#and people judge characters by how likeable they are usually - not necessary by how good the concept behind them is

[anglerflsh]

Context: So there's this owl house tournament going on and Belos got knocked out the first round

He's such an interesting villain do people really hate him that much

I'd say that it's a good sign that your villain is hated by the fandom, actually - with its exceptions, the fact that people really and truly despise the character that they were supposed to despise shows good writing.

Of course, I would disagree with that loathing, but that's just because my tastes are different. Perhaps if it was a "best character concept," he'd go up higher lol

[zucchinibread777books]

Will Grayson, Will Grayson Book Review

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan Book Review

Summary:

Two boys, both named Will Grayson, lead entirely separate yet fairly similar lives. Despite not knowing each other and having different sexualities, the Will’s find themselves struggling with similar problems. Trouble connecting with others has made their lives miserable. When bad situations cause them to meet by chance, could it be the catalyst to personal growth?

SPOILERS AHEAD

The Good:

This novel was 100% targeted towards too-edgy-4-u 2010s teen boys. In that sense I am entirely not the target audience for this. I can see how this could maybe have a good influence on boys like that, in a similar sense to Catcher in the Rye. The novel starts with two boys who hate everyone and judge everything, but who also learn to grow and take chances with expressing feelings and finally appreciate the people in their lives. It had a very rough start, but by the end I did feel like the characters were changing for the better.

I really enjoy when I pick up a book without knowing the plot, and it turns out to be a queer story. As someone who loved John Green as a teen, this was one of the few books of his that I had not read, and I randomly came across it in a used bookstore. I really enjoyed the romance portion of it. Even these characters that are so hateful find fulfillment in those they love. Honestly it may have been the only reason I didn’t give up on this book.

I also appreciated Tiny’s character. While he wasn’t perfect, I thought the depth they gave him towards the end and the reason for his upbeat personality made him a very likeable character. Of course he wasn’t always the greatest friend, which I think we’ll learn nobody really is, but his hard work made him very endearing in my opinion.

The parents were also far more involved than usual in books like this, which was a nice change of pace. They step in, they’re there for the characters when they’re needed, and they do seem to try throughout the story. It’s not often we see good parents in books about such bad kids, because usually the authors think that’s the only reason the kids could be acting out, but this time it felt right.

The Bad:

I’m not sure where to begin to be honest. The fatphobia was rampant throughout this book. While it gets acknowledged a little, the casual fatphobic comments and jokes by the narrators that don’t stop by the end were just painful. It wasn’t used for any real character growth, it was just a reflection of how people thought when this book was written. I’m sure if the authors were to rewrite it today, they’d be horrified at just how many comments they made, but since they haven’t we can only see what they thought at the time. Even when Tiny (the nickname itself being bad enough) acknowledges his weight, it still feels as though the authors are blaming him for the way he is treated throughout the book. It’s sad and very disappointing.

Speaking of reflecting 2010 mindsets…..the text slang. It did not age well. I really wish authors would just stop trying to imitate it because it never feels right. David Levithan also purposefully wrote his Will Grayson’s chapters in the style of texts, which to him means no capitalizations at all. Not character names, not place names, not the beginning of sentences, not even the word “I”. I could appreciate that the only capitalization is used for his big gesture at the end of the novel, but there had to be a better way to separate the two narrators. Even different fonts would have been better. Also please, why mention jerking off so much? It wasn’t even necessary to the plot (I guess it adds to my claim for the target audience but….still).

There was also a lot of casual homophobia that does not translate well to modern day. While it isn’t really from the narrators, there are a lot of characters that say shit and just get away with it. The treatment of Tiny isn’t much better. He is written as an entirely gay stereotype. Flamboyant, loud, promiscuous (at least in terms of how easily he falls in love), and the most major theater kid ever. If it weren’t for how the authors treated everything else I might’ve assumed better intentions, but they did him wrong. In so many ways.

The female characters were also so one-dimensional. It’s a common complaint with John Green’s books to be honest. There were only two girls that the main characters regularly interacted with, and one of them was obsessed with Will and did a really shitty thing, and the other one just existed as a smart romantic interest who falls for the wrong guy first. They were very tropey. I did like Jane but the ex-boyfriend detail made me want to scream. It felt like the authors just needed to make the book longer so they added another unnecessary conflict.

Obligatory men don’t know shit about women quote: “you do realize, don’t you, that when a guy and girl get together, he puts his thing where she urinates and gets her period?” pg 175 (not the same hole buddy)

I’m…torn over how they deal with mental health here. One of the Will Graysons has depression, and Levithan purposefully made it so that it wasn’t just a beginner story, but showed how it is after years of having it. But it feels so hopeless. He takes the meds but doesn’t actually feel better and doesn’t seem to be doing any of the suggestions for dealing with mental health. It felt more like they were showing that meds are useless and you’re never going to feel better. Plus the comments about self harm just take away from the goal even further! The way he talks about his “friend” self-harming just because she needs material for her poetry, it’s disgusting. It’s like “oh goth women can’t be depressed, clearly they’re doing it for the attention while I, a sad white boy, have real issues.” He admits to being bad to her later but, just like the fatphobic comments, does not seem to actually reflect on how shitty he was.

Overall:

I am glad I don’t tend to DNF books, because this one was possibly the worst beginning I’ve seen in a while but I did enjoy the end more. I even cried a bit at the last scene, just because I’m a sucker for unexpected big gestures. That being said, I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone except shitty teenage boys who probably think books are lame. I also probably won’t be rereading it. It handled serious topics very poorly and, while it was an easy read, it wasn’t particularly a good one. I’m not sure I would trust anyone who reads it this day and age and gives it five stars, but because I enjoyed it in the end I will give it

2 Stars

[unproduciblesmackdown]

You're so right about the Will Roland fanart problems. It seems like back when Will Roland was only known for Jared people were way more proWill because he could be their funny meme boi who ate bathbombs but now that he's a lead with all these emotional songs it's like God forbid he's not their "twink bby". Idk it annoys me so much especially when people draw the rest of the Broadway cast and still use WillC or do an animatic with WillRs voice and WillCs character ugh like. Accept the Roland pls

lmao we are all just out here grabbing the mic like “attention all bastards: Look, just because will roland isn’t your ideal fancast for most adorable twink of the year - “

really like, i have never come across any signs of there having been any pattern in the deh fandom of ~taking issue~ with will’s Abilities to sing or play the part of a struggling teen or whatever like what crops up re: him being the lead in bmc.....it also is unsurprising yet disappointing that like, jared and alana are so easily completely ignored, but when they Are acknowledged it’s super flattened interpretations like, either they’re both hypocritical jerks (just based on evan’s gfy accusations basically lol) or if they’re actually viewed in a positive way it’s just like, alana is your friendly local Model Student and jared is memes and neither of them are in the way! :3

