Blood Prince of Wallachia

A small country wedged between hungry empires. A prince raised under a conqueror’s roof. A ruler who turned fear into a fortress so impenetrable that even the conqueror of Constantinople walked away. We pull back the velvet curtain on Vlad III—better known as Vlad the Impaler—and explore how a lifetime of pressure, betrayal, and brutal lessons forged the legend that later fed Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

We start with the geopolitical chessboard of the 1400s: Wallachia in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, squeezed by the expanding Ottoman Empire. Sent as collateral to the Sultan’s court, young Vlad witnesses statecraft by spectacle—public impalements designed to paralyze enemies and pacify subjects. When he returns to claim the throne, he applies those lessons with ruthless clarity. Corrupt nobles fall. Highways become warnings. Bodies stand in for border stones. It’s medieval psychological warfare, aimed at buying his people something precious: the chance to live without invasion.

Then comes the act that cements his legend. After smashing a large invading force, Vlad lines the narrow mountain pass to Wallachia with the dead and dying—soldiers, horses, everything a campaign drags along. The message is so overwhelming that Mehmed II, the man who took Constantinople, reverses course. We examine how deterrence, morale, and terrain converged to make horror a strategic tool—and where that logic crosses into unforgivable territory. The stories of families on stakes, the whispers of blood-soaked meals, and the haze of mercury treatments blur the line between history and nightmare, raising the question that drives our debate: can a protector also be a monster?

Along the way, we trace how Stoker’s Dracula distilled centuries of rumor into a timeless villain and why pop culture keeps returning to Vlad’s shadow. The conversation wrestles with moral complexity, mythmaking, and the price of safety when fear becomes policy. Was he a defender, a tyrant, or an anti-hero that history can’t quite file away? Hit play, sit with the darkness, and tell us where you land. If this deep dive made you think, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your verdict: hero, monster, or both?

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open And Content Disclaimer
• 1:32 Setting The Stage: Vlad And Dracula
• 5:28 Eastern Europe In Turmoil
• 7:45 Ottoman Hostage Diplomacy
• 10:45 First Lessons In Impalement
• 16:30 Ascending The Throne And Revenge
• 19:20 Terror As Policy And Public Displays
• 23:40 The Forest Of Stakes
• 29:30 Deterrence, Morality, And Mythmaking
• 33:40 Capture, Imprisonment, And Legend
• 36:40 Vampire Lore, Stoker, And Pop Culture
• 40:30 Was Vlad Hero Or Monster
• 44:10 Closing Thoughts And Listener Prompt

Transcript

SPEAKER_06: 0:00

If you see the Smiths, you're gonna kind of veer off a little bit to the left there. You know, there's the Weinsteins, and at the Weinsteins, yeah. If you hit if you hit the Epsteins, you've gone too far.

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

I was gonna save you.

SPEAKER_04: 0:10

If the Epsteins are gone too far, you gotta come back.

SPEAKER_02: 0:19

I bet wow, what a fucking wild time to be alive.

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

Take a turn and Bob's your uncle. He's right down on the left. You can't they're holy shit. That's Bob's uncle. He's on the fucking stakes.

SPEAKER_07: 0:39

That's Bob's uncle.

SPEAKER_09: 0:45

Stop your uncle, holy shit. It's Bob's uncle. Oh God.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Okay. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own personal views and are provided in their own capacity. All content is editorial, opinion-based, and intended for entertainment purposes only. Listener discretion is advised.

SPEAKER_06: 1:32

In the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, a man was born whose name would echo through eternity and throughout history. Clad in iron, drenched in blood. To his enemies, he was a monster. To his people, a savior. To the world, the inspiration for a myth that refuses to die. Welcome back. Tonight we're going to step into the darkness of the 15th century and uncover the true ish story of Vlad Dracul Tepesh. Better known as Vlad the Impaler. The man behind the inspiration for Dracula. This is like my favorite fucking like story monster dude. All this other shit. I absolutely love it so much.

SPEAKER_02: 2:14

I'm just sitting here with the biggest brand on my face because I'm so fucking excited. And I will say so, just so our listeners understand, I'm going into this totally blind.

SPEAKER_06: 2:26

You should know a clue about this one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:29

Yeah. Oh, this is great. I love oh, I love me some vampire lore.

SPEAKER_06: 2:35

It's never so much vampire lore. We're we're talking oh, okay, we'll get into a little bit about that one. Well, no, so so well, no, it's it's it's loose vampire lore. This is the this is the story of the actual man that was the inspiration for Dracula. So um uh Bram Stroker. Stroker? So there's no R. Bram Stoker.

SPEAKER_05: 3:00

Bram Stroker was well yeah, Bram Stroker because he had the fucking, you know, the three-eyed raven. Yeah, he was in a little fucking cripple chair, so he couldn't stroke it himself because his legs are dead. So whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 3:11

Well, I was thinking Bram Stroker was more like some kind of 1970s porn, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_06: 3:20

Bram Stoker heard the stories and he learned of Vlad, whose name was uh I always forget if it uh I actually forget his actual last name, but he was Vlad the Third, and his father was Vlad Rakul, or uh Vlad the Dragon. So he's Vlad the Third, the son of the dragon, is what it loosely translates to. Tepesh is Romanian, it's like older Romanian for impaler or impaled.

