Bram Stoker's Dracula: Jonathan Harker

Read on if you are a Dracula fan!

Many people discuss how passive Jonathan Harker is in Dracula and how he is aloof compared to others. Depends which Jonathan Harker you mean: the one in the original novel or the one Francis Coppola made in the 1992 movie Dracula. In the movie, Jonathan was such a bad example of the real Jonathan Harker in the novel. I believe it is one of the worst performances by Keanu Reeves. He doesn't speak, doesn't share opinions, he let women sexually abuse him and he conforms to everything everybody says, and just like someone commented before, he manages to say to Dracula in the beginning of the movie, "I have offended you with my ignorance, Count. Forgive me", uhhhh.

As for the novel, Harker is traumatized after his experience in Transylvania and for the second half of the story, he is only a wreck of a man, especially after Mina gets bitten by Dracula. He is not the wittiest of the 4 men, but being a solicitor, he knows the minute details of how things work and he is organized and passionate about getting the job done. He is very meticulous and this is exactly what the team needed. Everyone in the team had something to offer and this is what Jonathan offered.

Dracula and Francis Ford Copola's disgrace!

I am a great fan of the original Bram Stoker's Dracula Novel. I believe Coppola's movie is a disgrace to the real novel because it disrespects a lot of major themes in the original novel. Having said that, Stoker's novel never told us why Dracula was moving from Transylvania to England neither did it give us information on how Dracula became a vampire. The only good thing about Coppola's movie is the establishment of a background to the story and this is what he did when he showed us how Vlad The Impaler became Dracula and also by showing us why he was obsessed with going to England (to meet what he believed to be the re-incarnation of his beloved wife who committed suicide).
In reality, Coppola probably got this idea from Vlad's wife who is said to have been a kind and humble wife with a heart of gold. Whenever Vlad took his sword and led his army into battle, his wife's heart grew sad. One night a strange thing happened. An arrow entered through one of the windows of the fortress and put out a candle in their bedroom. Striking a light, she discovered a letter in the point of the arrow which said that the fortress was surrounded by the Turks. Approaching the window she saw many flickering fires in the valley. Thinking that all was lost, and without waiting for her husband's decision, she climbed up on the wall of the fortress and threw herself into the Arges River.
So the suicide part is real in the movie however, as I said, this is all Coppola's idea of how to establish the story and in my opinion, it is the only merit in this movie.