You know I realized the reason why I really don’t like Klaroline us not really due to the pairing itself. I have no moral qualms with the abuse of it because it’s literally impossible with any TVD ship and I really don’t like the idea of quantifying abuse. If I hate one ship due to abuse I have to hate them all including my favorite ship, Bonkai, because abuse is abuse, plain and simple it’s terrible in every form and saying one is worse than the other does nothing more than trivialize serious matters because it wasn’t as bad. It’s unfortunate that certain things have to be overlooked, but I do feel that it works better in Kai and Klaus’ case due to their roles as antagonists however I still don’t consider them excuses.
The reason I don’t like Klaroline is because I now can’t help but think about the role they play in the oppression of Tyler and Bonnie. I used to like Klaroline, hell I even used to like Delena (but that got ruined for a whole slew of other reasons that didn’t even require deeper thought) because I used to be a very casual viewer of TVD, it wasn’t really a show I took that seriously so I pretty much took what ever the spoon fed me until season 5 when as a casual viewer I couldn’t even stomach it and had to stop watching. To this day I still haven’t seen the entirety of that season. But back to my point, now I really don’t like Klaroline because I can’t separate the reason why it’s there to begin with and the characters it screwed over with it’s existence.
You know I realized the reason why I really don’t like Klaroline us not really due to the pairing itself. I have no moral qualms with the abuse of it because it’s literally impossible with any TVD ship and I really don’t like the idea of quantifying abuse. If I hate one ship due to abuse I have to hate them all including my favorite ship, Bonkai, because abuse is abuse, plain and simple it’s terrible in every form and saying one is worse than the other does nothing more than trivialize serious matters because it wasn’t as bad. It’s unfortunate that certain things have to be overlooked, but I do feel that it works better in Kai and Klaus’ case due to their roles as antagonists however I still don’t consider them excuses.
The reason I don’t like Klaroline is because I now can’t help but think about the role they play in the oppression of Tyler and Bonnie. I used to like Klaroline, hell I even used to like Delena (but that got ruined for a whole slew of other reasons that didn’t even require deeper thought) because I used to be a very casual viewer of TVD, it wasn’t really a show I took that seriously so I pretty much took what ever the spoon fed me until season 5 when as a casual viewer I couldn’t even stomach it and had to stop watching. To this day I still haven’t seen the entirety of that season. But back to my point, now I really don’t like Klaroline because I can’t separate the reason why it’s there to begin with and the characters it screwed over with it’s existence.
We all know how it oppressed Tyler, it’s literally the reason he’s shoved off screen in seasons 3 and 4. It’s not a coincidence that everytime Tyler had to go off Caroline’s scenes with Klaus increased and it got even worse when he didn’t even have to be away for that to happen, his screen time just gets cut in favor of them. And then there’s how Klaus treated him, now I wouldn’t have much of problem with it as Klaus is/was the antagonist if it wasn’t trivialized by the entire show and then just used as way to shove him off screen.
One of the things that comes to mind is
the Klaroline sex scene which I was not a fan of the because a) it literally came off as a scene in a porn with the flimsy reason behind it, and b) the betrayal of Tyler and how it played in the further diminution his character. I wouldn’t call it cheating, but sleeping with the guy who enslaved your childhood friend, killed his pack and his mother is just trivializing what he went through, but considering the standards Delena set for the show it’s not surprising. But think about the scene when she finally tells him, he gets punched in the face by Stefan and ends up the “bad guy” in the situation for simply getting angry. He wasn’t even going to hurt anyone, there’s a reason why he told Caroline to leave, but it’s not like it mattered because Caroline still ends up being “innocent” in the whole thing. It sickens me the fandom’s reaction to this and pretty much his entire story line with Klaus. Look at some of these comments.
He’s even villainized when it comes to Hayley, a character who got 12 people killed for information she could have gotten if she just hired a PI, but that doesn’t matter because she perfect.
