Previously, on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES....
May. 6th, 2011 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesLast night's episode (The Sun Also Rises) was touted as the biggest of the season, with the season finale appearing next Thursday. Shall we chat about it?
1) Not Very Upsetting Deaths I was expecting tears and the gnashing of teeth and all sorts of fandom angst after all the death-of-beloved-characters warnings I'd been hearing about in the media. To be honest, I didn't need a single tissue during the episode.
-Jules- Never a very sympathetic character, despite her justified rage over Mason's murder, I couldn't summon up much emotional response to her tortured statement that she just wanted to protect Tyler. There's a great tragedy in her character's arc on the show. She lost, you figure, every packmate she had and then, because she chose to help Tyler, she got pulled into this crap sacrifice ritual as the go-to wolf girl. So intellectually, I feel for her, but the writers never gave me a reason to feel invested in her fate.
-Greta- I think the writers missed out on an opportunity with Greta Martin, too. Her father and brother sided with a lesser evil (Elijah) in the hopes of rescuing their daughter from evil, big bad Klaus. They were killed in those attempts. She's a witch, supposedly on the side of nature and balance, and we meet her and she's grinning and fawning in her thrall to Klaus. She scoffed at mention of her family's worry, saying only, "I wasn't lost." What in the hell? By the time her episode arc was over, I don't think anybody was going to write her a nice eulogy. I wish the writers had given us some indication that she, like Katharine, was biding her time or trying to survive the acquaintance with Klaus, some sign that she had mixed feelings or a sense of loyalty to her family or to her bloodline as a witch. Something! Instead, she played it (and it was written) as her being an uncomplicated, cardboard cutout evil witch minion. What a waste of a witch!
-Uncle John- John redeemed himself, didn't he? His letter to his daughter was perfect. The gesture of passing his ring along to her child, a potential future child that his death was hoping to provide her the chance for, was heartfelt. I was content with his death. Not shocked and not overly grieved but content that he'd done what he could for his daughter when it came down to it.
-Aunt Jenna- It seems like Aunt Jenna never had a place on this show except for being the clueless moron who invites every vampire baddie into the house and the sort of absentee guardian that allows for two high schoolers to skip school, sleep elsewhere, and experience sex and murder and who-knows-what every other night of the week. She never had a purpose in the show, it seemed, outside of being the person who owns the house. It was no surprise to me that she died. The minute the writers turned her into a vampire, I thought it was inevitable. We've seen Vicki and Caroline and it seemed there was no new story for Jenna to tell about transitioning to a vampiric existence.
2) I'll Defend Damon I get that Damon acted impulsively in giving Elena his blood (thereby condemning her to a future as a vampire) but I'm too much of a Damon apologist to rake him over the coals for it. Yes, in any real world scenario he'd be a centuries-long serial killer, but in this world I get where he's coming from. Stefan described vampirism as this emotionally fraught life where grief was disabling and anger turns to rage. Is it any wonder then that a man like Damon, who loves Elena, goes a little temporarily mad at the thought of her throwing her life away? He has spent the entire season saving Elena from her self-sacrificing ways, convinced that it has only been his interventions that have kept her safe thus far. She wanted to give herself over to Elijah. She wanted to die in the sacrificial ritual (even before there was a hint she might survive it). She was going to throw herself into the tomb with Stefan and (the murderous) Katharine. So yeah, it is insulting when Damon says she can't be trusted to think for herself but really, if it was up to Elena, she'd give herself away for someone else 10 times out of 10. She and Stefan are a little *too* alike in that way. Damon, selfish as he is, puts himself (and Elena) above everyone else. So what if Bonnie dies? Whatever it takes to save Elena, he'll do. He's dangerously short-sighted there.
