Romanian Characters in American TV Series: Vlad III of Wallachia in Da Vinci's Demons

About

Genre: Historical fantasy, Drama, Adventure

Created by: David S. Goyer

Seasons: 3

Episodes: 28

Synopsis

Character: Vlad III of Wallachia

The show in its entirety is a highly fictionalised historical drama dealing with Leonardo DaVinci's life. He gets involved in a tangled web of schemes and deceit sewn around Italy's most renowned noble families, such as the House of Medici and the Borgias. While the story was built on some historical truth, most of the details are embellishments. DaVinci also searches for the mysterious Book of Leaves and becomes involved with a religious cult known as the Sons of Mithras.

The character I wish to focus on is Vlad III of Wallachia, a recurring character throughout the series. He makes his first appearance in the sixth episode of the first season ("The Devil") and his last in the series finale ("Ira Deorum"). He is also known as "Dracula" throughout the series, and his most stand-out feature is his disdain for the Turks, which he kills and tortures to any occasion.

One of his most important actions in the show is him offering help to Italy in defeating the Ottoman invasion of Otranto. However, historically speaking, this is inaccurate. Vlad Tepes, the Romanian voievode the character was modelled after die before the attempted invasion of Otranto by the Turks in 1480. It was the Hungarian ruler Matei Corvin (Matthias Corvinus) who sent auxiliary troops to stop the attack.

Personal Opinion

The character of Vlad as depicted in DaVinci's Demons plays a lot into the legends and folk tales about the Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes. He is cruel, vicious and tortures people for the sport of it. However, the one redeeming quality of this stereotypical portrayal of Romanian myth is that the show never associates the Dracula character with a vampire, in spite of the many legends regarding Vlad Tepes and vampirism. However, even this reedeming quality is not actually redeeming because, while not actually attaching the "vampire" label to Vlad, his character is clearly undead (in the same vein with the 'strigoi'). This is emphasized in one scene when DaVinci sets him on fire, but Vlad remains unharmed.

#AlinaPetcu