SPEAKER_10: 4:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 4:05

Um, something's along the lines of it. But yeah, so it's so yeah. This dude was so fucked up that you know, our boy Bram Brahm Bram there, he was just like, you know what? I'm gonna make a fucking monster out of this guy. And what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna pretty much leave absolutely everything about him in there and then just change his name. That's all I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02: 4:32

Tell me all the details. I need to know everything.

SPEAKER_06: 4:35

We don't have that much time for all of the details, but I will give you some details. How about that? Anyhow. Uh where are we gonna start? Um maybe in the beginning, or we're gonna do a George Lucas. Yes, like maybe for a George Lucas, we'll start it like halfway through.

SPEAKER_02: 4:59

Oh, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. No, you have to do your thing. Picture it.

SPEAKER_05: 5:05

Hey, hey. I literally have that written in my notes.

SPEAKER_02: 5:12

I need to have my Sophia moment.

SPEAKER_06: 5:28

Picture this, Eastern Europe, the Fourteen Hundreds. Oh, picture this, Eastern Europe, the Fourteen Hundreds. Europe is pretty much in chaos. You have the jackass Ottoman Empire that is just pushing west because that's just what you did. You just took over everything else. And there's all sorts of little, you know, there was the map looked completely different then as it does now. So like Wallachia was like Wallachia is not a place anymore. It then turned to Transylvania and then now it's Romania. And depending on where you are and which world war you're in, it was either Czechoslovakia or Romania. Either way.

SPEAKER_09: 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 6:14

At the times, Wallachia. And it was literally dead set in the middle. So you had the Turks and the Ottomans pushing um from the from the east out to the west, and then you had the Europeans, believe it or not, were actually pretty content with just keeping their shit together and just staying where they are. And Wallachia was literally dead set in the middle. Like I said, so Vlad Jr., Vlad II. He uh he was ruler of Wallachia at the time. And the king, Sultan, ruler, head D-bag in charge of the Ottoman Empires, um, knocks on his door and it says, Hey bud. I was gonna knock on it, but I was like, no, just tap. And he was like, Okay, here, hear me out, hear me out. This is this is what we're gonna do. Um, you're going to give me your son, or I'm gonna kill your whole fucking country. What do you mean give me your son? So yeah, no, so to not go to war with the Ottomans, which they knew they were wildly on, you know, they were gonna get the absolute boots because they're just this tiny, small European country. Yeah, they got an army, they have its men's or whatever, but like you're talking about like Rhode Island going against like the entire American army. Like the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s, the Ottoman Empire was essentially the remnants of the Persian Empire from ancient Greece. The Ottomans, so think of think of them, but with like more armor, and they made it past the Spartans. Like, that's kind of what the Ottomans were, they didn't fuck around. But the Ottoman Empire was the thing all the way until World War I. That's kind of kind of the kind of the big deal. They got defeated by the British in World War fucking one and the Byzantines, but that's a different episode. So, like, you didn't want to fuck with these guys. So they were like, Okay, take my son as collateral or not necessarily like a hostage. Like, he wasn't a prisoner. He like aggressive, he like aggressively adopted him in a way. So he he lived in the palace, he he took very good care of him. He took very good care of Vlad, but still, like the cultures were just so wildly different, insanely different. And so what you know, you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure, one man's quiet evening in is another man's brutal torture displays of violence. Like, so he's seeing the you know, it is kind of a flex of muscle, it is an intimidation that the Ottomans were doing, you know, showing this is what we do, these are who we are, don't, you know, when you go back to your dad, if you ever go back to your dad, don't fuck with us, like we're this evil. So yeah, that's where he started to learn dip his toes into some of the cruel practices and some of the the torture they would see. Uh guess what he saw for the first time? And he felt a little wiggle in his trousers.

SPEAKER_02: 9:16

Oh man. Uh I don't know. I some some kind of uh beheading the rack. I'm I'm just trying to think of all kind of like terrible close.

SPEAKER_06: 9:33

A naked woman.

SPEAKER_02: 9:35

What?

SPEAKER_06: 9:35

I'm kidding. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02: 9:38

Like impaling on a stick.

SPEAKER_06: 9:42

Impaling. This is where I was first introduced to uh impaling. And the Ottomans, I don't know if the Ottomans technically uh invented it, but they definitely did it a lot. They kind of took a lot of Christian stuff and they said it was like we can see this, you know. We see crucifixion, we raise you impaling one stick, but not two. It's a lot more gruesome and whatever. So, what they would do is they would actually get the person pretty darn naked, and they would take a giant, you know, they've essentially would just kind of cut down a tree or a stake, a giant fucking stake. Oh maybe pretty goddamn a couple quite a few inches around, right?

SPEAKER_10: 10:25

And it's yeah pointed out.

