miss-vanilla

LOL, or yeah stroke her face while she sleeps. The more I watch S1 knowing what I know now the more I see Damon's villainy as an act of bravado. An OTT version of pretense that he is evil to pretend to exact revenge on Stefan. The coach Tanner scene is a prime example of that. Stefan sees through the act and Damon realises that so goes that extra step to prove Stefan wrong or right..whatever. The brothers have always been touchy about their humanity showing when they are pretending it's off. Damon struggled with this more than Stefan I believe. Damon's biggest secret was that he missed being human and so over compensated to prove the opposite yet he accepted it. To be a vampire you had to accept the nature of a vampirism and all it encompassed because there was no door number 3. No point in dwelling so he accepted that his human life was over and accepted his vampirism and tried to revel in the good parts. He is a fatalist after all. In comparison, after his initial murder spree came to pass, Stefan rejected his nature and worked against it fuelled by his friend Lexie. Gah, the complexity of Stefan was ruined for me when they put him back with Elena in the S3 finale without exploring fully what the ripper meant to Stefan as a character. Instead it was brushed under the rug to facilitate the triangle and Elena's choice.

My take on the "eternity of misery" thing is that it didn't really exist or manifest until the 1994 flashback episode. As others have stated the previous flashbacks contradict that notion completely. Damon switched off his humanity in 1958 post Augustine drama and we assume that he kept it off for decades since we see him reveling in his humanity off state in the 70's and Damon pretty much confirms this in conversation with Lexie even if he doesn't give her the exact reason. IMO, Damon seems to be pissed that Stefan sent Lexie to help him rather than come himself which must have stung a bit considering he had held out hope that Stefan would come and rescue him from Augustine and he didn't come through for him then either. In defense of Stefan, he believed that Damon abandoned him on a platform in 1942. The next time we see the brothers it's 1994. Damon has headed back to MF to reconnect with Stefan. His humanity seems to be resurfacing somewhat and he seems genuine in his wish to reunite with his brother, however this is a vampire that has lived for decades as a vampire with no humanity who is still behaving like a vampire (albeit one on his best behaviour.) As far as Damon is concerned he is behaving but still acting true to his nature. He is feeding from the humans and using compulsion to erase their memories. Unfortunately for Damon, Stefan was having none of it since he was denying his nature completely and had zero tolerance for anything vampire related including Damon. Stefan snapped Damons neck, stole his daylight ring and dumped him in a shed then proceeded to outright reject all Damon's efforts to reconcile. Damon was genuinely hurt, he was rejected by his brother none too gently for being a vampire...the very thing Stefan made him become. In retaliation Damon killed everyone who was left in the house. Of course these actions caused Stefan to reject Damon even more and Damon could pretend that Stefan's hate was because he committed a heinous act and not because he was just Damon existing. Of course none of what Damon did to those people is justified and Damon does not justify it. It's the opposite because this is one of the times when we get to see that Damon does genuinely feel guilt and remorse, when he has his humanity on anyway. I think any rising humanity within Damon was dialled right back down after this day and old resentments rekindled. Damon was awful but Stefan was cruel too. Stefan didn't know Katherine was still alive, Damon kept that secret to himself but Stefan still obsessed over Katherine. He kept her picture close and was shown looking at it rather wistfully in one of the early episodes. I think Stefan was in denial about his feelings for Katherine because despite her compulsions, she never compelled him to fall in love with her. He became obsessed with Elena because of her face. He didn't know her but he must have known she was human. He was obsessed with having to know her, he researched her life, he knew very personal things about her then contrived situations to get meet her in person. Why? because she looked like the person he fell in love with when he was 17 (an angel) and behaved like one...just like he thought Katherine was. He loved Katherine very deeply, enough to be with her knowing that he was hurting Damon and I believe his unresolved issues with her that manifested when he turned complicated his feelings for Elena. In season 5 it is revealed that Stefan's PTSD was rooted in the loss of Elena to Damon. He then promptly slept with Katherine after realising this fact and although he said he couldn't forgive her or love her again (denial), he did exactly that when she was dying. Stefan got his closure with Katherine in her death arc especially since it was him who finally ended her in "Gone Girl" and interestingly enough, his interest in Elena romantically started to wane as well. It was as if his closure with Katherine afforded him the ability to move on from Elena too. In contrast, Damon met Elena in the road and instantly understood and recognised that this girl was not Katherine the minute she said "I'm Elena". He was intrigued by her and a little amused and had she not been wearing Katherines' face, she probably would have ended up as his next meal. Once he was truly in love with Elena and had accepted that fact within himself, he never once wavered in response to Katherine despite her many attempts to seduce him. I agree with Aeryn13 that Damon's attempt to reconcile with Katherine in 2x01 was an act of desperation in trying to supress his growing feelings for Elena- his brothers' girl because despite his shenanigans in early S1 when he was essentially using Elena to wind up Stefan- his shenanigans came back to bite him hard because he fell in love with her in the process and she didn't want him and neither did Katherine- not outside of the bedroom anyway and that was no longer enough for Damon anymore. Damon did not transfer his love for Katherine to Elena because she rejected him because it was clear to me that he was already in love with Elena at that point and if anything his attempts to make something of it with Katherine was about him transferring his feelings the opposite way, which is why he stopped the hot makeout session with her to ask her for the truth. He wanted it to be real like it was with Elena because despite Elena denying her feelings for Damon, he was right, there WAS something real going on between them even if it wasn't love yet from her end, it was a bond and a connection that was growing everyday and it was real.

