Talk:Powers of Darkness

April 2022 Re-editing of article: description and rationale

Hi, everyone. I’ve been working offline for several weeks improving the quality of this article in light of the big interest in Powers of Darkness this year (ie, two new translations published, one of which appears in several editions).

A lot of the existing article(s) was very dated and reflected a time when everyone (including scholars) assumed the Icelandic Makt myrkranna was the so-called lost version of Dracula. We now know that the Swedish Morkrets makter predated it. The entry as it existed was quite convoluted, rather blurring the distinctions between the two Nordic versions, which was confusing for readers–probably as a result of updates being ad hoc as new research became available. I’ve reordered it in light of all the current data, giving it a much clearer, more coherent and logical structure, and updated the sources. Priority is given to post-2017 research, when the consensus changed radically. The article is now reoriented around the Swedish original, with a extra section on the Icelandic version. I propose eventually to nominate Powers of Darkness (Iceland) for deletion, as this article covers everything in a more concise, coherent manner. The separate article as it stands is quite misleading, giving no sense that it is primarily a translation of Mörkrets makter, to which most of the information actually applies.

I’ve also edited for style, in hopes it will engage the new audience discovering Powers of Darkness for the first time.

I’ve not done a wordcount, but I’m pretty sure this is shorter (Morkrets makter > Makt myrkranna - life imitates art)! I think that’s mostly because the logical reordering and stylistic cleanup have removed repetition and waffle.

I apologise in advance that editing offline and updating the article in biggish chunks is not ideal. Having early on decided to edit offline, I was in a bit of a quandary how best to update the article; with hindsight I might have approached it differently.

While I'm au fait with the spirit of editing Wikipedia, and I'm a competent writer and researcher, I'm a little hazy on some of the formatting rules and such, so please forgive me if things like citations, footnotes, etc, need tidying up. Also goes without saying that I understand all these updates are provisional, and if you all hate or disagree with what I've done, you're free to edit, re-edit or reverse as you decide. But hopefully if there are any big issues, they can be the basis for conversation and collaboration rather than an editing war (which I have no plans to instigate or engage with!).

David L Rattigan (talk) 13:22, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Swedish version

I think we could make an article for the Swedish version as well! It could be located at Powers of Darkness (Sweden) and we could move this one to Powers of Darkness (Iceland).★Trekker (talk) 13:16, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. When I started this article, I didn't realize that there was a Swedish version, and since they overlap a bit, I sort of worked them in together. But at present, I do think that there is probably enough to spin off the Swedish version into another article. At present, my only concern is that the main source for the Swedish version is this article: Dracula's Way to Sweden. I would prefer more sources, but at present, it is hard to find RS in English-sadly, I cannot read Swedish, so I am limited in that regard. There will be even more RSs in English when the Swedish version, which was published as a book in 2017, finally gets translated into English. Apparently, that is in the works, but it has not happened yet. But I do agree, there is getting enough here to spin the two books off into different articles. Cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 23:16, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm a Swedish speaker so I might be able to find some and translate some Swedish sources. ★Trekker (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

That's sounds great, Trekker! One more other concern. The Icelandic version is just a shortened form of the Swedish version. I don't think it was really necessary to add in a plot summary (which is a bit unusual for an article on a book) because the plots are essentially the same as Dracula, so instead I highlighted the differences, which is what I suspect is what most readers are really interested in. That section on the differences between the original and the Scandinavian versions would work equally well on both articles. I hate duplication because it is really annoying when the two articles not only say the same thing, but even used the same words to say the same thing. Would you think it is best that the article on the Swedish Powers of Darkness be the main article, and the article on the Icelandic Powers of Darkness be more of a side article? I would personally favor that because the Swedish version came first, is much longer, and all the Icelandic version did was repeat in abbreviated form what the Swedish version said first.

