Bonnie Bennett: Top Ten Witch-goddess Moments (top eleven)
I had a lot of time on my hands apparently, and decided to do a top-10 of my favorite Bonnie-and-magic moments. I failed, and there are 11... well, actually 14, technically but whatever. In no particular order:
1. "It's impossible, and it's true..."
Bonnie: It’s true, Elena. Everything my Grams told me-it’s impossible and it’s true, I’m a witch.
Elena: I believe you.
So this scene, everyone, this scene is everything to me. I honestly thought when I started this that it wouldn’t resonate as much as it did the first and twentieth time I saw it, and that perhaps the luster with which my own memories had imbued it would’ve been tarnished somewhat by the passage of time. But the exact opposite was true. I watched this scene again this morning, and immediately burst into tears. So I can only conclude that it still, even after all this time, does its job perfectly.
Given how dark the show has become in three seasons and how dark these characters have become, the scene carries a great deal more resonance than it did then. We had no idea what we were losing, what these characters would lose, and maybe what the show as a whole would lose come three seasons. When we get unremitting tragedy and darkness and loss, a simple moment of two friends, sitting on a bed, talking about something, straight up giggling for goodness sakes (no one ever giggles on this show) in a moment that has nothing to do with the latest shit-storm seems like actual heaven. It feels like a different time, a bygone era, a bygone Bonnie-and it is.
I love the scene for what it is: Bonnie sharing a part of herself with Elena that she’s shared with no one other than her grandmother. She chooses to tell Elena. That’s important to me. I didn’t realize how important it still was to me until I re-watched the scene. This level of honesty and openness, of safety, of innocence and just simple joy is something that the show never manages to capture again. It’s genuinely beautiful in all the good senses of the word. And I really wracked my mind with this and it’s an actual fact, the show never has this again-I challenge anyone to bring me a scene that rivals this one in this particular way, and if you succeed, I might keel over. Its brevity, its transience, its fragility is what makes it so precious.
So for that, for everything that this scene is and isn’t, for everything that it speaks to about these characters and about this show, for every shadow it puts into stark relief because of its very lightness-it is perfection. And their little faces!
Episode: 162 Candles
2. "I can't stop seeing these three numbers..."
This episode and the few moments we get of Bonnie always delight me. It’s remarkable to see the level interiority she once had as a character-bring it back, show. The images we get of Bonnie furiously scribbling those three numbers all over her notebook without understanding why she’s so obsessed with them and the big reveal at the end where she connects the dots is such good storytelling. The things Katerina does with her face here are amazing, the dawning realization and horror is etched in every single nuance. It’s a Bonnie who has been fumbling blindly in the dark, burrowing towards the surface, trying to figure out those damn numbers, and when the light and truth shine through, they aren’t pretty, they don’t uncover pretty things.
Bonnie feeling personally responsible for people’s suffering: I tend to trace it back to this moment. Because apart from shock and horror, there is an element of guilt here-because she knows that if she had those numbers running through her mind for days, there is something in her, something inaccessible that knew that this would happen, or could have known. And she wasn’t able to do anything about it.
Sometimes, I think of magic for Bonnie as something of a losing game. And if Bonnie’s journey can be traced through moments of loss, of her loss of innocence, of her losing people, of the people around her losing those they care about, and themselves, of losing so many of these battles then perhaps this moment marks the start.
Episode: Friday Night Bites
3. Will you light my candle?
I’ve written about this scene before-but favorite musical cues, I have them, and this is one of them.
This is a good character episode for Bonnie, there are a lot of those in the first half of season 1, which is why I dispute the idea that a few do have that Bonnie’s always been an undeveloped mess of a character and is therefore useless. The show may have gotten progressively worse at showing Bonnie’s point-of-view in a consistent manner, but it hasn’t all been a barren wasteland of terrible characterization (even at its worst there have been great moments), and if you think so-you have simply not been paying attention.
The entire context of this scene is important. Again, this is Bonnie who is aware of people outside of her inner circle of friends, and this is Bonnie with a profound sense of justice, and this is Bonnie who instinctively helps or wants to help because it’s basically written into who she is. When she sneers at Carol Lockwood’s retreating back for her casual mistreatment of that waiter, it’s one of the best bitch-faces I’ve ever seen.
But she doesn’t just walk away; she turns back to the room of unlit candles and tries to fix it. This is one of my favorite flavors of Bonnie-the Bonnie who tries, and might fail, but tries anyway. And she does fail-at first. Her shoulders slump, her face droops, and you can see her feel that failure in her body as she turns to leave. But then she notices it-a single, lit candle… and then there are scores of lit candles, and she did this. And her face, again, Katerina Graham and her face, is everything because what we see there is amazement, and shock, but also trepidation and fear; she is overwhelmed and she has no idea what she is but this is evidence of what she can do, and it scares her.
Episode: Family Ties
4. Fire-starter
One element of Bonnie's relationship with magic that really excites me is how instinctive it is. In those first few episodes, she does magic without thought or the premeditation she tends to have now, it’s almost like a magical muscular reflex in the way she responds to certain situations and it’s fascinating. Tied to this is how emotionally-driven magic is. Sheila says this explicitly a few episodes later but that part of magic intrigues me. It means that when we see this character perform a spell, it’s as much about her, who she is, what she’s thinking as it is about anything else. These twin elements-the instinct and the emotion are important. And they make it really hard for me to get on board with this mindset that Bonnie needs to be separated from magic in order for us to “understand” her as a character. That is patently not true. If you want to understand Bonnie Bennett, you cannot separate her from this part of who she is-and she has been this from the very premiere, even though she didn’t yet understand it herself.
