The Vampire Diaries/Headscratchers

• I haven't seen season two yet, so maybe Tyler rescues a truck of puppies or punches Donald Trump into the sun during the first episode to make everyone like him. But why is everyone glossing over the fact that he attempted to rape Vicki? Even Matt doesn't seem to care.
  • I think it's Pilot Weirdness, for the most part. The same way that Damon isn't really the character he was for the first six or so episodes of season one, the same goes for Tyler. And in-story, most of the characters first season didn't actually like Tyler — they put up with him because they'd known him their entire lives. And almost none of them knew about what he tried to do to Vicki.
• I can't get over how IDIOTIC the plan to deal with Klaus was. So you're going to trust Elena's life in a potion that may or may not work and that doesn't even discount the fact that the werewolf and vampire have to die - obviously their lives are expendable compared to Elena and Bonnie's. Frankly, all the crap that took place in episode 21 ( Jenna, Jules and John's deaths, Klaus finishing the ritual and surviving could've been averted if they'd just let Bonnie kill Klaus. What's one life against five others - the three that died plus Elena and Stefan, who were both ready to die? Why is everyone jumping to let themselves die for Bonnie? And even after all that, Bonnie still royally screwed up in killing Klaus. Why is this girl still alive?
  • Because that plan should have worked. There was no way of knowing it would turn out as poorly as it did. All the werewolves (minus one) are evil by virtue of being against our protaganists and vampires are still kinda default evil. So you let two bad guys die to save one good person. That's a bargain. It sucks it turned out quite how it did but without the ability to see the future they made the best call.
• There is a vampire. He lived alone in his house as a human, and so now has no one to invite him in. Okay, reasonable. However, vampires can get into houses no living humans inhabit--we know this when we see a vampire get into Stefan & Damon's place, and we confirm that there's no grace period thing going on when Damon snaps the old lady's neck and immediately enters. So why couldn't he get into a house that had no living human tenants?
  • Somebody else owned his house.
• On the same vein as the above, how did Caroline get back into her house after she was turned? She specifically stated her mom wasn't home yet, and Vicki showed us pretty clearly that you need permission to get into your own home.
  • No, she said, verbatim, "my mom is gonna be home soon." Her mother might have just stepped out of the house briefly after inviting her daughter in.
  • Alternatively, text messaging/phone call.
• Whats with that Fog/Raven thing Damon used to do? How come other vampires don't have tricks like that?
  • Because Damon is way cooler than all the other vampires?
  • Word of God says its been dropped.
    • More specifically, powerful vampires in the books had the ability to control the weather and shapeshift into animals. Damon shapeshifted into a crow.
• Why do they have to keep on killing off interesting characters like Anna just to prove that Anyone Can Die?
• I understand, of course, that Alaric and Jenna are adorable together and I don't mind seeing Alaric shirtless and all, but why couldn't they get HIM to go into the tomb in episode 10 instead of Stefan or Jeremy? He's a vampire hunter, for crying out loud! Distract Katherine, blow the ashes on her, get Alaric in and out with the moonstone, and stake the bitch! Problem solved!
• The Salvatore's house has an awful lot of wood furniture for a pair of brothers that could be killed by a big enough splinter. Why not decorate with something your enemy can't tear up and kill you with?
• Okay, in what universe can Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder pass for teenagers? They have WRINKLES. They look like pedophiles next to Nina Dobrev. This is the most ridiculous example of Dawson Casting I've ever seen.
  • I agree with you about Stefan, who is supposed to be SEVENTEEN, but Damon is the older brother. He's supposed to be 20 something, if I'm not mistaken he's 24 in the new prequel books.
  • People aged a lot more poorly during the civil war. Maybe it's the result of a 19th century diet and skin care regimen from when they were human? Doesn't explain why everyone in school buys it, but no one in that cast is high school aged.
