Comments | angryzen: Catch VD! Got Wood? Compulsion Brings Compassion, Yeah?

angryzen

Catch VD! Got Wood? Compulsion Brings Compassion, Yeah?

Jan 26, 2011 20:40

The purpose of this post is to rant about recent Damon spoilers, so this will be...spoilery. You can read the interview, and awesome comments here: meganbmoore.livejournal.com/1263279.html

Thanks ladygawain!

First I want to talk about those new promotional ads. *Sigh* For the past two days, I've been shaking my head at the CW. The first ad that came out was ( Read more... )

rant, damon, meta, the vampire diaries, spoilers

Comments 27

ladygawain January 27 2011, 04:49:06 UTC

So I got feelings. A lot. But I'm knackered, so this will be incoherent ( ... )

continued... ladygawain January 27 2011, 04:49:28 UTC

Damon doesn't strike me as someone who can't learn his lesson. He's too smart for that.
This, i actually disagree with. We have to remember, this is the same guy who spent 150 odd years pining for a woman or the illusion of a woman he was obsessed with. And I personally believe that at base level, Damon knew that Katherine didn't care about him - some part of him knew that she was using him and didn't give a damn about him. And yet he STILL structured not only his entire life but his entire SELF around this image he built of her, this image of s/o who loved him, wanted him, chose him. For over a century he defined himself through Katherine. This is a Damon I can understand. A Damon who is so severely stunted emotionally and needy to the point of it being a debilitating thing that he hinges his entire existence on a mostly self-made delusion. It's not Elena, it's him, it's an essential part of his characterization now and it's the only way many of his decisions make sense to me, esp. from 2.01 onwards. I don't think he's the kind of ( ... )

Re: continued... angryzen January 27 2011, 05:50:27 UTC

I completely agree with what you said, but I think that can be separate from learning his lesson. What you talk about is a type of personality flaw/self-esteem damage that he's got going on. It's not really a lesson for him to learn so much as something he needs to work through and get over. That's why my opinion is that this Elena thing is him trying to make it right with Katherine. A more emotionally healthy person would want nothing to do with Katherine or anyone who looks at her, romantically-speaking, but Damon has moved on to Elena with no problems. He doesn't even think it's weird that he has. Which is why I say Elena's the true rebound and not Rose ( ... )

Re: continued... angryzen January 27 2011, 05:55:02 UTC

I forgot to say that I agree with you that redemption might be the wrong word. Change? Growth? Self-acceptance maybe?

I'll cry if Bonnie doesn't react. Let her not find out, but if she does, she needs to react. They already pushed it with Mason's death. The thing is though that I don't think Bonnie can do anything. Damon isn't spilling innocent blood. He isn't killing the woman. But I would love for her to dress him down, and tell him all the things she might've wanted to say after she learned the truth about him and Caroline. Thing is I don't know how likely they are to do that if they're not going to have Caroline herself say anything. I'm banking on their pattern of not caring if Bonnie comes off as a bad guy to the fandom so they can let her say something.

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skysamuelle January 27 2011, 10:47:51 UTC

I'm so horrified in many ways by this alien concept that mental abuse and physical abuse are becoming sexy and endearing where Damon is concerned ( ... )

angryzen January 28 2011, 02:20:11 UTC

And it brings to my mind unpleasant memories of an article I read some time ago and wanted to dismiss as 'exaggerated' about the existence of a certain 'rape culture' where violence and abuse on women are considered 'the right way to go' or 'sexy'.

I always here reference to this too where the victims are completely ignored. It's sexy because things are always, always, looked at from the perpetrator's point of view.

Whoever read my fics knows I have no problems to write subcons situations,

Your fics are exactly what I was thinking about when I said I was thankful for fics that allowed him to grow.

Frankly, considering the number of ways he abused her too -forcing his mouth on hers, killing her brother, manhandling her in a number of occasions....- i'm beginning to think that her blossoming feelings for him are all Stockholm Syndrome. It's the only way it makes sense.I've never thought of this! There's a truth to it, because how many times has Damon negatively shocked Elena by emotionally hurting her. The most egregious being when ( ... )

SO MANY FEELINGS SO BEAR WITH ME keenan24 January 27 2011, 11:38:09 UTC

le sigh. I have many feelings and i feel like i'll go on a long winded rant so beware of the vitriol ( ... )

Re: SO MANY FEELINGS SO BEAR WITH ME keenan24 January 27 2011, 11:39:26 UTC

They kind of wrote themselves into a corner with the Damon characterization of early season 1 : that guy was devil incarnate, he kills, he rapes, has no remorse or even a tiny glimpse of humanity in him and then he has to be redeemed ( ... )

Re: SO MANY FEELINGS SO BEAR WITH ME angryzen January 28 2011, 02:34:01 UTC

I love your long-winded rant!

And using Damon as the star item to promote and "sell" leads to making him appeal to everyone and have everyone groveling at his feet. Funnily enough the killer psycopath has turned into a Vamp!Gary Stu, isn't it ironic?!

It seems like producers, or should I say networks, love making this mistake. They take this bad boy that really was a bad boy and loved by the fans, and they turn him into a complete emo-woobie. As it stands, Damon is only a bad boy in name. And because he wears black, I'm guessing. What the hell is this sitting in a bathtub, pontificating about his feelings thing? Not saying bad boys don't have feelings, but there's a way to express them. If they weren't so focused on destroying his relationship with
Stefan for this triangle, maybe he could talk to him.