This episode just has some of my favorite moments-Bonnie splashing Tikki with water after she was mean to that random dude with the ugly car and then the moment in the scene above. I like that both, to two different extents, hint (emphasis: hint) at a side of magic and a side of Bonnie that is endlessly fascinating to me: her darkness, her vindictiveness, this instinctive vengeance that goes hand-in-hand with her keen sense of justice. Like from about 1.18 onwards, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to separate the darkness of Bonnie’s magic from the light. By that I mean, as she becomes an increasingly gray character who makes questionable decisions, her magic grows darker and more ambiguous-even when she is doing a spell for “good”, either the spell itself is dark and sometimes incredibly problematic, deceitful, cruel, vengeful; or it yields the kinds of consequences that include death and destruction, unintentionally or intentionally. These days, there are no more feathers for us; no more transcendent moments of candle-lit dining halls. And this episode foreshadows that thematically in a really interesting way.
I like her trance-like state, she's completely drawn to the fire, the magic of it, its destructiveness and its beauty and the fact that she's doing all of this, and that when Stefan yanks her out of it, her first response is fear of herself and to run away. I like how sullen and bored she to be doing this whole car wash business when she could be elsewhere, doing fun stuff. I love how irritating and bitchy Tikki is, and how Bonnie cops an attitude right back at her. I’d like more hilarious car washes, show.
Episode: You’re Undead to Me
5. "I can fix this...."
Bonnie: No-no, I can fix this. I can fix this.
Because I could probably post a few of their scenes here if I wanted to. But really, the scene that matters most to me, is the moment when Bonnie finds Sheila’s cooling corpse on the bed, set in that peaceful death pose, the lines of worry gone from her face and that necklace clutched in her hands-and she breaks down completely. Appalling musical cue aside (one of the worst this show has ever done), this scene breaks my heart. Because this is it, the turning point for Bonnie Bennett. She is never the same again. And the fact that the show allowed this to be a truly definitive moment for her, a moment that literally shapes her and her behavior for the next full season was probably the best decision they ever made for the character.
But perhaps what stands out the most in this scene is Bonnie, a novice in the magical arts, rifling frantically through that grimoire, sobbing, begging for a spell, an incantation, anything to bring Grams back. Magic gives but it also takes away. It’s a painful lesson, one that colors every single conversation Bonnie has about the push-back that comes with dabbling in magic, and every single time she has a nosebleed or her body succumbs to the exhaustion of it all-we need to remember that Grams died.
“It doesn’t end well for people like me,” she says simply to Jeremy in Masquerade. And it doesn’t. She learned and continues to learn that lesson the hard way.
Episode: Fool Me Once
6. "No matter how hard I try, I can't stay out of it..."
When Bonnie tells Jeremy that she “can’t stay out of it” no matter how hard she tries in Masquerade, this is one of those scenes I always come back to. Everything that’s happening in this moment is a direct consequence of Bonnie’s decision to leave the device activated. These two brothers are people she holds almost entirely responsible for her grandmother’s death. It’s safe to say that a huge part of her must have been delighted by the thought of them burning to ashes in that basement. And that same part of her must have wanted to simply stand by and watch them burn (do you see what I did there?). But she doesn’t.
Her decision to act is primarily about Elena, Bonnie’s love for Elena, we know this, but it’s also about Bonnie and that instinctive need to fix, and help. Also, my fondness for Katerina Graham’s face in this scene, and her muttering whatever gibberish spell that was knows no bounds.
The other thing that stands out to me is that when Damon and Stefan come staggering out from the fire pit, Elena runs to them immediately to see if they’re all right and it’s one of those OT3 moments, right? But, my eye is consistently drawn to the person who is not part of that moment, the person who stands on the periphery watching on even if she’s as much a part of the action-even if she has driven the action, alone. Key words there are: action, periphery and alone. This scene is kind of emblematic of Bonnie’s complicated place in this narrative, the space that she occupies in a more pronounced manner throughout season two. Is she in the middle of things, is she on the sidelines, what judgment calls does she make-to intervene or stay away, will her heart let her do the latter?
Also, I can’t even really unravel the layers of the way Bonnie looks at all three of them as she stumbles back, obviously worn out from that spell, but it makes my heart hurt every single time.
Episode: Founder’s Day
7. "You live to see another day..."
Damon: Now you need to stop with the witches’ brew, you’re starting to believe your own press.
Bonnie: Oh-I’m sorry. You were saying?
