so, as we all know, the restraints on women at the time severely took away their power and agency, even in fiction, and even in this novel, written by a woman as it was. bearing this in mind, i think that the male friendships in this book (henry's with victor, mostly) constantly seem homoerotic because mary doesn't shy away from writing emotional closeness between men. and once we acknowledge that emotional closeness is not just a "woman-related" thing, then the equality inherently present in all man-with-man interactions in 19th century texts instantly makes homosexual/homoerotic relationship more appealing to our modern sensibilities about romance than the often unequal, protector-protected dynamics of heterosexual couples of the time (which never switch up the dynamic either).

with both henry and elizabeth dead, victor said that he would miss elizabeth's sweet/gentle voice (a common feminine feature often synonymous with emotional intelligence) and henry's conversation (a sign of traditional intellect, which in this era is only a masculine feature). thus, what's missing from the relationship with elizabeth is (intellectual) equality and what's missing from the one with henry is emotional closeness. but this is mary shelley we're talking about and she did not write two (and more) pages of victor lamenting henry's death in a gush of sorrow for me to ignore it. that, along with too many other textual references that i will not include for brevity's sake, give the missing emotional closeness to the relationship with henry. but the relationship with elizabeth never actually gains any sort of equality. in fact, elizabeth dies without even knowing about the creature, an inherent (f)act of unequality in terms of knowledge. is it then a wonder that we are more attached to victor's relationship to henry (romantic or not) than with elizabeth?

edit: i also just realized that henry doesn't know about the creature either! this does not retract from my argument, though, since henry and victor's power dynamics are still not unequal! elizabeth and victor have a dynamic that gives victor all the power, always. the best we can do for elizabeth's power in this relationship is say that victor dotes on her, which gives her the role of the protected. however, she is not really allowed to dote on victor in the same way (and thus he is never the protected and always the protector, meaning that the dynamic is unequal). meanwhile, henry was ignorant about the creature, which puts victor in the role of the protector and in the hegemonic/more powerful position. but henry also nursed victor back to health in the span of two entire years, which is very clearly a situation in which henry has the most power! if you can genuinely find me one good instance of elizabeth having this "power" or agency in the novel, let me know, but i really don't there's anything there! (which is what proves my point lmao)