Talk:Count Dracula

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Count Dracula article.
Article policies
Notice
Notice: PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PROPOSING ANY MERGE, DISAMBIGUATION, OR HATNOTE FOR THIS PAGE
Count Dracula is the main character of the Dracula books.

He is notable enough of a character that he deserves his own page, compare with Harry Potter (character)
This article SHOULD NOT BE MERGED with any other article, especially not with Dracula.
Dracula (disambiguation) is a page that serves for directing readers who search for the term "Dracula" to the correct page.
As Dracula does not redirect here, there is no need for a hatnote at this page, see WP:NAMB.
Also, subpages such as Dracula in popular culture should not be linked to in a hatnote, but rather, they should be summed up with {{main}} + a brief summary of that article, see WP:SS and WP:RELATED.

Contents

[edit] Lack of pictures

No pictures? Really?--Willerror 21:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

There should be a picture of Bela's Dracula & Roxburgh's Dracula. With Roxburgh's Dracula there should also be a picture of his Hell Beast form. Son of Kong

[edit] Origin

To whoever reverted my addition of an "Origin" section, it wasn't about "Dracula in popular culture", it was about the various origins of the character that have been given in popular culture. Is that not relevant to this article?--Codenamecuckoo 21:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

Pitifully tiny article, on one of the great mythical characters! Nothing whatsoever on the real-life characters upon which he was based, and nothing expansive on the fictional character either. Have added expansion tag and called for reinforcements. Grunners 01:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

There is more info on the characters upon which Dracula might have been based in the Dracula article. See also Dracula in popular culture. And just to say that though the article is small, just three months ago it didn't exist at all, and there were some editors who wanted to strangle it at birth! I grant it could be expanded: as long as that doesn't just mean witless padding or a relentlessly long plot summary of the novel (for which see Dracula). Colin4C 12:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Who deleted my section telling about his origins in Van Helsing? Son of Kong

[edit] Brides

A coupopopopopople of questions: How does Dracula make women his brides? It seems like he just bites their neck, but that is what he does to all of his victims. Any ideas?

Second: Who are all of the vampires in the ballroom scene? Thanks, Quinlanfan2 00:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Count Dracula

im just saying that if eney of you did not know,count dracula was the first of his kind.some people even think that he is also a daywalker. people also belive that aside from turning into a bat or mist he may also turn into hi last kill. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.75.19.162 (talk) 01:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC).


[edit] Powers, abilities and weaknesses

Hi every one, jsut wanted to say that under the powers and abilites section can we make it clear that all of draculas powers are derived from his vampiric nature except his ability to comune with the dead, and that his advanced abilties reflect his postion as the books main antagonist and most powerful vmapire. and that his time in Sholomance is merely infered in his transformation into undeath not his abilities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manicmod (talk • contribs) 03:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You've missed someone

In the break down of the plot of Bram Stokers novel it lists the heros who head to Carefax Abbey, the list has missed off Lord Godalming.I would edit this myself but I am druid-like in my understand of computums. If someone could facilitate this it would be most appriciated


  • edit* I've worked it now and fixed it!! Hurrah for me

[edit] Rationale of this article

Just to repeat that this article is about the fictional character 'Count Dracula' who appears (along with other characters, most of whom also have their own seperate wikipedia articles) in the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker. Dracula (novel) has its own article. There is also a separate article: 'Dracula in popular culture' for later adaptations. Colin4C 10:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dracula base name article

A discussion that may be of interest to editors here is ongoing at Talk:Dracula (novel). -- JHunterJ 02:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bela, where are you?

The title explains it all. You have Christopher Lee here, but not Bela Lugosi? What a shame.

