Watch Dracula Season 1 | Prime Video – amazon.com

Its not the WORST show. The music and effects are good, and the actors are great. Like Penny Dreadful, they pull in other characters from Bram Stoker's Dracula and other big name monsters and modify them significantly. The show is a little tame for me, but okay for a once-through ride.

HOWEVER - if the show is going to pull in Dracula as being the historical, real Vlad III Dracula, then the history should be done correctly.

In the show, Dracula is against the Order of the Dragon - even the little snippet about the real Vlad they include states as much. And they paint the real, historical Order of the Dragon as being some crazy fanatical group akin to the ones who burned witches in the Salem witch trials. This is simply not true - and the misinformation makes me bare my own fangs. Vlad III Dracula and his father, Vlad II Dracul were creators and members of the Order of the Dragon - a band of free noblemen who united to repel the Ottoman Empire from Wallachia and surrounding territories (what is now known as Romania.) There was once a time when a saying abounded in the region, that roads must never be put into working order, lest the Turk (Ottoman) suspect resistance and bring punishment. Vlad and his father spent their lives desperately trying to restore order to a ruined region, all the while trying to repel the vicious Ottoman Empire which was a ruthless, huge, invading foreign power during this time. (Frankly, it threatened India, France, Greece, Armenia, and half the globe. India had its own band of free warriors who finally stood together after the destruction the Ottoman Empire brought to almost all of India's holy sites...they were called the Marathi, look them up! It turns out many countries had a "Dracula" figure rise up to defend against this notorious empire.)

Yet, during the same time as this invasion, rich Saxons were angry with Vlad III Dracula when he re-established order in his region, it threatened their stranglehold on the trade routes, for the war and conflict benefited them the way it benefits the super rich today. And the Ottomans, well of course they despised Dracula because they'd been invading half the globe for well over 800 years at that point, and they did not like resistance. Dracula was cruel with his enemies, and used impalement, or "The Art of the Khazouk" as the Ottomans called it. For Dracula learned the art of the Khazouk from the very Ottomans who stole away the young Dracula and his brother Radu as forced tribute. But aside from his intolerance of crime, and his turning of impalement back upon the very same who tried to kidnap and indoctrinate him, many regarded Dracula as a hero.

The rich Saxons spread exaggerated tales of Dracula's cruelty far and wide, seeking to defame him in grotesque poems and literature. These defaming stories are responsible for much of what we see in modern vampire lore. Germany in particular went wild with a rush of vampire literature and horror stories. However, those who lived there and particularly in eastern Europe, where people actually lived under Dracula and sought to maintain their life under the constant threat of Turkish invasion - they tell a different story and champion Dracula as a local hero. Even today you can speak to people whose great grandfathers lived through the end of the Ottoman threat. Romania still has a statue of Dracula standing today, and many credited him with restoring order, vanquishing rampant crime, and playing a large part in Romania's sovereignty today.

Today we know that Dracula was a desperate man with a limited army who did everything he could to defend his nation and people from invaders, like any good Szekely would. He was a pioneer of psychological defensive warfare. He spent his entire life pinned between the Ottomans, who had tried again and again to cross the Danube and subjugate the land, and the Saxons behind him, who engaged in constant political espionage against his name, as they assassinated his father before him.

People don't like to hear this, because there is a new age cliche that all bad*ss characters must get their power from the devil, but on the contrary, it wasn't until later that Dracula meant son of the devil. During Dracula's time, as the Romanian board of tourism will even tell you, the name Dracula meant son of the Dragon, not devil. Dracula was a Christian nobleman who would not abandon his land. And vampires, traditionally, are creatures of sheer will - A will so strong that they defy the natural order of death. However, being dead yet refusing to die, they require the blood of the living to animate their flesh. Aside from their need of blood, they were known to be more neutral creatures who sometimes slept in the crypts below churches for sanctuary. Did you know, traditionally, it is actually Werewolves that made a pact with the devil?

So, yeah. The show is enjoyable, but I'm sick of shows like this pulling in the historical Dracula and not getting the story straight, and making the Order of the Dragon - the heart and soul of Dracula's desperate stand against a warring world - how ignorant for a Dracula show to change real history and defame the crux of Dracula's cause. Dracula was not a contrite little man who spoke about darwin, he was a proud, Szekely warrior. If you don't care about history - or the real Dracula - maybe you'll like the show turning him into the exact opposite of what he is and what he fought so gruesomely for.

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Watch Dracula Season 1 | Prime Video - amazon.com