(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

I loved Katherine and all of the flashbacks and I was overall very happy with the episode, but it was hard for me to enjoy some scenes because Damon (and Matt!) were making me rage so much.

Okay first of all, Damon was never compelled by Katherine, he told Stefan this himself. He choose to learn from Katherine how to feed and kill innocent people when he was still human. Damon does have the right to dislike Katherine for messing him around when she clearly preferred Stefan, but blaming his entire life on her is just too much. Damon choose to develop a 150 year obsession with opening the tomb, that's why Bonnie's Grams was endangered. If anything Damon's obsessive tendencies were an inconvenience to Katherine when she was trying to fake being dead, she never asked for him to became completely obsessed with her when she'd just been looking for some fun. He has a right to be mad at her for playing him back in the day, but to blame Katherine for his own obsessions and failings, umm no. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy when they were all sat there blaming everything that ever happened ever on Katherine. Matt was doing shots with Damon (who killed Vicky purely for sport when he was bored), and Damon's going to raise a glass to Matt's saying that was all Katherine's fault?!?!?!??!

Both Klaus and Damon planning to torment Katherine on her deathbed was just really gross and sadistic, although at least Klaus never got there in the end. Stefan was the one brother who actually was compelled and mislead as to Katherine's true nature, but you don't see him blaming his entire life choices on Katherine and saying that she was the one who killed his father or whatever, the same way that Damon makes ridiculous analogies about all of his actions should really be owned by Katherine. I just couldn't stand him this episode, urgh when he was deliberately trying to torment Katherine by injecting her again so that he could keep going back to the flashbacks of her dead family, what a creep. And it was for the best that Elijah wasn't there frankly because he also tried to blame his rift with his brother on Katherine, and their arc in season 4 was mostly about whether Elijah can learn to trust Katherine after all of the terrible things that she's done, even though Elijah was the one hunting down human Katherine because of her not doing what she was told and agreeing to be sacrificed in a ritual by two men.

Really the other characters viewpoint of Katherine is so disturbing that I can never tell if we're meant to recognise it or not because in this episode especially they all seemed to see it that way when they were doing shots and tracing all of their problems back to Katherine ~the root of all evil~ Just as season 4 played it totally unironically when Elijah was having doubts about whether he could trust Katherine and how much he missed "my Katerina", and she had to prove herself by handing over the cure, yet there was no acknowledgment of their actual past and that maybe Elijah owed it to Katherine to give her that cure right back so that she could finally protect herself from his sadistic brother

There is just such a ridiculous double standard with Katherine. With both Katherine and Rebekah actually to an extent. Rebekah also constantly had it held over her head that she caused Elena's car accident and is therefore a bad and unforgiveable person, yet Damon's past deeds are almost forgotten and he gets to join in funeral rituals in 402 without the characters even acknowledging that he killed half of the people that they are mourning! (The characters do hold more against Klaus granted, but only for things that he's actually done like kill Jenna, while Katherine gets blamed whether or not she even played a direct role in what happened)

Comments

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yep, Ian talks here about Katherine compelling Damon and turning him into a monster http://www.wetpaint.com/vampire-diaries/articles/2013-11-27-spoilers-damon-wants-katherine-dead I was really surprised at him buying into the victimisation of Damon as well, it was a really big deal in season 1 that Damon was never compelled and he did work alongside Katherine to trap victims, finding the blood distasteful and getting his handkerchief out lol. Stefan was the one that was completely manipulated by Katherine and had to be compelled when he saw her true face, really when you look at a lot of what's happened with the characters I wouldn't even say that what Katherine did to Damon was all *that* awful in comparison. Stefan and Caroline were both actually compelled and mind-controlled when they were victimised, but Damon knew all along that Katherine was a vampire and made his own choices, he just let himself be mislead as to how much Katherine actually cared for him over his brother. He has the right to feel screwed over and want to avoid Katherine, but blaming her for everything that went wrong and acting like she's the devil incarnate in his life is just insulting. Damon was the one choosing to make Katherine his lifelong obsession and never move past her, it's not like he was compelled into loving her...

In this episode Damon even gets inside her head and tries telling her that her family being killed by Klaus is all Katherine's fault for not letting Klaus kill her, it's seriously nasty stuff. It bothers me because the show has seemed to endorse that mindset in the past with Elijah presented as being in the right for holding a grudge over Katherine fleeing Klaus. Not to mention Elena's willingness to sacrifice her own life being contrasted with Katherine in season 2, it's as if that makes Katherine the bad guy for just wanting to survive and valuing her life

And Katherine has been dying of old age all season, but at the end of last episode she swapped bodies with Elena. So technically her body is dead, but for now she's still around

[silverusagi]

Yeah, the show has been increasingly bad on the messages it endorses. And like, I don't even know how to properly explain it? The characters do bad things, but the show also seems to be on their side? Like last season, with the no morality questioned decision to kill the Originals (and every other vampire they're connected to). And like, I don't have a *problem* with characters who are like "genocide, cool", but there's just almost no acknowledgment that this is a problematic things. Contrast that to say, Breaking Bad or Hannibal, where you have the protagonists doing horrible things, but the show just presents it, as well as the fallout from it.

But TVD has long annoyed me with characters judging other characters or rooting for other characters, because it's not skillfully done as huge character flaws, it's like I can hear the writers talking out of their mouths.

