he's the one who ultimately seems to have ruined that, so I've got no sympathy or love for him again here either. As for Lucy, well, the only discernible reason I can find for Lucy to even be in love with Mina is 'Yay! Women making out on TV is hot!' so I'm not really feeling that one either. In fact, the only one I do feel for is Lady Jane. The Count made her love him so he could use her, and was ready to toss her aside at a moment's notice, but at the same time, their relationship was so physical that it's hard to tell if Lady Jane is truly hurt because she loved him, or that she can't seem to satisfy all his needs herself. Either way, that relationship is so complicated and both characters involved lead double lives that make them hard to like for terribly long (if you even like them at all) that it's hardly strong enough to support all the other strands of this mad web of relationships on it's own.
What works for the revenge plot, that feeling of not knowing who to trust and everything, even the monstrous vampire Dracula and the sweet and cuddly Van Helsing, falling into that murky shade of grey that is as far from black as it is from white, doesn't really work here. Honestly? None of these relationships seem worth fighting for, none of them seem healthy and most importantly of all - Few of them are all that interesting on their own merits. John and Mina's relationship in the book may have been a simple one, but it was the glue that held everything together, that gave them a reason to bring the fight right to the doorstep of that foreboding Transylvanian Castle.
That's not to say the series gets all it's characters wrong. I've already praised Dracula himself, but a very surprising stand out is Renfield. The insect munching inmate of the book becomes a worldly, business smart former slave who acts as Dracula's right hand man throughout all his dealings. It's a surprising twist on the character, but works very well. Van Helsing's much more darker turn, and his very tenuous alliance with the Count himself, is also hugely intriguing and one thing I can't wait to play out. The Order of the Dragon, headed by Ben Miles putting in a fantastic performance as Mr. Browning, adds such an interesting element to the story that... Well, they're the ones that made me chase down the book in the first place. Truly, the series has a lot going for it, but at the same time it's hampered by characters that don't shine as brightly as their Victorian era counterparts and a convoluted tangle of relationships that I doubt I'm ever going to be able to force myself to care about. A Song of Ice and Fire this is not.
I suppose if there's one thing to learn from a comparison of the novel and the series, two very different animals though they are, it's that for all the complexity, intrigue and 'mature and modern' storytelling of the television show - Sometimes a more simplistic approach is the best. It can work better for the overall narrative, and can produce far more interesting and developed characters.
Still no idea where or how this 'Order of the Dragon' stuff originated, though!
It also sparked my interest because the TV show was the second utterance I'd heard of the phrase 'Order of the Dragon'. Now in my 2013 retrospective, I mentioned West Wind Miniatures - A fine company, who make fine products, and if you have any interest in wargaming, hobby craft or Victoriana/historic campaigns then you should be doing yourself a favour and at least give their line a gander. As it turns out though, thanks to Westwind I already had an Order of the Dragon - Except... They were Dracula's posse. His boys. His crew. His other generic term to make Dracula sound like a gang leader in inner-city Birmingham. Yet in the show they seemed to be an order of vampire hunters who were set up to be his main antagonist. Add to that the fact that certain characters clearly had very different roles than what I understood them to be from other Dracula infused media I'd consumed, and I was very confused indeed.
So I did the smart thing.
I went back to the book.
(My own take on the Count and Renfield, from Westwind's Order of the Dragon set)
Now before you get any ideas, no, the purpose of this blog is not to drag the TV series over hot coals because it's not a faithful adaptation of the book. Like I said, the premise and main plotline? Absolutely fine. I love it. It's not supposed to be a straight up adaptation of the book, it's intended to be a soft modernisation using more sophisticated story telling techniques to tell the story of the character at a slightly different slant. Upon reading the book though, a few stark contrasts came to mind and a few things that had been sat in the back of my brain, nagging at me, refusing to let me enjoy the show whole heartedly did come to light.