SPEAKER_06: 10:27

I think they were 12 feet, they were like 12 or 15 feet tall, the stakes, and they would actually they would actually take it right up Main Street, um, or you know, the Gooch, the Gumble, the Fun Bridge, that was their target. They would kind of just kind of start it there, and then they would raise you up, and it was actually gravity. It's gravity that pushes you down. So it was slow, it was agonizing, it was horrendous. You were alive the whole time. And the way that it works, because it's so slow, it's not actually piercing any of the organs, it's pushing the organs out of the way and it's working its way through the rest of your body. Oh, it's not so if if you were lucky, it punctured your heart or your lungs, or you died of blood loss before that's because like there's actually there are some reports. I which I don't know how like reports or records, or who the fuck was you know, you got scribe, you got that one dude like the fucking dude. He goes like, Hey, did you guys guy for 17 hours? How the fuck knows allowed for 17 hours? What do you do? You sit in there counting one Mississippi to wait, West Mississippi, like who the fuck are you? Who's counting this shit? It's got an abacus up there, get fucked. Anyhow, but there's also I get so mad in my own fucking votes all the time. In history, like, fuck you. Who's recording the shit? Anywho, but no, there are whatever types of records and reports, whatever fucking words you want to use for that one, where yeah, some people would be alive for like days. Oh shit on this. Yeah, imagine that. Think of the worst day you ever had, or like the worst shit you ever took in your life. It's nothing compared to that. Like, it is nothing. I I I can't even I have quite an imagination at times. I can't even fathom what that would be like. Even not even just to go through it, but to like see somebody going through it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

Well, let me tell you, I can't even imagine because I had there was a I had a I had an experience after my first back surgery, and I'm trying to think that experience times probably a thousand thousands of pain. Oh man. That is I I mean, you know, I've heard of impaling, you know, like you hear that, you know, you hear like, oh, they used to impale people, but I didn't realize the like the sheer brutality of it.

SPEAKER_06: 13:00

Oh, we're just we are just getting started. We are just getting started.

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

So fascinated. I'm false, but fascinated.

SPEAKER_06: 13:11

He he didn't rule with an iron fist, he he ruled with iron gloves, I'd say. His father was a fairly decent ruler. Um he he was he was pretty stern, he wasn't evil, he wasn't psychotic. Uh um, but he wasn't as brutal as what he was being shown. So he learned he wanted to rule like his father, but with the practices of the Ottomans. Um, push comes to shove. More pressure is being put on by the Ottomans and other surrounding territories. Um and the long uh long story short, Papa Vlad, uh he's he's no longer in charge. He's betrayed, he is killed. And so now Vlad assumes the throne. So the Ottomans are like, alright, you can go back, your dad's gone. Go, you know, we do he your services are no longer needed here. Take everything you've learned and make something of yourself. So like I asked a quick question, yes, madam.

SPEAKER_02: 14:09

Okay. When he first how do we know how old he was when he saw his first like?

SPEAKER_06: 14:19

He was but a lad. I would say I think he was like he was eight when he was sent. He was roughly eight when he was sent away. And then I'd say he's probably around ten or eleven years old, somewhere around there. Yeah, very, very yeah. So think about what you were doing when you were 10 or 11. That's what this guy was doing.

SPEAKER_02: 14:43

Oof.

SPEAKER_06: 14:44

And it's just something that just stuck with him. Clearly.

SPEAKER_02: 14:47

How old was he when he took assume power? Do we know?

SPEAKER_06: 14:51

He was 30s, 40s. He was grown as shit.

SPEAKER_02: 15:00

So he had a good many years of witnessing really horrible stuff for power. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 15:06

Okay. And like I said, so it wasn't like like I said, he wasn't like a prisoner. He wasn't treated like trash. He like lived in the palace. He was almost treated like he was treated like a red-headed stepchild.

SPEAKER_10: 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 15:16

So, like, you know, everyone knows that you know he didn't like belong there, but he wasn't like hated. So he wasn't like, you know, it's not like he was seeing like his friend this happening to like his friends because they were all in captivity. They were just like public executions. This is what happens, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 15:32

It was like a fucked up version of Jon Snow.

SPEAKER_06: 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:37

Yeah. Got it.

SPEAKER_06: 15:39

I'd say an even more fucked up version of Ramsey.

SPEAKER_02: 15:42

Oh, okay. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_06: 15:44

Yeah. But either way. So now 1450 something or other um is when Vlad is now, you know, H B I C in Wallachia.

SPEAKER_10: 16:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 16:00

He in first order of business, very godfather-esque, he takes out all of the noblemen who betrayed his father. So he's coming in, he wants to rule like his father, but he also wants to set the tone that betrayal is like not fucking cool, man.

SPEAKER_02: 16:22

I can respect that.

SPEAKER_06: 16:24

And so he was like, wait till you see what we do to these types of people. I'll give you three guesses. But you're probably only gonna need one.

SPEAKER_02: 16:36

Impales them.