People actively ignore his character development in order for Klaus, Caroline, and even Hayley to seem better. And what makes it worse is that they actively ignore the things those characters have done as well because if they didn’t they’d have to realize that Tyler was a much better person than all if them. They literally protect white people at all costs and needed to the POC to be the bad guy in order to do so.
But, again, none of that’s really news since that’s how this fandom works in general. You have to ignore the bad things they do and make excuses instead of owning up to them.
Do I think Tyler is perfect? No, but he’s literally the only character to actually redeem himself. You never see him pull the same shit that he did in season 1. He made it his goal to change and not be so angry all the time and actually succeeded, and on his own. Caroline had her part, but his attitude change didn’t rely on her, he made the effort himself which is something sorely missing from redemption arcs on this show.
And then after he ends his relationship with Caroline, something the show pretty much had been incrementally doing to make room for KC, his character ends up off in the limbo where characters the writers no longer care about are held. It’s as though if he isn’t connected to Caroline or Klaus, his character has no value which is one of the biggest injustices on the show, but not surprising because if you’re a POC who’s not serving someone your time on the show expires real quick unless they can find a way to put you back in your place.
Then there’s it’s role in further oppressing Bonnie which I feel is lesser known because a) there are a lot more pressing issues when it comes to Bonnie which most of us are very aware of, b) KC became huge in the fandom (or more so loud) to the point that it kind of buries the initial reactions of the audience at the time, and c) Kennett takes the spotlight with the controversy that surrounded it due to Plec’s racist tweet about how Kennett when she was asked about why Bonnie was being paired with her stepbrother.
Now this didn’t really come to my attention until after I read The Problematic Treatment of People of Color on The Vampire Diaries, which if you haven’t read it I suggest you do because it’s a really great resource when describing how Bonnie’s treatment is problematic. It could use a bit of an update to include seasons 7 and 8, but that wouldn’t change much because not a damn thing changed in those seasons other than they got more sneaky about her treatment as opposed the overt nature in the previous seasons. Anyway this excerpt pretty much the seed that made me further inspect KC.
My first thought when reading that is that “this makes so much sense” because when you look at the first KC scene on Caroline’s birthday and put it in context with the entire episode, it comes completely out of thin air. You get so caught up in the chemistry between the actors and the sweetness of it that you don’t think about how random it is, but that’s also partially due to that fact that around this time things had gotten pretty random and convoluted. However if they didn’t have chemistry I probably would have had the same exact reaction to them as I did Benzo when Enzo saves Bonnie from the armory: “sweet, but random.” And then I thought about all KC’s scenes in general and a lot of them are forced, in that they had to make up unnecessary reasons for them to be in scenes together. They literally had to bend the plot of the show in order to put them together. That’s what made me realize that the ship is all chemistry, but no real substance. They were put together because Bonnie couldn’t have a love interest that would threaten the other white girls’ status in the hierarchy of character’s value on the show. Bonnie always needed to be lower than Elena and Caroline. She needed to be the ugly friend, and the show put a lot of time and effort making sure that was the status quo, so far that the actively stifled their show in order to do so.
Think about season 3, who makes more sense as his love interest? Bonnie who he had several direct story lines, or Caroline who he’s only connected with through Tyler? Now I’m not saying there’s nothing there between them but in the interest of better ties and how the plot conform to a ship there’s a hell of lot less work needed for Klonnie to makes sense than KC and IMHO would have been a more interesting route and if you look at some of the comments back when this season first aired that was something some people noticed.
Not only that but both Kat and Joseph actively shipped it to the point of talking to the writers and it was promptly shut down which isn’t surprising because, well it’s Bonnie, we all know the racial bias when it comes to her. Apparently they even cut some scenes that were supposed to be with them in the witch house that would have actively driven the ship and again been a better story line due to the Bennett’s direct involvement with the Mikaelson’s that season (direct involvement that ends up pushed to the side in favor of Elena and Caroline i.e the Mikaelson Ball).
