#opinions no one cares about

[readingandrelaxing]

Elena Gilbert: Heroine or Victim?

OPINIONS NO ONE CARES ABOUT: EPISODE 2

Elena Gilbert's character is argued about by many fans of the TVDU. What makes her interesting though, is the fact that she was supposed to be the leading protagonist in the series, an active character who takes decisions by herself and doesn't need anyone to stay alive. But we can see in the TVDU that Elena is primarily characterised by the notion of how much she can suffer and endure instead of how much she can act and accomplish.

Elena was supposed to be the leading heroine in the series, and yes, she is. But she is more like the victim than the saviour. It is difficult for a human to survive in a world surrounded by vampires, and that affects Elena as a whole because she couldn't take any major decisions without putting the people around her at risk. But the show slowly took away all of her decision-making capabilities and in turn her glamour in general.

There's no doubt that the show revolved around Elena, and it should, since she's the main character. But the way the show took place, Elena was portrayed as the one everyone rushes to save and her life is shown to be the most important priority of other people. On top of this, she has to do nothing much to earn this kind of love and protectiveness from the people around her.

All of the care and affection shown by many characters for Elena seems animated. She comes off as the naturally lovable, loving character who is of the most importance to the show and the narrative in general.

While characters like Bonnie and Caroline have to earn even the tiniest flicker of affection from other people, Elena gets it all served over a silver platter. Without her having to do anything extraordinary to earn that, which is not the case with Caroline or Bonnie.

Elena, as a person, isn't bad. In fact, she's a great girl, who wants no one to get harmed. In the course of showing this nature of hers, she is written to be a perfect character. Her flaws are not noticeable throughout the show when she was a human. When she became a vampire, some of her emotions were expressed. But, she transitions from being a life-savour to a 'perfect goody two shoes' who can possibly do nothing wrong and always what the right thing is and what she's supposed to say and how she's supposed to behave.

Another problem with Elena is her dynamic with the Salvatore brothers. I mean, she is indirectly compared to Katherine too many times throughout the show, which is obvious since both the ladies are doppelgangers, but what makes this uncomfortable is the fact that primarily, the Salvatore brothers are attracted to her because she literally looks like their ex.

Yes, her character is different. But in the last episode of season 1 of The Vampire Diaries, the famous dialogue between the Salvatore brothers, I don't remember who said it, I think it was Damon.

"Elena is not Katherine."

And then they see her dressed up in vintage attire and both look at her in a certain way, as if they're reminiscing about Katherine.

It's weird to know that a certain person is attracted to you because you look like their ex.

Another interesting dynamic related to the Salvatore brothers is that if we observe their relationship with Katherine, we can see that at that time it was always Katherine who was in command, who was in control, she had both of them wrapped around her finger.

I wouldn't disagree with the fact that that was also toxic to a certain extent, since even when she loved both of them, she also used them. That is not okay, not at all.

But their dynamic with Elena is something that sticks poorly with many viewers since Elena can't even make decisions of her own without being poked and interrogated by Stefan and Damon. Still, with Stefan, Elena had some autonomy, but with Damon, he tried to control many things he shouldn't have. Yes, he loved her, but love is no excuse for taking away her basic choices in life.

I'd like to highlight this one scene from the second season when Damon feeds her his blood forcefully so that god forbid if she died, she would come back as a vampire. He did that without asking her if she wanted to come back a vampire, just did that because her living was more important to him than her loving herself.

It doesn't matter how much you love a person, you do not have any right to take away their fundamental life choices. Yes, you can advise, suggest, and plead, but forcing someone is not acceptable.

And yet Elena kisses him in the last episode-?

Elena has suffered a lot, gotta say that. She lost her parents, her aunt, her biological parents, her brother and eventually her own life. Anyone watching the show can directly see that Elena is the centrepiece for every single thing ever, and because of that she is heavily involved in every plotline, but instead of her taking charge or even being like a side character, the show focuses on how constantly she is victimised, how much she suffers, and that it portrayed as a display of strength.

Resilience is also a strength, but how is it that the main character is blackmailed and left vulnerable and helpless every time a new villain shows up?

This is not even remotely inspirational, and it also makes the plotline predictable. Whenever anything happens, the viewers can already predict that Elena is going to suffer, and it also makes everything repetitive.

In conclusion, the show revolves around Elena, but her own character is so incredibly passive that she's easily replaceable.

[garbean]

I love dunmeshi for the like.. built in horror of consumption. Like they eat to survive, they eat to honor their prey, they eat to possibly mourn someone. Laios eats monsters because he wants to learn more about the things he loves, Senshi eats monsters to feel included in the ecosystem because he didn't fit in with the outside and with most creatures in general, Chilchuck DOESN'T eat as much as he could because eating too much could kill all the party members, Marcille eats monsters and hates it but she still does it because she'll die before she could save Falin.

