[Rare Trope] A story element that popularized a concept is actually the polar opposite of that concept

[u/DiveSideways]

Some franchises start off a bit specialized and evolve into something else later. Some stories get warped by pop culture and burdened with misconceptions. Some stories just don't make sense, or send the wrong message on accident.

Not these!

No, these examples are very clear (and not retconned) and yet pop culture has done a complete 180-degree turn on understanding them.

1. Romeo and Juliet routinely gets alluded to as though it's a classic love story. In fact it is an intensely melodramatic tragedy all the way through, everyone is shallow and exploitative and desperate--and they die for it. Even the opening of the play self-indulgently advertises how dire the whole situation is.

2. The One Ring from The Lord of The Rings isn't exactly meant to be a cursed item that corrupts the greedy or weak-minded. Geeky discourse loves to offer up examples of characters "strong enough" or "pure enough" to resist it, but The One Ring turns that trope on its head. The One Ring is an amplifier for power but lesser beings can't make full use of it. Being strong and noble and pure makes you more corruptible, you can bear a heavier load of its dark essence.

3. Keyzer Soze from The Usual Suspects is one of the most famous examples of a villain who fooled everyone and got away with his plotting scot-free. However, the whole huge convoluted mess of a scheme was intended to kill off the last living enemy capable of ID'ing him. Not only did Soze accidentally leave a new witness alive who then cooperated with the police and their sketch artist, he also got himself closely inspected by a whole police station (who now know his true identity.) Yes, it was a good twist and yes, Soze escaped police custody, but his efforts to tie off one loose end resulted in high-quality images of his real face for the FBI Most Wanted list. In most ways this was truly an epic failure for him.

[u/jorgespinosa]

Dracula: Almost everyone think it's a tragic love story and that Dracula is just trying to recover his past love, but in the book Dracula is a monster, he doesn't have a tragic love story, he hunts mina and Lucy because he wants to

[u/Hedgiwithapen → u/jorgespinosa]

the love story between Jonathan and Mina, and between Lucy and her three suitors, is so strong that it shapes the whole story, and yet every adaptation harps on making Mina and Dracula something. it annoys me to no end.

[u/MusicLikeOxygen → u/jorgespinosa]

That was the tell that Luc Besson was ripping off Francis Ford Coppola's version with his recent movie and probably never read the book. Besson said in interviews that he wanted to focus on the love story since it is an important part of the book that most versions leave out. Add to that the fact that so much of Besson's movie is obviously plagarising Coppola.

[u/faldese → u/MusicLikeOxygen]

He said that?? 💀 I actually love the Coppola version's romance because of the costumes (Eiko Ishioka's work, as selective as it was, is top tier no matter what), the lines ("I have crossed... oceans of time, to find you"), and Gary Oldman is a helluva romantic lead when he's allowed to be (doesn't help that Jonathan was a wet paper bag in the movie). But to be that flagrantly ignorant of the source material you are adapting???

[u/MusicLikeOxygen → u/faldese]

Here's the actual quote: “I feel there’s one element in the book that’s missing all the time,” Besson explains. “It’s the love. For me, it’s the ultimate love story — a man who will wait 400 years to see the return of his wife.”

Literally just the plot of the Coppola version

[u/Tuxedocatbitches → u/MusicLikeOxygen]

I mean, given that Besson is an established predator I could see him reading Dracula hunt Mina and go ‘yeah that’s the stuff! Gotta replicate that because that’s how relationships should be!’

[u/wktg → u/MusicLikeOxygen]

Ant the ultimate love between a man being willing to be eternally damned so his wife is not alone??? The ultimate love between men and the woman they court that they are willing for her sake to give her blood and work together to avenge her??? The ultimate love between all of them to hunt down Dracula as companions???

[u/VBHEAT08 → u/MusicLikeOxygen]

Hey now, don’t discount Besson’s novel introduction of Draculas date rape perfume.

God I hated that movie. Felt like fanfiction of the Coppola one in the worst possible sense

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/MusicLikeOxygen]

I got into a recent slapfight (my mistake, I know) with someone who insisted that Coppola's film was no longer influential with pop culture and that people were obviously more familiar with Stoker's novel than Coppola's version, so it is both vindicating and infuriating to see an adaptation from only last year crediting a Coppola invention to the original story.

[u/Capital-Intention369 → u/jorgespinosa]

IIRC the idea of Mina being "fated" to fall for Dracula because she's a reincarnation of his past lover was made up for one of the movies.

[u/67CloudMagnet → u/jorgespinosa]

I once lent a friend Dracula and she was stunned Mina and Lucy weren’t in some Romeo and Juliet romance, just a monster shopping list.

[u/nowTHATSakatana1999 → u/67CloudMagnet]

Like, with Dracula or with each other? Because Lucy already had like three dudes in her harem.

[u/dzngotem → u/jorgespinosa]

If i remember right, the book gives a small bit of sympathy to Dracula right after they kill him, where the main character describes Draculas face as "being at peace now that he's laid to rest", or something like that.

[u/Barbaric_Stupid → u/dzngotem]

Because in the book it is slightly implied Dracula is a victim of demonic possession. He sold his soul to the devil for "eternal" life and all his other supernatural powers come from him being a sorcerer.

[u/nowTHATSakatana1999 → u/jorgespinosa]

And for some reason adaptations like to demonise Lucy.

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/nowTHATSakatana1999]

It's a strange rule of thumb for adaptations that no female character can be given greater plot relevance without it being at the expense of another female character, apparently.

[u/learn2fly438826 → u/jorgespinosa]

If anything it's an allegory for how much paperwork is involved for moving to London.

[u/WinninRoam → u/jorgespinosa]

It goes even another layer deeper than that.

Dracula is epistolary, narrative fiction. The entire story is told via letters and recollections of every character.

It's noteworthy that, whenever any encounter with Dracula is recounted, the current narrator indicates they were unable to see clearly at the time, or had a foggy memory of the event, or otherwise indicate doubts to the accuracy of their own account.

The book uses the Dracula character as the collective boogyman upon which all manner of illicit desires and behavior get blamed.

[u/FatherDotComical → u/jorgespinosa]

I feel like all the protagonists of Dracula would want to fucking spit on him if they had the chance.

People ship him so much with Mina I actually had a conversation with someone that he already had wives (and servants)! He was not alone and brooding like Beast from Disney waiting for the right girl. He literally hunts babies for them to eat. (and he may or may not truly love them, but they still exist in some compacity)

(and somewhat unrelated but for some reason people do not like that one of the hunters is literally an American cowboy. I had several literature teachers and friends say that Quincy ruined the ending and the book? Totally confused by that one...)

[u/Ok_Consideration2209 → u/jorgespinosa]

So this is how I find out Mina from deadlock was named after a character from the original Dracula story

[u/kinghyperion581 → u/jorgespinosa]

You can blame Dark Shadows for that. Dark Shadows was so popular in the 70s that when they did the 1979 adaptation of Dracula they shoehorned in a romance plot that adapted right from Dark Shadows.

This version happened to be Francis Ford Coppola's favorit version so he basically remade it in 1992 and that's why Dracula is seen as a Gothic romance