#tvd thoughts

I am so tired of this fandom treating Enzo like a "sarcastic knock-off" of Damon or Klaus just because they refuse to look past the leather jacket and the accent. If you think Enzo is just a "silly" character, you aren’t just missing the point—you’re ignoring one of the most tragic, gritty survival stories in the whole show.

Enzo wasn't born with a silver spoon, a family legacy, or an Original name to protect him. He was an orphan who was starved, sick, and discarded by every person who was supposed to protect him. While the Salvatores were playing hero in Mystic Falls and the Mikaelsons were ruling empires, Enzo was locked in a basement for seventy years, being carved up like a science project by the Augustines. He didn’t have a "humanity switch" to hide behind; he sat in that agony for seven decades and the only thing that kept him going was a loyalty that his "best friend" literally let burn to the ground.

Enzo went after Stefan for Caroline. He called Stefan out on his BS when no one else would. He was ready to be the "villain" in the eyes of the Salvatores just to make sure Caroline knew she wasn’t crazy for expecting better. That isn't "silly" or "annoying"—that is the actions of a man who knows exactly what it feels like to be abandoned and refused to let it happen to someone else on his watch. He gave Caroline the kind of fierce, unconditional protection that Stefan was too "broody" to provide.

The "knock-off" argument is pure laziness. Klaus burned the world because he wanted to be feared; Enzo burned things because he refused to be invisible ever again. If Enzo had been a white lead pining over Elena, the fandom would have called him "tortured and romantic. The actor who plays Enzo, Michael Malarkey, is mixed-race. He was born to an Irish-American father and a British mother of Arab/Palestinian and Italian descent.

He is the blueprint for the person who has been used as a tool, who has been "starved" of basic decency, and who had to claw his way out of the dirt to even get a seat at the table. He didn't have a family to bail him out. He was his own foundation.

And let’s be real for a second: a huge chunk of the Enzo hate comes from people who simply don't believe he "deserved" Bonnie, and it’s the most transparent thing in this fandom. They use Bonnie’s worth as a weapon to stay mad at Enzo "he didn't deserve Bonnie" crowd They were two people who were tired of being everyone else's sacrifice finally choosing each other.

But I get it. I really do. You can look at the way the writers handled Bonnie and Enzo and see the "racist pairing" tropes—how they were sidelined, how their story was rushed, and how it felt like the writers just threw the two remaining characters of color together because they didn't know what else to do with them. That is a valid critique of the showrunners. You can be mad at Julie Plec and the writers for how they handled Bonnie's love life without stripping Enzo of his agency and his fire

This would progress things in potentially different ways. One it could potentially propel Tyler into being more involved in the season long arc involving Silas. He would become more isolated (sorry Tyler) and after Hayley betrays him and the hybrids get killed, Shane (and possibly Hayley) could appear telling him they know a way to bring them (and Carol) back. Tyler has no interest in the cure (other than giving it to Klaus possibly but that plan never made sense to me as it seems like a dead human Klaus would still kill everyone in his sireline including Tyler, but this could also be part of the plan) but he would have a huge desire to save his pack and make up for what he would perceive as his failure. This season is all about the crazy things people do because of grief and lost family, why not include Tyler in that and let him be seen even after he leaves town as he works for Team Shane. Because the show had a terrible habit of giving him a good storyline in the first half or so in the season and then having him disappear in the second half.

On the flip side, as this season was trying to push Klaus and Caroline together more, an actual legit breakup would help with that. And when Caroline isn't in on the plan with the hybrids, Klaus can cherry pick the things about what happened he actually tells her. (Manipulation is bad yes, but also in character.) On top of that it can develop the Stefan x Caroline x Klaus dynamic they set up but didn't fully utilize, the three of them all wanting the cure for Elena for different reasons. Caroline fully throwing herself into the plan to avoid her feelings about the breakup makes sense. We could see her going to Klaus to find out as much as she can about the sirebond (saw a post where someone suggested this recently and I agree they should have used the older vampires for info more), as well as trying to get more information about Silas. We could still see them deciphering the sword together, only their semi on the same team now. Maybe Caroline even gets to go to the island this time and be more involved in the story line as well. The two of them discussing the fact that she doesn’t want the cure for herself under better circumstances (aka where he hasn’t just bit her). Maybe when working together the lines begin to blur more, things are less black and white, and Stefan’s own blurry morals and complicated relationship with Klaus don't help things.

