THE Vampire Diaries Video

-So some of you may remember that in the late 2000s, "Twilight" mania dominated pop culture. Many books, shows, and movies emerged that attempted to capitalize on the supernatural teen romance trend. All monsters were easy prey, but the bravest production teams also made

vampire

s. The first "Twilight" movie hit theaters in 2008 and "The Vampire Diaries" aired on the CW in 2009. Like Twilight, "The Vampire Diaries" is based on a series of books, this one written by L. J. Smith. But the books aren't actually derived from Twilight, they came out like a decade earlier. Any similarities you may notice are just a coincidence or due to the fact that this is a genre and genres have tropes.

My first experience with "The Vampire Diaries" is that my friend Bailey played it for me when I was sick with a 103 degree fever and somewhat delirious. And she was keeping me company and she knew that this would be the only way to get me to start watching this show. It turns out that with "Vampire Diaries," it doesn't matter if you're raving, you'll still have a consistent viewing experience. Anyway, after this, we spent an entire summer binging the rest of the show. I say the whole show, what I really mean is four seasons, and there are eight.

It felt really long, but yeah, we only got halfway there before we decided it was a shame to continue. But for the purposes of this

video

, I've caught up. I'm a "Vampire Diaries" expert. I just want to give a bird's eye view of the experience. It's like a travel diary, but a show. The good, the stupid, just those two things. So this

video

is intended for people who haven't seen "Vampire Diaries" and people who have seen similar movies. And since this is YouTube, I've organized my thoughts into a numbered list. And before I continue, I just need to make it clear that my short name for the series is VPD.

The real acronym is TVD, "The Vampire Diaries", but I call it VPD, "Vampire Diaries". And you'll have to make peace with that. Well, here we go. Part one, the love triangle. I was going to do a section called "the story" or "the premise." And then when I was writing this, I realized that's what the love triangle is. Twilight had Team Edward and Team Jacob and "The Vampire Diaries" had Team Edward... No, "The Vampire Diaries" had Team Stefan and Team Damon. Again, this similarity is a coincidence. Love triangles are very popular in the youth genre. Unlike Twilight, both of Elena's choices are

vampire

s.

They are also brothers, which I think is a good idea. I hate love triangles as a plot device, but usually the two men in the love triangle are just adversaries. So I think the idea of ​​them being brothers and also having a relationship with each other makes it a lot more interesting. At the beginning of the series, Damon and Stefan are just total enemies, but as the series progresses, it becomes clear that they actually love each other. They are bronies. Sounds like Bronies. So love interest number one is Stefan. Obviously, they cast and styled the actor to be reminiscent of Robert Pattinson in Twilight.

Just look at his hair and his big rectangular head. -How old is he? - 17. - How long have you been 17? - Wait, how long has it been... - I've been 17 since 1864. - Stefan is the good vampire boy. He is also extremely boring. Just a nice Styrofoam brick. The biggest nuance they give it is to turn it into a vampire allegory of alcoholism. Like Edward Cullen, Stefan only drinks animal blood, but we find out that the reason he does so is because he can't drink human blood in moderation. Most vampires can, but Stefan can't. And if he has even a little, he gets nervous and starts lusting after it, which, since he's a vampire, leads him to murder people. - You do not get it.

I can't stop, Elena! I'm a Ripper, a Ripper doesn't stop! And when that clock runs out, I'll have to feed on you. - I thought it was a great idea. Obviously, if you look at the alcoholism parallel, the fact that he turns him into a crazed killer is a little insensitive, but it's an allegory. It's not supposed to be one one. Also, in Twilight, it's presented as very noble that the Cullens only drink animal blood, but for the newer vampires in their family, they also steal bags of blood from the hospital, and that's presented as totally cool to them.

Yeah guys, I'm sure you weren't using that at all. Stefan drinks animal blood for a reason that not only makes sense, but also adds something to his character. Also, him robbing the local blood bank when he is struggling with his addiction is presented as something really bad and a big red flag. -He has a refrigerator in the house full of contraband stolen from the blood bank. - Oh Lord. -Anyway, I said this was the most interesting thing they did with Stefan. That's why it's important to note that in later seasons, they just completely forgot about it.

You even see him drinking human blood from the blood bank like it's no big deal. Love interest number two is Damon. Obviously he is the bad boy alternative. He gets more interesting stories and one-liners. I think the actor they got for him is also very good. I mean, after enough episodes, you start to notice that he has a face that he makes to punctuate every sentence. I can't think of any other way to describe it other than "Damon's eyebrow face." A very brow-heavy performance, but I appreciate that he reads his lines in a different way than the more obvious way of reading them every time, which is honestly a rarity in CW acting.

In later seasons, he starts to go too far. As if some of the lines read from him were just crazy. He doesn't sound crazy. He is crazy. Stop defending me! The boys are a werewolf. He would kill me the first chance he got. - If you were a runner, you would know what I'm talking about, but you're not. - Oh, also, I'm pretty sure this guy was someone from "Lost." So I'm sure a lot of you were really mad because I just called him the actor they got to play Damon, but I didn't see "Lost," so you're going to have to take me to court for that.

Regardless, Damon was the obvious fan favorite. And he also could tell from the way it was written that he was the writer's favorite. Let's put a pin in that. Oh, it's a bulletin board. I can literally do that. I just dropped one and can't find it. Then it will be fun later. I think our heroine Elena is a second year high school student. They all seem comically too old for the age they play. - I have my ring. I could go in and out. No spells needed. - Oh, thank you. Your 16 year old son. - It's not fair, you're 16 years old.

You shouldn't have to live like this. - I'm the boy, mom. You're supposed to be responsible for me. - Which only gets funnier when the characters are vampires and are theoretically frozen in age while their actors continue to age. Like Damon was supposed to be 25 throughout the entire show. And the actor is already too old when they cast him and then around 40 when the series ends. So you look at Damon in season eight and you're supposed to believe that this man was admitted to a high school dance. Anyway, Elena lives in Mystic Falls, Virginia, which has a history of supernatural activity.

The vampire brothers are in love with Elena because she looks identical to Katherine, the sexy, evil lady who turned them both into vampires in the first place. I feel like we see this a lot with vampires, where if they love any modern woman, it's because she looks identical to a previous love they had. I think that's very silly. I understand that people have a type, but that's taking it too far. I think the reason we see it so much is that it's really nice to write shorthand so you don't have to think of a reason why you love this person.

That's basically the premise of the show. These two vampires want to date Elena, and then every season a new supernatural threat comes to town or should I say every half season, they tend to break it up into shorter arcs. Which, honestly, I like and am a fan of because it forces the show to move very quickly and not waste time. So they'll bring in witches, werewolves, other vampires, whatever they decide exists that season. Number two, the supporting cast. Elena has two best friends, Caroline and Bonnie. Well, it's written as if Caroline is the cheerleader captain's superficial friend and Bonnie is Elena's real best friend. - See you later. - Okay, yeah, bye.

No comment. -At first, they hang out with Caroline as a group, but in private, they both seem to find her a bit annoying. Especially in the first few episodes, we see that Elena is the one Bonnie really trusts, but then Caroline becomes a vampire, which involves her much more in the central story. And Bonnie acts as a very utilitarian character. She is a very powerful witch. - I predict that this year is going to be spectacular. And I predict that all the sad and dark times are over and that you will be more than happy. (the meat squishes) - No, Jenna! (Jenna gasps) No, Jenna. (sobbing) ♪ Right now, we're lost and found ♪ Please don't leave me.

I don't want to, I don't want to be, I can't. I'm so tired of crying. No, no, Jenna, I can't, I can't. No! (glass breaking) (soft music) (Bonnie sobs) - Whenever the plot needs to move forward, they'll just write in some new ability that Bonnie has. But consequently, I feel like we see her doing spells a lot more than having any kind of inner world. Let's go ahead and put a big pin in Bonnie's character. Her group includes Matt, Elena's ex-boyfriend, now friend, which is mostly interesting because he remains human throughout the series, which is quite a feat.

Personality-wise, Matt is kind of like Kristoff from “Frozen.” As if he were kind. And that is. Elena's parents are already dead when the series begins because if your protagonist is a teenager and you want him to have adventures, it is much easier if her parents are dead. If you watch, you'll notice that many of these children are orphaned throughout the series. - Very handsome. - Thank you. You look great too, mom. - Ah, a compliment. I think I'll fall. (screams) (tense music)-Anyway, Elena has a little brother named Jeremy, and her legal guardian is Jenna, the cool aunt. (the meat squishes) - No, Jenna! - Jenna is supposed to be a graduate student.

So she's supposed to be young, but her actress is literally only two years older than Elena's, which is a little extreme. Then we have Alaric Saltzman, who is the school's history teacher, vampire hunter, and when he joins the team, he's kind of the team's surrogate father. And when the cast grows up and goes to college, he follows them and becomes a Mr. Feeney-style college professor. Not revealing how old I am in reference to Mr. Feeney. I mainly wanted to mention Alaric because his name is so funny. As if they waited several episodes to reveal that he is a vampire hunter, as if we were to think that he had nothing wrong with the new kid in town named Alaric Saltzman.

And that is. Now I realize this is a very short section. The reason it's a short section is because there's a point later in the list called the characters I hate. And there are a lot of people there. Number three, the story. When dealing with supernatural creatures, you must establish how the universe of your choice works. Many universes have covered vampires, witches, and werewolves, but they tend to work in different ways. The first season of the show is pretty good at explaining its rules. Vampires are super fast and super strong and can force people, which is basically mind control.

They can look you in the eyes and make you do things or order you to forget that they drank your blood. If a vampire feeds you his blood, he can speed up healing. In the first season, Damon has the ability to make Halloween fog machines start blowing everywhere and a spooky crow appears to announce his arrival. - Raven is too much, don't you think? - Wait until I see what I can do with the fog. - This is never explained, it ends in a few episodes and never comes back. The creepy crow is above the pilot.

I miss that boy. I guess they didn't renew his contract between seasons. Maybe he had a fight with a co-star. To kill a vampire, you must drive a wooden stake through its heart, or ripping out its heart, decapitating it, or setting it on fire would also work. And if they go into the sun, they will set themselves on fire. More on that later. These vampires have to be invited into homes, which I love. That's such an underrated classic vampire rule. And when vampire stories are written, you know they're taking themselves too seriously. They also do some fun things with it.

As if this newly turned vampire couldn't enter his own house. - And the next thing I know, I can't get into my house because my foot won't fit through the door. - You have to be invited to it. - I know. I live alone. - Oh, that sucks. -And this vampire is dragged into a house while he's unconscious, then he wakes up and hasn't been invited in. Then it's like he starts to suffocate. The last notable weakness is the verbena herb.Touching it burns them, injecting it basically works like a tranquilizer dart. - You can put it in jewelry or you can even put it in food or drink, but as long as it is in or on you, a vampire cannot control you. - Wow, there's a lot to remember. - I know. -But my favorite quality about vervain is that if you trick a vampire into drinking it, he will make a comical gesture. (burping and spitting) For the record, verbena is the same as vervain.

So if any of these late 2000s teens on the show, our Bath & Body Works buyers and their lotion of choice is Coconut LimeVerbena, they're basically invincible. Unfortunately, in modern times, Coconut Lime Verbena has been discontinued. Then we're all going to die and it's Bath & Body Works' fault. To turn someone into a vampire, you feed him vampire blood and then kill him while he's still in his system, and then he has to feed on human blood himself. This makes no sense. I already said that vampire blood can heal you. I need a drink, of blood. (slurps playfully) So we often see our human characters getting shot, stabbed, and brought to death's door, and then a good vampire gives them his blood and they're fine.

But the most common way we'll see people turn into vampires is by drinking vampire blood and then having their necks broken. So where does vampire blood magic draw the line between wounds that can be healed and wounds that will turn you into a vampire upon death? There's a really confusing story where Jeremy wants to become a vampire, so he drinks vampire blood and then takes a bunch of pills, but it doesn't work. And Stefan says it's because the vampire's blood cured the poisoning from the pills while it was happening. -What happens to the pills he took? -He didn't take enough to die, so Anna's blood actually cured him of that. -But if he can cure an overdose or a serious abdominal injury, why can't he cure a broken neck or drowning?

Oh, speaking of blood, vampires drink it. They can live on animal blood, but it has disadvantages. Damon explains that drinking human blood is what gives vampires their supernatural powers. So by drinking animal blood, Stefan becomes physically weaker. And besides, if he tries to force people, he is very unpredictable. If vampires don't drink blood at all, he won't actually kill them. They will simply become weaker and weaker and eventually their body will begin to dry out and they will remain in a sort of stasis like a mummified corpse until they are fed blood again. So it's kind of like my relationship with G FUEL Energy Formula, use code: HORSEGIRL.

They said if I move enough product before my contract ends, they will name a flavor after me. We also have some other Halloween monsters hanging around. There are witches, vampire hunters and werewolves. Werewolves are dangerous because their bite can kill a vampire. But honestly, I hate werewolves. No good character is a werewolf. And already in the second season, the world-building starts to become extremely fun, at least for me, because it's always what the plot requires at that moment. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is set in stone. And obviously, if you operate like that for eight seasons, things start to get really sloppy.

So let me give you an example. I said Elena is identical to Stefan and Damon's old vampire girlfriend. So why is that? Well, Elena is a magical creature called a doppelganger. What is a double? Well, she's a human who doesn't have special powers, but she looks like Katherine. You'll notice I said Katherine and not someone. That's because Elena is the only double we have. We don't know what it means. It's just a plot device to make Elena look like her ex, so that they are in love with her. But later seasons completely expand on the doppelganger theme to create new plot ideas.

Like there's a ritual or a prophecy or something that means a new Halloween monster that's come to town needs Elena's blood. And then, in the second season, they add the legend that Katherine herself was also the double of a different person. And remember when I said that Elena was the only double in the story? Well, in season four they changed their minds. Yes, it turns out that Stefan is also an evil warlock doppelganger. - Hello my own shadow. - Yeah, I guess you can save money by just having your main cast double the roles. And then in season five, we find out that the person Elena and Katherine are doubles of is Amara, and that Amara is actually the handmaiden of a new witch character they just wrote that season.

And then in the spin-off show, we find out that Elena and Katherine had another double between them and Amara, whose name is Tatia. This adds nothing of value. It's one of those things that happens when you've run out of ideas for five seasons in a row. Number four, the birth of "Vampire Diaries." So let's have a little history lesson. I said L.J. Smith is the author of "The Vampire Diaries" books. But, interestingly, they weren't his idea. In the early '90s, HarperCollins approached Alloy Entertainment, a book packaging company, and told them they wanted a teen vampire series.

Book bundling occurs when a publisher decides that they want a certain type of book for sales purposes and just want an outside company to put it all together for them. From what I can tell, this is much more common in the nonfiction world. For example, if you're at the checkout at Barnes & Noble and you see a photo book, or a novelty cookbook, or a crochet instruction book and it comes with a hook and thread, that was probably the result of the book. packaging. The publisher went to the company and said: we want a crochet book to sell at Christmas.

And the book packaging company found someone who knew how to crochet, a photographer to take the pictures, someone to write the ads, and so on. The book is not anyone's baby, it is just a product that a company wanted to sell. Sometimes book packaging companies develop a book in-house and then present it to publishers. And sometimes they run children's book series in which a group of different authors can each write different installments under a shared pseudonym. "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew" comes from the packaging of a book. Alloy Entertainment focuses specifically on YA book series, and in fact, they are responsible for some pretty popular ones like "Gossip Girl" and "Pretty Little Liars." Then L.

