S06.E20: I'd Leave My Happy Home For You

[miss-vanilla]

@Bitterswete. 

I agree that human Elena had moments of proactiveness, but for the most part she was a passive sitting duck, waiting to accept her fate. That was whole frustrating part about the S2 sacrifice thing, she just wanted to let it happen, and let some 500 year old magical elixer determine her fate,  without worrying about the werewolf or vamp that would be sacrificed along with her with zero get out clause.  In all honesty, Elena's survival was down to the Salvatores throughout her human existence,and mainly Damon at that. She had her fleeting moments of genius, but for the most part her plans were useless, or suicidal. I can barely remember a time when she didn't need to be saved by someone else.

As a vamp, she saved her brother from the hunter, killed an original vamp, fought Katherine, cured Katherine, stood up for herself and got the upperhand against Damon and Stefan for a while, saved Damon from Jessie, got away from Kai for long enough to alert Damon etc, etc. 

Even as badass vamps, Stefan, Damon, Kat and Caroline have been captured and subdued and in need of recsue at various points throughout the story. In a way, Caroline has played the role of Damsel in distress more often than Elena as a vamp.

Edited May 6, 2015 by miss-vanilla

[Bitterswete]

I agree that human Elena had moments of proactiveness, but for the most part she was a passive sitting duck, waiting to accept her fate. That was whole frustrating part about the S2 sacrifice thing, she just wanted to let it happen, and let some 500 year old magical elixer determine her fate, 

 

Being proactive is about taking action and making decisions. It's not necessarily about taking the right action or making good decisions. In season two, I didn't see Elena sitting around letting everyone else make decisions for her. She was making decisions and choices based on what she thought was best. Of course, not everyone agreed with her decisions (Damon forced his blood on her exactly for that reason), and some of her choices seemed dumb partly because the writing was kind of dumb. Still, I saw her as being proactive more often than not.

 

Also, being proactive isn't about how much people-saving a character does. Clark Kent, on Smallville, saved people all the time (being a young Superman and all, he certainly had the powers), yet still came across as one of the least proactive lead characters I can think of.

 

without worrying about the werewolf or vamp that would be sacrificed along with her with zero get out clause.

 

I don't hold that against Elena in particular because the writers didn't seem to want anyone, including the viewers, to think about that part of things all that much.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Bitterswete

[DigitalCount]

After a while I couldn't really fault Elena for her suicidal plans, because it quickly became apparent that not only could they never defeat Klaus, but her continued existence was dangerous to everyone. I know it sounds horrible, but technically it probably could have been argued to be selfish to remain alive under those circumstances. Committing suicide was the only way she could thwart the bad guy's schemes.

I would say it's more the fault of the writing that Elena got put in a situation like that. They tried guile and trickery, getting stronger allies, finding loopholes, none of it worked. Not only did it take a magical event that couldn't be repeated to kill Klaus, but his death would cause their deaths as well, and countless others. In terms of hopeless situations, this was just shy of the Visitors remake with Elizabeth Mitchell, which was probably one of the bigger missteps they made. But Elena's response was pretty much all she could do.