I don't know that any of this actually works with how they set things up for The Originals. But honestly, I don't think they set up a lot of things for the spin-off super well despite apparently knowing about it before they started writing the season. And for all the anti-magical baby plot people, perhaps this could fix that.

One of TVD’s greatest lies is the idea that Stefan and Damon could ever truly hate one another.

They threaten each other with death.

They betray each other.

They choose opposite sides, opposite morals, opposite lives. ‘Good cop, bad cop.’

Buuuut none of it ever sticks, obviously.

Because hatred, real hatred, requires indifference. And the Salvatore brothers are anything but indifferent when it comes to each other.

From the very beginning their relationship is framed not as enemies but as brothers locked in an endless, doomed, orbit. Every argument carries history. Every act of violence is personal. Every “I hate you” is loaded with a century and a half of grief, guilt, and love that they just don’t know how to put down.

Honestly Rebekah says it best.

‘The Salvatores may fight like dogs, but in the end, they would die for each other.’

And they do.

Stefan, in the end, does.

Stefan spends his entire existence atoning and not just for his own sins, but also for Damon’s. He saves Damon again and again, even when Damon doesn’t ask him to, even when Damon doesn’t deserve it, even when Damon completely resents him for it. Because Stefan’s love is not conditional and it never was.

And Damon pretends he doesn’t care. He buries it deep under cruelty and sarcasm and rage. But every time Stefan is gone, Damon unravels, his impulses always surface in Stefan’s absence. His humanity is tethered to his brother whether he wants to admit it or not.

That’s the tragedy of them that I’ve always loved.

They hurt each other because they care too much, they fight because they matter to each other, they can’t walk alway because the other is home.

Even hatred is still a feeling. It’s still an emotional investment. It still means the other person has power over you. And the Salvatores never stop giving each other that power. You cannot hate unless you care enough to hate, somewhere.

You don’t mourn someone you don’t love.

You don’t spend 150 years punishing yourself over someone you don’t love.

And they wouldn’t threaten if they did not love.

Their story was never about reconciliation and peace. Their story was about endurance, about loving someone so deeply even when it rots into resentment, even when it curdles into anger, it never disappears. Their love to each other is their commitment as brothers, no matter what happens to it.

They can fight like dogs, ruin each other, say they hate each other until the words lose meaning.

But in the end?? They would die for each other. Again, Stefan did.

Stefan died in sacrifice. Stefan died and allowed Damon to live a human life with Elena.

Honestly, as someone with siblings, the Salvatore brothers are painfully relatable.

Loving your sibling doesn’t mean liking them. It doesn’t mean having peace or understanding or even forgiveness. Sometimes it means screaming matches, even over something stupid. Sometimes it means saying some things that you cannot take back. Sometimes it means knowing exactly how to hurt each other because no one else knows you better.

But it also means no matter how bad it gets, there’s a like you won’t cross. A place you’ll always come back to. A loyalty that exists even when you don’t want it to.

You can walk away from lovers.

You can abandon friends.

But, at least in my case, siblings are practically stitched into you. My siblings are one of the only constants I can rely on, and I believe that to be the same for the Salvatore brothers in their own little fucked up way.

And that’s why they’ll truly never hate each other.

Because that kind of hatred requires distance that they would never allow.

They are, and have always been, brothers first and enemies second.

I just saw a post that included this GIF of Kai Parker :

(credit where credit's due ❤️)

I had a weird reflection in mind where I thought:

"If Bonkai happened, and for some reason they broke up and/or were in bad terms, baby would do his best to get Bonnie back! He'd be the sweetest and even be 'nice' to the people he doesn't like because he CAN'T LOOSE HER.