And Katherine has been dying of old age all season, but at the end of last episode she swapped bodies with Elena. So technically her body is dead, but for now she's still around

I hate to ask, but, how does that work? Where is Elena then?

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly! It's like Elena and the other regulars can do terrible things all of the time, like conspiring to kill Finn in order to kill Klaus by association, or kill Kol and thousands of vampires they've never even met in order to activate the hunters curse and save Elena, but the show doesn't even trust it as a big deal any more because hey they're the protagonists. Yet characters like Katherine and Rebekah get hammered for what they did over and over again, even though objectively it's not like Katherine was all that much worse than Damon when he came to town and killed couples in cars, killed Matt's sister, killed Jeremy, tried to kill Bonnie when he was mad at Emily, inadvertently contributed to the death of her grams, used Caroline as a slave and as a human bloodbag, yet that all gets overlooked and Caroline is told off when she keeps stressing that Damon is not a good person and Elena is indignant on how 'he's always been there for me when I needed him'.

And you can't really argue that it's because Katherine, Rebekah, and even Klaus are the only characters to personally harm the regulars, and so them being hated more makes sense. There's Damon and Stefan flipping a coin on who has to kill Bonnie's mother as late as season 3, Damon trying to kill Matt in the season 4 premiere for daring to survive when Elena died, yet everyone is just over events like that within a few episodes and never holds a grudge, while Katherine is treated as truly diabolical by characters like Matt and Bonnie who have been far less personally wronged by her then they have been by Damon???


And Katherine comes from a line of travelers apparently and they can take over someone's body. I think that she and Elena will share it? Although none of the other characters are aware of what Katherine has done so far

[silverusagi]

but the show doesn't even trust it as a big deal any more because hey they're the protagonists

I HATE protagonist privilege. And more than that, I hate what you've described, where the protagonists do exactly the same types of things as the villains, yet continue to act like the villains are just so ~evil, and narrative seems to be behind them. This didn't happen so much in S1 and S2. Like, sure, let's just all be amoral vampires, but let's not act like any character is ~worse than others, because they're all just as bad. They are all just as bad. But it's never framed that way.

And Katherine comes from a line of travelers apparently and they can take over someone's body.

Of course she does. lol.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It seems like the difference is whether characters prioritise Elena or not.... Elena will get prissy with Damon for a few episodes when he kills Bonnie's mother, but she never really stays mad at him when he does those things for her, and so neither does anyone else in her social group. But characters like Klaus, Rebekah, and Katherine who have tried to personally harm Elena, now they are REALLY bad and are forever thought of that way (and I don't even like Klaus particularly, but at this point is he really any worse than Damon?)

Look at how the show was totally un-ironic in presenting Elena as being justifiably furious when Damon sleeps with Rebekah in season 3 after 'she tried to kill me', and I remember being surprised at the time at the double standard because the show never made a big deal of Elena standing by Damon and Stefan when they hurt her friends (especially season 1 when Damon was an out and out villain to characters like Caroline and Bonnie, yet around that time Elena was hugging him in sympathy over Katherine and bargaining for his life), so I always assumed that it was something that you just overlook as part of the premise of the show, that when vampires are involved we should overlook a little more and not take things like murder and assault so seriously. But the show made a huge deal of it being a personal betrayal of Elena when Damon was the one to get involved with Rebekah after she harmed Elena, yet if Caroline or Bonnie say anything against Damon or Delena after what he's done to them in the past (and their love ones in the case of Bonnie) then it becomes about judging Elena's relationship and how unfair not to be happy for her when she was so excited to share the news

I'm never sure if we are we supposed to pick up on any of that?

[silverusagi]

so I always assumed that it was something that you just overlook as part of the premise of the show, that when vampires are involved we should overlook a little more and not take things like murder and assault so seriously

Yeah, I remember having discussions about how the show has amnesia and you're just supposed to go with it. Because any character (except Stefan, who can defend himself and is on equal playing ground) would have to be INSANE to have anything to do with Damon after the things he did. Yet, it's all no big deal later. I just sort of figured that a suspension of disbelief came with the whole 'vampire' aspect. At least until S3 or so, when the show/characters starts dumping on other characters and holding a grudge over things that everyone has done.

I'm never sure if we are we supposed to pick up on any of that?

Honestly, I don't think it was intentional, because it's not done well enough. I mean, if the show was trying to paint the characters as hypocritical and horrible, well, I don't even know how to finish that sentence, because this is a CW teen show and they're not actually going to have a completely unlikeable protagonist. It just seems like sloppy writing to me. Characters are 'good' or 'bad', and it doesn't matter what they do. If they're good they'll be forgiven, if they're bad they'll have it held over their heads forever.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I think that also with Damon early on it's emphasised as being a special trait of Elena's to be so forgiving and a sign of how much compassion she has. And they occasionally did that with other characters, like Rose in season 2 after Elena wasn't too harsh on her about the kidnapping when she found out that it was to save Trever, but then yeah by season 3 it felt like the show had switched to judging the villains for ways they had personally harmed them or their friends which felt very jarring. Like should Elena really have been questioning Damon sleeping with Rebekka after she tried to kill her, Elena was hanging out with Damon as a friend in season 1 after he had done just that to Bonnie and Caroline!

Or I guess that you could argue that Elena and co overlook it more if other characters are doing them wrong for the ~right reasons~ , if it's to protect someone else, because they can also relate too that? Characters like Katherine are judged more harshly because they're just about protecting themselves and no one wants to admit that they have anything in common with that attitude