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[TVD META] 1x01: PILOT.
I’ve decided to take on the mammoth challenge of reviewing TVD episodes because I have a lot to say and considering I rewatch TVD a lot, I figure I might as well have fun analysing it. I don’t have a schedule in mind so… it’ll be whenever I feel like writing up my thousand and one thoughts!
Episode: 1x01: Pilot.
Summary: Dear diary, we establish horror movie tropes in this pilot and set up a rather eery feeling for this supernatural romance. Stefan and Elena meet in the men’s room and then a cemetery—this is one to tell the grandkids.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
tl;dr: Not a completely boring pilot, although everyone’s hair concerns me.
TVD: 1X01 PILOT
Can I just start off and say that tonally, TVD sets itself up to be the teenage kid sibling to Supernatural? It uses nighttime as a signifier for all the monsters coming to play (a common occurrence during SPN’s prime of Seasons 1-2) and suspense. (Fun fact, SPN aired in 2005 and TVD aired four years later in 2009. I can see the SPN influence in the way it’s filmed and blocked. I can also see Kevin Williamson’s Scream background—TVD is filled with nods to Scream in terms of style, the way the protagonist is humanised, and how the characters are close-knit.)
The episode is literally littered in horror movie tropes: close camera pans of characters walking through fog, wide shots of the fog slowly creeping in, focus on characters faces as they come face-to-face with Damon’s crow.
The show did so well at suspense that it’s a shame it lost this tone after 2x01: The Return. It set up the vampires as being actually dangerous creatures. And considering TVD came out at the same time as Twilight was romanticising vampires with their glitter bods and turquoise scene filters… It was a great contrast to that franchise.
As for a pilot episode, this one is decent. It’s not the best I’ve seen (I don’t think anything will touch Charmed or Alias, or even SPN) but it’s not boring by any means.
DEAR DIARY
From the word go, the show sets up the universe as being Stefan’s story, but I honestly don’t believe that. Yes, we ultimately follow him and his metamorphosis into a stronger, more confident iteration of himself over the years, but I’ve always viewed TVD as Elena’s story. It’s Elena who brings him here, it’s Elena who acts as a beacon for all things supernatural.
Ultimately, TVD is a show that explores Elena’s grief, four months after her traumatic accident that killed her parents to the very moment she comes back to them. It’s Elena’s emotional journey we bear witness to.
I’ve always had an issue with a woman’s story being framed by a man, especially the fact that the male gaze is so prevalent in media even in 2020. By framing this as "Stefan’s story" while the story ultimately happens to Elena and from that we get Stefan being affected… It’s Elena’s story. It should have opened with Elena’s diary entry. (I understand the use of diaries is meant to link Stefan and Elena together—I have more on that.)
The fact is, a woman’s story can be strong and still feature a man while she discovers who she is. Elena is a great character. She is strong, she holds her own, she has a very clear personality with strengths and flaws. She’s an active participant in her own decisions and, as we’ll come to see in the next few episodes, has a strong moral code. She exists outside of Stefan, so the narrative framing her as a secondary to Stefan does her an injustice when everything that happens in the narrative happens because of her.
Stefan’s quote "I shouldn’t have come home… I have to know her" centres around Elena being a beacon because Elena is the embodiment of Newton’s three laws of motion:
Maybe I’m applying too much to this, but I honestly believe TVD is Elena’s story, not Stefan’s. It’s Stefan’s history with Elena’s ancestor and curiosity to determine who she is that keeps him here, and while that’s definitely his story, it’s Elena’s story we ultimately unfold and follow with an incredible heavy emotional weight. If it wasn’t for Elena… we wouldn’t have a story.
(I’d argue that if this is Stefan’s story, why did we not hear of Lexi until 1x08: 162 Candles?)
Elena is a great female protagonist who was often compared to Bella’s passivity in Twilight, so I consumed this show from 2009 as Elena’s story. It does affect how I am meant to view the story when they say it’s actually Stefan’s.
Elena’s story of personal growth and healing does not start when Stefan bumps into her outside of the men’s room. It started the day she decided to continue living, to be there for her brother and aunt, and to consistently be a supportive friend to her friends despite how grief can deplete you. Elena only began to see her personal growth in herself when she was with Stefan, who she bonded with over death.
Stefan is the only character we see Elena bonding with—quite literally in the cemetery—about death. She does try to bond with Jeremy, but he’s too traumatised to bond with her. So, Stefan is her anchor amongst the tumultuous grief sea. (And grief is such a big thing in the first few episodes that I want to touch on because this show is about life and death and the moments in between and it does not go into that at all.)
In a way, Stefan is her three laws of motion: by him coming to town, he sets her on a journey of self-healing and relearning what it’s like to live in a world where her grief will be a permanent fixture. But, truthfully, Stefan being there or not does not mean Elena won’t get there. We already have the seeds of her character planted and it’s very clear that Elena would have gotten to her self-healing journey eventually.
Without Elena, though, I sincerely doubt Stefan would have begun his self-healing journey. Perhaps it is Stefan’s story in that respect, but, ultimately, there is no story of Stefan’s unless she’s in it.
The diaries are a prominent feature in the first two seasons, Season 1 even more so. Keeping a diary signalises humanity and vulnerability, something we obviously associate with the mortality of Elena. Giving Stefan a diary where he notes down days, feelings, and people frames him as an immortal person clinging onto his mortality. A lot of media always portrays immortal beings as people who don’t need to sit down and reminisce or document moments in their life because it’s always portrayed as being frivolous and insignificant. Why write down an event that happened when it can happen again in 500 years time?
Journalling grief is how Elena and Stefan’s bond begins to develop. He understands the significance of her diary and when he finds it, he doesn’t read it. Elena immediately asks him if he’s read it, because diaries carry so many vulnerable thoughts and feelings, and Stefan says he hasn’t.
Stefan values Elena’s agency and her privacy. It’s established from the very beginning that Stefan is a champion of Elena’s personal development, even if it means he doesn’t get to know the ins and outs of her thoughts and feelings. He wants her to let him in. Stefan doesn’t use his advantage of being a powerful vampire to get inside of Elena’s head and heart. He uses his humanity to do that.
There’s a reason why Damon does not have a diary. Stefan is a representation of humanity in a dangerous creature and the diaries, obviously, are meant to help connect Stefan and Elena. I’d even daresay the diary is a symbol of Stefan and Elena’s goodness and physically identifies them as the protagonists of the series.
Stefan wants to cling to his humanity. Damon wants to cling to his animalistic nature.
The diaries are featured three times for Elena and three times for Stefan, twice with him looking longingly down at Katherine’s 1864 portrait that he keeps hidden in a journal.
GRIEF
Grief is super prevalent in the first season of the show. It is how we are introduced to Elena. She is a young girl four months into a lifetime of grief and she is doing her best to stay afloat for herself, support her little brother, and somehow comfort and validate her aunt who has been thrust into a position of responsibility and parenthood that she wasn’t currently built for.
Elena is the sun our characters orbit around (and hence why I think she is the main protagonist). Everyone gravitates to her. The story centres around Elena and it centres around her grief.
When we meet her, Elena is defined by her grief. She’s returning to school for the first time since her family’s tragedy and she’s bracing herself for the day. She literally writes (and says in her voiceover):
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Elena establishes that:
Immediately, it establishes that Elena is isolated, feels alone, and bears her grief by herself. We’re introduced to her looking after Jeremy (which he finds overbearing) and her taking on the motherly role with him at school in the bathroom.
Elena is defined and isolated by her grief and feels alone. We are introduced to Elena feeling lost, adrift, and feeling obligated to bottle up her grief, paint on a smile, and be normal. Despite Bonnie’s attempts to be there for her, Elena does not have an anchor during this time.
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No one sees through her act because they either 1) don’t know how to sight these performances or 2) don’t know how to comfort her.
Grief is the reason why Stefan returns to Mystic Falls (his grief for Katherine, his brother, and his youthful life and humanity) and why Stefan is able to connect to Elena in a way no one else has been capable.
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We establish super early on that Elena feels like she’s on an island with herself, Jeremy and Jenna. Bonnie is the only friend who seems to try and empathise with how she feels and is the only person who we see Elena show her vulnerable cracks to. Bonnie is the first friend we meet. If Caroline was a contender or if Bonnie wasn’t a significant person in Elena’s grief, we would have met Bonnie at the same time as Caroline.
Elena’s no longer romantically tied to Matt and I think it’s safe to say that she’s also no longer platonically tied to him, either. The way Matt looks at her with longing and almost hesitation in the hallway shows that he doesn’t know how to deal with this new chasm in their relationship, which is her grief. What he says at the party at the end of the episode only confirms this for me because Matt has no concept of grief nor empathy for Elena. It’s about him. He stylises her grief to be about him and he can only understand it in the context of his feelings.
Here is how Matt behaves towards Elena during this entire episode:
Her parents died literally four months ago in a tragic car accident that she was involved in and almost died in and he’s getting up her about the fact she’s hanging out with the new hot dude? I get that he’s 16 or 17 years old, but even at that age, you’re old enough to possess some capacity to be empathetic.
