#dark!caroline

I would have really loved that too. I would have loved it both because the whole humanity switch is a completely overused plot device, and also because I think Caroline’s personality naturally fits with going through some kind of “dark period” without actually having to flip the switch. Caroline has already endured way too much to ever rationally excuse the switch flip anyway, and it would have been really interesting to see her explore her dark side as some kind of conscious choice instead of just being put through the wringer to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore (which again, is a way overused plot device in the TVDverse). 

I really don’t know how I’d have liked to see it play out specifically because I just don’t think that Caroline is at that point yet and I don’t see her being there for a while, but I do think that it was a very easily workable concept considering her natural personality. Caroline is naturally a pretty decent person, she has no real desire to hurt anyone for pleasure and she doesn’t make brutal decisions unless she has to. But ultimately she’s very pragmatic as well, when she’s put in the position where she does have to make a brutal decision she isn’t afraid to actually be brutal. Within the MF gang she’s actually someone who really gets things done and does a lot of dirty work. And while goodness and pragmatism aren’t diametrically opposed personality traits, when you live the life of a vampire in Mystic Falls they kind of are. I think she easily overcomes this disconnect at this point in her life because her life is still very much grounded in the human world, but as she gets older and is forced to deal with the life of a vampire I can see her questioning that morality and the existence of morality itself. 

And in that same vein, Caroline’s ability to cope with her own actions is very much grounded in her perception of herself as a good vampire. And in most ways she is. But what I’ve always found interesting about Caroline is that while her self-image is very specific and very black and white, she is in fact one of the most amoral characters in the series. And I don’t mean that in the sense that she’s a bad person, I mean that in the sense that she literally disregards the human concept of morality in a lot of her decisions. That’s definitely interesting in it’s own right, but I think it’s vastly more interesting in the context of her life. I mean, Caroline is a vampire, but she hasn’t been one for very long, and she still leads the life of a human. The fact that she does the things she does and can shake it off so easily is actually incredibly dark on it’s own. It’s also interesting because I feel like so many of the other characters survive on straight up denial, they rationalize their actions into something that is morally “good”, but Caroline doesn’t really do that. She acknowledges that some of her behavior is morally wrong, but she doesn’t let that affect her decisions or her self image. I think that as that disconnect becomes more and more difficult for her to wrap her mind around the more likely it would have been that she’d explore the darker aspects of herself.