Hahaha, some folks hated this scene didn’t they? I loved this scene. Have I mentioned that I have a particular obsession with Bonnie’s less “admirable” or “positive” traits? I like her vindictiveness, I like her meanness, I like her ruthlessness and I LOVE her arrogance and braggadocio. Again, fandom in general was all over this with the “Bonnie’s such a bitch!” as if being bitchy was ever a bad thing. She’s in the middle of a wake, you guys, in broad daylight and she is taunting and threatening and torturing Damon Salvatore like she’s been doing this shit every day of her life. Obviously, Bonnie’s arrogance leads her to dark places and to making sometimes fatal mistakes, especially with her lack of experience although given how little success witches on this show have with anything they do, one wonders if that's just how things go in general for them (also the show constantly makes her pay for her poor decisions, which is what makes this aspect of her character and some of those decisions actually tolerable for me). But I will never not laugh at her giving Damon the mind-whammy and her cocky, “You were saying?” and her strut. Also, I feel like at that particular moment in time, Bonnie being "nice" to a man she considered something of an enemy or reluctant and much-despised temporary ally wouldn't exactly be a smart decision.
(Of course, there is a very serious, problematic side to the way fandom reacts to Bonnie here and in other moments when she’s “mean” (or really to the character in general let's be real) because we all know that (a) male characters can be as obnoxious and arrogant as they want to be [even if they sometimes don't have the mojo to back it up] and people applaud them, see: Stefan and Damon et al.; (b) the response to “bitchy” characters such as Katherine or even Rebekah is vastly different to that of Bonnie-I don’t think there’s any need to spell it out any further, make of it what you will, but there you go.)
Episode: The Return
8. "Why did you stop me!"
Bonnie: I told you what would happen if anyone else got hurt.
Once upon a time, I sort of shipped Bonnie and Damon and this moment is kind of the height of my shipping career. Like everything here makes me want to run around in circles and die-which is funny, because I remember how much of the fandom hated this scene and wanted to kill Bonnie for it. Meanwhile, I was in a secret corner melting in a puddle of all the hurts-so-good wrong-that-feels-so-right drama of this moment.
I think I’ve kind of said it already but I might as well be explicit, you guys, Bonnie Bennett is not a “nice” person. I think it’s easy for people to put characters in a box, particularly when it’s more comfortable to keep them in that box, and when they repeatedly challenge that perception in so furious a manner-people don’t know how to respond (see: some readings of Bonnie and the device, lying, etc. etc.). But I’ll say it again; she’s not a “nice” person. What she is-is a complicated person. And this scene speaks to that, it’s not a scene that I can fold neatly into a moral framework of right and wrong; and I feel like that’s kind of a fruitless endeavor with this show but whatever. And it’s impossible to enjoy it if you try.
When Damon taunts Bonnie over the dead body of some innocent boy named Carter, mere minutes after she’s found out that her best friend has died too, and become the kind of monster she’s come to despise with everything inside her; the monsters against which she’s personally positioned herself; that she herself is partly responsible for this state of affairs; that Caroline is a killer because of a decision she made, she breaks. The fact that this moment is not one in isolation but comes off the back of a steady progression of moments, of loss (the losing game, remember), and the sheer and violent onslaught of feelings that might evoke-guilt, grief, pain, rage, sadness, fear, powerlessness, insecurity, did I mention guilt and grief?-all makes sense to me. Her striking out emotionally at the thing, at the monster himself, at Damon, the vampire who first gave her an education in what vampires are all about, is something I completely understand. Her twisting all of those emotions roiling inside her and expressing them quite literally on another person because it’s too fucking much and she cannot in the moment find another way to articulate is so human it hurts. And Bonnie is hurt, she is hurting and she hurts other people because of it. Whether Damon “deserves” to be burned into the ground is not the point (spoiler: maybe he did then, but probably not for these reasons).
This is everything I said about instinctive, emotionally-driven magic that speaks to who Bonnie is and what she is feeling. She's distraught. This is unfettered, unrefined emotion-in-action. It’s not “pretty” and it certainly isn’t “nice”-in fact it’s ugly, and cruel, and hypocritical, and dark, and vindictive, and full of rage, hatred, self-loathing, and speaks of vengeance, the dark side of justice, and violence. And that’s the point.
This character is just as flawed as the rest of them and I thought it was a daring move on the part of the writers to actually allow her that moment-to even allow Bonnie to be that. Because we all know that characters of color, women of color, women characters in general are not often allowed to be this-they are rarely allowed to be angry and hateful and cruel and vengeful; they are sometimes not even allowed to be. Of course, fandom went insane, the writers caught wind of it, the actress too, and I personally blame a lot of the missteps with Bonnie’s journey in season 2 and the way they swiftly changed gears with her on that nonsensical reaction but whatever/forever bitter.
Episode: Brave New World
9. "I'll do whatever it takes..."
Sometimes, I like to think of Bonnie’s relationship with Luka in three parts that correspond to three key moments for me. The first is their channeling in the middle of the schoolyard-an echo of Bonnie’s feathers moment with Elena in season one that almost rivals that prior scene for sheer beauty and joy. Bonnie’s laughter makes me happy, and I know I talk about it incessantly but Katerina Graham’s face.
The second moment: Bonnie channeling Luka without his permission. Let’s not mince words, this moment is gross, it is a violation of his body and his magic. She willfully channels this boy against his will and nearly kills him and herself. Again, Bonnie is not a nice person. It is known. Deal with it. She's trying to help, she's trying free Stefan but she takes foolish risks, and this is one of them. I mentioned how Bonnie’s magic becomes increasingly dark as the show progresses through season two, whether it’s the consequences or the actual magic itself. And this is some serious black as the devil stuff right here. I tend to appreciate what this says about Bonnie, her ruthlessness, her pragmatism and how utterly cruel she can be with it. It’s problematic, and it’s something of a running theme particularly in season two, Bonnie’s penetrative, invasive and violent use of magic to get things done. Her ends-justify-the-means brand of mentality is complicated. Is it heroic? Is it evil? Who knows, must I choose?
