♡ the vampire diaries! long long lonngggggg thoughts!
My mind is a huge mess of Bonnie D: D: D: and Salvatores >| >| >| but I am going to just let out alllll my otp feelings.
MY TVD HET-OTP HAD A DATE LAST WEEK, AND THIS WEEK A PICNIC IN THE WOODS~
A murderous picnic.
Things I liked for Elena/Elijah which are actually more like character feelings for Elena and a little bit Elijah!
+ They will totally murder each other and more on this later but the best feeling I have right now is on this.
+ THE NOTE THE NOTE THE NOTE more on why later but for now just HE WROTE HER AND WENT INTO HER ROOM AND PUT IT ON HER PILLOW AND CAN YOU SEE HIM DOING THAT, HE'D WAS VERY VERY SAD WHEN HE DID IT AND IT IS ULTIMATELY HORRIFIC AND ALSO BINDING FOREVER.
+ THEY MAKE EACH OTHER REALLY AWESOME (BUT SOMETIMES ALSO REALLY DUMB)
OBSERVE:
PART ONE ;; ELIJAH LIKES HER AND THAT'S PRETTY AWFUL
He likes her he likes her he likes her. What do I base this one? Um that he called on her at her door rather than surprising her in her room. This is significant because
1) He likes her so much you guys!
2) He likes her
3) HE LIKES HER
lol, but for real,
1) He already literally dragged his feet all morning, moping around the mansion - him, Elijah the King Original let's be real
2) this was him continuing to drag his feet, by waiting for her to answer and waiting for her agree to come with him
He's dragging his feet (him, Elijah) because he does not want something to be true and wrestles with why that matters! He knows she lied to him, but he has so much of a problem wrapping his brain around it because he likes her so much and that is a very hard concept for him! I mean, Elijah, you two haven't actually known each other that long? And you have this problem of underestimating her and the lengths she'll go to get her home back? It pissed you off when she stabbed you (and surprised you because no one surprises you because you have like eighteen different plans just to get your coffee in the morning) but you got it, along with the damn nerves of steel to bring you back and give you a weapon? The truth is you were okay with realizing you liked her before, that you liked being near her when she came back to you, because it still aligned with your goals.
But now you do not understand! Because basically you aren't used to liking people, you don't even like your family and you love them! You aren't used to navigating liking someone with facts running against it, or liking that someone likes you with facts running against it (additionally, none of those facts include 'this is a bad person' or even 'she's a tool for the sacrifice' because that last one already happened!). Liking her is throwing things out of balance, making things foggy. Oh my god, you like her so much you want to stupidly think that you're in the circle of people she'd want to protect now don't you don't you don't you? *DOLPHIN NOISES*
I. ELIJAH STARTED TO NEED HER
Both perceived this relationship evolved into a balance, where neither of them emotionally needed the other, let alone needed one to help define the other, which was really nice. Elijah put himself above her love interests and sneered down at them, certainly at Damon, who needed her so much he nearly turned her into a vampire. It was nice having a relationship with someone that liked you and got stuff done.
But then the Ceremony. :(
Since then Elijah's been wrestling with justification and superiority. Esther stripped Elijah down of those fantasies, ones he had begun to have Elena contribute to: the fallacy of his honor. Something happened when he came back this time; he had royally screwed up and despite that, he wanted to stay the same person (don't we all), and he used Elena to do it. He painted himself as a knight the way he saved her from Rebekah (and nothing will convince me he didn't have something to do with that happening or how he saved her just as Rebekah's fangs touched Elena's neck, because this is Elijah guys), and he grew smug in how she looked at him, smug in how he could look her up and down and like what he saw, and how that affected how she treated him. He saw them as a team working for his 'good' at the ball rather than him defending the existence of mass murderers and her stalking abusers. If Elena was on his side, he equated it with being in the right, because when he hadn't been on her side 1) he usually got daggered, or 2) Klaus won and then he got daggered again. (Plus you know, he likes her.) If Elena still liked him, he hadn't irreparably screwed up. If Elena still trusted him, what he was doing was right.
But what about when she doesn't like him, enough to kill him? Hello, Elijah's mini-existential crisis and moping.
...THIS MAKES HIM VERY MAD (AT HIMSELF)
Every time Elijah thinks he's safe, he's actually pretty screwed. Mostly this happens with dopplegangers. Elijah says he doesn't believe in love, but the truth is it's more he resents love? He's not different from Klaus in that way. Trust is a quality Elijah admires, craves, and gives so rarely, but then also so strongly, because he doesn't trust himself. Things like nobility, truth, and honor, those things are like a checks and balances system he uses to keep himself in line - and alive. He's had to do a lot to fashion himself into a being that could survive as long as he has, with a brother psychotic as Klaus is, losing his siblings violently, and that doesn't happen by being a nice guy, let alone a loving (dumb) one.
...(AND AT HIS FAMILY: SHE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL ISN'T SHE?)
Elijah is pretty dang mad from the moment Elena opens the door. He's mad because he isn't mad at her (bad sign, what if Rebekah was right, he's pathetic, etc), he's mad because in his heart of hearts he already knows what his mom did. He saw the incense, he probably even still smelled a bit of Elena's blood in the air, and god knows what else because Elijah is smart and puts things together most people couldn't in years.
