D – Dracula ~ A-Z Blogger Challenge 2014

He has the most alluring personality. He carries a physique that could shame the strongest men to death. His wicked smile exudes a daunting fear and invokes an intoxicating admiration at the same time. His erudite mind absorbs any information like a sponge. But most importantly, his heart never beats.

He has been portrayed villain for ages, a villain women could fall for! His aristocratic charm could melt even a heart of steel and confuse a reasoning mind. His spell works its magic in the night when the bloodcurdling howling of night creatures unite in one voice, as the night spreads her cloak of darkness across the skies, for this one nyctophillic lover. After all, it is his time to hunt, with his brides of course.

So, allow me to introduce this mystical character from Bram Stroker’s novel – Count Vlad Dracula.

Dracula is one of the darkest characters in history, who may have more movies to his credit than any living legend. Besides the many facets of his powerful personality that have been studied, researched, revealed and debated over, for years in books, movies, old wives tales and legends, it is Count Vlad Dracula, from Bram Stroker’s novel, that fascinated me the most. I have read the novel and have also seen the movie by the same name, an adaptation from the book. Going by which, Dracula is a count, a man of knowledge and stature, who resides in an old eerie castle located in the Carpathian Mountains, on the border of Transylvania. Historical references deduce that, Dracula was once the warrior prince Vlad Dracula III, a member of a celebrated chivalric society known as Order of the Dragon, which was formed to fight the Ottoman Turk Empire. However, his rising from the dead, his supernatural abilities to shape shift into bats, wolves and rats and meeting his nemesis Van Helsing have many versions. One of which says, Dracula renounced God and embraced the dark powers, that helped him rise from the grave to feed on blood and power. 

Whoever he was, whoever he became, notwithstanding all that, Dracula will always be one of the celebrated villains in history, for someone who was intense, passionate, commanding and shrewd, but most importantly uber charming on the outside and deathly evil from inside.