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| Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing |
Van Helsing as a vampyre is just...frightening. For whatever reason.
I suppose it's rather like what Sherlock Holmes said of the horrid father in
The Speckled Band - how that a doctor gone bad (paraphrase mine....) is the worst.
And, it makes sense too! Just as a doctor knows the ways to heal and diagnose and treat and can easily turn such knowledge to darkly serve his turn, so could Van Helsing adapt all of his knowledge of hunting vampyres to protect himself should he be turned.
Although, Van Helsing would probably walk out into the sun rather than remain soulles and undead..... The only way he'd
stay a vampyre would be if - as with Buffy's vampyres - his personality was changed too. Or however that works.... I've not actually seen that series.
Of course, there's also the chance that he would continue to exist and
still hunt vampyres. Or study them to create a cure for others.... He's a very interesting character, certainly.
Although, on the subject of vampyres, how would that even work? Killing oneself that is....
I'm going to just preface this here and say that I am
not Catholic, and know very little about it save what I know from history. So....please forgive my ignorance.
First, the destruction of vampyres has countless ties in with the Christian religion. Quite sensibly, given that the Church dominated most of the civilised world. Holy Water, crosses, prayers, wooden stakes - all have their origins in Christianity. Even the idea of vampyres being soulless and of Satan has its roots in it.
Of course, vampyres (the blood-sucking monsters at least) predate even Rome in some instances, and have been around longer than Christianity has - but the modern vampyre has it's roots in the vampyre of the Medieval ages. Or late Medieval ages as the case may be.
So, if so many other things come from Christianity, perhaps the reason that they
don't kill themselves did as well.
Of course, there are the vampyres that are completely evil - Dracula and whoever the son was in
Brides of Dracula... - and there are the vampyres that seem to be basically brainless - the Brides that follow the men for the most part - and then there are those that hate what they've become. On that list there's only one certain name - although Harker likely fit as well.
She had tried to keep her son that had become a vampyre, and she never killed him. This ended up being a mistake - of course - and he turned her. And she hated it. And yet, she doesn't do anything about it, really. Tell Van Helsing, of course.
Baron Von Meinster! That was his name. Sorry....
But she reveals herself to Van Helsing, who had come for her son, and she does nothing to him. He kills her, and then she is at peace.
But what if killing themselves didn't work? A suicide was damned eternally - how would a vampyre suicide fare? Hardly any better! But if another killed them, another freed them..... Then perhaps they could be at peace.
If this is true, then it would make sense that the vampyres keep fighting: because letting someone kill you is the same as suicide. More or less.....
"Who is it that has no fear?"
"Only God has no fear."
"Why have you come hear?"
"To find your son."
"Then you know who I am?"
"I know who you were."
"We haven't asked for any help."
"You need it all the same."
"I have been expecting you.
"I rather thought you might."
Those quotes aren't all from the same people, nor are the even from the same film. The same series, certainly; and every other line is Van Helsing's - but lines seven and nine are from two different films. Lines seven and eight are from Horror of Dracula, and lines nine and ten are from the film Satanic Rites of Dracula, I think? I don't know - I've not seen it, just read the dialogue from that scene. Lines one through six are from Brides of Dracula. Like I said: same series.
Yes. This is going to be yet another rambling musing on things related to Peter Cushing. If you've read anything I've posted up to this? The Reader should not be surprised. Besides, I could be dumping these all in one post instead of spreading them out over several days.....
He's an intruiging man. Van Helsing is. or Cushing's at least - I've not gotten around to reading Stoker's book yet.
he's no one important, really - simply a doctor, or a professor. In Hammer's 1958 film, he says that he has studied the vampyres or the 'Undead'. but he is still just a man working alone. He spends his free hours researching monsters in the dark and in the shadows, and then he leaves the safety of his rooms and goes out to meet them on their own ground.
He's weak compared to them - and he is wholly aware of it. If he's too tired, if one should catch him unawares, if he is looking away.... There are countless ways they could get the advantage of him. For goodness sakes - he's armed with water, crucifixes, and wooden stakes that are basically useless unless the vampyre is asleep.
He's not strong. Once he falls into the grasp of the vampyre, he's soon overpowered. The one time he escaped was because the vampyre stood up and so wasn't holding him tightly any longer. (And if Dracula at any point after thought he had any hope of being victorious over Van Helsing, he should have remembered his actions then...) He also faints under stress (well, in rewatching it, it's possible that he was also passing out from oxygen deprivation. If one assumes that the makers shortened the time necessary for such deprivation to occur by a LOT at least....) and is hardly the champion one would choose to fight off the Undead.
He is a gentleman. He's much better suited for the academic or healing circles. He belongs in the sitting room, or in the street laying out his cloak for a lady to cross a puddle. He's soft spoken, and rather introverted: someone who spends his days reading and his nights dreaming.
He's a healer - indeed, he sees his actions as an act of great healing. While that's true, he shouldn't be one to have murder sleeping people - even if they are monsters and undead.
What started him on this path? What made him begin to research and learn all he could about Vampyres? Who has he had to kill that he knew? He knew Jonathan, and yet he was still able to kill him..... And he had to kill Lucy himself too - were there others? Nearer perhaps?
Why does he keep going? Why does he go to the ends of the world to find these people? How does he not hate them for what they are?
He's much stronger than he looks. Physically, probably - but morally certainly. It's why he can kill them and get their blood literally all over his hands. It's why he can walk out into the night knowing what would like nothing better than to eat him for dinner. It's why he can leave the safety of his rooms and venture out into lonely lands after monsters that could turn suddenly at bay and undo him.
"Who is it that has no fear?"
"Only God has no fear."
And he's terrified. He has researched these creatures. He knows what will happen to him if he slips up once - and he has had his nightmare fullfilled. He walked away that time, but how does he know it wasn't a one-time thing?
Indeed - why did he do that?
It's why I think that he would walk out into the sun rather than remain a vampyre. He pressed a red-hot square of iron to his throat to burn out a vampyre bite - and he's not such an idiot to think it wouldn't be agony.
He's stronger than he seems, but he does not advertise it. He is content to remain in the background, yet he does not linger when he is needed in the forefront. He cares deeply for those around him, but he does not let sentiment cloud his judgement.
He is.... He is a safe man. And he fears God. There's just...something about him. The items he holds, they are not merely instruments that work to destroy the undead.
....how else might he have found out they worked? He had to have met a vampyre to know they exist.....
