Only if you take Strahd's retelling of the event from "I , Strahd" at face value. Do you really think Strahd could bear to admit -- even in his own propaganda-piece -- that she would never, ever respond positively to his advances? Face it: Strahd only wanted Tatyana, he never even came close to *knowing* her. Even if he'd been 30 years younger, his past history as a warlord and his deep cynicism and bitterness would've repelled her; blaming his greater chronological age is just Strahd seeking an easy excuse for why she didn't choose him, rather than his brother: a kinder, gentler, and more gracious man.Jasper o' nine liv wrote:One thing stated in I, Strahd but easly overlooked is that Tatyana's evil side WAS in love with Strahd. Her purity and youth wanted to be with her betrothed Sergi but at the end right before her death her dark side lusted after Strahd, be it his looks, his power or his experiance. It was the conflict between her love for Sergi and her lust for Strahd that made her run away and fall to her death.
FWIW, if I ever did let Strahd get his mits on a Tatyana-duplicate (which I would never do, for various reasons), I think a far simpler way to make him miserable would be if -- rather than having her turn Evil and betray him as a result -- he simply came to realize, once he actually got to know her, that they genuinely have nothing whatsoever in common. He was a warrior, she a peace-lover. He was a domineering nobleman, she a kind and down-to-earth peasant lass. He was bitter, resentful, unpious and misanthropic, she was a philanthropist whose faith -- in gods, in goodness, and in humanity -- gave her strength. Really, it was his envy of Sergei that made Strahd desire Tatyana in the first place -- the desire to step into his younger brother's shoes, romantically as in all other respects -- rather than any genuine resonance between his personality and Tatyana's. Far more than her betrayal or corruption or the bleakness of eternal undeath, I honestly feel that the realization that they're simply not right for one another -- never were, never could be -- would cut Strahd more deeply than anything else: it'd prove, once and for all, that his murder of Sergei and all the horrors to follow was an exercise in futility. Not because of what he's done or what he's become, but because of Strahd's very nature as a person ... the one thing even the DPs can't change for him.