you litrally cannot ignore jeremy the Whole Entire Main Character tho and also like. can’t ignore the fact that caring about jeremy as a Romantique Lead is ahhh important to many ppl in the fanbase? so him being regarded as ~less cute~ is more of an Issue b/c the character must be taken seriously and is the sympathetic hero and has a lot more solo material / more of Any material / more focus than jared does in deh.........you Have To Look At Him and care about his actual feelings and not just misinterpret the character as “has no serious emotions b/c he doesn’t say serious things in a serious tone” the way ppl misinterpret jared. there’s the assumption that someone who is good / sympathetic should also be attractive / cute / Personally Appealing To Look At and that wasn’t as much a conflict when ppl didn’t think it was important to sympathize / care about / pay attention to jared too much, and the “conflict” of caring abt jeremy’s capacity for a romantic relationship but that’s less important if he’s not as Cute also not being as much an issue when most people don’t care about jared’s romantic feelings or think that they exist despite jared being in love with evan But Anyways

like it is wild the things people will just make up to “justify” their Dislike for will, which has only manifested as apparent Issues thanks to him playing jeremy rather than jared........there’s the classic “mm idk i don’t think he can sing that well” approach which like. some people are just trying to say they do not like the inherent descriptive qualities of his voice, which is more nasal obviously and don’t anyone come in here with the “Actually the Technical definition of Nasal re Vocals is” b/c we know what i mean, alright? nasal voices are not considered ~serious~ and there’s the kneejerk dumb-annoying-loser-nerd association. god knows that jeremy heere canNot have characteristics that could be automatically judged as irritating and unappealing. then there’s the notion that He doesn’t have the (vocal) range!! which like. do you honestly think they would cast someone who doesn’t have the correct range. you’re aware that will roland was being considered for the part of jeremy in the two river run up to the last round of callbacks. you know that the song that was literally written expressly to suit will roland’s individual voice and singing abilities makes use of his falsetto which people go “omg he can’t hit those high notes” except sometimes when they misattribute his falsetto to other singers they suddenly find it worth complimenting. and then you get people who like, want to subscribe to this softened version of it and get all backhanded like “oh i think will’s vocals are improving whew that’s good” in any random video and always Only single him out apparently like. did you think he gets worse with experience? you don’t wanna talk about any of these other professional singers improving or worsening or anything? only wanna give ur assessment of william’s huh

honestly i for real haven’t seen the 1.0 version b/c i’m here via will roland in the first place & i’ve never gotten the impression that there’s some Essential Content i’m missing out on by having only seen 2.0........but between a) people complaining that will r’s jeremy is Too Frustrated He Shouldn’t Be That Angry It Makes Him Less Sympathetic and b) saying just as a point of comparison betwixt the depictions that will r’s jeremy is more frustrated and c) i haven’t read That much bmc fic but people sure talk about jeremy being like five seconds away from bursting into tears at any given moment which like, okay yeah aren’t we all, but also i presume this stems from will c’s apparently Sadder portrayal of jeremy. i almost forgot where i was going with this one but i think it’s just that yeah people truly take issue with will r’s jeremy being more frustrated and it’s like you realize there’s no Right or Wrong portrayal / interpretation even if you prefer one for whatever reasons......theatre just is Like that.......you have a slightly different portrayal during ever performance even from the same actors, and you’ll often have different actors playing the role........yeah people usually are attached to the first performance they see / have that as their Standard and that’s fine, it’s just like, you don’t have to decide that’s an Objective view and that you have Objective issues with everyone else’s take. 1.0 is still there for you

uhhhh oh yeah and the whole Clout idea lmao......people really putting themselves out there shaking their heads at the supposed fact that will was cast for the off bway run to Boost Popularity b/c he was part of the deh obc......besides the whole thing that it’s hardly likely that would’ve been considered necessary anyhow, there’s the little thing that a) again, will roland had already been very seriously considered for the part even before will connolly was decided on for the original run and b) like.....these people had been collaborating for eons and you really think will roland only popped into their minds thanks to being in deh....and c) joe iconis has repeatedly said they specifically did Not want to cast people based on who was Known enough and whose names would be good for marketing and d) maybe anyone has noticed that the marketing never involved any mention of anyone in the cast? no? cool. and yet people like so truly think they’re Wise to ~real reason~ that they’d go and cast will roland as the lead. like people are making shit up and really just thinking it’s true b/c they Want it to be true b/c they Want to be validated in having actual contempt for will’s casting despite the “issue” being that he doesn’t seem as Likeable (worthy of sympathy...cough...) thanks to his deemed-unattractive looks and sweetly-adenoidal voice and more-frustrated portrayal all seeming less cute or whatever

and i mean i haven’t seen it crop up of late but the one particular Grasping At Straws ~justification~ for will being unworthy of the part thanks to perceived acting/singing incompetence which is soooo wild is when people are like “ough i Hate when he just holds his arms out when he sings” like fmslkdj if anything that’s just an individual quirk and the fact that it was something you noticed means you just latched on to it as potential fodder for “the fact i registered this information abt someone whose existence i Resent means it distracted me which means i hate it and it’s bad”...like another thing he does with his hands while singing is when he makes the loose claws and kind of half crosses his arms in front of his chest! where are the complaints about that?? nowhere, b/c people have not really processed it as a particular thing, so they can’t deem it a Particular Thing To Criticize. people sometimes Notice that his jared talks with his hands a lot, which will says is an acting choice that came from an unconscious tendency, but people really only bring it up to juxtapose will’s jared’s dramatic tendencies and nervous habits with sky’s jared’s more outwardly still and smoothed-over behavior. aka they don’t Complain about it or deem it a weakness / bad thing. and yet people caring about bmc are really jumping on that chance to be like oh ugh there he goes again, having a characteristic i associate with him as an individual, disgusting, can’t believe will connolly was murdered for this..

it’s a bit clearer too with bmc moreso than deh that people aren’t super willing to accept how will roland Looks b/c like, thanks to will connolly’s jeremy having the long hair thing you can Tell The Difference In Which Actor Is Represented when ppl draw the character even if the rest of the features are kind of “generic” (and how even the costuming isn’t a dead giveaway since ppl will draw connolly jeremy in 2.0/3.0′s outfits) and it even serves to specify the actor in writing format too if they mention the hair lol........and honestly?? this fact is one of the most damning things lol in that people the reason so many ppl continue to produce connolly-based jeremys is Not because for whatever reason they can’t / it’s too difficult to draw a will roland lookin jeremy......like a lot of the time The trait which serves to distinguish between the two is the hair thing. people are adopting jeremy’s new costuming and stuff but choosing to make sure we know that jeremy does not Look like will roland and the clearest indicator of this is the longer hair thing......which also means that for many people the main effort they’d need to exert to make it clear they’re drawing wrol jeremy would just be to....shorten the hair. And Yet!!!! it is apparently beyond people to do this

like uh nice on making a lgw animatic but really.........really we’re gonna take the song that is specifically from the 2.0 / 3.0 runs, so it’s obvious we’re Accepting that non-1.0 content, okay......and we’re Accepting will roland’s vocals, which, a person’s voice is a physical trait of theirs too, same as The Existence Of Their Body........and yet jeremy Cannot Look Like How Will Roland Looks, that’s too far, can’t do that. we can take material from the specific versions the actor was cast in, that material being a song written specifically for this individual actor’s voice, in the form of this actor’s actual vocals......but can’t have the depicted image of jeremy be based on this actor’s appearance..............of all the......

