FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON

[upupa_epops]

Old news: lj is dead. Everyone is crazy busy, or they have other reasons not to be here. No one has time to read those huge meta posts we used to write once upon a time. But maybe we can all find ten minutes to do this:

FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON!

Comments

[kwritten]

tvd/btvs | Firstly, a comparison of Elena Gilbert and Dawn Summers - both girls were literally created to be a sacrifice; and respond in wonderfully complicated ways.

(Elena does have the upper hand since she was given a writing room that doesn't spontaneously forget her doppleganger status the way that Joss & Co. dropped the Key-plotline post S5.)

[upupa_epops]

I suppose the biggest difference between them, funny as it may sound, is age difference. Dawn is 14 when she finds out she is the Key, Elena is 17. At this age, 3 years could be eons. In their case, 3 years are eons. Dawn turns against her own body in the most literal sense, cuts herself for everyone to see, then keeps making passive-aggressive comments about not being real. Elena is old enough to keep it all buried, to wait for the right moment and find a "socially acceptable" way of self-destructing (making a deal with Elijah). We only see just how much she's kept to herself when we get a peek at her headspace in 4x06. Dawn (being only 14, and a kid in the family on top of that), is simply too young to lie as well as Elena does

[kadymae]

I'd like to add on to the age difference thing --

In addition to being 17, Elena is also the eldest sibling, so she's much more used to being a trailblazer, assertive, an agent in the world. She's never had a big brother or sister to help her, to guide her. She's had to figure out a lot of stuff on her own.

Dawn is a younger sister, and she's regularly treated as being young, helpless, not-capable. She's never been seen as, never been allowed to be anything but the "baby sister." It shows. Shows in the dark.

(Okay, there's also the issue of how Dawn is often as smart as a box of hair and self centered, while Elena shows that being smart is the greatest superpower of them all -- think of how she constantly outwits people who seek to trap her -- she's calm under pressure, and is very compassionate