The World of TVD: Still Need To Be Drunk To Understand This Story

[PinkRibbons]

I agree about whether the rings work anymore with the other side gone; that should be addressed. If they still work they should really start guilting Luke into making more of them. Looks like the guy has already been popping out daylight rings for anyone who asks.

 

As for the whereabouts of the Gilbert ring yes, it's on Matt. It won't work for Jeremy because being a Hunter made him supernatural (I think. They did spend a lot of the episode after he died that time waiting for him to wake up. Well, Elena did. Everyone else just didn't want to say that he was starting to decompose.)

[Lisin]

But weren't there two Gilbert rings at one point? One was E&J's dad's and one was Uncle/father's... Jeremy had one and Alaric had one, then when Ric died (became a vampire and then died) they gave his to Matt? Then Jeremy became a hunter and his didn't work on him anymore so what happened to it? If that's the one they gave to Matt what happened to Ric's? Arg! I am so confused. Also this probably doesn't matter at all anymore because I had forgotten the other side was destroyed so the rings probably don't even work anymore. 

[Cattitude]

Since magic doesn't work in Mystic Falls does that mean "enchanted" objects lose their magic or it is just suspended in MF? If Matt had the Gilbert ring on in MF when the magic left maybe it became disenchanted. I'd think if compulsion wears off then magic items would also loose their magic.

 

I kind of thought since overuse of the Gilbert ring(s) leads to going crazy no one wanted to use them too often and Matt had been killed at least 3-4 times already. I feel certain after "evilaric" Ric would never use one again anyway. It does beg the question though if the Gilbert rings could be made maybe there is something different yet similar that could be used for Ric and Matt that Luke could come up with.

[DigitalCount]

2 things:

1) I think it wasn't the rings themselves but just Esther being evil that made the wearers crazy.

2) Currently only one ring exists. When Alaric was made into an Originator, his ring was melted down to preserve the stake he used, so that it wouldn't be consumed in the wake of the Original's demise.

[lion10]

I'm confused about the anti-magic boundary around Mystic Falls.  If a vampire goes into Mystic Falls, they start to receive the wounds that killed them but if they get out quickly enough, they recover.  If they stay to long, the magic has been stripped away.  Hasn't the magic of vampirism already been stripped from them the moment they start becoming wounded?

[Cattitude]

2 things:

1) I think it wasn't the rings themselves but just Esther being evil that made the wearers crazy.

2) Currently only one ring exists. When Alaric was made into an Originator, his ring was melted down to preserve the stake he used, so that it wouldn't be consumed in the wake of the Original's demise.

 

Wait now I'm even more confused. I thought it was Esther's/Elena's necklace that was melted down to preserve the stake? Did I just imagine this?

[lion10]

Wait now I'm even more confused. I thought it was Esther's/Elena's necklace that was melted down to preserve the stake? Did I just imagine this?

 

No, it was definitely a ring that was melted down.  I don't remember whose though.  How long has Matt had the ring anyways?  

[DigitalCount]

No, it was definitely a ring that was melted down.  I don't remember whose though.  How long has Matt had the ring anyways?  

Should be since Jeremy's death in mid-season 4, or at least the episode afterward (I think). I know he had it by 4x21, since it was critical to the plot.

[Terrafamilia]

Back at the party at the ol' swimmin hole the girl that Caroline compelled to get ice had the compulsion negated by passing over the Mystic Falls boundary. The compulsion was still gone when she came back to the party without the ice. In a later episode Elena crosses the boundary to experience the memories that Ric had blunked out. When she came back beyond the boundary those memories were blunked out again.

???

because Ric was an Original style vampire?

because Elena is a vampire?

because the plot demanded it?

[lion10]

 

because the plot demanded it?

 

I think you have your answer.

[Smug47]

I believe there was only one Gilbert ring, the one that was uncle daddy john's and then jeremy's and now Matt's. Ric's ring was given to him by Isobel before she disappeared/got murdered.

As to the boundary, I read a fanwank that crossing the border causes you to revert back to your dying wounds but it takes a bit longer, maybe a minute or two, to lose your abilities. The vamps can become human again, but they'll be too dead to notice. The theory suggested there were layers involved in the amount of time it takes someone to change, so someone like Stefan night keep his powers longer than someone like Ivy. The same with compulsion, it might take a bit longer for Elena to remember memories lost from such deep compulsion, whereas Caroline's ice girl remembered instantly. Does that make sense?

[2Old2BAFangirl]

There were 2 Gilbert rings. 

In Season 1, Daddy Uncle John told the story of how there were 2 Gilbert rings, one belonged to him, one to his brother, Grayson.  John gave his ring to Isobel, who gave it to Alaric.  After Grayson died, John began wearing Grayson's ring.  After Katherine cut off John's fingers and Stefan told John to leave town in S2, John gave the ring he'd been wearing - Grayson's ring - to Jeremy.