Whether this use of “dark magic” is a symptom of her going so long without a decent mentor or if this is just how Bennett witches roll (I mean, she’s picking up all her lessons from that grimoire, Emily was no saint, she possessed Bonnie the first time we met her in ghostly form! Sheila wasn’t all sunshine and roses either-come to think of it, all of the witches have been singularly vicious in their use of magic when they want/need to be), I don’t know. But if people thought this was child’s play and that she’d be floating feathers for the entirety of the show while everyone else got their hands soiled and dirty, they were sorely mistaken. This world has become darker, and the characters have grown darker with it-sometimes that’s the only way one can survive, and you don't get a choice in the matter.
The third, obviously, is Bonnie extracting information from Luka-a scene I am so obsessed with, I even wrote fic about it. Again, she is ruthless. She gives him a magical witch roofie, and then she violates his mind. That shot of her, her hands probing Luka’s head, her face hard and unyielding, and Jeremy’s attempts to caution her from the sidelines. It’s messed up and it is problematic, but damn if that isn’t what I like about it most. Also, damn the appalling lighting on this show sometimes.
Episode: The Sacrifice, Crying Wolf
10. "Do you think I was born with these powers so I could float feathers... and blow out candles? There's a reason I was called to do this."
Bonnie: It’s a lot of access to have power to… they’re just telling me to be careful with it.
Jeremy: Exactly how much power can you channel from a hundred dead witches?
Bonnie: The answer to your question is: a lot.
This scene is stunning (the quotation at the top is obviously from a later scene but whatever, I just love everything she says in this episode because it articulates a lot of what I needed the show to articulate to get on board with this storyline, back to the subject at hand). Visually, it’s kind of an echo to my favorite feathers scene, except on a grander scale and it displays a more complicated array of emotion. Also, it’s the debut of Storm Bennett, and she’s magnificent. The music in the background, the at-first innocuous flurry of leaves that quickly becomes a raging tempest is awesome.
Thematically, I was completely drawn to what this scene was saying about family legacies, about history, about power, about heroism. The thing we can’t forget here is that Bonnie knows-the spirits have told her that she will probably die if she tries to channel all of that power alone. Bonnie holds that secret inside, and she’s ready to face that choice because she has accepted her role and mission. She’s standing on the ground on which her ancestors have bled and died and suffered; she holds the gift of their bestowed-power in her hands, power that was literally forged by their sacrifices, their loss, their torment, their blood; and she unleashes it for a few potent seconds. In that moment she’s Bonnie and somehow not-she’s all raw power, dangerous, a force of nature-literally a witch-goddess (like the equivalent of the avatar state or something, lol). And she revels in it, there’s something very dark about that but also triumphant and empowering?
The juxtaposition of Storm Bennett with the chuckling Bonnie who reappears a few seconds later when she’s fully herself again is striking.
Episode: Know Thy Enemy
11. "Is that all you got?" "Let's find out...."
Bonnie: If I am the only one who can put an end to this, then it’ll be my decision. No one else’s. Mine.
This scene is everything to me. This is the actual mirror callback to feathers and I think that’s part of why it pierces me so much. Everything that it says about Bonnie (and Elena), about what she’s become, the decisions she’s had to make, the sacrifices, the loss-all of it comes out in painful relief in this moment.
I mean, we could talk about her badass walk to meet Klaus and how every stride hits the floor with her determination, her absolute resolution to face this without flinching (and that sad truth that it’s something of a walk to the gallows and they both-she and Klaus-know it). We could talk about the actual fight and how frightfully beautiful it was with all the lights, and the macabre sound of her breaking his bones with a twist of her wrist. But I just want to zero in one image of Bonnie’s face, dripping with blood, staring silently at Elena with that indescribable mix of emotion and her love and her resolve to finish this, to see this through completely. (That was some straight-up “The Gift”-level of heroism and sacrifice there, good grief). That entire silent exchange between her and Elena is just… I don’t even know, this scene has the power to make me burst into tears on command because it’s so perfect.
She has her resolve, she is looking death in the eye, and she stands firm. It’s heroic Bonnie at her best, here, and she is beautiful. And then her body crumples like an airless inflatable and she’s just there on the ground, with the blood on her face, and I think I may have forgotten how to breathe for a moment there-and I was spoiled!
Episode: The Last Dance, quotation from Know Thy Enemy
Fin
Special mentions: Bonnie pretending to deactivate the device, Bonnie taking away part of Elena's pain in Masquerade, Bonnie doing the locator spell, and Bonnie channeling Jeremy for sexy-witch fun. Also, Bonnie's second confrontation against Klaus.
I'm interested to know how other people understand Bonnie "morally"? Or just what you think of her in general, all opinions welcome. She's made a lot of problematic choices over the seasons, and I know that everyone reads them differently. I tend to walk middle-of-the-road with it all, and I try not to romanticize her and the things she does too much. And looking at her through rose-colored glasses, actually detracts from my enjoyment of her. But who knows if I succeed, I'm not often rational when it comes to her, let's be real. Anyway, thoughts?