SPEAKER_06: 16:37

Abso fucking lutely. He started with all the corrupt nobles, anyone who betrayed his father. Um who ever had anything bad, anyone who even if they didn't directly like partake in the plot against his father, if they were just ones who kind of thought the same way those people did, gone. What's the scene from uh Parks in a heck? I was like, if you talk bad about my father, impale. You you think about talking about my father, impale. If believe if you never met my father, believe it or not, impale. So meet no like, no meet no like, double standard, impale. Like that's that's what he fucking did.

SPEAKER_02: 17:21

Jesus, yeah, yeah, he meant business, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 17:25

Oh yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so like, and it's oh, and by the way, this isn't like none of this was done in like torture chambers. There's no like the deep caverns and the dungeons. Yeah, maybe you were tortured and he kept there for a little bit. You you you were like highway signs. I swear to god, there's more, there's more records. This guy who went back and he wrote it all down. Um would actually prop bodies up as like actual, like in the later years, as like the signs. You know, you see like the signs like oh, Boston that way, Rome that way. He would actually have bodies impaled, and then like the signs like Wallachia and like their arm propped up pointing which direction.

SPEAKER_00: 18:11

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_06: 18:12

Like, so this guy was sending a message throughout all of Europe, not just his realm, not just his country, all of Europe. He would actually see he would like send fucking construction crews to put up new signs, Wallachia that way, and it's just a body on a fucking side.

SPEAKER_02: 18:28

Could you imagine giving road directions? So, what she wanna do is you want to go down this way, about you know, yay long, and then hook a left, right where Brenda is being you know up in the air with her pointing that way.

SPEAKER_06: 18:45

So you're gonna start so you're gonna start there with the Johnsons, right? And you're gonna go down past the Johnsons, you're gonna go, uh let's say we're about three or four families down on the right. And then from there you'll see the Smiths. If you see the Smiths, you're gonna kind of veer off a little bit to the left there. You know, there's the Weinsteins, and at the Weinsteins, yeah. If you hit if you hit the Epsteins, you've gone too far.

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

I was gonna save you.

SPEAKER_04: 19:08

If the Epsteins are gone too far, you gotta come back.

SPEAKER_02: 19:16

I bet wow, what a fucking wild time to be alive.

SPEAKER_03: 19:21

Take the parent and Bob's your uncle. He's right down on the left. You get there, holy shit, that's Bob's uncle. He's on the fucking stakes, he's not on the book, he wasn't kidding.

SPEAKER_01: 19:34

I'm dead.

SPEAKER_09: 19:40

I can't bomb your uncle, holy shit. It's Bob's uncle.

SPEAKER_02: 19:50

Oh god. Okay. Okay, then what happened?

SPEAKER_06: 19:55

What happened? No one fucked with Wolekia. That's what happened. The end. No, we still we still have a little bit more to go, but there's just there's it's just a whole lot of that. So he he he wasn't like a ruthless ruler. Like I said in the intro, his people actually fucking loved him because he took very, very he took very good care of them and he did anything and everything he could to um to uh stay stay out of war and not piss anybody. He's like, just leave us the fuck alone. We we don't want this. He goes, like, if you're cool, we're cool. We don't want your shit. Don't come take our shit. Like, everyone, just fucking be cool, okay? It's like that diner scene in Pulp Fiction. Who are we? We're Fonzie. We're fucking Fonzi, all right? What's Fonzie? He's cool, he's cool. Exactly. He's not a fucking spike, he's cool. We're all Fonzie, right?

SPEAKER_02: 20:49

I mean, honestly, I kind of want to look up a picture of him, like if there's any drawings. I need to see how close he is.

SPEAKER_07: 20:56

Ugly as shit. Ugly as shit. Ugly as shit. Yeah, no, he's not.

SPEAKER_02: 21:03

Okay, I will I will say this.

SPEAKER_08: 21:07

Dracula I'm told, watch that movie. That's hear me out.

unknown: 21:11

Oh.

SPEAKER_02: 21:13

Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_07: 21:15

Luke, I'll say spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_02: 21:17

Don't I fucking know it?

SPEAKER_06: 21:19

I was about to say, it's like spoiler alert. Luke Evans fucking plays Dracula. Trust me. That's a very much hear me out.

SPEAKER_08: 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 21:26

Well, actually, actually, okay, you've seen that movie? That's actually pretty fucking close to so. If you take the parts before he becomes the vampire in the greatest vampire movie ever made, looking at you, Bram Stoker's Dracula with Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Yana Reese. That's the best. That's that is arguably the best fucking vampire movie ever made. Arguably. It is it is the best vampire movie ever made. I the underworlds are a close second. That movie is a fucking masterpiece. And so if you take if you take the bits where he actually talks about being Vlad in the very beginning of the movie with that awesome fucking armor, by the way. Um if you take that in a lot of the bits um from Dracula Untold, that's incredibly similar to what he was, like or he's portrayed. He was a bit more strict and a bit more um he was a lot less gentlemanly as he is portrayed in those movies.

