In Bram Stokers
Dracula. Dracula needs the soil from Translvania that he was buried in to
properly rest and maintain his immortality. In J.K Rowlings Harry Potter, Lord
Voldemort puts his soul in seven items of importance known as Horcruxs to
achieve immortality. How does Dracula’s Craters of Soil compare to Voldemorts Horcruxes
and their effect on immortality.
Dracula is a
vampire and eats humans to maintain his power, as a vampire he is immortal and
can live forever. But is his immortality limitless? When Dracula travels to
England he brings along coffins full of native Transylvanian soil that he was
buried in. why does he do this? There is soil in England that he could use, but
he brings along his own. There must be something in the soil that maintains his
powers and his immortality. If Dracula were truly immortal then he would not
have to bring his soil with him.
Lord Voldemort is
a powerful and evil wizard, he is so feared that wizards refuse to call him by
his name, and instead refer to him as He who must not be named and wants to get
rid of Muggles(non-magic folk) in the Wizarding world and be supreme ruler.
Voldemort was scared of death, so in order to achieve immortality he put his
soul into 6 different objects known as Horcruxes. Helga Hufflepuff’s cup,
Rowena Ravenclaw’s Diary, Tom Riddles diary, Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, Salazar
Slytherins locket and his pet snake Nagini. He also accidental put his soul
into Harry Potter the night he tried killing him. He split his soul 7 times and
each time Voldemort lost more of his humanity. By splitting his soul, he was
able to achieve immortality. In order to
kill Voldemort you would have to destroy all 7 Horcruxes. He made this task
difficult by hiding them in separate areas.
Both Dracula and Voldemort
hid away the items that kept them immortal and spread them out to keep them
safe. So does this make them truly immortal or is their immortality tied to
their sacred items? Their downfall was thinking their immortal. Believing your
immortal gives you a cockiness that you cant be defeated, but there not Gods,
they could be defeated, even though it was extremely hard it was done. Both
Dracula and Voldemort despite achieving immortality were killed.
Dracula needed the
soil to properly rest and maintain his powers, but it didn’t hold his soul. If
it was destroyed he could go back to Transylvania and seek more. But in order
for him to travel he would have to have it with him. In my opinion the old
Dracula at the beginning of the novel was a Dracula that hasn’t been sleeping
in his soil and he starts to age, giving the appearance that he is an old man
to Jonathan, later in the novel Dracula is a young, the soil must help with
maintaining a youthful appearance and achieving immortality.
Voldemort uses the
horcruxes to keep parts of his soul in them to achieve immortality. By doing
this he loses his human appearance and becomes more monster than man, the
opposite of Dracula and his soil. If the horcruxes are destroyed he cant just
recreate a part of his soul, its gone for good. He could always take the risk
splitting his soul more but he will continue to lose his humanity. Voldemort
does not have to travel with his horcruxes and keeps them hidden. This gives
Voldemort the ability to travel anywhere and not be held up with carrying his
sacred items.
Both Dracula and
Voldemort go through great lengths in order to achieve and maintain
immortality. Unfortunately for them its not true immortality and only limited.
Both Dracula and Voldemort have similar characteristics and drive for power
that the sacrificed their humanity to live forever.
This is totally unrelated to the paper, but I'm not too familiar with the Harry Potter books. What was Voldemort planning to do when Harry and his pet Snake died? Anyway, back to business, I think the worst part about a villain with limited immortality is that he can't be faced directly. A mortal opponent who has the upper hand can still be defeated with help or by luck, but facing a nearly immortal opponent requires much more work and seems to be more of an endeavor. While the heroes are busy making preparations for the final showdown, the villain is free to handle his own affairs and even attack the heroes with little fear of repercussions, such as Dracula arranging his trip back to Transylvania and attacking Mina.
