So you’ve seen this match up before, in movies such as “Underworld” and “Van
Helsing,” and you found the two together in the show “True Blood”, which was inspired
by the books, “The Southern Vampire Mysteries.”
But that’s fiction, and today we’re going to take this match-up a step further and really
analyze what would happen if these two came up against each other.
It’s not that they’d naturally hate on each other if they should ever meet, but let’s
face it, both at times could have benefited from some anger management classes.
We very much doubt they’d instantly get along and start sharing tales about the numerous
people they’d disposed of throughout their lives.
With no further ado, welcome to this episode of the Infographics Show, Vampires vs Werewolves
- Who Would Win?
Let’s do a bit of background first.
Who is Dracula?
Count Dracula was the creation of an Irish novelist by the name of Bram Stoker.
He wrote the book “Dracula” in 1897 and since then we have seen many, many iterations
of this story.
The character was supposed to be partly inspired by the 15th century Vlad the Impaler, who
gets that name from impaling his enemies on stakes.
His massacres and unbounded cruelty were part of the inspiration for the conniving count
with cool fangs.
But the idea of vampires goes back to folkloric tales from ancient civilizations, at least
as a precursor.
In the 18th century in South Eastern Europe the idea of a blood-sucking vampire really
manifested, and people were even killed because they were accused of being vampires.
After Stoker’s novel, vampires were threaded into the minds of people across the world,
with Dracula being the king of all vampires.
Werewolves, sometimes called lycanthropes, also go back a long way.
The shape-shifting beasts were written about as far back as the 12th century, but again
you can see similar beasts in ancient times as part of various European mythological tales.
It got real, too, with countries in Europe in the 15th and 16th century having werewolf
trials, in which normal people were accused of being these beasts.
Sometimes they were accused of eating children.
In France there were quite a few of these trials, with one teenager once being imprisoned
on the charge.
These were highly superstitious times.
It wasn’t until the 19th century that the beasts hit the mainstream, with novelists,
even Bram Stoker, writing about werewolves that could be killed with a silver bullet.
As we see today, both Dracula and a werewolf were sometimes talked about in the same stories.
The two became entwined.
In 1935 we had the movie, “Werewolf of London,” and lots more werewolf movies would follow.
Arguably the best of them all, and most critics wouldn’t disagree, was 1981’s “An American
Werewolf in London.”
It was funny, and frightening, and for the time the special effects were mind-blowing.
No Dracula appeared in this movie, though.
When we analyze at the powers of Dracula it all depends on what you are looking at, so
when we put a werewolf toe-to-toe with Dracula we really have to know which Dracula we are
talking about.
Typically he has superhuman speed and strength, and if he wants to, he can change into a bat
which helps him to get out of certain situations with great stealth.
Sometimes he can teleport, which is also a pretty good tool when the going gets tough.
He is also said to be telepathic and can even control people’s minds.
In some cases he can even get the animals on his side by controlling them, so that’s
not a bad thing to have either when you need help.
In the Marvel comic book version he is stronger than in the movie versions, with perhaps more
agility and strength.
On top of that, he has amazing intelligence and can even control storms.
Give him more blood, and he usually gets even stronger.
You can shoot him, beat him, but you won’t kill him like that.
We’ll get around to his weakness, but first let’s look at the powers of a werewolf.
Again, this thing has superhuman speed and strength.
In fact, he has a lot of similarities to Dracula except for perhaps the great intelligence
and ability to just disappear or reappear.
A werewolf does have incredible agility, and can sometimes to be seen jumping amazing distances.
Ok, so it can’t disappear, but when you can jump 50 meters maybe that is good enough.
It also has amazing senses and stamina.
Now for weaknesses.
If Dracula sounds unbeatable in some respects, he does have quite a few flaws.
He can’t stand sunlight, so if you drag him into that he will get burned and if he
stays there it will finish him off.
But our fight will take place at night perhaps.
You can also put him on the backfoot by putting a holy cross in his face, some garlic, or
throwing holy water on him.
That will dent his morale for sure, and he might just try to escape.
Ok, so in some depictions he just laughs that stuff off and tells his enemy that this only
works in stories, but let’s be purist here and say that those things do actually hurt
him.
