Elena Gilbert and Her Original Factory Team Stefan Settings (a meta)
Oy, what am I doing, right? The last time I wrote an Elena Gilbert meta there was a tiny implosion in the fandom, but alas, I feel the need to do this...so, to quote Whitesnake, Here I Go Again....
So, first a disclaimer: I am a Damon/Elena shipper, so this will undoubtedly lean toward that bias. I also think that Elena has been falling in love with Damon since 2x08 when he revealed himself to her and then compelled her to forget. I think she was attracted to him from the very beginning (meeting on a dark road before her life changed forever) and again when she encountered him at the Boarding House in 1x02.
I also believe she loved Stefan--that she was in fact in love with him. But she was only in love with the parts of him he allowed her to see, and there was so much he lied about, withheld from her, or *shielded* her from that she couldn't possibly know the real him and love him wholly.
So, let's pretend for a moment that the sire bond is real, because if it ends up being an actual thing, I should probably be emotionally prepared for it. I really don't think it's real, but if it is, it still comes from a pure place. Elena sire bonded to Damon because she was ALREADY bonded to him. They have been through so much together, and most of it has been traumatic, emotional stuff with the trying to hold their respective brothers together. They are bonded as friends, as older siblings who understand that feeling of responsibility to the younger sibling, and they are romantically and physically attracted to each other. For all that Damon is "bad with purpose," Elena is equally willing to overlook social mores when it suits her purposes. She identifies with Damon because she can understand why he does what he does even during the times she disagrees with him. I would argue further that in most of the situations where Damon has made an *executive* decision, while Elena might have tried to find a way around it, in the end, she probably would have done the same thing Damon would have done. They are very much alike in that way, and that's why she can forgive him. That's why she has forgiven him. (Perhaps I should send a memo to Klaus, explaining that? LOL)
Plus, it helps that he's normally totally upfront with her about everything. You can trust someone when they are telling you the truth, even if it's truth you don't like. Funny how that works.
Moving on to Stefan, Caroline, and Klaus's assumption that if and when Elena takes the cure she will magically reset to being Stefan's girlfriend: it's LUDICROUS. I mean, just watch the tearful "break-up" of Damon and Elena over the phone in 3x22. That is not a girl who is parting with someone and crying for their pain alone. It ripped Elena apart to "choose" -- most assuredly because Damon had been her rock for six months, and really to think she might not be able to count on that anymore -- that she might "lose him" was painful for her, separate from the pain she knew she was inflicting on him.
This point is illustrated by every move she made once she became a vampire -- and again, I don't think it had anything to do with the sire bond. Elena knew if she went to Damon, even if he would huff and puff and roll his eyes in irritation, he would HELP HER. He would do whatever he had to, to see her as a well-adjusted vampire. He would love her through all of it, while being completely honest with her:
She is a different person! She's a vampire! We're a predatory species. We enjoy the hunt, the feed, and the kill. When the guilt gets too bad, we switch off our humanity and we revel in it. ... And you know what makes me able to drink my fill and leave someone breathing, and not rip their head off like my brother, is that I can revel in it! I can make it fun. (Damon Salvatore, 4x04)
While Elena is hyperventilating about the fact that Stefan should be showing her all of this, and exploring vampire life with her (which, in Stefan's defense, he really, honestly can't because of his control issues), she is also getting closer and closer to the truth. Damon's way of being a vampire is probably more like what Elena's way of being a vampire will be.
Because her way of being a human was already much like that. Remember, being a vampire only magnifies what you already are. I think HUMAN!Elena would have come up with the plan to kill Kol just as easily as VAMPIRE!Elena did.
Stefan and Damon brought gray to Elena's world -- but it would have found her regardless, because she's the Doppelganger. The supernatural has forced her into a kill or be killed mentality, and that's neither a character pro or con for her, it's the reality of her life. And as a evolutionary creature, she has evolved.