This isn't so much that he thought he could trust Elena, it's also that he trusted his mother. I mean let's be real, Elena wouldn't have done this if Esther hadn't taken advantage of Elena's really messed up, terrified psyche and made this seem an all or nothing scenario. She's terrified of Klaus. She has every right to be terrified of Klaus, he already has plans in the air to mate her like a cow. Elijah trusted Elena to go into Esther's study and he trusted his mother would bring her out alive, ... but maybe not unharmed as you can tell he's relieved in more ways than one when Elena talks to him after.
And then basically Elijah is dang mad in the woods because once again Elena comes clean but his family stabs him in the back. Klaus used his siblings to do it (as promised brother) and Esther used Elena.
Elijah is very good at turning weapons pointed at him back at his enemies. When he woke up he used his siblings back on Klaus to be free (we're leaving you, Nik), so this time he turns Elena back on Esther to live.
II. I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING: WHY ELIJAH'S FEELINGS MAKE THIS EVEN NASTIER AND GROSS
So Elijah, exhibiting the compartmentalizing extraordinaire he's taken centuries to fashion himself into, has defined Elena as a tool for violence (than a tool for his personal happiness) and stops seeing her as a person completely. This is very hard to do because he likes her so much, he can't look at her in order to make this happen! Seriously. I think as soon as she opened the door, he looked and saw Elena for maybe half a second. After that his expression dulled, and his voice grew robotic. He doesn't want to see her as a person, because if he does he'll feel emotional, and then he might do something stupid and his plan to survive (oh yeah, and his siblings) tonight shatters to pieces.
But he can't help but talk to her, not just to lull her into a false sense of security, but because he likes talking to her! He slips, he gets personal, he gets very emotional when he repeats over and over that she lied to his face. He then looks at her when he tells her he can hear her heart beat, and I find that telling. I find that a slip up! Because Elijah is looking at her, and he is looking at Elena. He knows her heart beat, but specifically he personalizes that when he says it, he doesn't say it in a way that means he knows when any old human is lying to him, which is weird because 1) that would depersonalize Elena and be beneficial to his sitch right now, and 2) I can't imagine humans lying sound very different from each other re:heart beat! So here, he's basically saying to her, I know you. And that means he's taken her into him, and that's one heck of a slip up for Elijah.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: ELIJAH KNOWS SHE'S NOT AWFUL AND THAT'S FUCKING AWFUL
Someone begging for his forgiveness is a very exciting past time for Elijah. He loves letting people think he's forgiven them and then getting them back in the most satisfying way, usually by letting them have that one second of hopeful belief and then slicing their head off. King Cobra Elijah. Ask poor Trevor! Ask that poor vampire that Elijah took smug not-quite-pleasure-but-definitely-close in compelling to stake himself, and he never even met Elijah before!
He's trying so hard to not see Elena as a person he stops looking at her again. And you know, he's been planning on how he'd do this all afternoon. He knew he was going to do this when he rang her doorbell and she smiled at him (her heart jumped, half in happiness, but he also heard anxiety and fear), he knew he was going to do this on the drive over, and he knew he was going to do this as he looked at her and saw her face when she realized she couldn't lie to him any more, and she didn't want to. Not because she thought he was going to hurt her (the panic his future victims feel when they realize they can't lie anymore), but because she felt guilty and she liked him and she was looking at Elijah, not the Original Vampire. Elijah took great satisfaction in her underestimating him in that moment, I think. Because he looked at her last night and saw Elena, not a human just as vulnerable to screwing him over as before. It's petty because her situation is not the freaking same. But he had been looking forward to her surprise, her realization of the rug under her feet that he was going to do something very Original Vampire-ish. This is the same Elijah that got his rocks off invading her personal space when he met her just because he could, because he could smell not just her humanity, but her fear - because she wasn't Tatia or Katerina he could strike fear into, but she was close enough!
He also chose Rebekah for a reason. He knows full well how much she hates Elena, he is too smart to not factor in Rebekah would kill Elena with or without an order not to. He knew the whole drive over that he was going to do that to her, his own sister. Because he doesn't see Elena as a person. He doesn't see Rebekah as a person. He doesn't see Bonnie as a person. They're tools, daggers to turn back on his mother, without messing up his suit himself.
A few nights ago he'd deluded himself into thinking he could let himself be a certain type of person, and believe a certain type of reality. Elijah is pretty repressed, so for him to lower his guard it has to have been something he's been wishing for for a long, long time! In my opinion this was a happily ever after with his family. He was so desperate for it he once again forgot to factor in Klaus and the horrible thing he is. The first time it was Klaus never letting him actually have his family or let him go, and the second time it was his mother never accepting what she'd done to her family and let them live in peace.
Be careful what you wish for. He's not just saying it to her, he's saying it to himself to justify his actions. Both of these things are his fault for being a willfully oblivious, arrogant fool towards his shark family.
