That Salvatore Woman & some brief thoughts on motherhood narratives in TVD

[ladygawain]

Okay, so this is something I’ve been wondering about for a while. Who is Madam Salvatore? Missus Salvatore? Or Mrs. Salvatore? Mama Salvatore? Maman Salvatore? What is her name? Her maiden name? Her anything?

Comments

[pocochina]

I find myself nodding along with everything you say, as seems to be par for the course. I love so much that mothers MATTER on this show.

All of the “bad” mothers and “bad” women: come unto me.

SO MUCH YES. ALWAYS ALWAYS. I think best of all I love characters who are "bad" women to the effect of being "good" mothers. ISOBEL, MY WOMAN. There is something so, so interesting going on with Isobel and Katherine and birth mother trauma.

Everything about the Bennett matrilineal legacy and the firm idea of knowledge and therefore power passed down through generations of women in that particular narrative

I. JUST. YES.

BUT MAMA SALVATORE. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS.

There’s also the idea that she was much “nicer” to Damon, that she loved him in all the ways Giuseppe did not or refused to. And I’m not sure we have any canonical explanations as to why Giuseppe was so emotionally (and possibly physically) abusive towards Damon and clearly favored Stefan.

JESUS, yes, my poor boo. Damon seems to have been mama's boy and carried that way over into his unlife, with the way he latches onto Katherine and Liz and Carol. (Compared with how even in his relatively stable S3 state, he needs half a reason to decide he will CUT Caroline's father after her whole debacle with him.) Mother figures are far and away his favorite people to deal with. Which doesn't even necessarily mean that he had a special relationship with her, though I like to think he did, just that Daddy was bad to them both (and I am sure he was) and they were in it together and it was ALL GUISEPPE'S FAULT. She can certainly have been any kind of imperfect and Damon would excuse it, would take it and turn it into Daddy's fault somehow. I especially love the idea of her living with depression, somehow; not that we need more explanations for Damon's instability, but it would certainly fit.

I wonder how much of it was just plain old BE A FUCKING MAN! bullshit, too, what with Damon being so pretty and flirtatious and emotive; however strapping he grew up to be, that shit starts early. And Damon, being ornery and strong-willed, would've flown right into doing it all to the nth degree. Whereas Stefan is better at going with the flow and didn't have the oldest-child expectations and is simply better at conventional gender performance and so would've been a less appealing target for Guiseppe. (#definitely not overidentifying with the psychotic vampire)

I kind of hope this doesn't happen because I'm clearly invested in the family dynamics as they stand, but at the same time, Klaus is Damon writ large in a lot of ways, so the part-Lockwood thing wouldn't be completely out of nowhere.

[ladygawain]

*hearts* And YES and that the show does it relatively well. Like sometimes motherhood narratives can be the worst but on this show, I'm consistently fascinated and most often delighted by the choices they make when it comes to that. And just kind of want more than they have room to give with all the stories they're telling.

ISOBEL, MY WOMAN. There is something so, so interesting going on with Isobel and Katherine and birth mother trauma.
YES. Ugh, now I want you to talk about it some more because these two. These two

JESUS, yes, my poor boo. Damon seems to have been mama's boy and carried that way over into his unlife, with the way he latches onto Katherine and Liz and Carol. (Compared with how even in his relatively stable S3 state, he needs half a reason to decide he will CUT Caroline's father after her whole debacle with him.) Mother figures are far and away his favorite people to deal with.
I love this boy so much! And I also got the sense that he was a bit of a mama's boy. Thank god that you said this about his latching onto Kat-Liz-Carol. Because I think that too.

Yes to Damon turning it into Daddy's fault, and I just love the idea of them having a special bond. I don't know why, like I've latched onto it in my personal canon and I never want to let it go.

I wonder how much of it was just plain old BE A FUCKING MAN! bullshit, too, what with Damon being so pretty and flirtatious and emotive; however strapping he grew up to be, that shit starts early. And Damon, being ornery and strong-willed, would've flown right into doing it all to the nth degree. Whereas Stefan is better at going with the flow and didn't have the oldest-child expectations and is simply better at conventional gender performance and so would've been a less appealing target for Guiseppe.

WORD. Nothing to add. Ugh but so many feelings about gender performance when it comes to these two.

(#definitely not overidentifying with the psychotic vampire)
LOL, there with you. I'm just sort of watching him from afar with awe right now.

Yes this. Like I hope it isn't the case as I almost want Giuseppe to be that terrible for arbitrary reasons more than I'd want him to be all bitter that his seed didn't take or that another man's child was supposed to inherit all his riches. But I could see the parallels if they did ever go there.

[pocochina]

My Kat and Isobel thoughts are half-baked if that, but yes, my feeeeeeeeeling is that there's this simultaneous hardness and stuntedness to them; Isobel in particular seems to think she *gave up* on Elena and tries to turn herself into a person who she thinks would do that, a person who's not a person. They are both so perfect.

I would actually be surprised if we got more 1864 flashbacks any time soon - they were great to establish the brothers' relationship to each other and Katherine, but I'm not sure it wouldn't lose some power, if got more detail about Guiseppe. Particularly since the story with Klaus and Mikael was so massive, I'm not sure how good a choice it would be to give a lead character something similar that probably wouldn't live up to it.

But Mama S, yes please. Probably when Stefan comes over all atoney again and Damon goes off the rails to make everyone know he was SO NOT A GOOD GUY!!11!

I almost want Giuseppe to be that terrible for arbitrary reasons more than I'd want him to be all bitter that his seed didn't take or that another man's child was supposed to inherit all his riches.

Um, I totally want that to be the case. Not that it is an actual excuse, of course - though I happen to think the show did a decent job handling that with Mikael - but I hate the idea that if someone's an abusive douchebag, there's always something vaguely rationalization-shaped involved. He was a prick and he took it out on Damon and sometimes that's that.

[ladygawain]

Ugh, that intrigues me a lot. Because I sometimes struggled with thinking about WHY it was that Isobel made the decision to become a vampire, what kind of internal conflict or feeling made her want that reality? And the few moments when we saw the cracks, and saw the deep, deep regret she felt about it, kind of broke me.

Yeah, I presume we'll get expansion into that time (if ever) in like season five or six when they might conceivably have room to go back and tell that story. But, like you, I wouldn't want it to lose its potency. Idk.

LOL, I am waiting for Damon's upcoming breakdown, my poor bb.

Oh yes on that, like, the implicit rationalization is gross when it comes to Mikael, so gross, they never really dealt with it on the show (well, there really wasn't any time, was there?). So amen to just showing abusive assholes as they are, no apologies, no rationalization.

[pocochina]

Yeah, it's a freaking tightrope to walk. Credit where it's due over Mikael, though, because we still had Rebekah vocally detesting him over how he treated them; we saw freaking Elijah being terrified of him. He was absolutely a dictator with a temper, and the children knew it. But I think a lot of that depends on how the Klaus storyline continues to play out.

But I don't know if the show could pull that off with Guiseppe, given all we know about Damon.

[ever_neutral]

Bless this comment. Everything you say. Especially: I wonder how much of it was just plain old BE A FUCKING MAN! bullshit, too, what with Damon being so pretty and flirtatious and emotive; however strapping he grew up to be, that shit starts early. -- Yes, yes, all of this. Damon and gender performance, there needs to be more talk of this.