The problem for the werewolf is that these beasts are not renowned for their planning
skills.
When they turn, they are usually out of control.
So, we are thinking that our werewolf hasn’t been down to the local church in human form
and gotten hold of some holy water and then headed to the supermarket to pick up a few
cloves of garlic.
In fact, in most cases the human form of werewolves are not sure what happened to them after they
have shape-shifted.
You might also drive a wooden stake into Dracula’s heart, but this is usually best not attempted
when he is out and about.
After all, how can you do that to something that can climb walls, change into a bat and
completely disappear.
Try driving a pin into a housefly’s heart and you’ll see what we mean.
Even if a werewolf ripped Dracs to shred his injured body would just regenerate, but we
are thinking being torn to pieces would certainly set him back a bit.
Now, the werewolf has one main weakness and that is being shot by a silver bullet.
He can also regenerate, perhaps more slowly than Dracula, but in the case of a silver
bullet getting him that is not so.
He may have an infectious bite, but we are thinking Dracula is immune to that.
So, while the werewolf has far fewer weaknesses the one he does have is a biggy.
The reason for that of course is that Dracula can plan, and he might have been down to the
store at night and picked himself up a gun.
He might then have bought a silver bullet off eBay.
This is a major problem for our werewolf.
If that didn’t happen, a cage-fight type of scenario would likely see Dracula doing
a lot of running.
He’d just take off, knowing that getting into a wrestling match with this utterly terrifying
and outrageously vicious beast would be a waste of time and regenerative power.
We don’t really think Dracula would have enough in his physical arsenal that could
bring the werewolf down.
It would be a war of attrition, with both suffering injuries and both having to regenerate
a lot.
But we think in the end if these two were really intent on killing each other, Dracula
would sit tight, do his shopping, wait for a full moon and then shoot the werewolf.
Let’s imagine Dracula doesn’t know who the human form of the werewolf is.
That’s not how it happens in the film Van Helsing, as when Van Helsing turns into a
wolfman he just bites Dracula and that infectious bite turns the vampire into bones.
But hey, that’s just fiction, and we don’t think it would go down that way.
Ok, so now let’s have a look at what others think about this.
Do they see the same scenario as we do?
That brains beats brawn.
Well, the top post on a Quora thread about this contains these lines, “Against Dracula,
no mere werewolf stands a chance.”
That poster agreed that in terms of physical power they are closely matched, but Dracs
would just outsmart the beast.
In fact, that person said the werewolf would likely end up working for Dracula.
He would tame the savage dog!
Others say the same, but they also say Bram Stoker’s Dracula was perhaps not good enough
to beat the werewolf, only the more modern iterations could.
Everyone seems to agree that it is Dracula’s extra powers that would win the fight for
him.
We might remember that he can control animals, too, and that is said to include wolves!
Although, don’t despair werewolf fans.
We like this point that we found on another forum, when the question was asked who would
win this fight: “Werewolf.
They lack the weaknesses that vampires have.
They can stroll around in the daylight and if they locate where the vampire is sleeping,
drag his lethargic ass into the sunlight and torch him.”
The problem with this of course is what we said earlier, in that is the werewolf a good
enough planner to go looking for Dracula?
In fact, on the rest of that same thread every single person said a vampire would win for
the reasons that we have talked about today.
The again, it all really depends on what kind of Dracula we are talking about as he has
been created in weaker forms.
Lastly, maybe the funniest comment we found was on a website called Vampires.com.
Ok, so that site might be a bit biased in favor of the vampire.
It listed nine reasons why Dracula would win, nothing we haven’t said today.
But it also added this, “Werewolves are usually crippled by a lengthy, painful transformation,
giving a vampire ample time to smoke, check his laundry, eat a light dinner of blonde
virgin, watch the latest episode of True Blood on HBO, come back after picking up his dry
cleaning, and finish the werewolf before he’s even finished growing a tail.”
What we’d like to do now is turn this over to you.
Who do you think would win?
Do you agree with our assessment today?
Why, or why not?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other show You vs Freddy Kreuger - Who Would Win.
Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like share and subscribe.
See you next time.