really all that it is is that more people find will connolly more attractive than will roland and this makes them feel like will roland Is Worse and then the people who just run with that either just embrace that and are crashing around on public forums saying Lol i hate him cuz he’s ugly lmao....and then you have people who don’t wanna do that but don’t wanna actually examine why they ~take issue~ with will being cast and so they’ve gotta leap on any Other things about him that feel more acceptable / Objective like oh the portrayal is “Wrong” (that’s not how this works) or he can’t sing well enough (yeah he can) or high enough (yeah he can) or he was stunt cast (no he wasn’t) or they wanna label every characteristic / trait they can think up that Isn’t his physical appearance as Annoying And Bad like. maybe stop and ask why you find it SO pressing that this other actor has the part and it Must be objectively inferior if not ruinous for reasons you gotta invent about him being incompetent cuz it’s better to make stuff up about how a professional actor isn’t good enough for a part than to say you don’t think he’s cute enough and are bothered by that

it didn’t matter as much to people when they viewed his character as either Just A Joke or Just A Jerk or flat-out disposable material. being attractive is for serious sympathetic beloved characters, natch

unfortunately jeremy can’t be written off as The Unimportant Meme Friend With No Real Feelings so now there’s a whole problem if an actor is not as cute

like b/c of the way he looks ppl can accept that a character played by will roland can be funny or can be rude or can really not be too important to take seriously / consider complex or sympathetic or likeable beyond being a walking Running Joke, but when it comes to a sympathetic main character whose emotional state is so important it’s practically assigned a character and who’s a romantic lead? now people have a problem with him looking the way will roland does

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Another Stelena shipper here, but I always had trouble figuring out who the heck Elena was supposed to be. Her personality seemed so underdeveloped and so often shifted depending on the specific plot. She was in some ways a generic Mary Sue despite initially seeming potentially cerebral and interesting to me. How would you describe her? What do you think her major strengths and flaws are? Is she more of an introvert or extrovert?

Trust me, you’re not alone in thinking this. Elena is a tricky one for me, because on the one hand I still consider her to be one of my favourite characters and on the other I think she was so poorly written and as you said, underdeveloped and inconsistent.It’s very hard to fully analyse her because her characterisation is so different in the early seasons when she was human and in the later seasons when she was a vampire, but I’ll try my best to give my view on her.

This is by far the longest meta/character analysis’ I’ve ever written (9k+ words!), because I feel like Elena really needs and deserves this. The fact that it’s so long is also why it’s taken me so long to respond. Due to how long this is I’m putting the rest under the cut: 

So because this is such a huge question to answer I’m dividing it up into these parts:

1) Pre-season 1 Elena 

2) Human Elena (seasons 1-3) 

3) Vampire and no!humanity Elena (seasons 4-6)

4) Mary Sue Elena 

5) Elena’s strengths and weaknesses 

6) The real Elena 

7) Common misconceptions about Elena 

I’ll be using MBTI personality types throughout this, just because I think using personality types provides structure and helps make the ambiguity of trying to describe a character’s personality clearer. If you’re not familiar with MBTI you can read more about it here. It’s not really necessary to understand MBTI to follow what I’m talking about, but it’ll be easier to follow.

Part 1: Pre-season 1 Elena

So out of curiosity I took the MBTI personality test and answered the questions as close to how I feel Elena would answer them and the result was ESFP aka “The Entertainer”. It kind of took me by surprise, because my initial reaction upon reading about the ESFP’s personality was that it sounds nothing like Elena, but when I started to read further I realised that actually, it does. It’s who she was before her parents died and the person she probably would’ve been if she hadn’t have suffered through the traumas she did. 

Elena was very much a sociable person, with quite a big circle of friends and she was a cheerleader. That alone says a lot about her personality, since to be a cheerleader you have to be very, very confident. It involves wearing a skimpy outfit that shows off your body, dancing and cheering loudly in front of a huge crowd. As a cheerleader you certainly can’t be afraid of the spotlight and are likely to be extroverted. The ESFP personality is also described as being observant, sensitive to others’ emotions, the first to help someone talk about their problems, good at providing emotional support and practical advice and conflict adverse resulting in avoidance of their problems. Again, this all sounds very much like Elena. 

Unfortunately, the only real glimpses we got of this part of Elena was through one flashback in 3x22 and mentions about what she used to be like - Caroline said in season 1 about how much more fun Elena used to be before her parents died, in 1x19 Elena spoke about how the Miss Mystic Falls pageant wasn’t who she was anymore and in season 6 Matt described her as being a fun girlfriend - all of which suggest that Elena was extroverted, outgoing, sociable and wasn’t adverse to being in the spotlight. 3x22 very much supports the idea of Elena being an ESFP. She woke up in the morning, turned up the radio, danced around in her room, changed into her cheer outfit, went to school, was chatting happily with her friends and ditched family night to go to a party. When it came to Matt, she clearly didn’t feel the same way about him as he did about her but she hadn’t broken up with him yet because of her adversity to conflict and later when she told her mom they’d gotten into a fight she was upset about it and clearly didn’t like the fact that they’d fought. Then there was the scene with Damon whereby she was pretty comfortable and confident talking to a complete stranger, further showing her natural sociability.With the ESFP personality it’s portrayed as being extremely outgoing and all about fun fun fun which might seem extreme and not very Elena to some, but on the flip side they’re described like so: 

Although they are characteristically fun-loving, ESFPs are also typically practical and down-to-earth. They are grounded in reality and are usually keenly aware of the facts and details in their environment, especially as they pertain to people. They are observant of others and their needs, and responsive in offering assistance. ESFPs enjoy helping other people, especially in practical, tangible ways. 

To me, this sounds exactly like Elena. 

Part 2: Human Elena (seasons 1-3)

But then her parents died and things changed. The start of season 1 was all about Elena having lost her identity and sense of self and she even talked about how she no longer wanted to be the sad little girl that lost her parents. She tried to go back to who she was before by rejoining the cheer squad but realised it wasn’t who she was anymore, just like she realised that the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant wasn’t who she was anymore. I think that Elena losing her parents was definitely when she became more introverted. Because she was grieving she spent a lot more time alone and admitted she pushed everyone away, when usually she would’ve been surrounded by people most of the time. She took to sitting alone in her bedroom and writing in her journal as a way to deal with her grief and make sense of her emotions which is a very introverted thing to do. 

Yet, there was still always that lingering ESFP personality within her. Things such as her enjoyment of dancing (x) always gave her away as being an extrovert, particularly when you compare her attitude to dancing to Stefan’s, who was a true introvert. She was also confident, self-assured and very bubbly and sociable with her friends and new people. Elena was very much - no matter what stage she was at in her life - a charmer and likeable person. Ironic, since I think from a viewer standpoint most people don’t like her, but in regards to the TVD universe and the characters Elena came into contact with, she very easily got everyone to like her and even care for her. And I really think that inherent ESFP personality is the reason why. She was warm, friendly and chatty, all of which are qualities that make a person likeable. But I also think this bubbly ESFP personality she had is why she became more introverted after her parents death. She couldn’t face being around others because they expected her to be the same fun, confident and energetic person she was before and she was unable to keep up that pretense because she was grieving. This led to her pulling away from her social circle and going into herself. I also think this explains why she loved being with Stefan during that time - he had no expectations of her. He didn’t want or need her to be prancing around, putting on a show or being outgoing. Partly because he was introverted himself, but also because he understood and accepted Elena and didn’t expect her to be just one person and have one mood and one state of being all of the time. Elena healed when she met Stefan because he was the only one that allowed her breathing space to be the changed version of herself that she became after losing her parents. But back to the point, before I go off on a huge rant about why Stelena are so perfect lmao. 