And what makes it worse is that that wasn’t even the original story line for that season. Kevin Williamson before he let go of control talked about a Stefan/Klaus/Bonnie story line for that season, but I’m guessing that got scrapped along with the scenes they were supposed to have. And trust me I would have been way more willing to watch that than more old S/E/D shit and definitely more than Klaus/Caroline/Tyler shit which like I said they actively stifled their show in order to exclude Bonnie.
Now none of this is really a new phenomenon when it comes to Bonnie and ships especially at this juncture. This technically starts in season 1 when again they pair a potential love interest for Bonnie with Caroline. I’ve talked about it before on how random it is that Damon goes after Caroline with his main goal in the beginning of the season and how counter-intuitive it was. He should have been pursuing Bonnie at the very least and at the most keeping his promise if he wanted to get the tomb open. There’s a reason why that ends up a convenient favor Elena has to ask Bonnie and its because that whatever diabolical plan he had wasn’t planned well. Damon just did random shit for no reason. The only thing that made any sense is his story line with Vicki and that’s saying a lot since he kills her simply because he was bored. Anyways in the book that the loosely base he show on, the first person Damon kisses and uses as an in to to the MFG is Bonnie, but that gets scrapped in favor of Caroline and the disgusting story line that will forever mar the show.
Then there’s Tyler who they scrapped a story line between him and Bonnie in favor of Caroline. They didn’t want to rip off Buffy (but had no problem doing it with Liv in S6). Now that one doesn’t grate me as much since Caroline/Tyler is a pairing in the book but if they’re going to go out of their way to include the book romance for supporting characters that should have applied to Bonnie a well. In fact when it comes to things from the book that they use in the show it seems Bonnie is the only exception to the rule because they even go so far as to include Meredith/Alaric, a character who was previously scrapped from the show.
However I guess what I’m getting at, is that though this isn’t new and continues well after season 3, KC was just my limit with it. The ship was conceived out of thin air with the specific and more blatant purpose of not pairing Bonnie with a desirable character to further oppress her. The blatantness of it actually grates me more than when Plec did this with Bamon because while I hate Delena with a burning passion it didn’t come out of thin air. Delena is a pairing that’s briefly explored in the books and if you go by the original author’s endgame is something that’s supposed to end, but the show never took that queue, but either way they had a lot more cause denying them than they did Klonnie and I can’t really separate that from KC.
I see two characters who have chemistry and nothing else because it was already a Hail Mary putting them together to begin with that only worked out because of that chemistry. If they didn’t they would have gone over as well as Bonenzo did which was a ship made to placate threatened Delena fans, the only difference here is that it threatened Plec’s vision of Bonnie and where she stands in the hierarchy of female characters.
When I reflect on Damon’s first appearance in season 1 and what he did to Caroline I always get confused as to why he did that to Caroline. It’s not so much I don’t understand why he would rape someone or even Caroline, he’s a predator. He explains exactly why he picks her in 4×04. It’s just that it doesn’t match up with he motives for coming to Mystic Falls.
He’s there for the comet to get Katherine out of the tomb. For such he needs Bonnie, but he doesn’t even approach her until Caroline gives her Emily’s talisman, something he didn’t plan for. He makes it clear that he’s using Caroline to accomplish his goal, but she’s literally useless to him. She’s not a Bennett witch, she’s barely friends with Elena, and while she is closer to Bonnie that friendship isn’t that strong either, at least for anything he planned for.
So again why Caroline? As much as I hate the idea, Bonnie should have been his target. Granted she’s a hell of a lot harder to manipulate, but manipulating Caroline wasn’t getting him anywhere and nor was it ever going to. Damon is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. It’s part of what makes everything he does so awful because he’s fully aware of exactly what he’s doing.