To jump right into that latter category, let's talk about the women! The novel features two main characters, Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. There's also Mrs. Westenra, who plays a more minor role, but not enough to really be ranked on the same level as these two. Lucy is a very sweet girl, beloved by the majority of the male characters (indeed, two of them proposed to her and one went on to marry her) who at times can come across as more of a story element than a character in her own right. The Westwind line identifies her miniature as 'The Lost Love', which is very apt really. Stoker does not imbue Lucy with a very strong or terribly unique personality beyond being a doe-eyed, dutiful damsel, but he epitomises her as the very essence of innocence, beauty and sweetness - So when tragedy befalls her, it really takes it's toll, both on the characters and the readers. As to Mina, we'll get onto her a bit later.
The television show also features Lucy and Mina, but it also has a third, new character who... I honestly cannot remember the name of without looking it up. I wanted to call her Lady Jane Grey, but a quick search reveals her surname to be Weatherby, and me an idiot for muddling fictional characters up with English royalty. In the TV show, we see Lucy become a more selfish and manipulative character, while Lady Jane is... Also extremely selfish and manipulative. You see, there is a very good reason I couldn't remember her name - And that is because if it wasn't for the fact Lady Jane fought vampires, had a lot more sex and was a touch older, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between these blonde schemers. In fact, there have been times when I've mistaken Lady Jane for a re-imagining of Mrs. Westenra herself, which became very awkward when the two of them started to get rather more, ah, intimate on screen. For as much as I want to roll my eyes at Lucy's fey, aristocratic girly-girl attitude in the book, her characterisation in the series is in some ways worse. It's not more complex, it's not even any more mature, it's like they just gave her a complete tonal shift and set her down to cause trouble, and given how closely aspects of her personality resemble Lady Jane's - She comes across as rather redundant at the time of writing.
Mina Harker though, is a much more interesting case. In the book, Mina is the loving and faithful wife of Jonathan Harker, who works as a school mistress. She is portrayed as resourceful and practical, yet the fingerprint of a woman's role in polite Victorian society (especially in regards to her husband) is imprinted as heavily on her forehead as the red mark that embellishes it in the later part of the book. Mina knows her limitations as a woman, and she accepts them. On the surface, the Mina Harker of the series is much more progressive. She refuses to be an accessory to Jonathan, and has a much more progressive occupation as she is training to be a Doctor. The problem is, she's also a massive flake. True, Jonathan in the series is even more of a massive flake than she is, but the point stands - If the chips were down and the stakes (a-heh-heh!) were high, I'd want novel Mina in my corner every time.
The fact of the matter is, for as progressive as the series creators have tried to make Mina's character - Insofar she hasn't really done all that much. At all. Really, the series seems to make her as much of a plot device as Lucy was in the book at times. By some strange co-incidence, Mina resembles Dracula's wife, who died centuries before her own birth, and when the two meet? She falls for him. She falls hard. And that... Is about the extent of her storyline. Trying not to succumb to the Count's dark charms, while trying (and failing) to keep her marriage with Jonathan alive. Meanwhile, over in that Victorian text they're all adapting, Mina is strong, resourceful, brave and every bit as part of the adventure as the men that surround her. In fact, it only seems to be when the men decide it's a good idea to cut her out of proceedings (and she, naturally, agrees because... Hey, that's just what a polite, well spoken woman does!) that things become really problematic for them and the Count truly gains the upper hand.
I think for me, the disconnect comes because Mina in the series is clearly a character they are pushing as progressive, yet ultimately she shows so little personality or even practical thought outside of her three love interests. We're told she has drive, we're told she has ambition, but in reality she's eternally reacting, and every idea she has seems to have been spurred to life by John, by Lucy or by the Count himself. In the book however, Mina may well be mindful of her role to society and her comparative status to her husband and their male friends, but she's the spinning dynamo that keeps the group together. They'd be thoroughly screwed without her. For me, it casts a whole new perspective on her role in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially why Alan Moore chose her as the leader of the little band of misfits. It's simply an extension of her role in the novel, as that brave and gallant woman at the heart of everything.
(The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, led by Mina Murray. Image taken from Comicvine.)