[edit] Top-headings

We decided that this was a good idea in order to prevent the confusion between this article and the Dracula article and the Dracula in popular culture article. See discussion at Talk:Dracula Colin4C 18:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I've seen it.
The avoidance of confusion is a good thing. However, making readers sense that they're being treated like idiots is not.
The article now starts (after a disambiguation-irrelevant template):
This article is about the fictional title character of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula
For the novel itself see Dracula
For later adaptations see Dracula in popular culture
For other uses see Dracula (disambiguation)
Putting aside what has already been written in WP:HAT, this seems laborious. For one thing, the second
For the novel itself see Dracula
is blazingly obvious from the first:
This article is about the fictional title character of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula
It's not as if these are too distant for the short-attention-span reader: they're on successive lines. (And of course the same thing is pointed out in the very first sentence of the article.)
Why the need for all this? Why might readers be under the misapprehension that they're reading about, say, later adaptations? [Excuse me for a few minutes while I go away and think very, very deeply.]
Wow, I think I've got it! Excuse me if I misunderstand (I don't have a BA, let alone a PhD, in lit or media studies), but it seems to me that "Count Dracula, as portrayed by Christopher Lee in Scars of Dracula" is ludicrously out of place here.
So here's my recommendation:
  • Zap the Lee image.
  • Zap at least two more of the images.
  • Remove material that isn't about the character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
Retain a hatnote, but simplify it to something like:
This article is about the fictional title character of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. For adaptations and derivatives see Dracula in popular culture, and for other uses see Dracula (disambiguation).
(The details can be checked against WP:HAT, etc.) -- Hoary 03:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
PS what I've written above made the rash assumption that disambiguation at the top is a good idea, and reflects only the very fastest of skimreadings of WP:HAT. A not-quite-so-fast skimreading of WP:HAT suggests that the link to the pop culture is better near the foot of the article. A link anywhere, let alone at the top, to "Dracula (disambiguation)", seems rather gratuitous as this article isn't titled "Dracula". If you do away with both of these, you're left with a hatnote suggesting that people may wish to look at Dracula -- to which they get a pointer in the very first sentence of the article. So yes, deletion of the entire disambiguating hatnote seems a good idea.
But deletion of a lot of the other stuff (kitschy Hammer pic of Lee, etc.) seems necessary too. -- Hoary 03:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Though the top-headings seem to be stating the obvious, in my experience in being involved with this article right from its inception we have a relentless parade of newbie editors who have, inter alia:
  • 1, Confused the novel with the character
  • 2, Confused Bela Lugosi with the character
  • 3, Confused Vlad the Impaler with the character
  • 4, Confused all the above in a seemingly infinite number of combinations
  • 5, Altered the top headings in line with their (mis)understandings of any or all of the above.
To prevent these misunderstandings I think that the top-headings serve a useful purpose. I.e. they are not just there for ornament. Colin4C 16:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
That's not an unreasonable point of view. But I'm not at all surprised by (say) the confusion of Bela Lugosi with the character when the article seems to encourage confusion of Christopher Lee with the character. How about stripping from the article material about movies and the like (and also the picture of Vlad)? -- Hoary 22:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I replaced my edits on the page. There was nothing regarding disambiguation at Talk:Dracula for there to be dabs on Count Dracula, consensus there was that there should dablinks at Dracula. Colin4C is being annoyingly disruptive and is not following proper manual of style, such as WP:HAT. This article needs no dablinks because all other related pages are listed in the "see also" section and nothing related to Count Dracula redirects here. Colin4C, please leave the page alone and do not undo all of my other constructive edits here as well. Lord Sesshomaru
Hang on, wait. He's annoyingly disrupting your idea of how the article should be, but hardly any more than you're annoyingly disrupting his idea of what the article should be. You think that your edits are constructive but he thinks that his are constructive.
Could you both please forget about "hatnotes" for a couple of days and decide what the article is supposed to be about?
I had thought that the article was about Stoker's character. Like them or not, Colin4C's hatnotes said as much, and while Sesshomaru disagreed with their presentation as hatnotes I haven't noticed his disagreement with their substance. But not only does the article have two and arguably three graphics that don't pertain to Stoker's character (one of which is placed very conspicuously), its list of categories reads in part: Film characters | Marvel Comics supervillains | Buffyverse vampires.
Decide what the article is supposed to be about. Add material (images, categories) to it or delete stuff from it accordingly. Then read and digest WP:HAT and implement (or consciously and with good reason override) what it says. -- Hoary 10:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Long as Colin4C stops placing those disambiguation dabs and quits ranting about some "talk page consensus" regarding Count Dracula (that consensus never happened, BTW) then I'm willing to let it go. Lord Sesshomaru