I love villains, I prefer villains to good guys to be honest but you have to show swagger, a modicum of brains, have a MOTHERFUCKING PLAN and be a goddamn adult.Yes! And Damon was all of this in (early) season 1. His orchestration ( ... )

Re: SO MANY FEELINGS SO BEAR WITH ME meganbmoore January 28 2011, 04:24:13 UTC

Thank you so very, very much for pointing out how Damon enjoys having power over other people. This is, I think, where the possibility for redemption loses me even without the rapes. He's extremely violent, but most of his violence is deliberately directed to people who are physically (but usually not mentally or emotionally) weaker than him. This is usually evidenced with women, but he also delights when he can show his physical/"sexual" superiority to men (see: his taunting Alaric about Isabel) and there's sometimes a sadistic bent to his actions (pretending he's going to kill Liz while Caroline is begging him not to, the way he drug out the confrontation with Bree, Alaric again, drawing out Jeremy's murder with, again, Elena begging him not to, because the longer he draws it out, the longer he has power over someone). A lot of fans seem to forget that he seemed pretty happy when Katherine was training him to kill people as a vampire. He wanted the power and was willingly drinking her blood so that he could become one. When ( ... )

razycrandomgirl January 27 2011, 20:19:18 UTC

Mystic Falls has turned into Rape City.

You know what? Heroes tried to do this exact thing with their post popular player. Sylar. They basically made him this huge rapist and sexual predator and then tried t justify his actions with retcon.

Do you think the problem with Vampire Diaries is Elena? When people drop her name everyone stops whatever they are doing at runs to her.

I want to see how Bonnie felt about Mason's death. (as a matter of fact there should be fic where Bonnie and Jeremy talk about what happened to Mason. WHERE IS IT!)

Also CW needs to stop. They are not HBO. TVD =/= TB. and to me it looks like a total rip off.

I hope they don't water down Bonnie to make her more likable.

Damon does learn from his mistakes, because he hasn't been messing with Bonnie since she sex his ass on fire! But he's still always coming to her for favors.

angryzen January 28 2011, 02:41:57 UTC

What are you doing here, missy? I thought you were allergic to spoilers. Lol. Not that I don't appreciate you comment.

The problem is that Vampire Diaries seems to be as in love with Damon as the stans are. Well, JP seemed proud of the fact that Bonnie is the only one who calls him on his shit. Let's see if she delivers.

I still want to write that fic. There definitely should have been fallout about Mason's death considering that was the first time Bonnie willingly helped them with no trickery in mind, and it went terribly wrong.

razycrandomgirl January 28 2011, 02:50:36 UTC

I am, I just miss you and didn't know the spoilers until I started reading. :X But I don't care enough about TVD to be mad.

I think she must have known on some level that it was the end for poor Mason. She hauled ass outta there.

meganbmoore January 27 2011, 23:37:17 UTC

Sigh. That interview is so drenched in date rape culture and male privilege (he has to do it because no one believes an attractive guy would stay single? Seriously?) that I actually have difficulty processing some of it ( ... )

cont. meganbmoore January 27 2011, 23:39:06 UTC

In a certain way, I think the writers have written themselves into a corner-they're too genre savvy to have not realized that the character type alone would make him popular, and possibly made his actions worse as an attempt to deflect that, and then he was even more popular than expected, and the creators themselves fell for him, and now they can't really have the charcters treat him with the gravity they should (I'm going to be so pissed if they ever make Bonnie apologize for her attitudes regarding him) yet they can't really suddenly have him angelic and behaving, especially with their stance of his proving his worth.

Which is...probably a long winded way of saying "sigh."

angryzen January 28 2011, 03:30:42 UTC

she has self-control and plans,

Yep. Katherine has a plan B, C, D, and well you know how the alphabet goes;). Damon just does the first thing that comes to his mind, it seems. *Sigh*

If I have to watch Damon slam a woman against a wall one more time...

I think it would have been far, far more interesting to frame his "redemption" through trying to prove himself to Bonnie, platonically or via unrequited love with no hope of reciprocation, than his being obsessed with his brother's girlfriend, especially given his history with Bonnie's family.

Yes! I agree with you. Bonnie, Caroline, Jeremy. Well, Caroline and Jeremy are out. Bonnie is definitely the one I'm paying attention to when it comes to Damon's growth. She still has her wits about her.

I'll never stop wishing for them to actually explore Bonnie's family history and her relationship with the Salvatores. It's one of the biggest let-downs of the show.

Is that show still being developed? I would definitely check it out since it's about witches.

meganbmoore January 28 2011, 13:29:14 UTC

As far as I know, Secret Circle is still in production. I know they've cast Cassie, but I don't suppose that means a lot in the long run. I'm both interested and concerned to see what they do with it. The plotline for Vampire Diaries is more interesting in the show, and the show has the better mythology, but all the problems with Damon and the Man Pain in general and the male privilege is basically made up for the show. (Ok, Stefan likes to brood a lot in both, but he isn't really obnoxious about it.)

Thread 6