J. Smith, then a fledgling author, was hired on commission to write a vampire series. And from what I can tell, Alloy really just said we want a teen romance series about vampires and no further instructions. The characters themselves, the plot, the world-building, all of that seems to be Smith's invention. I haven't read the books, but my impression is that they aren't much like the TV show. Like the showrunners read the synopses on the dust jacket of "The Vampire Diaries" books and then that was the framework for maybe even the first season. The general traits of many of the main characters are the same and the basic premise is the same.

But other than that, the seasons of the show do not correspond to individual books and the two diverge greatly. Also, from what I've heard, the books really went off the rails. Let me check out some Wiki summaries. "Damon has been possessed by the evil fox demon Shinichi" and his twin sister Misao "who have been invading the city using the mystical" and evil Malach. "Elena's struggle to adjust back to her human form" after spending so much time in the spirit world. "She later becomes human again," but at the same time she loses her angelic power. "Damon, Bonnie, Elena and Meredith attend a party" hosted by a woman named Bloddeuwedd, "who transforms into a huge owl every night." I wish I was on the show. "After finding the Seven Kitsune Treasures, Damon and Stefan kill Shinichi, who is trying to stop them.

However, a magical tree stakes Damon and he dies." (laughs) Well, my point is that the books are their Our thing. Let's move on. Number five. (Laughs) Dating tree. Why did I say that? Speaking of magic trees, everyone dates everyone on "The Vampire Diaries" because this is a teen drama, that's right. And also, I think writers like to try different combinations and see what viewers respond to, but it makes it a little funny when you look at how intertwined the shipping box is. And for useful reference, I made one. hit, but I'll put it up there. And this tree is just canon couples where they dated, kissed, or at least expressed interest in each other during the show.

If it were indicating popular fan couples, the graph would look even crazier. .You may be looking at this graphic and wondering if there are gay people on this show. And the answer is, for all intents and purposes, no. Anyway, none of the main cast members are, unless you count it as some kind of fetishized threesome that happens with one of the women once and is never mentioned again. No, if we're being honest, in eight seasons of "Vampire Diaries," there are four gay characters. The first is Caroline's father. Caroline's father left Caroline's mother before the events of the series because he's gay and that's mostly used as a punchline, like ha ha, she couldn't stay with her man, he left her for a man, that It is very shameful. - Is it a boy thing? - Mom, if I want to talk to guys, I'll call dad, at least he's dating one successfully. (crowd exclaims) - He finally shows his face in the third season as an evil vampire hunter who tortures his own daughter for being a vampire in, I'm not kidding, an apparent allegory for gay conversion therapy. - Dad, you can't change who I am. - If I can. - No. - You will remember this feeling. -Oh, no, no, no, no, no! (screaming painfully) - It's not subtle. - I want you to know, when Carol Lockwood called me and told me about you, I sat down and cried. - Dad, I'm fine.

I have learned to adapt. I don't need to be fixed. And I cannot be repaired. - That's definitely what they were trying to do. But also, why would they try to do that? Her cop mom and her jock boyfriend have to save her from her evil gay dad. She then threatens to tell the city council that Damon is a vampire, which the characters refer to as revealing it. And when Caroline's father dies, it's because he half-turns into a vampire and refuses to drink blood to complete the transition. So if we're still following the metaphor in this whole story arc, Caroline is figuratively gay and Caroline's gay father is figuratively homophobic, and Caroline's father is dying of an illness that only temporarily acting gay can cure.

The doctor comes in and says: Sorry, it's terminal, unless you kiss a man, once. - My strength is all in my beliefs. Becoming a vampire is wrong. - And he says, I can't, I'm too heterosexual. And then he dies. Oh, also when he's dying, Caroline says: Do you want me to call your boyfriend? Who has only existed off-screen and who you have supposedly been living with. - Do you want me to call Steven? - No, no, we haven't talked in a while. - And he says, no, who cares? Season five introduces us to our next gay character, Luke, a gay witch.

We know he's gay because he says: I'm gay. -He was about to take off my shirt. - Chill out. I'm gay and your brother. -And other characters talk a lot about him being gay. -I'm pretty sure Damon is more his type. - We never see him with another man on screen. Before his first appearance, he had apparently been with a guy named David. - David left my ass, in Senor Frogs, of all the horrible places. - Oh man, did David leave you? And off screen too. Luke shows up at a nice party and his sister asks him: How did you get in? - A radiologist I met at the gym. - Oh yeah.

Where is he, Lucas? That guy who brought you to the party, where is he? Because he is nowhere in the picture. His sister mentions the radiologist again later. -He is a unique twin with his radiologist sugar daddy. -But he never shows his face. And then Luke dies in season six. Season seven introduces us to our first on-screen gay couple with a pair of dating lesbian witches. - Let's see what else is together. - I guess there's no one I'd rather explore this awful world with. (wheels screeching) (engine revving) - I love you. - I love you. (car exploding) - And that's it.

Apparently, the new Legacies spin-off has gay characters. I haven't seen it. Good for them, I guess. Number six, magic jewels. If there's one thing girls love more than jewelry, it's magically meaningful jewelry. There are the daylight rings that allow vampires to go out into the sun. In the first season, they're treated like a really coveted item because you have to get a witch to make one for you, and witches don't like vampires. -And you and Damon are the only ones with these nifty little daylight rings. -But the more the series goes on, it's like, well, you just need a couple of witches who like vampires for every vampire in the series to have them. - All ready. - We should enter before dawn. -Bonnie did this to youyesterday. -Then there is the vampire hunter's ring that brings the wearer back to life if he dies from supernatural causes.

You have reliquaries with vervain inside to protect the wearer from vampiric compulsion. Elena, Caroline and Jeremy understand them. Although, in the sidebar about the necklace, Stefan gets Elena to wear it before she knows about the vampires because he wants her to be safe, but he can't tell her so he can just give her jewelry. It's a nice subtle way to get him to use vervain. But after knowing about vampires, why doesn't she start drinking vervain? There are several points in the show where someone takes her collar and then immediately forces himself on her. - What is this vervain doing on your neck? -And on the other hand, we have Caroline's mother, who finds out about the existence of vampires in one episode, but she drinks vervain.

So they have to hold her captive for an entire day while the vervain leaves her system before they can force her to forget. So, given the extreme difference and advantages of her, even if she really likes the necklace, why doesn't Elena also drink vervain to have both as a backup? Honestly, all of these jewelry items seem like built-in marketing opportunities that could be calculated even if they were also in the book. And honestly, I'm fine with this kind of self-indulgence, because I remember as a child loving fantasy stories with magical jewels. Remember when you went to the Scholastic Book Fair and some of the girls' books were wrapped in plastic wrap like a necklace or charm bracelet as a selling point?

I remember there were these jewel princess books. I couldn't tell you what it was, but each one came with a ring. There is also a magical music box imbued with witch magic that can temporarily incapacitate all the vampires in the city. There is the moonstone, which is a nice rock that looks like a bar of soap and is needed for a magical ritual. Interestingly, when the main characters have it, they hide it in the soap dish at home. My favorite magical item is the Gilbert family pocket watch, which is also a compass, and the compass points to vampires.

If you think that sounds really overwhelming and could potentially undermine many dramatic stories, you'd be right. Halfway through the first season, they just stopped mentioning the compass and hope we don't notice, but I noticed. They don't even write it down, like they destroy it or something, it just ceases to exist and never comes back. Number seven, China Beach. So most of my VPD binge-watching in the past occurred on CWS's on-demand programming, which runs ads. And I don't know why that is, but CWS's on-demand programming tended to run the same handful of ads over and over again throughout everything.

And for some reason, the one ad that played more than any other was for the China Beach season one DVD box set. ♪ Through the mirror of my mind ♪ - The series that brought women to the forefront. - IV, Jones, straight to the point! - And he dared to show the other side of the war. - I gave him a home before he died so far away. - This was played so many times that we could literally recite it by heart. Hey, you know what tweens who watch a sexy vampire show want to buy? A DVD box set of a 1988 program about the Vietnam War. - China Beach. - I didn't think you'd let me out of this. - The juxtaposition is very good. (dramatic music) - Place your order in the next 10 minutes and we'll take $10 off. - Is anyone coming to swim? - That's how it is.

You will get the complete first season. -The trailer does a poor job of making the show seem appealing to anyone unfamiliar with it. What do you think your demographic is here? - Don't take out the dagger. - Order now and we'll send you your entire first season for free. That's a savings of almost $7. - I know what they want and I give it to them. - This is my favorite line from the ad. It's so serious. -I care, he is my brother. - In Iowa he is your brother. Here he may be just another spent shell. -I realize China Beach isn't actually part of the VPD canon, but it's definitely part of the experience for me. ♪ Through the mirror of my mind ♪ The series that brought women to the forefront.

IV, Jones, straight to the point! Oh. And he dared to show the other side of the war. I gave him a home before he died so far away from him. Hits the beach with the most anticipated DVD release in 25 years. I think it deserves its own Fan Wiki page. Number eight, product placement. Speaking of ads, sponsors get a lot of love. With AT&T as your service provider, you can easily find the abandoned house where your kidnapped sister is held captive or search for efficient werewolf torture methods. - Aconite. - What else did you read? - Well, each source says something different.

One is that it causes lycanthropy, which sounds false. - Google does not exist in this universe. Find your birth mother on Bing. - So I took it too much. I looked up all the Petersons in this area born the same year as Isobel and found three. - Have you faked your own death and have to hide from an ancient vampire in an underground cave? - What's that? - It's my MiFi. If we're going to be stuck here, then we might as well have the Internet. - The CW shows also have a library of pretty catchy pop songs.

I get the impression that this is some sort of cross-promotion deal. They even have a section on the CW website that likes track playlists of songs that have appeared on each show. I feel like editors are given this huge digital library and told to use two or three per episode. And the results are very variable. Sometimes you're just watching a scene and you think. - For your next solution. - Or you can just leave. - I don't abandon my friends. - Is there anyone listening to Imagine Dragons Radioactive in the next room? Oh no, it just plays at a strangely loud volume in the scene. -If you had killed Dr.

Wes, he wouldn't have infected you with that nasty virus. (panting) - That's a song with a lot of words to play during your expository dialogue. But the best thing about the show's music is that the lyrics are often comically direct about what's happening on screen. - Give it more time, Matt. ♪ I think you should know ♪ ♪ When I'm with him, I think about you ♪ - It's okay. ♪ Hey, pick up your things, it's time to go ♪ - I don't deserve you. ♪ I was wrong ♪ But my brother was. ♪ I was wrong ♪ ♪ I don't want anything more ♪ ♪ Than to dance with you ♪ ♪ Locked in a cage ♪ ♪ For a long time, time, time, time ♪ ♪ Locked in a cage ♪ ♪ For a long time, time, time ♪ - I can't say if the editors have a sense of humor about this or if they actually think this improves the experience.

Number nine, L.J. Smith. When I told you about the birth of "The Vampire Diaries", I kind of buried the protagonist, I like to do that. It's like a dramatic tension, but this is also YouTube. So people can just click and miss the interesting stuff and it's my fault, but it's also their fault. Anyway, I'd like to talk about the author of the book series, L.J. Smith. So, like the TV show, the books had a love triangle between Stefan, Damon, and Elena. Just like on the show, Damon was overwhelmingly a fan favorite and also a favorite author.

However, he was not Alloy Entertainment's favorite. Supposedly, they saw where Smith was taking the story and told him that he had strayed too far from his original vision and that Elena had to break up with Stefan. Smith did not agree and was fired. Yes it's correct. Remember that contract job? "Vampire Diaries" is, for all intents and purposes, the creation of L.J. Smith, but she does not own the series. Still, I'm sure she felt some degree of job security after her books spawned a TV series and became famous, but she made the wrong choice and was fired in 2011 as the show entered its run. third season.

And all because they were Team Stefan. Who is Team Stefan? L. J. Smith wrote books one through seven. And then there were six more books. They still say on the cover created by L. J. Smith, but if you read the fine print, they make it clear that they were not actually written by her. Three of the six books we don't even know who wrote them. He is literally an unknown and uncredited ghostwriter. That seems very creepy to me. It's such a great franchise. How can that happen? Alloy retained the rights to what L. J. Smith had presented to them.

Supposedly, the first two books after she left still used some of her outlines and even some passages of her writing may have made it into the finished product. But she made it clear on her personal website that, as published, the books do not follow the vision she intended for them. And I guess we'll never know her intended vision of it. Good? Some fans of the series bought the new ghostwritten books and L. J. Smith charitably told them not to boycott it. God knows why. But many of her fans abandoned the series because it was not authentic.

And besides, it was a bad thing what Alloy did to him. And meanwhile, as she had already planned, L. J. Smith continued writing the "Vampire Diaries" books that she wanted to write. But unfortunately, since she did not own the rights to her characters, this writing would have to go into her personal archives, because there was no legal way to distribute them. Good? A very fun fact. From 2013 to 2018, Amazon's Kindle Marketplace launched Kindle Worlds. This was a short-lived project that allowed fanfic authors to publish their works for profit on the Kindle marketplace. Works could only use materials from a pre-approved list of copyright holders with whom Amazon had already signed an agreement.

Readers pay to access these fictions and the profits are then split between the writer and the copyright holder. This was quite an unprecedented concept. And as you can imagine, it was very difficult to find copyright holders who were willing to participate. In fact, when the project was released, they had only signed a deal with one copyright holder, and it was Alloy Entertainment. The properties available for use were "Gossip Girl," "Pretty Little Liars" and "The Vampire Diaries." Then, in an extremely strange twist of fate, L.J. Smith was able to not only publish, but also profit from, his unpublished "Vampire Diaries" books, which were now fan fiction.

I doubt she really made that much money from it, but I'm glad she was able to publish her work. And in the process, making Alloy Entertainment look like fools, who in my opinion, are really bad, greedy, bad fools. I don't want to sound too heated about it. Unfortunately, this is not the comeback story of the year for L.J. Smith. Alloy Entertainment is still profiting from all of these books and will do so forever. And it seems highly unlikely to me that L.J. made even a dime from the television revenue. I'm sure all of that went into Alloy's pockets too.

In 2018, Kindle Worlds permanently closed without notice to authors who relied on it for income. And I don't think L.J. Smith's latest "Vampire Diaries" novels can't be found anywhere anymore. Meanwhile, Smith's social media presence has been completely abandoned. One of his last posts on his blog was about fighting a really serious autoimmune disease. So it's unclear if he's still actively writing. If you're L.J. Smith's niece or a webmaster or something and you're watching this video, here's my two cents. You can't sell the books. So I think I should put them on the website for free and also insert them as a Coffee or PayPal button in the header navigation, unrelated, to cover the costs of the website.

Anyway, I guess my point for this section is just not to write for these guys. They don't care about you. You can make them any amount of money and they won't care. And as soon as they have your signature on a contract, they belong to you forever. I know that if you're a new author and can't get a job, it's very attractive to take a paid ghostwriting job. And I guess that's all well and good if you're writing an installment of "Baby-Sitters Club" or "Warrior Cats." But for the love of God, don't create universes or characters for Alloy Entertainment.

They don't deserve them. Give them as little as they pay you and assume they are your enemy. Again, so as not to get too hot or anything like that. My other point here is to consider purchasing one of the L.J. Smith books that she actually owns. From what I understand, it's all the series except "The Vampire Diaries" and "The Secret Circle." I understand my audience probably isn't yours, but I don't know, maybe you have a niece or want to donate her to a library, but we'll come back to the rest of her bibliography later. Number 10, Caroline's singing career.