Use common sense. I refuse to get into a slanging match with you. Colin4C 19:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The latest relevant edit is this one, in which Colin4C reinstates the hatnotes in their most labored and tedious form, with the edit summary restored top headings as per consensus.
Nonsense. There is no consensus.
Further, the combination of (i) the instruction For later adaptations see Dracula in popular culture and (ii) the conspicuously placed image of Christopher Lee in a later adaptation is bizarre at best.
But if you two are keen to waste your time reverting each other over a relatively minor aspect of an article that's obviously screwed up in more serious ways, I don't suppose anything short of a WP:3RR block will stop you. -- Hoary 23:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
PS I've been bold and cut out the irrelevant images, the irrelevant categories, an irrelevant template, and the pointless repetition of stuff about nasty old Vlad. I've also streamlined the grotesque hatnotes, which in their present form look pretty harmless to me. -- Hoary 03:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Been thinking, I'll have to open up a discussion/survey about the dabs. They have to go, they're unnecessary and it bothers me to no end that they're there. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru
You ask me directly; OK, I'll tell you directly. The way you and Colin4C keep harping on the hatnotes suggests to me that you're both bizarrely obsessed.
Look, until my last edit (and very possibly still after it) the article was a ridiculous cock-up. Colin4C said that would-be readers about and adders of Stoker-irrelevancies should be told at the top to go away. He gave his reason. You said that they shouldn't. You cited a guideline. Both of you ignored the fact that a photo of Christopher Lee was simultaneously inviting just this misunderstanding. That was surprising, but what was truly amazing was that you both seemed uninterested even after I reminded you of the conspicuousness of these enticements.
I've now removed all this junk. I don't expect any praise for that. Indeed, I'm perfectly willing to be criticized. ("No, you don't understand: the article's for the character wherever he may pop up, e.g. in Hammer films; the dab links were wrong in what they said as well as the way they said it.") But no, not a word about that. Instead, yet more wittering about dabs.
Forget the damn dabs for 48 hours, OK? Instead, consider: What's the article for? Discuss that. Does it give this impression, or might it give another impression. Discuss that too. Then edit it. Then think about these Earth-shatteringly significant [Not!] dabs. -- Hoary 06:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Something I forgot to mention about the early history of this article. Some editors found the distinction between the character Count Dracula and the novel Dracula so hard to fathom that they put MERGE notices on this article. This was after a long discussion on the Dracula talkpage in which we agreed that the character Count Dracula needed his own article, like all the other characters in Stoker's novel. But then...new editors come along in blissful ignorance of our long discussion and wanted to MERGE it back with the original article! If we remove the hat-notes I predict the MERGE tendency will make a comeback and we will be back to square one. Colin4C 19:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
That's extremely stupid. "Dracula" is about the novel, "Count Dracula" is about the character. Simple as that. Compare Harry Potter and Harry Potter (character). Of course these articles shouldn't be merged. I think pretty much everyone realises that. Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 16:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, the reference to Dracula (disambiguation) is pointless and irrelevant, as Dracula doesn't redirect here. See WP:NAMB. Also, "For later adaptions, see Dracula in popular culture" should not be linked in a hatnote, but rather in a subsection, using {{main}} and summary style, see WP:RELATED. This is a very clear matter. Q.E.D. Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 15:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears that Colin4C is inventing reasons to keep the disambiguation. What he should realize is that nobody owns articles, we're just trying to keep this website clean and removing unhelpful dabs is one way to go for it. Simple. Lord Sesshomaru
If you look at the edit history of this article you will see that previous editors were confused about what it was about and inter alia DID want to merge it. Call them stupid or not, but how they edit this page according to their missapprehensions is fact. Those of us who have been editing this article from the start have had to deal with a series of confused edits. As for accusations of vandalism if you look at the edit history you will see that Sesshomuru called me one first, (amongst other accusations - for which see above) even though I wrote half the article - hardly vandalic behaviour! Colin4C 20:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
So should the hatnotes at Dracula now be removed as well? I don't see why its permissable to have hatnotes at Dracula and impermissable at Count Dracula. Also the confusion between Count Dracula and Dracula in popular culture is a very real one. Colin4C 20:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Just to add that what I said would happen if the hatnotes were removed has happened and Sesshomari has done NOTHING to rectify it Colin4C 20:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Draculaillustration.jpg

Image:Draculaillustration.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 10:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main Pic?

the Book cover was a nice trey but there's actually a better version of that picture somewhere inside the book. as well as pictures of other characters Tnu1138 (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

I submited an Image for Draculs article and i'm not sure how to scale it down to size Tnu1138 (talk) 02:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Say Wha?

"Dracula's death is shorn of the rituals enjoined by Van Helsing."

Would it be OK if we changed this into something more practical? I have no idea what "shorn" means, and I'm struggling with "enjoined". I understand it in context, but it seems a little pretentious. 68.166.66.223 (talk) 07:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

All I mean is that in finishing off Dracula, Harker and co didn't go to the same trouble with the rituals 'enjoined' upon them by Van Helsing - which they had used to destroy the vampire Lucy earlier on in the book, therefore what they did might have been ineffective...By 'enjoined' I mean that Van Helsing told them about the rituals, instructed them how to use them and urged them to use them - all at once... Colin4C (talk) 11:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acolytes and shapeshifting=

According to the article "There is one instance where the vampire Lucy shrinks in size in order to squeeze through a crack and reenter her tomb but it is never revealed if she and the other vampire acolytes possess greater shapeshifting abilities."

Now, to some extent I'm pretty sure this is untrue, as I can remember Dracula's "brides" transfiguring out of dust when Johnathan Harker first encounters them, and I think it's implied later on that when VanHelsing encounters them they also materialize. Now, granted, this is definitely not the same as Dracula's shapeshifting abilities, but it's definitely something, and I do think it deserves a mention, although I'm not entirely sure what a good way to word it would be. Calgary (talk) 03:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Dracula project

There is now a proposed project to deal with content related to Dracula at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory#Dracula Project. Any parties interested in joining should indicate as much there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I would be interested but have failed in my efforts to find this project. At least so far. Zahir13 (talk) 19:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)