queer love can save the world if you let it

It feels to me like it all comes from the same place, and that place is the idea that romantic relationships, particularly at the start of a story, can't or shouldn't be straightforward.

Instead, Dracula begins, near enough, with two women who have both met and are set to marry men who they love and who love them in return, and where it seems like there is no intrinsic reason why they shouldn't live happily ever after.

And normally we don't expect that. Certainly these are not the narrative rules of a romance (which Dracula isn't, but bear with me). It's a little bit like if Elizabeth Bennet was actually really into Mr Collins and accepted him right away, if Jane Eyre was blissfully happy with St John Rivers, or if Margaret Hale fell for Henry Lennox. Jonathan and Arthur are the safe choices for Mina and Lucy, and we don't normally expect heroines to want the safe choices.

Mina and Lucy do. Arthur is strategically the best husband for Lucy - good family, pots of cash, no weird job, her mum likes him - but he is also the man that Lucy loves. Mina and Jonathan are utterly besotted with one another, and though Jonathan isn't as wealthy as, say, Jack Seward, his career is also on the up. He's a good choice.

I think this works brilliantly in Dracula, because the later threat is so much the greater for the fact that everyone starts out the novel so strong. The fact that they are so happy to begin with means they have more to lose.

I know that there is an argument that we should respect the label any fictional character uses for herself, even if it doesn't seem the most appropriate label to us. I know that because of the way Buffy was written, with the writers not necessarily knowing in advance everything that would happen, some character arcs can end up feeling a little bit odd or inconsistent in light of later developments. I don't think that necessarily means we have to refuse to accept those later developments as canon. And I'm sure this has all been argued about back and forth for decades in such a way that I can't really hope to add anything new to the discussion.

I know that there's always a risk, when talking about a popular character that a lot of people closely identify with, that you might say things her fans are justifiably sick of hearing for the thousandth time. It certainly isn't my intention to upset or offend anyone.