SPEAKER_08: 22:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06: 22:30

Um, but at the same time, though we're also talking about the 1400s, where you know, we didn't have modern medicine. So um I forgot what I forgot what ailment he actually had, but his doctor would literally tell him, All right, just hold this bowl with this really shiny liquid in front of you and inhale the fumes. It was mercury.

SPEAKER_10: 22:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06: 22:58

He was using mercury as like like a uh like essential oils. You know what I mean? Like it's like treatment. Exactly. It's yes, it's my it's my it's yes, I uh yes, I've been working too hard. I deserve this. Instead of cucumbers, it's leeches on his eyes. He's having a mercury mud bath. Shit like that. So he was he was a little out there. Um but he but he very much was a very solid ruler. Like people would have loved to live in Valachia. He did anything and everything that he could. Um he really was a person for his people. He he was very public. He was out there and you know shaking hands and kissing babies kind of shit.

SPEAKER_10: 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 23:45

Just don't mind the decor. He was the man of the people. He he he genuinely was. It's he's really I think that's why he's one of my favorites, is because he was like a pretty fucking solid leader, but he was just so violent. He was so fucking violent. It's almost like ancient John Wick. Like a great guy, you just leave him alone, but you piss him off, and you're so fucked.

SPEAKER_02: 24:12

Yeah. Um I can respect that in a certain way.

SPEAKER_06: 24:21

He he was ready and willing to do anything for his people to to not go to war. So as you see, so like I said, so so in the um in the Luke Evans movie, so he's being forced by the Ottomans to do the same thing to get his son for it. And he was like, nah, go fuck yourself. And so then now he knows he's gonna bring upon the wrath of the um the Ottomans. And so, oh no, we gotta go. And that's me, oh yeah, in the cave there's a monster, whatever, the blah blah blah, the vampire thing. But anywho, watch that movie. It's fucking great, and I love Luke Evans. My favorite. My this this is this is the number one thing that when I heard this, I was like, that is the most main character energy and the biggest of dick energy I've ever heard of. And I was just like, yes, this is why he became my favorite. The most infamous story. 14 picture this 1462. The Ottomans have invaded the the the Sultan, the king, uh uh Mehm Mehmed, Mehmed? I always forget how to pronounce that. Please, I mean in disrespect if I'm pronouncing it, but it's I think it's Mehmed. M-E-H-M-E-D.

SPEAKER_01: 25:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 25:41

Mehmed the second. He was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He had like a hundred thousand troops, 150,000 troops, his whole fucking army. It was like, alright, fuck you, dude. We're coming in, we're taking what we're gonna do. And so there was another army that tried doing that like maybe the season before, right? Like this was the the you know, the the first string, the spring army went in. I forget which one, I don't think it was the Byzantine, but there was another conquering army that was going to do that, roughly around the same size, give or take, 100,000.

SPEAKER_10: 26:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 26:17

Um they lost. They lost. They were they were ambushed by the Warleigh army, and it was uh it was it was it was pretty it was pretty bad. Pretty rough. So Vlad decided he's gonna send a message, and we ain't talking the horse head kind. That's the second that's the second godfather reference I've made. He's going to have every single soldier, every soldier that they captured. So I think there's like I think there's like 20,000 they captured alive, and the rest were dead. Um the ones that were dead, obviously, they just put on they just put on the sticks. They were dead anyway, two pieces of shit. But he did that to the other 20,000. He put a hundred thousand men.

SPEAKER_02: 27:12

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06: 27:14

He put their horses.

SPEAKER_02: 27:17

What?

SPEAKER_06: 27:18

He put their horses in the in the in the encampment. In the encampment, with this specific culture, this is where it got this is where it gets dark. This is where it gets dark. Now this was this same thing. This is another story. This this part here was word of mouth passed through. Of course, this part wasn't recorded. We don't know if it's fake news or not. Back then, some of the encampments, you were allowed your families.

SPEAKER_09: 27:45

Oh no.

SPEAKER_06: 27:46

He kidnapped the he he took the families hostage as well. He was so pissed off at this army coming to take it. It's like I told you guys not to fucking come here, and you guys are gonna fucking learn. Like I said, he had one too many spa treatments out before this point.

SPEAKER_02: 28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 28:02

As the stories and legend goes, he had entire families put on stakes to the point where he would actually um he would put like he would put like the children first, and then he would put the mother, so that the mother is like trying to like force herself down to get to her child to like comfort their child.

SPEAKER_02: 28:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06: 28:30

He was fucking wicked. He got I told you, he was do not get on his bad side. Do not get on his bad side. Yeah, so that that part is not recorded. It's it that's all that's all word of mouth. That's all word of mouth, and someone wrote it down that like I said, that's but when you when you pull on that thread to find out, it's was always word of mouth. None of that, but if all the other fun stuff, there is recordings but that he would do all the armies. But so what was recorded was that he took the entire army that he slaughtered, 100,000 men and their horses, anything that was alive. They took, and like I said, if they had any pets, if they had any livestock with them, he took and he put them on the spikes on the one road leading into Walachia. Oh, the one road every army would have the road you would have to take through the mountains, through the Carpathian Mountains to get to Walachia. He lined with a hundred thousand he with an army on stakes. You want to know what kind of a message that sends?