Before her role on "The Vampire Diaries," the Caroline actress was a professional showgirl. Here she is with Hannah Montana. (upbeat music) During VPD's career, she was apparently trying to launch herself into a country music career. And so, of course, theshow shoehorned itself into multiple situations where she could sing songs. ♪ Hit me with your best shot ♪ ♪ Why don't you hit me with your best shot? ♪ ♪ Let's go into the dark ♪ ♪ And it still hurts ♪ It's extremely unnatural every time. - Look, we hear you sing, we applaud. Can we go now? -Like this first scene where she uses her vampiric mind control powers to get the gang at a bar to back her up. - Did you know?

I'm going to sing. - Come on, off stage. - You are going to let me live my rock star fantasies and you are going to be my backup. - Well, I will be. - This scene also gets an honorable mention because Caroline sings "Eternal Flame" in an episode with a B-plot about a teenage witch who tragically burns to death. The two scenes are supposed to be separated by an ad break, but if you watch them without ads, you'll get this. ♪ Is this love an eternal flame? ♪ (crowd claps and applauds) (man grunting) And of course, if you're watching with commercials, you understand this. (crowd applauds and applauds) ♪ Through the mirror of my mind ♪ - The series that brought women to the forefront. (dramatic music) (man growls) - Number 11, the villains.

There are a lot of villains in this series and I'm only going to talk about the ones I have things to say about. So if a villain doesn't appear, just assume that I think he's boring and sucks. The villain of the first season is literally Damon, which I think is especially funny considering how non-threatening he becomes just one season later. (man moaning) - No! - Anyone, anytime, anywhere. And I know we don't deserve your forgiveness, but... I need it. - And I need some time. Maybe a long time. - Sure, of course. Take all the time you need. - Another of the first villains is the council.

These local families have formed as a vampire hunting coalition. The advice is really pathetic. They're just like these old money idiots and they're too inept to be threatening. Like when they're trying to figure out who the town vampire is, they throw this Founders' Day party. -How is that search going? - Oh, well, the Founders Party had it and anyone who arrived during the day was eliminated as a suspect. - Oh. - And everything else was just dead ends, so. - And it's like, wait. Do you know that there is a vampire running through the city and your best plan was to invite everyone in the city to your house? - This is my boyfriend, Damon. - Oh, well, come in. -There is a story arc where a group of ancient vampires are resurrected, but then they all hide out together in a small house on the outskirts of town.

This one doesn't last that long. It's kind of fun for me, being one of the stupidest villains. Just a bunch of vampires trapped in a house, many of whom we know very little about. - I hate this house. - It's like a "goosebumps" level threat. How are you? Good, thanks. I'm just not going to move into that house and I'll be fine. In every scene they have, they fight with each other because they don't like being at home. - I wasn't locked up for 145 years to end up locked up here. - Maybe you should stop complaining. - And negotiating whether they can leave the house, to which the answer is always no. - I'm tired of your rules, I want to leave this house.

Why can't we go to the city? - Eventually. - Wow, the terror. Katherine is the vampire who looks like Elena, obviously played by the same actress. We're told at the beginning that she died a long time ago, but she's a vampire, obviously she didn't die, obviously she's coming to town. Katherine isn't what I would call a great villain in any of the seasons, but she appears in many of them as a supplemental villain who shows up and causes drama. - Oh. It's okay to love them both. I did. - I really like Katherine. I think she's funny.

The canonical way to tell Katherine and Elena apart is that Katherine wears her hair curly and Elena usually has it straight, but Elena sometimes curls it too, which is a little confusing. But a curious fact is that whenever the actress plays Katherine, her hair is a wig. So they both have brown hair, but if Elena shows up with hair that's too bright and half a shade darker, she's Katherine. The most iconic villains are the original ones. They are the first vampires ever created from which all current vampires descend. Instead of being explicitly evil, they simply work to achieve their own goals and sometimes that puts them at odds with the main characters, which makes them much more interesting as villains to me.

Also, despite being old, they argue with each other constantly, which is fun. -If you close your mouth, the next thing that will come out of it will be her teeth. - Don't start, Nick. - I said nothing. - Drop it! - Do you love your family? Here is your family. - Since they are older than the others, they have extra powers. As if instead of just being able to force humans, they could also force other vampires. And sticking them in the heart won't work unless it's wood from a particular rare tree. Klaus stands out as a fan favorite because he is a bad boy who cries all the time.

He's basically the Diet Spike from "Buffy." As if the love of a woman softened him. - You're going to kill me? - In your birthday? Do you really think so badly of me? - Go from indiscriminately killing secondary characters... - No, Jenna! -To make moving pencil drawings of his favorite horse. I can appreciate the drama of him as a character. He is too much all the time. - Don't make me do this to you again, Elijah! Come on, kill her. Come on, old man. Kill her. Kill her! They can't kill me! I have nothing to fear from any of you. - He's always present, that Klaus.

My favorite of them all and perhaps my favorite character on the show is Elijah, who is like a vampire's vampire. Like what Captain Barbossa is doing for "Pirates of the Caribbean," Elijah is doing for "Vampire Diaries." Now that's a genre of vampires. I mean, he looks at his entrance to the show. (foreboding music) (hinges creak) ♪ Through the Looking Glass of My Mind ♪-The Series That Attracted Women---I remember hating this guy on my first viewing, and I honestly think it's just because his hair it is very bad. I couldn't get over it. It's like a middle part halfway between Tiktok boy hair and a bowl cut.

It doesn't even seem real. It looks like a cheap wig. And I don't think it is. It just looks like that. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I mean I don't think an old school vampire would cut their hair like that. But who am I kidding? I feel like old school vampires would be very prone to terrible haircuts. They change it later anyway. I'm sorry, Elias. I'm sorry for judging you. Part of the reason this guy is so fun is that so far you have all these vampires who look and act like teenagers, or at least like TV teenagers.

And then this weirdo shows up... (dramatic music) Serving the energy of Paul Revere. He is dressed like an adult. And he talks in a very stilted way, that he's only three hours away from the city we know as Mystic Falls. I assumed he had everything to do with Katherine. -In my opinion, Elijah is one of the only vampire performances on the show that you buy into like an old soul. Well, yeah, I think this guy could have been alive for hundreds of years. - I had a family, over the centuries, Klaus hunted them down one by one and took them from me. -There's even a scene where he tries to act like a normal human in front of Elena's aunt.

And the actor makes him sound very unnatural, like he's not used to speaking casually. - Thank you very much for inviting me to your house, Jenna. And Elena, I hope to see you again soon. - The Originals got such a positive response from viewers that they ended up getting their own spin-off show called "The Originals." (dramatic music) - The blood never stopped flowing and the party never ends! - This city was my home once. I want to be king. - "The originals." - I watched about a season and a half and, honestly, it's one of the worst shows I've ever seen in my life.

There's Kai, he's a very late villain in the series and has proven to be very powerful, but the acting isn't threatening. They definitely did it on purpose. He's supposed to be one of those quirky villains, he's cheerful and random, but he's also evil. Welcome to the dark and twisted mind of him. - All these children were murdered. - Hello? Not all of them died. He had a soft spot for one of my sisters because otherwise she would have cut out his lungs and not just his spleen. - That? - You can survive without a spleen. - But this guy is giving me so much "pitch perfect" energy.

I don't know how to explain it any other way. I kept calling the actor, the “Pitch Perfect” guy. And it's not, I looked it up. He wasn't on "Pitch Perfect" or "Glee." I figured he must have been in one of them. Doesn't he feel like he is? I think he must look like someone who was. Whenever he's in scary villain mode, he's just plain annoying. As if I'm not afraid of you. The scariest thing you can do is sing an 80s acapella version. For a while we have the mermaids and honestly I was really excited to have another Halloween monster in the canon, but they look like boring humans.

Boo! They sometimes grow claws and like to swim in pools. And that's all we get. This is season 8, stop pretending you're too cool to have characters with animal body parts. Oh my gosh, imagine if we'd had centaurs, that would be the dream. The siren's weakness is a tuning fork, and you can tell it's their weakness because when you use it, they go (slurping). I feel like I made it more slurpy, like there was this (soft slurp), and mine was like (strong slurp). And then there are travelers and they have this line. So, do you know what they mean by the traveler? - Oh, well, here are the gypsies.

Oh I'm sorry. You call yourselves travelers now, right? It's much more PC. - They make them call travelers because they want to be as culturally sensitive as possible, since they have this group of people as their evil Halloween monsters for this season. - You know how much I hate travelers. - Travelers are ruthless and manipulative hypocrites. - You can also see that since it was a later season, the whole story was really boring. Was it worth it, guys? Was that? I think every time our heroes fight an entire squad, you know you're going to have a hard time.

At least when it's just one villain, the character gets some development. But when you have the council, the travelers, the heretics, are just a bunch of anonymous people. It makes it seem like an annoying obstacle rather than an interesting matchup. Oh my god, Meryl Streep. Before I close this section, I just want to mention a character from "Vampire Diaries" who lives rent-free in my head. He's just a little guy, a little vampire villain of the week, he appears in like two episodes of the first season. But this guy wants to kill Elena, so he waits for the Gilbert family to order a pizza, then he kills the pizza guy, then he disguises himself as the pizza guy, and then he brings the real pizza to the Gilbert house. (bell rings) - Hello.

It will be $22. - Elena, I need the money! -He does all this, assuming that he will be invited to Elena's house, as if people regularly invite pizza makers in. - Here, come in, put it on the table. -His plan works by the way, which is crazy. He shouldn't have done it. And if it weren't so, where would he be? She just spends God knows how long waiting for all the pieces of his plan to fall into place, only to deliver a pizza to Elena's little brother without incident, and then turn around and go home. - And have a good night. (dramatic music) - I guess your time is less valuable when you're a vampire.

Anyway, the vampire dies in the same episode, but I'll never forget it. Team pizza vampire. Number 12, change of good and evil. Early in the show, an evil vampire indicates that the reason so many vampires are evil killers is that when you become a vampire, you gain the ability to turn off your compassion. This seems like some kind of shorthand explanation when we first hear it, like when you're a vampire, it alters the way you see the world. Reorder your priorities. It makes you see humans as prey. - My body is exploding with power, Damon. - No. - I can hear things from far away.

I can see through the darkness. I can move like magic. And the guilt, the pain, Damon, I can turn it off like a switch. -So I understood that to mean that when a vampire is good, it's because he's putting in some level of extra effort to maintain his humanity and not just kill everyone. But as the show progresses and the writing team changes a bit, this goodness becomes a very literal concept. - Just turn off that annoying humanity switch. A vampire switch is one of the biggest advantages. Being undead makes you depressed, check. - Well, is your humanity on or off? - Yes, I think there is another option at play here, a dimmer switch. - Yes, it turns out that every vampire has an actual switch in their brain that they can flip for good or evil. - I'm not going to let you do this. (both crying) (neck creaks) - That's not your choice. - Yes, here's your problem, someone put this in evil. - And they have it this way, if you really love someone or if a loved one is in danger, they can basically talk you out of it and make you good again.

Which again, initially seems like some kind of abstract concept, but then seasonslater ones also make it painfully literal. They add this idea that you have what is called an emotional anchor and that they are one or maybe two people who are capable of bringing you back. Then we get this stupid episode where Caroline's humanity is off, but evil Caroline wants to keep it that way. So she negotiates this weird off-chain humanity where she's like, okay, Stefan can turn my humanity back on. So I need to blackmail Stefan into turning off his humanity and keeping Elena away because she could turn Stefan good, who in turn could turn me good, and I don't want that. -If Stefan wants to save Sarah's life, all he has to do is disconnect humanity from him. (dramatic music) ♪ Through the Looking Glass of My Mind ♪ - The series that brought women to the forefront. -And Damon says, don't worry, we'll free my mother from a prison world so she can activate Stefan's humanity and he can then turn her good because she's evil right now.

And then we'll have Caroline come back. It goes from this place where, even if a vampire is at his worst and most evil, he still loves his family, and that can become a cookbook about how to turn people back into being. hello good. That's all in one of the college seasons, which makes sense because those are the worst. I hate this kind of thing because making it so literal also makes it completely uninteresting. You don't have as many moments of morally gray characters and they don't usually surprise you because they are in the good mode or the bad mode and act accordingly.

And it diminishes the characters' agency in everything they do because it basically splits them into two different characters. But I'm sure the lack of agency is on purpose because then you don't have to feel conflicted when the villains are redeemed after doing really terrible things. All you have to do is flip the internal switch. - Damon, no! -Elena, I'm sorry. -Viewers like that Damon is a bad boy, but he also has to be a good boy and be totally devoted to Elena in order to be romantic. But if he is too nice a guy, he will become boring and unsexy.

Then when that happens, you can have his humanity turned off again and he can spend another half season being evil and sexy for a while. Damon's final evil turn in season eight is the funniest because of how over the top everyone is. - First... Choose because I'm going to bury you all. ♪ Through the mirror of my mind ♪ - He's running around threatening everyone. Like he was a really bad boy, I'm really evil this time. - Damon, just go. - Everyone says, ugh, enough, Damon. Obviously, the writers also do all of this to give the actors a chance to flex those dramatic muscles, as clearly demonstrated by the fact that the humanity switch isn't the only way we get evil versions of the characters.

They have Stefan's Ripper personality, which is when he drinks human blood and goes into a mad bloodlust. - I'm a ripper! A ripper doesn't stop! -Also, I already mentioned the whole doppelganger thing. Elena has an evil double. Stefan has an evil double. - Hello my own shadow. - Alaric is possessed by one of the originals for a time and acts evil. Tyler is possessed by Klaus. Tyler is possessed by a traveler. Matt gets possessed by a traveler and does this accent. - That's what travelers want. I don't question my orders. - If there is any opportunity for actors to play multiple roles, they take advantage of it.

Number 13, vampire and human change. Another thing they change all the time to add drama is the mortality of the cast. Humans become vampires. Humans become werewolves. Werewolves become werewolf-vampire hybrids. And then a couple of seasons later, the vampires become humans. They have this idea of ​​a cure and there is only one. So the vampires fight about it. The resolution of the cure story ends up being that Elena and Katherine are in a fight and Elena puts it in Katherine's mouth. - Have a good human life, Katherine. -That's pretty funny and also probably the most interesting thing they could have done with a cure because Katherine is like the only vampire who likes being a vampire and she didn't want it.

That's a great way to end that story. A+ for that one. But of course, this is "The Vampire Diaries." So what I mean by resolution is that they end up coming back to it later and undermining all of that and the cure ends up being used on six different vampire characters throughout the series. This is what I'm talking about. They can never leave them alone. The fifth season also introduces the idea of ​​a magical purification spell, which can cure vampirism. So we end up seeing a total of 11 characters cured of vampirism, plus countless anonymous extras who could be in town.

I said that before about how vampire characters are supposed to be frozen in time. And part of me feels like they introduced all these cures and people were intentionally cured and uncured to muddy the waters about exactly how old these people are supposed to look. For the record, it always bothered me how many characters wanted the cure. I mean, I think some of them want it, but they like to fight about it. And they're all pretty bad at expressing why they want it. I mean, I understand characters who simply resist becoming vampires in the first place.

Just no, thank you. Or not homo, as Caroline's father would say. Being a vampire has some drawbacks, but the characters on this show don't have many of those drawbacks. Here are all the drawbacks of being a vampire that I can think of. You'll notice that I put them on two Post-its. You have to drink blood. Luckily, the show establishes early on that blood tastes delicious to vampires, so it's not gross. And besides, they can do this without having to kill people. Everyone you know will grow old and die without you. So yeah, it would be pretty lonely.