Stefan is the only person who Elena seems able to breathe with. Stefan is the one who she seems easy with because he understands and acknowledges grief. He’s the one who validates how she feels ("You won’t be sad forever") and he’s the one who gives her the space to talk.
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This exchange is so, so important to Elena because she behaves like this is the first time she hears it. "You won’t be sad forever, but you’re sad now, and being sad is okay." Her physical reaction is important. It’s almost like she’s finally taken that one breath she’s been holding for four long months. Stefan sees through her performance and he tackles what she later expresses to Jeremy to be a need to move on because everyone else has. This is the first time we see her react visibly to any mentions of her grief—and Caroline’s commentary in the hallway doesn’t count since Caroline did not acknowledge her grief entirely.
Stefan is the only person who does not insert himself into her grief. He listens, he talks, and he only ever speaks of her. Stefan is the first person we see in the show who doesn’t seem like they’re ticking the box of asking if she’s okay (Caroline) or rushing her to be in a place that’s available and attractive for him (Matt).
Stefan is the first person who listens. And that’s so important.
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If the show actually dove into its literal life vs death themes, Stefan is the walking personification of death and Elena is the walking personification of life. These two characters coming together to form an intimate and strong bond only shows that life and death are intermingled and that life with death and death with life isn’t something that’s horrible or destructive (not in the way I see Damon, who I feel represents death and destruction, and the way he will come to destroy the characters of Vicki, Elena, and Stefan).
The show should have dealt with grief and highlighted it as a bigger theme throughout the season and series. You have undead characters intermingling with those who are alive. Instead of showing how the two can work together and even showcase how life is stronger than death, the show lets undead characters terrorise and destroy the ones who are living. Look at how Damon consistently abuses Caroline, destroys Vicki, threatens Bonnie, and ultimately destroys Elena’s agency for the sake of meeting his ideals.
Personally, the show was strongest for me when it dealt with Elena’s grief and allowed Stefan to be a part of her self-discovery in the aftermath. Stefan is death walking, yet he is so unlike how she has experienced death before. He is kind and gentle and he listens. He gives when death has only taken from Elena.
Stefan is the only person in Elena’s life who actually gives to her—space, time, an ear, a shoulder, empathy, and understanding. And he expects nothing in return but those precious moments of being with her.
Even Stefan is experiencing grief himself. He grieves for his brother (Stefan is so emotional when Damon reappears in his room) and his human life, and he grieves for Katherine. I think Stefan is someone who doesn’t cope well with loss. He has Katherine’s photograph in his journal (which we see him look at with longing and hurt twice) and he will later consistently deny to Elena and Damon the significance of Katherine. Yet, he keeps her photograph. Stefan does not keep things for the sake of keeping them. We will later find out in Season 3 that he kept a list of the names of the people he murdered because he wants to remind himself of what he is capable of.
Him keeping Katherine’s photograph is a reminder of his capability to love.
Remembering significant people and actions is important to Stefan. Katherine was significant to him.
We don’t see much of Stefan’s grief for Damon and his humanity in this episode, but Stefan is in an 150-year-old grief spin. It makes him the perfect candidate to talk to Elena. Stefan likes to be there for people, he likes to fix things, and he wants to make amends for his past.
And Stefan just sucks at grieving. (I think it can easily be surmised because Damon protected him from his grief when Lily Salvatore died. He has been coddled by Damon for most of his life.)
The show later credits Damon for making Elena feel alive again after she died, but Elena was brought back to life by Stefan and remained alive with him. (Damon destroyed her.)
DAMON SALVATORE
Anyone who knows me knows I believe Season 1 Damon Salvatore is the best iteration of his character. I can sum it up pretty easily: he owns his shit, he’s diabolical, he’s intelligent and cunning, and he is unrepentant because he is white male entitlement personified. Yes, he is a vampire, but his entitlement, arrogance and toxic masculinity is embedded very deeply into his humanity.
He has great motivations when it comes to the political nature of Mystic Falls. We’ll later see in Season 1 just how great of a politician he is—he’s charming, charismatic, and capable of talking the sweet talk. Damon in Season 1 is incredibly intelligent. Personally, I believe this is Ian Somerhalder at his best as the character.
Damon Salvatore in Season 1 has his humanity on. He speaks incredibly emotionally—he reminds Stefan "I promised you an eternity of misery." If he had his humanity off, why would he be so hellbent on keeping that score? (We see various and inconsistent interpretations of "no humanity" in the series, but I believe no humanity is best articulated in Isobel Flemming, which I can’t wait to get to.)
Damon is scary because of his humanity. He is not scary because he is without it.
The Pilot literally opens with an attack in the middle of the night by a mysterious creature. We are given all the horror tropes that signal that this creature is scary, intimidating, and going to be lingering throughout our season run. Damon is first seen as a silhouette that stands in the middle of the road in the dark of night and allows a car to hit him. He then feeds on the people inside.
Damon is meticulous and predatory. This is Damon at his best.
Enter: Damon.
The way Damon is introduced is important. He is not introduced as Ian Somerhalder until halfway through the episode after we have established Stefan and littered the episode with suspense of what creature could possibly be in Mystic Falls feeding and killing people. Damon is actually introduced as fog and the crow and the opposite to Stefan’s goodness/light/humanity.
We are able to put two and two together after witnessing the crow diving into Bonnie’s car (with Elena inside) spooking both girls, the crow and fog tag-teaming to frighten Elena in the cemetery, and the crow finally appearing on Stefan’s balcony as a literal beacon of death and destruction (which Damon brings gleefully to Mystic Falls).
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Damon is not introduced as a hero. In fact, he is introduced as the crow, and a crow in the context of TVD’s supernatural suspenseful world means bad luck or an omen of death. Crows symbolise mischief, bad luck, and tricksters, and we are introduced to Damon as that. He does not represent the good symbolistic meanings of the crow. If he was, then why do we only ever see Damon’s silhouette (and then Damon himself) at night? Every horror movie has the horror happening at night (and vampires are associated with the night and vampires are often associated with death and violence). Why do we see Damon act violently towards innocent people and his own brother if he is meant to represent the positives of the crow?
Even though the crow and fog are dropped after two episodes, the manner in which characters are introduced to us and the other characters remains important no matter the retcon that takes place.
Damon is not introduced as a romantic hero like Stefan. He is not seen in the day where it’s bright and deemed "safe", nor is he seen interacting with anyone but Stefan. Damon is introduced to be the villain, and when you know what comes of his character as early as Season 2… it’s disappointing to see such a meticulous, devious, and intelligent antagonist turn into a whimpering romantic hero who the narrative cannot ideally frame as a worthy competitor for the protagonist’s heart without lessening and poorly characterising the strong characters around him. (It’s as simple as this: no one can call Damon out for his abusive behaviour that he does not apologise nor atone for because it makes him unattractive. This is something I intend to go into on a much later date.)
Damon and Elena: The Introduction isn’t Romantic.
I don’t care what the show says. They retconned Damon meeting Elena first (and completely undermined the fact Damon was obsessive over finding Katherine) that I don’t consider that to be the correct canonical take. Soft and sweet Damon who sees Elena and mistakes her for Katherine is not the Damon who we saw in Season 1 at all. (Even though he compelled her to forget, this does not make sense for his character.)
Damon is mean, meticulous, entitled, arrogant, vicious, obsessive, and ambitious. The Damon we see in a flashback that predates the Pilot is not the Damon we meet. It’s the soft, gooey Damon who makes no sense at all for the character’s arc.
So, I will not be including that in this meta because it is not correct nor is does it properly make sense for Damon’s personal journey.
As far as I am concerned, the first time Elena meets Damon is when he controls a crow to hit Bonnie’s car and stalks her in the cemetery.
This leaves us with the very simple question: How is Damon introduced to Elena? Via violence.
He controls a crow to hit Bonnie’s car, scaring them and, if they were unlucky, being severely injured in a car accident. He scares her in the cemetery by manipulating the fog to roll in and having the crow intimidate her to the point where she tells it to go away. He stands in the fog as an eery silhouette. It is established in this episode that Elena is terrified of the crow and the fog. As the crow and fog represent Damon, she is terrified of him.
Damon is introduced to Elena as violence, harm, and destruction, and that is what he proves to be true to throughout Season 1. It honestly does not matter that the crow and fog are later retconned—he is introduced this way, and even the next two episodes support it: Elena is afraid of Damon and Damon has no regard for Elena’s well-being.
(Damon had a lot more work to do to win Elena’s heart than he did in canon imo.)
Can I also mention that it’s rather significant that Damon’s presence chases a terrified Elena out of the cemetery, which is muted and almost dark, into the light and to Stefan who "rescues" her from the darkness? Stefan is the light to Damon’s dark and Stefan brings light to Elena. Damon does not.
How is Damon introduced with and to Stefan? :)
DAMON VS STEFAN
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Damon and Stefan are literal representations of good/bad, light/dark, romantic/unromantic, control/out of control.