SPEAKER_02: 29:33

I mean, a probably a pretty fucking solid message, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_06: 29:37

Mehmed the second, the conqueror of Constantinople. Constantinople, you can't. All seriousness. It was known for its walls. It was known for its defenses. It could not be conquered. Mehmed the second fucking conquered Constantinople. This guy's no fucking slouch.

SPEAKER_08: 29:59

Mm hmm.

SPEAKER_06: 30:00

He conquered the inconquerable city. Turns his army around and says Nope.

SPEAKER_02: 30:08

I was gonna say literally shrunk a sphincter really really tight.

SPEAKER_06: 30:14

Absolutely. They are halfway through the marsh. They're like however many miles. So picture just you have any idea how long that fucking road is because like you can't look at 100,000 men. Try to picture what a hundred thousand men looks like. Now picture them on stakes that you have to mark that you have to march through. It's a fairly narrow pass. You could probably only get a couple, you could probably only get about what one one score of men abreast marching down this thing. You have your army have to go through. You have to camp in the middle of a forest of men on the middle of impaled bodies. You have to set up camp in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_02: 30:56

I mean, you think a hundred thousand men plus horses, plus families, plus livestock. The smell. I was just gonna say, could you imagine the god-awful stench?

SPEAKER_06: 31:10

Just like I said, just the sight, the sight alone is horrors, but there's the the smell. Think of the sound too. Think of what like flies and animals and other things. Imagine all the different scavenger animals that are in the area, too. Like I said, the flies, there's gotta be, they're literally there billions and trillions of flies, probably, in this whole out of this whole stretch.

unknown: 31:31

Oh man.

SPEAKER_06: 31:32

A hundred thousand, an entire army. That is you, I can't even fathom that. Can you go to the can?

SPEAKER_02: 31:41

I can't wrap my head around it.

SPEAKER_06: 31:43

Yeah, that's it's so one of the one of the most brilliant and feared conquerors in history said absolutely not. And he turned and went home. He said, It's not worth it. No, absolutely not worth it. Like the Ottoman army, what that was the big that was that was the big dick on campus at the time.

SPEAKER_02: 32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 32:07

Like that's like that's like the US Army marching anywhere, seeing this and like, nope, we're gone. Like it was the biggest, baddest army at the time. The well-equipped, well armored, well trained. No one fucked with them. And he was like, now we good.

SPEAKER_10: 32:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 32:23

We're good. And oof. Yeah. That's that's it's it's it's the darkest, it's the most fucked up part, but that is my favorite. That that's that is my favorite. Like, when I learned that about him, I was just like, that's how you send a message without like without like endangering your people. A lot of other people, you get a giant army and you go and you fucking you invade and you do this one and you do you commit atrocities on your, you know, on a crusade, on a conquest, whatever you go. No, no, no. You set up your defenses that no one wants to fuck with you. And like best offense is a really good defense. That's a pretty fucking good defense, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_02: 33:06

Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, to the rest of the world, he was a scary, you know, monstrous person, but I could see where his people probably thought, like, this man will go to the literal, like almost the ends of the earth to protect us.

SPEAKER_06: 33:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 33:25

So like how loyal are his people?

SPEAKER_06: 33:29

That's where it gets kind of so in the beginning, it was all loyalty, but then you have you have to assume that that was not very the PR team was probably having a fucking nightmare. Well, I would think that's the only thing at that point you're ruling with that. That's fear. You're people listening to you out of fear. But you're not fucking them. You there you you're seeing what his brain is doing. There's there's you can't tell me that his people were okay with it. Yeah, I I refuse to believe those people were okay with that. They didn't know about it, and that that they it they were they were terrified. There's no way they weren't terrified at that point.

SPEAKER_02: 34:04

Oh, yeah. I'm I'm sure. And I think, you know, just I'm trying to soak in this story and react. Like the part where he kind of like lost me is you know, okay, fine, all all is fair in you know, battle or whatever. But to do that to women and children.

SPEAKER_06: 34:30

It's what he did to the innocent, to the innocent.

SPEAKER_02: 34:33

To the innocent. I mean, like they the yeah, that's that's where I think he probably started losing a lot of people, and if there were like defectors or I'm not sure how the story ends, but I'm just saying, like, I can kind of see that that might be the like the turning point where people are like, okay, you had us until you did this.