I think the changes in Elena in seasons 1-3 were as a direct result of her parents death. She became very concerned with the safety and well-being of her loved ones, because she’d just lost her parents. Most of us take the people we love for-granted and I have no doubt Elena did the same, but that loss put everything into perspective. To an extent she actually became obsessed with protecting those around her and behaved rashly when it came to keeping them safe because she couldn’t bear to lose anyone else. She had Damon compel Jeremy after Vicki’s death, which was wrong, but she did it because she cared more about Jeremy’s well-being than doing the right thing. The reason I’m talking about this is because Elena’s concern for her loved ones is one of the main things that changed as the seasons progressed and something that she’s been ridiculed for by the fandom. Whilst she was so concerned about Jeremy in season 1 that she had Damon compel him, in season 5 she didn’t even pay enough attention to realise he was doing badly at school and getting into fights. She was so fiercely against Bonnie dying to kill Klaus in season 2 and you could see her complete devastation over her loss, yet in season 5 she didn’t even realise she was dead for months. But this is mistaken as Elena having changed as a person, when actually she was just so caught up in her relationship with Damon that she became blind to everything else. That’s a seperate issue from her character and who she was as a person because it was circumstance. 

I also just wanted to say here, since I’ve talked quite a bit about Elena being an ESFP, that for reference during seasons 1-3 I feel that Elena fitted more into the ISFJ personality type (although she still very much had elements of that underlying ESFP personality). The reason I say this is because the change from ESFP to ISFJ is extroversion to introversion and perceiving to judging. Now, everyone knows what the difference is between extroversion and introversion and I’ve already explained how Elena showed more of an inclination to introversion after her parents death. The difference between perceiving and judging is outlined here. I think Elena was inherently a perceiver - she was flexible in her approach to things, never really planned ahead and acted and did what she felt was right or appropriate at the time. But after her parents death she became more of a judger - she was more cautious in the way she approached things and she became very concerned about choice, wanting to make decisions for herself both in the present and the future (although when it came to the future she didn’t necessarily understand what those choices were, which goes back to her being a perciever). It’s almost like she was over-compensating and that because she’d suffered so much loss, she became more cautious and started forming plans to keep her loved ones safe. But actually, that wasn’t a natural trait for Elena, which is why as the seasons progressed she slipped back into perceiving rather than judging. And this is what’s so often taken for-granted about the change in Elena in the later seasons - perhaps she didn’t become a totally new person, but as she started to heal she simply got back in touch with the pieces of her that she lost when her parents died. Maybe she started developed an inclination back to the ESFP personality over the ISFJ personality. Maybe when she became a vampire, instead of heightening the personality traits she developed as a result of her parents death, it heightened the ones that were present in her before her parents death that had become buried underneath her grief and survival instinct. But because we as viewers are so out of touch with pre-season 1 Elena, since we rarely saw her, it makes sense that people perceived her to have become a completely different person as a vampire. 

Part 3: Vampire and no humanity Elena (seasons 4-6)

This brings us nicely into the third phase of Elena’s life - her becoming a vampire. Trying to analyse Elena in season 4 is nearly impossible because I think that she was suffering from an entirely new kind of trauma as a result of being turned and going through the Hunters curse in the earlier part of the season. But, what I will say is that that ESFP personality peaked again in season 4. At Rebekah’s party she did a handstand on a keg and downed a load of beer, she stood on the back of a motorcycle with her hands in the air, went to a party where she learned to feed and seemed to enjoy it a lot. And although no!humanity Elena isn’t the real her, she showed a blatant tendency to want to be the center of attention. She threw a party at the Boarding House, joined the cheer squad again, took pleasure in flirting with Stefan and competing with Caroline (which I think was largely because Caroline was generally the large personality and outgoing, bubbly person that people noticed and she resented that), she stole Caroline’s dress to make an entrance at prom, had her hair styled differently and had red through it. It’s strange because there’s this focus on how when the characters have no humanity they’re not themselves, but I completely disagree with that. In a way, they’re more themselves than with humanity. All humanity is is compassion, sympathy, empathy, love, kindness and if you take that away you’re just leaving the individual’s personality without interference from morals and emotions. And when you think about it, your personality without interference from humanity is actually more accurate in a way. An example, would be that Elena stealing Caroline’s prom dress because she wanted to be the center of attention and make an entrance was part of her personality. Maybe she always felt like Caroline as an equally extroverted character that liked to be in the spotlight, stole the attention from her, but with her humanity she would’ve never acted on that because Caroline was her best friend, she loved her and wouldn’t want to upset and humiliate her like that. But without her humanity, she was free to act on that without shame. So actually no!humanity Elena is a very interesting reflection of who she was and what her personality was like at the most basic level (minus the murderous and vindictive aspects of her). 

Having said this, Elena’s reaction to the changes within herself during season 4 were largely negative, especially in the beginning. She expressed that she felt like she’d lost herself, hated the person she was becoming and after feeding at the college party in 4x04 claimed, “This isn’t me” and “I can’t live like this”. Strange, considering that by the time we reached 4x07 she seemed to accept the “new her” and told Stefan, “This is who I am now, the old Elena died when she went off that bridge” and in season 6 said, “The first step to being a vampire is realising how awesome you are.” For me, this is where the huge confusion comes with Elena’s character. She never wanted to be a vampire, when she became one she hated it, then she seemed to reach acceptance that she’d changed as a vampire even though she still wasn’t necessarily happy about it, but when she was offered the cure she turned it down, then she claimed being a vampire was “awesome” and then she did a complete 180 when she told Caroline she’d wanted to be human since the day she became a vampire and took the cure. WHAT DA FUCK GURL? Obviously, I put this down to poor writing, because let’s face it, that’s what it is. But if we put that aside I feel it’s very representative of the identity crisis and journey of self discovery Elena went through across the entire 6 seasons. 

