A kind of minor thing that I love about Carmilla (from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1871/2 book of the same name) and Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1898, etc. etc.)? How despite their numerous magical powers, the vampires still were limited by somewhat mundane things and subject to social norms of the time.
One of the reasons Dracula has Jonathan Harker stay in his Castle after the Count’s real estate deal was sorted out? He wanted to improve his spoken English because he thought that if he kept a trace of his native accent, that would label him as a “foreigner“ in England and lead to him not getting the respect he felt he was due.
Similarly, Dracula despite being an immortal sorcerer who, according to Van Helsing was also an accompished proto-scientist back in the day (oddly character traits that carried over in the Netflix Castlevania series) he still needed money to buy things.
Early in the book, Dracula has to periodically get out of the coach to mark places where buried treasure is hidden so he can come back for it later, and towards the climax, the vampire hunters slash at him with knives, causing the Count to drop coins and bank notes all over the place as they slice his pockets.
Carmilla, meanwhile, has henchpeople like Dracula does in his later novel, but she evidently needs assistants in order to get her invited into the homes of rich families as a guest in a manner similar to a confidence trickster. The scam being Carmilla and an older-looking woman set up things to make it look like their coach had broken down, causing well-meaning people to invite them home out of a sense of charity and social obligation.
Then, once Carmilla’s was well established in the new household, the older woman would head off to their “original“ destination, leaving Carmilla in the care of the family until she “gets back”. This leads to the family basically informally adopting Carmilla, giving her room and shelter while she slowly eats their more attractive female offspring. Once her victim dies, Carmilla leaves, meets up with her crew, and begins the scheme again with some other aristocrats some distance away.
Carmilla does have numerous magical powers like Dracula but the fact that she has an established routine in place to maintain a steady supply of victims by abusing the social formalities of the mid-1800s aristocracy is… interesting.
Like, Carmilla is able to exploit the 19th century way of infantilising women for her own benefit (Dracula tries this too, his thinking that by attacking Mina the vampire hunters would be so distracted that they’d leave him alone… but it doesn’t work due to Mina being a person and not an object), while Dracula is still consciously aware that he’ll be subject to both racism AND the need for money during his attempted invasion of England.
I don’t know, it’s just the small things. Like how Dracula in his introduction in the book is wearing a false beard when he picks Jonathan up in his coach, and since Dracula has no servants, logically he must have made Jonathan dinner later on as well.
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