Bram Stoker: Vampire Creator

Yesterday it was Bram  Stoker's birth anniversary. You may not recognize his face and perhaps his name doesn't ring a bell to you either but actually we owe him a lot.
If you like the protagonists of the Twilight saga (all of them vampires) and the story itself, then you have a lot to thank this Irish novelist born on a November 8 in 1847.
Though there had been other stiories with characters that were dead and did not remain in their coffins at night, it was Stoker who created a work that garnered attention and recognition so as to remain in the minds of the readers and eventually long enough to become a classic. 
Dracula the aristocrat, the man who is a monster, the one who can talk to you one minute and attack you the next. What is so appealing in him that so many other characters have tried to imitate him? Perhaps it is this inconfessable desire to play with fire that we all have or maybe it is true there is a dark side in all of us and that darkness calls us in in different shapes. Who can tell?
The idea to die in a way that would not hurt, the possibility to survive death and become a creature of the night, unkillable, unstoppable and yet likable. There are so many things about being a vampire that make such fictional condition appealing yet abominable. 
Of all horror creatures, vampires are the least monstrous. If they were real, maybe we would end up accepting them since we already accept creatures of a more terrible condition and we even let them govern us. We call those politicians.
Personally I would not like to be a vampire. They are slaves of their own nature since they have to satiate their thirst for blood to survive and can do so only at night. Living eternally already sounds boring, imagine living eternally hungry. That and being obliged to spend half the time in the confines of an uncomfortable wooden box make the whole thing a true curse.
Being mortal is not so bad, is it?

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