Dracula the Undead

Through Lifeblood the legend returns – a sequel to the Legend of Dracula

For the authorised Dracula sequel by Dacre Stoker, see Dracula the Un-dead.

A sequel to Bram Stoker’s gothic horror classic Dracula, written by Freda Warrington and published in 1997 – thus predating the 'authorised sequel' by Dacre Stoker which, confusingly has the same title. Warrington’s book sticks closer to the feel of Bram Stoker’s original than the authorised sequel, retaining the format of telling the story through multiple diary entries and trying to Retcon as little of the original Canon as possible (unlike the authorised sequel which literally RetCons the entire book, arguably making it not a sequel at all).

Seven years after the events of Dracula, the Five-Man Band from the original adventure – minus, of course, the now-deceased Quincey Morris – revisit Transylvania to reassure themselves that Count Dracula really is dead. Unfortunately, doing so wakes up Dracula’s dormant spirit, which he managed to anchor to this plane of existence through the connection he formed to Mina Harker. Dracula then takes the opportunity to exact revenge on the Harker family – Jonathan, Mina and their young son Quincey – whilst simultaneously trying to regain his body so he can go back to the whole blood-drinking-scourge-of-young-women-everywhere thing. Meanwhile, back in Transylvania, a Professor André Kovacs – friend and colleague of Abraham Van Hellsing – has heard Dracula’s story and is in search of the legendary Scholomance – a school run by Satan himself from which Dracula supposedly learned all his tricks. Naturally, such reckless curiosity leads him to discover that not even Dracula can lay claim to being the biggest bad out there...

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Tropes used in Dracula the Undead include:

• Academy of Evil: The Scholomance.
• Back from the Dead: Dracula (again).
• Betty and Veronica: Jonathan and Dracula form a gender-flipped version for Mina, and later Mina and Elena return the favour for Jonathan.
• Bittersweet Ending: Even more depressingly than the original.
• Cheerful Child: Quincey is remarkably optimistic for an ill six-year-old who’s just been kidnapped and imprisoned by a vampire.
• Cross-Melting Aura: Subverted. One of Dracula’s new powers is the ability to heat metal, and he tries to use this on a cross Lord Godalming shows him. The cross, however, does not actually melt, and Lord Godalming doesn’t even let go.
• Darker and Edgier: The sexual subtext of the original becomes, well, text, and the True Companions of the original is broken up and put through all kinds of hell. That’s right, Freda Warrington tried to make Dracula darker.
• Dark Mistress: Kovacs is Beherit’s. Elena wants to become Dracula’s.
• Deader Than Dead: Three of the four vampires in this book are killed by being sent directly through a portal to Hell itself.
• Dead Guy, Junior: Quincey Harker is, as mentioned in Stoker’s original, named after Quincey Morris.
• Deal with the Devil: The Scholomance imparts its knowledge to ten students at once, one of whom has to give himself over to Satan as payment at the end.
• Double Standard Rape: Undead On Mortal
• The Dragon: André Kovacs for Beherit and Elena for Dracula.
• Driven to Suicide: Kovacs.
• Eviler Than Thou: Beherit.
• Evil Versus Evil: Beherit versus Dracula.
• Foe Yay: The Dracula-wants-Mina subtext from Stoker’s original gets taken Up to Eleven here.
• Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: Played with. André Kovacs seems friendly enough at first, but later turns out to be in league with Beherit. Also, Dracula himself develops a few friendly streaks towards the end.
• Hell Gate: The Scholomance.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Van Hellsing and Dracula himself!.
• Homosexual Vampires: Beherit and Kovacs.
• I Have Your Wife And Son
• Incest Subtext: This book makes drinking blood into an explicitly sexual act – and also reveals that Dracula made his sister and daughter into vampires – which presumably involved drinking their... oh.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Van Hellsing.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Inverted. Lord Godalming chooses to stop fighting Dracula rather than risk his family.
• Littlest Cancer Patient: Quincey is in a near-constant state of being very generically ill.
• Love Redeems: Dracula starts to develop positive character traits after falling in love with Mina.
• Mama Bear: When Elena attacks Jonathan, Team Mom Alice Seward leaps across the room and pins her to the wall with a stake using her bare hands.
• Manipulative Bastard: Dracula, even moreso than in the original. Beherit manages a bit as well.
• Mauve Shirt: Miklos.
• Mind Rape: Dracula, both of the mundane and supernatural variety.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: As a spirit, Dracula can possess living bodies and animate dead ones, but such attempts can be fought off with prayer or, apparently, by cutting yourself.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Even from the original – apparently, they can now feel love and survive being staked and decapitated so long as the stake wasn’t made of wood and/or they’d given someone living a ‘Baptism of Blood’.
• Out of Character: See Pet the Dog below.
• Paranoia Gambit: The Count plays a couple of times on the fact he could strike anyone at anytime.
• Pet the Dog: Dracula uses his knowledge of generic ‘medicine’ to cure Quincey’s generic illness. Yes, the same Dracula who murdered Lucy and raped Mina a mere seven years ago.
• The Power of Blood: Of course. It's a vampire novel.
• Promoted to Love Interest: The tiresomely-invincible Dracula/Mina Fan-Preferred Couple is basically canon in this book.
• Put on a Bus: Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming) leaves the True Companions because he can’t risk his wife and child ending up like Lucy.
• Redemption Equals Death: Dracula. Also Elena, but she comes back.
• The Renfield: Seven in-story years after the Trope Namer turned out to be a subversion on him, the Count finally gets a proper one in Elena Kovacs.
• Retcon: While not nearly so much as the authorised sequel, it does change a few points from original canon – mostly to do with how vampires work. It also seems to assume that Dracula literally raped Mina where the original only implies metephorical rape.
• Science Is Bad: Beherit claims that all human knowledge was given to them by Satan.
• Sex Face Turn: Sort of. Dracula starts developing positive traits after Mina starts letting him feed from her, which is considered an explicitly sexual act. Yes, Unfortunate Implications abound in this book.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Mina gets it bad in this book.
• Taking the Bullet: Van Hellsing. Although it’s a crowbar, not a bullet.
• Team Mom: Alice Seward, Dr. Seward’s elderly wife.
• Terms of Endangerment: Dracula constantly refers to Mina as ‘beloved’.
• Tsundere: Dracula and Mina for each other.
• The Vamp: Elena, eventually. Dracula himself is a male Vamp in this book, appropriately enough.
• Vampire Vannabe: Elena. So, so much.
• Victim Falls For Rapist: Dracula and Elena seem to think so. Mina starts to be swayed by this point of view as well, believe it or not.
• We Can Rule Together: Dracula tries to seduce Mina with immortality for her and Quincey.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Dr. Seward briefly wonders whether they really have a right to kill vampires if the undead can think and feel as a human does.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Warrington tries to portray the Count himself as one, by focussing on the loss of his family and how much it sucks to be undead. YMMV on how well it works, of course, because it’s hard to feel even slightly sorry for a guy who commits so much rape, both of mind and body.
• Yandere: Elena for Dracula.