So, back to the sire bond being a real thing. Let's pretend for a moment that they are going to go to the mysterious island (and meet the passengers of Flight 815) and that Elena is actually going to get the cure. Again, I highly doubt that's where this is going, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is. If Elena is human again, her emotions won't be magnified, but neither will her memories be purged. She will remember what it was like to be with Damon, and I don't mean just the fabulous sex that we saw. I mean, she will remember how giving herself to him was the most real thing she'd ever experienced, as both a human and a vampire. She will remember how he loved her just the same, regardless of her state of immortality. She will remember that Stefan didn't. And that Stefan would have rather forgotten their time together via Rebekah compelling him than live with the pain of their relationship ending because Elena had moved on.
These aren't small things. These aren't little, insignificant moments that don't carry the arc of this storyline. Real sire bond or fake sire bond, Elena has experienced something with Damon she never experienced with anyone else before: unconditional love.
Even in her mind, she worries that her parents are disappointed with her for the way her life has gone since their deaths. While under the Hunter's Curse, her subconscious told her, in the form of her mother, that it would be better that she die and help Jeremy as a ghost than live and hurt him as a monster.
And then Damon jumped off Wickery Bridge with her in his arms. And that, my friends, was the pivotal moment. Forget everything else. Forget attraction and "good girl" mentality and light versus dark. Damon went to the scariest place with her, and he never let her go. He went down with her, and he saved her in the one place where being saved was either the worst thing that ever happened to her because she lived when others died, or because she died, only to live again in the worst form she could think of. The poetry of Damon and Elena jumping off that bridge together will always be, for me, anyway, the reason that Elena can never go back to her Original Factory Team Stefan Settings. She might try. She might even think it's possible if her heightened vampire emotions are negated, but the reality is Damon would choose it all again -- even all the bad -- just to know her, and Stefan would have gladly forgotten even the good times to spare himself the bad.
Who can forget that?
This isn't about who deserves Elena, or even who loves Elena more. But it is about Elena growing up and experiencing different relationships and love and figuring out for herself what she wants. Maybe in the end, she won't be with either Salvatore (*sobs*), but hopefully she will have gleaned the best things of both of them and she'll carry that forward to whatever her life will ultimately be, human or vampire.
And hopefully, she'll never settle for less.
So, first a disclaimer: I am a Damon/Elena shipper, so this will undoubtedly lean toward that bias. I also think that Elena has been falling in love with Damon since 2x08 when he revealed himself to her and then compelled her to forget. I think she was attracted to him from the very beginning (meeting on a dark road before her life changed forever) and again when she encountered him at the Boarding House in 1x02.
I also believe she loved Stefan--that she was in fact in love with him. But she was only in love with the parts of him he allowed her to see, and there was so much he lied about, withheld from her, or *shielded* her from that she couldn't possibly know the real him and love him wholly.
So, let's pretend for a moment that the sire bond is real, because if it ends up being an actual thing, I should probably be emotionally prepared for it. I really don't think it's real, but if it is, it still comes from a pure place. Elena sire bonded to Damon because she was ALREADY bonded to him. They have been through so much together, and most of it has been traumatic, emotional stuff with the trying to hold their respective brothers together. They are bonded as friends, as older siblings who understand that feeling of responsibility to the younger sibling, and they are romantically and physically attracted to each other. For all that Damon is "bad with purpose," Elena is equally willing to overlook social mores when it suits her purposes. She identifies with Damon because she can understand why he does what he does even during the times she disagrees with him. I would argue further that in most of the situations where Damon has made an *executive* decision, while Elena might have tried to find a way around it, in the end, she probably would have done the same thing Damon would have done. They are very much alike in that way, and that's why she can forgive him. That's why she has forgiven him. (Perhaps I should send a memo to Klaus, explaining that? LOL)
Plus, it helps that he's normally totally upfront with her about everything. You can trust someone when they are telling you the truth, even if it's truth you don't like. Funny how that works.