When John returned in S2, he kept bugging Alaric about getting his ring back.  He threatened to tell Jenna about Alaric's secrets if Alaric didn't give him back his ring. After John gave Damon the dagger to kill Elijah, which would've killed Damon as well, Alaric gave him back the ring telling him that John needed it more than he did after what he did to Damon.

At the end of S2, when Daddy Uncle John had Bonnie do the spell that would keep Elena human and would kill him, he had Jeremy give the ring and a letter to Elena.

In S3, when Alaric went with Elena into the mountains to look for Stefan, she gave him the ring to wear for safety from Klaus and the werewolves.  Alaric kept the ring after that.

Dying a lot with the ring gave Esther the opportunity to influence the ring-wearer into killing vampires and vampire sympathizers, so the rings weren't exactly the cause of the wearers going evil, Esther was.

In 3x20, Esther takes the last white oak stake while she's inhabiting Rebekah's body.  Back in her own body, she takes Rick's ring and melts it down to preserve the white oak stake and make it indestructible.  So, after that there is only one Gilbert ring left and Jeremy has it.

After Jeremy died and couldn't be brought back by the Gilbert ring because he was a supernatural hunter, Elena took the ring off his hand and threw it to Damon.  Damon had the ring until 4x21.  He gave the ring to Matt then to turn Elena's humanity back on.  Matt's had the ring ever since.

As to whether it works anymore with the Other Side gone, no clue - I would guess it's worthless now but who knows what the plot might need.

 

Whew!  Nobody can tell that I've watched every TVD episode more than once or twice, right? ;)

[Lisin]

THANK YOU! That was exactly the info I was looking for! You rawk 2Old2BAFangirl (Also, never too old!) Thanks so much! I had completely spaced the melting down part (probably because I watched the end of S3 in a mini-marathon and sobbed a lot of the way through it because I didn't want Alaric to die!). 

[Cattitude]

I understand what Kai did but i don't get HOW he could do it. If there are no supernatural powers over the border how was Kai able to siphon the power. It would take his "powers" to get that power.

[kmariee]

 

I understand what Kai did but i don't get HOW he could do it. If there are no supernatural powers over the border how was Kai able to siphon the power. It would take his "powers" to get that power.

 

Maybe because Kai's ability to siphon magic is just a "pure" magic ability like what the Travelers have. I mean the Travelers were able to use their "pure" magic in Mystic Falls after they cast their spell right? Otherwise why would they want to hang out there?

 

I watched the scene again and Kai doesn't chant when he's absorbing the spell his hands just glow, same thing happens when he steals magic from Bonnie and Liv. So even when Kai has no magic abilities he can still use his siphoning magic ability. He then starts chanting when he's removing the chains from himself. What I don't get is because Kai absorbed traveler magic doesn't that mean he only has traveler magic? I know one of the travelers said last season they couldn't tape into "spirit" magic like regular witches they had to use "pure" magic instead. Of course I don't get how that makes sense because when Silas became a witch again wasn't he using "spirit" magic?

 

You know I didn't like the Travelers as a villain last season but this show really dropped the ball on explaining what exactly they could do as opposed to the witches we'd come to know.

[DigitalCount]

The thing is, the 1994 that Bonnie's in is not really 1994, it's a copy of the world as it was back in 1994 with no people in it. It would be nice to see Sheila again though, the fact that Bonnie's middle name is Sheila was a nice touch.

 

Also, props to TVD to giving vampire blood a bit of a limitation that makes sense. I do hope that someone suggests giving Liz an IV drip of vampire blood while operating on the tumor though, because that seems like the solution.

Edited December 13, 2014 by DigitalCount

[KatWay]

Didn't Megan have a rare heart condition and Daddy Gilbert cured her by using vampire blood?

So that's curable by vamp blood, but cancer and TB are not?

[DigitalCount]

With TB, it seems like it's a matter of degree. I'd liken it to the situation when Jeremy tried to commit suicide in S1 by taking pills and drinking Anna's blood, but he didn't do it right so the blood just healed him. Presumably if he'd taken more pills he'd have turned instead. So if I had to guess, I'd say someone tried to save human Enzo with vampire blood way back in the day, but he was too far gone for it to heal him. Incidentally, as far as I know we don't know what bloodline he's from.

 

With the cancer, those are still Liz's own cells in her brain, so vampire blood shouldn't just remove them. But if they were to remove them surgically while giving her (watered down) vampire blood for her to survive the surgery itself, it should work. Worst-case scenario, Liz turns and then she can choose to live or die on her own terms.

[KatWay]

I feel like they make it up as they go along. Megan could be cured of a heart disease, Jeremy could be cured of pill overdose, Wes could be cured of rabies and ebola, but Enzo not of TB and Liz not of cancer.

