Abraham Van Helsing

Evil-doer

21st Century
19th Century

Full Name

Abraham Van Helsing

Alias

Van Helsing

Professor Abraham Van Helsing

Origin

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Occupation

Inventor

Monster hunter (formerly)

Powers / Skills

Expert hunting and tracking abilities

Scientific knowledge
Genius-level intelligence
Technological expertise
Marksmanship
Athleticism (in his youth)
Musical ability
Willpower
Manipulation

Hobby

No information

Goals

Hunt down and kill Dracula and all of monster-kind to make sure that the world is safe for mankind (repeatedly failed; later abandoned).

Make peace with the monsters and realize he was wrong about them (succeeded).

Crimes

Attempted genocide
Hate crimes
Treason
Torture
Terrorism
Conspiracy
Abuse of power
Brainwashing
Stalking
Assault
False imprisonment
Mass property damage
Unethical experimentation
Illegal use of weapons
Assault and battery
Animal cruelty
Attempted mass murder

Type of Villain

Genocidal Mastermind

“	You can't run from me, Prince of Darkness! I will hunt you for all eternity! I swear I will never rest until I destroy you... And... Every... Other... Monster... Ow! If it's the last thing... I... Ever... Do!	„
	~ Abraham Van Helsing's famous quote before his robotic transformation.

Professor Abraham Van Helsing is the main antagonist of Sony Pictures Animation's 20th full-length feature film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation and a supporting character in its sequel Hotel Transylvania: Transformania.

He is a notorious yet obsessive and ruthless monster hunter whe was bent on eradicating every existing monster for the sake of humanity's safety. In the 19th century, Van Helsing started hunting down Count Dracula and his friends to achieve his main goal, but has always failed. However, he has survived well into the present by adopting a robotic body, which keeps his head and organs alive. He is also Ericka Van Helsing's great-grandfather and Dracula's former arch-nemesis.

He was voiced by Jim Gaffigan, who also played Mr. Smee in the live-action Peter Pan remake.

Biography[]

Background[]

Sometime in the 19th century, Abraham Van Helsing was born into a family famous for hunting monsters. Abraham's family believed that monsters were disgusting and dangerous. His family had already been well known throughout Transylvania for centuries by the time Abraham rose to the rank of monster hunter.

During the late 19th century, Abraham came across the famous vampire, Count Dracula. Abraham vowed to destroy Dracula and all of the other monsters. Despite his persistence and ambition, Abraham was never able to succeed in defeating Dracula. Eventually Abraham gave up trying to kill Dracula, accepting that no human could defeat Dracula, but his hatred towards him and other monsters never went away. As time moved on, Abraham's body began to fail, forcing him to enhance himself with technology to prolong his life.

He would later have a family, though something down the line because Abraham was forced to raise his great granddaughter Ericka who stated she never knew her parents and he had raised her.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation[]

Throughout the film, Abraham orders Ericka to kill Dracula. At the end, however, when Ericka refused to do so, he decides to do it himself. By controlling the Kraken, Abraham was almost succeeded in doing this; however, his plan fails when Jonathan manipulates Kraken through music as well. After he was saved by Dracula, Abraham admits that not all monsters are bad and redeems himself.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania[]

In the film, Abraham has relatively less involvement. He gives advice to Johnny on how he can impress Dracula by telling him about the Monster-fication Ray, an invention that turns people into both human and monster. After testing the ray on his pet Gigi, he fires it at Johnny, turning him into a green dragon-like monster. After Dracula accidently turns himself into a human while trying to turn Johnny back to normal, the crystal the ray uses is cracked and beyond repair. After returning to Van Helsing, he explains he installs a locator for another crystal on the ray for this very situation and it detects one located in South America. After Dracula and Johnny leave to get the crystal, Gigi begins to grow much larger and more feral.

When the rest of Dracula's friends are turned into human after drinking water affected by the ray, and seeing the two on tv, Mavis and Ericka confront him and help subdue Gigi. While helping him, he explains the ray was unstable and whoever is transformed by the ray into a monster who continue to transform until they become a mindless beast. Realizing this would happen to Johnny, Mavis and the others follow after the duo in Ericka's blimp.

Personality[]

Unlike his original incarnation from the Bram Stoker novel, this Van Helsing is xenophobic, ruthless, ill-tempered, deluded, and utterly relentless in his ultimate goal; to destroy all monsters, who he hates with a burning passion. He goes to extreme lengths to accomplish this goal, even disfiguring his own body and prolonging his life to see an end to all monsters.

At first, he acted crazed and delusional, believing what he was doing was right and even being willing to sacrifice his great-granddaughter to do so. At one point, he casually remarked that his family legacy will die with him, though he did briefly show concern when his great granddaughter presumably fell to her death.