1. "It's impossible, and it's true..."
Bonnie: It’s true, Elena. Everything my Grams told me-it’s impossible and it’s true, I’m a witch.
Elena: I believe you.
So this scene, everyone, this scene is everything to me. I honestly thought when I started this that it wouldn’t resonate as much as it did the first and twentieth time I saw it, and that perhaps the luster with which my own memories had imbued it would’ve been tarnished somewhat by the passage of time. But the exact opposite was true. I watched this scene again this morning, and immediately burst into tears. So I can only conclude that it still, even after all this time, does its job perfectly.
Given how dark the show has become in three seasons and how dark these characters have become, the scene carries a great deal more resonance than it did then. We had no idea what we were losing, what these characters would lose, and maybe what the show as a whole would lose come three seasons. When we get unremitting tragedy and darkness and loss, a simple moment of two friends, sitting on a bed, talking about something, straight up giggling for goodness sakes (no one ever giggles on this show) in a moment that has nothing to do with the latest shit-storm seems like actual heaven. It feels like a different time, a bygone era, a bygone Bonnie-and it is.
I love the scene for what it is: Bonnie sharing a part of herself with Elena that she’s shared with no one other than her grandmother. She chooses to tell Elena. That’s important to me. I didn’t realize how important it still was to me until I re-watched the scene. This level of honesty and openness, of safety, of innocence and just simple joy is something that the show never manages to capture again. It’s genuinely beautiful in all the good senses of the word. And I really wracked my mind with this and it’s an actual fact, the show never has this again-I challenge anyone to bring me a scene that rivals this one in this particular way, and if you succeed, I might keel over. Its brevity, its transience, its fragility is what makes it so precious.
So for that, for everything that this scene is and isn’t, for everything that it speaks to about these characters and about this show, for every shadow it puts into stark relief because of its very lightness-it is perfection. And their little faces!
Episode: 162 Candles
2. "I can't stop seeing these three numbers..."
This episode and the few moments we get of Bonnie always delight me. It’s remarkable to see the level interiority she once had as a character-bring it back, show. The images we get of Bonnie furiously scribbling those three numbers all over her notebook without understanding why she’s so obsessed with them and the big reveal at the end where she connects the dots is such good storytelling. The things Katerina does with her face here are amazing, the dawning realization and horror is etched in every single nuance. It’s a Bonnie who has been fumbling blindly in the dark, burrowing towards the surface, trying to figure out those damn numbers, and when the light and truth shine through, they aren’t pretty, they don’t uncover pretty things.
Bonnie feeling personally responsible for people’s suffering: I tend to trace it back to this moment. Because apart from shock and horror, there is an element of guilt here-because she knows that if she had those numbers running through her mind for days, there is something in her, something inaccessible that knew that this would happen, or could have known. And she wasn’t able to do anything about it.
Sometimes, I think of magic for Bonnie as something of a losing game. And if Bonnie’s journey can be traced through moments of loss, of her loss of innocence, of her losing people, of the people around her losing those they care about, and themselves, of losing so many of these battles then perhaps this moment marks the start.
Episode: Friday Night Bites
3. Will you light my candle?
I’ve written about this scene before-but favorite musical cues, I have them, and this is one of them.
This is a good character episode for Bonnie, there are a lot of those in the first half of season 1, which is why I dispute the idea that a few do have that Bonnie’s always been an undeveloped mess of a character and is therefore useless. The show may have gotten progressively worse at showing Bonnie’s point-of-view in a consistent manner, but it hasn’t all been a barren wasteland of terrible characterization (even at its worst there have been great moments), and if you think so-you have simply not been paying attention.
The entire context of this scene is important. Again, this is Bonnie who is aware of people outside of her inner circle of friends, and this is Bonnie with a profound sense of justice, and this is Bonnie who instinctively helps or wants to help because it’s basically written into who she is. When she sneers at Carol Lockwood’s retreating back for her casual mistreatment of that waiter, it’s one of the best bitch-faces I’ve ever seen.
But she doesn’t just walk away; she turns back to the room of unlit candles and tries to fix it. This is one of my favorite flavors of Bonnie-the Bonnie who tries, and might fail, but tries anyway. And she does fail-at first. Her shoulders slump, her face droops, and you can see her feel that failure in her body as she turns to leave. But then she notices it-a single, lit candle… and then there are scores of lit candles, and she did this. And her face, again, Katerina Graham and her face, is everything because what we see there is amazement, and shock, but also trepidation and fear; she is overwhelmed and she has no idea what she is but this is evidence of what she can do, and it scares her.
Episode: Family Ties
4. Fire-starter
One element of Bonnie's relationship with magic that really excites me is how instinctive it is. In those first few episodes, she does magic without thought or the premeditation she tends to have now, it’s almost like a magical muscular reflex in the way she responds to certain situations and it’s fascinating. Tied to this is how emotionally-driven magic is. Sheila says this explicitly a few episodes later but that part of magic intrigues me. It means that when we see this character perform a spell, it’s as much about her, who she is, what she’s thinking as it is about anything else. These twin elements-the instinct and the emotion are important. And they make it really hard for me to get on board with this mindset that Bonnie needs to be separated from magic in order for us to “understand” her as a character. That is patently not true. If you want to understand Bonnie Bennett, you cannot separate her from this part of who she is-and she has been this from the very premiere, even though she didn’t yet understand it herself.