Didn't Elena also save somebody who was pretty much seconds away from croaking with vamp blood?

[ladyrott]

Elena cured the Whitmore ghost girl at the bonfire thing after Tyler ran her down with the car.  I still wasn't sure that the accident killing someone would have triggered the werewolf curse.  Technically, the car killed those people, he didn't.  Would he turn if his Halloween costume was really scary and some old guy saw it and had a heart attack?  It's indirect, but he would be responsible for the death.  I know the car thing is different than that, but I still don't see how if triggers his curse.  Ok, better scenario...what if, instead of HIS car going into the maze, he had swerved and caused someone else's car to go in to the maze and kill a bunch of people.  It's still his "fault" that people are dead....does that trigger the curse?  Unless I have forgotten about it, we really haven't heard about too many other's experiences that caused the werewolf gene to go active.  Actually, although I am sure we heard it somewhere along the way, I don't remember how Hayley's got triggered.  Anyone else retain that because now it's going to make me nuts that I cant remember.

[DigitalCount]

I don't know how Hayley got triggered, but I do remember a Gilbert-ring bearer being resurrected after being hit by a car driven by a hybrid, so it seems to be limited to things he directly controls. Essentially everything is attenuated enough in terms of death short of a witch simply stopping someone's heart with magic not to "count," if you nitpick it. Getting bitten/drained isn't the vampire killing the victim, they die from blood loss. Getting torn apart by a wolf is just succumbing to massive internal trauma and probably sepsis. I mean, John died from a fall of several stories, and the ring resurrected him because it was Damon doing it. Furthermore, Jeremy completed his hunter's mark by killing Kol and his line in a domino effect when none of the other vampires were Jeremy's direct target, but Elena needed Jeremy to be the one to strike the killing blow. It looks like if someone dies due to an event within Person A's reasonable and individual control, Person A is determined to have caused that event, whether it is killing someone to turn into a werewolf or killing someone to trigger the Gilbert-ring spell or killing a vampire to activate a mystical tattoo. I can't imagine that if an untapped werewolf and a human were responsible for turning keys on a nuclear killing device that the werewolf would turn, but I could be wrong on that.

 

So basically if we see them do a thing on camera within the camera's field of view of the death and close enough in time to the death that we can infer it was their fault, it counts. :)

Edited December 14, 2014 by DigitalCount

[PinkRibbons]

I seem to recall Hayley mentioning something to do with a friend dying on a boat accident where she was driving. Hold on, let me check a TVD wiki...

 

 

She tells him [Klaus] she never knew her real parents and that she triggered the gene by accidentally killing someone in a boating accident while she was drunk.

[lion10]

I feel like they make it up as they go along. Megan could be cured of a heart disease, Jeremy could be cured of pill overdose, Wes could be cured of rabies and ebola, but Enzo not of TB and Liz not of cancer.

Didn't Elena also save somebody who was pretty much seconds away from croaking with vamp blood?

 

I think they've been fairly consistent.  The way I understand it, vampire blood cures whatever is wounding your body or is a foreign invader.  Cancer is literally apart of you with your DNA and is full of healthy cells that won't stop dividing.  There's nothing to heal in that case.

 

 

She tells him [Klaus] she never knew her real parents and that she triggered the gene by accidentally killing someone in a boating accident while she was drunk.

 

Classy.  Just wondering, how many people from here also watch The Originals?

[KatWay]

 

I think they've been fairly consistent.  The way I understand it, vampire blood cures whatever is wounding your body or is a foreign invader.  Cancer is literally apart of you with your DNA and is full of healthy cells that won't stop dividing.  There's nothing to heal in that case.

TB is a bacteria-induced illness, so as a foreign invader should also be curable by vamp blood then. I mean, I can buy the cancer thing, but the rest seems to be a "whenever we need it" kind of deal....like vampire speed, how good vampire hearing is and the nonsensical switch.

[ladyrott]

Did Hayley tell Klaus that on TVD or the Originals (yes, I admit to watching both)?

 

I am actually GLAD that vamp blood cant cure cancer (sorry Liz).  There has to be some limits.  Maybe the reason Enzo died of consumption or TB or whatever if is was because the vamp who tried to turn him fed him the blood too late?  I mean, if he was literally on his last breath, would the blood have had time to cure him of the disease?  I don't think the length of time the blood has to be in the system has ever been addressed, has it? 

[Bort]

Maybe the reason Enzo died of consumption or TB or whatever if is was because the vamp who tried to turn him fed him the blood too late?

I'm willing to buy that. We've seen (twice now) that when Enzo crossed the border into Mystic Falls, he would immediately start coughing up A LOT of blood. Seems to be pretty advanced TB.