[gunstreet]

sorry I'm not a photoshop master but would someone mind hanging this up in the SNW writers' room because I think we have all had enough

[legendoflozer]

Legend and Sky as a duo is so funny to me!!

Red to the last pic

[pendragora]

Embracing my hater energy: the show is awful, this writing is worse than my very first fanfiction and the whole "be open to changes in canon" thing was wrong. We should have bullied them. We should have bullied them and hated them and been mean to them to the point they would have to cave and make things right.

I don't care how it sounds, I stand by this. Big corporations that suck the soul out of your favourite things deserve bullying. Big bosses of big corporations who are underpaying proper writers and production deserve bullying. People who get creative control to reenact their own vision of canon [which makes it fanon] and their delusional view to be canon deserve the backlash.

Spectacular actors. Wonderful job on that. Everyone else is awful tho. Love to see them, hate to see everything else.

[surrowndedbylights]

JK Rowling going after David Tennant is so funny to me because he didn't even mention her yet she felt extremely insulted by him calling out transphobia (which proves his point even further) and decided to start an argument with probably one of the most beloved men in her country, while everyone is hating her more and more every day

Anyway trans people are wonderful, transphobes are indeed little whiny fuckers and she can piss off 😘

[anistarrose]

The thing about the "fridged" trope is that obviously you can't have a female love interest dying as a defining moment for a male character because that's not feminist, but you also can't have a male love interest dying as a defining moment for a female character because then she's just going to have an arc revolving around her relationship with a man and that's also not feminist, and you also can't kill off a love interest from a gay relationship or a relationship involving a nonbinary person because that's burying your queers, which is at least as bad as misogyny if not even worse, and now suddenly you can't kill off romantic partners at all in stories because no matter the demographics, it's going to be problematic somehow, which is... a pretty ridiculous limitation to impose on storytelling.

And, like, it would be satisfying to have a solution other than "it depends on context if not straight-up vibes, and it's usually very reasonable for audience members to have a range of opinions on the execution of one specific instance," but. Yeah, you do kind of have to just vibe check it in a deeply subjective manner sometimes.

[dennisboobs]

7x10 // How Mac Got Fat

↳ Charlie & Dennis + getting high together

[princesskuragina]

Btw ur not allowed to make a gatsby reimagining or adaptation if you don't care about daisy

[seleneprince]

Regardless if Eris marries Nesta out of ambition or love, one thing remains the same: He doesn't push her to have sex with him or get pregnant. He's not a saint, but he's decent enough to prefer when a woman actually WANTS him before sleeping with her.

Nesta was raised to see children as another duty to fulfill once she married, and after Nyx's birth, she has some heavy feelings about pregnancy, and she tells Eris that much. He respects it and agrees to wait until she's ready, until she genuinely wants to be a mother. When they sleep together, they both take precautions and make sure to not take risks.

Eris has no problem arguing with Beron if the man tries to pressure Nesta into giving them an heir, making it one of the few times he actually fights his father back. And that's the first time Nesta imagines herself having kids with him because seeing him standing up like that for her sake made her feel things

If they get married out of love, this process is even smoother because they just enjoy their time together by going into a long romantic honeymoon, away from everything. Eris has brothers after him, so it's not like he needs to conceive a child urgently, and Nesta always wanted to see the world first. It's only years after their marriage that they finally take that step, because Nesta begins to imagine her own family with Eris really often and the man is downright having a baby fever because of Elucien's kids.

The moment they start trying, they barely take breaks from it. They take this matter very seriously. Nesta falls pregnant within the month and gives birth to twin daughters.

[mintjeru]

i may be less normal about yudrain than i previously thought reference for the text on hope under the cut

open for better quality | no reposts

[ot3]

double whammy of invoking bioessentialism for media analysis and then namedropping shonen manga as the best female character writing you've ever exposed yourself to.

[canisalbus]

It's quite funny having followed you for years and years and knowing Machete as his dark, bloodied, cunning (and always on the edge of getting horribly murdered for his hubris) incarnation, and coming into 2024 and just... yeah he's gay now. Maybe he's even happy. Redemption at last... perhaps he DID get assassinated indeed and all those AUs are just his personal afterlife (does he get to go to Heaven? Seems so!)

.

[kleefkruid]

I weighed all the kittens bc Kotelet was in a better mood, and while many complaints where had about being airlifted by the Unknown Force, all of them have a good weight that’s right on track according to the charts! 😊

[amaltheas-garden]

people still shocked that in the year of our lord 2024 some of us don't want to see Dany get her 'happy ending' by becoming the white savior who was promised

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

"shipping saiki is aphobic because he's aroace!"

stares at you with my demiromantic asexual in a committed relationship eyes then looks at the camera like im in the office