• I used to think TVD had a more... ahem... mature fandom than that of a certain other vampire series, but the fangirls' attitude to Damon just bugs me. Of course, I'm not taking about everyone, but the majority of the female fans adore Damon and never judge him. Don't get me wrong I love the character of Damon as much as the next person, and Ian Somerhalder is amazing (and yes, hot as hell) in his role, but the guy's a ruthless serial killer and rapist, and the things he's done? He did it because he couldn't deal with the ANGST. When he attacked Jeremy, and Elena told him he lost her forever, the fangirls exploded in righteous anger saying that Elena was such a bitch. He tried to KILL HER BROTHER. I am so tired of seeing comments like "Poor Damon, he's been through so much, he deserves Elena and some happiness!" No, he doesn't. He's got to do something pretty incredible to deserve Elena and atone for the atrocities he's committed. In fact, the best thing down the line for him might be to die heroically.
  • Dear God no. Without Damon, there is no show.
  • I think Damon has been embraced by the fanbase for the same sorts of reasons as The Phantom of the Opera and Rochester from Jane Eyre. Evil Is Sexy aside, he is one of the most complicated, well-developed and entertaining characters in the show. Yes, Stefan may be a nice guy and probably a good friend in real life but he honestly seems like a cardboard cut out compared to his older brother (and it doesn't help that Ian Somerhalder is a vastly superior actor). Plus, he's constantly the Romantic Runner-Up, with both Elena AND Katherine. That's something most people will be able to relate to, far easier than Stefan who has girls running round after him. To be fair, lots of the other characters are killers too. Plus, he's never going to get Elena. Ever.
    • Seconded. Plus, he's the Bishonen, even in the books.
    • Wasn't LJ Smith trying to write Damon/Elena in the books before Executive Meddling set in?
  • Because Damon's so incredibly awesome that it doesn't matter who he's killed. I'm a guy and I'd still risk hanging out with him if. . .if he'll stop this Badass Decay right goddamn now. (edit from the same troper. Apparently his whining was limited to a single episode as of the end of season 2. I apologize) I don't want him crying about how he missing being human, I don't want him feeling bad. I want the guy that might hypnotize a hot chick and take her home, then eat her, then turn her into a vamp and cut her loose.
  • I'm annoyed that everyone skates over all the crap Stefan's done. He's baited his brother, knowing he'll lash out, and then sat by and let everyone else rip on him, or patronizingly scolded him. He was Damon before Damon was, and yet the fangirls are all simpering over him. Do I think Damon is a good person? Hell to the no. I'm just sick of everyone constantly dumping on him and worshipping Stefan.
    • Stefan, by his own admission, was worse than Damon when he first became a vampire, except that he's presented as someone whose behaviour was horrifying and inexcusable and who will never stop being disgusted at himself. Damon kills and abuses people remorselessly, but when we're watching him, say, compelling Andie to have sex with him and let him feed from her even after she explicitly asks him not to, we're not meant to see that as morally repugnant behaviour on Damon's part, we're meant to feel bad for poor Damon who loves Elena so much that he has to find someone else to "distract" him from her. Neither Stefan nor Damon is a wholly good or wholly bad person, but Damon gets away with so much within the show that really, a bit of "patronizing scolding" isn't out of line.
    • People like Stephan? Why isn't there a Burger King comercial about who's team you're on cus I'm ready to rock my Team Damon T-shirt.
  • I'm sorry, but when was Damon ever portrayed as a rapist? Also, what exactly do you mean he has to pull "redemption equals death". He's already put his life on the line for her and her loved ones, why should the fact that he didn't die make it any less meaningful?
    • He's never been portrayed as a rapist, which is precisely the problem, because that's what he is. Unless using compulsion to make someone have sex with you who would otherwise not have sex with you doesn't count as rape. (A clue: it does.)
    • I don't think he's ever compelled someone to have sex with them. Granted I've only watched the series once, but I don't recall a single case of him having to use mind control for sex. I do recall him using it to shut people up, but not to get laid.
      • This might be a case of Values Dissonance, since the idea of raping someone you're already in a relationship with is a new one, and some people are still skeptical about it. It's also notable that Stefan gets support every time he tries to atone for his actions and turn over a new leaf, while Damon doesn't.
• Why don't the main characters just tell Jenna about the vampire stuff, already? Someone should have figured out by now that keeping Jenna out of the loop creates way more problems than it prevents. There are at least three dangerous vampires that Jenna has unknowingly invited into the house, not to mention the whole being compelled to stab herself in the gut thing! Jenna’s an educated woman and has been consistently characterized as someone who deals with whatever is dropped in her lap (you try going from a 28 year old grad student to a legal guardian of two teenagers). There’s no reason to think that she can’t deal with the vampire stuff, and every practical reason to let her know what’s going on in her own home.
