TVD 3x07

[redbrunja]

Oh my god, Elena is the most HYPOCRITICAL CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. For serious.

Also, with regards to Damon, the writers need to learn how to do a redemption arc. They clearly have no clue what it's about. Do you know why I don't think (at this point) I'll ever believe and/or care about Damon's arc? Because he has never lost anything because of his behavior. Not really. Not for long. If the writers want to redeem him, they need to break him down, take everything away from him, as a clear result of his own actions, and make him pick himself up from that. (Just ask Faith, Spike, Zuko, Cara, or Boyd Crowder.) Instead, Damon is a smarmy dick. The fact that he couldn't even apologize just shows that Damon is absolutely not on the (rocky) path of redemption.

But it was nice to see my girls Lexie, Pearl, and Anna again. Also, I love that Jeremy is all 'you won't be alone! You'll have me!' and Anna is like, 'I stolen the necklace to see my mother again!' More motivations like that, please.

Comments

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

OMG, HIGH FIVE. I cannot take Elena's hypocrisy, my god. She's the worst friend ever, tbqh. 'It doesn't matter there are dangerous vampires running around that have raped and killed and attempted to kill people! I AM IN LOVE, SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY AND ANYONE WHO DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT IS WRONG WRONG WRONG.'

Okay, I have no idea if what she's done relates to that in any way, but I have a beserk button where she's concerned, so. (what's she done now, out of curiosity?)

Ha, Damon. See, I liked him for a while, because dark, dangerous and damaged is my thing. Except I realized- he's not really damaged, is he? There are no consequences for anything he does. Nobody calls him on all the bad things he does, he doesn't have to live with regret and shame for his actions, he doesn't have to atone for anything. The show's narrative, based on how the main characters treat him and talk about him to others and so on, is all about how Damon is really an awesome guy who needs some understanding and forgiveness and even if he is a murderous psycho, he's hot, okay, and there is UST with Elena, so he gets a free pass on everything ever!

Yeah, no, I cannot even with this. I need my morally ambiguous characters to have a crisis of conscience and decide to do the right thing for the right reasons, not to be rewarded or to have a chance of hooking up with their love interest.

Anna is like, 'I stolen the necklace to see my mother again!'

AWESOME. I've always really liked Anna, too bad about her thing with Jeremy. *eyeroll* Cannot stand that guy, especially now that he's hurt Bonnie, ugh.

And...this is longer than your actual post, I'm sorry, but TVD just makes me explode with feelings...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

OMG, HIGH FIVE. I cannot take Elena's hypocrisy, my god. She's the worst friend ever, tbqh. 'It doesn't matter there are dangerous vampires running around that have raped and killed and attempted to kill people! I AM IN LOVE, SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY AND ANYONE WHO DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT IS WRONG WRONG WRONG.'

That is pretty much exactly what happened this episode. She was totally judging her brother for doing a milder version of what she was doing for the past seven episodes. It was gag-inducing.

Ha, Damon. See, I liked him for a while, because dark, dangerous and damaged is my thing. Except I realized- he's not really damaged, is he? There are no consequences for anything he does. Nobody calls him on all the bad things he does, he doesn't have to live with regret and shame for his actions, he doesn't have to atone for anything. The show's narrative, based on how the main characters treat him and talk about him to others and so on, is all about how Damon is really an awesome guy who needs some understanding and forgiveness and even if he is a murderous psycho, he's hot, okay, and there is UST with Elena, so he gets a free pass on everything ever!

Pretty much. I used to love him because he was acting the way an evil vampire should, and he got all the good lines, and then I was super-invested in his redemption and his relationship with Elena and then the writing feel apart (seriously, he has no snark any more) and I am just DONE. I'd hard to believe that in the first season he was my favorite character and I wasn't into Caroline. The mind boggles.

And...this is longer than your actual post, I'm sorry, but TVD just makes me explode with feelings...

I love long comments!

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Does not surprise me at all. *tries to keep bitterness about Elena contained*

Ugh, I loved Damon early on in the show. But the whole thing with Elena just wore me down. I know that's what a lot of people loved, that he was evil but so in love with her and trying to earn her love, but...I don't think you can be written as dark as Damon and still have that love story without making any effort to right the wrongs.

Wait, that's all jumbled. I mean, if you're writing about an evil vampire who's in love with this chick, you need to write a proper redemptive arc where he's doing what he can to make things right so that it's believable that she'll fall in love with him. When he's raped one friend, broken her brother's neck and nearly killed another, you gotta fix that. But Damon doesn't, he's as dismissive and uncaring of them as always and it bothers me so much that Elena doesn't give a damn about Caroline and Bonnie's feelings.