[PinkRibbons]

Did Hayley tell Klaus that on TVD or the Originals (yes, I admit to watching both)?

 

I am actually GLAD that vamp blood cant cure cancer (sorry Liz).  There has to be some limits.  Maybe the reason Enzo died of consumption or TB or whatever if is was because the vamp who tried to turn him fed him the blood too late?  I mean, if he was literally on his last breath, would the blood have had time to cure him of the disease?  I don't think the length of time the blood has to be in the system has ever been addressed, has it? 

 

She told him on TVD. I'm surprised there hasn't been more mention of it on The Originals. Possibly the writers are planning a Retcon and want to wait long enough for any viewers of both shows to forget what was previously said to be her trigger.

 

I remember saying the same thing about Enzo when he first said he died of "consumption". The only way that could have worked was if someone gave him blood like a second before he hemorrhaged to death, maybe?

[PTVjones]

 

I would say that she's more likely to leave the show entirely if she gets this part. I say that based on what I've seen with other young TV actors who go into big movies -- they tend to want the movie career more than TV. If she chooses to stay on the show they'll have to reduce Bonnie's role yet again to accomodate her shooting schedule, at least on X-Men. (That is to say, if they film at the same time.)

 

Well it would all definitely depend on the shooting schedule and what she's obligated to do for TVD based on contracts. Heck, Will Smith filmed Independence day while stile filming Fresh Prince. 

 

This would arguably make Kat the most successful actor on the show, no thanks to Julie Plec and keeping her completely separated from the rest of the cast for the entirety of the season. If the show was smart, they would give her a more substantial role on the show. 

[GirlyGeek]

I asked this on the episode thread, but might be more appropriate here.  I also didn't quite get the Traveler's or their whole gig, but they did use the Doppleganger's blood for their spells/for power.  Right?

 

So, could Kai have stolen Elena for that purpose?  After soaking up the Traveler's magic, he realizes there's a never ending source of power in Elena's blood?

Or did that get rendered useless/ used up sometime in S5 and I just missed it?  Did it have to be BOTH dopplegangers together?
Ugh, wish I could remember, but I'm just happy the Travelers are gone  ;)

[lion10]

The Prison World could be a real moneymaker for the Gemini coven.  Map out where major deposits of resources were discovered, travel to a prison world that exists before they were discovered, mine the resources, avoid being killed the prisoner of the prison world, travel back, and you're rich!

[FierceAfroChick]

So I've been lurking and trying to get a feel for this show after catching a few eps while hanging with a friendgirl.  And even though it may be a dumb question, I wanted to know....do any of these characters besides the humans work?  I'm not being facetious, I'm serious.  What do Damon and Stefan do for money?  Where does Bonnie live?

 

Still debating whether or not to marathon the show.  Some of the fan fic is stellar though.

[Jads]

So I've been lurking and trying to get a feel for this show after catching a few eps while hanging with a friendgirl. And even though it may be a dumb question, I wanted to know....do any of these characters besides the humans work? I'm not being facetious, I'm serious. What do Damon and Stefan do for money? Where does Bonnie live?

Still debating whether or not to marathon the show. Some of the fan fic is stellar though.

It's not really acknowledged how the Salvatores make their money. They were plantation owners in the 1840s and also owned saw mills at some point. Their house was previously used as a boarding house. My guess is that a good deal of compulsion has been used in the past to increase their income.

Bonnie had a dead dad and a vampire mum who doesn't live in Mystic Falls. I have no idea where she lives. We did see her house in S4 I think.

As to whether you binge watch, I did and really enjoyed the first 3 seasons. The quality had dropped but I still watch but tend to suspend my disbelief a lot. Give it a go!

[Carrie Ann]

It looked to me like Bonnie was living at the Whitmore dorms again, with Caroline and Elena, maybe? There was an episode where Damon visited her and she was doing something in front of a fireplace. I think that was the Whitmore dorms, or at any rate I have no idea where else it would be.

 

Matt works at the Grill, and he and Tyler are apparently in the police academy or something like that. But otherwise...all the others either have inherited money or are in school or just compel people to get what they want.

 

And binge-watching is definitely the way to go. Like Jads said, the first three seasons are really stellar, and the next two may not feel so awful if you watch it all quickly, and this season was really good for awhile there but is settling back into something...not great.

[Bort]

Still debating whether or not to marathon the show. Some of the fan fic is stellar though.

I recommend watching. Little warning: the first few episodes are kind of boring. But once the show gets its bearings, it hits the ground running and doesn't stop. Through season 3, anyway. After that, it loses its footing a bit. Still watchable, though, with varying mileage.

