TVD: SD: vol 2: Bloodlust
Okay, so more TVD books, back to Stefan’s Diaries this time.
Bloodlust
I can’t quite make up my mind on this one. I’m trying not to hold the fact that it was clearly written before we got flashbacks to the boys immediately post vamping against it, at least not too much. But even besides that there was something a little flat about this one. And it’s difficult to say what exactly it was that really didn’t work for me, because most of the pieces work fine. I guess my problems fall into Stefan problems and Damon problems.
The main problem with Damon story is the fact that it pretty much happens off page. For the first part of the book Damon’s full of Katherine angst and emo over being an immortal creature of the night and not wanting to feed on anyone. Then he disappears for a few chapters and next we see him he’s all full of bloodlust and no angst at all it seems. Now some of that couple be narrator (Stefan) perception, but I’m not sure I completely buy it.
It is nice to see Damon actually living up to that whole “eternity of misery” thing that the show elected not to do anything with since it was vowed. But I think it would have been better if we’d gotten a sense that him killing Callie wasn’t just about that, because that seems pretty extreme a shift JUST over keeping his eternity of misery promise to Stefan. If he’d also had a particular problem with her I could see it combining to push him to that turn, but just to troll Stefan it seems too abrupt.
Now my Stefan issues, are kind of extensions of my issues with show Stefan. The books are still obliged to keep him in romantic hero territory so he’s pretty much over his initial ripper phase in like two weeks with a half a dozen deaths to feel guilty over but what he does is mostly downplayed and he feels SO EXTREMELY GUILTY over it afterward. And the book was also clearly written before the show had set down that Stefan didn’t have just that initial ripper period, because the end acts like after that he went into exile from the human world and never fed on them again, and while I can deal with moving the Lexi stuff to New Orleans and think it still fills the same concept, the ripper contradiction really changes things.
I have issues with all Stefan redemption arcs, be they in book, show flashback, or current show form. Of course I don’t think Damon is redeemed at all, but I feel like the show pretends that he is less than it does with Stefan. Okay I have issues with both of them, but since the books are for obvious reasons, more about Stefan’s arc it’s the one that my issues are focused on.
IF I’m being generous, maybe both of their arcs could be looked at in context of the vampire switch. That while in captivity Damon flipped his to ‘humanity off’ and Lexi managed to get Stefan to flip his on so they wouldn’t have ARCS exactly since it’s a stepwise function when switches are involved. But I feel like there ought to be arcs even if there is a switch rather than a cop out for rapid swings of character. I have switch issues too.
Not that the character development doesn’t work, it’s just too quick to be completely...sympathetic, maybe that’s what I’m looking for. I have a hard time believing Stefan at the end is really all that different from Stefan at the beginning of the book, I didn’t really feel him changing or growing as a person. And obviously we didn’t get that with Damon since his turn around was largely off page.
So, between my mixed feelings on the content and the contradictions with the show’s canon I don’t think I’ll be incorporating this into my headcanon for the Salvatores’ backstory very much. Of course for me, Salvatore headcanon is not on my list of priorities to nail down. It was nice to get some more idea how Lexi helped baby vamp Stefan along, but again I consider this iffy as a guide for things.
Then again, I’m still kind of mad at the show for a lot of things, so I may have a bad feeling towards the book just because of that. I guess I do recommend reading it and deciding for yourself how canonical you want it to be. It’s not a bad story, I just didn’t get a ton out of it.
Bloodlust
I can’t quite make up my mind on this one. I’m trying not to hold the fact that it was clearly written before we got flashbacks to the boys immediately post vamping against it, at least not too much. But even besides that there was something a little flat about this one. And it’s difficult to say what exactly it was that really didn’t work for me, because most of the pieces work fine. I guess my problems fall into Stefan problems and Damon problems.
The main problem with Damon story is the fact that it pretty much happens off page. For the first part of the book Damon’s full of Katherine angst and emo over being an immortal creature of the night and not wanting to feed on anyone. Then he disappears for a few chapters and next we see him he’s all full of bloodlust and no angst at all it seems. Now some of that couple be narrator (Stefan) perception, but I’m not sure I completely buy it.
It is nice to see Damon actually living up to that whole “eternity of misery” thing that the show elected not to do anything with since it was vowed. But I think it would have been better if we’d gotten a sense that him killing Callie wasn’t just about that, because that seems pretty extreme a shift JUST over keeping his eternity of misery promise to Stefan. If he’d also had a particular problem with her I could see it combining to push him to that turn, but just to troll Stefan it seems too abrupt.
Now my Stefan issues, are kind of extensions of my issues with show Stefan. The books are still obliged to keep him in romantic hero territory so he’s pretty much over his initial ripper phase in like two weeks with a half a dozen deaths to feel guilty over but what he does is mostly downplayed and he feels SO EXTREMELY GUILTY over it afterward. And the book was also clearly written before the show had set down that Stefan didn’t have just that initial ripper period, because the end acts like after that he went into exile from the human world and never fed on them again, and while I can deal with moving the Lexi stuff to New Orleans and think it still fills the same concept, the ripper contradiction really changes things.
I have issues with all Stefan redemption arcs, be they in book, show flashback, or current show form. Of course I don’t think Damon is redeemed at all, but I feel like the show pretends that he is less than it does with Stefan. Okay I have issues with both of them, but since the books are for obvious reasons, more about Stefan’s arc it’s the one that my issues are focused on.
IF I’m being generous, maybe both of their arcs could be looked at in context of the vampire switch. That while in captivity Damon flipped his to ‘humanity off’ and Lexi managed to get Stefan to flip his on so they wouldn’t have ARCS exactly since it’s a stepwise function when switches are involved. But I feel like there ought to be arcs even if there is a switch rather than a cop out for rapid swings of character. I have switch issues too.
Not that the character development doesn’t work, it’s just too quick to be completely...sympathetic, maybe that’s what I’m looking for. I have a hard time believing Stefan at the end is really all that different from Stefan at the beginning of the book, I didn’t really feel him changing or growing as a person. And obviously we didn’t get that with Damon since his turn around was largely off page.
So, between my mixed feelings on the content and the contradictions with the show’s canon I don’t think I’ll be incorporating this into my headcanon for the Salvatores’ backstory very much. Of course for me, Salvatore headcanon is not on my list of priorities to nail down. It was nice to get some more idea how Lexi helped baby vamp Stefan along, but again I consider this iffy as a guide for things.
Then again, I’m still kind of mad at the show for a lot of things, so I may have a bad feeling towards the book just because of that. I guess I do recommend reading it and deciding for yourself how canonical you want it to be. It’s not a bad story, I just didn’t get a ton out of it.