Agreed which is why I blame the writing and the directing in this case. We got nothing from Damon verbally and very little emotionally. Elena told us how Damon was feeling and Ian had to show that through his acting- Apparently the biggest beat JP wanted to hit with Damon in those scenes was that he was worried about not seeing Stefan again not how happy he had been with Elena. Again Elena told us how happy they were in their life but we have nothing to show us. I just re-watched the cemetery scene again and yes from Elena's diary voice over, it seems like she is writing her last diary entry metaphorically speaking. "After med school I came home to MF, it felt right, it's where I wanted to grow old and I did. And that's my life, weird, messy, complicated, sad, wonderful, amazing and above all EPIC.!! I owe it all to Stefan. When I met him I had lost my parents, I was dead inside and he brought me back to life and i'm going to live it the best I can for as long as I can" Cue the crow... ? The bolded points are Elena talking in two different tenses. In the first she talks as if she has lived a long life until she was old and the second as if she still has her life in front of her. It's weird?? So she is talking as an old woman remembering her young self, in the graveyard where it all began with fog, a crow and a man complete with the accompanying imagery of a young Damon dressed in his leather jacket and his crow.

Yeah, I think JP was aiming for bittersweet but it needed some dialogue to support that. It all felt rather rushed and confusing in the end but perhaps the fact that they had to edit out 18 minutes worth of scenes in total contributed to a lack of coherency at the end. It was like they just thought sod it! they will get the jist of it and if not we will explain all the bits you didn't see in the post finale interviews.

I took that scene to mean Damon (who has already died) was meeting Elena at the point of her death what with the crow and everything, ready to walk with her into the light to find ultimate peace- her with her family and him with Stefan. The way that cemetery scene was shot with Damon watching her from distance seemed to imply he was waiting for her in another realm much like Lexie waited for Stefan. Damon was still worried about finding his own peace as was narrated which accounted for the sombre smiles imo. I blame the direction mostly because the ending was far from clear. I've just noted that I wrote something very similar to your post up thread. Not intentional, I was typing as you posted and then posted before reading.

If I'm remembering right, It was announced that Nina and Ian had split up shortly after S4 finale aired in 2013 which most probably means that they split up privately well before it was announced. I have no problem with the DE chemistry throughout S5 and S6. I didn't like Nina's acting in the series finale particularly as Katherine but the fake reunion scene had all the right elements from both actors IMO. I know a few people guessed that it might have been Katherine when the promos aired but the majority were fooled. Those that were right cited the CW decision to promo (spoil) such a long awaited scene (for many fans) as the basis for their speculation but I don't remember a lack of chemistry being mentioned as a basis for anyone. And this. I have to deduce from the above that the Nina and Ian split didn't really stop the writers from telling the stories they wanted to tell. As someone else mentioned, there were quite a few openings that were created that could have lead to a permanent end to DE and/or a return to SE if the will to write it was there. Would Nina and Ian preferred not to have to act out all those romantic/love/sex scenes? most probably but they did. Nina leaving changed the dynamics because it forced them explore the Salvatore brother dynamic among aother things. It didn't work all that well because they had already told quite alot of that story and brought it all to a nice conclusion in S6 only to undo it all in S7. sigh.