I'd rather he kept on being evil and selfish and focused on his needs and desires- which would be entertaining and worth watching- instead of the sadsap woobie devoted to Elena while still being a colossal douchebag to everyone else with her blessing. It makes her look like a bad person. Which I wouldn't mind, except the show is hinged on Elena being this saintly angel of benevolence.

On a side note, I was trying to think of shows where a main character is a giant jerkass but where it doesn't reflect on his friends for continuing to associate with him. And The Big Bang Theory came to mind, lol. Yes, Sheldon's really abrasive and rude, but...it's not handwaved away by the characters or writers. They're shown to get annoyed with him, they have fights, and it's not 'Sheldon's a poor misunderstood woobie who needs forgiveness he hasn't earned'.

I'm not sure where I'm going with that analogy, since he hasn't committed crimes akin to Damon's, but...the point is that I get why those people still hang out with him even though he's a jerk. He's not deliberately trying to hurt them, and he's even hilarious a lot of the time and you see them deriving amusement when his annoying habits are focused on a friend. And at least they call him out on his behavior, which never happens in TVD. With Damon, it's like...IDGI, why do people want to be around him? He's liable to snap at any moment and kill someone 'coz he's in a bad mood or had a bad day 'coz, IDK, the coffee was decaf or something. But there are no consequences. He kills Jeremy and Alaric, and then they turn around and want to be his BFF. Okay, that makes sense. O.o

Er. I'll never be able to write meta, my thoughts are so jumbled and unclear, lol.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I loved Damon early on in the show. But the whole thing with Elena just wore me down. I know that's what a lot of people loved, that he was evil but so in love with her and trying to earn her love, but...I don't think you can be written as dark as Damon and still have that love story without making any effort to right the wrongs.

Exactly. See, if you want to write Damon evil, fine. If you want to write Damon and evil and in love with Elena, that is also fine. But when they're clearly trying to build a legit romantic arc between him and Elena you either a.) need to have him being better (or at least being worse in realistic ways) and/or have Elena and THE WRITERS THEMSELVES aware that Elena is in love with a sociopath and what that means about her.

It makes her look like a bad person. Which I wouldn't mind, except the show is hinged on Elena being this saintly angel of benevolence.

SO MUCH THIS.

With Damon, it's like...IDGI, why do people want to be around him? He's liable to snap at any moment and kill someone 'coz he's in a bad mood or had a bad day 'coz, IDK, the coffee was decaf or something. But there are no consequences. He kills Jeremy and Alaric, and then they turn around and want to be his BFF. Okay, that makes sense. O.o

I really wish people who respond to Damon like his behavior deserves, because I think that could lead interesting places, but they just DON'T. And frankly, he's not getting the deliciously snappy lines he used to, so even I don't want to spend time on him, regardless of how hot the actor is.

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

Exactly. See, if you want to write Damon evil, fine. If you want to write Damon and evil and in love with Elena, that is also fine. But when they're clearly trying to build a legit romantic arc between him and Elena you either a.) need to have him being better (or at least being worse in realistic ways) and/or have Elena and THE WRITERS THEMSELVES aware that Elena is in love with a sociopath and what that means about her.

This is why I was so delighted by the Caroline-Elena scenes in 3x04, because I was like, "Yes! Somebody is finally bringing up the WTF-ery of the Damon situation!" And Elena actually came within an ace of admitting that she felt guilty about having feelings for Damon (I particularly loved Caroline emphasizing that he hasn't changed and will never change.) I was so worried that they'd have Caroline PROPPING Damon/Elena, or cheering them on or something, so I liked the way they played it: that she clearly dislikes and distrusts Damon and just has to put up with him b/c she has no other choice, but that there's a lot of residual anger and frustration there.

But this seems to have been entirely forgotten now, at least on Elena's end, sigh.

If they want to do Delena, they should have either genuinely redeemed Damon, or they should have gone the S6 Spuffy route with it being dark and twisted and explicitly driven by PTSD on Elena's end. Instead they seem to want it to be cozy and domestic, which just...does not work.

[dotty.livejournal.com]

Word on Elena. Word on Damon, too, I've been bitching for a while now about how inconsistent the writers are with him. One second he's in the early stages of redemption, the next he's an irredeemable monster and then all of a sudden he don't need no redemption because he's just MISUNDERSTOOD. Throw in the whole Stefan-bullshit and how he's appearantly hunkydory no matter what he does, and it's like Angel/Spike all over again, except worse, because atleast the writers TRIED with that.

