The Relationship Mina-Dracula. Are vampires really toxic? (based on the graphic novel by Mike Mignola)

[sweet_mnemosyne]

On a first look, the whole relationship between Mina and the Count  in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" might seem toxic: Dracula has the power of hypnosis and reading other's minds, which attests his will to command women; besides, he loved Mina but brutally killed Lucy, showing that he is only able to respect the women he wants to. He even has his small group of prisoner concubines. Let us not forget that he loves Mina because he sees Elizabeth in her, not because he fell for his personality (honestly I doubt the last point, and I'd add to that the pagan, almost platonic concept of love through remembering: when the mind's interest is sparked by something truly beautuful it then remembers the beauty and perfection of a past life, in which he was not alone but shared the divine).

On the other hand, the toxicity of the relationship cannot be traced in forms of oppression of poor Mina: she is stunning, clever (names Madame Curie, talks about culture). She's restless and follows a path to rediscover the power inside her thanks to Dracula.
One can't just help but doubt her choice to sacrifice her mortal life and everything she had to Dracula, when in reality she was willing to do the same for her Jonathan, and nobody really cared. Perhaps Dracula was a monster and full of demons, and it is questionable that one sane girl should spend her life healing the wounds of a monster... but that's literally the same plot as Beauty and the Beast!

Furthermore (and that's where it gets interesting!) the script for the graphic novel based on the film really underlines the power of the couple made by Mina and Dracula. First of all, his "toxic", "dime-storeish" powers are mostly cancelled, while some of them are reinterpreted: his ability to read minds is a way to read hearts and therefore understand feelings, especially feeling of women, in a society in which they are left behind even by their husbands (Van Helsing clearly tells Jonathan that he cannot undestand what Mina is going through when he shows a superficial idea to "protect her" probabily derived by his education); plus, the three terrifying women which were to be Dracula's concubines are actually three independtent, luscious women, who believe in female sisterhood (they share their blood meals even with Mina, who is an outsider to them. That behaviour is similar to the ones of vampire bats, who manifest solidarity and some forms of female hierarchy). Then, Dracula expresses his feelings of love remebered for Mina, in an added scene where he says how dreadfully alone he has been before finding her again. The death of Lucy and Reinfield is seen through  a "betrayal"  of which they are guilty (not a powerful tool to justify violence and rape, but it oughts to be appreciated, after all, one cannot simply change the storyline).
Plus, Madame Mina is no joker about being at his lover's side, saying that she wishes to be "taken away from all of this death" by him, even trough eternal damnation. However, she shows no signs of being under some sort of spell, for she recognizes her husband Johnatan and, though she does not love him, she feels sorry for what she has brought upon him. Jer rationality really is in contrast with the classic "madness" believed to be a peculiarity of women.