Except in this show, a lot of them are vampires. Vampire best friends, vampire boyfriends, a vampire found a family. And any human member of the family tends to be killed early on. - No, Jenna! - So that's no longer a factor either. I can't go out in the sun. I don't do that anyway. Also, witches make rings so you can go out into the sun. You can't stay in one place for too long or people will notice that you're not aging. All the vampires on this show are super rich. So having to move frequently is not a problem.

They can travel the world if they wish. And even if you weren't a rich vampire, you could just force people. So you are pretty well prepared for accommodation and food. Evil vampires constantly appear to kill you. I debated including this on the list because it seems like it's only a factor if you're a vampire who is also the star of a TV show. It has to be easier to blend in and tune out what these people make you out to be, especially when you have mind control. So all I can tell these TV vampires is to be better.

And maybe if you settle down somewhere as you start making friends, you start turning so many people into vampires that you'll effectively have an army living in the city. Is that bad advice? Am I the evil vampire? It may be, but it's still effective advice. There are things you can't do when you're a teenager. And if you're 17 forever, it's going to be annoying. Luckily, none of the 17-year-olds on this show actually look 17. So I'm going to cross that one out. You can rent cars and drink in bars to your heart's content. And the last one, he cannot lead a normal life.

What even is a normal life? Because it seems very relative. As this list has established, there really isn't much you can't do as a vampire, so it's not a big deal. So I don't really see many drawbacks here. But still, I understand when Elena gets angry when, for example, Damon forcibly gives her her blood in case she dies because he wants her to become a vampire, if it comes to that. (Elena muffles her screams) ♪ Through the Looking Glass of My Mind ♪ - The Series That-- - She personally doesn't want to come back as a vampire, and that's a really big decision to have no agency.

But whenever the topic of When the Cure Emerges, the reason they give tends to be that they want to have babies and vampires can't have babies. -I saw your reaction when she found out she was pregnant, and the next eternity of her life flashed before your eyes and she scared the hell out of you. - I mean, I always wanted a family before... You know? So it's kind of a bummer to remember that that will never happen to me. - This is extremely strange to me. And it's even stranger when you consider that Elena herself is adopted, and twice, if we want to go there.

I don't see anything that would stop these vampires from adopting and raising a child. They would have to move every two years because their parents visibly wouldn't age and wouldn't want to attract attention. And that's kind of a bummer for kids if they make friends. But like many children, they have parents whose lifestyle requires it. Anyway, I appreciate this conversation, which is extremely out of character. - You will never have his children, Elena. And you are too maternal not to have children. - Can you imagine someone telling you this? -Ironically, Caroline is a vampire and then she gets pregnant from witch magic, so. - Simply put, they are Rick and Joe's twin babies, magically transported to my available womb by the Gemini Coven. - I feel like vampire media always has to be in love with the idea that it's better to be human because the audience is human.

So it's strange if your conclusion is simply that being a vampire is awesome, yeah! Only "Twilight" had the guts to do that. Anyway, I understand why they do this, but I don't have to like it. Number 14, live and dead switch. I guess it goes without saying that any series with any kind of supernatural element doesn't respect the boundaries of life and death. So this show frequently kills and unkills characters. It's funny because some of the deaths are permanent, either because the actor wants to leave the show or because the writers have run out of ideas on what to do with them.

You'll notice that many of the permanent deaths are parents and guardians. - No, Jenna! - Whenever there is a permanent death, it is treated very seriously. Like there's a big emotional send-off and a pop song and sometimes a character voiceover or the implication that they're watching the surviving characters from the sky. - Well, you'll never be alone, okay? I promise. - I don't understand. Oh my god, you're a ghost. - This is usually the best indicator of whether a character is truly dead, but they still sometimes come back. But in most cases, if they hear the big pop song, they're dead forever.

And if they get less than that, they will return. Remember, this show even has a magic ring where, if you die wearing it, you come back to life. And that ring carries a lot of weight when we still have human cast members. Oh wait, did I say a magic ring? I mean two magic rings. They are identical and both have this power. Oh, also, the ring has all these gaps. As if you are supernatural, it will not resurrect you. And if you're human, you'll only be resurrected if you're killed by a supernatural creature, which also includes mundane ways to die, such as blunt force trauma, as long as it's inflicted by a supernatural creature.

So it won't work if you get hit by a bus, but it will work if a vampire is driving the bus. There are moments in "Vampire Diaries" where you really die, but if you're a supernatural creature, your soul goes to the other side, which is like a purgatory that a witch can bring you back from. If only we knew a powerful witch. Or if you are an original vampire, you go to the ancestral plane. You can also return from there through witch magic or the hand of an ancient mummy. And if you are someone else, you can become a ghost, which also means that you stay, and dead vampires are not excluded from becoming ghosts.

Now that I've told you about the three different switches that the "Vampire Diaries" writers employ, I'd like to tell you a brief story about Alaric Saltzman. Alaric is a vampire hunter with a magic ring, so he dies many times and comes back to life. Many times that magic makes him turn evil. Then, he becomes a vampire, but not just any vampire, an improved original vampire, which is like an original vampire, but stronger. He then dies, still evil, but returns as a non-evil ghost to care for the character. - My God, you are a ghost. - A couple of seasons later, Bonnie uses a spell to bring him back to life.

But by life I mean he's still an improved original vampire, but he's back to himself, so he's good. He then crosses a magical boundary that removes the vampire magic from his system, but also causes him to die again from the wound that killed him in the first place: he dies. But then he is resuscitated, this time medically by his girlfriend, who is a nurse. This means that he is alive again, but he is no longer a vampire. Number 15, raising the stakes. Do you like my vampire pun? Well, let's proceed. One problem with the program lasting so long is thatWe must continue to raise the stakes so that anything represents a threat to these children.

In the first season, Elena and her friends are human. She has a vampire boyfriend and the villains are many other Halloween monsters that come to town. But surprisingly at the beginning of the show, almost the entire cast are Halloween monsters. Elena becomes a vampire. Bonnie discovers that she is a witch. Tyler is a werewolf. Caroline is a vampire. Tyler is a vampire. Yes, it's the same Tyler, he is both a werewolf and a vampire. The few characters who remain human usually have some kind of magical item that grants them a supernatural gift. The thing is, if all your characters have supernatural powers and/or are undead, it's hard to have a villain who poses a threat.

So you have to keep expanding the canon to create bigger threats or invent loopholes that can retroactively weaken your powerful characters. "The Vampire Diaries" does both. To speak figuratively, the whole "Vampire Diaries" is like the writers paint themselves into a corner, and then they realize they've done it, and then they say, whatever, and just walk on the paint , ruining it. . It's a good example of a TV show that doesn't plan at all and just makes things up as it goes along. Like vampire hunters eventually dumping vervain into the city's water supply. This helps level the playing field between humans and vampires, meaning our main cast, who aren't primarily vampires, are playing on hard mode.

By the way, wouldn't that make bagged blood toxic to them? Because we still see them drinking it all the time. I know they will receive him at Mystic Falls Hospital. And I just assumed that the hospital blood is locally sourced. Maybe it's not. And how are all the vampires bathing within the city limits? Speaking of plot holes, the longer it's been since they introduced a rule, the more likely it is that they've doubled down on it or contradicted it in some way. Like in the second season, Elena's vampire mother burns in the sun in the middle of this cemetery full of dead leaves and doesn't set anything on fire.

It is then implied that the fire, when a vampire burns in the sun, is magical and therefore only affects the vampire. But then in season six, Elena is fighting a witch in high school, runs to the science lab, sticks her hand in the sunlight coming through the window until it bursts into flames, then turns on the gas and ignites its own burning. hand on a flamethrower. I'm 90% sure it's not supposed to work that way, but I can't get mad about it either. How can that not make you smile? The writers also keep adding new and bigger villains that override the old ones.

Like they added the original vampires who can force normal vampires and are stronger. So they are a pretty good threat. But after a couple of seasons, most of the originals are available.your side. So who are they going to fight? And besides, can't the originals help you now? Okay, we'll add an improved original vampire. It's like an original, but stronger. For the record, the spinoff gets something called an Enhanced Original Vampire, which is similar to an Enhanced Original Vampire, but is made from a vampire instead of a human. Then it is even stronger. So where do you go from there?

How about the world's first immortal being? Now I know what you're thinking. That sounds a lot like an original vampire, but it's not. It arrived earlier and is more powerful. The main cast has Bonnie, who is a Bennett witch, which we are told is the most powerful lineage of witches. But then how will magical villains be a threat? Well, we'll add an original witch. I'm not kidding, they did the same thing they did with the original vampires, only with the witches. Also, there is another coven called the Gemini Coven, and they are the most powerful witches.

I know I said the Bennett Witches were the most powerful witches, but technically that wasn't a lie. Geminis are so powerful because they have twin witches who absorb each other. So it's the power of two witches. So it is more powerful. Then we added travelers, a subculture of which they are stronger because they have been here longer. I know it sounds like original, but it's different. Forget about those other two types of witches. These are the powerful ones. But after all this, what are you supposed to do in your last season? Where can you go from here to raise the stakes even further?

Well, I left this out of the villains section because I wanted it to be a surprise. The villain of the eighth season is the devil. - Do you want to save your brother? All you have to do is kill the devil. -Arcadius is a former psychic who is a super nice guy until his people turn against him because he keeps trying to advise them about his impure thoughts. - What you imagine, brother, is impure. -For the record, the people of his town burned him at the stake. So, the "Vampire Diaries" Wiki says that he was killed by the townspeople.

Those damn townspeople, first they killed Caroline's father, and now this. -With his last breath, he unleashed a psychic blast so powerful that it created his own world. (Arcadio moans loudly) - Uh, sure. This is how they introduce the devil, with all these qualifiers. It is a place that people have called hell. - Call it hell if you want. It doesn't matter what name you give it or if you believe in it or not. Either way, that's where Cade feeds on the souls of the damned. - He rules this hellish place, that's why some people have called him the devil.

He is roughly equivalent to some kind of demon. They're clearly too embarrassed for this guy to show up and say, "I'm the devil." Bad news, guys, the devil has come to town. They don't even call him devil that much. They say, this is Cade, who some people might know as the devil. In my opinion, his moderation is his worst enemy here. They do a lot of other stupid things. And suddenly, it's too embarrassing to give me a proper demon. If they had just tried, it would have been an A+. I think that was a little aggressive.

You hear the phrase, the villain of season eight is the devil. And you say, yes. OMG, fantastic. But I never thought I'd say this about a show, but I'm disappointed in their use of the devil. I wish he had been the real devil and the mermaids had just been demons. I will say, with all the new things they keep adding, it's really fun to jump into a late-season episode of "The Vampire Diaries" and see the pre-episode recap with no context, like something totally inscrutable, just a word salad. - Previously on "The Vampire Diaries." - The travelers are about to act.

Your leader Markos is here. - Sirens use mind control to lure their victims to their deaths. - Maxwell's relic and the tuning fork, those things fit together to form the hammer that swings inside a bell. When assembled correctly, this bell becomes a mystical super bell. - Number 16, characters I hate. I think this might be a CW thing, but "The Vampire Diaries" loves to write new characters, maybe read the room and see a little how the audience feels about them, and then deviate from it. Like they brought in a new character to be someone's love interest. And then the audience says, no, I don't like that.

Then they will stop, but that new character will still exist. And then they'll be hanging around for three seasons while the writers say, I don't know. Elena has a younger brother, Jeremy. I think Elena doesn't have a brother in the book, so the writers added him in for a reason, but I think that reason is wrong. I think her thought process was literally just right: Elena needs someone to worry about, so Jeremy can put himself in danger and cause drama. - All you have to do is flip the switch inside. - Damon! No! - But Elena already has a lot of nice friends to worry about.

And those relationships are better established than Elena's with Jeremy. At first, Jeremy's character trait is that he has anger issues and uses very hard drugs. - Excellent. It's the first day of school and you're high. It's on you? - Stop, okay? You need to relax with myself, okay? - Relax? What is that, stoner talk? - Elena's parents died right before the start of the series, so Jeremy is acting out because of that. He is perpetually moody and gloomy about everything. You can say that the writers never know what to do with it. A few seasons later, they try to make him a vampire hunter, and he complains about it like he complains about everything else.

And then at least once a season they introduce some forgettable new female character just for the express purpose of hanging out with Jeremy and just so he has something to do. And it's always boring because he's boring and they always die. Also, the actor is very rigid with me. He's like the walking incarnation of Jim from "Treasure Planet" with his early 2000s skater boy hair. He even talks with that little weasel voice, like he's doing the voice of one of those naïve Disney kids like Aladdin or Hercules. - Protects me from compulsion. That's that curse, great.

I did some research on that stone you showed me. - I literally searched for interviews because they had to know if it was a character's voice or if it just sounds like that. And the answer is that it just sounds like that. - I'm Steve McQueen. I played Jeremy Gilbert on "Vampire Diaries" and Jake on "Piranha 3D." -He's just a naive Disney boy in real life. And that makes it even funnier when they give him his vampire hunter subplot, where he becomes extremely bulky and we have to see him as a threat to vampires, but he still has the same presence that he's always had. -The only thing I can think about is killing vampires. - What are you going to do, Jeremy, sing to them about Santa Fe?

The next character I hate is Vicki, who looks like Bella Thorne. She is literally just a female version of Jeremy. Yes, they actually did this twice. She is the delinquent little sister of a different character. And she's high too. She has moments of humanity, but mostly she feels like a mean-spirited caricature of an addict. The nail in the coffin for me in that story is when she feeds herself on vampire blood and also becomes addicted to vampire blood. Like really? - Can I take another hit? That blood was so good. -Seriously, her only trait is getting addicted to things.

She dates Jeremy for a while, which of course means she dies early, but they have the audacity to bring her back as a ghost several times. Appreciate that my bootleg shirt says when the show airs on the CW. Can I make the logo match? No. (laughs) I hate Uncle John, he's Elena's uncle, but he's also her secret biological father and he's also a vampire hunter. He's kind of an antagonist, but he has a great Neil Patrick Harris energy, so I can't take him seriously. Even worse, they try to do scenes with him and Jeremy sometimes as a kind of father figure to him.

And I was like, "Ugh, I can't." Speaking of parents, Elena's biological mother is Isobel. And I hate her too. - You look like her, it's disturbing. - Have you met Katherine? - She found me after I turned back. - I don't have much opinion about this character because I simply can't avoid this performance. - Since the last time I was here, I have been doing everything I can to find Klaus. We knew our best chance was to find him before he could find you. - I don't understand how it's so bad. -He thinks I'm helping him protect Elena.

So it's been very helpful in keeping me informed about everything that's been going on. - Most of the cast is really solid even when the writing is weak, but honestly this is the stiffest and most stilted acting in the entire series. - They come every week and bring flowers, although no one is buried here. The Isobel they knew is dead. - I looked it up and I guess the actress has been in many things. I haven't seen it. I don't know if she's good at it. Like maybe it was a really wrong choice. But I don't know, something is really wrong here.