Elena was never supposed to be an easy character to define or describe. She was constantly changing as she went through different events and traumas in her life and let’s face it she went through a lot. Again, because of the level of Elena hate in the fandom and the fact that Elena was constantly portrayed as the victim, there’s a tendency for fans to reject the idea of her being a victim and underestimate the things she suffered through. But Elena went through hell and suffered through so many traumatic and upsetting things. From the start of season 1 to the end of season 8 here’s what Elena went through (I’ll put the list in italics, so you can skip it if you want because it’s pretty long): lost both her parents in a car crash that she nearly died in herself, was propelled into the supernatural world, found out her boyfriend was a vampire, was subjected to being Damon’s object of lust whereby he invaded her privacy, over-stepped the boundaries, physically, emotionally and mentally taunted her, watched her brother get murdered before her eyes, found out she was adopted, discovered she had a doppelganger that was also her boyfriend’s ex, met her adoptive mother who was a vampire turned by Damon and who seemed to care nothing for her, watched her adoptive mother burn to ash before her eyes, discovered her uncle that she disliked was her father, became the target of a 1000 year old hybrid who wanted to use her for his human sacrifice, was kidnapped multiple times, had to watch her friends be continuously harmed and kidnapped and live in constant fear of losing them, saw her best friend die before her eyes (Bonnie in 2x18), watched her aunt get murdered in front of her, had the life drained out of her immediately afterwards whilst the love of her life watched, came back to life and lost her biological father in the process, became the victim of her doppelganger who targeted her for no reason other than they looked the same and Elena was with her ex, was forced to break-up with the man she loved for fear of her family’s safety, as the doppelganger she was treated a coveted object rather than a person, lost the love of her life who was forced to turn off his humanity and go on the run with the same psychopath that murdered her aunt and her, lost Alaric the only remaining parental figure she had left, had her heart broken repeatedly by Stefan when he had no humanity, was constantly confused by Damon who forced himself on her and manipulated her into developing feelings for him, died in the exact same way her parents had died only a couple of years previously, awoke as a vampire, nearly died again before finally completely the transition, feared for her life due to a vampire hunter hunting her and those she loved, was sired to Damon against her will resulting in her being unable to feed and killing an innocent person, suffered through the Hunters curse, lost her brother who was murdered by the doppelganger that had already ruined her life, was forced to turn off her humanity by her sire, watched Matt get killed before her eyes, had to deal with the guilt, hurt and shame of her actions when she had no humanity, thought Damon was going to die as a result of werewolf venom, was distressed by visions of Stefan drowning, found out her best friend died bringing her brother back to life, was kidnapped by Wes and used for some kind of sick vampire experiments, was possessed by her doppelganger, injected by said doppelganger with some ripper-werewolf-venom concoction that resulted in her having horrendous hallucinations and slowly dying, was captured by the Travellers and used for her special doppelganger blood, found out Stefan was dead and blew herself up in an attempt to bring him and everyone else back from the other side, lost Damon and Bonnie in the process, became so consumed with grief that she turned to drugs, wiped her memories of Damon because she couldn’t handle it, was emotionally blackmailed by Damon to be with him again despite having no memories of him, finally became human only to be forced into a coma by a psychopathic witch preventing her from ever seeing the best friend she’d already lost more times than I can count and the rest of her loved ones e.g. Jeremy and Ric. 

I mean, that’s one hella boring list, but you get the point. Elena suffered a hell of a lot through the seasons and even going through one of those events listed above can significantly impact a person. Is it any wonder that Elena changed so often? She was just being the person she had to be to survive at any given time. And that’s my main point and the reason for listing all of those things Elena went through - she didn’t know who the hell she was and every time she tried to figure it out more shit happened to her. I mean, what teenager really knows who they are? It’s a process and something we figure out as we experience new things and go through life. But because Elena’s life was so chaotic with something constantly waiting around the corner, she never really had the chance to figure out who she was. 

People that criticise or hate on Elena post season 3 (and I say this as one of the people that has done so in the past) are completely overlooking the immense trauma she was going through. I think that Elena was incredibly good at hiding just how much she was suffering and so people forgot to take into consideration that most of the time her character was influenced by her trauma. There’s a very interesting meta you can read here about no!humanity Elena, that brings to attention just how broken and lost Elena was during that time. 

By the time we reached season 5 and 6, I feel like Elena reached a comfortable balance between the two personality types I identify her as being - ESFP and ISFJ. She became more extroverted than she was in seasons 1-3 - playing pictonary in 5x20 (x), being sexy in 5x21 (x), being more adventurous with her style (compare this to this), jumping in the lake in 6x03 (x) - but at the same time she wasn’t too extroverted which we saw in 5x16 when she had the dream about Katherine impersonating her dancing on tables and she said “This isn’t me. Don’t you guys know me at all?”. She also seemed to regain more of her compassion in season 6, being more attentive of her friends and helping people through her medical training. 

When her memories were wiped in season 6, I feel that Elena entered a new phase of her characterisation, whereby we got to see more of the real Elena than we perhaps ever had. The reason I believe this is because without her relationship with Damon constantly hanging over her head she was set free and able to discover herself, reconnect with her friends, have fun and just be a normal teenager. That happy, care-free and bubbly Elena she was with no memories was very reflective of who I believe Elena fundamentally was. 

As I reach the end of my analysis of vampire!Elena, I feel like it’s important to mention here that a huge factor that influences people’s perceptions of Elena and tendency to favour human!Elena or vampire!Elena are shipper preferences. This is where I hold my hands up and admit that I’m guilty of catering Elena’s character to suit my preferred ship (Stelena). Because human!Elena is the Elena that was in love with Stefan and I believe whole heartedly in my ship, I’ve had a tendency to simplify Elena’s character and claim that who she was in the early seasons was the real her and that post season 3 she was ruined by becoming a vampire, the sire bond and Damon. So, in this analysis I’ve completely stepped away from that shipper bias to give Elena the credit she deserves. I always hated that the writers didn’t allow her to exist outside romantic relationships, so I refuse to do the same.What I mean by that, is that I’m not going to cling to human!Elena and prop her up as being better than vampire!Elena, just because I personally prefer her. The pattern of Elena being described as an INTP personality is an example of people clinging to human!Elena and failing to account vampire!Elena as being just as much a part of her characterisation as human!Elena. It would be too ignorant to simply say “human!Elena is the real Elena” or “vampire!Elena is the real Elena” because they both represent parts of her and who she was at different periods in her life. This is why I won’t bash vampire!Elena, because it was still her.

(I’m not going to analyse human Elena in 6x21, 6x22 and 8x16, because she was around for such a short period of time, but I think that her personality remained a mix of the ESFP and ISFJ personalities, with a slight inclination towards ISFJ and her characterisation in seasons 1-3). 

Part 4: Mary Sue Elena

Before I get in-depth with this, I wanna define what a Mary Sue is for those that don’t already know. According to wiki a Mary Sue is: 

an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment. 

Basically, a Mary Sue is a “perfect” character that is catered to by the writers, who lacks depth and who is generic, pretty, popular, outgoing, well-liked, talented, strong and without flaws. When it comes to Elena, I think she had some traits of a Mary Sue, but the problem I have with this is that so do most main characters (both male and female) in any movie/show/book ever written. The main character is always going to be the one most loved and favoured by the writer, since they invest so much more time in them than any of the other characters and the story is largely from their POV. As a writer myself, I know that it’s very hard not to have biases and to write characters you are more attached to or enjoy in a different way than those you don’t. 

I think Elena was closer to being a Mary Sue in the earlier seasons - she was well-liked and loved by everyone she came into contact to, everyone was always trying to save her ass, she was always the victim, she was portrayed as being precious and innocent. There’s something on Urban Dictionary that describes the different types of Mary Sue and one them them is the victim Sue, which Elena did fit into quite often. The problem with that though is that she was still never 100% a victim. She did fight back on occasions and she did take her  destiny into her hands at times (I saw this a lot in season 3 in particular). When trying to depict Elena as a Mary Sue she never quite fits into any the definitions. And the fact that Mary Sue’s are mainly defined as perfect and without flaws means that I have no hesitancy in saying that Elena wasn’t a Mary Sue. 