This episode just has some of my favorite moments-Bonnie splashing Tikki with water after she was mean to that random dude with the ugly car and then the moment in the scene above. I like that both, to two different extents, hint (emphasis: hint) at a side of magic and a side of Bonnie that is endlessly fascinating to me: her darkness, her vindictiveness, this instinctive vengeance that goes hand-in-hand with her keen sense of justice. Like from about 1.18 onwards, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to separate the darkness of Bonnie’s magic from the light. By that I mean, as she becomes an increasingly gray character who makes questionable decisions, her magic grows darker and more ambiguous-even when she is doing a spell for “good”, either the spell itself is dark and sometimes incredibly problematic, deceitful, cruel, vengeful; or it yields the kinds of consequences that include death and destruction, unintentionally or intentionally. These days, there are no more feathers for us; no more transcendent moments of candle-lit dining halls. And this episode foreshadows that thematically in a really interesting way.
I like her trance-like state, she's completely drawn to the fire, the magic of it, its destructiveness and its beauty and the fact that she's doing all of this, and that when Stefan yanks her out of it, her first response is fear of herself and to run away. I like how sullen and bored she to be doing this whole car wash business when she could be elsewhere, doing fun stuff. I love how irritating and bitchy Tikki is, and how Bonnie cops an attitude right back at her. I’d like more hilarious car washes, show.
Episode: You’re Undead to Me
5. "I can fix this...."
Bonnie: No-no, I can fix this. I can fix this.
Because I could probably post a few of their scenes here if I wanted to. But really, the scene that matters most to me, is the moment when Bonnie finds Sheila’s cooling corpse on the bed, set in that peaceful death pose, the lines of worry gone from her face and that necklace clutched in her hands-and she breaks down completely. Appalling musical cue aside (one of the worst this show has ever done), this scene breaks my heart. Because this is it, the turning point for Bonnie Bennett. She is never the same again. And the fact that the show allowed this to be a truly definitive moment for her, a moment that literally shapes her and her behavior for the next full season was probably the best decision they ever made for the character.
But perhaps what stands out the most in this scene is Bonnie, a novice in the magical arts, rifling frantically through that grimoire, sobbing, begging for a spell, an incantation, anything to bring Grams back. Magic gives but it also takes away. It’s a painful lesson, one that colors every single conversation Bonnie has about the push-back that comes with dabbling in magic, and every single time she has a nosebleed or her body succumbs to the exhaustion of it all-we need to remember that Grams died.
“It doesn’t end well for people like me,” she says simply to Jeremy in Masquerade. And it doesn’t. She learned and continues to learn that lesson the hard way.
Episode: Fool Me Once
6. "No matter how hard I try, I can't stay out of it..."
When Bonnie tells Jeremy that she “can’t stay out of it” no matter how hard she tries in Masquerade, this is one of those scenes I always come back to. Everything that’s happening in this moment is a direct consequence of Bonnie’s decision to leave the device activated. These two brothers are people she holds almost entirely responsible for her grandmother’s death. It’s safe to say that a huge part of her must have been delighted by the thought of them burning to ashes in that basement. And that same part of her must have wanted to simply stand by and watch them burn (do you see what I did there?). But she doesn’t.
Her decision to act is primarily about Elena, Bonnie’s love for Elena, we know this, but it’s also about Bonnie and that instinctive need to fix, and help. Also, my fondness for Katerina Graham’s face in this scene, and her muttering whatever gibberish spell that was knows no bounds.
The other thing that stands out to me is that when Damon and Stefan come staggering out from the fire pit, Elena runs to them immediately to see if they’re all right and it’s one of those OT3 moments, right? But, my eye is consistently drawn to the person who is not part of that moment, the person who stands on the periphery watching on even if she’s as much a part of the action-even if she has driven the action, alone. Key words there are: action, periphery and alone. This scene is kind of emblematic of Bonnie’s complicated place in this narrative, the space that she occupies in a more pronounced manner throughout season two. Is she in the middle of things, is she on the sidelines, what judgment calls does she make-to intervene or stay away, will her heart let her do the latter?
Also, I can’t even really unravel the layers of the way Bonnie looks at all three of them as she stumbles back, obviously worn out from that spell, but it makes my heart hurt every single time.
Episode: Founder’s Day
7. "You live to see another day..."
Damon: Now you need to stop with the witches’ brew, you’re starting to believe your own press.
Bonnie: Oh-I’m sorry. You were saying?
Hahaha, some folks hated this scene didn’t they? I loved this scene. Have I mentioned that I have a particular obsession with Bonnie’s less “admirable” or “positive” traits? I like her vindictiveness, I like her meanness, I like her ruthlessness and I LOVE her arrogance and braggadocio. Again, fandom in general was all over this with the “Bonnie’s such a bitch!” as if being bitchy was ever a bad thing. She’s in the middle of a wake, you guys, in broad daylight and she is taunting and threatening and torturing Damon Salvatore like she’s been doing this shit every day of her life. Obviously, Bonnie’s arrogance leads her to dark places and to making sometimes fatal mistakes, especially with her lack of experience although given how little success witches on this show have with anything they do, one wonders if that's just how things go in general for them (also the show constantly makes her pay for her poor decisions, which is what makes this aspect of her character and some of those decisions actually tolerable for me). But I will never not laugh at her giving Damon the mind-whammy and her cocky, “You were saying?” and her strut. Also, I feel like at that particular moment in time, Bonnie being "nice" to a man she considered something of an enemy or reluctant and much-despised temporary ally wouldn't exactly be a smart decision.