Wes Maxfield. Yes it's correct. Wes Maxfield, a name that is somehow less plausible than Alaric Saltzman. He is the villain of the fifth season. He's like this evil scientist who experiments on vampires. A season finale concept if I ever heard one. They even retroactively wrote this plot where he experimented on Damon in this lab in the '50s and had amnesia about it. I wish he could have amnesia over this entire season of the show. - You study the transmission of infectious diseases! - I study vampires. - That? -Anyway, I don't buy this actor as a scientist, any more than I buy Luke Tipple from the Syfy channel as a scientist. - My name is Luke Tipple.

I am a scientist, an adventurer and for the next six weeks I will guide you on what will be a dangerous journey through time. -And he must be British or something because he speaks in that stilted, nasal way that British actors do when they struggle to sound American. -These are the handwritten medical findings of Dr. Grayson Gilbert, his father. -He makes the modulation in his sentencesreally strange, like it's a text-to-speech program or something. - Your heroic vampire friends couldn't let you ride off into the sunset without running some tests. -There is a character, Anna, who I don't necessarily hate as a character, but she is another girlfriend of Jeremy's, so she is another waste of time.

She's fine when she's not in a scene with him, but Jeremy's girlfriend drama is simply the worst part of the show. Anna is a vampire, and I think she's supposed to be frozen at 15. And I like that, I liked the idea of ​​that, but they dress her absolutely horribly and they never brush her hair, presumably to make her look younger. But it's like, geez, she's an immortal vampire and she still doesn't have the slightest idea how to dress. I feel called by her. This is what I would be like if she existed in the universe of the show.

We all want to think we'd be Elena, but in reality we'd be the uncool teenage vampire who's 400 years old and still thinks she should wear short sleeves and butterfly earrings to the formal event. I don't have any particular feelings about Matt's dad either, but he represents one of the worst writing moments on the show. So Matt has a neglectful mother at the beginning of the series and his father is not in the picture. Then in season eight, the final season, Damon needs to get a magical artifact and he attacks this random car mechanic outside of town.

Then all of a sudden Matt comes running in like... - Dad. ♪ Through the mirror of my mind ♪ - Matt runs up to his dad and says, "Hey dad, I'm sorry, I tracked you down a few months ago and I didn't tell you about the vampires." And he's like, what? What? is happening? - I know, none of this makes sense. And I know I tracked you down a few months ago and I didn't tell you about this, but it all happened on screen and they didn't tell us until now. who decided to write him. Well, the last character on my list is Tyler.

My reasons for hating him are rational and unfair. He is this jock who becomes a werewolf. He started the series as the school bully and... - No, it's not going to happen. Not here, not like that. No, I said no. Leave her alone! Vicki Donovan says no. It seems like she has other negative characteristics, they just throw this on the table. and then they never address it again. He's a good guy. Or maybe that was just supposed to be his latent werewolf aggression, and that makes it okay. Anyway, the unfair reason I hate him is just. because it seems so stupid.

As if there were no thoughts, with an empty head. I think it's this actor more than the writing, something about him gives me that "Zoolander" energy. -Tyler. (Tyler gargles and burps) - And not Ben Stiller as Zoolander, but as if the Zoolander character was trying to act in a television drama. - So much for that paternal bond. - I'm not your little whore anymore. - You think you're too cool for school, but I have news for you, Walter Cronkite... You're not. -Anyway, Tyler is a pretty important character and he gets a lot of screen time, but I don't like him so much that he's funny when he's on screen.

That's the nicest thing I've said about anyone in this section so far. Number 17, good stuff. Elena's friend Caroline is like the archetypal goofy cheerleader. And she becomes a vampire and one hopes they kill her soon after. - They likeI mentioned, well, we could turn Caroline into a vampire. (dramatic music) (Caroline gasping) And I was like, great. Every woman they've turned into a vampire has died. I say, this is it. -But instead, she's just a vampire, with very little change to the status quo. In fact, she loves doing it. - Excuse me. Excuse me. -Like she still has the same friends and goes to school and lives with her mom, but now she's just a carefree vampire.

And I like that. I think it's funny. Another good thing about Caroline is that she's usually the one who insists that the cast do normal human things. My favorite moments on the show are when they do relatable things that real teenagers do and those moments are surprisingly few and far between. But when they do happen, it's usually thanks to Caroline. Elena's friends are generally good. The actresses of Carolina, Elena and Bonnie have very good chemistry and feel like they are actually friends. That's part of the reason I said Jeremy was such a useless character because Elena already has these girls to bond with and worry about.

My favorite part of this show is all the villains. And I don't mean to say that the villains themselves are a piece of cake. Many of them are too similar to each other and the show starts to feel very repetitive in the later seasons. But specifically what I like about the villains is that they tried to make them sexy and as such, many of the villains were fan favorites. And that meant that instead of simply killing off the villains when their arc ended, the showrunners usually tried to keep them alive and simply defeat them so they could return later or, eventually, just reform them and let them awkwardly hang around as a part. of the group of friends.

I call this the "My Little Pony" solution and I love it, I think it's cute and fun and always good. Speaking of redemption arcs, Damon is usually portrayed as a morally gray guy who is in love with Elena, but is otherwise a loose weapon who could kill anyone at any time. - Anyone, anytime, anywhere. -But of course, as his redemption arc unfolds, they also tie him in with all the other supporting characters. As if he went out with his brother, his teacher, his friends, his friends' mothers. And I like that. I feel like very often when you have this story where a bad boy is redeemed by love, there's a big emphasis on the idea that he's just a good guy to this woman.

And if she wasn't around, he would still be super mean. I guess this is because of the sexiness factor, but I don't know, it always bothers me. It makes it seem a lot less genuine that this bad boy is actually self-reflective and he's trying to be a better person. In this series, it is very obvious that if Elena died, Damon would still have a moral compass and would still be good and help his friends. It's especially obvious because, spoiler, Elena essentially dies, and that's what happens. And we'll get to that later. And lest you think I'm exclusively Team Damon, I like Stefan, Stefan is on the list of things I like.

I know I've been mean to him and called him boring, because he is, but he's a good guy. He is very similar to Captain America. - We left announced, it is possible that we will not leave again. -He Okay, then I won't go out. - So no more Stefan. - I can't think of a better reason to die. - Damon is the guy you want to watch a TV show about, but Stefan is the guy you'd really like to date. And I liked the actor who plays him, that you can tell that he is very charismatic when they give him something interesting to do, which is not enough, because you know, it's Stefan.

What else? I like that we're supposed to believe this as a freshman college dorm. - Hello! - Who are you? - I'm Megan, your roommate. - Man, a third roommate in our luxurious junkie loft. How will we make enough space around the crackling fire? There's this old vampire named Michael who, in my opinion, gave us the best death scene on the show. (Michael moaning and screaming) Nothing was held back. In one episode, there is a party in a corn maze. I love corn mazes and I think that's it. Number 18, the video game. In 1996, they released a point-and-click mystery adventure game, "Vampire Diaries," for PC. ♪ I want to remove the darkness ♪ Based on the books, not the show, obviously.

Well, based on the books, in the sense that the show is based on the books, which isn't much. So I played it. You play as Elena, who tries to stop an evil vampire from getting a magical dagger that will help him harness the city's magical energy. - It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. My name is Elena Gilbert. - Oh great. It uses real-life actors, which is at least ambitious, but each character exists in one place throughout the game. And there are only like six locations. And they all look like that depressing '90s brand of McMansion opulence.

Damon shows up looking like Denny from "The Room." -Of course he is enjoying the party. How could such a pretty girl do otherwise? - And other characters are also represented in name only. You also have Mikhail, who appears in the show as Michael. You just have to watch his incredible death scene. (Michael moans and screams) And he walks in and says, "Oh." - It was very kind of you to accompany me at the baptism of my humble art gallery. - I wonder which character is the bad guy. Honestly, this was one of the worst games I've ever played.

And I love point and click adventure games. I've got a putt-putt behind me, for God's sake. This was one of the first incarnations of this game genre. I feel like games like this generally rely more on clicking around the environment to trigger events and find items. But this whole game only has like 10 items for you to find. And many of them will not be used until the end. So most of the game is dialogue trees. "Do you know anything about that dagger Mr. Richards just added to his collection, Aunt Judith?" - Dagger? No, it sounds horrible. - A couple of times I got stuck and thought, well, if I go back through the entire city and talk to each character, eventually one of them will tell me what I need to do to progress.

But sometimes, until you find the arbitrary item you need, you're actually stuck in a loop. Dialogue trees freeze where they are, characters repeat themselves. And furthermore, once you start a conversation, the dialogue cannot be skipped. Then you hear it all a million times. This is all the introduction to Stefan's character every time you talk to him. - I've been worried about you, Elena. Your power is getting stronger. I can feel it. Look, just promise me you'll be careful from now on. Well? Tell me what you discovered. Maybe I can help you. - And for the record.

No, it can't. - I need a lot of money to buy it. Can you lend me the money, Stefan? - I'd love to lend you everything I have, Elena. Even my heart. But I don't need money, so I can't lend it to you. - Sometimes talking to a character twice in a row will produce a new result, but not often. The first item I picked up was a shovel. And I feel like I had been playing for a while when I found it. So, since it was my only item, I just went around town swinging it fruitlessly at everything, as if maybe I could hit it with my shovel.

The only exciting moment in my entire work was when I tried to dig this grave and the ghost of the woman appeared and tried to attack me. This wasn't after any other supernatural occurrence, just an angry ghost in broad daylight. They also have this game mechanic where it occasionally switches between day and night. I wasn't sure if the time changes were caused by the passage of actual time or how many places I visited or what, but I noticed that you can make it move forward by returning to Elena's room and activating the going to sleep scene.

Some things can only happen at night. So when you get stuck, you're not sure if it's because you missed an item you need or because you need to talk to everyone in town again in case one shows up a new dialogue option or because you just have to wait for it to appear . Get dark before anything can happen. I ended up wandering around the city fruitlessly, clicking back to the same places I'd been before, talking to the same six people in the same order, and then going to sleep so it changed from day to night. It's like it's an oppression simulator.

The worst part of the game was when I needed money to buy a rune stone from an art collector. So Elena, who talks like that, says, "Oh, no, I need a lot of money." And I asked her aunt first, obviously. But the aunt says no. - You know I would give you everything I have, Elena, but I think right now we should be a little more careful with money. - And then I said, well, great. I guess I'll have to ask everyone else until the plot progresses, but it's fruitless. And you know it's fruitless because, again, there are only six characters in the game and the six characters are like the school librarian, the cemetery keeper, and I have to crawl towards them, without all hope, like, can you give me a lot? money to buy a rune stone?

And obviously they say, "I'm the school librarian." I don't have a large sum of money to lend you, or I just clear the weeds on your parents' grave. I don't know you very well, it's actually a really inappropriate question. And I'm like, oh my God, I know. I know, but the game makes me wonder. I did not want to. The game forces me to humble myself and look at all these unskippable dialogue trees while the characters explain this to me. It seems like the game is making fun of me. It also doesn't help that some of the items you pick up are so low resolution that you literally can't tell what they are.

I thought this was like a recipe, a concert ticket. And then when I finally gave in and looked for a step by step guide,I discovered that it was a box of matches. Speaking of the player's guide, I looked it up and as soon as I read it, I didn't feel bad about looking for it because I never would have gotten it without the guide. There's one item I picked up that I thought was an African mask, but apparently it was a large statue. And you're supposed to put it on this trapdoor like it's a bridge and cross it.

Yes, I could have played this game for 1000 years and not succeeded. So after four hours of playing and with the help of the tutorial, I made it to the secret chamber, got the magic dagger, and then couldn't find where on the screen to click to exit this room. I walked around for dozens of minutes. I tried everything. I clicked every inch of the screen. And I finally accepted that I wouldn't go any further and just searched for footage of the game. And you're going to have to be okay with the fact that I did that because I'm not finishing this game.

Well, anyway, how did the game end? Elena defeats Mikhail and it's almost impossible to even know what's going on. (both groan) (man laughing) I guess Mikhail has an amazing death in every adaptation. There are many scenes that I really love. This story has a lot going on, but at the same time all the scenes have very little energy. - I died at the end of the 15th century when my own brother killed me in a duel. And since then, I have fought against that evil that is part of my soul: Stefan reveals that he is a vampire.

Like I'm telling you his specialty on a first date: Damon and I fought and dueled over the girl we both loved, over the vampire whose blood we both had in our veins. We died with each other's swords and we both became vampires. -But I do have to highlight the final scene and the credits, which are amazing. - I want to be with you always. (soft music) (thunder) (happy music) ♪ This is mine ♪ - Number 19, the clothes. The costume department is very unpredictable. I have this idea in my head that somewhere in Georgia, the CW has a big warehouse of generically fashionable clothing.

And the locker room team probably has a very short change and are just working with what they have. (incomprehensible) of the cast is attractive, it's surprising how wrong some of these choices are. Elena fares better than most, but that could simply be because the actress has that kind of slender build where her clothes hang in a very neutral way. I mean, she looks at this fit. That dress ends up in such a strange place, it's basically a long floral shirt. She's in evil mode in this episode, so she's supposed to look intimidating, but it seems like she forgot about her pants.

Elena's signature look is usually skinny jeans and a solid-color long-sleeved blouse in shades of blue or purple. And then she's wearing a white lace t-shirt underneath her, it's very 2000s, which I guess could mean she'll be back in style soon. So that will be strange. I used this stuff all the time. Do you remember when that was fashionable? And they would like to have shirts with attached camisole tops or, worse yet, fake camisole shirts. And then when you looked inside the shirt, it was just a triangle of fabric sewn into this area. Overall, Elena's signature color is definitely purple.

And Katherine definitely noticed this because it's usually what she wears when she's trying to impersonate her. The town of Mystic Falls has non-stop themed parties, events and dances, at least three per season, which is obviously nothing more than an excuse to dress the gorgeous actors in crazy costumes and period clothing, like their dolls. And vampires also have a lot of flashbacks in various eras. So we got vintage clothes there too. Caroline has done the dirtiest thing in the wardrobe department. All these horribly flashy pieces at the same time. And just these strangely unflattering, ill-fitting clothes. This set from the first season should have been burned.

It looks like a maternity dress on it. Anyway, I do like that each of the characters has a unique and consistent style. Elena's outfits feel simple and casual. Like you'd think a real teenager would wear them in high school. Bonnie dresses a little more feminine. She wears much rougher blouses and dresses and she is the queen of the cardigan. And Caroline wears trash that she finds on the street. Number 20, the vampire

diaries

. Not the spectacle, but the object. I guess this show actually contains vampire

diaries

and non-vampire diaries. The pilot and first season show Elena writing a lot in her diary, which the showrunner seemed to resent being chained up because she drops it as the show progresses.

But as if to justify the title, we have other diaries scattered throughout the show. And I like to keep an eye on the diaries because I think it's cheesy every time Stefan, like Elena, keeps a diary throughout his life. So that's a real vampire diary. Elena's ancestor kept the Gilbert Diary, which is an important historical document and also a field guide of sorts for vampire hunters. -Johnathan Gilbert wrote in a diary his entire life, until the bitter and crazy drunken end. -And the bad guys learn about Gilbert's diary from a witch, Emily Bennet's own diary, not to mention the whole important plot of witch grimoires, which let's be honest, are also diaries.

Damon keeps a video diary for a hot minute, but I'd say that doesn't count. The show is not called The Vampire Vlogs. - I guess this is my new modern version of a dead man's diary. -And there are a couple of one-off episodes that use various characters' diaries as an excuse to have a narrative or framing device, but they tend to be one-off, isolated episodes, there's no coherence. But my favorite example of trying to shoehorn the diaries back in comes at the end of season six. Elena is entering a mortal sleep and says goodbye to her friends, possibly forever. - Promise me something, both of you.