Perhaps as the series progresses, the Mina of the television show will begin to show some of those traits, however I don't think I'll be holding my breath. If only because there's another significant flaw the series suffers, and that is the other plot. The one that's not brilliant, or fun, or really does anything but get in the way - Yet in some ways is far more central to the show than the revenge plot I talked about earlier. That, my friends, is the love triangle. Well, I call it a triangle, it's more of a love polygon.
You see, the Count, posing as American business man Alexander Grayson, loves Mina as he believes she's a reincarnation of his dead wife. Mina loves the Count, because maybe she is! Or maybe it's because her husband is a raging, ignorant dumbass, or because, as we discussed earlier, she's a touch of a flake herself. Jonathan loves Mina, and has loved her for years, wanting to make her his adoring wife and... At times going about it the complete wrong way (see raging, ignorant, dumbass comment above). Okay, so far, so soap opera! However, the kinks really do come out when it's revealed that Lucy also loves Mina, and is trying to win Jonathan's heart to get back at Mina for spurning her, while at the same time Lady Jane is using Lucy to get at Mina through John because she's fallen head first for Grayson while it's clear that he only has eyes for Mina.
And this is where the wheels come off for me.
Honestly, I don't mind big, entangled, intricate love stories. They can add spice to an interesting narrative, and help to further the emotional development of characters. The problem? Most of these characters just aren't likeable or altogether very well defined. I think you're ultimately supposed to be rooting for Mina and the Count to rekindle their lost love, but it's a hard sell when the Count is at times a charming socialite and at times a ruthless monster. It's also hindered by the fact that Mina and John had a nice, normal thing going on and as much as I dislike John's character - He was really coming around to his wife's needs before the Count stepped in. Of course, he's the one who ultimately seems to have ruined that, so I've got no sympathy or love for him again here either. As for Lucy, well, the only discernible reason I can find for Lucy to even be in love with Mina is 'Yay! Women making out on TV is hot!' so I'm not really feeling that one either. In fact, the only one I do feel for is Lady Jane. The Count made her love him so he could use her, and was ready to toss her aside at a moment's notice, but at the same time, their relationship was so physical that it's hard to tell if Lady Jane is truly hurt because she loved him, or that she can't seem to satisfy all his needs herself. Either way, that relationship is so complicated and both characters involved lead double lives that make them hard to like for terribly long (if you even like them at all) that it's hardly strong enough to support all the other strands of this mad web of relationships on it's own.
(Behold the mighty Love Fish and despair!)
What works for the revenge plot, that feeling of not knowing who to trust and everything, even the monstrous vampire Dracula and the sweet and cuddly Van Helsing, falling into that murky shade of grey that is as far from black as it is from white, doesn't really work here. Honestly? None of these relationships seem worth fighting for, none of them seem healthy and most importantly of all - Few of them are all that interesting on their own merits. John and Mina's relationship in the book may have been a simple one, but it was the glue that held everything together, that gave them a reason to bring the fight right to the doorstep of that foreboding Transylvanian Castle.
That's not to say the series gets all it's characters wrong. I've already praised Dracula himself, but a very surprising stand out is Renfield. The insect munching inmate of the book becomes a worldly, business smart former slave who acts as Dracula's right hand man throughout all his dealings. It's a surprising twist on the character, but works very well. Van Helsing's much more darker turn, and his very tenuous alliance with the Count himself, is also hugely intriguing and one thing I can't wait to play out. The Order of the Dragon, headed by Ben Miles putting in a fantastic performance as Mr. Browning, adds such an interesting element to the story that... Well, they're the ones that made me chase down the book in the first place. Truly, the series has a lot going for it, but at the same time it's hampered by characters that don't shine as brightly as their Victorian era counterparts and a convoluted tangle of relationships that I doubt I'm ever going to be able to force myself to care about. A Song of Ice and Fire this is not.
I suppose if there's one thing to learn from a comparison of the novel and the series, two very different animals though they are, it's that for all the complexity, intrigue and 'mature and modern' storytelling of the television show - Sometimes a more simplistic approach is the best. It can work better for the overall narrative, and can produce far more interesting and developed characters.
Still no idea where or how this 'Order of the Dragon' stuff originated, though!
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