(Of course, there is a very serious, problematic side to the way fandom reacts to Bonnie here and in other moments when she’s “mean” (or really to the character in general let's be real) because we all know that (a) male characters can be as obnoxious and arrogant as they want to be [even if they sometimes don't have the mojo to back it up] and people applaud them, see: Stefan and Damon et al.; (b) the response to “bitchy” characters such as Katherine or even Rebekah is vastly different to that of Bonnie-I don’t think there’s any need to spell it out any further, make of it what you will, but there you go.)
Episode: The Return
8. "Why did you stop me!"
Bonnie: I told you what would happen if anyone else got hurt.
Once upon a time, I sort of shipped Bonnie and Damon and this moment is kind of the height of my shipping career. Like everything here makes me want to run around in circles and die-which is funny, because I remember how much of the fandom hated this scene and wanted to kill Bonnie for it. Meanwhile, I was in a secret corner melting in a puddle of all the hurts-so-good wrong-that-feels-so-right drama of this moment.
I think I’ve kind of said it already but I might as well be explicit, you guys, Bonnie Bennett is not a “nice” person. I think it’s easy for people to put characters in a box, particularly when it’s more comfortable to keep them in that box, and when they repeatedly challenge that perception in so furious a manner-people don’t know how to respond (see: some readings of Bonnie and the device, lying, etc. etc.). But I’ll say it again; she’s not a “nice” person. What she is-is a complicated person. And this scene speaks to that, it’s not a scene that I can fold neatly into a moral framework of right and wrong; and I feel like that’s kind of a fruitless endeavor with this show but whatever. And it’s impossible to enjoy it if you try.
When Damon taunts Bonnie over the dead body of some innocent boy named Carter, mere minutes after she’s found out that her best friend has died too, and become the kind of monster she’s come to despise with everything inside her; the monsters against which she’s personally positioned herself; that she herself is partly responsible for this state of affairs; that Caroline is a killer because of a decision she made, she breaks. The fact that this moment is not one in isolation but comes off the back of a steady progression of moments, of loss (the losing game, remember), and the sheer and violent onslaught of feelings that might evoke-guilt, grief, pain, rage, sadness, fear, powerlessness, insecurity, did I mention guilt and grief?-all makes sense to me. Her striking out emotionally at the thing, at the monster himself, at Damon, the vampire who first gave her an education in what vampires are all about, is something I completely understand. Her twisting all of those emotions roiling inside her and expressing them quite literally on another person because it’s too fucking much and she cannot in the moment find another way to articulate is so human it hurts. And Bonnie is hurt, she is hurting and she hurts other people because of it. Whether Damon “deserves” to be burned into the ground is not the point (spoiler: maybe he did then, but probably not for these reasons).
This is everything I said about instinctive, emotionally-driven magic that speaks to who Bonnie is and what she is feeling. She's distraught. This is unfettered, unrefined emotion-in-action. It’s not “pretty” and it certainly isn’t “nice”-in fact it’s ugly, and cruel, and hypocritical, and dark, and vindictive, and full of rage, hatred, self-loathing, and speaks of vengeance, the dark side of justice, and violence. And that’s the point.
This character is just as flawed as the rest of them and I thought it was a daring move on the part of the writers to actually allow her that moment-to even allow Bonnie to be that. Because we all know that characters of color, women of color, women characters in general are not often allowed to be this-they are rarely allowed to be angry and hateful and cruel and vengeful; they are sometimes not even allowed to be. Of course, fandom went insane, the writers caught wind of it, the actress too, and I personally blame a lot of the missteps with Bonnie’s journey in season 2 and the way they swiftly changed gears with her on that nonsensical reaction but whatever/forever bitter.
Episode: Brave New World
9. "I'll do whatever it takes..."
Sometimes, I like to think of Bonnie’s relationship with Luka in three parts that correspond to three key moments for me. The first is their channeling in the middle of the schoolyard-an echo of Bonnie’s feathers moment with Elena in season one that almost rivals that prior scene for sheer beauty and joy. Bonnie’s laughter makes me happy, and I know I talk about it incessantly but Katerina Graham’s face.
The second moment: Bonnie channeling Luka without his permission. Let’s not mince words, this moment is gross, it is a violation of his body and his magic. She willfully channels this boy against his will and nearly kills him and herself. Again, Bonnie is not a nice person. It is known. Deal with it. She's trying to help, she's trying free Stefan but she takes foolish risks, and this is one of them. I mentioned how Bonnie’s magic becomes increasingly dark as the show progresses through season two, whether it’s the consequences or the actual magic itself. And this is some serious black as the devil stuff right here. I tend to appreciate what this says about Bonnie, her ruthlessness, her pragmatism and how utterly cruel she can be with it. It’s problematic, and it’s something of a running theme particularly in season two, Bonnie’s penetrative, invasive and violent use of magic to get things done. Her ends-justify-the-means brand of mentality is complicated. Is it heroic? Is it evil? Who knows, must I choose?
