LadySoth wrote:
For those interested, check similar discussion about Dracula's love-life here:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... php?t=7096
From a cultural standpoint, the two characters share much in common, although I would argue that literarily, Strahd is a much more advanced and defined character, by virtue of having so many books written about him, while we have comparatively little to go on in regards to Drac, except the original novel.
Comparatively little? Between novels, comics, movies, television, and even commercials, there's a plethora of material out there on Dracula-more if you include his real life counterpart, Vlad IV. Dracula is the most filmed character in movies after Sherlock Holmes, although Dracula may have passed Holmes in recent decades.
There's so much out there on Dracula, in fact, that I think he's inspired three or four darklords, all based on different interpretations of the vampire and their Prince of Darkness.
Canonically, Stoker only wrote the one novel, true-though Fred Saberhagen practically made a career out of his Dracula novels, and there are more Dracula novels out there than anyone wants to recount.
Aside from reigning Prince of Darkness for the past century or so, Dracula has dominated our culture, becoming an icon of decadence, evil, and the aristocracy. He is Power run amok, the worst excesses of wealth and privilege, the nastiest underbelly of government exposed, and yet, he is a prince as noble and pure as from any fairy tale. He is equally comfortable in the halls of the socialists as the palaces of the wealthy, and he is something we all recognise as hand in hand with power and wealth-it isn't a paucity of material, but it's abundance that makes Dracula hard to figure out.
Of course, it means also no one is wrong in their interpretation of the character, either...