The Vampire Diaries: A Retrospective
Hey all everybody...
I've been sick this week, well, really I've been sick for two weeks now and I'm finally going to the doctor today because I'm starting to think something more serious might be going on. I tend to be a hypochondriac so I do try not to overreact, but this time it just seems like I better get an opinion from someone with a degree.
On that note, I'm up thru 2x14 in my rewatch of TVD. And I'm just now noticing all the Matt-Caroline-Tyler/Stefan-Elena-Damon parallels. I mean, it's so obvious now, but I never got it before. It's the exact same story, just the M-C-T side is moving faster. Caroline becomes a vampire and Matt can't accept her, but Tyler, who loves her with no expectation of her ever wanting to be with him, ends up getting the girl in the end. Now, of course, series wise the M-C-T triangle isn't the full set up or story for the S-E-D drama, but it is interesting to me that the writers might have been trying to clue us in that much sooner.
I just remember while watching S2 in real time that I wanted Elena to love Damon so much--I was certainly more prolific as a fic writer during that period of time because of that wish--and I was so focused on it, I couldn't really breakdown anything else. On this rewatch I'm much more able to see that Elena cares deeply about Damon but is nowhere near being in love with him. She's attracted, and she feels things like pity and jealousy for him or over him, but it's not the same as being unconditionally in love with him. That can't happen until she almost loses him in 2x22 and does lose Stefan. It's all so poetic; I mean I loved it the first time (and the several rewatches I've done before) but this time it's all familiar and new at the same time. It's just fascinating.
I've been watching it with leobrat who is as firmly Team Stefan as I am Team Damon...and so it's been challenging. But it's interesting to see the other perspective and understand how the show could present two different dynamics, and gather in two different fanbases. I know I couldn't have done this during S2, like had any kind of rational discussion about any of it, and it's nice to see that I've grown at least a little bit as a fangirl. It's also nice to know your limits, LOL.
I'll never forgot this time a few years back, might have been during S2 or S3, when I was online chatting with a group of friends who were all die-hard Damon/Elena shippers, and one friend invited someone new to the conversation. This person somehow didn't understand the depth of our fangirling and made some remark that I couldn't handle as a Damon stan. It was ON, and I didn't handle it well at all. Needless to say I never became good friends with that person, and since then the other friendships have sort of dwindled, too. People move on, and grow out of things, and it's sort of sad, you know? I'll just never grow out of TVD. I love it too much.
But I'm not gonna watch a season with no Elena Gilbert. If anything, this rewatch has proved to me that she is the heart of the show and I just can't even process it STILL that they are going to attempt a season without her. It's just wrong.
I've been sick this week, well, really I've been sick for two weeks now and I'm finally going to the doctor today because I'm starting to think something more serious might be going on. I tend to be a hypochondriac so I do try not to overreact, but this time it just seems like I better get an opinion from someone with a degree.
On that note, I'm up thru 2x14 in my rewatch of TVD. And I'm just now noticing all the Matt-Caroline-Tyler/Stefan-Elena-Damon parallels. I mean, it's so obvious now, but I never got it before. It's the exact same story, just the M-C-T side is moving faster. Caroline becomes a vampire and Matt can't accept her, but Tyler, who loves her with no expectation of her ever wanting to be with him, ends up getting the girl in the end. Now, of course, series wise the M-C-T triangle isn't the full set up or story for the S-E-D drama, but it is interesting to me that the writers might have been trying to clue us in that much sooner.
I just remember while watching S2 in real time that I wanted Elena to love Damon so much--I was certainly more prolific as a fic writer during that period of time because of that wish--and I was so focused on it, I couldn't really breakdown anything else. On this rewatch I'm much more able to see that Elena cares deeply about Damon but is nowhere near being in love with him. She's attracted, and she feels things like pity and jealousy for him or over him, but it's not the same as being unconditionally in love with him. That can't happen until she almost loses him in 2x22 and does lose Stefan. It's all so poetic; I mean I loved it the first time (and the several rewatches I've done before) but this time it's all familiar and new at the same time. It's just fascinating.
I've been watching it with leobrat who is as firmly Team Stefan as I am Team Damon...and so it's been challenging. But it's interesting to see the other perspective and understand how the show could present two different dynamics, and gather in two different fanbases. I know I couldn't have done this during S2, like had any kind of rational discussion about any of it, and it's nice to see that I've grown at least a little bit as a fangirl. It's also nice to know your limits, LOL.
I'll never forgot this time a few years back, might have been during S2 or S3, when I was online chatting with a group of friends who were all die-hard Damon/Elena shippers, and one friend invited someone new to the conversation. This person somehow didn't understand the depth of our fangirling and made some remark that I couldn't handle as a Damon stan. It was ON, and I didn't handle it well at all. Needless to say I never became good friends with that person, and since then the other friendships have sort of dwindled, too. People move on, and grow out of things, and it's sort of sad, you know? I'll just never grow out of TVD. I love it too much.
But I'm not gonna watch a season with no Elena Gilbert. If anything, this rewatch has proved to me that she is the heart of the show and I just can't even process it STILL that they are going to attempt a season without her. It's just wrong.