YES YES. This is the thing TVD does BEST and it does it as well as anything out there.
I mentioned in my post last night how Stefan and Klaus are so similar in the 1920s. Both have father issues, fathers who saw them as abominations.
YES. Klaus was always the unfavorite. Mikael was the worst to everyone, for sure, but he seems to have singled out Klaus (it's my headcanon that he had his suspicions about Klaus' biological parentage way before the werewolf curse manifested, and he took out those insecurities on the kid). And then those issues haunted Klaus for centuries, with Mikael still alive and stalking him all over the world. Whereas it's fairly clear that Damon was the Salvatore problem child, and Stefan had a much better relationship with Guiseppe. So when Daddy Dearest rejected and killed him, that was a sudden trauma, reflected in Stefan's tendency to swing wildly back and forth from Friendly Neighborhood Vampire to Ripper of Monterey. But that crucial emotional turmoil is a huge part of why they latched on to each other.
wow, to all your thoughts about Lexi. S3 added a really interesting dimension to that relationship. On first viewing of Ghost World, I was a lot less bothered by it, because my idea of Stefan was so informed by those first couple of seasons. I kind of accepted that when he was in his "right mind" he knew that he didn't want to be on the stuff, and so had given Lexi sort of a power of attorney? And I still think that's a plausible interpretation. But it's retrospectively tough to ignore the possibility that she conditioned him to think he was okay with the torture of the forced detox.
I also wonder how much what we saw was what was usual for them? I feel like I remember him saying things like "what are you doing?" which would suggest that ghost-Lexi went much further than he was expecting. In any event, it doesn't really matter how they got there, because it doesn't change the way Stefan thinks he deserves to be punished by some outside entity, which traps him in his cycle of repression/collapse.
no one could see that the humanity that would endanger the plan to kill Klaus in "Homecoming" came from Katherine and Stefan, the two people who everyone believed HAD no humanity to weaken them
In line with the Lexi thing, it's a bit frightening for Stefan to reconnect with his humanity through Katherine, since she's the one who took his humanity by (among the other horrors of that abusive relationship) compelling him to drink her blood.
But with Klaus, Stefan can fight back for control, one step at a time, motivated by love for his brother -- love for Damon causes him to return to submit to Klaus, love for Damon helps him fight his way back to humanity.
Yeah. Klaus is mad bad and dangerous to know and all, but I won't be surprised if the whole business with him ends up having been good for Stefan in a lot of ways.
Stefan's relationship with Klaus and the exploration of compulsion is a way for Stefan to exorcise his self-trust issues by externalizing his loss of control onto Klaus. Stefan can fight Klaus and win back his control
And I feel like Klaus...knows this on some level? With that "I've given you someone to hate" line at the end of the season. He knows Stefan needs someone to project onto, because he's so familiar with people putting those anxieties on him.
Agreed, too, on the "turn it off" line, and I think on some (possibly subconscious) level that was Klaus' intention. It wasn't meant to override his identity, it was a tool Klaus was trying to use to show him how close he was to those vampire instincts. Klaus miscalculated in thinking that Stefan is as far gone as he is, but he knew exactly how to get to Stefan.
I LOVE your idea that Klaus has both conscious and instinctive insight into Stefan's issues. I haven't gotten to the point in the season where he tells Stefan he became "someone to hate" yet, but it really does throw a light back on their relationship, doesn't it? The idea that Klaus knew instinctively how to get to Stefan, even to help him, does make sense, too. And also makes sense of why Klaus never really seemed intent on killing Stefan -- because they're the ~same. They're "brothers". And lol, it makes it even more hilarious how Klaus hates Damon for getting in the way of Klaus/Stefan brotp times. That scene where Klaus is throwing stakes through the window at Damon is soooo brotp jealousy.
I got the feeling that Lexi's torture-detox methods were supposed to be standard, though, from the way she was instructing Elena on how to do it. She told Elena to cause him pain, essentially, and the way she casually noted 3 months, 9 months, 5 years, etc. The whole experience was put in fastforward (which I find impossible to justify on a diegetic level because where does ghost Lexi get the power to do that? Unless I view it as the symbolic manifestation of her control over him -- it more dramatically presents her as the one who can physically compel his body in order to reshape his mind). But I think the torture was really the point and I guess if Stefan had submitted to it willingly, I don't think he would've had so many issues afterwards. I think Lexi/Stefan torture-detox was much different from what Tyler willingly submitted to. I imagine it happened far more gradually, though, but I think a lot of it was playing on the guilt and yeah, like you say, Stefan's belief that he deserves to be punished -- so punishing him isn't going to help him in the long term, so much as justify his self-loathing behaviors that lead to his Ripper ways.
