A historically grounded appraisal recognizes several points. First, Vlad’s violence must be situated within a context in which coercion, brutal reprisals, and displays of terror were common tools for rulers seeking to hold fractious polities together. Second, his actions had real political consequences: he reduced the power of powerful boyar families, reasserted princely authority over justice and taxation, and mounted resistance to Ottoman expansion—measures that, at least briefly, strengthened centralized governance in Wallachia. Third, the later literary and popular afterlife of Vlad’s image should be distinguished from the primary sources and political realities of the 15th century: the fictional Dracula is a vehicle of Gothic imagination, not a substitute for historical analysis.