And if we want to delve deeper why didn’t he actually keep his end of the bargin with Emily knowing he’d need one of her descendents one day? It’s a lot easier to get something from someone when you’ve built a rapport with them and that’s actually something he knows. It’s never really been a new concept that his actions don’t match his motives, but you’d think they would try to have some consistency in the first season.
So honestly, what the fuck was Damon doing in season 1? Now keep in mind this is one of the better seasons, the one ran by Plec and Williamson, and it’s things like this that make me wonder why Williamson gets a lot if praise when it comes to TVD. Is he better than Plec? Yes. But is his overall writing better for the show? No, he’s contributed to a lot of the problematic aspects of the show and they start as early as the pilot because in general Caroline should have never been raped because Caroline doesn’t even fit in the plot there. It’s bad enough that it’s never acknowledged, but the fact that it was completely unnecessary to begin with just makes it even worse.
She doesn’t even fit into the idea in showing how brutal vampires can be because that’s what Vicki was for and the way she’s brutalized is at least consistent with necessary vampire behavior. The way Caroline is treated was unnecessary from the jump because again in 4×04, his usual routine does not involve raping them. Physically and mentally abusing them? Yes, but rape no. “Snach, eat, erase.” There’s nothing about Caroline for him to deviate from this. I know rape isn’t about logic, but storytelling is, especially for what impact you’re going for and this doesn’t serve for anything. It’s not impactful because Damon is never held accountable for it and it makes no sense to the plot. It’s just simple bad writing.
The show would have been better off with Caroline and Matt from the start and her living her normal because that was the one thing I liked about season 1, that they didn’t live in a vacuum where only them and the supernatural exists. That there were people in the dark simply living. It provided a nice contrast to the chaos of everything else.
I know I’ve veered off from my original point of Damon having always been random, but seriously how did anyone buy him as a character past the first season when he literally has no motives or objectives? He was essentially a random character doing random shit and has never had consistency.
Not a new statement, but it needs to be restated for the reasons below.
You know when people come up with a defense that TVD doesn’t have a racial bias they bring up that every character is treated badly on the show and the first person they bring up in their reasoning is Matt. Matt has a lack of story lines and Matt has a lack of development and therefore the writers must be treating him unfairly. Wrong.
Now I could always bring up the fact that one straight white male being treated bad doesn’t really make a difference when there’s several other characters like him that are being treated fairly compared to every POC character being treated badly, but that doesn’t work here because Matt isn’t treated unfairly on the show, in fact he’s treated better than he should be.
Let’s start with him lacking story lines—he doesn’t. He has the exact amount of story lines a character of his stature should have. He’s human and there for the human perspective on vampires. There was never really much you could do with his character because he’s never needed outside of that. The other characters don’t call him only when they need something from him because they never need something from him. He has nothing to offer. But despite that he has screen time devoted to him and only him. His love life has a story line, his grief has a story line, his home life has a whole story line devoted to him, and his existential crises have story lines as well. Sure he’s missing from episodes but you aren’t missing key pieces from his story.
He has no development–oh but he does. He starts out as Elena’s ex-boyfriend who’s not quite over her to a guy who’s life is severely changed by the supernatural occurrences around him to the point of hatred. People may not have liked his development, but it’s there. You go through the things he’s going through such as grief about his sister, hatred towards his mother and hatred towards vampires for what they’ve done to his life. You go through his love life and how he views women (which I won’t get into). You go through the events in his life that change him. Again he’s missing from quite a few episodes, but you are not missing key details about him. You see all of his development on screen. He’s not missing for an entire chunk of it and comes back a new person. The only time that semi-happens is in season 7 in the flash forward but that gets explained in flashbacks and earlier in the season.
Now compare that to Bonnie or even Tyler because while the character is white the actor isn’t and the show couldn’t even manage to treat him right.