I think the only reason she could come across as being so is because she was so often the victim and the way in which she was written was poor. But even still, she was flawed and she certainly wasn’t perfect which was clear to see. 

Part 5: Elena’s strengths and weaknesses

The debate on whether Elena was a Mary Sue leads perfectly onto this topic, because like I said, I personally see it as being impossible that Elena was a Mary Sue due to the fact that she did have flaws and weaknesses. These strengths and weaknesses are elements of Elena’s character that I perceive to be pretty unchangeable. Even though she underwent different stages of characterisation, these were traits that were always present in her.

Strengths

Sociability: Elena, no matter what point of her life she was in, was very easily able to engage with new people and make them feel comfortable. There was never any shyness or awkwardness in how she communicated with people and this trait is the reason why she was generally well liked by everyone. Examples of this would be 1x11 when she was having fun with a bunch of complete strangers, her interactions with Lexi, Rose and Elijah, and her friendships with people such as Aaron, Luke and Liam. 

Resilience: No matter what happened in her life, Elena always bounced back. Sure, she hit rock bottom on a couple of occassions, but she knew and we knew as viewers that she would get through it. Just look at what she said in 4x21 when she got her humanity back, “No, I’m not okay… but I’ll get better.” I mean, if that right there doesn’t show how damn resilient Elena was, I don’t know what does.

Forgiving nature: This is something that can work both ways, since being too forgiving can also be a weakness. But overall, I consider it a strength. Being forgiving is the ultimate act of kindness, compassion and love. It provides the person that’s doing the forgiving and the person that’s being forgiven with clarity and peace. Elena consistently forgave pretty much everyone that wronged her - Stefan, Damon, Katherine, Elijah. She was always willing to forgive people’s wrong doings if she felt they deserved it and/or were genuinely sorry and regretful. 

Loyalty: Elena wasn’t necessarily always there for her friends and family to the extent she should’ve been, but no matter what she was fiercely loyal to them. The example that comes to mind here is in season 1 when Damon was bitching about Caroline and Elena told him that she’d been friends with Caroline since the first grade and that meant something to her. Elena didn’t necessarily always agree with her loved one’s actions, but she stood by them all through everything, even when they didn’t necessarily deserve it. Even in regards to her romantic relationships and all the confusion she endured within the triangle, she still always remained loyal to Stefan when she was with him and Damon when she was with him.

Bravery: Despite being a victim a lot of the time, Elena was actually very brave. She walked into danger all the time without hesitancy if she felt it was necessary to keep her loved ones from harm. She always stood up to Damon when he pushed the boundaries with her or did something she disagreed with, when Stefan was at his worst in 1x19 she refused to leave, despite being terrified throughout season 2 and 3 when it came to the Originals, she continuously went face to face with them to discuss things, she wasn’t afraid to die and sacrificed her life more than once without hesitation. I could name lots of examples, but it’s not really necessary. Elena was brave and anyone that didn’t see that must’ve not watched the same show as me.

Empathy/ability to be understanding: This kind of goes hand in hand with her forgiving nature, but Elena was always very understanding of others actions, thoughts and emotions and therefore easily able to empathise with them. There were numerous occasions where someone she knew/loved did or said something questionable or something she could’ve reacted negatively to, but she was rarely if ever judgmental or cruel about anything her friends confided in her about. Examples would be Matt and Caroline’s romance, Bonnie and Jeremy’s romance, Caroline sleeping with Klaus, Bonnie being a witch and Stefan being a vampire and a ripper. Her ability to empathise is also why she seemed to connect so well with characters considered to be bad and/or villianous such as Damon, Elijah, Rebekah, Esther and even Stefan. She was able to see past the wrongness of people’s actions and put herself in their shoes. There was very little that Elena refused to approach with an open mind when it came to people. No matter what anyone had done or how terrible it may have seemed, she always gave them a chance to explain. Once again, this is a quality she had that made her very likeable because the people around her or that she met felt accepted by her instead of feeling judged or ridiculed. 

Weaknesses

Selfishness: This is by far Elena’s biggest weakness and I think everyone can agree on that. Elena had a tendency to be very self involved, to make everything about her and to overlook how others around her felt in certain situations, choosing instead to focus on herself and how she felt. Again, I don’t feel it’s necessary to give examples but there’s a meta here that talks about Elena’s selfishness. 

Indecisiveness: Again, a huge weakness of Elena’s. The obvious one bring her indecisiveness regarding Stefan and Damon which led to a triangle that spanned across 4 seasons. But she was indecisive in a number of situations, particularly regarding her personal life. There was always a level of indecisiveness when it came to her future path. In 2x20 she said she was supposed to grow up and start a family, but what she said she wanted in that speech was veryambiguous. If she knew she and Stefan couldn’t spend the rest of their lives together, who did she want to spend her life with? Did she want to go to college? What college did she want to go to and what did she want to study? What career did she want? What did she want to devote her life to? Where did she want to live? Did she want to stay in Mystic Falls or move away? Did she really crave the passion, danger and adventure Damon always said she did? These kind of questions are ones that she never really made a firm decision on or that weren’t clearly portrayed to us as viewers. Elena choosing to study medicine is a perfect example here. Being a doctor suited her and made sense, but she’d never expressed a desire for it or showed any hint that it was a path she wanted to pursue until we were told it in season 6. 

Physical strength: Obviously it goes without saying that as a human Elena was physically weaker than most of the people around her since most of them were supernatural beings. But even as a vampire, Elena was rarely if ever portrayed as being physically strong. She was over-powered, kidnapped and hurt on numerous occasions and this is where the idea of her being a victim largely comes from. 

Conflict/being upfront: Elena was terrible at initiating or dealing with conflict. If she had an issue with someone she struggled to be upfront with them about it because she wanted to avoid conflict. Most of her arguments with Damon ended with sex because she couldn’t deal with remaining in a conflict with someone. When it came to the triangle, though a lot of it was down to her indecisiveness, it was also because she didn’t want the conflict. She preferred not to choose than to choose and that result in Damon and Stefan hating one another and/or her. Elena just really didn’t like feeling like she had conflict with anyone and whenever it did happen she would always try to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Suppression/denial: This is another big flaw of Elena’s that I feel is overlooked. She seemed to do whatever she could to suppress the emotions or parts of herself she didn’t like or to deny the aspects of her life that were causing her distress or emotional turmoil. Again, she did this within the triangle - she suppressed her feelings for Damon and denied how harmful the situation was to Stefan and Damon or that she’d have to make a choice and eventually lose one of them. But she did it in other situations too. When Jeremy died she went into full blown denial and suppression, resulting in an eventual explosion where she lost control. As a vampire she suppressed her want to feed and tried to deny what she was. When she first turned she denied how hard she was finding it and how utterly miserable she was. When Damon died she went into denial, expecting Stefan to find a way to bring him back and taking drugs so she could pretend he was still alive. I could list more, but you get the point. If there was a deep emotional issue in Elena’s life, she usually suppressed or denied it, until it eventually caught up to her and had more of a damaging impact than if she’d just accepted it and tried to deal with it immediately. 