  • Because Elena feels knowing it is a curse, and doesn't want to burden her Parental Substitute with something so huge. She really should, but emotions and such get in the way.
  • They did... and Jenna's dead as a result.
    • Jenna's dead because she fell for a phone call from Katherine as Elena, which doesn't have anything to do with being let in to the fellowship of the falls. If anything, she might have thought twice about the phone　call if she'd had longer than a day to process that her niece has a vampire lookalike.
• Why does everyone in Mystic Falls use "Bing"? Nobody uses bing — not as a search engine NOR as a verb ("I'll bing it." Really?). Come on, writers. This just makes you look cheap.
  • I think teen drama writers specifically aim to look cheap.
    • Product Placement?
    • Yeah, I'm thinking Product Placement. Bing is the same as google, except it whores itself out to stupid advertisements and overly blatant product placement.
• I know part of this is simply for drama reasons and that this pretty much holds across all vampire media after Buffy the vampire slayer where a well trained human was capable of killing a vampire. Between Twilight , True Blood and The Vampire Diaries I don't understand why vampires don't rule the earth. Clearly werewolves aren't much of a threat since they're only dangerous a couple nights a month, witches are a larger hinderence but still not enough to really stop them if they wanted. You can't even hunt them while they sleep and try to burn the house down cus they move so damn fast they might hunt in New York but actually sleep in Philidelphia. Basically they should have won long ago if they weren't such idiots.
  • Well there doesn't seem to be any kind of unified organization, since there's not some sort of inherent mindset they all snap into, and no vampires with an actual interest in conquering the world have been seen yet. They haven't "won" because they're not trying to do it.
  • Well humans on TVD actually do seem to fair pretty well against vampires. Elena was able to hold off a fairly young vampire for a little with pencils and the broken off handle of a mop, and Alaric was able to sneak up and kill Elijah. Twilight and True Blood are much more egregious offenders of the "those vampires should be able to take over the world!" problem. Both have incredibly well-organized vampires, and the Twilight vampires don't have any real weaknesses and are almost unkillable and unstoppable.
• Similar to the troper upthread who complained about Damon - The Damon fandom attitude towards anyone who doesn't like Damon bugs me. Look, I agree Damon is an interesting, complex character. But can we please stop going all Ron the Death Eater on the characters that have the audacity to hate him? A large segment of the people who hate Bonnie seem to be Damon fangirls who don't like that she is one of the few who is willing to put him in his place and not easily forgive him for the various atrocities he's committed. Bonnie isn't close to being one of my favorite characters, but I say thank goodness that there is SOMEONE on the show who won't readily overlook the shit that Damon's pulled. Bonnie has every right to be judgmental towards him. Some of the fangirls have also claimed that Damon killing Lexi was justified because, hey, Lexi was attacking the Sheriff, so she was totally the aggressor! Later they said that Stefan was being a jerk for throwing Lexi's death in Damon's face in a more recent episode. Do these people realize that you CAN like and appreciate a character without approving of every single thing they do? Sometimes I think I'd like Damon more (as it is, I definitely appreciate/like him as a character from a storytelling perspective, but not on a personal level, if that makes sense) if it weren't for the copious amounts of Fan Dumb present in the Damon fandom. HOWEVER, in all fairness I shouldn't generalize all Damon fangirls this way. Most of the Fan Dumb-ish incidents I am talking about came from the Television Without Pity forums, and TWOP =/= fandom as a whole.
• Wait, how exactly did Jonathan Gilbert write in his journal "I saw the vampire who killed me; it was Stefan Salvatore" if he, you know, DIED?..
  • Ok I went and rewatched and Stefan said he survived. I must have not caught it when I watched first time. Although, why did then Jonathan later write that he was killed? He thought he was going to die?
  • I think I remember hearing it stated that he had his magic not-dying ring on at the time. So he was killed, he just came back.
• How did Katherine get into the house to give Damon Klaus's blood without being invited in by Elena? She hasn't been invited in since Elena was given ownership of the place.
  • Because Elena technically died when Klaus drained her during the sacrifice. It doesn't matter whether death is permanent or not, it still renders a house 'ownerless'. My question is, how did Stefan get into Alaric's apartment when Damon had to be invited in by Ric?