Although you can say Damon and Stefan physically represent light/dark, I think that it doesn’t matter who has the lighter hair and who has the darker hair—Damon is the bad/dark/unromantic/control and Stefan is the good/light/romantic/out of control.
Light vs Dark.
The time of day we are introduced to characters—and the time of day characters are introduced to one another—is important, especially with how the show initially sets up the tone. Literal light and dark is used to establish Stefan and Damon.
Yes, we are introduced to Stefan when it’s dark, so we, as the audience, know that there is darkness inside of him. But to Elena, she is properly introduced to him during the day and during school. Elena then meets Stefan again at the cemetery during the middle of a bright and sunny day. Stefan is the representation of light.
Damon, on the other hand, is introduced consistently throughout the episode through darkness. We see his silhouette as the opening scene. Wwe see him during the grey and darkening fog (yes, it happens during the day, but the fog literally covers up the sunlight and drowns it out when chasing Elena—yet another metaphor for how he smothers out her light). We see him reintroduce himself to Stefan in the middle of the night. He meets Caroline at night in her darkest hour. Damon is cloaked in literal darkness to demonstrate how he is the representation of the show’s internal darkness.
Good vs Bad.
The show is quite heavy-handed in it’s "good brother", "bad brother" meta, but it’s very obvious who is represents the "good" of a vampire and who represents the "bad" of a vampire. I won’t be considering "good/bad" as who is the best behaved and who isn’t. Both brothers are nuanced and flawed people and stripping them down as to who is good and who is bad is an insult to their characters.
Stefan represents the goodness of a vampire. He showcases that vampires are not just predators who act on animal instinct and are inhumane. He showcases interests, kindness, and the ability to wear his humanity on his sleeve. While the show depicts Stefan as the "good" brother, it mishandles this in its own meta: Stefan is the "good brother" because he represents what is good about being a vampire. He controls his bloodlust (how well he does it varies, but the fact is that he tries and he has human-based reasons for it), he controls his temper, his strength, and his natural instincts. He is good because he is a person beneath the vampirism.
Damon represents the badness of a vampire. He is the evil side of it. He is the predator, the animal, and the creature that does not give one single fuck about what’s around him. He shows no remorse and absolutely no care. He taunts Stefan like he’s prey. He talks about Elena like she’s not a person but a mere object to possess and a pawn to use against Stefan. Damon is not the "bad brother" because he makes shitty choices and gets away with those choices. He is the "bad brother" because he embodies everything that is bad about a vampire.
Look at how he comes to treat people over the course of the season (and even beyond). He treats Vicki like she is a plaything and will turn her out of boredom. He does not care about Caroline but he wants to use her as a blood source and as a minion, and talks to her in the way an abuser would (more on that once we get into the season). He frightens Elena and will come to plant insecurities in her mind when it comes to Stefan’s honesty in the next episode. He torments Stefan and ridicules him, undermines his ability to control himself and make decisions that better the community, and he abuses him.
Stefan is the good brother because he tries to be a better person. Damon is the bad brother because he doesn’t try to be a better person. The vampirism is merely an excuse for bad behaviour that he willingly chooses to embody.
Romantic vs Unromantic.
I do not believe Damon was ever meant to be a romantic hero for Elena Gilbert. I understand the show was marketed as a love triangle and the source material features a very present love triangle between Stefan/Elena/Damon, but the way Damon is characterised does not support the fact that he was ever going to be a contender for Elena’s heart.
Firstly, I’ve already established Elena’s character way up top, but a refresher: she is a kind person, strong-willed and opinionated, and she does not accept bad behaviour from those around her. She will prove to later find Damon a hindrance and intimidating (unless he’s hurting her friend, then she’s incredibly unafraid of him). Elena identifies Damon as an abuser and she does not respect that. Elena is characterised as a strong and flawed woman, and the woman she is characterised as is not compatible with Damon.
Stefan is the romantic hero because he is introduced as such. He is kind, he is gentle. He has a "meet cute" with Elena at school that obviously leaves her with a good impression. (She walks away and turns back to look at him, an obvious trope used in developing romances in romcoms.) She does suspect him of suspicious behaviour when she finds him at the cemetery because she has just been scared by Damon’s crow, but she instantly calms down in his presence. Stefan is calming, trusting, and mature. She connects with his humanity.
Stefan identifies Elena as a person with feelings. He treats her like she is valuable. He doesn’t treat her like an object to toy with or someone to possess. He respects her feelings, he openly listens to her, and he connects with her on a human level. Stefan is introduced to us as her partner and an equal.
Damon, on the other hand, is not. Like I’ve already said, he is introduced to us as the villain and as the omen of death. He is a harbinger of pain, and, boy, does he bring it. The way Damon speaks of Elena is disassociated from her being a person. "Imagine what her blood tastes like!" connects her as a plaything to torment Stefan with (which he succeeds in as it gets a violent reaction out of Stefan). "She’s a dead ringer for Katherine" takes away Elena’s agency as Damon immediately implies that Elena is a replacement and stand-in for Katherine for Stefan. Damon does not speak fo Elena like she is a person.
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It’s literally all there. He talks about Elena like she is not a human being. His use of language compared to Stefan’s lacks humanity.
Not to mention, Damon and Elena have a severe power imbalance. It’s not obvious in the Pilot, but it’s there. He is not her partner nor her equal.
Control vs Out of Control.
Bet you thought I’d say Stefan was the one in control.
Disregarding the stupid retcon that the show shoved in here to take place pre-Pilot where Damon and Elena met first (with a Damon who does not fit the characterisation of Season 1 Damon at all), there’s a reason why we see Elena and Stefan meet in person first.
Stefan lacks control. This is later amplified by his blood addiction, which the Pilot begins to plant the seeds for. But Stefan literally cannot help himself and not meet Elena. He literally says it!
"I had no choice. I have to know her." Stefan cannot control himself even as a person. He has to know Elena, he has no choice! In a way, Stefan is the harbinger for Elena, but I believe he is the harbinger of goodness, light, and her feeling alive again. Around him, Elena is light, she is free, and she is safe and secure… despite what being with him brings.
But Stefan is out of control because he lacks it. He does not have control. Yes, he can feed off of bunnies, but Stefan ultimately is incapable of controlling his urges.
Meanwhile, Damon does have impeccable control. He has to have it in order for his Season 1 plan to rollout correctly (and especially with infiltrating the Council and earning everyone’s trust). We don’t see Damon meet Elena first because him meeting Elena represents his ability to control himself. I don’t doubt that Damon hasn’t been back to Mystic Falls over the decade and a half he and Stefan were not speaking. Damon is diabolical and he is also a masochist. Of course, he’d come back to the place where his life was destroyed (and where Katherine is allegedly entombed). It makes sense with how he is characterised during this season.
But Damon is able to control himself. He is methodical in how he behaves. He purposefully leaves Vicki alive when he attacks her. Damon has a plan. He isn’t Katherine by any means, but his Season 1 self is most definitely a protege of hers.
He taunts Stefan because he is unemotional despite his emotional language. He is in control of his conversation with Stefan as he taunts him and provokes him. All throughout the episode, Damon is in control. He is in control of when Stefan learns he’s returned, of when he meets Caroline, of how the town begins to find out something supernatural is amiss.
The show likes to act as if Damon is impulsive and reckless and uncontrollable, but he is the most controlling out of the characters we have met. He beats Caroline in being meticulous, because for Damon to be able to bring an "eternity of misery" to Stefan, he has to be the one controlling everything.
If Stefan could help himself, he would not have come to Mystic Falls to meet Elena. Damon easily controlled himself in that regard. If Damon was as impulsive as he later becomes, he would have been the first to meet Elena.
IN THE DEFENCE OF CAROLINE FORBES
Caroline Forbes gets a really bad rap in Season 1 by the narrative, characters, and even fans. But Caroline doesn’t deserve the negativity she receives at all. Her character does grow throughout the season (and series) but they lay the seeds of her being a good, gentle, and compassionate person from this very episode. It’s all just misconstrued.
How we’re introduced to her matters.
Firstly, we’re introduced to her as being the vapid, self-centred friend of Elena and Bonnie who they seem to tolerate. Her reaction to Elena returning to school is harmful to Elena’s well-being, and the narrative does nothing to prove that Caroline is capable of empathy.
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Looking back on this, I do actually wonder if Caroline was purposefully introduced to the audience as the uncaring and dismissive friend who was meant to make us less sympathetic to her with regards to what happens to her in this episode and the next. Whatever the reason, Caroline is introduced to us as the shallow friend who seems to be incapable of reading the room and that we really shouldn’t sympathise with her.
She is immediately framed to be a competitor for Stefan’s affections and to be a foil to Elena in this regard. Caroline is a prop in the story to help place Elena on a pedestal—she’s the good girl, she’s the attractive one, she’s the one that Stefan would obviously go for because she’s not shallow and vapid and sexually confident like Caroline. (It’s a light Madonna/Whore angle. Elena/Katherine capture this more obviously in the narrative.)
What the "We’re having a June wedding" really reveals about her.
