coyotesuspect | I have your dreams and your teethmarks

The Vampire Diaries- Reviewed!

So I watched most of the first season at the end of summer with

familiardevil and then got too busy to finish up and keep up with the second season. So the first couple days of Christmas break, she and I mainlined the episodes I hadn’t seen. My thoughts on the show and the characters follows. If you like Caroline and Damon, you should probably skip the parts where I talk about them. Spoilers through all aired episodes, natch.

Elena
I love Elena. I think she’s a protagonist. Going into the series, I was worried she was going to be more Bela Swann than Buffy Summers. To my delight, she is neither. She’s a strong female character. And I don’t mean strong the way people usually do when they talk about female characters- fierce, stoic, warrior types who, as much as I enjoy them, do not represent the full spectrum of womanhood. She loves her family and her friends, she works to protect them, she makes smart decisions (for the most part), and she does the best she can for someone who doesn’t have powers but is still forced to navigate through a supernatural world. And it’s kind of refreshing that the main character of a supernatural show doesn’t have special powers but is still able to hold her own on the strength of her character. Elena’s like the good parts of fairy tales- where someone succeeds because they’re brave and smart and kind and decent. I mean, and I know I’m making it sound like she is the most perfect person ever to perfect, she has her flaws as well- she takes away people’s autonomy if she thinks it’s for the best, she often deliberately ignores outside counsel, and shuts people and outside activities out when she’s depressed. They’re realistic, organic flaws that don’t feel like they were wedged in because, Oh shit, in Writing 101 the teacher said your characters are supposed to be realistic and have flaws let’s make them all alcoholics. I JUST REALLY LIKE HER A LOT AND SHE HAS SHINY HAIR.

Stefan
I would have terrific amounts of sex with Paul Wesley, j/s. Stefan is so good looking. His bone structure. His eye crinkles. His body. His smiiiiile. *_____*

HOWEVER, I do love Stefan for more than just his tremendous good looks. I also really love it when he’s smug and does his little smirk-face at people, and yes it’s a bit self-righteous but he is generally self-righteous about the things he deserves to be self-righteous about. I love how quietly funny he is and how much he strives to be good and how good he actually he is. He’s compassionate and gentle and honorable and loves Elena so much and skgflkfgwdkldslka

Okay, clearly I have nothing constructive to say about Stefan. Moving on to…

~*~Stefan/Elena~*~
I know the general belief is that you can’t center a show around a couple and succeed, unless you permanently cockblock that couple (see: Moonlighting, Bones, Supernatural). I kind of love that TVD upends that. It’s all about the main couple. And it’s interesting! And not in a soap opera way- even though ridiculous, soap operay things happen. Stefan and Elena’s relationship is beautifully grounded and mature, and I’m kind of blown away to see it on TV at all, let alone the CW. They talk about their issues and work together to fix them. When Stefan is too controlling, Elena calls him on it and they change it. And I just love how, even though they have sex, their relationship isn’t super sexual. They’re affectionate with each other and like to touch each other. The strength and comfort they draw from each other, and how much they care about each other and help each and work together is just kind of wonderful and healthy. *many single perfect tears*

THEY ARE JUST SO ABSOLUTELY AMAZING I SHIP IT SO MUCH

Bonnie
BONNIE. BONNIE. So Bonnie is part of the whole reason I started watching the show.

familiardevil was kind of watching it and

scorpiod1 was talking to me about it, and the one thing that kept consistently coming up was how awesome Bonnie is. My interest was piqued, and it remains so. Bonnie is fantastic. I love how she’s one of the only people who recognizes what a threat Damon is. I love how fiercely protective she is of not just her friends and her town, but of all innocent people. Her actions are questionably ethical at times, but she always acts in a way that she perceives as being for the greater good. I think, of everyone on the show, the moral dilemmas she faces are the most interesting. Her relationships- except for the one she has with Jeremy, which is eye-rolly- are also all very well drawn. She is basically perfect and should be my girlfriend.

Damon
I really wish Ian Somerhalder would get a fantastic opportunity to costar in a show opposite Misha Collins and so have to give up his gig on TVD. I really, really, really hate Damon. He’s a murdering rapist, who believes the most selfish thing he’s ever done was to tell his brother’s girlfriend he loved her. Because killing, turning, and raping people are all acts of charity. I have zero sympathy for him and blah blah blah the girl I loved was using me and doesn’t love me. Get over yourself.