[ByTor]

The Ascendant always comes in pairs - the one in our 'real world' and its copy in the Prison World it locks. Whenever they travel, the Ascendant is left behind. When Damon left 1994, it was left behind (in pieces) and was pieced together. When Kai left, it was left behind for Bonnie to find and use. The 1903 Ascendant was also left behind for Kai to presumably use. And when they left the real world for 1903, you can actually see that the Ascendant is left behind in the real world and they start looking for the 1903 version.

Now I'm confused. If it is true that half the Ascendant "pair" was sitting in the 2003 world, then why was Bonnie being threatened to give the Ascendant back in the present? Am I mixing something up (very likely)?

[ladyrott]

I am still trying to figure out how Bonnie got from place to place.  Wasn't a plane required for at least one of those trips?  Did she just hop in a plane and hope to God she could figure out how to land it? 

[ByTor]

Thanks very much doram, your explanation made sense.  Well..it made sense in its special Vampire Diaries way :)

[lion10]

Why do they need Bennett blood specifically. The Bennett family is a descendant of Qetsiyah but she lived 2000 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of witches should be her descendants by now.

[Jads]

I thought it was because it was a Bennett spell so they probably wanted to ensure that it wasn't being used willy nilly and having their blood as 1/3 of the ingredients allowed them to exercise control over who used it. Kind if like a patent.

[Cattitude]

Okay new thing that bugged:

 

When we learned about Lily from Kai last season he said the whole reason she was in the prison world was b/c she was a huge ripper way worse than Stefan. Then Lily tells Stefan the heretics are her "family" b/c they were the only ones to help her get over her ripper ways.

 

NOW we find that the heretics were with Lily almost 10 yrs BEFORE they got turned and seemed to want to be with Lily who per Kai was an uncontrolled evil ripper. Why would A) these powerless witches want to be with her and B) Lily could be around essentially mortals and not want to ripper them but go tearing through towns of people. It just seemed like vampire Lily and the witches were all buds just palling around together until Valerie "accidently" (RME) turned on their way to Europe and once Lily got her witchpires THEN she became an evil ripper so bad the Gemini had to build a prison world for her.......THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

 

Plec can't make Lily good and an evil ripper who needed a prison world at the same time.

[DigitalCount]

I think the theory that they're sired to her makes an interesting amount of sense. It fits with what we know about siring (it comes from feelings of love and/or obligation, but sometimes leads to cognitive dissonance when they're legitimately upset at her) and what we've seen about their interactions. Have any of them ever refused something she told them to do directly? Perhaps she accepted them and they helped her tone down her cravings (by siphoning her a tiny bit)? And then as a result, they felt so indebted to her that when they turned they became bonded?

[miss-vanilla]

I agree, especially since there is a precedence with Klaus and his hybrids in which all of them became sired was turned.

The heretics are also hybrids, so voila. 

They are certainly acting like they are sired regardless, since they obviously are not happy with the rules and some of the things they are being asked to do, but inexplicably obey anyway.

[Jads]

I agree, especially since there is a precedence with Klaus and his hybrids in which all of them became sired was turned.

The heretics are also hybrids, so voila.

They are certainly acting like they are sired regardless, since they obviously are not happy with the rules and some of the things they are being asked to do, but inexplicably obey anyway.

This makes so much sense especially the hybrid aspect. Don't get me wrong, I hated the sire bond sl first time around but it didn't need to be so gross.

[amensisterfriend]

To share a few possibly "Unpopular opinions;"

 

1) I never liked Elena with either Stefan OR Damon. I find Damon much more entertaining when interacting with almost anyone else, find Elena much more likable when interacting with almost anyone else, and can't bring myself to like Stefan much either way even though he's the 'type' I usually like a lot. (The acting just doesn't work for me somehow---the character comes off to me as just flat, perpetually unhappy and a little sulky rather than a brooding guy with emotional and intellectual depth) 

 

2) I never bought any of these people as high school students. They've all looked, acted and lived like twenty-somethings to me from the beginning. Even the human characters :) 

 

3) I couldn't stand Tyler for some reason, even when he supposedly changed for the better. I thought the actor was pretty terrible and just didn't find anything about him interesting and appealing. 

 

4) I still have no idea which personality traits Bonnie is supposed to have other than, I guess, snarky but helpful when it comes down to it...? Like is she shy or outgoing, does she tend to follow her head or her heart, what are her interests outside of being a witch, what are her salient strengths and flaws...? (Not that Elena had a well-defined personality either!) But somehow I've grown to like Bonnie and her dynamic with Damon anyway, in part because I've had fun filling in the blanks on Bonnie along the way. 

 

5) Matt is so deadly dull and tiresome to me. I wish he had left the show several seasons ago. 

 

6) I actually really liked last season (S6) and thought it was a big improvement over S4 and S5 and maybe even better than parts of S1. 

 

7) Stefan/Caroline might be the most boring relationship I've seen on this show, and that's really saying something!