I love Anna and loved her with Jeremy, I'm glad they got some closure at least. Just wish she'd never died at all. :/

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're really made some GRAVE missteps with Damon. And the worst thing about the Stefan plotline, imho, is it just makes no sense to me whatsoever, on both a story and a character level. Frankly, a lot of what they've tried to do with Klaus has seemed totally nonsensical.

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I'd call Elena a hypocrite... she's definitely aware she's in a similar situation as Jeremy and she's trying to fight it. While this is the third season, it's only been a year for Elena, so I can understand why she's having trouble letting go (and why she doesn't want to see her brother in her shoes).

Damon is not on a redemption arc. And I don't really want him to be? I'm just not sure what they're trying to do with him right now. But I too was very happy to see Anna and Pearl reunited. Feelings! In my eyes!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

She seems to be aware at the end of the episode... but her behavior in this episode was ridiculously hypocritical, imho.

Damon is not on a redemption arc. And I don't really want him to be? I'm just not sure what they're trying to do with him right now.

See, I feel like the writers THINK they are headed that direction but actually aren't, or aren't selling that story. Do you feel that Damon is not on a redemption arc because he doesn't seem to be becoming a better person or do you feel like the writers are doing something else entirely with him?

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

Do you feel that Damon is not on a redemption arc because he doesn't seem to be becoming a better person or do you feel like the writers are doing something else entirely with him?

I have no idea at all. I feel kind of lost right now since I feel like Stefan and Damon should be interacting mostly with each other right now (Stefan maybe turning the switch on because of Damon, thus completing the circle, and/or Damon having something to do with Stefan because of the whole, ya know, saving his life in the finale thing). And so whatever they're trying to do with plotty Vikings (a facepalm if ever there was one) and Stefan's bloodlust cravings getting fastforwarded through just confuses me.

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

I think it was pretty clear that Elena was looking at the situation anew from the perspective of someone who cares about the person making dumb choices, seeing the reality of it and trying to learn from it.

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

(And yeah, I think that the writers think stuff like blaming Andie for his brutally savaging her (~but not killing her~) is redemption, and that telling Elena 'goddamnit stop wanting me to not be a violent misogynist, it's so meeeen!' is totally justified. And that's why their so-called redemption arc isn't working - because really, they don't seem to have enough problems with the actions he needs redeeming for in the first place.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And honestly, I feel like Elena not having enough problems with the actual BAD THINGS both of her vampire boyfriends are doing is a large part of what is making me frustrated with her character. Because if the writers want to write her that way, fine, but they don't get to then act like Elena is the nicest person in the entire universe, you know?

(Although I am behind a couple of episodes, so. Maybe something different was happening in those eps.)

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't have much respect for the viewpoint that a shattered teenage girl who's systematically watched nearly all her loved ones die in front of her and now can't bear to lose more is somehow being shocking or unkind in turning a blind eye - her actions may not be morally spotless, but to criticize the text for portraying her as nice after this viewpoint, which implies a moral judgment should be made on her motivations, is something I have a problem with. And being flawed and human is not being unkind. She is not the one doing the crimes, and she agrees that they need to be stopped - but the people who are emotionally important and, in regrettable but human ways, more real to her have an emotional priority at this point in her life, when she has almost no emotional support and has gone through the experience of losing someone - to death or otherwise - too many times to count in the last year.

But maybe I've just done too much rolling my eyes in general lately at fandom disconnecting from and violently turning on Elena in a hot second when they've spent two or three seasons cheerily fangirling the characters and worse characters themselves. It's the old disproportionate double standard response, and even in more thoughtful renditions it tends to put my back up at this point. And 'the victims aren't real' doesn't really work, because the victims are real to the perpetrators, and it's the perpetrators as people who would do these things, to real or fictional women, that we're judging.

Or rather, not judging, just as long as they have a penis.

both of her vampire boyfriends

Also, I'd like to politely ask that you don't support the show's casual usage of rape-culture laden terminology around me. Elena has repeatedly made it clear that she doesn't want to be in a relationship with Damon and wants him to stop his flirting and asks him to get out of her bed and stop pawing through her underwear drawer, etc, etc and to implicitly support his repeated nonconsensual 'claims' over her and the intrinsic sexual threats towards her in such unequivocal statements as "we'll have a vampire girlfriend" and "I'm gonna steal your girl" knowing she's said no already - is pretty upsetting and borderline triggery. It's just an emotional thing for me.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't have much respect for the viewpoint that a shattered teenage girl who's systematically watched nearly all her loved ones die in front of her and now can't bear to lose more is somehow being shocking or unkind in turning a blind eye - her actions may not be morally spotless, but to criticize the text for portraying her as nice after this viewpoint, which implies a moral judgment should be made on her motivations, is something I have a problem with.