PART TWO ;; ELENA LIKES HIM AND THAT'S ALSO PRETTY AWFUL
How do I know she likes him? Elena woke up in a specifically depressed mood and I did not in any way think Stefan and Damon were the driving forces because oh my god when aren't these useless guys not bringing her down? :( And she was down even before Stefan and Damon's antics post-ball, because Elijah (she feels too much), because Klaus (she feels too much), and lack of time to process how those two thinks really conflict.
I honestly think Elena grew to like Elijah so quickly because he grew be straight with her really quickly, even when he was planning to kill her to kill Klaus. And Stefan and Damon couldn't do a thing about it. That kind of power is addictive even to a normal teenager. My poor, poor messed up bb.
I. ELENA KNOWS SHE'S AWFUL: WHY SHE CALLED STEFAN AND DAMON
She totally needed to, otherwise she was totally going to call or head over to the mansion to see Elijah and spill her guts if they didn't remind her why she shouldn't! Because she hates Klaus so much:
he killed her, he killed Jenna and he liked it, he killed her horrible father and her horrible mother, he killed Bonnie, he made Katherine into the monster she is which ruined Stefan and Damon's lives, he took away "her" Stefan and now he's getting his claws into Caroline, and she cannot take it anymore. I honestly believe Elena has been running on PTSD since the pilot and it only gets worse and worse and I only understand how she gets out of bed in the morning because she keeps feeling too much (survivor's guilt, love, and plain guilt being the main three)! The day Elena Gilbert stops feeling, she's done guys, she's done.
But she is driven to protect the people she cares about. Sometimes from herself - Elena hides from what she doesn't want to see (Damon's victims for instance! Stefan's! Because if she acknowledges how horrible they are then it makes her a horrible person so she represses represses represses). Plus, once she cares about you, be ready for her to not only white wash you but also control you because she needs to protect and save you, because anything she hasn't kept an iron grip on at all times gets taken from her violently. :(
So Elijah? This isn't like stabbing him last time, when she didn't care, or at least not as much as she cared about keeping Damon and Stefan and Alaric's hearts in their chests. She could ignore any feelings then because she didn't have any feelings one way or the other, so she could be as ruthless as she pleased. But now? With slow and dawning horror Elena realizes she cares about Elijah. Elena clings tightly to the few people she has left and even though she hasn't known Elijah long, it is too much for her to handle. It is too much for her not to completely freak out about this! She broke down in tears just thinking about caring about Damon earlier this season! So she calls Stefan and then Damon and then runs over to the boardinghouse, because she needs someone not to think for her or to tell her what to do, but to convince her that this is the good decision. It doesn't work, so she repeats her crisis to Bonnie. Bonnie who she loves so completely and who has lost so much, and Caroline too. It's the same reason she talks to them about Damon, Elena is looking for things to make sense.
But she still doesn't believe it's the good decision and that is rattling her, but rather than admitting it's because she emotionally against it, she assume it's because there isn't a moral justification.
II. WHY ELENA CAN'T LET HIM DIE, WHY "IT'S NOT RIGHT" IS WRONG
She clings to the fact that he tried to save her (which is so unrealistic Elena, he really didn't try that hard! :() as an excuse, but the truth is, after last night's ball, Elena's psyche locked on to Elijah and now needs him.
A lot of it is tied in with needing him selfishly, Elijah looks at her like she's still the same person before the Ceremony and she wants that, she wants that so much. (Only two episodes ago she let go of the girl she was before her parents died a year ago, that's only what, a week show time you guys?! This poor girl. This poor poor girl.) This whole season has been about how Elena and others see her, how that compares and contrasts. Elena is conflicted about how it looks like she is, and how that balances with who she really is. She's so far down this muddy hole and she's been making ruthless choices that haven't all panned out. She doesn't feel like she can trust herself, because she doesn't know who that person is.
Being under Elijah's microscope is something she looks forward to. He's not Bonnie or Caroline who knew her from before, he's not Stefan or Damon who are suffocatingly in love with her and idealize her. She sees him as unbiased (and she will not admit this is so untrue) and if Elijah thinks she's a good person, then she still is, she still is, it's okay. She's okay. This isn't about if it's right in a moral way. Elena thinks she finally made it this way, but we, the audience, can see she actually hasn't.
Damon abuses her and suffocates her and blames her when she won't love him, but it's okay for him to sleep with a girl who wants to kill her? Her heart is already torn because she is so worn down a part of her actually thinks, yes that's okay, stop protesting it.
She feels too much, she said last episode. Bottom line Elijah makes her feel good, and she's going to let him die? Her heart is desperate and thinks, no no it's not, and it clouds her judgement, it's not right to let him die because it hurts. Outside she says it isn't right because it isn't morally or ethically right. However, Elena doesn't actually have any concrete, non-emotional justification to offer the other, protesting people she loves (and that hurts too), let alone hide behind.
But Elena needs there to be, because if there isn't then her answer to this equation comes out she isn't a good person. She's putting her friends' lives in danger because she doesn't want to be sad; there's human, and there's horribly weak. And that's the fucking, black truth, that is all she has to wrap her arms around as she's banned from Bonnie's house by her wife Caroline (allow me a moment: OTP BAAAAAAAAAABBIEEEESSSS! ahem)
OTP ;; THEY WOULD TOTALLY KILL EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON
But they realize they're going too far. And they look at each other to figure that out.