Over emotional: Elena was highly sensitive and emotional, which is obviously why a lot of the time she resulted to suppression and denial - she simply couldn’t handle the intensity of her emotions. And it wasn’t just that she felt too strongly, but that she had a tendency to act on those emotions without thinking. Obviously, this is a weakness because it clouded her judgment at times, made her vulnerable to exploitation and resulted in events such as her being forced to turn off her humanity. Illogical: Elena wasn’t the most logical and because of the above weakness of her being so emotional, she tended to act on emotion and feelings rather than thought and logic. Admittedly, she seemed more logical in the earlier seasons when she formed plans with Elijah to save those she loved, but generally, Elena was all about following her heart and emotions rather than her head, and her relationship with Damon was the embodiment of that.

As you can see Elena had as many weaknesses as she did strengths, and if I took the time to list all of them, she actually probably had more weaknesses. So I don’t see how she could qualify as a Mary Sue. 

Part 6: The real Elena

This is the fun part, because it’s where I get to explain who I think Elena really was, how she should’ve been written and what the core of her character was. So to me, Elena is absolutely that go-lucky, outgoing, popular, sociable young girl that enjoyed chatting with people, going to parties and got a buzz from being around others. Life for her was all about people - connecting with them, helping them, engaging with them - it’s something she thrived on and it’s why she chose to become a doctor. I also see her as being more extroverted than introverted. She got energy from others, was confident, outgoing, not afraid to have all eyes on her and in fact, she even enjoyed it. It explains why she had a tendency to make everything about her - she liked the attention, liked people admiring her, fancying her, loving her. It’s part of the reason she clung to the triangle for so long- she liked that two men loved her that fiercely. She was also a free-spirit that lived for the present and didn’t think too far ahead, which is why when she was with Matt and he spoke about the future she was scared, why on career day when Stefan asked what she wanted to do she said she didn’t know (although she expressed her enjoyment in writing), why in 2x20 she gave that ambiguous description of what she wanted in the future, why she avoided making any firm decisions on her future for as long as possible and why a lot of the time even when she did make a decision it was a short-term one that she could go back on if she changed her mind. I also see Elena as being a very passionate person that followed her heart wherever it led her. She rarely made decisions based on anything but her heart, even though it sometimes took her a while to figure out what her heart wanted. As a friend, sister and girlfriend she was fun to be around, understanding, kind, empathetic and an excellent listener, which is why she was so central to the other characters’ lives. They all sought Elena out in times of distress or upset and she had a way of making people feel better, which again is probably why she became a doctor. She was extremely moral and believed in doing the right thing, which is where Damon and Stefan’s attraction for her stemmed from - as vampires they’d lost their sense of morality and humanity and Elena represented that for them. 

Of course, that’s just one side to Elena and everyone has a deeper more emotional side to them. The fact that she was so passionate and followed her heart, meant she was extremely emotional and at times very contemplative. This is where her fondness for writing came from - it was her way of expressing herself, dealing with her emotions and making decisions, which was something she always struggled to do. Her feeling everything so strongly also explains why she so often ran or hid from things she didn’t want to deal with. Because she lived day to day and didn’t always think ahead and hurt those around her such as Damon and Stefan, because she didn’t want to commit to one of them and make a permanent decision. Also the fact that Elena was such a people person means that she felt other people’s pain, particularly those she was close to, which is why she was so understanding and empathetic. Although she was extremely moral, she wasn’t black and white with that and her morals could be ignored, changed or overlooked when her emotions got involved. An example of this would be when she killed Kol in season 4. Regardless of how evil Kol was, killing him resulted in hundreds of thousands of vampires dying all over the world and that was wrong. But because Elena was worried for Jeremy’s safety and wanted the cure (not just for herself, but because she didn’t want their enemies to get hold of it to use it against them or for their own benefit), she killed Kol without regard for her morals. She also admitted to bending her morals for Damon in season 5 because her love for him clouded her judgement. Hopefully, as you read this you can see that this is what Elena was like on the show, but at times the writers got confused and muddled her characterisation. It’s impossible for a character to ever be black and white and the fact that Elena was such a mismatch of traits and that she changed over time is nothing if not realistic. 

However, the writers made ill advised decisions where Elena was concerned and from my perspective Elena should’ve been written as the girl I described in the first paragraph - outgoing, bubbly, sociable etc. - but that in the early seasons had slightly lost those elements of herself because of the grief of losing her parents and other traumas she went through. That’s pretty much how she was written in the beginning which is why I don’t think the writers did anything wrong with Elena in the earlier seasons (except perhaps making her too much of a victim and slightly Mary Sue at times). It’s her characterisation as a vampire that got confused, which I don’t think would’ve happened if the sire bond, humanity switch, Hunters curse and her relationship with Damon hadn’t of been included. 

What should’ve happened after her transition is this - Elena never wanted to be a vampire so she should’ve had a little bit of a crisis and struggled to come to terms with it just like we saw in the first episodes of season 4, but with Stefan’s support as someone who felt the exact same way she did about being a vampire, Caroline’s support as someone who had grown into herself as a vampire and was a practically “perfect” vampire, Damon’s support as someone who embraced being a vampire and could help Elena do the same and the support and love of all of the other people in her life, she should’ve come to terms with it and actually grew into herself the exact same way that Caroline did. She shouldn’t have had issues with feeding and should’ve learned from Stefan how to feed from animals, just like she wanted to and perhaps when she felt comfortable, from blood bags. She shouldn’t have had to suffer through the Hunters curse which just traumatised an already traumatised girl even further, she shouldn’t have had to be a slave to a sire bond which resulted in her having difficulties feeding, going through emotional confusion regarding her feelings for Damon and turning her humanity off. Those things I described earlier where she did a handstand on a keg and stood on the back of a motorcycle, those are the things she should’ve been doing as a vampire. Those are the things that would’ve shown her life was still worth living and slowly helped her recapture that more extroverted and sociable personality she had before her parents died. What she said in season 6 about realising how awesome you are being the first step of being a vampire was right in a way. There was so much focus on how terrible being a vampire was, but there were actually so many good parts to being one and I definitely feel like Elena was the kind of person that would’ve found a way to capitalise on those good parts and become an even better version of herself. Instead, they made her a terrible vampire and person that hated herself and then skipped straight ahead to the part where she accepted herself without showing the process of that. 

A big mistake the writers made with Elena is that they were obsessed with making making her the victim, of keeping her sad, depressed and trapped. Even in the later seasons when she was supposed to be happy with Damon and free, she wasn’t. She was a slave to her love for Damon and that prevented her from ever being able to fully grow into herself. I don’t want this to turn into an anti-Delena rant, because this is about Elena, but her relationship with Damon is directly tied into her bad characterisation because the writers favoured Damon as a character and catered Elena to what was best for Damon. This was particularly clear to me in season 6 when they forced her back together with Damon despite it clearly not being the best thing for Elena. In those episodes where Damon was gone and she had no memories of him, she was the happiest and most comfortable in her own skin I’d ever seen her. She engaged with her friends, supporting them in a way that had been lacking up until that point, she had fun, dabbled in the dating world and enjoyed her time with Liam. Like her letter said - she was getting the chance to redefine herself in the absence of the one that defined her. 