And really, I think he should get some sort of a forgiveness points for rescuing Caroline and Tyler (two people he has wanted to kill in the past) and for going to Klaus when he knew that he'd be killed for interfering in the ritual. He screwed up, he got impatient and couldn't handle Elena calmly walking towards death while (it seems) blindly ignoring the vampire get-out-of-death card right in front of her. He treated her like an idiot and a child, totally, but he also tried to fix his mistake at the expense of his own life.
So yeah. I'm defending Damon. I'm always going to be defending Damon.
3) Poor Stefan So then there's Stefan. A man so in love with this girl he's been dating that he wants to spend forever with her and he's a man to have some sense of what that could really mean. He loves her. She loves him. They get along famously. She has saved his life. He has saved hers. And then, and then, she's faced with a future as a powerful vampire at the side of her true love and she breaks down and cries because she didn't want that future. She wants to grow up and decide for herself if she wants to have children and get married and get a dog and grow old and all of those things would mean without Stefan. Sure, she's dating him now, but she's not naively committing to a happily-undead-forever. She doesn't see it as any sort of prize and *that* I think, is a brilliant stance on the show. Elena is not Bella Swan. And yet, here's Stefan, having to accept that he may love her more than she loves him. He's gone--lost on her--and she's still thinking about having her options open later to ditch him for a classmate from Brown and the white-picket-fence suburbia life. Ouch!
4) Season Three I like the idea of Season Three being all about the Originals. I wonder, though, just what would make these oldest-of-all-vampires hang out in Mystic Falls?
5) Tyler and Caroline I gotta say, I like this pairing. Both of them are so messed up and have been so maligned in the past. Neither has a support system in the world and both of them, suddenly, need one desperately.
~*~
So what were your thoughts? Are there any characters that you've got your fingers crossed will survive the season? How do you think the sudden deaths of both Jenna and John will be explained away in town?
1) Not Very Upsetting Deaths I was expecting tears and the gnashing of teeth and all sorts of fandom angst after all the death-of-beloved-characters warnings I'd been hearing about in the media. To be honest, I didn't need a single tissue during the episode.
-Jules- Never a very sympathetic character, despite her justified rage over Mason's murder, I couldn't summon up much emotional response to her tortured statement that she just wanted to protect Tyler. There's a great tragedy in her character's arc on the show. She lost, you figure, every packmate she had and then, because she chose to help Tyler, she got pulled into this crap sacrifice ritual as the go-to wolf girl. So intellectually, I feel for her, but the writers never gave me a reason to feel invested in her fate.
-Greta- I think the writers missed out on an opportunity with Greta Martin, too. Her father and brother sided with a lesser evil (Elijah) in the hopes of rescuing their daughter from evil, big bad Klaus. They were killed in those attempts. She's a witch, supposedly on the side of nature and balance, and we meet her and she's grinning and fawning in her thrall to Klaus. She scoffed at mention of her family's worry, saying only, "I wasn't lost." What in the hell? By the time her episode arc was over, I don't think anybody was going to write her a nice eulogy. I wish the writers had given us some indication that she, like Katharine, was biding her time or trying to survive the acquaintance with Klaus, some sign that she had mixed feelings or a sense of loyalty to her family or to her bloodline as a witch. Something! Instead, she played it (and it was written) as her being an uncomplicated, cardboard cutout evil witch minion. What a waste of a witch!
-Uncle John- John redeemed himself, didn't he? His letter to his daughter was perfect. The gesture of passing his ring along to her child, a potential future child that his death was hoping to provide her the chance for, was heartfelt. I was content with his death. Not shocked and not overly grieved but content that he'd done what he could for his daughter when it came down to it.
-Aunt Jenna- It seems like Aunt Jenna never had a place on this show except for being the clueless moron who invites every vampire baddie into the house and the sort of absentee guardian that allows for two high schoolers to skip school, sleep elsewhere, and experience sex and murder and who-knows-what every other night of the week. She never had a purpose in the show, it seemed, outside of being the person who owns the house. It was no surprise to me that she died. The minute the writers turned her into a vampire, I thought it was inevitable. We've seen Vicki and Caroline and it seemed there was no new story for Jenna to tell about transitioning to a vampiric existence.
