TVD meme - one vampire

[resnullius_bells]

                                                                           "Mulder was right in the end."

I hesitated (or, more accurately, I wanted to hesitate) between her and a few of the vampires we met this season: I was very interested in seeing how Vicky could navigate vampirism, but then she was killed even earlier than I expected; Katherine appeared very little, but what I saw was already plenty engaging; Stefan’s plot of vampirism=addiction caught my eyes in the last few episodes.

But the truth is that I knew as soon as I saw this meme that the answer would be Isobel. The murder victim. The lost mother. The fridged wife. Except, of course, she’s none of those things.

She wasn’t murdered or fridged (I’m more than aware that she’s probably dead; I think I would’ve heard about her before, otherwise; just let me live in my s1 bubble xD): she became a vampire. And she did it because she wanted to, because she pursued it. And one thing I liked was that it wasn’t because she was terminally ill and afraid of death, like I’ve seen in other cases (that old friend of Buffy’s in “Lie to Me” comes to my mind); it was because she wanted the perks. Which in this canon are plenty (can find a way to walk under the sun? Check. Immortality and eternal youth? Check. Super strength, mind control, and maybe a few other powers? Check. They can even eat normally).

Oh, and one detail I love, is that she came to that plan through academic research. Suddenly all the time spent on my studies seems a lot more productive xD.

She seems to regret her choice and to miss what she lost, which is alright with me. Nostalgia is like that (and at the moment, the show seems to follow Stefan’s perspective of how vampirism -or any other creature- is a curse; the approach in Legacies is veeeery different, so I’m guessing that changed drastically at some point LOL). Which doesn’t stop her from enjoying herself (including the “Evil is Casually Bisexual” scene that left me full of mixed feelings…). But yeah, the next step I want to see in this show are vampires who don’t regret it. 

She’s an objectively terrible mother (and wife, and partner, and and and), too. She cares enough about Elena to want her to have a relatively easy, painless, vampire-free life. But not enough to know her, to be a part of her life, to care about Elena’s feelings and what she might need or want. She lives her life for herself, first, last, and only. And I love that; I love that type of motherly character. They’re refreshing and, to be frank, they give me a sense of relief, as someone that never sees herself taking care of another human being like that.

Isobel is a character that despite appearing in precious few episodes of the season, and likely the show in general, has a notable effect in the story and the key characters in it. I love her determination, her selfishness, her coldness. Nobody else could’ve gone in this slot.

ETA: tumblr post.

Comments

[wheatear]

You picked Isobel! ♥

You are my new favourite person.

Yes to all of this. Really my only point of disagreement is that I don't care that she's casually bisexual, haha, that's part of the appeal for me.

[resnullius_bells]

My problem is more that it felt like the classical "she has no morals anymore, so she's not picky/bisexuality is about gluttony" trope which... OTOH, if I can take it as confirmation of one of my fave characters being canonically queer, I will (hello, Tony and the very controversial Superior Iron Man arc xD), but I can't ignore that it's a very typical and tired stereotype :/

[wheatear]

Yep, I totally get it. I don't know why it didn't feel that way to me because it does look like an obvious example.

[resnullius_bells]

I can forgive it more easily if I take Legacies into account, which has tons of canonically bi/pan ladies (Josie, Penelope, Jade, Hope, Hope's aunts), and in theory takes the approach of "for all we know, any of the teens could be queer".