I just watched "Our Town" and the end scene with Matt and Elena mourning the death of Elena on the bridge. MY GAWD. Are their gifs of him tossing the flowers and then it shifts to Elena suspended under water dying? Just... EESH. So much reliving traumas all over this mess. This is the price of immortality -- you get stuck in your death moments. And no wonder Elena and Stefan gravitate towards each other -- just like how Klaus can sense the kindred spirit in Stefan. Everyone's in so much pain.
Just wow. TVD really does understand trauma. Considering how Stefan's "turn it off" time lead to him being able to ruthlessly use Elena's 'relive her greatest trauma' -- he's not only self-aware of his own issues, but Elena's trauma as well. Their bond. And then for him to actually let her drown in reliving her trauma and die in the finale. Perhaps a twisted way of respecting the agency that Lexi denied him? Ugh. But also an admission of his feeling unable to escape trauma, so why try. As if forcing Elena to live would just compound the torturous cycle of her survivor's guilt.
Klaus doesn't get half enough credit for just how good he is at his game, IMO. I mean, yeah, JoMo is young and pretty, and Klaus is adolescent in temperament, but I think that leads viewers and other characters to underestimate his incredible skill at using people's psychological vulnerabilities to make them feel implicated in his games.
I guess if Stefan had submitted to it willingly, I don't think he would've had so many issues afterwards
I could go either way on that as causation, though - someone would have to have an awful lot of issues to begin with to sign on for that.
where does ghost Lexi get the power to do that? Unless I view it as the symbolic manifestation of her control over him -- it more dramatically presents her as the one who can physically compel his body in order to reshape his mind
I can accept the dependence as entirely psychological, since no other vampire shows signs of intoxication from blood. Stefan's pretty run-down at this point, and he's fairly suggestible under the best of circumstances. It makes the most sense to me if Lexi was making him hallucinate the physical withdrawal symptoms. Poor Stefan, having his own mind used against him by everyone in sight.
Perhaps a twisted way of respecting the agency that Lexi denied him? Ugh. But also an admission of his feeling unable to escape trauma, so why try. As if forcing Elena to live would just compound the torturous cycle of her survivor's guilt.
Yeah. The best explanation I can come up with for that is that Stefan is so caught up in having lost his agency that he's trying to make an enormous terrible decision to prove a point. Maybe he thinks, metaphorically, that Lexi should have let him "drown" all those years ago? Kind of a reach, but the author is dead &c.
Klaus' ability to manipulate others is pretty amazing. Considering how his family knows he's willing to dagger them all at any given moment, yet they still come back around. I was thinking how interesting it is that Klaus requires a blood bond to feel secure, coming first from Mikael's rejection of him for the wrong blood, but also because every single person who puts up with his shit has a blood bond with him. And they put up with this shit because he plays up the importance of that blood bond. Endlessly repeating. FAMILY OVER ALL. Never let go.
Riiight, I like your thoughts about how the mental suggestion could work on Stefan because his mental defenses are basically been swiss cheese. Plus, I think Lexi's just got an ~in~ with Stefan. She knows all the buttons to push which in a sense has him reliving the detox-torture she'd already put him through.
So, I'm basically coming to see the entire series through this lens of upsetting the balance => trauma => doomed to relive the trauma always. History repeating the wound, so to speak. Two brothers in love with a girl, Klaus and Elijah, Damon and Stefan. And the inability of a parent letting their child die, willing to go to extraordinary measures to deny death. It's interesting to me how Bill Forbes plays into it all, trying to redeem his "mistake" he made with Caroline by helping Tyler. And he even uses the words to describe the sire bond as "gratitude" for being freed from the pain -- which is basically how I'm imagining Stefan's relationship with Lexi. He's so grateful to her for freeing him from the pain of murder/endless guilt/murder/waaaaah. I think part of the reason why I believe Lexi forced the issue is because Stefan really wasn't in a place to impose self-denial considering he's lacking control.
I just watched the episode where Alaric tries to kill himself to stop his Other murder spree. I wonder if the ring stopped working on Alaric because he became mentally unbalanced from all the guilt of failing to save Jenna, plus being complicit in the imbalance of the vampire situation and his friendship with Damon. Again, self-loathing causing a division of self. Maybe the ring couldn't bring him back completely at times because he lacked a holistic sense of self. And well, the ring can cause that fracture, too, just the trauma of dying and coming back. But I imagine that many Gilberts were able to resist that because they felt pure in their purpose.
