#c'mon dracula adaptations where's my 'the crew actually morn renfield because he was a person too' scene

[wingedknightrose]

if I were to do an adaptation of Dracula, I think I would add a scene within the next couple of days here, and that scene is: the cast hold a memorial for Renfield.

it starts with Mina. Mina, who's had a couple of days to process the initial horror of what's happened to her, only to for a realization to finally sink in - Renfield tried to protect her. he died trying to keep Dracula away from her, even though they'd barely known each other, even though they'd spoken only twice. Mina's natural empathy and her own troubling lack of self-worth wouldn't help this situation, and she'd end up...distressed, if not having another breakdown.

Mina is distraught, the others might initially chalk it up to the whole impending vampirism until she actually explains, that's she's upset because a man died for her, a veritable stranger, and she can't even go to his funeral because they've got to hunt Dracula and people would ask questions and- and- she just wishes she could do him that little bit of honor, give him that smallest regard, because he died for her.

and then Arthur speaks up, and suggests they hold a private memorial. Arthur also strikes me as terribly empathetic, he's known plenty of suffering of late, he wants to help. and, well, Renfield did give everything to try and help. just as Arthur respects Van Helsing for giving so much to help Lucy, so to will he offer the same to Renfield.

Jonathan is immediately on board. not just for Mina's sake - though make no mistake, he is in part looking for something, anything, to help Mina find comfort - but because Jonathan, more than any of them, realizes just what standing up to Dracula would have taken. he knows how strong, how powerful, how utterly cruel Dracula is in the most personal way. he knows the amount of courage it would take to stand up to that. and for him to have done that not even for himself, but for another? for Mina? yes, he believes Renfield deserves the same amount of respect and mourning that any of the others would, should they fall while undertaking this task.

Quincey won't argue. Jack and Van Helsing...I feel like they'd go along with it, if only for Mina's sake, even if they haven't been treating Renfield with any of the common courtesy he was due as another human being. heck, you could have one of them make an off-hand comment about how it's so sweet of Mina to mourn the poor lunatic, only for someone else to curtly inform them that mad or not, Renfield was still a man, and had they all treated him more like one perhaps this never would have happened

but even if you don't put the callout in there, I still think it'd be a scene worth adding. to acknowledge that Renfield had been as much part of the fight against Dracula as any of the rest of them, and that he had given everything to see it through

#dracula #dracula daily #r m renfield #c'mon dracula adaptations where's my 'the crew actually morn renfield because he was a person too' scene #yes yes prejudice against the mentally ill etc etc but i still think mina would be torn up about it. like the man litereally DIED for her #let her acknowledge that! let the others acknowledge that! let them honor him for that!