Even now that he’s “better,” he still fundamentally lacks empathy. He doesn’t care for other people; he cares about Elena and what Elena would think if he did certain things. The way he treats Caroline, how he tortured Mason- it’s shit like that that shows he isn’t really reformed. Damon/Elena is a completely unbelievable ship. The development of his feelings towards her has been pretty much nonexistent and reads more as him transferring his feelings towards Katherine onto Elena. Though, maybe if the show just keeps repeating that DAMON LOVES ELENA, I’ll buy it. On Elena’s side, she’s too good for him, in love with his brother, and would, I hope, have the good sense to not date someone who killed her brother in front of her because she refused to kiss him and who raped one of her best friends. I’m kind of offended the show expects us to like and at least sometimes sympathize with him.

I also don’t buy/really dislike the whole “vampire switch” thing. I know they’re using to sort of justify how Damon can go from being a fucking sociopath to the charming rogue they’re currently trying to set him up as, but it’s bullshit. It’s a cheap way of getting out of real character development. I don’t mind characters who have done questionable/evil things in the past (though maybe not to Damon’s magnitude), but redemption has to be earned. It’s not a switch. (Though, I still, and forever will, hate Snape, and he didn’t even do half as many awful things as Damon has). Also, he killed Lexi, who was beautiful and amazing and a mini-Adrianne Palicki. And that is downright unforgivable. (omg I love Lexi and hers and Stefan’s friendship so much). HAVE FUN BEING FOREVER ALONE DAMON.

All that being said, I do like him on occasion. His “friendship” with Alaric is kind of weirdly adorable. They’re each other’s sassy gay friends, except Alaric isn’t gay and Damon isn’t anyone’s friend. (On that note, Damon is probably the most sexual creature on the show, and yet I don’t buy that he’s straight. Or even bi. I don’t know what it is but, except when he’s around Bonnie, Damon makes my gaydar scream.) I also like Damon’s friendship with Sheriff Forbes- his petulant, “I’m your friend” when she found out he was a vampire and tried to have him killed was hilarious and strangely adorable- and when he’s being oddly touchy and sniffy towards Stefan. Old habits die hard, I guess. The brotherfucking still calls.

Caroline
I honestly don’t understand fandom’s love affair with Caroline. She’s a realistic depiction of a teenage girl if you’re the type of person who believes teenage girls are vain, thoughtless, not overly intelligent, cruel to their mothers, and suffer from massive inferiority complexes. She makes the same She’s Cordelia Chase, but without the swagger and the show’s acknowledgement that, yeah, she’s kind of an awful person. (I’ll also admit she’s less deliberately malicious- with the exception of to her mother- and more someone who constantly hurts people with her thoughtlessness and then refuses to learn from that thoughtlessness). If I wanted to watch a CW show about pretty, privileged, blonde girls with relationship dramaz, I would watch Gossip Girl.

Though, like Cordelia, there’s hope for her to get better. She’s grown on me in season 2. She’s more confident, she’s taking care of people, and the scene with her mom (I love the sheriff by the way) before she compelled away her memories was truly sad. Her friendship with Tyler is also very cute and refreshing, and I really hope (probably vainly) that it remains platonic.

Mostly though, I’m irritated so much time is spent on her rather than Bonnie. However, if it were a choice between writing off her and Damon, Damon gets the axe every time.

Jeremy & Tyler
Both of these characters irritated me consistently through season 1. Except for when they were interacting with each other. Basically, they need to have a lot of sex. I still don’t even like them that much, and I ship the hell out of them.

Less perversely, I should probably dislike Tyler a lot more than I actually do, considering how much of a classist, sexist dick he was in early season 1. But he wasn’t a constant enough a character for my irritation to bloom into full on hatred (see: Damon, Caroline). Jeremy is just kind of annoying in that sixteen year old boy. He’s also hilarious in that sixteen year old boy. (Bonnie: It’s just, I feel alone since my grandmother died and my father doesn’t want to know about my powers and I’m so confused about these powers and I feel like I’m losing my best friends. Jeremy: OMG BONNIE I FEEL ALONE TOO). But I seriously think the kid’s depressed (and has been since his parents died), and of all the characters on the show, he’s the one I would most like to put in therapy. His and Elena’s siblinghood is also super qt. They act like siblings. <3

Alaric & Jenna
I kind of love Alaric. I either want him to be my high school history teacher, or my boyfriend. (Not both though, because that would be creepy.) I like how he’s MOVING ON from his previous relationship- even though it still fundamentally affects and shapes him. I like that he’s smart and kind and good-looking and looks after Elena and this is basically Giles but younger and no British accent. I feel bad that I don’t have an opinion about Jenna other than that she is very pretty and sweet. I enjoy her when she’s on my screen, and forget about her otherwise. She really needs to be told about everything though. Not only is it super ethically questionable, it’s also- as has been repeatedly shown- a danger. She and Alaric are adorable together though, and his little jellus eyes when she was talking to Mason were too cute. Also, can we just now assume that every time a guy ~from Jenna’s past blows into town, he’s probably not good news for our intrepid protagonists? (I did like Mason, though. Even if he did try to kill Stefan bb.)