I'm still processing how I feel about this episode and I admit to being torn. For me, Nina's return was anti-climactic and agree with those who felt her acting was off. It's hard to pin point why but I put it down to her being away from the show for too long. Her 'Katherine' was awful and cringey and as Elena she just didn't have the emotion I was expecting except in her scenes with Bonnie. As a DE fan I was underwhelmed with those scenes, especially the real reunion scenes but I guess the context of the reunion played a huge part in that. After all they were at Stefan's funeral so I understand that an emotional reunion with swelling music and beautiful passionate kisses were not appropriate at the time but I can't help but be annoyed that the writers chose this moment to reunite them especially given the fake out reunion earlier which was way better from an emotional POV. It was a long awaited reunion and should have had more impact but it was a bit of a lead balloon tbh. Talking of lead balloons, I was not pleased with how they handled the conclusion of the DE at all. Off screen does not count especially given many of the couples were give loads of screen time in the previous episode to lament their relationships. They did not exchange one single word and considering the episode was heavily promoted with the DE reunion, I can't help but feel a little used. I was also disappointed with how Damon was neglected in this one. He was isolated in scenes with Katherine and Stefan for pretty much the entire episode. Dalaric got no screen time at all and neither did Bamon. No phonecalls no nothing. In general the theme was peace in the afterlife. I'm not sure I liked the tone of that or the message it sent. Surely peace and happiness should come from living life. Grief is part of life, sure but life shouldn't be something you have to get through to find true peace. Worry about what will happen to you after death shouldn't plague your life and peace in death shouldn't be the goal to aspire too, living should be the goal IMO. So on to the positives. The Defan scenes were gorgeous. I was heartbroken when Damon compelled Stefan and I was equally heartbroken when Stefan turned the tables and heroically took one for the team. Throughout the entire series run he has been given the title of hero and he finally earned it. It made sense to me and for all those who are angry that Stefan was the one to die I will say this; his hero hair needed to be earned and he lived up to the title that was afforded him. He did it for Damon but more than that he did it for the town and he did it for his own redemption. He owed the town that because he brought Hell on earth and he redeemed himself by being a part of a plan that destroyed the threat. It was a fitting end end to his story and i'm glad he found what he had been searching for his entire existence. He found his balls finally and he committed himself, bravo. Damon found his redemption in his humanity. His love and willingness to sacrifice himself for those he loves was his redemption. Damon was driven by love in all it's forms and he found his redemption in being able to forgive Stefan for stripping him of his humanity when he forced him to turn there by denying him peace in a human death that he had chosen for himself and in his selfless love for Elena. He was the better man for her, the right choice and I loved that Stefan finally acknowledged that even if he couldn't acknowledge that to Damon directly. Bonnie Bennett was awesome. Her fighting the hell fire alone then gradually gaining strength from Enzo then Grams followed by all her ancestors gave me goosebumps and all the feels. I continued my cry-fest with a passion. Elena singling out Stefan for saving her again and thanking him via her diary was lovely but what about Bonnie? I get that she was grateful for Stefan getting her out of her funk when her parents died but it was Bonnie who ultimately saved her life this time and the town. Matt evacuating the town under the pretense of yet another gas leak was funny, as was the sardonic "again" he tacked on to end of the conversation. However the Donovans were over used again. Gah! Just why? Did anyone really care THAT much to see Peter Maxwell and Vikki Donovan hug it out? I didn't, I was just watching the clock tick down until they were off my screen. All in all it was ok. We did get a sense of how our beloved characters journey' ended and can live with that even if the execution of it all was subject to criticism.

Yes Stefan consistently did all that, that wasn't my point. He did that because Damon was his brother above all but he still hated him. He couldn't love him or accept him until he felt the loss of him. Losing Damon terrified him more than loving him ever did. Stefan may have consistently put Damon first but he always did it with a caveat of but I hate you for it. THAT was the barrier between them IMO because who does that? Yep, but he never made Damon feel worthy of it. Stefan admitted to Caroline that even he didn't feel Damon was worthy love until Elena showed him that he was. Without her around in S7 Stefan regressed back into old habits and spent the entire season blaming and telling Damon how much of an awful brother he was. He went as far as to tell Damon that he learned (via the phoenix stone) that he couldn't be happy while Damon was in his life because he is a burden or cross he has to bear (Stefan had amnesia about S6) He put all that weight on Damon's shoulders then was angry when Damon put himself in a coffin. Like I said above, Damon could never live up to Stefan's high expectations or ever changing morality because even in this season when Stefan was in full humanity-off ripper mode, Damon was not the brother he wanted because he wasn't bad enough. Sheesh!.