 

8) Parts of this show are so much better than it has any right to be! Objectively it's kind of a mess, and I personally hate love triangles (and am way too old for the show's target demographic), so I shouldn't like this show, but parts of the plots, dialogue etc.---especially of earlier seasons---just reel me in!  

Edited March 31, 2016 by saoirse

[miss-vanilla]

25 minutes ago, doram said:

Firstly, I fail to see how anything Stefan did to the doctor is more diabolical than what Damon did to Caroline in season 1

I do since we are in season 8 now and as far as Stefan's character development goes regarding the "ripper" and his bloodlust issues, we have not moved on one single inch since we saw him in S1. Damon still has issues, but he is so far removed from the character he was in S1/S2.  The whole Damon/Stefan scenes in this episode just hung a huge lampshade on this. 

 

41 minutes ago, doram said:

If anything Enzo and Damon under the siren's spell showed the vast difference between Damon and most of the other characters on the show. Enzo struggled in his own way. Tried to hold onto his will, did not switch off his humanity until he was forced to do so, left clues for the others to find him. He fought all the way. He shielded Bonnie. He tried to protect Sarah Salvatore - while Damon still needed to be talked down from murdering a girl whose parents's deaths he was responsible for. 

I agree that the differences between "Sirened" Enzo and Damon were highlighted but I disagree that Damon did not fight. Despite switching off his humanity, we were explicitly shown that he was fighting. We were also shown/told why Damon made the decision to turn it off and that was to protect the people he cared about from the Siren who he knew could get inside his head. We were also told and shown that Enzo's decision to keep his humanity on was to the detriment of the people cared about,  as was the leaving clues. Enzo's 2% of humanity was the very reason Bonnie, Stefan and Sarah Salvatore ended up in danger. Sarah Neslon/Salvatore is dead because he gave her up to Sybil (In trying to protect Bonnie). Damon resisted the impulse to kill her which then led to Sybil recognising that Damon was fighting her on some level so she then changed all his memories to ensure his loyalty to her, leaving Damon with nothing at all to keep him tethered. it was only after Sybil did this did we see Damon lose the battle, but as we see now the emergence of his feelings via the necklace are encouraging Damon to fight again even if he does not understand why. I like this development because Damon has been slowly but surely isolated from all of his friends, they hate him, they tried to kill him, they won't support him because they don't understand what happened to him. From their POV they see Enzo fight and win and Damon just give in but they don't know the whole story and that is intentional writing. Damon has to do this on his own, for himself because he wants to without Elena telling him to be better because he absolutely can and has done so in the past. He just needs to prove that to himself so he will finally believe that he has actually changed without him realising it.

Stefan has Caroline, yet his love for her is not enough to keep him from spiralling into ripperdom and overcoming his bloodlust, (neither was his love for Elena for that matter).  He hasn't even been mind controlled into killing, it's just part of the deal like it was with the Klaus thing.....Damon absolutely was under the control of Sybil when he killed Tyler and the other humans and he still is. Sybil still has a psychic link to Damon AND to Enzo, it isn't over yet and won't be until she is dead dead. Stefans final arc of the series will be him finally addressing his issues with bloodlust and overcoming them one and for all and I think Katherine might be the key to that since she was the only one who managed to help him successfully in S5. Stefan is king of denial and I truly believe he has buried his love for her so deep that it has royally screwed him over, but that is just my speculation.

 

I'm interested in seeing how the gang treat Stefan when he comes face to face with them. Will they want to kill him or put him down like they did with Damon? After all Damon's reasons for ending up in this mess are equally as noble as Stefans. Will they lament the fact that he hasn't fought harder for his humanity? for giving in to his bloodlust and depravity? we will see next episode I think.

3 hours ago, doram said:

That's the Watsonian reason. The Doylian explanation is that the show cannot distinguish between humanity-on and off Damon because it is literally impossible to do so. He lacks layers as a character. There is no difference between Damon under siren control or Damon who is not. (It's also why the whole memory loss, Sybil-mind-control is so confusing to the audience). 

I don't think that's true at all. Like I said earlier, there are elements of Damon that are present whether or not his humanity is on or off, just like there were elements of Caroline and Stefan that were the same when they were off because they are still that person.  All of these vampires kill people both ways and none of them would actively kill their friends in there humanity ON state but they will actively kill anyone to save one of their own, Damon is no different anymore.

