miss-vanilla

See, I disagree with this. I don't like seeing Damon "grovel" to anyone, but it wouldn't be in character for him not to try to win back the love of his life. His 165 yr quest to get Katherine back is proof that this vamp is driven by love. IS is fantastic in those scenes, his genuine compassion and love comes through in his acting. I enjoy this side of Damon that he reserves for those he truly cares about, that is the real Damon Salvatore IMO. Those scenes at the party were amazing, he was Damon with the one liners "You're a day late and a dollar short honey" and "Get her a chardonnay" Elena "I hate Chardonnay" Damon "I know". He loves this woman, but he is still Damon. I love him, because, when push comes to shove, he loves his woman, above everything. The stalking thing is just ridiculous IMO, she loves him. Magic is preventing her true feelings here. She knows it, he knows it, so this is not truly stalking. He is not delusional in his beliefs that she doesn't feel the same deep down, unlike true stalking.

Add me to the list of those who are enjoying this character. His lines and actions are very Damon like.

I think she stored it in Elena's vagina.

Oh goodness, I am still loving S6. Yes it is still not in the realms of S1 and S2 but it is still really good. This Ep is probably my favorite so far. Enzo continues to surprise me, that thing with Tripp was genius, and his dialogue about the blood on his fingers preventing his touchscreen on his phone was too funny. Damon was just so awesome. I loved him in every single scene, and he was just so Damon. His interactions with Ric were totally in character, I loved his passion and charisma at the party, his letting go of Elena speech was heartfelt and drunk Damon will always have a special place in my heart. Please forgive me my fangirling moment but Damons smile during the rain kiss sequence, lit up the screen, IS has a great smile. I also love him finding Bonnie's bear, that was a beautiful scene. Now get on it Damon, and bring her home, you owe her big time. Elena crossing the MF border was also interesting- Who else thought for a split second there that the writers were going to have Damon carry her over the border for a minute?. I am so glad it didn't pan out that way. Anyway, shouldn't the compulsion be broken now? The Bonnie and Kai SL was also a highlight for me, so creepy. I am enjoying all the 1994 dimension stuff, and I am excited to see where all this Gemini coven/jo/Kai story is headed. Steroline is just not doing it for me at the moment, Stefan is clearly not interested, and he looked completely bored when Caroline went on her monologue. The chemistry is all wrong, I much prefer her chemistry with Enzo. Those scenes just crackle. No further developments with Sarah Salvatore, I guess something had to give in this Ep, but I hope that gets picked up and moved along soon before I lose interest.

Add me to the group who found Stefan's speech to Damon about their past reunions confusing, however, Damon did get to respond with his POV. Damon's version of events felt more consistent with what we were shown during the series, which I think was the point of the conversation. Stefan has misunderstood Damon and his motivations, time and time again, and Damon had too much pride to set him straight in the past. Thankfully they both seemed to be getting to a place where they could both admit what they mean to each other before Damon disappeared, so hopefully, they can start to rebuild on that once/if Damon returns. It was great to see the Camaro back. 1994 Liz to Damon- "You should meet my husband, he would get a kick out of you". Classic.

Actually, for a long time, I really enjoyed the Defan relationship, and I do want it to be ultimately be stronger than Denzo, but that is not what they are showing to me at the moment. Others may view in differently, of course.

Apologies for the FF comment, my mistake, it was another poster who said that. Stefan may be Damons' brother, and has known him forever and has the most history, but has he ever really understood him or his motivations? Enzo knew Damon for 5 yrs, day in day out. He knows what makes him tick, he understood him more in that time that Stefan ever did. Stefan has been shown to underestimate his brother time and time again, and bad mouths him often. Enzo is just looking out for Damon,and I feel it is refreshing to have a character within the show give Stefan some home truths rather than pandering to his ego and hero complex. Well lets be real here, this is a 6 season show, there had to be some explanation as to why Damon is who he is now, just like there had to be a story behind Stefans inability to control his vampirism on human blood. I am not for one second gonna sit here and pretend it was the a flawlessly told story, because it wasn't, but it is part of the story, like or not. It looks like we are going to see more of the Salvatore history soon, I wonder what the hell they will have had Damon do back in the 90s.