Bonnie is the resident witch. They only call on her and she only has screen time when she is needed. It takes three seasons for her to get mom and four for her to get a home and another parental figure that apparently was there the whole time. But even after that we don’t know much about it. You don’t go through grief, as in there’s never a story line that surrounds it. When her Grams dies she’s shoved off-screen for five episodes and comes back ready and with the ability to do more magic than when she left.When her mom is turned she again is shoved off-screen and then comes back with the ability to do more magic than when she left. When her father is killed in front of her the only time spent on that is her lighting a candle for her father. Her love life has little to no time spent on it and that wouldn’t mean much if it was any other show, but this one where shipping is currency. She has two love interests in the entire series and you never really see her spend much time with either of them as their own separate story line. You get more with Enzo, but not much beyond a flashback episode and then Bonnie is needed again. What are her interests? What’s her major in college? We are missing key pieces about her for the amount of development the show wanted and needed from her. She was a pertinent character as the witch who’s family had something to do with everything magic in Mystic Falls and rarely had screen time devoted to her or how she developed her abilities. A character of her stature should have had more story lines and development. Instead it was given to characters like Caroline who isn’t actually that pertinent to the plot. I love her character just as much as the next person, but she essentially fills the role of another vampire on a show filled with them. As I mentioned earlier Matt–he wasn’t pertinent to the plot until season 8 and that wasn’t even much, but he still had all the kinds of development and story lines Bonnie was missing.
Now onto Tyler. He was obviously treated better than Bonnie and was actually treated pretty good for the first few seasons. But like Bonnie he fills the spot of sole werewolf in the main cast (where Bonnie is sole witch) and does most of his character development off screen and only comes back when he’s needed. He learns the ins and outs of being a werewolf off-screen, he unsires himself from Klaus off screen, he unsires other hybrids from Klaus off screen. He only comes back when that story line comes to affect the Mystic Falls gang which isn’t quite to the scale of how they push Bonnie of screen only to come back super powerful for one moment when they need her and then weak when they don’t so they can push her around, but it’s a miniature version of it and these are the only two characters who have this kind of thing happen. Major developments with these characters are simply summarized in dialogue instead of shown. Now the obvious big difference, and why he’s treated better is we know a lot about his character, he is allowed to grieve onscreen to the point whole story lines have been devoted to him as well as his love life, but most of that we only get in relation to Caroline. We get little bits here and there about his interest and hobbies in season 1 and the beginning of season 2, but beyond that it’s Caroline–if she isn’t his girlfriend he’s treated like he doesn’t matter. He’s even pushed off screen all so Caroline and Klaus can flirt. And after his relationship with her is completely done he’s demoted back to background character like he was in season one. Here’s the thing again. He’s more pertinent to the plot than Caroline. She adds to the already overflowing vampire population, and he is the only werewolf in the mix and as The Originals proves werewolves have a place in and story line in a vampire show that add to the lore and plot. A baby vamp who by the middle of the season is in complete control doesn’t add much. I enjoyed her story lines, but as season 7 and even 8 prove there isn’t enough material for her to sustain her relevance. While Tyler definitely doesn’t rank as high as Bonnie in pertinence to the plot he ranks higher than Caroline and Matt and is treated as though he isn’t to the point that they killed him off as though he was just another extra.
Now the point I’m making is that telling me there isn’t racial biased when it comes to TVD just because Matt isn’t treated fairly is false, because he’s treated just fine. Sure he gets just as villainized by the show for going against the main three characters, but that’s not an issue with the writing or the framing of the show because everything you need to know about his side of the story is there. The issues with him are all within the fandom (which is partially true with Bonnie and Tyler as well). That’s what’s missing with Bonnie and Tyler. They are characters that are used and neglected within the narrative, Matt isn’t. Placing his treatment in the same league to theirs isn’t an accurate measure because his importance to the plot differs drastically. His importance to the plot VS his story lines and character development are exactly where they should be. Bonnie’s is not by a wide margin and neither is Tyler’s. When people ask why I don’t care that Matt’s treatment it’s because of this. Matt is a useless character who get’s the amount of screen time he should, if not more.
POC of TVD 