Yeah, i'm going there today.
Mostly everyone in the universe has heard of the show Vampire Diaries considering it's the CW's golden child. When you summarize the story, it seems pretty standard teenage junk because it's about a girl who lives in a small town when two boys barrel into her life who happen to be vampires and basically everything goes wrong.
Season one is pretty good, but it's the moment you hit season two when shit gets real.
One of my favorite things about this show is the character development that happens in the span of season two going into season three. Every character has their own motives and struggles and no one is completely good or completely evil (except maybe Elena, but we'll get to that.) And I want to start showing you this with some of my favorite characters:
Caroline
Caroline is possibly my favorite character on the show because she is just the most relatable girl on there. She's bubbly and sarcastic but she's also quite deep and understanding and a well-rounded character overall. But the best thing, I think, is her transformation in personality after she is turned into a vampire. She starts the show off in season one as one of Elena's best friends (really, the odd one out because Elena and Bonnie are closer to each other and Elena kind of a REALLY bad friend) and completely shallow and rude. She gets her foot in her mouth all the time and says bitchy stuff and only really cares about winning Prom queen and having a white-picket fence when she's older.
And then Katherine turns her into a Vampire and she turns into such a thoughtful person while still keeping her upbeat personality. Unlike nearly everyone else, Caroline isn't one to brood and I like that she's a bright spot of positive energy when everyone else is moping. But then there's this dark, confused side of Caroline that clings to her humanity and wants to stay in Mystic Falls forever even though she will have to see her friends die. Her realizing that there is so much out there that she didn't even realize leads me to my second favorite character....
Klaus
Klaus might be my favorite villian, guys. Or right up there with Warner from Shatter Me BECAUSE they're the same type of villain. Klaus is a straight up sociopath, not even kidding. He can go from being charming one second to ripping your throat out and he doesn't play games. But as the series progresses, you really see that while Klaus does kill people and he staked his family and stuck them in coffins, he really has a noble (if not completely twisted) reason for everything he does.
He staked his family and stuck them in coffins, but he did that because he didn't want their father to find and kill them. He was waiting until he could kill his father to revive them so they could all be a happy family. And, yes, he went about it the wrong way, but the more you see Klaus, the more you realize he's really just an incredibly lonely person whose been denied love all his life.
What Klaus wants, above all else, is to be loved, and that's why he is so relatable to people regardless of the fact he's a crazy killer. Everything he does: compelling Stefan to travel with him, creating a hybrid army, trying to court Caroline? Everything is to make sure he doesn't end up alone but he simply goes about it the wrong way.
Stefan
I think Stefan's descent into madness is so interesting and I loved seeing him turn into Ripper Stefan in the blink of an eye. Something Damon says in Season Three really rings true for me and it's something he says to Elena after she sees Stefan feeding on a human: Stefan has been on both extremes of vampirism (feeding off animals, killing people) and he is most out-of-control person he's ever met.
Elena believes that Stefan has always been under control but really, the boy was a dynamite a little bit delayed in exploding. Stefan does not know moderation and this is evident by the fact that throughout the series he is either "Bunny-eating Stefan" or "I rip up bodies Stefan". His fight for control after he escapes Klaus' compulsion is so interesting and seeing him be the bad guy for once was refreshing considering he was always the "knight-in-shining armor."
And then of course, you all know how amazing Damon's character development is considering he kind of works backwards to Stefan (when Stefan is all good, Damon is crazy; Stefan is crazy, Damon is good) and then there's characters like Rebecca with her pathological fear of being left behind; Elijah who lives by a high moral code while still being a vampire; Tyler who turns from an arrogant douchebag into a sensitive, sweet werewolf; and Katherine, who is so manipulative and deceitful because she wants more than anything to survive.
I think the only exception in great character development would have to be Elena and that's simply because I don't really like her all that much. I liked her in the beginning when she was spunky and with Stefan but now she's just become such a bland character to me.
And woot! If you watch Vampire Diaries, let me know down below what your thoughts are!
Happy Reading!
ETA:
Jen alerted me something was missing:
TADA!
