A thought on Dracula

 For today's countdown to Halloween post, a thought about J.H. Brennan's gamebook Dracula's Castle, the original novel Dracula, and of course the Dracula Game. I think one of the appeals of the novel and what makes it stand apart to this day from other horror stories and make its title character such a terrifying antagonist is that he is not merely a monster in the shadow, but a bona fide conqueror. Because Count Dracula's scheme is to actually invade the British Empire and then the world. He has ambitions. That's what makes him such a great villain and such great antagonist for a make belief or role-playing games. This is what so many adaptations miss, because of limited budgets or because they simply don't get the character. Dracula wants to invade, subdue, conquer, dominate human civilisation. When he is in a story, the stakes should be high.