Whether this use of “dark magic” is a symptom of her going so long without a decent mentor or if this is just how Bennett witches roll (I mean, she’s picking up all her lessons from that grimoire, Emily was no saint, she possessed Bonnie the first time we met her in ghostly form! Sheila wasn’t all sunshine and roses either-come to think of it, all of the witches have been singularly vicious in their use of magic when they want/need to be), I don’t know. But if people thought this was child’s play and that she’d be floating feathers for the entirety of the show while everyone else got their hands soiled and dirty, they were sorely mistaken. This world has become darker, and the characters have grown darker with it-sometimes that’s the only way one can survive, and you don't get a choice in the matter.
The third, obviously, is Bonnie extracting information from Luka-a scene I am so obsessed with, I even wrote fic about it. Again, she is ruthless. She gives him a magical witch roofie, and then she violates his mind. That shot of her, her hands probing Luka’s head, her face hard and unyielding, and Jeremy’s attempts to caution her from the sidelines. It’s messed up and it is problematic, but damn if that isn’t what I like about it most. Also, damn the appalling lighting on this show sometimes.
Episode: The Sacrifice, Crying Wolf
10. "Do you think I was born with these powers so I could float feathers... and blow out candles? There's a reason I was called to do this."
Bonnie: It’s a lot of access to have power to… they’re just telling me to be careful with it.
Jeremy: Exactly how much power can you channel from a hundred dead witches?
Bonnie: The answer to your question is: a lot.
This scene is stunning (the quotation at the top is obviously from a later scene but whatever, I just love everything she says in this episode because it articulates a lot of what I needed the show to articulate to get on board with this storyline, back to the subject at hand). Visually, it’s kind of an echo to my favorite feathers scene, except on a grander scale and it displays a more complicated array of emotion. Also, it’s the debut of Storm Bennett, and she’s magnificent. The music in the background, the at-first innocuous flurry of leaves that quickly becomes a raging tempest is awesome.
Thematically, I was completely drawn to what this scene was saying about family legacies, about history, about power, about heroism. The thing we can’t forget here is that Bonnie knows-the spirits have told her that she will probably die if she tries to channel all of that power alone. Bonnie holds that secret inside, and she’s ready to face that choice because she has accepted her role and mission. She’s standing on the ground on which her ancestors have bled and died and suffered; she holds the gift of their bestowed-power in her hands, power that was literally forged by their sacrifices, their loss, their torment, their blood; and she unleashes it for a few potent seconds. In that moment she’s Bonnie and somehow not-she’s all raw power, dangerous, a force of nature-literally a witch-goddess (like the equivalent of the avatar state or something, lol). And she revels in it, there’s something very dark about that but also triumphant and empowering?
The juxtaposition of Storm Bennett with the chuckling Bonnie who reappears a few seconds later when she’s fully herself again is striking.
Episode: Know Thy Enemy
11. "Is that all you got?" "Let's find out...."
Bonnie: If I am the only one who can put an end to this, then it’ll be my decision. No one else’s. Mine.
This scene is everything to me. This is the actual mirror callback to feathers and I think that’s part of why it pierces me so much. Everything that it says about Bonnie (and Elena), about what she’s become, the decisions she’s had to make, the sacrifices, the loss-all of it comes out in painful relief in this moment.
I mean, we could talk about her badass walk to meet Klaus and how every stride hits the floor with her determination, her absolute resolution to face this without flinching (and that sad truth that it’s something of a walk to the gallows and they both-she and Klaus-know it). We could talk about the actual fight and how frightfully beautiful it was with all the lights, and the macabre sound of her breaking his bones with a twist of her wrist. But I just want to zero in one image of Bonnie’s face, dripping with blood, staring silently at Elena with that indescribable mix of emotion and her love and her resolve to finish this, to see this through completely. (That was some straight-up “The Gift”-level of heroism and sacrifice there, good grief). That entire silent exchange between her and Elena is just… I don’t even know, this scene has the power to make me burst into tears on command because it’s so perfect.
She has her resolve, she is looking death in the eye, and she stands firm. It’s heroic Bonnie at her best, here, and she is beautiful. And then her body crumples like an airless inflatable and she’s just there on the ground, with the blood on her face, and I think I may have forgotten how to breathe for a moment there-and I was spoiled!
Episode: The Last Dance, quotation from Know Thy Enemy
Fin
Special mentions: Bonnie pretending to deactivate the device, Bonnie taking away part of Elena's pain in Masquerade, Bonnie doing the locator spell, and Bonnie channeling Jeremy for sexy-witch fun. Also, Bonnie's second confrontation against Klaus.
I'm interested to know how other people understand Bonnie "morally"? Or just what you think of her in general, all opinions welcome. She's made a lot of problematic choices over the seasons, and I know that everyone reads them differently. I tend to walk middle-of-the-road with it all, and I try not to romanticize her and the things she does too much. And looking at her through rose-colored glasses, actually detracts from my enjoyment of her. But who knows if I succeed, I'm not often rational when it comes to her, let's be real. Anyway, thoughts?