Yeah. The best explanation I can come up with for that is that Stefan is so caught up in having lost his agency that he's trying to make an enormous terrible decision to prove a point. Maybe he thinks, metaphorically, that Lexi should have let him "drown" all those years ago? Kind of a reach, but the author is dead &c.
Yeah, I'm going to have to come back to pondering this when I get to the finale, tbh.
I kind of accepted that when he was in his "right mind" he knew that he didn't want to be on the stuff, and so had given Lexi sort of a power of attorney? And I still think that's a plausible interpretation. But it's retrospectively tough to ignore the possibility that she conditioned him to think he was okay with the torture of the forced detox.
I don't see why it can't be both? Like you say, Stefan believes he deserves that kind of punishment, so I think he WAS okay with the torture when he was in his "right mind." It doesn't make it less fucked up or wrong of Lexi to do it, but to some extent, of course his response to torture is, "Yes, that sounds like an EXCELLENT idea," rather than "WTF is wrong with you?"
I mentioned in my post last night how Stefan and Klaus are so similar in the 1920s. Both have father issues, fathers who saw them as abominations.
YES. Klaus was always the unfavorite. Mikael was the worst to everyone, for sure, but he seems to have singled out Klaus (it's my headcanon that he had his suspicions about Klaus' biological parentage way before the werewolf curse manifested, and he took out those insecurities on the kid). And then those issues haunted Klaus for centuries, with Mikael still alive and stalking him all over the world. Whereas it's fairly clear that Damon was the Salvatore problem child, and Stefan had a much better relationship with Guiseppe. So when Daddy Dearest rejected and killed him, that was a sudden trauma, reflected in Stefan's tendency to swing wildly back and forth from Friendly Neighborhood Vampire to Ripper of Monterey. But that crucial emotional turmoil is a huge part of why they latched on to each other.
wow, to all your thoughts about Lexi. S3 added a really interesting dimension to that relationship. On first viewing of Ghost World, I was a lot less bothered by it, because my idea of Stefan was so informed by those first couple of seasons. I kind of accepted that when he was in his "right mind" he knew that he didn't want to be on the stuff, and so had given Lexi sort of a power of attorney? And I still think that's a plausible interpretation. But it's retrospectively tough to ignore the possibility that she conditioned him to think he was okay with the torture of the forced detox.
I also wonder how much what we saw was what was usual for them? I feel like I remember him saying things like "what are you doing?" which would suggest that ghost-Lexi went much further than he was expecting. In any event, it doesn't really matter how they got there, because it doesn't change the way Stefan thinks he deserves to be punished by some outside entity, which traps him in his cycle of repression/collapse.
no one could see that the humanity that would endanger the plan to kill Klaus in "Homecoming" came from Katherine and Stefan, the two people who everyone believed HAD no humanity to weaken them
In line with the Lexi thing, it's a bit frightening for Stefan to reconnect with his humanity through Katherine, since she's the one who took his humanity by (among the other horrors of that abusive relationship) compelling him to drink her blood.
But with Klaus, Stefan can fight back for control, one step at a time, motivated by love for his brother -- love for Damon causes him to return to submit to Klaus, love for Damon helps him fight his way back to humanity.
Yeah. Klaus is mad bad and dangerous to know and all, but I won't be surprised if the whole business with him ends up having been good for Stefan in a lot of ways.
Stefan's relationship with Klaus and the exploration of compulsion is a way for Stefan to exorcise his self-trust issues by externalizing his loss of control onto Klaus. Stefan can fight Klaus and win back his control
And I feel like Klaus...knows this on some level? With that "I've given you someone to hate" line at the end of the season. He knows Stefan needs someone to project onto, because he's so familiar with people putting those anxieties on him.
Agreed, too, on the "turn it off" line, and I think on some (possibly subconscious) level that was Klaus' intention. It wasn't meant to override his identity, it was a tool Klaus was trying to use to show him how close he was to those vampire instincts. Klaus miscalculated in thinking that Stefan is as far gone as he is, but he knew exactly how to get to Stefan.
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I got the feeling that Lexi's torture-detox methods were supposed to be standard, though, from the way she was instructing Elena on how to do it. She told Elena to cause him pain, essentially, and the way she casually noted 3 months, 9 months, 5 years, etc. The whole experience was put in fastforward (which I find impossible to justify on a diegetic level because where does ghost Lexi get the power to do that? Unless I view it as the symbolic manifestation of her control over him -- it more dramatically presents her as the one who can physically compel his body in order to reshape his mind). But I think the torture was really the point and I guess if Stefan had submitted to it willingly, I don't think he would've had so many issues afterwards. I think Lexi/Stefan torture-detox was much different from what Tyler willingly submitted to. I imagine it happened far more gradually, though, but I think a lot of it was playing on the guilt and yeah, like you say, Stefan's belief that he deserves to be punished -- so punishing him isn't going to help him in the long term, so much as justify his self-loathing behaviors that lead to his Ripper ways.