ELIJAH TOTALLY WOULD HAVE LET HER DIE AND THAT FREAKS HIM OUT
At the end of the episode in a tirade to get Rebekah to understand, Elijah described Elena as an innocent. Not as a friend, not as a comrade. He's still depersonalizing her. An innocent, a thing, and an idealized one at that. Instead of this helping him, it's actually making it worse.
He didn't see a tool, he's realizing, he didn't see someone he trusted and wanted to get back at either. He did see something innocent, a victim, and he had no problem with that body count. Elijah's been depersonalizing people for years (Trevor, Katerina, Rose, others). There were no innocents, only casualties justified by his goal - and his indulgent code. If he kept to his code, his victims were never innocents. Along came Elena, who he began to see as a person, a good person, and did not stomach the idea of her dying so he gave her a potion to counteract it and ease the weird feelings and his code. Now, he's not just piling casualties and seeing innocents, he's mixing the two together and realizes he's been doing this for centuries! He's not much better than Klaus, he's not much better than anyone he used to sneer down on. The abyss stared back and Elijah was freaked out.
ELENA TOTALLY WOULD HAVE LET HIM DIE AND THAT SCARES HER TOO
Her confession is as selfish in keeping Elijah alive, keeping Elijah on her side, and in convincing herself she isn't the type of person to do these things. This isn't stabbing him in heat of them moment, and him plopping over dead-dead (but not dead, ugh, this show). This isn't compelling Jeremy after realizing what he's becoming here (because of her) and him leaving the next day. This is something that she was reluctant to be in since the first second.
She could be ruthless, okay not just with killing people she doesn't care about, not just with controlling people she does care about for their own good, but with killing people she cares about.
Elena isn't that person yet. She refused to kill compelled Stefan and she had already divorced him from "her" Stefan then. But she could be. She could feel a connection with someone, see them as a good person, and see them as a victim, and kill them anyway. She doesn't have a body count, but she almost did. What if she wasn't better than Stefan or Katherine or Damon or Klaus? The abyss looking back terrifies her.
She wondered where Elijah stood in her life, if she was substituting him or could actually trust him, and now she has her answer. She just has to go to Bonnie's house with no heartbeats in it for proof. In a way, she's freer now, as usual at the cost of someone else.
WHY THE LETTER SHOWS WHAT TERRIBLE PEOPLE THEY ARE
Her compassion was a gift because it worked in his favor.
They both know at this point Bonnie's mom is not just dead, she's been made into a vampire. It was done to break the spell. Which was done to save Elijah's family and Elena. This is something Esther and Elena and Elijah did. This is something Klaus, Stefan and Damon did, but they also put the responsibility on Elena (Klaus on Esther), they did it because they "love" her ( :| :| :| ), and they put that on her. And Elena will take it on because she's in a cycle.
So being the people they are, Elijah and Elena believe they are responsible for everything happening today. It's not Klaus or Esther; there's no solace to be found in that lack of agency anyway. To make them both feel better, Elijah tells her basically what happened doesn't matter because at least her heart was in the right place, at least she obeyed her code, and calls it "compassion." This letter is them lying to each other and themselves because they're the same person, and that person needs to hear something to stop them from offing themselves BECAUSE THEY ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE.
WHY THE LETTER WAS HEALTHY FOR ELENA
Elena is in a very vicious cycle of abuse with the Salvatore brothers! When Damon does bad things, he blames her directly (3.02 :((() or rubs in her face that he is going to get away with it without apology (3.10).
Elijah doesn't do that to her. He tells her straight up that he was wrong and he was sorry, and he was going to be sorry forever because feeling it once was no where near good enough for what he did to her. He made clear in no way was she to take any responsibility for his actions. And she shouldn't, it's so depressing because Elena shouldn't need to have someone not only point it out to her, but for hearing it to mean as much as it clearly does to her! :(
The thing is, Elijah can, and does, leave. He leaves this cesspool.
Elena won't. Once it was pride: she doesn't run. But now it's because she's in a cycle and she also doesn't believe that she deserves a way out. She doesn't believe she has that choice. Unlike Bonnie or Caroline, who don't even think about it, Elena's growing depression this season seems to be screaming that she sees it and wrestles with it. It's another weapon used against her: she doesn't deserve to die, and she doesn't deserve to leave. If she leaves she's a coward and if she leaves she'll just be a plague descending on some other poor town of Bonnies and Carolines and Matts, and she'll have no support system anyway, so what is the fucking point?
But Elijah's letter? Always and forever - it's like a reassurance. He'll carry his regret and he'll show her that.
It's banking on there being a next time to show her that, and not necessarily in Mystic Falls. It's banking that she won't give up, that she will become a person the letter is talking about (and they're both lying she is right now, because Elijah isn't that person and they are the same person). They both will be. The letter promises something balanced and free: they will be free to carry regret rather than be immovable under the weight of it (you know, like normal people), and free to be compassionate in a way that's true. There will be time. There will be release.
Elena needs that like nobody's business. :(
I would like to say that all of this is still unromantic. But I'm me. And I want conflicted death sex fic in the leaves and dirt and caves, like, yesterday! #attempted murder as foreplay
Oh my god, Elijah and Elena are like Mr and Mrs Smith.