He turned evil again before because he was not even given a chance (and because of STUPID writing 🙄)...

Now that he had a taste of LOVE, he is not going to kill whoever, do some stupid shit and fuck it all up for good. Not like a certain someone...🙄"

(That certain someone was always pardonned, but that is not the matter here...)

Personally for me, the most unbelievable thing that ever happened in TVD, is that Elena survived Kol's death. Maybe Kol had not very nice relationships with his family, but he was their brother and they claimed to care about him.

Kol was there for Rebekah ("You need to kill some guy to take revenge on the bitch who stabbed you, and we can end up in trouble for that? I'm in." "I need to return to the town just to help you to torture people and find the Cure you wanted? Say no more, I am on my way"), he defended her from Klaus few times even after she betrayed him, what resulted in him being daggered in 1914.

Klaus clearly was in pain after Kol's death, it was written all over his face. He was trapped in the room near his little brother's dead body, he did not want Kol to die and the loss was harsh. They had really complicated relationship, but Klaus cared for him.

Elijah said that family is his first priority and, I quote, "No one hurts my family and lives. No one."

Apparently, no one hurts his family and lives, except Elena and MF gang. After Kol's death he had quite civil and polite conversation with Elena, exactly the same person who, maybe did not kill Kol herself, but at least arranged his death, participated in the kill and the whole need of killing him was for her to have the Cure she did not even needed so much. That is a little bit hypocritical, Elijah, don't you think so?

Rebekah even pitied Elena for the loss of Jeremy (what in my opinion says a lot about "good" Elena and "bad" Rebekah). Open your eyes, Bekah, she, in fact, killed your brother and Jeremy was the one whose hand ended his life.

Klaus, who seemingly was deeply affected by this tragedy, helped the gang with aramaic translation, decided to save Caroline's life (you can say Caroline did not participate in the deed, but she at least was aware of the plan, and Klaus killed for lesser) AND did not do anything to avenge Kol.

For the family like Mikaelsons, revenge upon everyone who was envolved in their brother's murder is the least they can do. But instead, they did no harm to Elena, and some of them even helped her, pitied her.

It is just unlogical. This is the most unreasonable thing in the entire series and I am so mad for that.

And I can absolutely understand Kol for his rage later on. He felt like his family did not care for him, that he was wronged and was robbed of the revenge he deserved. My darling certainly deserved so much better.

I’ve been thinking about why Kai’s trauma and abusive family dynamics were so little explored or acknowledge in TVD. I realized that his trauma is tied to themes of prejudice. He was discriminated against by his own family for his siphoning abilities.

I was watching a breakdown of TVD on YouTube and they mentioned the racial dynamics of the Bennetts in the Civil War era Mystic Falls, but rushed past it saying that the show deals with vampire drama & supernaturals so it wouldn’t have time to touch on racial issues or prejudice. I couldn’t disagree more. The show touches on real life issues all the time: drug addiction (directly with Jeremy in season 1 and Stefan with his blood lust), the Mikealsons are textbook generational trauma (they kinda touch on prejudice that Klaus experienced as a bastard child with a werewolf daddy), and Liz deals with cancer in season 6 that can’t be cured with magic, to name a few. That being said, the plot deals with real life issues that the writers deem relevant, so they easily could have touched on issues of discrimination through Bonnie (and the Bennetts in general) and Kai Parker! Whether they would have done a good job at this is another convo, but the writers shouldn’t get a pass from dodging these relevant issues bc there’s supernatural stuff going on…

Back to Kai, there is a deleted scene in S6E15 where Kai is shown in a vulnerable light. I think this was deliberately cut bc Plec wants us to view Kai as fully irredeemable. Damon, Stefan, and Klaus have killed innocent people at random for much less and they are redeemable (plus they have many more victims).

Kai should have been redeemed. I don’t think he is inherently evil. His demons are born from intense prejudice-based abuse that he suffered from his whole life. When comparing these villains, it’s important to note that violence for the sake of ego, paranoia, or careless noms is not the same as a victim reacting to the trauma imposed on them.