ReplyDeleteHarry was never intended to be a Horcrux, it was by mistake, but neither could die unless the other one did. but thats a good question and never really thought of it. yea you cant kill him directly and it makes the villain far more scary. If he cant be killed, whats the point and the hero could lose all hope
DeleteHope would have probably made a great theme on it's own. The group knew how difficult it'd be to defeat Dracula, but they never lost hope. Maybe their need to protect Mina prevented them from losing hope. I don't know if any of Harry Potter's friends were in imminent danger if Voldemort wasn't defeated, but it'd be great to compare them to Mina if so.
DeleteI mean, if you have an awesome woman to fight for why lose hope? (haha, just kidding.)But anyways it is imortant for there to be some way to kill the bad guy because no one likes to read about tings gong wrong. This idea is maybe one of the coolest I have read so far. You should do some more research about how victorian vampires worked rather than the ones of today. I have heard so many different vampire rules that it makes you wonder which ones the people of the time actually believed. I myself had not heard of the dirt rule until i read Dracula. I think it would be interesting to see which ones Stoker could have used instead of boxesof dirt.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading this comparison. I think this is a great way to go with your paper because Harry Potter is a series that is so relatable to the audience that it will engage them in what you have to say about Dracula as well. I think for your Dracula and Voldermort comparison it would be interesting to compare how Mina could receive hints on Dracula's location, like when he was traveling by sea, to how Harry's scar would hurt at the times he would think of Voldermort or felt he would show up soon. It would also be neat to discuss their connection with animals. Voldermort could communicate with snakes much like Dracula could communicate to wolves.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas Magan. Mina was infected by Dracula and part of him was in her. The same way that Harry was connected to Voldemort through the scar and a part of Voldermort was in Harry.
DeleteI think the comparisons between Harry and Mina would be very interesting and helpful to the paper because they are very similar and different at the same time. Both know what the other person is doing but Mina was allured by Dracula while Harry was just by luck "the boy who lived" which gives him this power. I think the contrast could bring some more similarities and differences between the two villains.
DeleteGreat idea Wesley, I was also thinking of comparing Mina and Hermonie who are both strong female characters and surprise everyone with their wisdom. Mina is not your typical Victorian Woman, she was able to read and write and was very useful something the male characters were not used to. Hermonie was much the same
DeleteIt is interesting to notice that the men didn't really literally hurt Dracula by capturing the boxes. They were just trying to limit Dracula to where he could be at. When Dracula was in the box this is were he was vulnerable to being attacked as he could do nothing to prevent it. Did Voldemort die or was he just weakened when all the horcruxes were destroyed? Another thing is Stoker doesn't really go into detail about what would happen of Dracula was exposed to the sunlight and he did not have any place to rest. This would be interesting to research about.
ReplyDeleteI guess with all the vampire mythology out there i just assumed something would happen to him in the sunlight, and I'm sure he doesn't sparkle. Voldemort was just weakened when their destroyed but he was able to feel when it happened. he couldnt be killed unless you destroy each horcrux which contains a part of his soul, you would also have to kill directly in order for him to be completely destroyed
DeleteThis is a very interesting post. I would have never thought of comparing Dracula with Voldemort, but it really makes a lot of sense. Although Voldemorts horcruxes and Dracula boxes of dirt were not for similar reasons they both helped accomplish similar goals. Both were there to hide something, Voldemorts items hid part of his soul while Draculas boxes technically hid his soul as well as long as he was in it. Really liked this post and if you use this as your 5 page paper you should try and find some quotes of Voldemort from the books that show how he is like Dracula.
ReplyDeleteMost of everything i said about Voldermort had came from the top of my head. I didnt have the book her in Lubbock, but i grabbed it while on vacation so i will defiantly find some quotes to show better detail about Voldermort and his horcruxes
DeleteWizardry and Vampires. AWESOME! I think it would be cool to dig deeper and see why they long for immortality. I do not know if that would be a researchable topic or an issue topic.
ReplyDeleteI like how you break up the paragraphs. Your topic sentences make your paper really easy to follow. This is interesting and I remember someone mentioning it in my class. The more textual evidence, the better. Bring both stories to life. Especially Potter, not all of us are too familiar with it!