MY TVD HET-OTP HAD A DATE LAST WEEK, AND THIS WEEK A PICNIC IN THE WOODS~
A murderous picnic.
Things I liked for Elena/Elijah which are actually more like character feelings for Elena and a little bit Elijah!
+ They will totally murder each other and more on this later but the best feeling I have right now is on this.
+ THE NOTE THE NOTE THE NOTE more on why later but for now just HE WROTE HER AND WENT INTO HER ROOM AND PUT IT ON HER PILLOW AND CAN YOU SEE HIM DOING THAT, HE'D WAS VERY VERY SAD WHEN HE DID IT AND IT IS ULTIMATELY HORRIFIC AND ALSO BINDING FOREVER.
+ THEY MAKE EACH OTHER REALLY AWESOME (BUT SOMETIMES ALSO REALLY DUMB)
OBSERVE:
PART ONE ;; ELIJAH LIKES HER AND THAT'S PRETTY AWFUL
He likes her he likes her he likes her. What do I base this one? Um that he called on her at her door rather than surprising her in her room. This is significant because
1) He likes her so much you guys!
2) He likes her
3) HE LIKES HER
lol, but for real,
1) He already literally dragged his feet all morning, moping around the mansion - him, Elijah the King Original let's be real
2) this was him continuing to drag his feet, by waiting for her to answer and waiting for her agree to come with him
He's dragging his feet (him, Elijah) because he does not want something to be true and wrestles with why that matters! He knows she lied to him, but he has so much of a problem wrapping his brain around it because he likes her so much and that is a very hard concept for him! I mean, Elijah, you two haven't actually known each other that long? And you have this problem of underestimating her and the lengths she'll go to get her home back? It pissed you off when she stabbed you (and surprised you because no one surprises you because you have like eighteen different plans just to get your coffee in the morning) but you got it, along with the damn nerves of steel to bring you back and give you a weapon? The truth is you were okay with realizing you liked her before, that you liked being near her when she came back to you, because it still aligned with your goals.
But now you do not understand! Because basically you aren't used to liking people, you don't even like your family and you love them! You aren't used to navigating liking someone with facts running against it, or liking that someone likes you with facts running against it (additionally, none of those facts include 'this is a bad person' or even 'she's a tool for the sacrifice' because that last one already happened!). Liking her is throwing things out of balance, making things foggy. Oh my god, you like her so much you want to stupidly think that you're in the circle of people she'd want to protect now don't you don't you don't you? *DOLPHIN NOISES*
I. ELIJAH STARTED TO NEED HER
Both perceived this relationship evolved into a balance, where neither of them emotionally needed the other, let alone needed one to help define the other, which was really nice. Elijah put himself above her love interests and sneered down at them, certainly at Damon, who needed her so much he nearly turned her into a vampire. It was nice having a relationship with someone that liked you and got stuff done.
But then the Ceremony. :(
Since then Elijah's been wrestling with justification and superiority. Esther stripped Elijah down of those fantasies, ones he had begun to have Elena contribute to: the fallacy of his honor. Something happened when he came back this time; he had royally screwed up and despite that, he wanted to stay the same person (don't we all), and he used Elena to do it. He painted himself as a knight the way he saved her from Rebekah (and nothing will convince me he didn't have something to do with that happening or how he saved her just as Rebekah's fangs touched Elena's neck, because this is Elijah guys), and he grew smug in how she looked at him, smug in how he could look her up and down and like what he saw, and how that affected how she treated him. He saw them as a team working for his 'good' at the ball rather than him defending the existence of mass murderers and her stalking abusers. If Elena was on his side, he equated it with being in the right, because when he hadn't been on her side 1) he usually got daggered, or 2) Klaus won and then he got daggered again. (Plus you know, he likes her.) If Elena still liked him, he hadn't irreparably screwed up. If Elena still trusted him, what he was doing was right.
But what about when she doesn't like him, enough to kill him? Hello, Elijah's mini-existential crisis and moping.
...THIS MAKES HIM VERY MAD (AT HIMSELF)
Every time Elijah thinks he's safe, he's actually pretty screwed. Mostly this happens with dopplegangers. Elijah says he doesn't believe in love, but the truth is it's more he resents love? He's not different from Klaus in that way. Trust is a quality Elijah admires, craves, and gives so rarely, but then also so strongly, because he doesn't trust himself. Things like nobility, truth, and honor, those things are like a checks and balances system he uses to keep himself in line - and alive. He's had to do a lot to fashion himself into a being that could survive as long as he has, with a brother psychotic as Klaus is, losing his siblings violently, and that doesn't happen by being a nice guy, let alone a loving (dumb) one.
...(AND AT HIS FAMILY: SHE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL ISN'T SHE?)
Elijah is pretty dang mad from the moment Elena opens the door. He's mad because he isn't mad at her (bad sign, what if Rebekah was right, he's pathetic, etc), he's mad because in his heart of hearts he already knows what his mom did. He saw the incense, he probably even still smelled a bit of Elena's blood in the air, and god knows what else because Elijah is smart and puts things together most people couldn't in years.
