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Dracula/Mina
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Count Dracula/Mina Murray |
| Alternative name(s): | Dracmina, Dramina |
| Gender category: | Het |
| Fandom: | Dracula |
| Canonical?: | not in the book; canon in some adaptations |
| Prevalence: | rare |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Canon
In the Stoker's novel, Mina is a part of the group hunting Dracula. He starts feeding on her in her sleep, and during his third attack on her forces her to drink his blood, to make her a vampire (and presumably one of the Brides) and to establish a mental connection between them, enabling him to spy on the vampire hunters. Mina, however, uses this mental link to track Dracula's moves, which plays the crucial part in the hunters finding and killing him.
While Dracula/Mina romance is absent from the book, it often appears in derivative works. Dracula stories that have Dracula/Mina in some form include:
- The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen - 1975 book
- Dracula - 1979 movie
- Love at First Bite - 1979 comedy
- Dracula, el Musical - Argentinian musical from 1991
- Bram Stoker's Dracula - 1992 movie
- Mina: The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly - 1994 book
- Dracula the Undead by Freda Warrington - 1997 book
- Dracula the Musical - musical from 2001
- Dracula - entre l'amour et la mort - Canadian musical from 2006
- Dracula: The Un-dead by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt - 2009 book
- Dracula, my Love by Syrie James - 2010 book
- Dracula in Love by Karin Essex - 2010 book
- Dracula, l'amour plus fort que la mort - French musical from 2011
- Dracula 3D - 2012 movie
- Dracula - 2013 series
- Dracula Untold - 2014 movie
- Nosferatu - 2024 movie
Dracula/Mina undertones are also not uncommon for academic analysis of the novel; a popular interpretation is to read the Count as a symbol of sexual desires reviled by Victorians, and to argue that Mina feels repressed attraction towards him.
Fandom
Dracula/Mina is so unpopular in the Dracula fandom on Tumblr, especially post-Dracula Daily, that a lot of content relating to the pairing is probably produced by Dracula/Mina hatedom. Fandom treats it as a symbol of everything wrong with Dracula adaptations and perception of the novel by the public; Bram Stoker's Dracula, Coppola's adaptation that has signicantly increased the popularity of the pairing among creators of subsequent Dracula media, is also almost universally reviled by the book fans. Fans bring up the problematic character of shipping a rape sirvivor with her rapist (since the blood baptism scene is often interpreted as symbolical rape), breaking/diminishing the great relationship that Mina has with her husband Jonathan, portraying Dracula in unnecessarily sympathetic light and distorting Mina's characterization/taking away her agency as potential problems with the pairing.
Even before the Tumblr fandom took shape, Dracula/Mina wasn't a particularly popular pairing, which has been noted by some fans:
Where are all these Dracmina shippers? Do they have a secret discord server where they talk about Victorian gothic villainfucking? And they didn't invite ME? Can I join?But like. The truth is that even pre-DD, there wasn't a TON of Dracmina fanfiction/general content, whether it was romanticized and fluffy or not. I've been circling around the Dracula fandom since 2011, scoured for fanfic, and...there was maybe ONE really good series that was dark. [snipped] I've ALWAYS seen this kind of endless complaining about Dracmina as if that's a way to prove that you're one of the Real Fans who understands that the Vampires are Bad. Like, congratulations, you read the book! You know that Dracmina is not canon in it! Now go and make content for something you actually DO like! Have some useful conversations about the novel and the themes in it! ANYTHING.
And so many posts are framed as like "instead of Dracmina/the reincarnated wife thing, here is what they SHOULD DO" instead of framing it as "I think it would be really cool if...!" Because even when they're talking about THEIR ships, it's almost inevitably about Dracmina. J0nmina shippers are more obsessed with Dracmina than *I* am. (I wouldn't say I aggressively ship it so much as I hold a little bit of fondness for it thanks to that teen girl who loved the sweeping, gothic romance of the idea of it, especially the musical tbh.) [1]
What hasn't changed, though, is that, while the dominance of Dracula/Mina is a fact of the adaptation/reception tradition, it's not actually reflected in the fanworks that get created in internet fan culture.
There were some romanticized, Coppolaesque Dracula/Mina fics on FFN and LJ back in the day, but they were never an overwhelming majority. And now, of the 1000+ stories on AO3 for Dracula (novel), only 60 are tagged with Dracula/Mina. Of those, over half are also tagged with Jonathan/Mina, and a quarter are tagged with Dracula/Jonathan. A full third warn for rape/non-con. For whatever reason, internet fandom isn't, on the whole, writing uncomplicatedly romantic stories in which Dracula and Mina are soulmates and he offers her joyfully accepted sexual liberation. This is really interesting to me! And I don't have conclusions, but I'm very curious about why it plays out this way.[2]
Majority of Dracula/Mina shippers are fans of the relationship in the 1992 movie, Wildhorn's musical or 2024 remake of Nosferatu, in all of which the couple is made canon. Novel-based shippers are rare. The fans of the ship explore it in varied ways: some enjoy its dark nature and use it to write about dynamics of abuse, while others emphasize things like sensuality, Gothic romance, vampirefucking/monsterfucking and possibility of redemption through love.
Fanfiction
Novel
- Correspondence by Assimbya
- Awakening by kajivar
- Letter from Mina Harker to Lucy Westernra. Written in shorthand, after Lucy's death, and found hidden in her tomb, unopened. by mathildia
Some of the fanfictions are written by non-shippers as experiments in trying to create a Dracula/Mina story that would ring true to the novel characters:
- The Making of a Monster by RobberBaroness
- One Flesh by PsychoPomposity
Likewise, several novel-based fics take a premise of Mina being Dracula's reincarnated wife from the 1992 movie and give it a darker turn:
- Mina's Lost Entries by evenstar8705
- Ioana by Assimbya
There are noncon fics using the pairing primarily for horror. They usually take place on the night of the blood baptism:
- This Bitter Hour by Eione
- M is for That Which is Mine by Changeling_Lili
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Dracula/Mina stories set during the 1992 movie often expand on their canonical scenes together, especially these during their courtship in London. Post-canon works are usually AUs in which Dracula survives and they get together.
- Twilight Is Not Good For Maidens by Thyme In Her Eyes
- there is no exorcism for what is whole by ncfan
- Blood and Life of the Comestible Lily by EAceofspades
Other
- Dracula's Garden by sithkittie (1979 movie)
Fanart
Dracula/Lucy (de facto Mina character) from the 1979 movie
1992 Dracula/Mina based on The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.
- Art by Abigail Larson ("What if Dracula turned Mina and they got to live happily in his castle as vamps forever")
- Oceans of Time by LinestyleArtwork (2021)
- 304 - Dracula and Mina by iamtabbychan (2020)
Meta
- Dracula + Mina = Canon? by urbanhermitgirl in theborgopass lj community (2005)
- Meta by margridarnauds on the prevalence of the pairing in adaptations (2024)
Communities
- the_scent_of_lilacs - Dreamwidth community centered on Nosferatu 2024, also allows Dracula/Mina works for other Dracula fandoms
References
- ^ From the meta about reasons people may have for shipping Dracula/Mina by margridarnauds
- ^ From the post by chthonic-cassandra