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"We’re having a June wedding" is deeply romanticised by fans and the show, but the thing is, the fans and the show overlook Caroline in this moment: she is so personable that she is able to get all these facts on Stefan, who we, as an audience, know nothing about. She knows more about Stefan the person than we do as the audience, and we know Stefan is a vampire and that he is old and that he came back for Elena, but we know nothing of his humanity.
She literally gets all this information "between third and fourth period" and this immediately challenges the perception that Caroline can’t read a room. She’d have to possess this skill if she could gather all this information on the hot new guy, no?
Caroline is framed to be nosy, but for someone who was introduced to us as vapid and annoying, she has to have charisma and a knack for talking to people and creating interpersonal relationships in order to find out that information.
Caroline’s strengths as a character that we see amplified in Season 2 (her ability to reconnect Tyler and Matt and her ability to make Stefan laugh) is rooted in this moment. Caroline is a character who is severely underrated (and I think it’s a damn shame they dropped her pursuing journalism as she would be incredible at uncovering information) when she is someone who should have been utilised for her strength in connecting to other people.
This skill is something Elena and Bonnie lack. (Stefan lacks it, too.)
It’s unfair that she’s framed by her insecurities.
Of course, everyone has insecurities, and Caroline is introduced to us as having them in spades. While I am definitely inclined to believe someone like her would have them, I personally don’t believe we ever see why she has insecurities with regards to Elena. We never go into the depth of their friendship. We only get "She doesn’t even try! And he picks her" and that’s it. We get some insight into Caroline’s mind, that she views it as a competition with Elena… but we never go into her background, how she was raised, and why she would think that. We never dive deep into the origin of her insecurities. Because as far as we know as audience members throughout the series run, Liz Forbes is a good person and a decent mother who was preoccupied with her work and didn’t have much time for her daughter. So did Caroline’s competitive mindset stem from there? Or did her father do a whammy on her as a kid?
Although I’d like to know if her insecurity stems from childhood, I do believe that it comes from something the show never touches on, although it does briefly acknowledge with Damon’s treatment of Caroline: everyone treats her like shit.
Her mother, Elena, Bonnie, Stefan, and Damon treat her like she’s worth nothing. Matt and Tyler speak of her negative traits when talking about her. (Matt will later say he wants to "throttle" Caroline but he "loves" her, implying her negative trait makes her unloveable but he loves her anyway! Tyler says that Caroline is annoying but then speaks highly of her. Her negative traits are what people identify with first and then they explain why she’s not annoying, vapid, etc. This sets up the narrative that Caroline is not thought of to be a good person, which doesn’t make sense.)
Caroline’s humanity as a human and vampire is wanting to be liked for the simplest things, so when Stefan rejects her at the party it hurts (all she did was flirt with him and he took it as her wanting to date him which is a big leap considering she never verbally said to him she wanted to date him), Bonnie and Elena dismiss her, and Tyler and Matt use violent and angry language towards her which Caroline is truly undeserving of. All we see in this episode is Caroline trying. (She literally tries with Elena when she returns to school and she is ridiculed for it behind her back.)
And the way her friends project onto her makes her a target for Damon’s abuse. He literally sits in the Grill and overhears her conversation with Bonnie where she pours out her soul and says "I’m never the one" and that she’s never picked for him to… pick her? Damon is a predator and an abuser, and abusers prey on people they identify as weak and weaponise their insecurities against them to isolate them from their support system and confidence.
And that is what Damon does.
credit: dailymysticfalls
Caroline is undeserving of the treatment she is about to endure. In her words, she’s merely "inappropriate" and "says the wrong thing" because she isn’t a person to mince her words. She says what she thinks and how she likes to say it, and she tries. People simply find that intimidating and distasteful because Caroline is honest and is the only character who is ever truly herself.
That’s more than I can say for a lot of characters.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
The Matt Problem.
Uncle-Nephew Zach and Uncle Stefan.
The Beginnings of the Bennett Problem.
Matt and Tyler… #Yikes.
The town is characterised as being close-knit (everyone stares at Stefan All the Fucking Time like he’s some hot weirdo) but it is never explored or further expanded upon. (One could argue it is represented through the Council, but considering the Council is in a bubble, I believe the town being close-knit is never explored again through the teenagers.)
Vicki represents the classism in Mystic Falls. We never see this classism again in an individual character after she dies and specifically after 1x19: Miss Mystic Falls in the form of Amber. It’s a shame.
The pilot takes place on September 7, 2009.
So what was Stefan doing before he decided to go to school to further stalk Elena?
It makes me laugh Stefan was almost crying when he came to Elena’s door at the end of the episode. We never discuss why he is so emotional about her potentially rejecting him if he later establishes that he knew she wasn’t Katherine. Did he play out the whole relationship in his head before he met her?
When Elena enters the men’s bathroom to confront Jeremy, a dude comes out of the stall and doesn’t wash his hands.
Wash your hands, you dirty pig.
I took all my notes while I was riding my bike (on a trainer, of course) so COMMEND MY TALENTS.
Steferine crumb count this episode: 3.
Yes, I’m keeping a Stefan/Katherine crumb count. What of it?
Anyway, I love rewatching this show and talking meta about it to anyone who listens, so hopefully this reads far more coherently than my plurks ranting about the show and some of its successes and failures. I do have my biases but I have done my best to prove with textual evidence why I feel the way I feel about specific characters.
I’ve done my best to credit all gifs. I’ve uploaded them to my own account so please do not hotlink. Please do not take the caps I’ve coloured. (It’s not the best colouring.)
I’ve gone through this numerous times to catch any spelling mistakes or grammar errors so please forgive me and just enjoy how much of a nerd I am.
Because this is like an essay:
Episode: 1x01: Pilot.
Summary: Dear diary, we establish horror movie tropes in this pilot and set up a rather eery feeling for this supernatural romance. Stefan and Elena meet in the men’s room and then a cemetery—this is one to tell the grandkids.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
tl;dr: Not a completely boring pilot, although everyone’s hair concerns me.
Can I just start off and say that tonally, TVD sets itself up to be the teenage kid sibling to Supernatural? It uses nighttime as a signifier for all the monsters coming to play (a common occurrence during SPN’s prime of Seasons 1-2) and suspense. (Fun fact, SPN aired in 2005 and TVD aired four years later in 2009. I can see the SPN influence in the way it’s filmed and blocked. I can also see Kevin Williamson’s Scream background—TVD is filled with nods to Scream in terms of style, the way the protagonist is humanised, and how the characters are close-knit.)
The episode is literally littered in horror movie tropes: close camera pans of characters walking through fog, wide shots of the fog slowly creeping in, focus on characters faces as they come face-to-face with Damon’s crow.
The show did so well at suspense that it’s a shame it lost this tone after 2x01: The Return. It set up the vampires as being actually dangerous creatures. And considering TVD came out at the same time as Twilight was romanticising vampires with their glitter bods and turquoise scene filters… It was a great contrast to that franchise.
As for a pilot episode, this one is decent. It’s not the best I’ve seen (I don’t think anything will touch Charmed or Alias, or even SPN) but it’s not boring by any means.
DEAR DIARY
Stefan: [voice over] For over a century, I have lived in secret; hiding in the shadows, alone in the world. Until now. I am a vampire. And this is my story.
Stefan: I shouldn't have come home. I know the risk. But I had no choice. I have to know her.
From the word go, the show sets up the universe as being Stefan’s story, but I honestly don’t believe that. Yes, we ultimately follow him and his metamorphosis into a stronger, more confident iteration of himself over the years, but I’ve always viewed TVD as Elena’s story. It’s Elena who brings him here, it’s Elena who acts as a beacon for all things supernatural.
Ultimately, TVD is a show that explores Elena’s grief, four months after her traumatic accident that killed her parents to the very moment she comes back to them. It’s Elena’s emotional journey we bear witness to.
I’ve always had an issue with a woman’s story being framed by a man, especially the fact that the male gaze is so prevalent in media even in 2020. By framing this as "Stefan’s story" while the story ultimately happens to Elena and from that we get Stefan being affected… It’s Elena’s story. It should have opened with Elena’s diary entry. (I understand the use of diaries is meant to link Stefan and Elena together—I have more on that.)
The fact is, a woman’s story can be strong and still feature a man while she discovers who she is. Elena is a great character. She is strong, she holds her own, she has a very clear personality with strengths and flaws. She’s an active participant in her own decisions and, as we’ll come to see in the next few episodes, has a strong moral code. She exists outside of Stefan, so the narrative framing her as a secondary to Stefan does her an injustice when everything that happens in the narrative happens because of her.
Stefan’s quote "I shouldn’t have come home… I have to know her" centres around Elena being a beacon because Elena is the embodiment of Newton’s three laws of motion:
First law: an object will not change its motion (Stefan) unless a force acts on it (desire to determine if Elena is Katherine).
Second law: the force on an object (Stefan wanting to know Elena) is equal to its mass times acceleration (his relationship with Katherine).