I will tell you who Enzo is. He is the one who was locked in a cell for 5 years with Damon, he is the one who saw how Damon hoped for Stefan to come and find and rescue him from that hell. He is the one who saw how Damon was hurt that Stefan NEVER did rescue him, He is the one who kept Damon from switching off his humanity and gave him hope and belief, he is the one who kept him from truly giving up on himself, Stefan and his humanity.. Enzo is sure as hell going to make sure that Stefan does not do that to Damon again. 5 whole years spent in captivity together, that is very hard to fathom and completely understand, but for Damon and probably more so Enzo (who had no one else), that experience bonded them like brothers and created that sense of loyalty. FFS, leaving Enzo to die is what caused the "mighty Damon Salvatore" (Lexi 1977), to finally flip that switch. As far as we know, Damon had never resorted to that, the loss of Katherine, his loneliness his pain from daily torture had not caused him to switch his humanity off before, but in order to leave Enzo to die in that fire, he had to switch it off, otherwise he could have never done it. That is how much Enzo meant to Damon at that time. Enzo and his Augustine experiences are a huge part of creating the Damon we now know, that is who Enzo is, not "Jonny come lately". Perhaps you should stop FF scenes that don't have Stefan in them. As for the rest of this Ep, I thought it was great. I loved the horror of Tripp driving the vamps to their deaths with an evil laugh and loud music- very S1 feel, I enjoyed the mystery surrounding Bonnie and Damon, and who the hell is with them- again very S1. I don't know how this is all going to play out, and I like it. Keep it up writers, I am pleasantly intrigued. Overall, I felt most people were in character, although, I have to admit, as much as I love Damon, the comedic banter scenes with Bonnie are missing the mark for me, however, the more serious moments were done very well.

Agreed, I want to see follow through with the characterization of Damon and Bonnie as they were in the S5 finale. They both accepted their fate with courage, humility and grace. As far as Damon is concerned, I want to see Damon squaring his shoulders, and getting on with trying to find out what the hell happened, and how on earth they get back home.

Yes, Damon wears his daylight ring on his left hand. It is probably a "Whoopsie" from the shoot, and this is one of Ians rings that he wears. Nothing more.

Many and most are pretty similar, i disagree either way. With regards to "It doesn't matter" what others do, or actions of others don't negate Damons or make them less bad? I don't think I said that. My point was that within the context of the show, Damon's behaviour is not that abnormal to have everyone up in arms about him killing people, especially as you say the actual "killing" isn't the issue, it is the fact that he faces no consequences. I have adressed that in my previous post. Anyway, why should Damon care about humans? Lets analyse this from his POV. He was murdered by his Father. His Father's cronies captured and trapped the "love of his life" in a tomb for 150 yrs. He was betrayed by his HUMAN family again in 1953 and sold to other Humans (Augustines) to be held captive, starved, tortured and experimented on for 5 yrs. (It kind of shed a different light on his antagonistic relationship with his HUMAN nephew Zach) Zach betrayed him by cultivating vervain in Damons house, then using it to help Stefan as good as try to kill him. He was hunted, and almost killed by the MF council. Was captured by Human Wes for Augustine the sequel, and then later injected with the ripper virus. Humans are vampires and Damon's natural enemies, except for a handful of those he came to love and trust. ETA, I don't remember Damon killing people willy nilly. Most of Damon's actions and motives in S1 were similar to Anna's, trying to get someone he loved out of the tomb.

I don't agree that most TVD vamps don't go around killing people, because they do, and/or are prepared to if it so fits there agenda. Such as Anna,, Logan, Noah, Ben, Klaus, Eljah, Kol, Katherine, Enzo and even Caroline. Granted, they all know that to continue live amongst humans undetected, they need to show restraint, in order to keep there existence secret. We have been shown via Lexie, a different type of attitude towards humans, which she taught Stefan because he cannot control himself around human blood at all, but this attitude seems to be the exception rather than the rule. We have also been shown that werewolves seem to value humans as lesser beings also and are prepared for them to be collateral damage, and anyway, this show has demonstrated time and again, that humans are not to be under estimated, and are at times more than a match for vamps etc ie The council, Augustine experiments and in TO, there are some powerful humans there too. Consequences on TVD is very hit and miss, but for most of the characters there seems to be little or none. For Damon specifically, this would depend on what fans expectations are with regards to consequences, because I think some fans would like the consequence to be losing Elena for good, and because he hasn't in the end, they are unhappy and see it as him getting away with stuff. I don't see it this way at all. Arguably Damon has done the most "bad" stuff onscreen, but he has seen consequences for some of those things. If it has not been those who were directly hurt by Damon getting revenge ie Rebekah, Mason, Bonnie, Kat, it has been the "universe" giving him a karmic punishment, ie The Sire bond, Doppel curse, Ripper serum, Augustine torture, werewolf bites/poison and ultimately he is now dead. He has got away with nothing, and he has paid his dues, unlike some of the others.

