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When Van Helsing explains what truly scares Count Dracula in the 2020 TV-series, she says it's something that explains all his "smaller" fears or restrictions:

  • fear of the cross
  • fear of the Sun
  • sleeping on his origin land soil
  • entering private property without an invitation

His biggest fear seems to be fear of death and that's why he keeps on sucking that girl's blood, because "she seems to be not afraid of death"

The thing is, I can accept that the cross represents the commitment of Jesus to die, the soil representing his eternal rest underground and the Sun that we believe it will kill him scares him...

But how does this bigger fear explain why he can't enter without an invitation?

Note: as seen the Sun is not really harmful for him. It's part of the folklore that even he believed to the point of immense fear.

Could be similar with the invitation. Either way, that he absorbs the myths is not just the one explanation that Van Helsing wanted to find as one unique truth.

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  • scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/45052/…
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 19:48
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    @Paulie_D - That may explain it as an origin, but it doesn't address how the fear of death (as stated in the movie apparently) creates the entry barrier.
    – JohnP
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 19:54
  • Basically there is no logical reason. It's just part of the mythology.
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 19:58
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    @Paulie_D yeah I guess. But in the TV show she seems pretty confident about an answer that explains everything
    – lois6b
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 19:59
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    There is a joke that the only wooden frame you come through uninvited is the coffin.
    – SZCZERZO KŁY
    Commented Jan 7, 2020 at 10:32

2 Answers 2

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But how does this bigger fear explain why he can't enter without an invitation?

It doesn't necessarily. The inability for Dracula to enter a home uninvited is a superstition that he falsely believed in just like all the other superstitions.

Numerous times throughout the first season both Agatha and Dr. Zoe Van Helsing pick fun at Dracula for not being able to control his desires, for being a complete slave to immediate gratification/instincts (like a beast). First with Agatha's blood at the gates of the nunnery in S01E01, then with Dracula feeding on all the passengers so quickly in S01E02, and then again in S01E03 when Zoe and Dracula are at Dracula's penthouse talking about Lucy.

A beast [dog] enters a home only when invited, and if the beast attempts to enter unwelcomed then it's subject to being disciplined. The fears/superstitions that Dr. Zoe Van Helsing mentioned at the end of S01E03 were described as, "The Rules of the Beast", and for hundreds of years Dracula blindly followed them all. It was only after Dr. Zoe confronted him about it (by pulling the curtains down and showing him otherwise) that he was able to realize the truth, overcome the superstitions, and then face his fears / death (i.e., become something more than just a beast).

That's how it ties in with everything.

P.S. "The Rules of the Beast" is also the title of the first episode.

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Although I think it's somewhat shoddy writing, I think it's clear that

Dracula is, at his heart, an ancient warlord who is desperate for the one thing everyone else in his bloodline attained but that he can’t have, which is the honor of a hero’s grave. [1]

There is no honor, nor is there anything heroic, with entering a house uninvited.

I think this is a little bit of a stretch, trying to make age-old folklore fit into a tidy box, but clearly it's about honor and heroism.

[1] https://tv.avclub.com/dracula-s-bonkers-finale-both-keeps-it-simple-and-absur-1840834235

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