Third law: when two objects interact (Elena and Stefan), they apply forces to each other of equal magnitude (a strong, healthy relationship; independence; companionship) and opposite direction (supernatural mayhem and destruction; Damon).
Maybe I’m applying too much to this, but I honestly believe TVD is Elena’s story, not Stefan’s. It’s Stefan’s history with Elena’s ancestor and curiosity to determine who she is that keeps him here, and while that’s definitely his story, it’s Elena’s story we ultimately unfold and follow with an incredible heavy emotional weight. If it wasn’t for Elena… we wouldn’t have a story.
(I’d argue that if this is Stefan’s story, why did we not hear of Lexi until 1x08: 162 Candles?)
Elena is a great female protagonist who was often compared to Bella’s passivity in Twilight, so I consumed this show from 2009 as Elena’s story. It does affect how I am meant to view the story when they say it’s actually Stefan’s.
Elena’s story of personal growth and healing does not start when Stefan bumps into her outside of the men’s room. It started the day she decided to continue living, to be there for her brother and aunt, and to consistently be a supportive friend to her friends despite how grief can deplete you. Elena only began to see her personal growth in herself when she was with Stefan, who she bonded with over death.
Stefan is the only character we see Elena bonding with—quite literally in the cemetery—about death. She does try to bond with Jeremy, but he’s too traumatised to bond with her. So, Stefan is her anchor amongst the tumultuous grief sea. (And grief is such a big thing in the first few episodes that I want to touch on because this show is about life and death and the moments in between and it does not go into that at all.)
In a way, Stefan is her three laws of motion: by him coming to town, he sets her on a journey of self-healing and relearning what it’s like to live in a world where her grief will be a permanent fixture. But, truthfully, Stefan being there or not does not mean Elena won’t get there. We already have the seeds of her character planted and it’s very clear that Elena would have gotten to her self-healing journey eventually.
Without Elena, though, I sincerely doubt Stefan would have begun his self-healing journey. Perhaps it is Stefan’s story in that respect, but, ultimately, there is no story of Stefan’s unless she’s in it.
The diaries are a prominent feature in the first two seasons, Season 1 even more so. Keeping a diary signalises humanity and vulnerability, something we obviously associate with the mortality of Elena. Giving Stefan a diary where he notes down days, feelings, and people frames him as an immortal person clinging onto his mortality. A lot of media always portrays immortal beings as people who don’t need to sit down and reminisce or document moments in their life because it’s always portrayed as being frivolous and insignificant. Why write down an event that happened when it can happen again in 500 years time?
Journalling grief is how Elena and Stefan’s bond begins to develop. He understands the significance of her diary and when he finds it, he doesn’t read it. Elena immediately asks him if he’s read it, because diaries carry so many vulnerable thoughts and feelings, and Stefan says he hasn’t.
Stefan: Don't worry, I didn't...read it.
Elena: No? Why not? Most people would have.
Stefan: Well, I wouldn't want anyone to read mine.
Elena: You keep a journal?
Stefan: Yeah, if I don't write it down, I forget it. Memories are too important.
Stefan values Elena’s agency and her privacy. It’s established from the very beginning that Stefan is a champion of Elena’s personal development, even if it means he doesn’t get to know the ins and outs of her thoughts and feelings. He wants her to let him in. Stefan doesn’t use his advantage of being a powerful vampire to get inside of Elena’s head and heart. He uses his humanity to do that.
There’s a reason why Damon does not have a diary. Stefan is a representation of humanity in a dangerous creature and the diaries, obviously, are meant to help connect Stefan and Elena. I’d even daresay the diary is a symbol of Stefan and Elena’s goodness and physically identifies them as the protagonists of the series.
Stefan wants to cling to his humanity. Damon wants to cling to his animalistic nature.
The diaries are featured three times for Elena and three times for Stefan, twice with him looking longingly down at Katherine’s 1864 portrait that he keeps hidden in a journal.
GRIEF
Grief is super prevalent in the first season of the show. It is how we are introduced to Elena. She is a young girl four months into a lifetime of grief and she is doing her best to stay afloat for herself, support her little brother, and somehow comfort and validate her aunt who has been thrust into a position of responsibility and parenthood that she wasn’t currently built for.
Elena is the sun our characters orbit around (and hence why I think she is the main protagonist). Everyone gravitates to her. The story centres around Elena and it centres around her grief.
When we meet her, Elena is defined by her grief. She’s returning to school for the first time since her family’s tragedy and she’s bracing herself for the day. She literally writes (and says in her voiceover):
credit: dailymysticfalls
- Elena: Dear diary, today will be different. It has to be. I will smile, and it will be believable. My smile will say "I'm fine, thank you." "Yes, I feel much better." I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents. I will start fresh, be someone new. It's the only way I'll make it through."
Elena establishes that:
- No one has been able to connect with her over the last four months.
- Every day has been painful and has felt like a performance. "I will smile, and it will be believable."
- Elena has been consistently surrounded by her grief. "My smile will say 'I’m fine, thank you.' 'Yes, I feel much better.'"
- Elena has had to perform for those around her, including her family and friends.
- She feels the need to separate herself from her grief. "I will start fresh, be someone new."
- Elena is barely making it through her days. "It’s the only way I’ll make it through.
- Elena tells Jeremy that everyone has forgotten about their tragedy and implies heavily that they simply need to buckle up and return to normalcy.
Immediately, it establishes that Elena is isolated, feels alone, and bears her grief by herself. We’re introduced to her looking after Jeremy (which he finds overbearing) and her taking on the motherly role with him at school in the bathroom.
Elena is defined and isolated by her grief and feels alone. We are introduced to Elena feeling lost, adrift, and feeling obligated to bottle up her grief, paint on a smile, and be normal. Despite Bonnie’s attempts to be there for her, Elena does not have an anchor during this time.
credit: dailymysticfalls
No one sees through her act because they either 1) don’t know how to sight these performances or 2) don’t know how to comfort her.
Grief is the reason why Stefan returns to Mystic Falls (his grief for Katherine, his brother, and his youthful life and humanity) and why Stefan is able to connect to Elena in a way no one else has been capable.
credit: dailymysticfalls
We establish super early on that Elena feels like she’s on an island with herself, Jeremy and Jenna. Bonnie is the only friend who seems to try and empathise with how she feels and is the only person who we see Elena show her vulnerable cracks to. Bonnie is the first friend we meet. If Caroline was a contender or if Bonnie wasn’t a significant person in Elena’s grief, we would have met Bonnie at the same time as Caroline.
Elena’s no longer romantically tied to Matt and I think it’s safe to say that she’s also no longer platonically tied to him, either. The way Matt looks at her with longing and almost hesitation in the hallway shows that he doesn’t know how to deal with this new chasm in their relationship, which is her grief. What he says at the party at the end of the episode only confirms this for me because Matt has no concept of grief nor empathy for Elena. It’s about him. He stylises her grief to be about him and he can only understand it in the context of his feelings.
Here is how Matt behaves towards Elena during this entire episode:
Matt: How's Elena doing?
Bonnie: Her mom and dad died. How do you think? She's putting on a good face, but it's only been four months.
Matt: Has she said anything about me?
Bonnie: Oh, no. So not getting in the middle. You pick up the phone and call her.
Matt: I feel weird calling her. She broke up with me.
Bonnie: Give it more time, Matt.
[Elena enters with Stefan.]
Matt: More time, huh?
Matt: Looking for someone?
Elena: Hey.
Matt: When you broke up with me, you said it was because you needed some time alone. You don't look so alone to me.
Elena: Matt, you don't understand. It's--
Matt: That's okay, Elena. You do what you have to do. I just want to let you know that...I still believe in us. And I'm not giving up on that.
Elena: Matt...
Her parents died literally four months ago in a tragic car accident that she was involved in and almost died in and he’s getting up her about the fact she’s hanging out with the new hot dude? I get that he’s 16 or 17 years old, but even at that age, you’re old enough to possess some capacity to be empathetic.
Stefan is the only person who Elena seems able to breathe with. Stefan is the one who she seems easy with because he understands and acknowledges grief. He’s the one who validates how she feels ("You won’t be sad forever") and he’s the one who gives her the space to talk.
credit: dailymysticfalls
This exchange is so, so important to Elena because she behaves like this is the first time she hears it. "You won’t be sad forever, but you’re sad now, and being sad is okay." Her physical reaction is important. It’s almost like she’s finally taken that one breath she’s been holding for four long months. Stefan sees through her performance and he tackles what she later expresses to Jeremy to be a need to move on because everyone else has. This is the first time we see her react visibly to any mentions of her grief—and Caroline’s commentary in the hallway doesn’t count since Caroline did not acknowledge her grief entirely.
Stefan is the only person who does not insert himself into her grief. He listens, he talks, and he only ever speaks of her. Stefan is the first person we see in the show who doesn’t seem like they’re ticking the box of asking if she’s okay (Caroline) or rushing her to be in a place that’s available and attractive for him (Matt).