The only problem is that we move the section on the differences to the Swedish version somebody is going to come along and object that the sources cited refers to the Icelandic version. I know the rules about OR, but in some case, since the Icelandic version only repeats the Swedish version said first, it would be a safe bet to assume that everything in the Icelandic version is also in the Swedish version. Or at the other hand, one could just stick what refers to the Icelandic version in the Icelandic article and the Swedish version to the Swedish article. That would work, but it would mean keeping Clive Bloom's article (which was written before the Swedish version was discovered) solely to the Icelandic article. That would be in accordance with the rules around here, but in this case, I favor breaking the rules because I like to keep the contents of Analysis section together. It is clear that the Swedish version is based upon an early draft of Dracula written by Stoker about 1892. I have a pretty good idea how it ended up in Sweden, but the rules about OR do not permit me to add it here. This A-e, whoever he or she may be have been, made a number of changes, but the core of Powers of Darkness is Stoker. There are so many things that Stoker was originally planning on doing in Dracula like the character Inspector Barrington, Dracula living in the decaying mansion in the East End, the mute-deaf female slave, the character of Josephine who sounds remarkably like the countess in Dracula's Guest, the ornate style, etc, that the core of this book have been must an early draft of Dracula. I think the article on the Swedish PoD should say that, but most of the sources arresting to the first draft theory are talking about the Icelandic version. I don't think that is violating the rules on OR for the reasons I mentioned above to add RS about the Icelandic PoD supporting the first draft theory to the article on the Swedish PoD, but there is always the danger of somebody who is really petty being difficult on that point. Thank you very much for your offer to help and assist with my deficiencies. Best wishes and cheers, Trekker!--A.S. Brown (talk) 06:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Hum, this is very complex indeed. Maybe we should work on it in a draft first.★Trekker (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I have an idea here. Let's keep this article as sort of the overview article with moving over to the details over to the respective national articles. Does that work? Cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 03:37, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

That sounds like a wonderful idea!★Trekker (talk) 19:24, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Great! I'll start the national articles and do an overhaul of this article on Wednesday or Thursday-I'll need a few hours to do this, and tomorrow is going to be hectic. Until then, best wishes and cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

You've done a great job so far!★Trekker (talk) 15:08, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! And also thanks for all your help on the national articles. It's a little harder than I thought to trim down to a proper overview article-I always pondering just how do you really need for an overview, but I think it working out OK. Thank you again! --A.S. Brown (talk) 15:25, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Just give me a heads up when you feel you're done working with the English sources, and I can try to add some more info from Swedish ones. :)★Trekker (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

A.S. Brown, *Treker, Two problems with the split:

• The split has been done without any acknowledgement of the source article - WP:COPYWITHIN. Credit needs to be given, and the source page's history protected, with use of {{Copied}} on the talk pages of all the articles involved.
• The non-standard referencing style means that the new articles refer to sources such as "Berni 2016, p. 41." without any clue where that comes from. You may find the template {{rp}} helpful in reusing sources for multiple pages.

Hope that helps, Cabayi (talk) 05:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

This is very true. We need to fix this soon. Won't be much of a problem thankfully. :)★Trekker (talk) 05:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, for being so late in getting back-sadly, I have been having to work the infernal hours at my loathsome, vile job all night long. Cabayi, thank you for pointing these matters out-I've take care of that tonight. , thank you for your kind offer and all your help. *Treker I should hopefully have this article finished by tomorrow. Best wishes all! --A.S. Brown (talk) 21:39, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

*Treker, I think I'm just about done here, though I may just keep tweaking article here and there (I always seem to find things to improve after I think I'm finished). I hope that this article covers the main points, and for those more interested in the subject, they can read the national articles. I think that the Swedish article should be more important one as that the Swedish PoD is much longer than the Icelandic PoD. Thank you for all your help and kindness, which is much appreciated here!--A.S. Brown (talk) 02:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It was a huge pleasure A.S. Brown! I will look if I can find more to add from Swedish language sources now. :)★Trekker (talk) 13:46, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and patience. I'm sorry, it too so long, but at least it got done. Cheers! --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:13, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

No need to apologize whatsoever.★Trekker (talk) 02:06, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

What makes this a "forgery"?

I am confused by the suggestions in the article, in both the lead and in a dedicated section (Powers of Darkness#Forgery), that Powers of Darkness may be a "forgery". Despite David Skal calling it "unauthorized fan fiction", it seems pretty well-established that Powers of Darkness shares several elements with Stoker's early notes — too many, and too specific, to be a mere coincidence. To suggest it is a pure invention of A—e seems far-fetched, so is the claim from Skal (and others) that A—e did not have access to an early draft Dracula, but only had access to Stoker's early notes, and then a wrote a novel based on them and passed it off as Stoker's work? If so, that should be made clearer. But if that's not what they're claiming, then… well, it should be made clearer what they are claiming, for starters, but it also might not be worth repeating uncritically in Wiki voice. While the circumstances of how Powers of Darkness came to be remain a mystery, "forgery" is a very strong claim that requires some strong evidence, and I don't see it (in this article, at least).

Does anybody have any insight? I don't have access to either Skal's book nor the Brundan article. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:49, 12 September 2024 (UTC)