the line between what brings you pain and what sustains you is far thinner than one imagines
We need to talk about Niklaus. (DISCLAIMER HE IS THE WORST DON’T STAB PEOPLE #philosophizin) The thing we’ve learned about Klaus’ terrorizing his siblings is that it’s not a direct flow chain Mikael > Klaus > Elijah & Rebekah. Letting go of normative evaluations - obviously this is displacement and disproportionate retribution - and I want to actually look at a key factor here: Elijah and Rebekah have both actively participated in Mikael's serious abuse against Klaus. While that doesn’t change Klaus’ behavior, it is very much a factor in those interpersonal dynamics.
As an outsider, I would find it very hard indeed to blame Elijah or Rebekah for any of this stuff, even before the curse, because abuse of one child in a given environment is a scary, destabilizing influence on the others as well. That said, I think it's reasonable to discuss and even empathize with how all of this affected Niklaus specifically, given that he was (1) the person directly targeted by Mikael, (2) the only one for whom turning involved at least two torturous violations instead of one, three if you count the trauma of turning into a werewolf when he was prevented from knowing that he even had the gene, and (3) the first to experience numerous betrayals not just by his parents but by his siblings.
I know this is fandom where only some abuse counts, but (1)…really is kind of a thing on its own? Abuse fucks people up. Klaus being the only wolf in the family represents the particular ways in which being singled out for abuse fuck people up. I’ve talked about this before vis-à-vis other wolves but it also influenced his attitude toward his siblings, and, because sibling relationships are our template for our peers at large, his overall worldview. It’s one thing to feel like someone powerful is out to get you specifically; it’s quite another to spend your formative years knowing it.
That would have been bad regardless, but Klaus, like all the other vamps in the ‘verse, is more or less frozen in the traumatic circumstances of his turning. Klaus turned not once, but three times - from a vampire to a werewolf to a cursed hybrid - and he learned, each time, that going on the defensive and/or hoping for the good faith of others was not an option. Mikael’s use of Elijah specifically may have been impulsive or incidental, but it’s a really important part of understanding Klaus, in that he got two messages loud and clear: that you can be The Good One and still do this, and that he is The Bad Seed. That is to say, he learned that he can and must do absolutely anything.
Elijah wants to think of himself as being better than Klaus because otherwise he has to admit that he escaped being the designated target through sheer dumb luck, and that’s a really difficult thing to do. His one betrayal of Niklaus was tied in with the trauma of their turning generally, and so he wants to bury it. He feels ashamed and guilty about having rolled and helped with the curse. He is more aware than anyone except perhaps Klaus himself of how Mikael’s abuse, and the other children’s complicity with it, affected Klaus. It kind of makes me love Elijah that (a) he is way more indulgent of Klaus than he ought to be now because he really believes it’s a way to repair his brother and his own self-image but also (b) it literally took him A THOUSAND YEARS to actually spit out an “I shouldn’t have done that, I can see why it pissed you off” to Klaus.
For Rebekah, even before Klaus had done anything to anyone, I think (a) she was young enough and set apart from the boys enough that she probably didn’t entirely understand what she was cooperating with, and (b) sucking up to Mikael as much as she could really did keep her as safe as she could be in that family, and pulling stunts like stealing the knife and letting Klaus take the fall was a way for her to act and feel as aligned with her father as possible. And afterward, of course, Klaus was terribly abusive to her. As an outside observer, I don’t hold these small or large scale survival behaviors against her? But I also see how and why Klaus perceived her as a threat.
I’d argue that Klaus has already tried to recreate the situation between himself, Mikael, and Rebekah when he interfered the way he did between Tyler and Caroline. Klaus abused them both, obviously, but he went after Tyler the hybrid significantly worse. This allowed Caroline, the sweet little blonde, both to feel a false sense of some control and to seriously underestimate Tyler’s trauma at the whole thing. It didn’t go the same way because the context was different, because Tyler isn’t Klaus, but if it kept happening for a thousand years?
And I think the difference in his behavior toward Elijah and Rebekah is partially about gender, and partially about birth order, but also partially about the difference between consciously knowing about something and being in denial about it. Elijah turned on him once, plus whatever happened between New Orleans and S2 of TVD, but that initial betrayal happened in an undeniable and memorable way, and there’s a lot Klaus doesn’t know about Elijah’s dedication to him. Rebekah, by contrast, was really good (again, by necessity) at flying under the radar, which is the kind of thing that people figure out subconsciously but don’t acknowledge or want to believe. Disappointment and overt mistrust is one thing, but suspicion and nothing solid to hang it on is quite another.
Trauma-logic is not about rationality or morality, but it is about, you know, trauma. What I am saying here is, if a condemnation of Klaus' abusive behavior depends on the premise that Klaus is not an abuse victim, it fails at condemning Klaus. Before the spinoff started airing I had no idea that was even possible, but, live and learn.
SO ANYWAY that has been pissing me off for a while but I’m good now! Onto the episode:
OMG ELIJAH. Did he ever handle his siblings in exactly the wrong way. Stabbing Klaus enough to piss him off more and make him more convinced that going on the offensive is the only way to go, and then pulling out the knife before he knew they were far enough away, and then leaving Klaus with Cami because she can totally stop him from doing whatever the hell he wants. OH ALSO, his little moment caught between his two Madonnas, both come to vivid life, stripping him completely of his ability to idealize them. And true to form, that's enough for him to turn on Celeste lethally. (I...kind of don't buy Celeste being gone, but admittedly that might be denial.)
These last couple of episodes have also done something wonderfully poignant with Marcel’s characterization? His anger at them for abandoning him, his contempt for people who turn on their friends was all about having driven his own friends (well, his friend, his lover, and Elijah) away himself, in a way that ended up being so spectacularly awful for him. But he came through for Davina!
Cami is the greatest. Yes, you really can think someone is awful and still not wish them dead, WHAT A CONCEPT.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/329303.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.