Stefan is the first person who listens. And that’s so important.
credit: dailymysticfalls
If the show actually dove into its literal life vs death themes, Stefan is the walking personification of death and Elena is the walking personification of life. These two characters coming together to form an intimate and strong bond only shows that life and death are intermingled and that life with death and death with life isn’t something that’s horrible or destructive (not in the way I see Damon, who I feel represents death and destruction, and the way he will come to destroy the characters of Vicki, Elena, and Stefan).
The show should have dealt with grief and highlighted it as a bigger theme throughout the season and series. You have undead characters intermingling with those who are alive. Instead of showing how the two can work together and even showcase how life is stronger than death, the show lets undead characters terrorise and destroy the ones who are living. Look at how Damon consistently abuses Caroline, destroys Vicki, threatens Bonnie, and ultimately destroys Elena’s agency for the sake of meeting his ideals.
Personally, the show was strongest for me when it dealt with Elena’s grief and allowed Stefan to be a part of her self-discovery in the aftermath. Stefan is death walking, yet he is so unlike how she has experienced death before. He is kind and gentle and he listens. He gives when death has only taken from Elena.
Stefan is the only person in Elena’s life who actually gives to her—space, time, an ear, a shoulder, empathy, and understanding. And he expects nothing in return but those precious moments of being with her.
Even Stefan is experiencing grief himself. He grieves for his brother (Stefan is so emotional when Damon reappears in his room) and his human life, and he grieves for Katherine. I think Stefan is someone who doesn’t cope well with loss. He has Katherine’s photograph in his journal (which we see him look at with longing and hurt twice) and he will later consistently deny to Elena and Damon the significance of Katherine. Yet, he keeps her photograph. Stefan does not keep things for the sake of keeping them. We will later find out in Season 3 that he kept a list of the names of the people he murdered because he wants to remind himself of what he is capable of.
Him keeping Katherine’s photograph is a reminder of his capability to love.
Remembering significant people and actions is important to Stefan. Katherine was significant to him.
We don’t see much of Stefan’s grief for Damon and his humanity in this episode, but Stefan is in an 150-year-old grief spin. It makes him the perfect candidate to talk to Elena. Stefan likes to be there for people, he likes to fix things, and he wants to make amends for his past.
And Stefan just sucks at grieving. (I think it can easily be surmised because Damon protected him from his grief when Lily Salvatore died. He has been coddled by Damon for most of his life.)
The show later credits Damon for making Elena feel alive again after she died, but Elena was brought back to life by Stefan and remained alive with him. (Damon destroyed her.)
DAMON SALVATORE
Anyone who knows me knows I believe Season 1 Damon Salvatore is the best iteration of his character. I can sum it up pretty easily: he owns his shit, he’s diabolical, he’s intelligent and cunning, and he is unrepentant because he is white male entitlement personified. Yes, he is a vampire, but his entitlement, arrogance and toxic masculinity is embedded very deeply into his humanity.
He has great motivations when it comes to the political nature of Mystic Falls. We’ll later see in Season 1 just how great of a politician he is—he’s charming, charismatic, and capable of talking the sweet talk. Damon in Season 1 is incredibly intelligent. Personally, I believe this is Ian Somerhalder at his best as the character.
Damon Salvatore in Season 1 has his humanity on. He speaks incredibly emotionally—he reminds Stefan "I promised you an eternity of misery." If he had his humanity off, why would he be so hellbent on keeping that score? (We see various and inconsistent interpretations of "no humanity" in the series, but I believe no humanity is best articulated in Isobel Flemming, which I can’t wait to get to.)
Damon is scary because of his humanity. He is not scary because he is without it.
The Pilot literally opens with an attack in the middle of the night by a mysterious creature. We are given all the horror tropes that signal that this creature is scary, intimidating, and going to be lingering throughout our season run. Damon is first seen as a silhouette that stands in the middle of the road in the dark of night and allows a car to hit him. He then feeds on the people inside.
Damon is meticulous and predatory. This is Damon at his best.
Enter: Damon.
The way Damon is introduced is important. He is not introduced as Ian Somerhalder until halfway through the episode after we have established Stefan and littered the episode with suspense of what creature could possibly be in Mystic Falls feeding and killing people. Damon is actually introduced as fog and the crow and the opposite to Stefan’s goodness/light/humanity.
We are able to put two and two together after witnessing the crow diving into Bonnie’s car (with Elena inside) spooking both girls, the crow and fog tag-teaming to frighten Elena in the cemetery, and the crow finally appearing on Stefan’s balcony as a literal beacon of death and destruction (which Damon brings gleefully to Mystic Falls).
credit: unknown
Damon is not introduced as a hero. In fact, he is introduced as the crow, and a crow in the context of TVD’s supernatural suspenseful world means bad luck or an omen of death. Crows symbolise mischief, bad luck, and tricksters, and we are introduced to Damon as that. He does not represent the good symbolistic meanings of the crow. If he was, then why do we only ever see Damon’s silhouette (and then Damon himself) at night? Every horror movie has the horror happening at night (and vampires are associated with the night and vampires are often associated with death and violence). Why do we see Damon act violently towards innocent people and his own brother if he is meant to represent the positives of the crow?
Even though the crow and fog are dropped after two episodes, the manner in which characters are introduced to us and the other characters remains important no matter the retcon that takes place.
- The unknown man and woman who hit Damon at night with their car and then are subsequently torn apart is a very obvious depiction of him being the big bad and dangerous villain.
- Vicki Donovan being surrounded by Damon’s fog and enveloped in it is literal foreshadowing of his eventual destruction of her.
- Bonnie being established as "psychic" and having her car be hit by the crow is a bad omen and foreshadowing of the havoc vampires will unleash on her personal life. (Damon is a significant player in her torment.)
- Elena being tormented by the crow and fog in the cemetery where she gets up and runs away is the representation of the Damon and Elena dynamic—it’s a severe power imbalance where Damon gets off on hurting her.
- Stefan is verbally tormented and ridiculed by Damon at the Salvatore Boarding House where Damon’s bravado takes up the entirety of the room; Damon reveals he’s been stalking Stefan and that he knows why he’s returned; he expresses his interest in Elena and torments Stefan’s blood addiction ("Imagine what her blood tastes like!") before a violent fight ensues where Damon takes Stefan’s Daylight Ring to render him powerless and stabs him.
- Damon is seen listening in on Caroline’s vulnerable rant to an unmoved Bonnie and gives her the attention she had been craving. "Why didn’t he pick me?" personified in his choice of appearing like he’s actively chosen her. He embodies predatory behaviour by using her vulnerabilities against her.
Damon is not introduced as a romantic hero like Stefan. He is not seen in the day where it’s bright and deemed "safe", nor is he seen interacting with anyone but Stefan. Damon is introduced to be the villain, and when you know what comes of his character as early as Season 2… it’s disappointing to see such a meticulous, devious, and intelligent antagonist turn into a whimpering romantic hero who the narrative cannot ideally frame as a worthy competitor for the protagonist’s heart without lessening and poorly characterising the strong characters around him. (It’s as simple as this: no one can call Damon out for his abusive behaviour that he does not apologise nor atone for because it makes him unattractive. This is something I intend to go into on a much later date.)
Damon and Elena: The Introduction isn’t Romantic.
I don’t care what the show says. They retconned Damon meeting Elena first (and completely undermined the fact Damon was obsessive over finding Katherine) that I don’t consider that to be the correct canonical take. Soft and sweet Damon who sees Elena and mistakes her for Katherine is not the Damon who we saw in Season 1 at all. (Even though he compelled her to forget, this does not make sense for his character.)
Damon is mean, meticulous, entitled, arrogant, vicious, obsessive, and ambitious. The Damon we see in a flashback that predates the Pilot is not the Damon we meet. It’s the soft, gooey Damon who makes no sense at all for the character’s arc.
So, I will not be including that in this meta because it is not correct nor is does it properly make sense for Damon’s personal journey.
As far as I am concerned, the first time Elena meets Damon is when he controls a crow to hit Bonnie’s car and stalks her in the cemetery.
This leaves us with the very simple question: How is Damon introduced to Elena? Via violence.
He controls a crow to hit Bonnie’s car, scaring them and, if they were unlucky, being severely injured in a car accident. He scares her in the cemetery by manipulating the fog to roll in and having the crow intimidate her to the point where she tells it to go away. He stands in the fog as an eery silhouette. It is established in this episode that Elena is terrified of the crow and the fog. As the crow and fog represent Damon, she is terrified of him.
Damon is introduced to Elena as violence, harm, and destruction, and that is what he proves to be true to throughout Season 1. It honestly does not matter that the crow and fog are later retconned—he is introduced this way, and even the next two episodes support it: Elena is afraid of Damon and Damon has no regard for Elena’s well-being.
(Damon had a lot more work to do to win Elena’s heart than he did in canon imo.)
Can I also mention that it’s rather significant that Damon’s presence chases a terrified Elena out of the cemetery, which is muted and almost dark, into the light and to Stefan who "rescues" her from the darkness? Stefan is the light to Damon’s dark and Stefan brings light to Elena. Damon does not.