@fantique, a very interesting post with lots of food for thought. I don't agree with everything you wrote especially in the first paragraph, but I found myself nodding my head in agreement quite often in the second. Firstly as a Damon fan I will own up to liking him as he is, flaws and all. I like to see vampires, act like vampires especially in a show about vampires. I want to see the struggles they face as they contemplate eternal life, the battle within themselves of trying to deal with their humanity whilst essentially living as a beast and the conflict that causes. What we have now is a watered down version of the show, which is all about romantic drama between characters which are humanized, moralistic and occasionally remember that they are vampires. They rarely drink blood these days, they drink bourbon instead. I don't think Damons behaviour can be soley attributed to his vampirism, and the nature of vampires, but it can be attributed to his life experiences. His vampirism gave him the tools to cope with them. He switched off his humanity for 50 odd yrs, he revelled in his vampirism and is now struggling with all the stuff he kept buried. I was really enjoying seeing Damons journey, and for the most part, it has been written pretty well throughout S1- S5x10. I thought his series arc was paced well, with little set backs here and there, the development of bonds with others, whilst still having a sense of Damon still being Damon. He still behaved like a vamp, and used his vamp abilities to achieve his goals. The writing for his character this season has been beyond confusing, and frustrating. I had whiplash with the amount of retconning and WTF moments, that to me were completely OOC with his character development thus far. As much as I like Damon acting like a vamp, I did not like the Aarron Whitmore killing, or the Sarah Whitmore Killing. I have no idea how these actions were supposed to gel with what had gone before, and don't get me started on the fact that they reduced his powers of deduction so much that he didn't connect the dots re Augustine, Megan and Whitmore college. It is just not believable at this point in the story. It felt like they needed to drag out Damons redemption arc until the finale, so in the meantime they had him do really bad stuff so they could redeem him in the end. This was about twisting a character to fit the plot, rather than the other way around, which IMO, makes for far better, organic story telling. Up until the last few eps, I was really confused as to what I was supposed to think of Damon and his actions from 5x11 onwards. The dialogue was often conflicting with what was shown in the past, the numerous break ups made less and less sense, since the whole premise of the break ups surrounded issues that were dealt with and accepted in 4x23 "I make bad decisions that hurt you" "I'm wrong for you", Elena "you've been a terrible person, you made all the wrong choices" "but I am not sorry that I am in love with you". It was the same stuff, just phrased differently- terrible writing. So yeah, lots of my Damon love does come from the past, and not from what was written through most of this season, but for me, my love for Damon increased with the last few episodes, and I am excited to see what happens to him next season.

Exactly, and we have to remember that this speech was KAT, not Elena speaking to Damon. Elena is well aware of Damon's shortcomings, and she is also aware of his efforts to be the "better man", but she knows who he is, she is not blind to his faults, but she knows that the dark parts of Damon do not define him, and that ther is much more to him than that. The whole Katelena break up was the undoing of him because he thought he had lost not only her love, but her unshaking belief in him that she had always shown him, THAT was the issue. Even when he was at his worst in S1, she always understood him, even after everything he did to her and Jer, she still believed in him, and he thought all that was gone, and that he had lost HER, as a being in his life, and that if she could not forgive him then he must be the monster that the Augustine society and everyone else had told him he was for years, only this time it mattered to him, because he had let his humanity in, he had begun to feel again, he had let down his walls of trust that he had built up only to be let down again. All he left after that was his vampirism and Enzo and the revenge plan, . The wall went back up, only this time he didn't flip the switch, he felt every moment of it.