2) I'll Defend Damon I get that Damon acted impulsively in giving Elena his blood (thereby condemning her to a future as a vampire) but I'm too much of a Damon apologist to rake him over the coals for it. Yes, in any real world scenario he'd be a centuries-long serial killer, but in this world I get where he's coming from. Stefan described vampirism as this emotionally fraught life where grief was disabling and anger turns to rage. Is it any wonder then that a man like Damon, who loves Elena, goes a little temporarily mad at the thought of her throwing her life away? He has spent the entire season saving Elena from her self-sacrificing ways, convinced that it has only been his interventions that have kept her safe thus far. She wanted to give herself over to Elijah. She wanted to die in the sacrificial ritual (even before there was a hint she might survive it). She was going to throw herself into the tomb with Stefan and (the murderous) Katharine. So yeah, it is insulting when Damon says she can't be trusted to think for herself but really, if it was up to Elena, she'd give herself away for someone else 10 times out of 10. She and Stefan are a little *too* alike in that way. Damon, selfish as he is, puts himself (and Elena) above everyone else. So what if Bonnie dies? Whatever it takes to save Elena, he'll do. He's dangerously short-sighted there.
And really, I think he should get some sort of a forgiveness points for rescuing Caroline and Tyler (two people he has wanted to kill in the past) and for going to Klaus when he knew that he'd be killed for interfering in the ritual. He screwed up, he got impatient and couldn't handle Elena calmly walking towards death while (it seems) blindly ignoring the vampire get-out-of-death card right in front of her. He treated her like an idiot and a child, totally, but he also tried to fix his mistake at the expense of his own life.
So yeah. I'm defending Damon. I'm always going to be defending Damon.
3) Poor Stefan So then there's Stefan. A man so in love with this girl he's been dating that he wants to spend forever with her and he's a man to have some sense of what that could really mean. He loves her. She loves him. They get along famously. She has saved his life. He has saved hers. And then, and then, she's faced with a future as a powerful vampire at the side of her true love and she breaks down and cries because she didn't want that future. She wants to grow up and decide for herself if she wants to have children and get married and get a dog and grow old and all of those things would mean without Stefan. Sure, she's dating him now, but she's not naively committing to a happily-undead-forever. She doesn't see it as any sort of prize and *that* I think, is a brilliant stance on the show. Elena is not Bella Swan. And yet, here's Stefan, having to accept that he may love her more than she loves him. He's gone--lost on her--and she's still thinking about having her options open later to ditch him for a classmate from Brown and the white-picket-fence suburbia life. Ouch!
4) Season Three I like the idea of Season Three being all about the Originals. I wonder, though, just what would make these oldest-of-all-vampires hang out in Mystic Falls?
5) Tyler and Caroline I gotta say, I like this pairing. Both of them are so messed up and have been so maligned in the past. Neither has a support system in the world and both of them, suddenly, need one desperately.
~*~
So what were your thoughts? Are there any characters that you've got your fingers crossed will survive the season? How do you think the sudden deaths of both Jenna and John will be explained away in town?
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-06 05:47 pm (UTC)John, they won't have to explain his death, they'll just say he left... Jenna, well I really don't know how they'll explain that.
Yes, I like that Elena didn't want to be a vampire and wanted time and space to make her own decisions--the vampire, being dead, is a static thing, change might be possible, but they love a long time, hate a long time, mope a long time, but short of some kind of major intervention, they don't experience big life changes or go through seasons of life. It makes sense that Stefan wouldn't be able to move on, but Elena sees it as possible. Just as Damon stayed fixated on Catherine for so many decades until he found out she lied all along.
Well, if Jenna was a big dope who opened the door to every vampire... why didn't they ever explain to her why she shouldn't. Even after keeping her in the dark proved time and again to be MORE dangerous, they kept saying they were lying to her to protect her. Boggles.