How is Damon introduced with and to Stefan? :)
DAMON VS STEFAN
credit: staceyslaters
Damon and Stefan are literal representations of good/bad, light/dark, romantic/unromantic, control/out of control.
Although you can say Damon and Stefan physically represent light/dark, I think that it doesn’t matter who has the lighter hair and who has the darker hair—Damon is the bad/dark/unromantic/control and Stefan is the good/light/romantic/out of control.
Light vs Dark.
The time of day we are introduced to characters—and the time of day characters are introduced to one another—is important, especially with how the show initially sets up the tone. Literal light and dark is used to establish Stefan and Damon.
Yes, we are introduced to Stefan when it’s dark, so we, as the audience, know that there is darkness inside of him. But to Elena, she is properly introduced to him during the day and during school. Elena then meets Stefan again at the cemetery during the middle of a bright and sunny day. Stefan is the representation of light.
Damon, on the other hand, is introduced consistently throughout the episode through darkness. We see his silhouette as the opening scene. Wwe see him during the grey and darkening fog (yes, it happens during the day, but the fog literally covers up the sunlight and drowns it out when chasing Elena—yet another metaphor for how he smothers out her light). We see him reintroduce himself to Stefan in the middle of the night. He meets Caroline at night in her darkest hour. Damon is cloaked in literal darkness to demonstrate how he is the representation of the show’s internal darkness.
Good vs Bad.
The show is quite heavy-handed in it’s "good brother", "bad brother" meta, but it’s very obvious who is represents the "good" of a vampire and who represents the "bad" of a vampire. I won’t be considering "good/bad" as who is the best behaved and who isn’t. Both brothers are nuanced and flawed people and stripping them down as to who is good and who is bad is an insult to their characters.
Stefan represents the goodness of a vampire. He showcases that vampires are not just predators who act on animal instinct and are inhumane. He showcases interests, kindness, and the ability to wear his humanity on his sleeve. While the show depicts Stefan as the "good" brother, it mishandles this in its own meta: Stefan is the "good brother" because he represents what is good about being a vampire. He controls his bloodlust (how well he does it varies, but the fact is that he tries and he has human-based reasons for it), he controls his temper, his strength, and his natural instincts. He is good because he is a person beneath the vampirism.
Damon represents the badness of a vampire. He is the evil side of it. He is the predator, the animal, and the creature that does not give one single fuck about what’s around him. He shows no remorse and absolutely no care. He taunts Stefan like he’s prey. He talks about Elena like she’s not a person but a mere object to possess and a pawn to use against Stefan. Damon is not the "bad brother" because he makes shitty choices and gets away with those choices. He is the "bad brother" because he embodies everything that is bad about a vampire.
Look at how he comes to treat people over the course of the season (and even beyond). He treats Vicki like she is a plaything and will turn her out of boredom. He does not care about Caroline but he wants to use her as a blood source and as a minion, and talks to her in the way an abuser would (more on that once we get into the season). He frightens Elena and will come to plant insecurities in her mind when it comes to Stefan’s honesty in the next episode. He torments Stefan and ridicules him, undermines his ability to control himself and make decisions that better the community, and he abuses him.
Stefan is the good brother because he tries to be a better person. Damon is the bad brother because he doesn’t try to be a better person. The vampirism is merely an excuse for bad behaviour that he willingly chooses to embody.
Romantic vs Unromantic.
I do not believe Damon was ever meant to be a romantic hero for Elena Gilbert. I understand the show was marketed as a love triangle and the source material features a very present love triangle between Stefan/Elena/Damon, but the way Damon is characterised does not support the fact that he was ever going to be a contender for Elena’s heart.
Firstly, I’ve already established Elena’s character way up top, but a refresher: she is a kind person, strong-willed and opinionated, and she does not accept bad behaviour from those around her. She will prove to later find Damon a hindrance and intimidating (unless he’s hurting her friend, then she’s incredibly unafraid of him). Elena identifies Damon as an abuser and she does not respect that. Elena is characterised as a strong and flawed woman, and the woman she is characterised as is not compatible with Damon.
Stefan is the romantic hero because he is introduced as such. He is kind, he is gentle. He has a "meet cute" with Elena at school that obviously leaves her with a good impression. (She walks away and turns back to look at him, an obvious trope used in developing romances in romcoms.) She does suspect him of suspicious behaviour when she finds him at the cemetery because she has just been scared by Damon’s crow, but she instantly calms down in his presence. Stefan is calming, trusting, and mature. She connects with his humanity.
Stefan identifies Elena as a person with feelings. He treats her like she is valuable. He doesn’t treat her like an object to toy with or someone to possess. He respects her feelings, he openly listens to her, and he connects with her on a human level. Stefan is introduced to us as her partner and an equal.
Damon, on the other hand, is not. Like I’ve already said, he is introduced to us as the villain and as the omen of death. He is a harbinger of pain, and, boy, does he bring it. The way Damon speaks of Elena is disassociated from her being a person. "Imagine what her blood tastes like!" connects her as a plaything to torment Stefan with (which he succeeds in as it gets a violent reaction out of Stefan). "She’s a dead ringer for Katherine" takes away Elena’s agency as Damon immediately implies that Elena is a replacement and stand-in for Katherine for Stefan. Damon does not speak fo Elena like she is a person.
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Damon: She took my breath away. Elena. She's a dead ringer for Katherine. Is it working, Stefan? Being around her, being in her world? Does it make you feel alive?
Stefan: She's not Katherine.
Damon: Well, let's hope not. We both know how that ended. Tell me something, when's the last time you had something stronger than a squirrel?
Stefan: I know what you're doing, Damon. It's not gonna work.
Damon: Yeah? Come on. Don't you crave a little?
[Damon starts hitting Stefan.]
Stefan: Stop it.
Damon: Let's do it. Together. I saw a couple girls out there. Or just, let's just cut to the chase, let's just go straight for Elena.
Stefan: Stop it!
Damon: Imagine what her blood tastes like!
It’s literally all there. He talks about Elena like she is not a human being. His use of language compared to Stefan’s lacks humanity.
Not to mention, Damon and Elena have a severe power imbalance. It’s not obvious in the Pilot, but it’s there. He is not her partner nor her equal.
Control vs Out of Control.
Bet you thought I’d say Stefan was the one in control.
Disregarding the stupid retcon that the show shoved in here to take place pre-Pilot where Damon and Elena met first (with a Damon who does not fit the characterisation of Season 1 Damon at all), there’s a reason why we see Elena and Stefan meet in person first.
Stefan lacks control. This is later amplified by his blood addiction, which the Pilot begins to plant the seeds for. But Stefan literally cannot help himself and not meet Elena. He literally says it!
Stefan: I shouldn't have come home. I know the risk. But I had no choice. I have to know her.
"I had no choice. I have to know her." Stefan cannot control himself even as a person. He has to know Elena, he has no choice! In a way, Stefan is the harbinger for Elena, but I believe he is the harbinger of goodness, light, and her feeling alive again. Around him, Elena is light, she is free, and she is safe and secure… despite what being with him brings.
But Stefan is out of control because he lacks it. He does not have control. Yes, he can feed off of bunnies, but Stefan ultimately is incapable of controlling his urges.
Meanwhile, Damon does have impeccable control. He has to have it in order for his Season 1 plan to rollout correctly (and especially with infiltrating the Council and earning everyone’s trust). We don’t see Damon meet Elena first because him meeting Elena represents his ability to control himself. I don’t doubt that Damon hasn’t been back to Mystic Falls over the decade and a half he and Stefan were not speaking. Damon is diabolical and he is also a masochist. Of course, he’d come back to the place where his life was destroyed (and where Katherine is allegedly entombed). It makes sense with how he is characterised during this season.
But Damon is able to control himself. He is methodical in how he behaves. He purposefully leaves Vicki alive when he attacks her. Damon has a plan. He isn’t Katherine by any means, but his Season 1 self is most definitely a protege of hers.
He taunts Stefan because he is unemotional despite his emotional language. He is in control of his conversation with Stefan as he taunts him and provokes him. All throughout the episode, Damon is in control. He is in control of when Stefan learns he’s returned, of when he meets Caroline, of how the town begins to find out something supernatural is amiss.
The show likes to act as if Damon is impulsive and reckless and uncontrollable, but he is the most controlling out of the characters we have met. He beats Caroline in being meticulous, because for Damon to be able to bring an "eternity of misery" to Stefan, he has to be the one controlling everything.
If Stefan could help himself, he would not have come to Mystic Falls to meet Elena. Damon easily controlled himself in that regard. If Damon was as impulsive as he later becomes, he would have been the first to meet Elena.
IN THE DEFENCE OF CAROLINE FORBES
Caroline Forbes gets a really bad rap in Season 1 by the narrative, characters, and even fans. But Caroline doesn’t deserve the negativity she receives at all. Her character does grow throughout the season (and series) but they lay the seeds of her being a good, gentle, and compassionate person from this very episode. It’s all just misconstrued.
How we’re introduced to her matters.