Write everything down, everything you achieve in your lives. Every crush, when you fall in love, when you start a family, write it down. So that one day when I wake up, I can read everything about my best friends' lives and feel like I was there. -So yes, her parting words are: keep this diary for me. It's like someone in the writers' room spit out her coffee and said, "Oh my God, we forgot about having a vampire diaries for like four years." Number 21, racism. I bet those "Vampire Diaries" writers were getting pretty comfortable looking at the timeline and seeing that I hadn't mentioned racism yet.

Everyone is getting ready for a long winter nap. Well, here it is. The show is set in the town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, which is a very traditional town. They have about 20 holidays a year where everyone dresses up in their Civil War-era ball gowns and hangs out at the old plantation house. They have Miss Mystic Falls, which is a beauty pageant celebrating the founding families and an annual Founders' Day celebration not to be confused with the Founders' Party. I swear to God, that's a real, separate occasion. You get both in the same season and it made the passage of time very confusing for me.

Let's not forget the annual screening of Gone with the Wind. In fact, they changed the names a bit because in the books, Mystic Falls was the town of Fells Church, and Mystic Falls High School was Robert E. Lee High School. The video game adaptation, of course, uses these names. And that section of the game is absolutely loaded with Confederate flags, tarnishing an otherwise perfect video game. The kids dress up as Confederate soldiers for the school parade and the principal has Bonnie smiling and waving back, as if she has no thoughts, her head empty, with nothing to see here.

By the way, that float was a recreation of this moment in local history. - We talked about it in class, Confederate soldiers shot at a church that had civilians inside. - Not even the corn maze was exempt. Hello, the Confederate scarecrow is nothing sacred. And oh, I didn't forget the Salvatores. Damon was a pure Confederate soldier who was later modified into a Confederate loafer and deserter. I guess that's supposed to make it better. - I was simply having too much fun to return to battle. -His commitment to the Confederacy is inspiring. -But there's a strange moment in the finale where Stefan talks about Damon's good side, and specifically cites his involvement in the Civil War as one of his positive attributes. -The older brother he admired, the son he admired. enlisted in the Civil War. to please his father. - Yeah, man, in the Confederate Army.

Maybe leave that one out of the reference letter. Bonnie's ancestor, Emily Bennett, is famous in supernatural circles for being one of the most powerful witches of all time. And she is also Katherine's slave. Oh I'm sorry. Not slave. I mean, maiden. Yes, that's what they called black servants in the Antebellum South. There's sort of an implication in the way she's acted that she and Katherine have a longer history and maybe they're just putting on this servant charade while they're in the Confederate territory of Mystic Falls. Emily always seems to be secretly smiling as if it's a little game they're playing.

Like ooh ha ha, we have fun here on this plantation. Anyway, maybe there are many points in Emily's timeline where she's not a slave and is just living her best life, but that's the point we see her in every flashback, that's the outfit. who will apparently use his ghost for all eternity. . Let's try to check the Wiki to know more personality. "Little is known about Emily's personality" based on the number of flashbacks she appeared in "as she played minimal roles in them." Cool. Bonnie herself is the only black person in the main cast. And she never seems to struggle with the idea that Mystic Falls has all this Confederate history or that her ancestors were slaves.

In fact, it's noteworthy that racism simply doesn't seem to exist in Mystic Falls. There is a suggestion of classism. - And Amber Bradley is just on the court, so the contest doesn't seem like it's just about founding families, which, of course, it is. -Tyler's father is the mayor and there are several girlfriends he is afraid to bring home because they are not good enough to impress his parents. But the characters in question are always white. - It's Vicki, right? Matt's sister. - Yes ma'am. - That's what you get when you bring trash to the party. - Matt is the only poor person in town.

And I'm not saying this would instantly become a better show if it had a dark arc where Bonnie is discriminated against because of her race. Even if they had tried, I'm sure they would have handled it very poorly. But they decided to make the city so traditional. They decided to keep him in the south. And they decided to have all these flashbacks. That's what makes the whole experience so surreal. Echoes of racism and slavery are everywhere in this place, but it only presents itself as a colorblind utopia. There's an exchange that Tyler has with his mother, and I think he unintentionally sums up the theme of race in "The Vampire Diaries" very well.

Tyler's ancestral property was this big plantation house and he finds a big, suspicious-looking werewolf holding cell in the basement because his family are werewolves. When he tries to ask his mom about it, this happens. - Well, this is the South, honey, but nobody likes to remember the old days of slavery. Yes, of course, it's not like that, Carol. - That was the original plantation house, beautiful antebellum architecture. And if it hadn't burned to the ground, we'd probably be living in it. - Hmm. What's the deal with the strange underground basement? - We are not talking about that type of rooms. - The house was beautiful, Tyler, a beautiful plantation house, but we didn't talk about those rooms.

Oh, that's weird. I don't have a post-it note on my creepy bulletin board about racism. I could have sworn I put one up there. Number 22, Elena leaves. At the end of the sixth season, the actress who played Elena decided that she wanted to leave the show. There was a lot of drama surrounding her reasons for leaving, and the only reason she gave was that she felt Elena's story had come to an end. Obviously, that's a bogus reason because like the CW shows, they never have natural stable arcs. They simply move from season to season with wildly varying quality until the show ends.

There's no way you can tell me that the show ran out of ideas for Elena after season six that they wouldn't have run out of ideas after season four. Obviously, there's a super dramatic fan theory about how she left the show because of her breakup with her co-star who plays Damon. Apparently they dated for years and then broke up. And then he got married shortly before she decided to leave. I think that rings false. That's all I have to say about it. It sounds like little child logic. I'd bet her departure had a much more boring explanation.

Like she's tired of living in Georgia most of the year. She had worked one job for most ofHe was 20 years old and had not had the opportunity to go out and play film roles. She may have asked for a higher salary and didn't get it. She maybe heard some potential storylines for season seven and thought they were really dumb. Whatever the reason, with six seasons under their belt, I think it would be reasonable at this point for the showrunners to simply end the show. But no, they continued it for two more seasons. As? You ask. Don't worry, I've got you.

So, our perfect villain hates the main characters and loves drama. And he decides to put Elena under a sleeping curse. So he will be in a coma until the moment her best friend Bonnie dies. This is drama for everyone, but especially for Damon, who is in love with Elena and dating her because he makes him kill Bonnie or wait for like, I don't know, 80 years. - Oh, and please don't look for some weird magic solution, because as the incredibly powerful leader of the Gemini, I arranged this so that if you try to outwit him, both you and Elena will die instantly. -It also leaves the writers a convenient way to write Elena off indefinitely, but be able to bring her back suddenly if the opportunity arises.

It's pretty dumb and the villain should have killed Elena. Anyway, it's not like death is permanent in this series. But hey, maybe they can make this work. I mean, yeah, it's a really bad sign when the lead actress decides she's over it and wants to leave, but it's not like Elena is the glue that's holding "The Vampire Diaries" together. For better or worse, "The Vampire Diaries" is largely a fantasy about the attractive guys Elena is dating or she might be dating. Elena, in her time on the program, was just the conduit for that fantasy. So as long as some girls come out with some sexy Halloween monsters, we have a show.

So let's get to our next point. Number 23, Elena's problem. Elena was never a very fun character. You think I mean one thing by this, but I actually mean two things. You'll see, we'll get there. I don't want to seem like I hate Elena. I already talked about characters I hate and she wasn't there. But at the end of the day, she doesn't have much to offer. Elena is nice. She is very beautiful. And they tell us that she has all these good traits. It doesn't help that the series picks up after what we're told has been a huge personality change for Elena.

In the pilot episode, she returns to school for the first time after her parents die in a car accident during summer vacation. So we told Elena all these fundamentals that we just didn't get to see. We were told that last year she was popular, but now she doesn't really like to go out and socialize. We are told that she used to be a cheerleader, but now she doesn't do it anymore. She tells us that she likes to read, because she once asks to borrow a copy of "Wuthering Heights" and then she never again expresses interest in literature. - "Weathering Heights" by Ellis Bell. - I have many books, go ahead and put them away. - Oh no, me, but I would like to read it again. - VPD also shows us things about Elena, but only in the broadest sense and in rather unidentifiable ways.

It shows us that she is a good person, by which I mean that when vampires want to kill people, she says, no, don't kill people. That is wrong. We are shown that she is loyal, by which I mean that when the vampires want to kill her friends, she says, no, don't kill my friends, take me. We are also shown that her family keeps archival photographs in the frames that hang on the walls. But none of that is even Elena's problem. I would like to focus on one thing in particular that we are told about Elena. It is the saddest thing and what they tell us the most.

Elena used to be fun. - You don't seem like the cheerleader type, Elena. -Oh, it's only because her parents died. Yeah, I mean, he's just going through a boring phase. I used to be a lot more fun. -That she was fun and she had fun before the death of her parents. To me, I feel like you hear this concept at the beginning of a story and think, maybe this will be resolved, like maybe Elena needs to get her enthusiasm for life back. But she doesn't change or become more carefree or anything like that and the show doesn't worry about this.

If anything, Stefan and Damon's interest in her seems to be due to how surly she is and the fact that she looks like her old girlfriend. (Jenny sighs) Vampires. I'm not saying that a moody, introspective character is inherently a bad thing. Some people are like that. But one of the characters who keeps sadly telling us that Elena used to be funny is Elena. - It used to be more fun. -You get the feeling that she liked who she was before. She just can't reach it anymore. She suffered a tragedy and now she has this existential fear where normal life seems trivial and meaningless.

She's too in her head. She can no longer care about high school things or enjoys being a cheerleader, something she loved. Then, season after season, we watch her go through this gauntlet of pain, terror, and violence. - You're going to be more than happy. (broken glass) (Elena crying)-If anything, the narrative confirms her view of her world. As if your existential fear is correct, Elena. The things that mattered to you emotionally and brought you joy are trivial in the face of the gigantic doomsday problems that constantly plague you. Then Jeremy dies and it's the straw that breaks the camel's back and she changes her life from good to evil.

But even in evil mode, she's not a fun evil one. She is completely numb. I mean, she listens to the pop song they play at the party she's throwing. - You were trying to stop me from joining the party so I *don't care* I brought the party here. ♪ I don't care ♪ ♪ I love it, I love it ♪ - Great. ♪ I don't care ♪ - They even ask him to say it again later, like... - Do you understand? I don't mind. - Didn't you hear my song? And contrast her with other vampires in evil mode. Other vampires are killing people, yes, but they also serve margaritas and sing karaoke.

And Elena's here like, I think I'll stay in the middle of the road. There's a sequence where evil Elena goes to a cheerleading competition just so she can feed off the other teams. And when it's time for her performance, Caroline is thrown into the air and Elena is like, hmm, what if I let her fall? Like an intrusive thought that she just acts on to see what happens. And then you look at her face and she's not like that (evil laughs), which is definitely how I would be if she had left Caroline, because she is hilarious.

She is totally blank. She wasn't angry, it didn't turn her on or make her happy, she just doesn't feel anything. If you're wondering how the humanity change plot is resolved, Jeremy simply comes back to life. If that is. Bonnie does a spell. Cool. I don't know what we're supposed to get out of that. So Elena goes through this weird elephant in the room throughout the series dealing with the trauma that was created in the pilot and never resolved. What kills me is that this show could have so easily tied into the moment of growth that Elena needed to have.

Actually, I don't want to be mean, but I counted the opportunities they had to do it and I didn't do it. Roads not taken, which could have had some meaning for Elena's character. I counted five paths. Elena was with her parents when her car fell off a bridge into a river and they drowned. So it's pretty obvious that she's dealing with a combination of normal grief and very strong survivor's guilt. That's only compounded later by how many other characters end up directly or indirectly in danger or dead because of her. But this is a vampire show and Elena ends up becoming a vampire.

And I feel like that arc could have been her teaching moment. The existence of a vampire is inherently selfish. They need to drink blood to survive. Thus, each day of Elena's existence would become an affirmation that she has the right to live and the right to occupy space. I think I just implied that drinking blood is self-care, but it's not, figuratively or literally. So that's path number one. Since Elena is a vampire, this leads her to an epiphany about how she has the right to live and enjoy life. And if we don't want her to be a vampire forever, then let's shoot, look at the cure in exactly the same way.

The cure is, in the literal sense, life, and there is only one dose. But the question of whether Elena deserves to have it is surprisingly little considered by Elena herself. The only time she tries to reject him is because she needs him. That episode is a bargaining chip for the villain. As if Rebekah wanted the cure. Then she gets angry about it. But all the other characters unanimously decide that Elena should be the one to get it. When they get a second dose of the cure via time travel with witch magic, everyone is like here, this is for Elena.

So, wow, that was path number two. Oh no, guys, looks like we missed the exit back there. Elena decided that she wants and deserves the cure as a decisive character could have been your resolution. But now I'd like to back up a bit. I mentioned that Elena becomes a vampire, but I didn't tell you how, because it's important. Then Elena becomes a vampire when Matt goes off the road and off the Wickery Bridge and falls into the water, the same place, the same circumstances as the accident that killed her parents. Baybe, the council should have allocated some funds to upgrade the railings instead of spending it all on compasses for vampire hunting.

As if it weren't clear enough, the scene is very intentional with its parallels, cutting between the current accident and that of her parents. We see Stefan swim to the car where Elena's father is the only one aware of her, and Elena's father insists that he save her first. In the present day, Elena insists that Stefan save Matt. By the way, I know this scene is sad, but it's also kind of funny. Like everyone is here having conversations in their submerged cars. In this time, you could have saved everyone. In fact, if you already have the car door open and some people are conscious, why can't Stefan just pull the seat belts and float everyone together?

Anyway, Elena gives her life to save Matt and presents herself as beautiful and good. And the way she intercuts with the previous accident implies that Elena is making amends. Throughout the series she felt guilty for not having drowned in that car that night. And now she had the chance to do it again and her choice was to drown. I'm just going to say it. I do not like this. The circumstances, the cut between the two crashes, the sad pop song. Everything seems to suggest that this was what had to happen. It's sad, but Elena is fulfilling her destiny by dying in the water under the Wickery Bridge. - How is it cosmically possible to suffer two accidents on the same bridge? - I don't know.

Maybe it was fate that made me turn back, saying that I cheated death the first time. - This bridge is where your life should have ended. Not just once, but twice. - I'm not so fond of this car accident sequence depicting the next three roads not taken. Road number three is my least favorite, but I'll say it anyway. How Elena saved Matt, that's all. This car accident was a pivotal moment in Elena's life and she has been given a symbolic renewal. So how about she instead of floating there passively with her seat belt fastened, she grabs Matt and helps Stefan carry him to shore?

In a thematic sense, I don't like this, because to me it would imply that it was Elena's responsibility to save her parents the first time and that she somehow failed at that. And I don't think that's a good message for the survivor's guilt story. It suggests that survivor guilt is true and justified. But whatever, that might give Elena some closure, so I added it to the list. Okay, path number four. In the show, Elena fulfills her wish and dies for Matt, but unbeknownst to her, she has vampire blood in her system. So she, instead of staying dead, wakes up as a vampire.

I don't like that because she takes away his ability to choose. So path number four is to simply have Elena choose to become a vampire. She might carry some vampire blood with her in case of emergencies. In fact, it's kind of amazing that they don't do that. Why don't all human characters do that all the time? In this universe, we are shown that you can keep blood in a small vial at room temperature and it is stable indefinitely. So Damon wants her to be a vampire. So maybe Damon gave her a vial of blood. If you ever find yourself in a life or death situation, drink this instead of dying.