Great post, I agreed with most of it but I just wanted to talk more about this. This is where some fans part ways in how familial love and romantic love is viewed. Personally I liked that aspect of Damon, that he loved Elena probably more than he loved Stefan or at least equally as much as he loved Stefan. Family is family and they are yours and bonded to you by blood forever but the love of your life is a love built on something else. It's about a connection of the soul that has no roots in the familial bond but rooted in something more spiritual that lasts forever. I always root for those kind of relationships in fiction because in reality, as humans it's in our nature to search for our partner for life and in this particular show, an eternity. I realised for sure in this episode why I was never completely on the Defan train. Throughout the series Damon has never been good enough for Stefan. It never seemed to matter what Damon did, how much Damon changed etc Stefan could never acknowledge those changes or show his love. He pushed Damon away (sometimes with good reasons) time and again and lorded over him with a sanctimony he hadn't earned. Then Damon died, and suddenly Stefan had this huge epiphany that without Damon he was just lost. Stefan could not survive the loss of Damon which is why he continued to save him but he didn't like him. Stefan only truly liked Damon when he was dead or offering himself to die, those are pretty high standards that Damon had to meet to be worthy of Stefan's love and so not true in the reverse. Damon loved Stefan unconditionally and accepted him, liked him and loved him good or bad. The fact that Damon had to choose to die made him the big brother that Stefan always wanted proved to me that Damon could never live and meet those high standards. For me Stefan was the obstacle to Defan because he never deemed Damon to be worthy of love without Elena showing him the way. Elena did not have to show Damon how to love Stefan. It would have been repetitive if they had since he did actually do it a few episodes before and in S5. I didn't see it this way. I saw Stefan's death as an act of redemption for what he did to Damon back in 1864 and for bringing literal hell on earth to Mystic Falls. The theme of the season has been redemption and Stefan has been looking for that his entire existence and he finally found a way to atone and find an inner peace. Damon found his in love, forgiveness and his human life. Stefan was driven by guilt and Damon was driven by love.

I think it's a tad unprofessional to come right out the minute the show finished airing the series finale and basically blame the lead actress for them not being able to deliver the story they planned when this show was only ever planned to have a 6 season run. I know things probably changed as the years ticked on by but that isn't Nina's fault, she was entitled to leave just as the others were entitled to stay. Exactly, and people are disappointed because they (the writers) wrote themselves into a corner that ensured disappointment for some. These post-show interviews just smack of bone-throwing to the disappointed fans from all the varying factions. Applause. Well they more or less did this at the end of S5 and then erased Elenas memories in S6 yet they still did not go down the route of rekindling SE. If there ever was an opportunity to circle back to that relationship and keep the triangle in play in was then, especially since they already knew at that point that Nina was going to leave. They even had a fan following for Bamon to smooth things over should Stelena resurface but they ignored that too and went full steam DE so no, I don't think I buy some of what these interviews are trying to sell because it isn't what they put on the screen.

I have faith that Damon will get a satisfying ending.

Season 7 was extremely hard work for me and the worst season easily. Just so many things about it didn't work or contradicted canon or worse unraveled character development. Lily was the epitome of failure. The chasm between what they showed us about her and how we were meant to view her by the time she died was impossible to cross. It was clear to me that narratively speaking we were meant to sympathise with her when she died but there wasn't enough there for it to feel earned IMO. This was such a shame considering she was the mother of the lead males of the show and therefore hugely important, but aside from that scene in Damon's hellscape episode her appearance has had minimal impact going forwards. With all these people coming back from Hell, i'm surprised that she hasn't made an appearance yet, not that i'm asking show. Season 3 part 2 is far more disappointing on rewatch than I remembered. The first half seamlessly followed on with the fast pace of the previous seasons complete with the tight storytelling and then bam! it fizzled out rather quickly and the rot set in. Stefans' arc failed to make sense, the introduction of TO disrupted the momentum and shifted the focus from Stefan/Damon/Elena and the town and things began to make less and less sense. Klaus started to draw ponies and cry alot, Esther made no sense and the mythology surrounding the Gilbert ring is in some ways worse than the Siren mythology. I think I just had more tolerance back then for rubbish writing because it was still fairly new. On balance (nostalgia aside) I think season 6 was better if you ignore the twin merge weirdness and Alaric so therefore: S2, S1, S6, S3=S4, S5, S8, S7.