Katherine
Katherine was… kind of a huge disappointment. I respect that she is adamantly and unapologetically all about herself. But ultimately, for someone who was the catalyst for just about everything, she’s been underwhelming. She was effectively neutralized less than halfway through the season, and while the moment when she broke that girl’s back was chilling, it wasn’t anything worse than what Damon did in early season 1. A good villain shouldn’t be shut out of the plot so early into their appearance. And I know she’s still around, wreaking mild havoc, but the only reason she can is because the writers dumbed down the other characters enough to not just straight up kill her. Though, I am glad she is shut away, because Elena and Stefan being broken up hurt my heart.

Her relationship with Stefan is also so awful and wrong. I’m okay with her loving him in her own twisted, sick way, and I even get that he may have once had feelings for her, but it’s been 150 years. He’s over it, and she should be too. Also, again, with the raping and compelling and manipulating and threatening people so they’ll like you. Damon, Katherine, protip: not a good strategy.

Race & Gender in the Show
Coming from Supernatural, pretty much anything would be refreshing. But TVD is fantastic. The show consistently passes the Bechdel test! It has well-developed female characters in the central cast (and as much as I dislike Caroline, I do admit she is a well-developed character)! The main heterosexual relationship is balanced and caring! However, the show does have its problems. Females outside the main cast tend to have less autonomy than males outside the main cast, and are, in a lot of cases, there just as rag dolls to be used up and thrown away. I’m also not sure how I feel about all the witches/warlocks on the show being black. It’s troubling, but I haven’t yet been able to sort out why. There are other ways to have a diverse cast than to stereotype one group of people as being entirely of one race.

World Building (lol idk what to call this)
One of the things that’s really struck me about the show is that, even though these are all high school students, it doesn’t feel like high school. Even though Caroline is apparently involved with 6 million extracurriculars, you never see that, except for the cheerleading at the beginning of season 1. There only seems to be one teacher in the school, and, while occasionally they writers will remember to have something plotty happen at a dance, this doesn’t feel like high school the way Buffy felt like high school. And for some reason, it disappoints me that they’re not utilizing that aspect of the show. They do, however, utilize the small town aspect very well. And while my small town didn’t have the same ~founding families history, the festivals and parades celebrating local history are very spot on.

The tone of the show is odd too, considering what it is. Especially in season 2, they’ve lost a lot of the horror aspects. And overall, the atmosphere isn’t as tense or dark as I was expecting. It’s fun TV, but it’s not exactly tense or thrilling. It could probably stand to be a little more creepy.

The Plot
lol oh god, I am so bad at paying attention to the plot of this show. Moonstone what? Elijah who? The plot seems to move really fast while at the same time little fundamentally changes. Caroline becomes a vampire, Damon is a little nicer, etc, but there aren’t big arc changes. And I think maybe that’s because there isn’t a clear big arc yet, so we just get a lot of little arcs thrown at us.

Overall
Overall! I really like the show. I love most of the main cast. I adore Stefan/Elena. Fandom is hugely disappointing right now, but I’m hopeful as more people get in, more stuff I’m interested in will pop up. It’s engaging television, I don’t have to think too hard about it, and I really enjoy it. I'm not super pulled in like with Supernatural and Harry Potter, and I'm not sure if I want to write any or much fic for it. But I've already mixed for a couple of my ships, so I'll definitely be dabbling in the fandom. Good times await, I'm sure.

And since I'm getting into this fandom a little late, what do you all think, f'list?

This review brought to you by: the hour of 4 am!

lol I also meant to write about Generation Kill (which I am watching with familiar) and The Good Wife (which I am watching on my own), but this review is long enough. I was also going to talk about girl!James Potter and how she would be the most amazing thing ever, but she deserves her own post and will have to wait.

I've also switched from Firefox to Google Chrome AND OMG IT IS SO MUCH LIGHTER. <3____<3

Happy Holidays my loves!

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