Count Dracula

Count Dracula

Also Known As	Bunbuns Mr. Count Count Draculoser The Prince of Darkness Ozzie Osbourne Dad The Count Uncle Count (by Wolfie) Gorog Tepes
Played by	Keith-Lee Castle
Species	Vampire
First Appearance	When You're a Stranger
Last Appearance	All For One
Mother	Mrs Dracula
Father	Count Dracos Dracula
Occupation	Unknown - Possibly just 'Vampire'
Spouse&nbsp Children Neice and Nephew Sibling	Magda Westenra Ingrid Dracula and Vladimir Dracula Boris Dracula and Olga Dracula Ivan Dracula

Count Dracula (born Gorog Tepes) is the father of Vlad and Ingrid. He is generally shown as loving being a vampire, and tries to make Vlad become a great vampire as well. However, despite thinking himself 'pure evil' like most vampires should be, he breaks many vampire rules, mainly by letting breathers enter his castle without trying to bite them. He is portrayed in Young Dracula by the actor Keith-Lee Castle.

Series 1 & 2

Count Dracula is a 600-year-old vampire, who has emigrated to Britain to escape his problems with the local villagers in Transylvania. He sleeps in a coffin, can ignite or put out candles with a wave of his fingers and has the ability to move from room to room at great speed, bordering on teleportation. In the second series he was seen to turn into a bat or a cloud of smoke at will, and even move his soul from his own body into another's, and so possess them. He likes the taste of blood from humans, whom he calls breathers, but has had to resort to drinking the blood of sheep to stay out of trouble. He also, due to misunderstanding, answers to the name "Mr Count" and this similarly prevents any worry on the part of humans by concealing his real name, Dracula.

However despite his claims to be "pure evil" he has shown compassion occasionally. He is deeply in love - as much as he denies it - with Magda, the estranged mother of Vlad and Ingrid. He also follows a strict vampiric honour code, such as not killing other vampires and leading a pure (vampiric) lifestyle.

He favours his young son Vlad and is constantly ignoring or otherwise brushing off his daughter Ingrid, making both of their lives difficult in different ways. His thoughtless treatment of Ingrid is surprising, considering she has the characteristics he expects of his "perfect child" (at one point he tries to marry her off to a vampire kulak, to get her out of the way). In the second series the Count seems to notice Ingrid a bit more by her cruel ways, but has never shown her favouritism, even after she transforms herself into a full vampire, and has only ever been "nice" to her in one episode during the first series when Vlad accidentally hypnotizes him into forgetting he is a vampire himself. His constant favouritism towards Vlad is just as illogical as his disregard for Ingrid, considering that Vlad does not in any way wish to become a vampire. Yet as a father, he is treating them each in a way that supports their own natural tendencies - by disregarding Ingrid he encourages her to be strong and evil, and by adoring Vlad he encourages Vlad's good-heartedness and also explores his own potential. The Count relies on Vlad to help him survive the modern world and avoid more angry mobs. {C}In the first and second series, the Count is often mistaken for a rock star because of the somewhat Gothic style of clothing he wears on the occasions he leaves the castle - most notably in an episode where he goes to parents' evening at Ingrid and Vlad's school, and ends up being chased by screaming fans while trying to protect himself from the sun with an umbrella. For the most part, however, he stays indoors during the day, and during the end of the second series comes under criticism (and near execution) from the Grand High Vampire for his tolerant relationship with "breathers".

Season 3

In Season 3 of Young Dracula, the 604 year old vampire father of Vlad and Ingrid: the Count, as in previous seasons, exhibits the traditional habits of blood, bats and badness.

The Count is Vlad's Regent until Vlad comes of age and is able to claim the title of 'Grand High Vampire', but like any father with a teenage son, they don't alway's see eye to eye, as is seen most powerfully in 'Carpathian Feast'. In this episode, the Count complains that Vlad is "always telling [him] what to do and trifling with [his] possessions" and shortly after this exclamation, is overpowered by Vlad when the Count tries to bite a Transylvanian Cleaning Lady working in the school. The Count tries to exact revenge on Vlad for making him feel "[un]needed and [ir]relevant" by ordering Vlad to throw a Carpathian Feast in his honour, during which "a vampire of the Count's choosing will be thrown to the flames", the Count's choice being Erin, the supposed 'Half-fang', after Ingrid points out that Vlad "is crushing on her like crazy".