However, unlike the other main antagonists of the series, he was not completely evil or beyond redemption. Rather, he just believed he was truly doing the right thing and protecting humanity. However, when Dracula saved his life, he showed Van Helsing there was truly no difference between humans and monsters, and he redeemed himself. Abraham even admitted that he was wrong about monsters being evil. In Transformania, He is now a friendly if eccentric scientist and spends his free time studying both science and magic, and while benevolent, ultimately led to the movie's main conflict, albeit unintentionally.

Powers and Abilities[]

Athletic prowess (formerly): In his heyday, Abraham Van Helsing was a muscular, athletic man with remarkable endurance, stamina, and durability, surviving all sorts of enormous physical traumas no ordinary human could.
Enormous intellect and mastery of magic and technology: As a young man, Van Helsing built a lightening cannon, and has a vast knowledge of biology, medicine, and machinery, rebuilding his failing old body with a largely mechanical one. He also combined magic with technology and created a device which can change humans into monsters and monsters into humans.
Transforming ability and speed: In his cyborg form, Abraham can compress or expand his body to fit through compact spaces. Additionally, he can move at lightning speed in Transformania, even though in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, he was incredibly slow-moving. It is possible he upgraded himself between the events of both movies.
Marksmanship: Abraham is shown to be very skilled with guns. As shown in the third film opening, he was shown to be able to wield a large rifle or two small blasters with ease. In the final film, he is shown to still have this skill during his fight with Gigi, when he used a musket to fire a rope at Gigi's legs to slow her down.

Quotes[]

“	You can't run from me, Prince of Darkness! I will hunt you for all eternity! I swear I will never rest until I destroy you and every other monster if it's the last thing I ever do!	„
	~ Abraham during his numerous attempts to destroy Dracula.

“	I realized a human could never defeat a monster, but I wouldn’t let our family legacy down and so I began to search for an answer and then I saw it in an ancient text.	„
	~ Abraham realizing that he will never defeat Dracula.

“	Van Helsing: Why? Why after everything, would you save my life? Dracula: Because, basically, we are all the same! Claws or fangs, two eyes or three eyes... Monsters: Green skin, no skin, prickly, brainy... Tinkles: Ruff! Van Helsing: I'm sorry! ...Huh. I feel kinda silly now; for decades, I have hunted your kind, persecuted you. The only thing I can do to make it up to you is... give you a... a 30% refund. Oh, alright... full refund.	„
	~ Abraham redeeming himself.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

Unlike many versions of Van Helsing, this version is portrayed as an evil, deluded monster-hating psychopath while Dracula is the true hero. He has been trying to hunt and kill Dracula and every other monster thinking that they are menaces to humans.
- Although his actions were unexpected to monsters, Abraham still can be considered an anti-hero, as he is just a guy who wants the humanity safe, and he was surprised when Dracula saves him rather than leaving him to his death, which then leads to his redemption.
Van Helsing's involvement in the film was largely kept a secret in trailers, making it appear that he has been long dead in the present and that Ericka is the main antagonist out to finish what he started.
Abraham serves as a villainous counterpart to Dracula, as both held a deep hatred towards each other's kind, so they tried to protect their own kind from them and groomed their descendants to follow their rather xenophobic philosophies, only to fail (though, while Dracula made a hotel to keep the monsters away from conflict, Abraham wanted to kill all monsters simply out of his hatred for them). But, after seeing the good the other race is capable of showing, they had a change of heart and accepted that both humans and monsters can be together.
Abraham Van Helsing also serves as a polar opposite to previous antagonists Quasimodo Wilson and Bela, as both of them are monsters with high prejudice towards humans, while Abraham is a human with high prejudice towards monsters. Unlike them, however, Abraham redeemed himself in the end, and he is not consequentially licked by Wayne and Wanda's children upon defeat, though he is licked by Tinkles.
Ironically, his behavior throughout the majority of the third film, especially at the climax, proved that Abraham himself had became the bigger monster than the literal monsters he tried to hunt down (at least, before he redeemed himself).

External Links[]

Abraham Van Helsing at the Protagonists Wiki
Abraham Van Helsing at the Villains Wiki
Abraham Van Helsing at the Heroes Wiki
Abraham Van Helsing at the Hotel Transylvania Wiki
Abraham Van Helsing at the Sony Pictures Animation Wiki
Abraham Van Helsing on the Sony Pictures Entertainment Wiki

Navigation[]

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Hotel Transylvania
Quasimodo Wilson | Esmeralda

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Abraham Van Helsing | Ericka Van Helsing

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