This isn't so much that he thought he could trust Elena, it's also that he trusted his mother. I mean let's be real, Elena wouldn't have done this if Esther hadn't taken advantage of Elena's really messed up, terrified psyche and made this seem an all or nothing scenario. She's terrified of Klaus. She has every right to be terrified of Klaus, he already has plans in the air to mate her like a cow. Elijah trusted Elena to go into Esther's study and he trusted his mother would bring her out alive, ... but maybe not unharmed as you can tell he's relieved in more ways than one when Elena talks to him after.
And then basically Elijah is dang mad in the woods because once again Elena comes clean but his family stabs him in the back. Klaus used his siblings to do it (as promised brother) and Esther used Elena.
Elijah is very good at turning weapons pointed at him back at his enemies. When he woke up he used his siblings back on Klaus to be free (we're leaving you, Nik), so this time he turns Elena back on Esther to live.
II. I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING: WHY ELIJAH'S FEELINGS MAKE THIS EVEN NASTIER AND GROSS
So Elijah, exhibiting the compartmentalizing extraordinaire he's taken centuries to fashion himself into, has defined Elena as a tool for violence (than a tool for his personal happiness) and stops seeing her as a person completely. This is very hard to do because he likes her so much, he can't look at her in order to make this happen! Seriously. I think as soon as she opened the door, he looked and saw Elena for maybe half a second. After that his expression dulled, and his voice grew robotic. He doesn't want to see her as a person, because if he does he'll feel emotional, and then he might do something stupid and his plan to survive (oh yeah, and his siblings) tonight shatters to pieces.
But he can't help but talk to her, not just to lull her into a false sense of security, but because he likes talking to her! He slips, he gets personal, he gets very emotional when he repeats over and over that she lied to his face. He then looks at her when he tells her he can hear her heart beat, and I find that telling. I find that a slip up! Because Elijah is looking at her, and he is looking at Elena. He knows her heart beat, but specifically he personalizes that when he says it, he doesn't say it in a way that means he knows when any old human is lying to him, which is weird because 1) that would depersonalize Elena and be beneficial to his sitch right now, and 2) I can't imagine humans lying sound very different from each other re:heart beat! So here, he's basically saying to her, I know you. And that means he's taken her into him, and that's one heck of a slip up for Elijah.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: ELIJAH KNOWS SHE'S NOT AWFUL AND THAT'S FUCKING AWFUL
Someone begging for his forgiveness is a very exciting past time for Elijah. He loves letting people think he's forgiven them and then getting them back in the most satisfying way, usually by letting them have that one second of hopeful belief and then slicing their head off. King Cobra Elijah. Ask poor Trevor! Ask that poor vampire that Elijah took smug not-quite-pleasure-but-definitely-close in compelling to stake himself, and he never even met Elijah before!
He's trying so hard to not see Elena as a person he stops looking at her again. And you know, he's been planning on how he'd do this all afternoon. He knew he was going to do this when he rang her doorbell and she smiled at him (her heart jumped, half in happiness, but he also heard anxiety and fear), he knew he was going to do this on the drive over, and he knew he was going to do this as he looked at her and saw her face when she realized she couldn't lie to him any more, and she didn't want to. Not because she thought he was going to hurt her (the panic his future victims feel when they realize they can't lie anymore), but because she felt guilty and she liked him and she was looking at Elijah, not the Original Vampire. Elijah took great satisfaction in her underestimating him in that moment, I think. Because he looked at her last night and saw Elena, not a human just as vulnerable to screwing him over as before. It's petty because her situation is not the freaking same. But he had been looking forward to her surprise, her realization of the rug under her feet that he was going to do something very Original Vampire-ish. This is the same Elijah that got his rocks off invading her personal space when he met her just because he could, because he could smell not just her humanity, but her fear - because she wasn't Tatia or Katerina he could strike fear into, but she was close enough!
He also chose Rebekah for a reason. He knows full well how much she hates Elena, he is too smart to not factor in Rebekah would kill Elena with or without an order not to. He knew the whole drive over that he was going to do that to her, his own sister. Because he doesn't see Elena as a person. He doesn't see Rebekah as a person. He doesn't see Bonnie as a person. They're tools, daggers to turn back on his mother, without messing up his suit himself.
A few nights ago he'd deluded himself into thinking he could let himself be a certain type of person, and believe a certain type of reality. Elijah is pretty repressed, so for him to lower his guard it has to have been something he's been wishing for for a long, long time! In my opinion this was a happily ever after with his family. He was so desperate for it he once again forgot to factor in Klaus and the horrible thing he is. The first time it was Klaus never letting him actually have his family or let him go, and the second time it was his mother never accepting what she'd done to her family and let them live in peace.
Be careful what you wish for. He's not just saying it to her, he's saying it to himself to justify his actions. Both of these things are his fault for being a willfully oblivious, arrogant fool towards his shark family.
PART TWO ;; ELENA LIKES HIM AND THAT'S ALSO PRETTY AWFUL
How do I know she likes him? Elena woke up in a specifically depressed mood and I did not in any way think Stefan and Damon were the driving forces because oh my god when aren't these useless guys not bringing her down? :( And she was down even before Stefan and Damon's antics post-ball, because Elijah (she feels too much), because Klaus (she feels too much), and lack of time to process how those two thinks really conflict.