And she drinks it to please him, but she says, okay, I don't want to be a vampire, I'm never going to drink this. Fast forward so fast to the car accident and now she is literally reliving the incident that her survivor's guilt tells her that she shouldn't have survived the first time. And she can tell Stefan to save Matt or whatever and they swim away. And now we have this convenient scenario where she is trapped underwater with a ticking clock until she drowns. And she has to make this decision. So that's your chance for Elena to have a moment of, no, I want to keep living at all costs.

And evenYou may feel angst later because she didn't want to be a vampire, but at least this is a way to conclude one of her emotional story arcs. Okay, and now road number five. First, I don't want Matt in the car. I think he should be Jeremy. He's just his family, so he's a better parallel, and he has very little to do in the story anyway. From there, I thought she could die to save him, like she did for Matt, and then come back as a vampire and hate being a vampire, but then, as the person she saves, she should have survivor's guilt.

It's amazing they didn't do that. Matt feels guilty, but it's not like trauma survivor guilt. It's like normal guilt. Like, Oh man, I really owe you one, bro. - How is she? -I guess she's fine, considering. -If there's anything she can do, you know, other than take her, you'll let me know, right? I'm only alive because she told Stefanie to save me first. She's a vampire because of me. Then I would like to return or resend the money. -So if Jeremy had survivor's guilt, like Elena did, Elena would now be looking at her own situation from the opposite perspective.

And she could see that there is no reason to feel guilty. I feel like it could have been a healing experience for her, for how many seasons we were with Elena. I don't feel like we need to see an evolution. She didn't even have other minor flaws to work on. So I can't even say that she became more confident because she was always pretty self-possessed. The Elena of the series finale is identical to the Elena we meet in the pilot, except that she now has a boyfriend. Then they have this final voiceover from Elena and it has a lot of the same beats as the pilot voiceover.

And we must ask ourselves: how far have we come? And it's like, yeah, how far we've come chronologically. Eight years have passed. And a lot has happened around you, but you have stayed still... And I owe it all to Stefan. When I met him, he had lost my parents and I was dead inside, but he brought me back to life. - How, Elena, when? It would have been nice as an audience to witness this change. If Elena is happier in the ending it is not for any introspective reason. It's only because the devil is dead. Then evil is defeated and there is no more drama and that's not even something Elena has done.

Her friends did it while she was sleeping, which, you know, is good for them. But how is that in any way instructive for the audience? What identifiable narrative can we draw from that? I guess the moral of this story is just take naps, kill the devil, get a boyfriend, words to live by. Number 24, Bonnie's problem. So for most of the series, Bonnie had a pretty contentious relationship with Damon, fans of the show already know where I'm going with this. It's established that witches and vampires are already some kind of natural enemies because witches work closely with nature and the elements and vampires are eldritch abominations, but he's also a jerk.

They always annoy each other. -What has Caroline been doing? - Do yourself a favor Damon and don't ask me about Caroline. - If I do this, you and I, cultures. -No.-He probably would have killed her 50 times by now if Elena didn't get angry about it. Also, I don't know if Bonnie is aware of the time she served in the Confederate Army, but that couldn't have helped. Anyway, in season six, Bonnie and Damon get trapped together in a magical kingdom. I don't feel like explaining it beyond that. But season six is ​​basically Bonnie Damon's corporate team-building retreat.

Then Damon and Bonnie join together. And then, at the end of season six, Elena is placed under the aforementioned sleeping curse. And she remembers, the curse continues until Bonnie dies. If Damon wanted to see Elena soon, he would have to kill Bonnie, which is a drama because not only does Elena love Bonnie, but now Damon loves Bonnie too. And my Damon loves Bonnie. I mean platonically, right? Damon's Bonnie relationship more or less dominated two full seasons of this show, but the writers were dead against them dating each other. And that's very stupid because what did I say before?

Elena is just a conduit. The goal of the show is for someone to date all of these eligible vampires. It doesn't really matter who, as long as they're likable enough to serve as an audience surrogate. If no one is allowed to date Damon but Elena and Elena are dead in a coffin, that means the show's most popular vampire boyfriend has now become celibate. -The last thing anyone wants to do for the next six decades is be like the grumpy, bitter Stefan Salvador, okay? Elena would never do that to us, that's why she gave you very clear instructions to live your life. -How does the writers room reconcile that?

What do you think you are here to do? If I may make a bold suggestion, I think this is a problem with a fairly easy and obvious solution. Just get Bonnie and Damon out. They will be happy. Maybe they'll still be together. Eventually, Bonnie will die and then Damon can date Elena again if he still wants to. I feel like fans would have been scared by this because Bonnie is not Elena. And also a lot of CW viewers are teenagers and teenagers haven't been around that long. That's why they tend to have a very specific view of love and relationships.

There is the idea that you ever love a person. As if you met them when you were 16 and stayed with them forever. And you are not allowed to have loved anyone before them. And you can't love anyone after them, even if they die. So I think if Damon fell in love with someone else while Elena was asleep, it would be considered a diminishment of both relationships, which I don't think it should be. But I mean, this happens in real life. I mean, I mean, not all of this. But I mean, people get separated or widowed and find new, fulfilling relationships and that doesn't erase the old ones.

And I think, especially when your story is about immortal characters, it's an interesting topic to explore. I mean, they live multiple lives and the people around them usually don't and they still have the bodies and emotional turmoil of teenagers. It stands to reason that vampires contextualize love and monogamy in very different ways than typical mortal humans. - She won't be in epic love. Contrary to popular belief, there are actually several, especially for families. - And I mean, Elena will most likely be asleep for 80 years. That's the most literal case of rest I can imagine. People form relationships when they go to college in different states.

But Elena being dead in a box, isn't that enough for you? If you think about it, Bonnie is probably the best person. He could date her because by magical decree, she and Elena are not allowed to exist at the same time. So it's not that there's any fear of awkward overlap. Although all of this would make this part of Elena's goodbye a little awkward in retrospect, write it all down. Everything they achieved in their lives. Every crush, when you fall in love. -But the thing is that once Selena died they gave Bonnie a lot more screen time.

And much more of her personality came through in the writing. And the actress has good chemistry with Damon with whom she spends many scenes. Elena was the lead for six seasons and she still felt like she would be whatever a scene called for at any given time. Plus, her actress has that Elena-like voice, where she clenches her jaw and slurs all of her words. - Now with all these secrets piling up. Is there a way to break it? 6:oo am, really? - I don't know. I like Elena's voice. I like this actress, but I feel like I had to point it out because after six seasons she really notices it.

And you say, okay, open your mouth when you speak Elena. Anyway, once Bonnie became the replacement lead I found I liked her a lot more. She jokes more. She has a bad character. She just seems like a more well-rounded lady. I think it would be worth at least reflecting on the nature of immortal relationships or a little angst about it. But the show pushes Bonnie off the table as a love interest, as if it's taboo to even consider her on a show where everyone dates everyone, almost the entirety of season seven is intense Damon and Bonnie moments, but they have to buffer every one of them.

Single asking them to reiterate that they are best friends, - Because you, Bonnie Bennett, are an amazing woman and my best friend. You are my best friend. - I'm your best friend. - You're right Bonnie, you're my best friend. - Or they can say: I love you, but then they have to add some friend-zoning comments. How I love you, how I love you Elena. And we both share a lot. - You are going to make me face a future without Elena. And you will help me become the best man I can be the same way she did.

I admire you. I believe in you and I love you like Elana loved you. -Bonnie and Damon don't even appear in the books. At least I think so. Fan Wiki's writing style is too beautiful to understand. Bonnie is Damon's weak point. And Damon feels an indescribable inner tenderness for her. Their connection and relationship is known as one of the most intriguing, unusual, and interesting dynamics in the entire series. According to many readers. And their connection is an intriguing combination of platonic, romantic and sexual nature that straddles a fine line between the genuinely innocent or pure and the intensely dangerous, passionate and erotic.

Yes. I have no idea what's going on there. It is like the equivalent explanation of the equilibrium point. So I hear you ask, who is Bonnie dating? Honestly, the writers always treated all of Bonnie's relationships as an afterthought. She spends much of the series chained to Jeremy, the worst character. Like any girl in high school would date her friend's little brother. And even when she's with him, he still cheats on her with the ghosts of her two ex-girlfriends, mere episodes after she used that magic to literally resurrect him from the dead, utter disrespect. And she feels like such a raw deal that she ultimately stays with Enzo.

Oh no. It seems like it's time for my Enzo tangent and he has such a derivative energy to his personality. Like a guy who plays Jack Sparrow at conventions and feels like he needs to be in character all the time, he shows up in the college season of the worst season. And he just feels like a less charismatic version of the other 40 bad boy vampires we've seen at that point in the show. - Didn't we already do this? -The much-needed context for Enzo is that the audience's favorite bad boy, the vampire Klaus, had been written off for his own spin-off series: The Originals, coming Tuesday this fall on the CW. -And that also effectively killed the very popular Klaus and Caroline, Klaroline. - asks LChorFern, have you seen the petition with more than 20,000 signatures asking about Klaroline? -So when Enzo appears on the show, he seems like a very obvious replacement for Klaus to me.

He's this bad boy with a British accent and a sad story. And he flirts with Caroline every time he's around her. - Huh. See you there beautiful. -Damon mentioned that you get a little judgmental. And, again, he also said he liked accents. - Hello, I'm your type. Well traveled, charming accent. Dubious idiot. - And arrogant. - I guess that was as bad as any other Carolineship other than Klaroline because they gave up after one season. And then there's that familiar pattern he was talking about. We tried to write about a love interest. Fans didn't like it, but it still exists.

And now we have this guy and we don't know what to do with him. For a while, even trying to pair Enzo up with Stefan and Damon's vampire mother, God. So they finally settle on Bonnie because Bonnie is single, Enzo is single, and they have no idea what to do with either character. That's all Bonnie's relationships amount to, a sad afterthought. A tying up of loose ends. To add insult to injury, Enzo then dies tragically, and unlike other dead characters, he does not return. The happy ending to her love story is Enzo watching like a ghost, happy for Bonnie, but invisible to her. - I am determined to keep my promise to Enzo, I am going to live this life to the fullest. - Come on, they put the Africa brochure on top, a brochure for the entire African continent.

There's a sad interview in which the Bonnie actress talks about how excited she was about Enzo's storyline because Bonnie had never had true love. -All she ever wanted was for this character to be with a match. - Well, look how that turned out. I'm not trying to say there's any favoritism here, but let's look at Caroline. Caroline has had many, many boyfriends. And for the most part, they've not only shoehorned in new characters to date her, but they've paired her at one point or another with almost every major male character. She connected with Damon at the beginning of the show, Matt, Tyler, the main werewolf, as well as a major villain of the series for several seasons.

And Caroline is basically the OTP of her. And Oh yes, she marries Stefan, that's true. Despite also being a leg of the main love triangle. Stefan isreassigned to Caroline when Selena breaks up with them. And it's not that that's out of place. Basically, every core cast member has dated at least two other main characters. Remember my dating tree. So why is it okay for Stefan to move on and see other people? But when it comes to Bonnie, suddenly Damon is totally off limits? Stefan also dies. So Caroline also finishes the series single, but the epilogue shows her receiving a letter from Klaus in the mail.

She basically says that our relationship can resume in the spin-off series. The originals air only on the CW along with a check for $3 million. So I would say he did much better than Bonnie. All of Caroline's relationships are important characters in their own right who then ended up paired with her because they happen to have good chemistry. But all of Bonnie's relationships are hastily written characters to date Bonnie, it becomes a cliché when a new, blandly attractive boy shows up at school and talks directly to Bonnie. And it's like, oh, I wonder what this character is going to do here.

Literally the only exception to this rule is Jeremy and Jeremy sucks. I'm sorry. And let's not even talk about how many times guys date Bonnie simply to trick her or use her in some way. - Yes. You shouldn't be so desperate. You made it too easy. - I mean, the number of times is twice, but it's still multiple times and this kind of thing doesn't happen to Elena and Caroline. They even go on a date with Bonnie, her own brother. That's not a joke. Well. Not literally. His estranged mother took him in informally. So they are not biologically or legally related and did not grow up together as brothers.

So, like all metrics, they get a pass. - So we are related? - Oh no - But this is fiction. The writers could have simply written anything else. They can come up with any guy in the world for Bonnie to date and the best they can come up with for her is technically not an incest guy. Of course, in Bonnie's love interest tradition, this guy appears in two episodes and then inexplicably disappears, never to be seen again. Maybe they received complaints. For the record, Bonnie also had this conflicting tension with Kai. If Bonnie was another girl on the show, they would have tried to ship them too.

I know he's a villain, but everyone else says they're villains. I already said I hate Kai. So, thank God this didn't happen. But come on, you know, I'm right. And remember Enzo, her eventual love interest already spent an entire season flirting with Caroline. That's how it is. Bonnie doesn't even corner Enzo's market. And that's not a very popular market. Oh yeah. Remember that thing about the Caroline actress trying to have a singing career and they make her sing on the show all the time. Well, the Bonnie actress had a better singing career here. She's on Hannah Montana.

Okay, she didn't sing on that. It was just an acting gig. I just thought it was funny, but she actually had real music videos, she had modest radio play and we don't see Bonnie singing on the show and, well, it seems like she mainly did pop. And it would be incredibly strange if Bonnie's character was suddenly speed dancing at the local bar. But she also had ballads, as if it didn't make much sense to have a witch sitting in her dark academic dormitory playing a guitar. Oh, I forgot. She didn't have a bedroom until the third season.

Yes it's correct. She's one of our leads and it took them three seasons to bother finding a house for her. They ask him to start learning to play the guitar in season seven. And I really thought she was going to have my Stevie Nicks witch jam session, but they don't do anything with it. He barely hums. The only consistent hobby Bonnie can have is using magic to help the writers out of corners, not to mention the multiple parts of the show where they just write to Bonnie and say she's visiting her family. She's like Miranda and the movie Lizzie McGuire. - I'm really going to miss you. -She had a lot of things to deal with. - You have to go home. - It's boring around here with that. - Do you think you're bored?

My father's side of the family is like wet paint that never dries. - Bonnie, thank God you're home. I know we talk every day, but I miss you, Bonnie! - Now I'm back. - You really talk to Miranda about these things. - But she's in Mexico City - They just completely stopped pretending to have ideas about what to do with Bonnie, but don't worry. She will return to town in time for an end-of-story-arc ritual. What is this? That's weird, there's something hidden under Bonnie's problem. Oh Lord. I found my 25th racist post-it. Where are they now?

Not the actors. I think the answer for them is to mostly mind their own business, except for Alaric, who apparently spends all his time demanding that people on Twitter come to his house so he can fight them with his weapons. His friends should register, but they would like to call him. Don't show up at his house when they announce it to you. I heard he has guns. But no, I'm talking about the characters. I want to take a look at how the series concludes before the series finale, they aired a 40 minute flashback. I felt like if I was making this video I should watch it and I had to buy it.

It's literally just a clip show interspersed with cast interviews and not actual interviews, like a sentence from an interview they use to set up a series of clips. -The fact that Stefan was an outsider with all these dark secrets was something I really think Elena gravitated toward. - I'm elena. - I'm Stefan. - He looked at Stefan. - Good. - In the cemetery when she met him. When he reached out and pulled the leaf of her sweater out of her hair. - Thank you. - I can't believe I paid $3 to see this. I know it's not much, but it's too much.