Damon wasn't killing random people before Elena, that was Stefan. Damon was a vampire that was alone, walking the earth waiting and plotting for the time to release Kat from the tomb until he was betrayed by his family and captured by the Augustine society. Nothing in the FB scenes shows that Damon was an impulsive vampire, killing for fun, until the 70s FB, when he was sans humanity, in fact we were shown that he was a vampire that was killing for food or using the snatch, eat erase technique. Until he met sage in 1912 (50 yrs post turning) he was celibate, and just about surviving in a miserable existence, during which time Stefan had rippered his way through countless randoms. The Augustine experiments and the ensuing Enzo stuff had a profound affect on Damons pysche, that was the point of that whole SL, granted, it could have been written better, but I don't think that Damon was this cynical, and mistrusting of humans prior to this. People can argue about how badly he treated Caroline and Andie, but he was treated far worse by those who were actually HUMAN. Damon did compel the hell out of Caroline and Andie, but it is what vampires do. They compel people to keep quiet and not tell their secret, and to not be afraid of them so that they can feed and blend into society, because he is a vampire! Is this morally right in the human world? no. Is he human? no. Is this a vampire show? yes! are we supposed to root for the vampires|? yes! Damon is not particularly a "nice" guy, neither is Stefan, or Caroline or Tyler or Elena, they all do questionable things. Damon is portrayed as the anti-hero, a flawed character on the path to redemption. The story is not complete yet for any of them.

Well he certainly didn't do what his Dad wanted him to do, or Stefan. He has also done plenty of things that he knew Elena "wouldn't like", so I disagree that his personality is shaped by his loved ones. Damon is his own person, and he lives by his own code for the most part. Of course, parts of his life are influenced by others, that is natural, but he is a maverick type personality.

I remember Damon clearly looking repulsed when Kat killed the human, definately not turned on. Damon fell in love with Kat when he thought she was a human, he stayed in love with her even when he knew she was a vamp. Kat being a vamp wasn't the "allure"., he loved her and didn't care what she was. Just like Elena with Stefan.

Well Elena continued a relationship with Stefan after finding out about his vampirism, and after she saw first hand what he was capable of (Amber), so she definately must have a dark side too by this logic. Elena couldn't care less about the people Stefan had hurt, she only cared about Stefan. Did Elena have the darkness in her from the get go? There is light and shade in ALL these characters, thats what make it fascinating.

I totally buy the Denzo connection, and the backstory supports this deep bond these guys have. The Augustine SL was the most traumatic thing to happen to both Damon and Enzo. They were the ONLY person in each others lives for 5 years, they are the only ones who can understand how horrific those years were, they bonded through mutual experience and came to rely on each other totally. As far as we know, neither Damon or Enzo had ever turned off their humanity, even the daily torture and misery wasn't enough reason to do that, but they loved each other, and the only way Damon could survive that fire and the pain of losing Enzo was to shut off his humanity. Again with Enzo, physical pain is bearable, but he could not stand the pain of knowing that the woman he loved, was killed by the only other person in the world that he loved. The writing has been poor at times this season, but this part of the story was well developed, credible, and brilliantly acted by Michael Malarkey and Ian Somerhalder IMO. Throughout the series, Damon has been written as being a very passionate being, and when he loves, he loves true and deep, and is very loyal. He has a capacity to care and protect those that he develops a bond with. It is no accident that he has developed many friendships along the way: Alaric, Enzo, Liz, Elena, Rose. All of theses people recognised that Damon is a worthy friend, and trust him in times of trouble. LOL, they all have him on speed dial when the shit hits the fan.

Exactly my point, his actions, good, bad, shitty or not still invoke the most passionate responses. Criticism or defence, it is still a reaction. Damon as a character is pretty divisive, his actions can be viewed several ways, and often are, that is evident in the fandom.

What is interesting about the character of Damon is that no matter the Forum, message board or fansite, he is the most discussed character by far.. Love him or hate him, he invokes the most passionate responses from fans. Credit for this must go to the writers and for IS portrayal of this complex, layered character. they are obviously doing something right. Personally, I love him, flaws and all, and without him this show would have fizzled out long ago.