I honestly think Elena grew to like Elijah so quickly because he grew be straight with her really quickly, even when he was planning to kill her to kill Klaus. And Stefan and Damon couldn't do a thing about it. That kind of power is addictive even to a normal teenager. My poor, poor messed up bb.
I. ELENA KNOWS SHE'S AWFUL: WHY SHE CALLED STEFAN AND DAMON
She totally needed to, otherwise she was totally going to call or head over to the mansion to see Elijah and spill her guts if they didn't remind her why she shouldn't! Because she hates Klaus so much:
he killed her, he killed Jenna and he liked it, he killed her horrible father and her horrible mother, he killed Bonnie, he made Katherine into the monster she is which ruined Stefan and Damon's lives, he took away "her" Stefan and now he's getting his claws into Caroline, and she cannot take it anymore. I honestly believe Elena has been running on PTSD since the pilot and it only gets worse and worse and I only understand how she gets out of bed in the morning because she keeps feeling too much (survivor's guilt, love, and plain guilt being the main three)! The day Elena Gilbert stops feeling, she's done guys, she's done.
But she is driven to protect the people she cares about. Sometimes from herself - Elena hides from what she doesn't want to see (Damon's victims for instance! Stefan's! Because if she acknowledges how horrible they are then it makes her a horrible person so she represses represses represses). Plus, once she cares about you, be ready for her to not only white wash you but also control you because she needs to protect and save you, because anything she hasn't kept an iron grip on at all times gets taken from her violently. :(
So Elijah? This isn't like stabbing him last time, when she didn't care, or at least not as much as she cared about keeping Damon and Stefan and Alaric's hearts in their chests. She could ignore any feelings then because she didn't have any feelings one way or the other, so she could be as ruthless as she pleased. But now? With slow and dawning horror Elena realizes she cares about Elijah. Elena clings tightly to the few people she has left and even though she hasn't known Elijah long, it is too much for her to handle. It is too much for her not to completely freak out about this! She broke down in tears just thinking about caring about Damon earlier this season! So she calls Stefan and then Damon and then runs over to the boardinghouse, because she needs someone not to think for her or to tell her what to do, but to convince her that this is the good decision. It doesn't work, so she repeats her crisis to Bonnie. Bonnie who she loves so completely and who has lost so much, and Caroline too. It's the same reason she talks to them about Damon, Elena is looking for things to make sense.
But she still doesn't believe it's the good decision and that is rattling her, but rather than admitting it's because she emotionally against it, she assume it's because there isn't a moral justification.
II. WHY ELENA CAN'T LET HIM DIE, WHY "IT'S NOT RIGHT" IS WRONG
She clings to the fact that he tried to save her (which is so unrealistic Elena, he really didn't try that hard! :() as an excuse, but the truth is, after last night's ball, Elena's psyche locked on to Elijah and now needs him.
A lot of it is tied in with needing him selfishly, Elijah looks at her like she's still the same person before the Ceremony and she wants that, she wants that so much. (Only two episodes ago she let go of the girl she was before her parents died a year ago, that's only what, a week show time you guys?! This poor girl. This poor poor girl.) This whole season has been about how Elena and others see her, how that compares and contrasts. Elena is conflicted about how it looks like she is, and how that balances with who she really is. She's so far down this muddy hole and she's been making ruthless choices that haven't all panned out. She doesn't feel like she can trust herself, because she doesn't know who that person is.
Being under Elijah's microscope is something she looks forward to. He's not Bonnie or Caroline who knew her from before, he's not Stefan or Damon who are suffocatingly in love with her and idealize her. She sees him as unbiased (and she will not admit this is so untrue) and if Elijah thinks she's a good person, then she still is, she still is, it's okay. She's okay. This isn't about if it's right in a moral way. Elena thinks she finally made it this way, but we, the audience, can see she actually hasn't.
Damon abuses her and suffocates her and blames her when she won't love him, but it's okay for him to sleep with a girl who wants to kill her? Her heart is already torn because she is so worn down a part of her actually thinks, yes that's okay, stop protesting it.
She feels too much, she said last episode. Bottom line Elijah makes her feel good, and she's going to let him die? Her heart is desperate and thinks, no no it's not, and it clouds her judgement, it's not right to let him die because it hurts. Outside she says it isn't right because it isn't morally or ethically right. However, Elena doesn't actually have any concrete, non-emotional justification to offer the other, protesting people she loves (and that hurts too), let alone hide behind.
But Elena needs there to be, because if there isn't then her answer to this equation comes out she isn't a good person. She's putting her friends' lives in danger because she doesn't want to be sad; there's human, and there's horribly weak. And that's the fucking, black truth, that is all she has to wrap her arms around as she's banned from Bonnie's house by her wife Caroline (allow me a moment: OTP BAAAAAAAAAABBIEEEESSSS! ahem)
OTP ;; THEY WOULD TOTALLY KILL EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON
But they realize they're going too far. And they look at each other to figure that out.
