The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries 

"I don't want to do this, Elena. I'm not the good guy, remember? I'm the selfish one. I take what I want. I do what I want. I lie to my brother, I fall in love with his girl, I don't do the right thing.But I have to do the right thing by you." - Damon Salvatore

           This is a show that I both love and hate, and I hate to admit that I love it. I feel like me and this show are in a dysfunctional relationship where I get mad and tell it that it's over and I am never coming back, knowing damn well that I am going to come back eventually  (and by eventually, I mean next week when it comes on again). It's one of those teen shows that you are embarrassed to tell your friends that you watch because they will think you are young and dumb (mind you all my friends are 25+ so they probably think that anyway) but I just love certain aspects of the show far to much to give it up. One of those aspects is this man: 

            Damon Salvatore.... He's hott, he's a bad boy, and he's a good. He is the stereotypical thing that women love (and feminist's hate to admit that they love them too). As much as I would like to believe I am strong, independent woman who is simply too unique to be into that of thing, I have to admit, I am in love with him. His character is the funniest on the show, and most importantly, he is relatable. He is going through a constant struggle of what he wants vs. what he should do and we have all been through something like that. I am currently going through something like that and just talking about the show is making me want to go back and watch the first couple of seasons all over again. When you want someone, it's really hard to see what is right and what is wrong sometimes, especially when your love for them is incredibly strong, like his is for Elena, and sometimes it takes him a while to see what is best for her, but in the end he always does. At the end of Season 3 when there was a decision to save her or to save Matt, Stefan was the one around to try to save them. When he realized that he could only save one of them and Elena pointed to Matt, he saved Matt (that is how Elena became a vampire). Then when she wakes up, Damon tells he in no uncertain terms that he would have saved her, to hell with Matt, because she is the one that he loves and she would have been able to live the normal life that she wanted. For me, this shows that Damon loves her much more than Stefan. I am not saying that you should;t respect your partners decisions, but I am saying that there is a point when you love someone enough, that you ignore what they want in order to protect them from themselves. Damon did that and Stefan didn't. If someone I love was drowning in a car and I could only save them or the person they were pointing to, I don't care who that other person is, I am going to save my loved one and that's just me. 

           I like the way that the evolution of Damon's character is him own and not Elena's. There are far to many books, movies and TV shows that are on this kick about how you can change your man if he loves you enough and that is simply not true. You cannot make a man change for you, he has to decide to make that change on his own and the Vampire Diaries does a very good job of showing that through Damon. He has defiantly changed for Elena, but he did it his way, on his terms and on his time. He changed FOR her not BECAUSE of her (something she said or did). I feel like there are too many woman that are unable to love a man for who he is, including his flaws, but instead want to transform him into the perfect man, and there are a lot of books the perpetuate that idea which I think is wrong. And the other thing is Damon truly was a very bad person before Elena. When he was human he was kind and caring, but he had his heart ripped out by a woman, turned his humanity off and when on a killing spree, as did his brother. Neither one of them has any qualms with killing people and they do so on the regular. So damon really cleaned up his act for her, which I think is ridiculous because I find her to be a whiny, damsel in distress, wishwashy person, but that;s just me. 

           One thing I really like that they did with this show was the character development of Stefan and Damon. The truth is Stefan may have a heart of gold, but he has actually killed more people and made more mistakes than Damon has but you would never believe that when the show first comes out. Damon is set up as the bad guy and Stefan is the poor innocent vampire who only drinks animal blood, but as the season progress, you start to see a softer side to Damon and a much darker side to Stefan. Now to some of the things that I really don't like: 1) There is at least on party in each episode. I'm not sure if in the deep south this is something that happens but where I am from, here in Georgia, we simply so not throw parties every week. 2) There are a lot of stories going on at one time, and I really don't care about most of them. I have a select few characters that I really care about, but that's it. Sometimes it feels like there have been 3 episodes and nothing has happened because there are so many stories to tell at once. 3) the show is general does not seem plausible, even from a "vampires are real" standpoint. There is no way that people are not going to notice that people keep dying at these parties and they are certainly not going to continue to throw them. I find is surprising that people in Mystic Falls don't seem upset that people keep dying and the they are found with bite marks in their neck. I mean seriously? Is that not suspicious at all? I mean I get there they have bears in Virginia but come on!  So all in all, a good show if you can get past the plot holes. Not that thrilled about next season because they killed off the only two characters that I care about, although I know they will find a way to bring them back because they always do, I'm just not excited for the few episodes that I have to be without them.