SPEAKER_06: 34:58

Yeah. No, he was, he was actually, yeah, that's the next point. Was now the end of it all, more or less. Is um stories of that, you know, word gets around, that's what's happening, and there's there's pretty solid proof of that one. So um inevitably, he is betrayed, he's captured, and he's imprisoned for life. He's not killed, he's not executed, because there was still that respect, if you would. Whether it was fear or respect that are both. Um, it wasn't by his people, it was it was his allies, it was neighboring countries. They didn't invade, they didn't like attack or like lay siege or anything like that one. Um, it was just like they were more or less like, hey, um Wallachians, you you you boys, your boys love the plot, hasn't he? And they're like, yeah. He was like, hey hey, he did go by you guys. He did, he did do his best, but too many days at the spa. And uh, you know, that happens. You know, what do you what do you expect? It's the fucking it's the almost the 1500s. We don't know. We're still we're we're still rubbing dog shit in our eyes to see better, so um so yeah, it was his it was a bunch of his allies. They uh turned on him, he was imprisoned, and you know, they locked him up when they threw away the key. Because they knew they couldn't kill him because it would be a martyr because there was some really solid loyalists that he had. Yeah. Um and uh but they was like, whatever, just let him just let him fucking die. Just let him rot. Uh but during during that, that's when the man who became a monster then became a myth. That's where that's where the story started. That's you know, that's where there was like, oh my god, you know who we got locked up in announced. Like, oh my god, fucking hell, we got fucking vibe down there and also the kind of shit goes, you hear what that son of bitch did? Man, with all the guys, because I already did that to their families too, because they're families with them and whatever, and but no way. You know, then that then there's the stories of that he would dine with uh you know other people that he's impaled and they're still alive. He would actually, you know, he would use them as like decorations, like he would set up like a little picnic out on the garden and things like that, and he would he would like feast with them, you know, like all around him as like the decorations and as he's just eating his food and whatever. Um he would like, you know, then this where a lot of the the the the uh cannibalism, the blood drinking kind of stuff about vampires and whatnot comes from that because there was stories and rumors that he would actually like drink their blood and like use the you know, like sop their blood up with bread and eat it.

SPEAKER_09: 37:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 37:36

Oh the same thing. That's all hearsay word of mouth kind of there is nothing there's no hard enough evidence um of that that any of that happened of him actually like eating blood, you know, like like drinking blood and eating blood. I wouldn't put it past him because he was Mercury. Yeah, exactly. This is Mercury, Mercury makes you go literally makes you go insane. Like actual insane inhaling mercury like that. But that's really where it, you know, that's the part that um that's the part that stuck with Stoker. You know, he put obviously he put you know, that's a that makes a great fucking monster, that makes a great fucking character, is all the the the brutality of it all. So he just kind of, you know, he took it, you know, spun it, and however it would be, maybe, um, and then gave us the gave us you know the vampire essentially. He gave us the mainstream vampire because I believe there was a book. I don't think Mary Shelley wrote it, because Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Frankenstein, yeah. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. I think did did did she write um did she write vampire also? So there was there was so right around the time before Dracula came out, there was a book called Vampire or The Vampire. And it was just about it's a a vampire. There was no kind of Vlad inspirations, right? All the Vlad inspirations came from um Stokers.

SPEAKER_02: 39:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 39:15

A about him being, you know, actually having the name Vladipesh and the impaling and blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_09: 39:21

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 39:23

So, but which same thing, just just through the ages, how the story has changed, and there's bits and pieces of this story, and bits and pieces of that story, and this one heard this from that, and that one heard this from this.

SPEAKER_10: 39:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 39:36

And I don't care what it is, you you you make any vampire movie. You make any Dracula movie. I'm I'm gonna fucking see it. I don't care. I think the only person I'm not gonna go see is like I will say if there's only one vampire movie I haven't seen and I will not see, and it's motherfucking Morbius.

SPEAKER_02: 39:56

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 39:58

Can't stand dude. Let out fuck that dude.

SPEAKER_02: 40:00

Um, no, no, haven't seen that, won't see it.

SPEAKER_06: 40:03

No, yeah, no, we just won't, but it it's just I don't know. Another thing too is that it's like I I I think another reason why I I just I like his story, his stories so much I don't want to say they're relatable, but like I get it. You know, because like what like how far would you go? To what lengths would you go to defend your own, to protect your own, to protect to protect your uh you specifically. What are the things you would do to protect your daughter?

SPEAKER_02: 40:40

Yeah, I mean I mean there's there's hardly nothing it, you know. If all bets were off, I would I would literally let the world burn to protect her.

SPEAKER_06: 40:56

Exactly, exactly. So he doesn't have just one because you know he he had a wife and kids too, so yeah, he had to take care of his wife and kids, but like as a good ruler, right, right, you you know, all of your people are like your children, they they are your people, and so he would do anything, anything he would have done to protect his people, and it wasn't such at least in the beginning, it wasn't a power-hungry thing. I need to preserve my power, it is to protect my people, right? Um, and so that's so he was just like the only way, the only he saw the world as very dark and very brutal and very violent. So he was like, Violence only knows violence. I need to be right just as bad, if not worse, than the people next door. And god damn it, that's what he did.

SPEAKER_02: 41:43

Yeah, I mean, and and you know, there is there is a certain deterrent to that. You know, I mean, there was there was a time period where you know executions of criminals were public, you know, and that was a huge deterrent. When they stopped doing public executions, crime went up, you know, because people weren't seeing the consequences of their actions anymore. So there is a certain like I can understand the deterrent there, and I can I can respect it. I think, you know, yeah, I can I can see, you know, with the with the mercury poisoning and kind of going insane where he went way the fuck off course, but in the beginning, yeah, I could I I could respect his way of thinking.