ELIJAH TOTALLY WOULD HAVE LET HER DIE AND THAT FREAKS HIM OUT
At the end of the episode in a tirade to get Rebekah to understand, Elijah described Elena as an innocent. Not as a friend, not as a comrade. He's still depersonalizing her. An innocent, a thing, and an idealized one at that. Instead of this helping him, it's actually making it worse.
He didn't see a tool, he's realizing, he didn't see someone he trusted and wanted to get back at either. He did see something innocent, a victim, and he had no problem with that body count. Elijah's been depersonalizing people for years (Trevor, Katerina, Rose, others). There were no innocents, only casualties justified by his goal - and his indulgent code. If he kept to his code, his victims were never innocents. Along came Elena, who he began to see as a person, a good person, and did not stomach the idea of her dying so he gave her a potion to counteract it and ease the weird feelings and his code. Now, he's not just piling casualties and seeing innocents, he's mixing the two together and realizes he's been doing this for centuries! He's not much better than Klaus, he's not much better than anyone he used to sneer down on. The abyss stared back and Elijah was freaked out.
ELENA TOTALLY WOULD HAVE LET HIM DIE AND THAT SCARES HER TOO
Her confession is as selfish in keeping Elijah alive, keeping Elijah on her side, and in convincing herself she isn't the type of person to do these things. This isn't stabbing him in heat of them moment, and him plopping over dead-dead (but not dead, ugh, this show). This isn't compelling Jeremy after realizing what he's becoming here (because of her) and him leaving the next day. This is something that she was reluctant to be in since the first second.
She could be ruthless, okay not just with killing people she doesn't care about, not just with controlling people she does care about for their own good, but with killing people she cares about.
Elena isn't that person yet. She refused to kill compelled Stefan and she had already divorced him from "her" Stefan then. But she could be. She could feel a connection with someone, see them as a good person, and see them as a victim, and kill them anyway. She doesn't have a body count, but she almost did. What if she wasn't better than Stefan or Katherine or Damon or Klaus? The abyss looking back terrifies her.
She wondered where Elijah stood in her life, if she was substituting him or could actually trust him, and now she has her answer. She just has to go to Bonnie's house with no heartbeats in it for proof. In a way, she's freer now, as usual at the cost of someone else.
WHY THE LETTER SHOWS WHAT TERRIBLE PEOPLE THEY ARE
Her compassion was a gift because it worked in his favor.
They both know at this point Bonnie's mom is not just dead, she's been made into a vampire. It was done to break the spell. Which was done to save Elijah's family and Elena. This is something Esther and Elena and Elijah did. This is something Klaus, Stefan and Damon did, but they also put the responsibility on Elena (Klaus on Esther), they did it because they "love" her ( :| :| :| ), and they put that on her. And Elena will take it on because she's in a cycle.
So being the people they are, Elijah and Elena believe they are responsible for everything happening today. It's not Klaus or Esther; there's no solace to be found in that lack of agency anyway. To make them both feel better, Elijah tells her basically what happened doesn't matter because at least her heart was in the right place, at least she obeyed her code, and calls it "compassion." This letter is them lying to each other and themselves because they're the same person, and that person needs to hear something to stop them from offing themselves BECAUSE THEY ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE.
WHY THE LETTER WAS HEALTHY FOR ELENA
Elena is in a very vicious cycle of abuse with the Salvatore brothers! When Damon does bad things, he blames her directly (3.02 :((() or rubs in her face that he is going to get away with it without apology (3.10).
Elijah doesn't do that to her. He tells her straight up that he was wrong and he was sorry, and he was going to be sorry forever because feeling it once was no where near good enough for what he did to her. He made clear in no way was she to take any responsibility for his actions. And she shouldn't, it's so depressing because Elena shouldn't need to have someone not only point it out to her, but for hearing it to mean as much as it clearly does to her! :(
The thing is, Elijah can, and does, leave. He leaves this cesspool.
Elena won't. Once it was pride: she doesn't run. But now it's because she's in a cycle and she also doesn't believe that she deserves a way out. She doesn't believe she has that choice. Unlike Bonnie or Caroline, who don't even think about it, Elena's growing depression this season seems to be screaming that she sees it and wrestles with it. It's another weapon used against her: she doesn't deserve to die, and she doesn't deserve to leave. If she leaves she's a coward and if she leaves she'll just be a plague descending on some other poor town of Bonnies and Carolines and Matts, and she'll have no support system anyway, so what is the fucking point?
But Elijah's letter? Always and forever - it's like a reassurance. He'll carry his regret and he'll show her that.
It's banking on there being a next time to show her that, and not necessarily in Mystic Falls. It's banking that she won't give up, that she will become a person the letter is talking about (and they're both lying she is right now, because Elijah isn't that person and they are the same person). They both will be. The letter promises something balanced and free: they will be free to carry regret rather than be immovable under the weight of it (you know, like normal people), and free to be compassionate in a way that's true. There will be time. There will be release.
Elena needs that like nobody's business. :(
I would like to say that all of this is still unromantic. But I'm me. And I want conflicted death sex fic in the leaves and dirt and caves, like, yesterday! #attempted murder as foreplay
Oh my god, Elijah and Elena are like Mr and Mrs Smith.