Another example of the tension between the Count and his son is when Vlad saves Ingrid from slayers in 'Hide and Seek' and brings her back to Garside Grange to live with them. At first, the Count was completely non-receptive to the idea of having anything to do with Ingrid after she "betrayed" them, though reluctantly agrees to allow her to stay at Vlad's urging. He also allows Renfield, once Vlad has restored the latter's memory, to cure Ingrid of her illness in 'The Enemy Within', though not before torturing her through false medicines with hairy side-effects. However, despite the fact that the Count "loathes" Ingrid "as much as ever", he also seems to have developed some sort of respect for her; not underestimating her use as an ally - albeit an unfriendly one - in 'Faustian Slip' when he and Vlad enlists her into their plot to blackmail Magda, the idea of which he found laughable in the previous seasons, sarcastically exclaiming in season 2's 'Kidnapped': "Get help from a girl!?" Though it should be noted that this respect most likely stems from wariness, given that "if the battery on [the Count's] UV cage hadn't run out, [he]'d be dust by now, and so would [Vlad]".

It could be said that the Count's hatred of Ingrid spills over, slightly, onto Erin, who again is allowed to stay at Garside Grange at Vlad's urging. In 'The Enemy Within', the Count demands why he should allow Erin to remain with them, to which Vlad replies that "she saved Ingrid's life", at which point the Count points out that this does not endear her to him as he'd have preferred that Ingrid hadn't been rescued at all. On the other hand, perhaps it is not so much that he hates her as much as he sees her merely as a pawn, or an obstacle. The former is shown in 'Carpathian Feast' when he is willing to destroy her for no other reason than that she is Vlad's great weakness which, in this episode, he wishes to exploit to get back at Vlad for disempowering him. The latter is seen in 'Blood Thief' when he commissions Bertrand with her assassination in order to force Vlad to forget about her and concentrate on opening the Praedictum Impaver.

It is not often that the Count and Bertrand have a dialogue, yet when they do, it is often strained in as much as the Count demands of Bertrand, (for instance in 'Faustian Slip' when he orders Bertrand to make sure that Vlad doesn't "slack off") whilst showing him very little respect, if any. Whilst it is made apparent on several occasions that Bertrand accepts this treatment because he "must obey the Regent", when we first see him in 'The Enemy Within', he threatens Vlad's family - presumably including the Count - with execution, unless Vlad can prove that he is "The Chosen One", which indicates that Bertrand is competent enough to take the Count on in a fight (or that he has the authority to order their executions). Given that little, if anything, is seen of the Count's fighting ability, the audience can only think of the Count's behaviour as decidedly cocky. The pettiness associated with this 'cockiness' is also evident in 'Carpathian Feast' where Bertrand points out that if the Count feels that he has nothing to lose, "he will go on a killing spree, bringing the slayers down on [them]" and so must be made to feel "needed and relevant" - in other words: 'placated'.

It seems that, not including Renfield - whom the Count treats as badly as ever and would rather not be left alone with (as seen near the end of 'Fangs For The Memories' when Renfield happily remarks that when Wolfie is disposed of, "it will just be [the Count] and [Renfield]...as it should be", to which the Count almost immediately decides that Wolfie can stay, "on a trial basis", which is interesting when one considers that seconds before, the Count was happy to see the back of Magda's hybrid offspring), the only people whom the Count doesn't rub up the wrong way are: Miss Alexandra McCauley: the Head Teacher of Garside Grange, and Wolfie, who in 'Fangs for the Memories' refers to the Count as "Uncle Count" - undoubtedly an affectionate term, and in 'Blood Thief' in a terse discussion with Renfield, calls him "Dad".