I just watched "Our Town" and the end scene with Matt and Elena mourning the death of Elena on the bridge. MY GAWD. Are their gifs of him tossing the flowers and then it shifts to Elena suspended under water dying? Just... EESH. So much reliving traumas all over this mess. This is the price of immortality -- you get stuck in your death moments. And no wonder Elena and Stefan gravitate towards each other -- just like how Klaus can sense the kindred spirit in Stefan. Everyone's in so much pain.
Just wow. TVD really does understand trauma. Considering how Stefan's "turn it off" time lead to him being able to ruthlessly use Elena's 'relive her greatest trauma' -- he's not only self-aware of his own issues, but Elena's trauma as well. Their bond. And then for him to actually let her drown in reliving her trauma and die in the finale. Perhaps a twisted way of respecting the agency that Lexi denied him? Ugh. But also an admission of his feeling unable to escape trauma, so why try. As if forcing Elena to live would just compound the torturous cycle of her survivor's guilt.
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I guess if Stefan had submitted to it willingly, I don't think he would've had so many issues afterwards
I could go either way on that as causation, though - someone would have to have an awful lot of issues to begin with to sign on for that.
where does ghost Lexi get the power to do that? Unless I view it as the symbolic manifestation of her control over him -- it more dramatically presents her as the one who can physically compel his body in order to reshape his mind
I can accept the dependence as entirely psychological, since no other vampire shows signs of intoxication from blood. Stefan's pretty run-down at this point, and he's fairly suggestible under the best of circumstances. It makes the most sense to me if Lexi was making him hallucinate the physical withdrawal symptoms. Poor Stefan, having his own mind used against him by everyone in sight.
Perhaps a twisted way of respecting the agency that Lexi denied him? Ugh. But also an admission of his feeling unable to escape trauma, so why try. As if forcing Elena to live would just compound the torturous cycle of her survivor's guilt.
Yeah. The best explanation I can come up with for that is that Stefan is so caught up in having lost his agency that he's trying to make an enormous terrible decision to prove a point. Maybe he thinks, metaphorically, that Lexi should have let him "drown" all those years ago? Kind of a reach, but the author is dead &c.
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Riiight, I like your thoughts about how the mental suggestion could work on Stefan because his mental defenses are basically been swiss cheese. Plus, I think Lexi's just got an ~in~ with Stefan. She knows all the buttons to push which in a sense has him reliving the detox-torture she'd already put him through.
So, I'm basically coming to see the entire series through this lens of upsetting the balance => trauma => doomed to relive the trauma always. History repeating the wound, so to speak. Two brothers in love with a girl, Klaus and Elijah, Damon and Stefan. And the inability of a parent letting their child die, willing to go to extraordinary measures to deny death. It's interesting to me how Bill Forbes plays into it all, trying to redeem his "mistake" he made with Caroline by helping Tyler. And he even uses the words to describe the sire bond as "gratitude" for being freed from the pain -- which is basically how I'm imagining Stefan's relationship with Lexi. He's so grateful to her for freeing him from the pain of murder/endless guilt/murder/waaaaah. I think part of the reason why I believe Lexi forced the issue is because Stefan really wasn't in a place to impose self-denial considering he's lacking control.
I just watched the episode where Alaric tries to kill himself to stop his Other murder spree. I wonder if the ring stopped working on Alaric because he became mentally unbalanced from all the guilt of failing to save Jenna, plus being complicit in the imbalance of the vampire situation and his friendship with Damon. Again, self-loathing causing a division of self. Maybe the ring couldn't bring him back completely at times because he lacked a holistic sense of self. And well, the ring can cause that fracture, too, just the trauma of dying and coming back. But I imagine that many Gilberts were able to resist that because they felt pure in their purpose.
Yeah. The best explanation I can come up with for that is that Stefan is so caught up in having lost his agency that he's trying to make an enormous terrible decision to prove a point. Maybe he thinks, metaphorically, that Lexi should have let him "drown" all those years ago? Kind of a reach, but the author is dead &c.
Yeah, I'm going to have to come back to pondering this when I get to the finale, tbh.
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I don't see why it can't be both? Like you say, Stefan believes he deserves that kind of punishment, so I think he WAS okay with the torture when he was in his "right mind." It doesn't make it less fucked up or wrong of Lexi to do it, but to some extent, of course his response to torture is, "Yes, that sounds like an EXCELLENT idea," rather than "WTF is wrong with you?"
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