But back to the point, Elena never had the chance to go full circle with her characterisation because of the poor writing. The whole point of development is that a character starts off as one thing and ends up another by the end, but with Elena I just didn’t see that. If you watch her in 1x01 and compare it to 8x16, there’s barely any difference. After everything she went through, the writers reverted her back to being who she was in the early seasons and just like so many of us do as viewers, completely disregarded who she was and the way she behaved as a vampire as being part of who she fundamentally was. There’s actually a quote Elena said in season 4 that was something along the lines of, “Should I go back to being the scared little girl that couldn’t admit what she wants?” but the problem with this quote is that the writers never stopped writing her as that scared little girl. She was always lost, confused and searching for something, and the choices she made always felt like choices she thought she should make because she never really knew what the hell she wanted. 

I feel like I’m over complicating what I’m trying to say when the basis of it is this: the writers tried but failed time and time again to develop Elena’s character in the correct way. And although they tried to tell us she’d changed for the better - that she was no longer a scared little girl, that she thought being a vampire was awesome, that in the end she had an epic, amazing life and was unbelievably happy - they never delivered on showing us that development. 

Elena’s charactersation should have been like this: 

Season 1: She’s a young orphan girl, lost and broken by her parents loss that gets thrown into a chaotic supernatural world where she’s hunted and targeted that she resents and struggles to accept. 

Season 2: She reaches acceptance that this is how her life is now and changes to become the person she needs to survive - she gets more pragmatic, resilient and starts planning ahead to ensure the safety of herself and her loved ones.

Season 3: She becomes hardened to the world and starts to fight back more fiercely, rejecting her status as a victim and frail human. This is where she truly starts to leave behind the lost little girl she was and starts to become someone different, someone stronger and more assured. 

Season 4: After becoming a vampire - the one thing she never wanted to be - she enters crisis mode. The progress she started to make in season 3 in regards to development and growing into herself completely disappears and she loses all sense of herself. She has a few episodes where she’s chaotic and extremely emotional, but then accepts help from Stefan, Caroline and Damon who all have their own ways to help her become comfortable as a vampire, which when combined really helps her. She starts to see being a vampire isn’t all bad and uses it to her advantage, to help rediscover parts of herself she thought were forever lost. She realises it’s not just the negative emotions or parts of her that are heightened but the positive too and she capitalises on that by having fun with her friends/family and living for the moment. As she starts to pull herself out of the initial fog of the transition, she re-evaluates things and realises she’s lost herself, so decides to go on a journey of self discovery where she tries new things and learns everything there is to learn about herself. We reach the end of the season with her having reached a good place in terms of being a vampire and growing into herself.

Season 5: Elena continues learning more about herself and discovers she wants to dedicate her life to medicine. Up until this point she’s survived by living day to day, but now she starts to think about the future. She realises she misses being a human and that she wants the kind of life she can only have as a human. When the cure is presented to her she takes it having reached clarity and peace, feeling contented and assured in who she is and having been shaped by who she became as a vampire and all of her experiences. Now that is how Elena should’ve been written, but just like most writers in TV, they had to create unnecessary drama and suffering that in reality did nothing to develop or establish Elena as a character. If Elena had been written in the way I outlined above, we would’ve seen a clear journey from a broken, lost little girl to a strong, confident and happy woman that turned her traumas and experiences into positives and used them to develop her into the best version of herself. And all of us would’ve clearly seen and understood exactly who Elena was and who she grew to be.

Part 7: Common misconceptions of Elena

Now, as well as the writers getting Elena wrong, I strongly believe a majority of the fandom misunderstand her too. When I see people talk about Elena they seem to unconsciously project themselves onto her, and that is when she risks becoming a Mary Sue and why so many people may misinterpret her as being so. The truth is, Tumblr and the fandom is overflowing with young girls in their teenage years or early 20′s that are introverted, emotional, express themselves through writing, are a little lost, searching for meaning in their lives, trying to find who they are as a person and they see themselves in early seasons Elena so project who themselves onto her. Along with this, there’s a tendency for people to glorify and praise seasons 1-3 Elena because she was a self-sacrficing, selfless, compassionate, “nice girl”. The problem with this is that I genuinely don’t believe any of this is who Elena was. They were parts of her but not who she fundamentally was. 

I briefly mentioned earlier that Elena is often categoried as being the INFP personality type and there are numerous places where this is spoken about (x) (x) (x). Now of course, there’s a lot of issues in trying to accurately slot Elena into a specific personality type and to define her as a person (as you’ve seen in this impossibly complex and complicated analysis) which this meta explains very well. But I have no hesitation in saying I don’t see Elena as an INFP. Here’s a brief overview of why - INFP’s are “led by the purity of their intent”, can “lose themselves in their quest for good and neglect the day-to-day upkeep that life demands” and are generally considered extremely altruistic and diplomatic, seeking to create peace and harmony. To say this of Elena is to idealise her. She didn’t act on purity, she didn’t commit herself to a “quest of good” neglecting her own needs, often her actions were incredibly selfish, she enjoyed being self indulgent and I also believe that she enjoyed being adored and put on a pedestal by others. So even though Elena does have some traits of an INFP (particularly in the early seasons), to label her as an INFP would be to ignore many of Elena’s flaws and make her a true Mary Sue. 

The other big misconception is that she’s an introvert. I think that so many people seem to misunderstand or stereotype what an introvert and extrovert is when at the most basic level an introvert is a person who becomes drained when around others whilst extroverts thrive on being around others. Elena had a tendency to introversion when it came to her feelings which is why she often wrote in her journal when she was in highly emotional states, but generally she was extroverted. She never actively sought time away from people and in fact she never did well on her own and seemed to need other people around her most of the time. She relied on others to provide her with strength and to help  execute her plans. Even when she was at her lowest points there was still always someone right there with her and speaking from an introvert’s POV here, I can say that when I’m feeling low or highly emotional I don’t want anyone anywhere near me because I need time away from everyone and everything to process how I’m feeling. Just because Elena wasn’t an in-your-face overly loud and energetic character, doesn’t mean she wasn’t extroverted. It just means that she had introversion in her too but that it simply wasn’t as dominant as her extroversion. 

The problem with this is that these small misconceptions have merged with Elena and come to be considered canon, when actually they’re nothing but interpretation. And part of the confusion surrounding her character comes from these different interpretations where Elena is often watered down, idealised or a Mary Sue. 

This analysis is substantially long, like I’m honestly shocked that it’s ended up being so humongous, so I think it’s time to wrap it up. I think I’ve adequately covered nearly every aspect of Elena’s character, explained my personal perceptions on her personality and characterisation and conveyed how damn hard it is to actually analyse Elena and do her justice because of the shitty way in which she was written. I’m sure when you asked me this you didn’t bargain for such an insanely long answer and if you make it to the end, I congratulate you because I’m expecting most people will see how long this is and immediately discard it lmao. But thank you for asking this question because I’ve loved delving this deep into Elena’s character and really trying to understand how I feel about her myself.As a final note, I’d like to share some gifsets that I feel really display the outgoing, bubbly person I percieved Elena to be. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)