I see where you're coming from. And while I don't have a problem with Elena being unwilling to lose anyone else in her life, regardless of what they do to other people, I just feel like the show really have a tone-deafness with regards to Elena, Stefan, and Damon, where the way the show presents them, and the way other characters react to them, doesn't sync up with what they have done and/or how they have treated people.

But maybe I've just done too much rolling my eyes in general lately at fandom disconnecting from and violently turning on Elena in a hot second when they've spent two or three seasons cheerily fangirling the characters and worse characters themselves. It's the old disproportionate double standard response, and even in more thoughtful renditions it tends to put my back up at this point

I completely understand that.

And 'the victims aren't real' doesn't really work, because the victims are real to the perpetrators, and it's the perpetrators as people who would do these things, to real or fictional women, that we're judging.

Seriously? People try to use that argument? Wow.


Also, I'd like to politely ask that you don't support the show's casual usage of rape-culture laden terminology around me.

Noted.

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, uh, fandom likes to ignore the fact that Elena has systematically and brutally lost almost everyone she loves, cares for or is related to, some of them in gruesome ways right in front of her. And explicitly blames herself for many of those deaths, some of them because she believes she didn't do enough or did something wrong. Oh my, I wonder what could ~possibly~ motivate a PTSD-ridden teenager who's suffered that to cling desperately to the loved ones she has left...?

In order to castigate and deride her more than they do Damon, who actually actively hurts other people.

[stainofmylove.livejournal.com]

Also, I love that Jeremy is all 'you won't be alone! You'll have me!' and Anna is like, 'I stolen the necklace to see my mother again!' More motivations like that, please.

WORD. I miss when this show was about every character wanting their own specific things ...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Someone was just talking about Vicki and it reminded me how much I loved her and the way she interacted with both Gilberts. *sigh*

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

WORD to what you said about missing Vicki (I'm SO ANNOYED at the way the show basically used her as a prop for the Poor Matt Pity Party this season while ignoring who she was as a person.) I think one great thing that she brought to the show was that she was virtually the only character I can remember who was allowed to have a differing view from the majority re: Elena, where that viewpoint was allowed to carry some weight, have some validity.

What I mean is that increasingly, since S1, the show expects us to accept as Objective Truth the fact that Elena is this Wonderful, Compassionate, Empathetic, Unselfish Person, a Great Friend and generally an A+ human being. People who feel differently about her are Evil, and/or end up being punished for their views, or presented as being motivated by jealousy or just generally Bad People themselves. (I think this is a big part of why Bonnie increasingly lost her individuality and got silenced on the issue of vampires and became--IMO--reduced to a prop from S2 onwards. She came back to life to some extent in 3x07 when Grams showed up: and I think that was in large part b/c Grams was a character who, in S1, wasn't drinking the Elena and Salvatore Kool-Aid. She had her own priorities and her own agendas, her own identity.)

But Vicki was different. She had an entirely different POV on Elena, and that POV was respected by the show at least to SOME extent--not wholly so, of course, but more so than at any other point in the show's history IMO except maybe with Caroline in 3x04, and Bonnie in 1x19. Her, "Let's get one thing straight, you perky little bitch" speech is still one of my favorite scenes from S1--and it was great b/c the show let the audience look at a different side of Elena for once and didn't TELL US WHAT TO THINK ABOUT HER. This has increasingly gotten lost, IMO, and the show has suffered for it.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I think one great thing that she brought to the show was that she was virtually the only character I can remember who was allowed to have a differing view from the majority re: Elena, where that viewpoint was allowed to carry some weight, have some validity.

Yep. And frankly, I am just a sucker for those slightly trashing, girl from the wrong side of the tracks characters. I would have LOVED to have seen a longer romance between her and Jeremy.

Her, "Let's get one thing straight, you perky little bitch" speech is still one of my favorite scenes from S1--and it was great b/c the show let the audience look at a different side of Elena for once and didn't TELL US WHAT TO THINK ABOUT HER.

That was SUCH A GREAT MOMENT.