SPEAKER_03: 42:38

That's a that that's a see, that's a lovely little history.

SPEAKER_06: 42:42

That's a lovely little history, what if? Because like I feel the thing is that I think he just got that bad because of mercury, because of the mercury, because of certain things like that. So imagine if so, like what if he didn't have, you know, he what if he didn't have mercury poisoning? What if he didn't actually go completely insane? Like the what if what if he stayed relatively healthy? You know what I mean? Would he have been, would he still have been? Because you get the people who's like, um you know, I'm I'm gonna tie I'll I'll tie in Red Dead, right now, right? There's the people who feel that you know one of the things that Arthur says, he goes, like he when him and John are talking goes, he feels that this was always Dutch. It's just finally come out of him. You know, nothing's forced that. W was that always the type of person he was and the Mercury just quickened it? Or is it because of the Mercury kind of a thing? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_09: 43:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 43:36

It's all just what if he that didn't happen. It's another one, like I said, another one if history's massive what ifs for me.

SPEAKER_09: 43:42

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 43:42

Um couldn't have gone the other way. Could would he not have been so brutal and the Ottomans would have just conquered them? And we would have never known, he'd have been lost to history.

SPEAKER_02: 43:50

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 43:51

But the reason he stays is because of his brutality, because of his ferocity.

SPEAKER_02: 43:57

Right. The other thing that I was thinking of as you were telling the story, like it it reminded me of the story of Lady Bathory, how you know she was also exposed to a lot of brutality at a very young age, but she also had medical conditions, and a lot of, yeah, she probably did some really fucked up things, but also there's not a lot of like hard evidence of the crimes that she was accused of. And a lot of it was word of mouth, and you know, like a game of telephone, people don't always get things accurate as they're telling stories. And it and back then, you know, it was word of mouth. It was the game of telephone, is how news spread throughout the land, you know, this person telling this the this group of people, and then you know, it's like you know, what is it like um you tell one person and they tell two people and then they tell four people, and you know, just it it so it it's hard to save what maybe some things, what's true and what's not. But man, it's a fucked up story. Either way you go.

SPEAKER_07: 45:22

It is, but it's the best kind of fucked up.

SPEAKER_02: 45:26

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's dark and it's but it's uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 45:31

Like I said, and that's there's even some stuff that's like I didn't like the stuff other stuff that he's done and and and did and whatever, it's just it's not pertinent to like the main story, it's just the little unnecessary sprinkles. So unnecessary sprinkles, unnecessary ad song titles. So last last question for the closing statements. And I want genuine answer, not just the one you think I want to hear.

SPEAKER_10: 46:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 46:00

Vlad the impaler, hero or monster?

SPEAKER_02: 46:06

Oh man. I mean, I'm not and I I'm not saying this to tie to get out of the either or, but I think he was a little bit of both. I I think I think hero to some, monster to most. I think you know the truth is somewhere in between. So I don't I don't know that I can answer that one way or the other.

SPEAKER_06: 46:33

I would I would kind of take a play on that one. I would say hero to some, monster to all. Because like I said, because there's no way, yeah, there's no way that his people were okay with the forest. Like, yes, he's taking care of his own. That's that's too far. So, like I said, so he was hero to some, everyone. It's it's impossible to it's like me. He was he was I would put him in the monster category. Million percent. His reasonings for his actions, I feel are justified, but you still committed those actions, you still committed atrocities. Doesn't even come close. Like just because what's that line from what's that what you call it from uh from Brooklyn 99, which is like my favorite show ever. Cool motive, still murder, like cool motive, cool motive, still a war crime, like yeah, yeah. He is definitely of uh he he was he was both. He was he was a heroic monster, so like anti-hero, capital, capital anti. Yeah, yeah, very, very anti. I still love it though.

SPEAKER_02: 47:50

Anyhow, um I learned a lot today.

SPEAKER_06: 47:54

God, that sounded like one of those after school specials right there. Can I help?

SPEAKER_02: 47:59

Like, I find shake and bite, can I help?

SPEAKER_06: 48:04

Can I help? Alright. So now you let us know. Vlad the Impaler, hero or monster? Maybe a bit of both. He was brutal, yet he protected his lands. Fear was his weapon, but history will always remember the blood and not the purpose. From prince to prisoner, from monster to myth, myth of a man. Vlad Story reminds us of just how the darkness and power often walk hand in hand, side by side. Thanks for diving into the darkness with us tonight. If you think there's another dark figure that we left out, or something else really fucked up you want to hear us talk about, let us know about that one. Let us know who we should cover next. Until next time, keep your stakes sharp and your history even darker.

SPEAKER_10: 48:56

Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_06: 49:00

Turns into a cloud of bats, squeaks and flies away. End quote.

SPEAKER_07: 49:32

Oh, that was great.

SPEAKER_08: 49:35

That was great.

SPEAKER_02: 49:36

Say bye, Kyle.