It's been confusing to the audience because the writing has been muddled and inconsistent at times but ultimately what we have seen is a Damon struggling to repress his humanity. His humanity has been attempting to shine through several times this season and we have seen that but I think what has been overlooked by the audience (and the characters in the show) is just how powerful and insidious the Sirens' mind control is.  The difference with Damon under mind control or not is defined in the scenes with Tyler. He did not want to kill Tyler, he was not going to kill Tyler but he had to because of the Siren song. Damon does actually care about people though he pretends he doesn't, we as the audience have been privy to those moments that show that despite appearances Damon has the capacity to care very much and he hides that  vulnerability behind layers of bravado, snark, disdain, meaness etc etc but it isn't real. Those attributes are there when he is without his humanity because they are a part of Damon, however the caring and vulnerabilty is gone from his eyes. 

 

I don't expect agreement because we see this show very differently and at the end of the day, this show is up to subjective interpretation of what is shown onscreen and the bias that influences that interpretation and we ALL have an element of bias in our opinions, even you Doram, it's human nature.

[Katsullivan]

4 hours ago, doram said:

That's the Watsonian reason. The Doylian explanation is that the show cannot distinguish between humanity-on and off Damon because they wrote him as a character without layers. There is no difference between Damon under siren control or Damon who is not. (It's also why the whole memory loss, Sybil-mind-control is so confusing to the audience). The rest of the story and characters is warped to accommodate Damon through his most ludicrous actions (Karma Houdini below).

 

22 hours ago, doram said:

If you truly regarded as Damon were an evil person who revelled in his evil, shouldn't your response to the Andi situation have been: "he's an evil vampire; it's just more convenient for him to rape and bite the same person, you know." and instead of the convoluted victim-blaming ("she asked for it") defence?

 I think these two statements summarise in a nutshell what has been wrong with this story since Kevin left in s2.  That second question could be addressed to the writers without any alteration. 

[Cattitude]

5 hours ago, doram said:

Stefan's character has layers. And "probably" isn't the unbiased answer to that. Even in our own non-supernatural society, we have people struggling against all manner of demons - alcoholism, bad childhoods, drug use, etc - and we commend them when they struggle not to inflict that side of their personality on others. Give me an ex-junkie trying to be better any day over your every-day / all-day unrepentant sexual harraser who revels in his grossness and doesn't expect anyone to like him for it.

 

If you want to keep bringing bias into this then you really need to acknowledge your own. Stefan can't ever BE an ex-junkie b/c Vampires have to have blood. If you want to talk about the show glossing over Damon, same can be said for using blood bags as a substitute for feeding from the vein an acceptable alternative(you do realize taking blood bags leads to deaths of people who needed that blood). Damon taught himself to snatch eat erase to have his blood and leave more people alive. Damon's whole issue with Stefan is he needs blood, craves blood, has to live on blood and not accepting and getting a handle on this always leads to falling off the wagon, and off the wagon it is well established leads Stefan to kill many more innocent people and children than Damon could ever kill. And to be clear Stefan many times has been off the wagon but humanity on and been 10X more viscous than Damon which miss vanilla was discussing.

You obviously have a big issue with sexual assault which IRL is a terrible thing but no worse than murder so on a fictional show I don't see one as worse than the other. If Stefan TRULY hates killing people then he would have offed himself long ago rather than keep falling off the wagon over and over. In the end just as selfish as Damon he chooses to keeping falling off the wagon and being a murdering vampire. Martyrs are very self centered b/c they mistakenly believe they are superior to others and their way is the only way when in fact that simply isn't true.

You have a bias towards Stefan and that's okay but doesn't make him better than his brother b/c there is no such thing as a "good" vampire they all do evil in their own ways.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Cattitude

[Katsullivan]

Just now, doram said:

That's what I mean when I say the story protects Damon & he has no layers as a consequence of that. It's the ultimate Marty Sue fanfiction. 

LOL! It's extremely funny that you should say that because there was actually an article written about this in season 3 - which was, coincidentally when Plec took over the show from Kevin.

Vampire Diaries is turning into Damon fanfic, as written by Damon

If you don't have the time to read the entire article:

Quote

 

This show is turning into an extended meditation on how sexy Damon is, how he's always right about human (and vampire) nature, and how everybody should just worship his awesome bod.

...

So basically, this episode was all about Damon's notion that vampires can't control who they are — because they're predators who feed on human blood, and that's just the way it is. Including Stefan. Never mind that whole storyline that we spent ages on last year...

And the whole episode sort of bears Damon out. Stefan really struggles with his bloodlust, bingeing on blood and going a bit bonkers, but then he's able to rein himself in using the Damon Method when he comes across an injured Meredith Fell at the end of the episode. Meanwhile, Stefan's emerging self-control is contrasted with Abby Bennett, Bonnie's mom, who is not only a bad mother but a bad vampire — the moment she starts hugging her son, you know she's going to lose control and bite him. Which is, sure enough, exactly what happens. If only Damon were there to teach Abby the Damon Method!