Damon will survive... Bad, good, evil, not... whatever, he's the heart of the show. Sorry Stefan, nobody is watching for you. So they'll pull him out of the fire somehow. Though I still say he's evil, it's just more fun to watch evil... Not necessarily evil for forcing Elena to drink his blood, but evil for everything else that has transpired. But that's the whole fun of the vampire thing--you have to make them bad and then almost redeem them. Which is why Stefan doesn't quite work for entertainment value.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-06 06:20 pm (UTC)Even her being duped to show up at the sacrifice ritual by Katharine. I mean, surely somebody should have (long ago!) had the conversation with her about this wily doppelganger or come up with a "It's really me" codeword or something to use. Like you say--their method of 'protecting' Jenna left her absolutely defenseless. :/
I do wonder where Jenna's death leaves Elena and Jeremy though? Don't they HAVE to have a legal guardian or go into foster care?
Seriously. Who's going to get custody? (Unless they try to play it off like Jenna's still alive just always, you know, conveniently in the bathroom or asleep or on the phone or something to visitors.) The history teacher with the unsolved missing person's case wife and the drinking problem? Oh, no. What if it is Jenna's dear friend Andie Starr? I can't think of anyone who can move into the house and take over this role.
the vampire, being dead, is a static thing, change might be possible, but they love a long time, hate a long time, mope a long time, but short of some kind of major intervention, they don't experience big life changes or go through seasons of life.
That's an interesting take on it. I like it. That would also explain the strangely infantile emotional maturity of the vampires--you'd think in 100+ years they'd have evolved past being perpetual 17 year olds.
~~
I'm surprised sometimes that someone as mature and sensible as Elena doesn't recognize just how shit-all messed up her life has been since she got involved with a vampire (and thereby every vampire in existence, seemingly). Like, I see the allure, but Matt was sorta brilliant when he said that his crap boring endlessly working life was enough and that the thrill of being involved in life/death situations with vampires and werewolves was not okay.
But, there wouldn't be a show if people were sensible about who they spent their time with.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 12:42 am (UTC)I think in Elana's case though, she'll eventually make that decision that Stefan and Damon are her home. She won't want normal. Even human, she can't ever go back to normal. But I like that (again) someone on the show is showing enough emotional maturity to say, "Despite knowing I'll never be normal doesn't mean I'm ready to turn my back on the possibility."
I wasn't particularly shocked by Elijah's betrayal. Nor was I shocked by Klaus' sudden revelation that he knew where the bodies were. Klaus is simply too fun a villain to kill so soon. And Elijah is a wonderfully sympathetic would-be villain. He's equal parts Damon AND Stefan. I'd actually like to see some Elana/Elijah flirting. I think it'd be interesting.
Jenna's death packed a bit of an emotional wallop. Not so much because she was a fantastic character but because it was heartbreaking seeing her bit that witch and truly, honestly realize what she was before Klaus staked her. (And like you, I wanted to see Greta's story arc. Maybe they just ran out of time.) But even more than that was seeing poor Elana realize just how many people have died because of her or on her behalf. Her apologizing to her brother was very emotional and well done. I'm wondering how long it's going to be before the weight of her decisions begins to take its toll on her. She's got to realize that by associating with Stefan and Damon, she'd directly putting the people in her life in danger. Jeremy is all that's left and I'm betting his shelf-life is nearing its end.
The real heartbreak though was Uncle John. At the end of the day, he's right to hate vampires. Whether they have good intentions or not, they rain death and destruction down on everyone they come in contact with. You may have hated his methods, but his only concern was for Elana. He could have lived and let Elana become a vampire, but he chose to give up his life to save hers and to save her from becoming a vampire. That alone makes up for any douchebaggery that came before.
I'm wondering how they're going to save Damon and end this season. Great stuff.