Damon, Elena, Stefan - the question of narratives

Oct 08, 2011 15:26

This entry is based on a comment I posted in an episode discussion hosted by ever-neutral. It's some sort of an intellectual experiment ― I'm bored, my literature classes are not as good as I expected them to be, my TVD discussions on a forum are mostly dying, so I've been entertaining myself with creating this interpretation. I'm well aware that it's not the ( Read more... )

damon omg damon, fandom: the vampire diaries, elena gilbert is amazing

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ever_neutral October 8 2011, 14:17:34 UTC
YAY IT'S HERE

Damon is deeply rooted in Romantic narratives (aka he is the Bella Swan ― thank you for this mental image, ever_neutral…).

LMAO, YOU'RE WELCOME.

So from the beginning of s2 Damon gets a new narrative; a postmodern one. It's ambigious and eclectic and highly personalized; pragmatic to some extent (he is the guy who makes the hard choices without blinking), but also hedonistic (he often does things just because he feels like doing them), realistic (he refuses to pretend that he could be a reformed vampire) and many more. His narrative is still a bit shaky; as you see, it's even difficult to define. Damon's new narrative is still under construction.

YES YES YES YES YES. HE'S A WORK IN PROGRESS, HAHA. And man, I LOVE that you pulled out that word, "post-modern", because he totally is, as a character, as a work of art, and it's excellent.

I'm not talking about the people who didn't like Damon's s2 arc, because they aren't ok with the way the show dealt, or rather didn't deal with the abuse of women

Yeah, glad you made that distinction, because I have exactly the same issues, but I don't wish they'd written Damon as less bad.

The same audience will probably react badly to Stefan's and Elena's arcs in s3. Change of narrative is stepping out of comfort zone.

I am expecting as much, yeah. You don't have to look far to see people crying "But Stefan is just doing it for Damon and Elena!!11!!" and "HOW DARE ELENA BE ATTRACTED TO DAMON IT'S SUPPOSED TO JUST BE STEFAN ALWAYS STEFAN". Stefan/Elena has served as a sort of moral compass for the show up to this point, and now what? Now there isn't one. Dangerous ground.

So yeah, agreed with basically everything, as we have discussed! Glad you posted!

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upupa_epops October 9 2011, 14:52:54 UTC
YES YES YES YES YES. HE'S A WORK IN PROGRESS, HAHA. And man, I LOVE that you pulled out that word, "post-modern", because he totally is, as a character, as a work of art, and it's excellent.
I didn't want to use the word "post-modern", because it felt to broad, but then I simply couldn't find a better word, so I had to settle for "post-modern" + description. Besides, I tend to like some forms of post-modern art (see: fanfiction XD) and I'm not ok with the fact that some people use "post-modernism" as a derogatory term. So I figured I should use it as often as possible to show them my contempt XD.

Yeah, glad you made that distinction, because I have exactly the same issues, but I don't wish they'd written Damon as less bad.

Exactly. It's the lack of any comment that is an issue. TVD it's a teen show, for God's sake, and with that comes some sort of social responsibility :(.

You don't have to look far to see people crying "But Stefan is just doing it for Damon and Elena!!11!!" and "HOW DARE ELENA BE ATTRACTED TO DAMON IT'S SUPPOSED TO JUST BE STEFAN ALWAYS STEFAN"

Let's prepare ourselves for tons of Elena bashing :((((.

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