Come get your tickets to the Nazi theme park!!!

Watching Buffy and Angel reminded me I wanted to read Bram Stoker's Dracula at some point. Alas, I haven't so I can't compare the modern vampire to Dracula. However, it seems that the novel is probably less scary than the the extra-textual legend of Vlad the Impaler. I'd rather be soulless and live for ever than be impaled, personally. Or even just had the blood drained out of me. Probably pass out after a certain amount of pints.

Legend vs. reality, also makes me think of the use of the Nazi theme in Angel. It was sort of interesting, but just couldn't match up to the reality of Nazi scary. Combining the evils of reality with fantasy seems to cheapen how scary history could be. I just didn't feel that the length of "Hero" allowed enough time to build up the complexities of persecution.

An extra-textual example of combining reality with fantasty is when there were proposals to build a Dracula Land theme park in Translyvania. I think the idea was eventually shut down. I'm sure this would make the area some money, but it'd be exploiting a historical and literary landmark.