The threshold for meeting entrance criteria was set very low when the intern Georgie was sent there for what amounts to a stupid a accident so from that moment I just rolled my eyes when anyone thought they might bypass Hell because nope. I thought this was a very uncharacteristically slow penultimate season finale episode full of character beats that were allowed to breathe for a change. I didn't like all of them but I think it was necessary for some of these interactions to take place before the inevitable mayhem takes place in the finale. I'm not sure we needed to see the Alaric/Caroline scenes again since that relationship got closure at the end of S7 but on the flip side the Damon and Caroline scene was absolutely needed and welcomed. Caroline always breaks my heart when she cries. I thought Candice looked really beautiful throughout the entire episode. The slow-mo of her walking down the steps to Stefan was wonderfully shot. I agree with the poster above that said PW played that scene beautifully too, it was really gorgeous. Way too much Donovan drama for me which makes me worried that with all the focus on him this season, he may not make it in the end. I'm not a massive fan and I resent the amount of screen time the Donovans have eaten up this season and in this last episode in particular but still, I don't want him to die. I'm not sure I understand the mechanics of what happened with Bonnie in the final minutes. Did she die? I think maybe she did but she comes back the same way as everyone else has since Matt rang the bell of doom. What will be her fate in the finale? The gang seem to want to destroy the hell dimension meaning everyone that is a part of that dimension goes with it, maybe? Also, What was up with that scene between her and Stefan at the end? It seemed very weird/off and I don't know what I was meant to get from it. Any ideas anyone? Damon and Stefan. Since Stefan returned to human state Damons' big brother protectiveness seems to have gone into overdrive. I don't know why since Stefan seems to be pretty invincible physically and existentially. Poor Bonnie is being pushed (by the dead love of her life) to forgive the person that murdered said dead love and is being basically forced to endure watching Stefan get everything he ever wanted. Poor Bonnie. Of all the conversations that happened in this episode, I wanted the Defan one to go deeper. I want Damon to react to the fact that Stefan has the cure now. The opportunity for that came in a big way when Stefan told Damon he hoped to see Damon get his human life with Elena one day, but I guess that is the elephant in the room. As it stands, Stefan is unlikely to see that become a reality. Well folks, only one episode left and I predict mayhem. Oh, he's coming. You can count on it. That Chechovs' gun has to off sometime right? I wasn't because Bonnie has held a grudge against Damon for what felt like an eternity for all the reasons you posted above and only became friends with him in season 6 then she held a another grudge against him for leaving her when he decided to rot in a coffin for her lifetime because everyone was telling him he was a liability. He didn't kill anyone yet Bonnie shunned him obviously so until he made physical amends literally. Basically he really did have to earn her friendship again and he did. Stefan literally murdered the love of her life. I will be pissed if she doesn't hate him forever unless he earns it and saying sorry shouldn't cut it.

The only option that we know of for taking the cure now is by taking it from Stefan. If Caroline took the cure from him (if it's still in his system after bleeding out several times recently) he would age rapidly and die within days/weeks. I too would be interested to hear Carolines' perspective on becoming human since her circumstances have changed so much since the last time the cure was on the table even if we only get a hypothetical perspective.

Apologies if I came across a bit brusque, having re-read my post I see that it comes off that way when my intention was to discuss parts of your original post. I would love nothing more than to see Damon and Stefan end up in a healthier place with each other once and for all but I personally think the essence of Damon does not need Stefan in the same way Stefan needs him. Damon stated in this episode that he has accepted that he will have to face a future without Stefan in it someday and he kind of accepted that fact back in 6x22 when he chose to become human with Elena. In this episode he chose to end himself, not because he couldn't see his life beyond Stefan (he can) but rather he could not choose to see him die. He couldn't live with making a choice either way but his deal did include the caveat that Cade leaves Elena's soul unclaimed for hell forever knowing that both Stefan and himself are doomed eventually anyway. I liked that part because he knowingly separated himself from Elena for eternity because she will not end up in hell with him and Stefan when she dies. I guess that is all a moot point now since Katherine is the one ruling Hell and for sure she will want to claim Elena Gilberts soul. Anyway, I do think we will see Damon and Stefan together at the end of the show. That is how I see the trajectory of the story being told so I think you will get the closure you prefer for brothers. I was hoping for Damon to be fulfilled in a romantic way because the character has been chasing that for the entire series (and he achieved that with Elena) whereas Stefan has been chasing a different kind of peace.