The Count's relationship with Miss McCauley at first appears to be similar to his relationship with Mrs Brannaugh in seasons 1 and 2, which was somewhat flirtatious, including references to "Cherry pie" which was given as a literal dessert by Mrs Brannaugh to the Count in 'Kidnapped', but was used as an obscure (for a children's show aimed at 8-12 year olds) sexual joke later on in the episode. The first we see of the Count's and Miss McCauley's dialogue in 'Hide and Seek' has the Count commenting of Miss McCauley's necklace in, some might say, a flirtatious manner he calls it"the Dracula charm"because he wants to bite her and is refering to her neck . However, from 'The Enemy Within' onwards, their interaction proves to be of a more serious nature as the Count finds himself unable to hypnotise Miss McCauley into blindly doing his bidding, for example in 'The Enemy Within', he tries to have Vlad taken out of some lessons, but Miss McCauley refuses point blank, even after the Count's attempt at hypnosis. Between episodes 2 and 3 of season 3, the cause behind the Count's inability to hypnotise her is slightly vague (it is comparable to Ingrid's inability to hypnotise Will in season 2's 'Love Bites' which is explained by the fact that she is in love with him; a correct assessment, seeing as he becomes her boyfriend), though the audience can infer that the Count is in love with her. This is further proven in 'Faustian Slip', as Magda remarks that Miss McCauley is "a drab little peasant" and she doesn't understand what the Count sees in her, continuing to say that "he always had this perverted thing for breathers". Bearing in mind the fact that the beginning of 'Faustian Slip' has the Count reading 'Twilight' by Stephanie Meyer, and the fact that McCauley and the Count share a more intimate dialogue in 'Fangs for the Memories' (which 'climaxes' at the point where the Count counts McCauley's heartbeats: "sixty-five strong, healthy beats per minute...sixty eight") along with the fact that Vlad spells out in the same episode that vampires cannot hypnotise people that they're in love with, the audience can assume that there may be a viable relationship between McCauley and the Count; it seems he tells Magda the truth in 'Faustian Slip' when he says that he's "moved on", which is shown when, in 'Hit Chicks', he sends Miss McCauley anonymous gifts including a rose, a love-letter and a box of "the best [swiss chocolates] money can buy". Although it is Renfield who is trusted to arrange and deliver these gifts and who, in fact, ruins them. This leads Miss McCauley to think that someone is conducting "a hate campaign" against her, and she tells the Count who appears genuinely upset and embarrassed at being found wanting. It should be noticed that he isn't seen to react this way at any other time, not even around Magda. He even goes so far as to plan to bite Miss McCauley, in 'Blood Loyalties', though, afraid that she'll become like Magda, decides against it saying: "you're fine as you are".

Wolfie, when he is first seen in a more active role in 'Fangs for the Memories' appears to be in the same boat as Renfield, in as much as he is thoroughly despised by the Count, but doesn't want to leave, regardless, as is shown most notably when the Count calls Wolfie a "heinous aberration of nature" and says that he is going to have Wolfie sent back to his mother (probably due to Wolfie's annoying squeaky toy and the fact that he jars the Count into spilling blood over the plans for his statue), to which Wolfie asks: "please, let me stay." Still, the Count, as the episode progresses, appears to grow fond of Wolfie, congratulating him when he trips Renfield over by tying his shoelaces together, even going so far as to call him a "genius" just before he remembers that he doesn't like Wolfie. By the end of the episode, the Count is seen hugging Wolfie, which, as an act of affection coming from the Count is quite rare. He even, in following episodes, appears to enjoy Wolfie's company as, at the beginning of 'Carpathian Feast', he is seen trying to teach Wolfie how to play chess (albeit with the year 8 science class) and in 'Blood Thief' goes so far as to trust him to be a security guard-or "glorified guard dog" as Renfield says, of the blood cellar until the blood thief is discovered. The Count also tries to get both Wolfie and Renfield out of the school to protect them from Sethius.

Powers

• He can light candles
• he can throw a fire ball
• he can move at incredible speeds (faster than Boris)
• he can move objects with his mind
• he can create lightning and rain
• he can fly
• he can turn into a bat
• he can turn into smoke
• he can move his soul into another body
• he can hypnotise Humans (and probably other vampires)
• he can go through walls