 

[Aeryn13]

Noone on this show is actually likeable IMO. For their standards, Matt is a half-decent person who genuinely cares for people and often puts himself on the line for others and yet the character bores me to tears. Pretty much always has. Until this Season and Siren-zombified-Damon for the first couple of episodes - now that was truly a different Damon IMO then both humanity on or off, he was miles apart from the charisma of either version - the character never bored me. To me, he actually has plenty of layers and he does engage me. Stefan only started to in Season 3 once they eased up a bit on the perpetual saintly martyr shtick.

I think this episode highlighted something about both brother`s humanity off-state that has been consistent for me. They should feel nothing, show tells me a off-switched vampire feels nothing but when Damon has his humanity off, he is still crazy for cocoa puffs about his current lady love. He was no less obsessed with Katherine back in the day, no matter what his emotional state was, and now his Elena-feelings keeps breaking through via the necklace.  

Meanwhile, you can off-switch and ripper-up Stefan till kingdom come and his love for Damon will still be present. We saw it when they first turned, we saw it in Season 3 and I think we saw it here. Stefan wants his brother to be fully onboard, even if he is currently sailing on the good ship "Evildom". 

[miss-vanilla]

47 minutes ago, doram said:

Well, this is a tricky question because for us to even argue which is worse --- won't at least both need to have happened and to have been acknowledged to have happened? By your own argument, Andi was never sexually assaulted - she consented to be compelled with everything that entailed. In the context of the show, whatever happened to Andi or Caroline was never defined as a crime. While in this fictional show, we have several reactions to dead bodies and victims, there were no reactions or even acknowledgements that Damon raped Caroline or Andi. 

Oh C'mon this is not a fair comment due it's  catch 22 nature.  Discussion does not imply acknowledgement of something that happened in the show or not.  This particular argument between fans has been done ad nauseum and never ends well due to the highly evocative nature of the subject matter. The show runner Julie Plec has stated that those scenes were never meant to be interpreted that way, hence why there is never any reference to it in the show, so for me it is not canon therefore it is not part of Damon's characterisation, just as it wasn't part of Katherines'or Stefans etc. Further discussion is useless because it isn't part of the story and unless the writers make it so it's pointless.

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

The question isn't about which or whose crime is more heinous. The question is: does this action have any consequences?

There are consquences for both brothers, but if consequences were meted out as they should have been, Stefan should have been killed the minute he started slaying the Founding families and the innocent townsfolk.

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

Actually, I started disliking Stefan intensely for several reasons, starting with when he thought becoming ripper was worth saving Damon's life

Well your bias is in your hatred for Damon, regardless, it is still bias.

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

The difference is that Stefan's actions have consequences - they mean something, they cost him something, they move the story forward.

Stefan lost Elena, other than that he has lost nothing permanently and even she has been replaced as his EPIC love by Val and now Caroline. He will get his happy ending complete with little children and his one true love- Damon. Considering what he has done, his karmic consequences have been minimal and as for driving the story forward I don't agree. Stefans first on screen ripper spree in S3 did nothing to further his development. We ended the season very much in the same place we were right before he left town despite every thing that happened. It's the consequences of Damon's actions that have driven most of the story good and bad.

The consequences are there but are they lasting? nope, but that is par for the course in this show, like it or lump it but it's pretty much the same for all the main characters IMO.

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

Damon doesn't. There are no stakes to watching Damon because you know that whatever he does, it won't make any difference in the long run to his story

How is this different to watching Stefan or any of the leads? 

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

That's what I mean when I say the story protects Damon & he has no layers as a consequence of that. It's the ultimate Marty Sue fanfiction

I think your obsession with hating Damon clouds your ability to see that this story ultimately protects all of the mains because the story is about them and this town called Mystic Falls. We are meant to root for them to come out of it all and overcome the their demons metaphorically (humans) and literally (vampires). 

 

1 hour ago, Aeryn13 said:

I think this episode highlighted something about both brother`s humanity off-state that has been consistent for me. They should feel nothing, show tells me a off-switched vampire feels nothing but when Damon has his humanity off, he is still crazy for cocoa puffs about his current lady love. He was no less obsessed with Katherine back in the day, no matter what his emotional state was, and now his Elena-feelings keeps breaking through via the necklace.  

Meanwhile, you can off-switch and ripper-up Stefan till kingdom come and his love for Damon will still be present. We saw it when they first turned, we saw it in Season 3 and I think we saw it here. Stefan wants his brother to be fully onboard, even if he is currently sailing on the good ship

This.

1 hour ago, Aeryn13 said:

Until this Season and Siren-zombified-Damon for the first couple of episodes - now that was truly a different Damon IMO then both humanity on or off, he was miles apart from the charisma of either version - the character never bored me. To me, he actually has plenty of layers and he does engage me.

And This. For the first time ever watching this show, I had no idea who this person wearing Damons face and leather jacket was.