Depends on how you look at it. Dracula is doing what is natural for him, to survive, what is bad about that? Van Helsing antagonizes Dracula because of his faulty belief that Dracula is evil, even though Dracula is only doing what comes natureal to him.
Van Helsing is the protagonist here.
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On the basis that the protagonist of a story is always the one who goes through dramatic events that changes the character's life, I would disagree with both of you. The protagonist of Dracula (Stoker's novel) is Mina. She's one who ends up being a very different person than she started out as, while neither van Helsing nor Dracula changed their perspectives much and ended up as the characters they began as (except for Dracula being really dead instead of undead...).
van Helsing is more like Gandalf in LOTR - he is a powerful and knowledgable helper, but not the protagonist. Dracula is the villain and a device for evil. We don't know, but it doesn't matter - he does evil things, and so he's evil. Besides, I find Dracula to be more effective as a villain if he remains beyond our comprehension (and yes, that means I hated Coppola's flick )
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Granted.
But I never read Mr Stoker's novel, so I was unaware of the Mina character and her protagonist journey. I was basing my judgement on the films that I have seen.
protagonist
n noun
1 the leading character in a drama, film, or novel. ⇒a prominent figure in a real situation.
2 an advocate or champion of a cause or idea.
ORIGIN
C17: from Greek protagonistes, from protos 'first in importance' + agonistes 'actor'.