They should have paid me. I think I'll finally use it as a clip. God, I wasted my time. Anyway, I had been rewatching my series on Netflix, but when I got to the end it hit me. It would be more fun if instead of watching it normally I watched it through finale reaction videos on YouTube. - No, no, Stefan is dead. -My God, he's dead! - Honestly, this is much better. I wish I could have watched the entire series like this because they cut out all the boring parts that they don't react to. Plus, the energy these people have is incredible.

Special mention to this girl who cried basically the entire time. She even sang along with Bonnie and her ancestors. She got a million views on this and she deserved every one of them. With a story like "The Vampire Diaries" a happy ending is difficult. In the latest season, they have clearly established that the afterlife is real. But if some characters are vampires and others are dead and vampires could, in theory, live forever, there's still the threat of them never seeing their loved ones again. Plus, if you end a vampire story with the vampires still vampires, it's hard to be sure it's a conclusion like eight seasons of endless drama have passed.

So who's to say this won't last forever? So to resolve this, basically the entire cast that made it this far ends the deadly series. Alaric is human, Stefan, who has become human and is now married to Caroline, dies, but before he dies, he injects Damon with his blood and turns him into a human. Bonnie uses that magic to literally destroy hell, ensuring that all dead characters are either gone forever or in heaven. Oh, and remember that sleeping curse where Elena can't wake up until Bonnie is dead? - I did. - Did you break the spell? - Yes, when they wrote the curse, they specifically made the bad guy like this, and don't even think about trying to undo this curse.

If you try, you will die instantly. This is the incredibly powerful leader of the Gemini, I arranged it so that if you try to outwit him, both you and Elena will die. - Then Elena wakes up and Bonnie is still alive. And she asks, how is this possible? - As? -She took some time. But I think I figured out this witch thing. - And Bonnie says oh yeah. Turns out she could undo it. So I finished it. It was a little difficult, but not that much, in any case. This is the best invention in the end.

I'm glad Elena Caroline and Bonnie can be together because that's the heart of the vampire diet. - Oh Lord. - Oh my goodness, and we can be roommates because we have an extra bed and we can clear half of it. - Oh Carolina. - I can't believe you're really here. - All along, the strongest ship on the show was friendship. So Stefan is dead. Tyler is dead. Enzo is dead. Jeremy is alive. Good for him. Matt, miraculously, both survived and remained human throughout the series. And now he is a police officer. I think the only main character who is still a vampire is Caroline.

She and Alaric opened an X-Men school for Halloween monster children, a demon school. So to speak, a monster high, if you will. Well, I choose I will use both. Now there's a spin-off show about Monster School called "Legacies." So I guess both Alaric and Caroline will show up there. I was impressed by how many actors returned as spirits, even if they were killed off in the first season. Elena's parents come back and they've been dead the entire series, Vicki comes back, Aunt Jenna comes back. Ew, who invited Uncle John? Bonnie's grandmother returns. Caroline's mom returns. Enzo returns.

I wonder if we'll see... No, no, they can't afford it. He is too famous now. ♪ No one knows you like I know you ♪ ♪ Look me in the eyes, I will never abandon you ♪ They did it. They brought back this creepy crow. Considering the type of show "Vampire Diaries" is, I think it has a pretty perfect ending. They have all these references to the beginning of the series, which are very nostalgic. They have dialog callbacks. Elena writes in her diary again. They play the same dramatic song by The Fray that they played in the pilot. ♪ Don't let me go ♪ ♪ Don't let me go ♪ As if everything wasn't tied up enough in a little bow, they even have an epilogue about how Elena and Damon grow old together and then show us how they go to the afterlife and reunite with their loved ones in heaven. (thunder rolls) (upbeat music) ♪ There's a fire ♪ Number 26, missed opportunities.

Considering that "The Vampire Diaries" ran for eight seasons, I am saddened and surprised to say that there were plot developments on my wish list that were never fulfilled. First of all, I feel like I'm saying this about all villains in everything, but I would have liked to see Katherine have a redemption arc. I think the actress was much funnier as Katherine and part of her charm is that she is evil. But there are moments that hint at more, as if there is some kind of humanity in Katherine. In some seasons, she is even more ambiguously good, like a loose weapon, and sometimes her interests align with those of the heroes.

There's an episode where someone tries to kill Elena and Katherine offers to impersonate Elena. So when they attack her, she eats the boy. In another episode, after Katherine became a human and Elena became a vampire, Elena has to convince these vampire hunters that she is human. She then makes Katherine enter her party, uninvited. They should have cooperated more often for stunt shenanigans like that. A double is a very useful resource. We could have had a real sister sister situation on our hands. Why did my part double in this video for me and you didn't even notice.

They could have at least been powerful enemies, but we don't even see them interact much, probably because it's annoying to film. And when they do interact, it's almost always with bored contempt. The series ends with Katherine not just evil, not just dead, but sent to hell. And then they destroy Hell, which I think is about as far from a redemption arc as you can get. Speaking of redemption arcs, I want to be bold and ask for the biggest redemption arc of them all. I think they should have redeemed the devil. Yes it's correct. And there is more.

All the sexy bad boys on this show are redeemed by the love of one of the girls. And Bonnie and then the devil will have chemistry. They are both psychic witches with tragic pasts. It's like I said before, take naps, kill the devil, get a boyfriend. But now it's taking naps, getting a boyfriend, the devil is your boyfriend. They have this stupid tradition that when the devil was tortured by the townspeople, his anguish caused a psychic shockwave so powerful that it created another dimension, which became hell. And when Enzo was killed, Bonnie's anguish caused the same thing.

But instead, she created a dimension that would keep Enzo's soul safe from hell, or something like that. These last few seasons really tested my concentration. Looks like the devil has a lesson to learn from old Bonnie, and by lesson to learn I mean marriage. I'm thinking about a church wedding. I mean, obviously, my first choice is that I should have chosen Damon. And my second choice is that I should have gotten Enzo, but if both are off the table, why not the devil? This character has a real namedifferent from that of the devil. But since he is the devil I just want to call him devil.

In a way it's fitting, Bonnie is the most powerful character and in a show about dating bad guys, I literally can't imagine a greater flexibility than redeeming and dating the devil. Anyway, better devil than single, right ladies? The next thing I want is an H2O meeting. Yes, "The Vampire Diaries" features two of the three original cast members of the Australian mermaid show H2O, Just Add Water. I feel like the producers should have moved heaven and earth to include the third mermaid. At least guest starring as the villain of the week, how could they not?

But no, both characters ended up transplanted to the originals. So maybe they granted my wish on that show but I honestly doubt it. The originals have never done anything, but they disappointed me. I thought it was strange that we never got to the theme park episode. Every once in a while a traveling carnival would come through town, but this show was filmed less than an hour's drive from Six Flags in Georgia. I know the fictional town is supposed to be in Virginia, but I don't really care. I really want to cross the promo app where they take over Six Flags and ride around in a monster mansion.

I wish I could ride in a monstrous mansion. Mark my words, Six Flags. If you ever get rid of the monster mansion, I'll never go to your theme park. If I go to your park, I will ride Monster Mansion 14 times. I won't ride anything else. Anyway, maybe legacies will do this. It's not too late. The next thing I noticed was something stupid. As if I was stupid to notice. I don't think any young people wore glasses on this show. Like none of them. I'm not even sure if any of the adults were wearing glasses. That's a little weird.

Good? Is rare. It is not like this? Anyway, that's all I wanted to say about it. The next thing that happened was that no one had a dog. That's just another thing. Nobody in this town has a dog. Next thing. It's time to delve into L. J. Smith's bibliography. He has a lot of paranormal teen series and I think they should have pulled them out for more content. Riverdale brought over other Archie comic book properties like Josie and the Pussycats. And I think "The Vampire Diaries" should have done exactly the same. You don't need to limit yourself to just sexy vampires because all of L.J.

Smith's books were just about sexy guys from various supernatural universes. The CW adopted L.J. Smith's Secret Circle, which is about sexy witch boys, that series is also owned by Alloy Entertainment. So L.J. probably didn't get a dime of that either. It had a terrible television season before being cancelled. And he deserved it. But we don't just have sexy witch boys to choose from. We have sexy psychic guys, sexy vampire guys again. Yes, he just made vampires again. At least she owned it this time. And my favorite sexy guy of unclear supernaturality who sucks you into an evil board game, Jumanji style.

Guess what series I read in high school? Yes, surprise, it was the one from the board game. And in the third book, they go to a haunted theme park. For some reason, the cover of this book prominently features the famous intermediate animatronic Laffing Sal. (man laughs) Very sexy. Actually, while I'm making this video, I found out that Warner Brothers bought the board game series and that it might have a TV show, which, oh my god, yes, please. Can you tell your PR people to accept me as an accomplice in this series? I'm an influencer, check out my conspiracy board.

It doesn't matter. Can you send me a copy of Haunted! board game? Guys, I'll say what you want. Am I damaging my credibility right now? Send me the board game. Anyway, I think any of these could and should have been incorporated into the VPD. Imagine you're watching season six and the gang gets carried away with a board game. The show has spawned two spin-offs and neither has a very interesting premise. They just take minor characters from "Vampire Diaries" and write about them or their children. If you want to do spin-offs, why not create a series that can stand on its own?

I'm just saying that maybe Secret Circle would have done better if it had started out as a crossover. The last thing on my wish list is to listen to myself. It's Dracula. I really want Dracula to appear. You can't tell me he's too cheesy. Because the show was already pretty cheesy. I feel like they owe me Dracula and they can make their own version of him or whatever. Make him look young or old, make him act modern or old and creepy. I just wanted it for our villain from last season. Like the cast is fighting all these villains of the week, feeling pretty good about themselves.

And then Dracula comes to town. I think it should be illegal to make a vampire story and not feature Dracula. That's it, I said my piece really waits, no I haven't. If I'm making demands, I also want Nosferatu, a strange bald bat, a monster-like Nosferatu. I demand Nosferatu. In conclusion, "The Vampire Diaries" seemed to go on too long and spent much of that time wandering aimlessly, but that's not really "Vampire Diaries" faults. I feel like it's almost a necessary consequence of a show produced this way. The writers never knew how much longer they would have to stretch the story.

So they never knew how much to change the status quo. This is how characters die and then come back a million times, you want to make big moves but you can't commit to anything. So that weakens the impact of everything that happens. This is also how you get terrible middle seasons, like college stories, which are just a bunch of wheels spinning that you can skip entirely without too much trouble. I think this show could have had five really solid seasons. And I'm not saying they should have ended after this fifth season because seasons four and five were pretty weak.

But what I'm saying is that if the writers had known all along that they were plotting five seasons, they could have kept it very tight. Things probably would have been very different and much better. Also, in my opinion, it should have ended when they graduated high school. And when they went off to college you didn't get the sense that there were bigger stories. The writers had been waiting to come out. It was like they were trying to half-think things. Oh, I guess they're going to a frat party. So just stretch out high school for as long as you're writing the show or maybe go a year after high school, but use that time for them to travel, have adventures, raise the stakes, work toward an ending, and establish what We love all these characters.

I'll do it in their lives or after their lives, I guess. The writers seemed to have a good sense of humor both in the sense that the dialogue was legitimately funny and in the sense that a lot of really dumb things happened. And in my opinion, this show was at its best when it was kind of stupid. Overall, the cast was very solid, including many of the short-term villains and guest stars. I also liked that it was directed by a woman and that she oversaw all eight seasons. She seems nice. I guess I support Julie Plec.

It's also good for her that she gets creator credit and power over both spin-offs. Get that coin girl. Unlike poor L.J. Smith. And unlike me, there is no way for me to make a dime from this video. Then I had the goal of using clips from the show I'm talking about and the clips have that copyrighted background music. Enjoy your pennies, Katy Perry. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have Patreon. So either thank them or blame them. I find so many things to like about this show that it's sad to see those parts overshadowed by the bad parts, like the poor portrayal or the way they handled Bonnie's character as a total bus accident.

The kind where the bus is driven by a vampire. And the problem is wearing a magic ring. Then it never dies. I feel like every time I see people talking critically about this show, it's not for any of these legitimate reasons. It's not even about the cheesy dialogue or the weird plots or the characters they hate because none of them have even seen a moment of it. It's just because it's a romance show for teenage girls and that's gross or whatever. So I'm glad we can have this nuanced conversation here today. And it was only several hours.

I guess I'm cautiously optimistic that the new "Legacies" series can bring the necessary improvements to the "Vampire Diaries" formula. I feel like I'm supposed to say if I recommend the show now, but gosh, I spent a lot of time talking about the whole show. If you can't make an informed decision at this point, I don't know what to tell you. I wouldn't recommend it for myself. It's just a really big commitment. I hate the act of recommending TV shows. It's like, "Hey, would you like an 80-hour experience where you get to enjoy 35 of them?" But many people really like watching TV shows, since most of them are bad and they watch them anyway.

Like they just watch 20 different TV shows in a given year and maybe three of them are good. So how about watching entire series regularly? You should see this one. Just add it to the stack. Just skip seasons four and five and maybe season six or seven as well. You'd think that would be confusing, but no, you can simply use context clues. I believe in you. Plus, they have all this really fancy expository dialogue going on. - Last time a witch linked me to my double. She fried my brain and I lost my memory. - So your (indistinct) twin brother and a witch.

Anything else I should know? - I'm gay and your brother. - And if you're confused, you'll be confused in a fun way. Just hug it. How about you like "Buffy" and watch this? It's better than "Buffy." And whatever you do, don't watch "The Originals." That's my job. So yeah, that's my review of "The Vampire Diaries." You can place it directly on the Blu-ray cover and then wrap the Blu-ray together with a piece of novelty jewelry, such as a children's book. (upbeat music) ♪ There's a fire ♪ ♪ There's a fire ♪ ♪ That old feeling ♪ ♪ Deep down ♪ ♪ It called me again ♪ ♪ It breaks out here and turns around ♪ ♪ Take the easy way out ♪ ♪ The stars in the night ♪ ♪ The sun by day ♪ ♪ They shape our dreams ♪ ♪ And light the way ♪ ♪ Maybe you feel alone ♪ ♪ Maybe you drown in sadness ♪ ♪ Maybe your life is boring ♪ ♪ Baby you have tomorrow ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ ♪ Everyone lives there ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ ♪ Send your spirit ♪ ♪ to stay ♪ ♪ And search in the darkness for a face ♪ ♪ It seems okay ♪ ♪ I feel like ♪ ♪ I need to make you understand ♪ ♪ But you'll find out ♪ ♪ In your own time ♪ ♪ Maybe you feel alone ♪ ♪ Maybe you are drowning in sadness ♪ ♪ Maybe your life is boring ♪ ♪ You will die tomorrow ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ ♪ We are living now ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ ♪ Precious life, precious life, precious life ♪ ♪ Precious life ♪ Along with all my VPD loot, I ordered a royal verbena bracelet.

As if it had pure verbena extract in the chamber. It turns out that vervain by itself smells very bad. There is no way Elena tricked her aunt into wearing a perfume like this. It is impossible that the city's water was not drinkable when water was added to it. There's no way vampires who are supposed to have a heightened sense of smell would try to force themselves on Elena without immediately smelling that this was around her neck. In fact, there's no way you can walk into a human gathering wearing this without everyone in the room immediately saying, "What's that smell?" It's not even bad in the interesting sense.

It's so bitter. It smells like the celery is angry at you. I don't care how many extravagant themed parties they throw each year. If the tap water in Mystic Falls comes out smelling like that, I stay away.