Firstly, we’re introduced to her as being the vapid, self-centred friend of Elena and Bonnie who they seem to tolerate. Her reaction to Elena returning to school is harmful to Elena’s well-being, and the narrative does nothing to prove that Caroline is capable of empathy.
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Caroline: How are you? Oh, it's so good to see you. How is she? Is she good?
Elena: Caroline, I'm right here. And I'm fine. Thank you.
Caroline: Really?
Elena: Yes. Much better.
Caroline: Oh, you poor thing.
Looking back on this, I do actually wonder if Caroline was purposefully introduced to the audience as the uncaring and dismissive friend who was meant to make us less sympathetic to her with regards to what happens to her in this episode and the next. Whatever the reason, Caroline is introduced to us as the shallow friend who seems to be incapable of reading the room and that we really shouldn’t sympathise with her.
She is immediately framed to be a competitor for Stefan’s affections and to be a foil to Elena in this regard. Caroline is a prop in the story to help place Elena on a pedestal—she’s the good girl, she’s the attractive one, she’s the one that Stefan would obviously go for because she’s not shallow and vapid and sexually confident like Caroline. (It’s a light Madonna/Whore angle. Elena/Katherine capture this more obviously in the narrative.)
What the "We’re having a June wedding" really reveals about her.
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"We’re having a June wedding" is deeply romanticised by fans and the show, but the thing is, the fans and the show overlook Caroline in this moment: she is so personable that she is able to get all these facts on Stefan, who we, as an audience, know nothing about. She knows more about Stefan the person than we do as the audience, and we know Stefan is a vampire and that he is old and that he came back for Elena, but we know nothing of his humanity.
She literally gets all this information "between third and fourth period" and this immediately challenges the perception that Caroline can’t read a room. She’d have to possess this skill if she could gather all this information on the hot new guy, no?
Caroline is framed to be nosy, but for someone who was introduced to us as vapid and annoying, she has to have charisma and a knack for talking to people and creating interpersonal relationships in order to find out that information.
Caroline’s strengths as a character that we see amplified in Season 2 (her ability to reconnect Tyler and Matt and her ability to make Stefan laugh) is rooted in this moment. Caroline is a character who is severely underrated (and I think it’s a damn shame they dropped her pursuing journalism as she would be incredible at uncovering information) when she is someone who should have been utilised for her strength in connecting to other people.
This skill is something Elena and Bonnie lack. (Stefan lacks it, too.)
It’s unfair that she’s framed by her insecurities.
Of course, everyone has insecurities, and Caroline is introduced to us as having them in spades. While I am definitely inclined to believe someone like her would have them, I personally don’t believe we ever see why she has insecurities with regards to Elena. We never go into the depth of their friendship. We only get "She doesn’t even try! And he picks her" and that’s it. We get some insight into Caroline’s mind, that she views it as a competition with Elena… but we never go into her background, how she was raised, and why she would think that. We never dive deep into the origin of her insecurities. Because as far as we know as audience members throughout the series run, Liz Forbes is a good person and a decent mother who was preoccupied with her work and didn’t have much time for her daughter. So did Caroline’s competitive mindset stem from there? Or did her father do a whammy on her as a kid?
Although I’d like to know if her insecurity stems from childhood, I do believe that it comes from something the show never touches on, although it does briefly acknowledge with Damon’s treatment of Caroline: everyone treats her like shit.
Her mother, Elena, Bonnie, Stefan, and Damon treat her like she’s worth nothing. Matt and Tyler speak of her negative traits when talking about her. (Matt will later say he wants to "throttle" Caroline but he "loves" her, implying her negative trait makes her unloveable but he loves her anyway! Tyler says that Caroline is annoying but then speaks highly of her. Her negative traits are what people identify with first and then they explain why she’s not annoying, vapid, etc. This sets up the narrative that Caroline is not thought of to be a good person, which doesn’t make sense.)
Caroline’s humanity as a human and vampire is wanting to be liked for the simplest things, so when Stefan rejects her at the party it hurts (all she did was flirt with him and he took it as her wanting to date him which is a big leap considering she never verbally said to him she wanted to date him), Bonnie and Elena dismiss her, and Tyler and Matt use violent and angry language towards her which Caroline is truly undeserving of. All we see in this episode is Caroline trying. (She literally tries with Elena when she returns to school and she is ridiculed for it behind her back.)
And the way her friends project onto her makes her a target for Damon’s abuse. He literally sits in the Grill and overhears her conversation with Bonnie where she pours out her soul and says "I’m never the one" and that she’s never picked for him to… pick her? Damon is a predator and an abuser, and abusers prey on people they identify as weak and weaponise their insecurities against them to isolate them from their support system and confidence.
And that is what Damon does.
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Caroline is undeserving of the treatment she is about to endure. In her words, she’s merely "inappropriate" and "says the wrong thing" because she isn’t a person to mince her words. She says what she thinks and how she likes to say it, and she tries. People simply find that intimidating and distasteful because Caroline is honest and is the only character who is ever truly herself.
That’s more than I can say for a lot of characters.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
- I’m sorry, but I just have to say it straight: Matt is boring as shit. He and Elena have zero chemistry, and I despise the fact that he is introduced as her jealous ex who is hung up on her and throws her grief in her face. (I know I said that in my GRIEF section, but I have to reiterate it because Matt is not a nice guy.) Matt does this quite often—he projects and gaslights onto Caroline and even Tyler in Seasons 1 and 2.
For example, Elena broke up with Matt because her parents died and she was in a horrible place emotionally. Matt informs Elena of this reason and that she "needed some time alone". He then says in response to seeing her talk to Stefan "But you don’t look so alone to me."
Elena is allowed to speak to other men, no matter the context of the conversation or relationship, because she is an independent woman who is not owned by Matt. If she wants to talk to Stefan in a platonic context, then she’s allowed to. If she wants to speak to Stefan in a romantic context, she’s allowed to.
Because Matt is insecure, he projects his insecurity onto Elena. I believe this is dangerous. Elena is already in a precarious emotional state and later says to Jeremy "people don’t care anymore." Matt makes Elena’s grief and her navigation of said grief to be about him.
He also suspects Stefan of foul play with Vicki not because of any particular reason that doesn’t exist outside of his jealousy over the obvious attraction between Stefan and Elena. Matt’s character would be attractive and endearing if he was an overprotective brother who suspected Stefan of foul play for reasons that weren’t because he’s romantically jealous.
- We never explore the relationship between Stefan and uncle-nephew Zachary at all and I think that’s extremely unfortunate. It seems tense yet respectful.
It’s clear through Stefan’s interactions with both Zach and Damon that he wants to belong with his family, but his family in the form of the present (Zach) is hesitant to fully accept who he is (he can apparently accept him as being an immortal 17-year-old but not as a vampire) and his family in the form of the past (Damon) rejects him wholeheartedly and teases him with the potential of rekindling.
- I dislike how the show plants the seeds of the Bennetts having ancestry in Salem and they never deep dive into it beyond Emily in Season 1. I find this a little problematic that the show establishes this connection to Salem, a period in time where women were persecuted for alleged "witchcraft" and placing that connotation on a Black family. The Bennetts deserved far more exploration and establishment of their witch heritage. "Salem" is a throwaway line in this episode and when Luka and Jonas (who are Black, btw) ask if they have ancestry in Salem once in Season 2.
Grams also deserves a better rap—she’s written off as drunk when she is quite a powerful and knowledgeable witch who doesn’t get the respect she deserves during her short tenure on the show. I think there’s also an issue with the fact that a Black woman is being depicted as crazy and drunk, too. The show has a Black problem by far.
- Matt and Tyler are beyond toxic. Tyler literally forces himself onto Vicki and constantly slut shames her.
Vicki: No, Ty. I'm not having sex against a tree.
Tyler: Oh, come on, it would be hot.
Vicki: For who? No, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen, not here, not like this. No. I said no. I said no! Ow, that hurts!
[Jeremy appears.]
Jeremy: Hey, leave her alone!
Tyler: You know, you're starting to get on my nerves, Gilbert.
Vicki: Just go, Tyler, get the hell away from me.
Tyler: Wow. Vicki Donovan says no. That's a first.
Wash your hands, you dirty pig.
I took all my notes while I was riding my bike (on a trainer, of course) so COMMEND MY TALENTS.
Steferine crumb count this episode: 3.
Yes, I’m keeping a Stefan/Katherine crumb count. What of it?
Anyway, I love rewatching this show and talking meta about it to anyone who listens, so hopefully this reads far more coherently than my plurks ranting about the show and some of its successes and failures. I do have my biases but I have done my best to prove with textual evidence why I feel the way I feel about specific characters.
I’ve done my best to credit all gifs. I’ve uploaded them to my own account so please do not hotlink. Please do not take the caps I’ve coloured. (It’s not the best colouring.)
I’ve gone through this numerous times to catch any spelling mistakes or grammar errors so please forgive me and just enjoy how much of a nerd I am.
Because this is like an essay:
- Quote credits thanks to the TVD transcript page.
- Screencaps from homeofthenutty and edited by me.
- Newton’s Three Laws of Motion: Britannica.com.
- Crow symbolism.