Carmilla (1872) is basically what you'd get by combining Christabel (1816) and La Morte Amoureuse (1836)
I mean the Christabel part is obvious and I've talked about it before (altho surprisingly many people still don't seem to know about it, but it's mainly because not that many people know about Christabel, I think, and it's not counted as vampire fiction because it technically never mentions vampires) but what I realised is that La Morte Amoureuse (AKA Clarimonde) basically has the same plot structure as Carmilla, except for two major differences:
1: The object of seduction is a freshly ordained Catholic priest (and a man, obviously)
2: The vampire is depicted as a sympathetic but tragic character rather than as the villain, and the narrator actually genuinely regrets losing her
Like yeah, of course it says a lot that when it's a straight romance, the seductive female vampire is allowed to be sympathetic, but at the same time... look, I know this sounds unhinged, but La Morte Amoureuse is a little bit queer, right? Like I'm not saying it's necessarily literally intended that way (although maybe in some sense it is since this is Gautier after all), but the narrative mirrors a common queer narrative
Like this is how a lot of the tragic gay love stories go, more or less
The innocent young character who is seduced by someone who's a social outcast because of their sexuality, he loves her but his community condemns her and persecutes her and he ends up giving into their pressure and abandoning her, only to regret it for the rest of his life, haunted by her memory forever.
That's also what happens to Laura btw, although Laura is more ambiguous and has even less agency in the vampire hunt than Romuald does.
Christabel (the character) is a good counter example to both because her whole thing is that she isn't seduced, she remains a "pure" victim to her female attacker, and she seems to be the only one who realises that Geraldine is evil (if I remember correctly it's been a while since I read it; the last time I reread it was when I talked about it here in this blog actually) because everybody else is hypnotised or whatever
Romuald would be fully on board with Clarimonde, if not for the fact that the other priests (particularly Father Sérapion obviously) are telling him that she's a demon and he's betraying his vows
Laura is.... somewhere in the middle? She's very obviously drawn to Carmilla, but she's also not entirely conscious of the fact, and her feelings towards Carmilla are very mixed
idk, I just think it's very interesting. And it feels like a revelation because I think La Morte Amoureuse IS the story that I kinda wish Carmilla was (except for the unfortunate fact that the main character is a man lol)