Moving on to Stefan, Caroline, and Klaus's assumption that if and when Elena takes the cure she will magically reset to being Stefan's girlfriend: it's LUDICROUS. I mean, just watch the tearful "break-up" of Damon and Elena over the phone in 3x22. That is not a girl who is parting with someone and crying for their pain alone. It ripped Elena apart to "choose" -- most assuredly because Damon had been her rock for six months, and really to think she might not be able to count on that anymore -- that she might "lose him" was painful for her, separate from the pain she knew she was inflicting on him.
This point is illustrated by every move she made once she became a vampire -- and again, I don't think it had anything to do with the sire bond. Elena knew if she went to Damon, even if he would huff and puff and roll his eyes in irritation, he would HELP HER. He would do whatever he had to, to see her as a well-adjusted vampire. He would love her through all of it, while being completely honest with her:
She is a different person! She's a vampire! We're a predatory species. We enjoy the hunt, the feed, and the kill. When the guilt gets too bad, we switch off our humanity and we revel in it. ... And you know what makes me able to drink my fill and leave someone breathing, and not rip their head off like my brother, is that I can revel in it! I can make it fun. (Damon Salvatore, 4x04)
While Elena is hyperventilating about the fact that Stefan should be showing her all of this, and exploring vampire life with her (which, in Stefan's defense, he really, honestly can't because of his control issues), she is also getting closer and closer to the truth. Damon's way of being a vampire is probably more like what Elena's way of being a vampire will be.
Because her way of being a human was already much like that. Remember, being a vampire only magnifies what you already are. I think HUMAN!Elena would have come up with the plan to kill Kol just as easily as VAMPIRE!Elena did.
Stefan and Damon brought gray to Elena's world -- but it would have found her regardless, because she's the Doppelganger. The supernatural has forced her into a kill or be killed mentality, and that's neither a character pro or con for her, it's the reality of her life. And as a evolutionary creature, she has evolved.
So, back to the sire bond being a real thing. Let's pretend for a moment that they are going to go to the mysterious island (and meet the passengers of Flight 815) and that Elena is actually going to get the cure. Again, I highly doubt that's where this is going, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is. If Elena is human again, her emotions won't be magnified, but neither will her memories be purged. She will remember what it was like to be with Damon, and I don't mean just the fabulous sex that we saw. I mean, she will remember how giving herself to him was the most real thing she'd ever experienced, as both a human and a vampire. She will remember how he loved her just the same, regardless of her state of immortality. She will remember that Stefan didn't. And that Stefan would have rather forgotten their time together via Rebekah compelling him than live with the pain of their relationship ending because Elena had moved on.
These aren't small things. These aren't little, insignificant moments that don't carry the arc of this storyline. Real sire bond or fake sire bond, Elena has experienced something with Damon she never experienced with anyone else before: unconditional love.
Even in her mind, she worries that her parents are disappointed with her for the way her life has gone since their deaths. While under the Hunter's Curse, her subconscious told her, in the form of her mother, that it would be better that she die and help Jeremy as a ghost than live and hurt him as a monster.
And then Damon jumped off Wickery Bridge with her in his arms. And that, my friends, was the pivotal moment. Forget everything else. Forget attraction and "good girl" mentality and light versus dark. Damon went to the scariest place with her, and he never let her go. He went down with her, and he saved her in the one place where being saved was either the worst thing that ever happened to her because she lived when others died, or because she died, only to live again in the worst form she could think of. The poetry of Damon and Elena jumping off that bridge together will always be, for me, anyway, the reason that Elena can never go back to her Original Factory Team Stefan Settings. She might try. She might even think it's possible if her heightened vampire emotions are negated, but the reality is Damon would choose it all again -- even all the bad -- just to know her, and Stefan would have gladly forgotten even the good times to spare himself the bad.
Who can forget that?
This isn't about who deserves Elena, or even who loves Elena more. But it is about Elena growing up and experiencing different relationships and love and figuring out for herself what she wants. Maybe in the end, she won't be with either Salvatore (*sobs*), but hopefully she will have gleaned the best things of both of them and she'll carry that forward to whatever her life will ultimately be, human or vampire.
And hopefully, she'll never settle for less.