• Why doesn't Elena have a problem with Damon killing Mason? He was in league with Katherine, yes, but he was never a danger to anyone until Damon stabbed him. Come to think of it, she seems rather nonchalant about the fact that two - no, three - of her friends regularly kill people. To be fair, I haven't seen the first season, so either this was already addressed, I ought to suspend my disbelief, or this show is a lot heavier than I thought.
  • One might also question her not being bothered by him using mind control to rape one of her best friends and reduce Andi to a wind up toy, or him murdering her brother out of pique. It all has the same answer: because Damon is ridiculously Easily Forgiven. For people besides Damon, the deaths have been either self-defense or transitional loss of control, which makes it a bit more understandable, although there does seem to be a strong group-centered morality going on.
• Maybe I just missed a bit of vampire mythology. But vampires being dead don't have to breathe, So why do they constantly strangle each other and when strangled struggle to breathe? Makes no sense, like when Anna strangled Damon and when she let go he was gasping for air and commented on her strength, is it different in Vampire Diaries and I just missed the memo or what?
  • Maybe they don't need to breathe but still possess the breathing reflex.
• This show is set in a small town in Virginia, and most of the characters belong to families that have lived there since the 19th century. So why does no-one have a Southern accent?
  • Because that would make the show seem like a True Blood ripoff.
  • Many Virginians don't have any noticeable accent.
• In "Homecoming" didn't anyone consider that Damon stabbing Klaus would kill him, since a vampire can't dagger an Original without dying? I thought that was the reason Stefan saved Klaus, but it seems like it didn't occur to anyone.
  • Didn't kill Stefan when he did it to Michael.
  • The silver daggers were enchanted to kill the vampires that used them. The stake presumably came directly from the tree and didn't have any spells on it.
• I get really annoyed that Stefan is seen as the better choice, when we know that he fully turned Damon into a vamp, tortured and killed hundreds of people and let's face it, the amount of crap he put Elena through in the first part of season 3. I know people saw that he's tried to get back on the wagon and is really really sorry, but really they want Elena to spend her time ensuring that Stefan stops drinking the red stuff. After all, ghost Lexie indicated that she dried him out every ten years or so. I'm not rooting for Delena either as I don't see that on screen.
  • Not to mention he threatened to drive he off the bridge where her parents' car crashed and turn her into a vampire, just to annoy Klaus.
• Alright, I know this is already in the Fridge Logic example on the main page, but seriously, can anyone think of an explanation as to why in 'Bloodlines', Stefan was so confused by Elena and Katherine's differing last names ? That's pretty much only something a five year old should be confused by. Was he just hefting the largest Idiot Ball in existence or what?
  • It wasn't that they just had different last names that confused him. He was commenting on Katherine being a "Pierce" and Elena being a "Gilbert" and implied that as far as he knew the lines didn't intersect.
• Has it ever been explained how these high schoolers (the humans ones) are able to hang out at a bar and drink at all these parties and balls? Not expecting The Max or Angel Grove Juice Bar but I've always been curious about this.
• Why did anyone think Klaus would fall for Bonnie using all that power on him, causing her (fake, but convincing) death, while he possessed Alaric? It wouldn't get them anywhere, and surely Klaus realized that. It would only kill Alaric and Klaus established he could easily just possess someone else, implying he would survive. And then why DID he fall for that? And why couldn't Bonnie, with all that power, just break the indestructibility spell or reverse the possession?
  • I can answer that, it's called the 'plot wheel o' doom' This is our theory for most of the plot in TVD. The writers are discussing the events of the episode, they're 25 mins in and the party of the week is in full swing, but they haven't a clue about what to do for the last 15 mins of the show, so they pull out a wheel with different plots on it, like say, Damon killing Lexie; Elijah not guessing that Klaus would stake him; Damon snapping the neck of a friend or Jenna or Tyler letting his werewolf buddies torture Caroline.. They have these plots all written on this wheel and then they spin it and write up whatever it lands on, ignoring any and all character development whatever. Honestly, we are fully waiting for the aliens to abduct the town, it's a distinct possibility from all the other plot events that have happened.
  • Why wouldn't Klaus fall for it? Klaus knew they had a weapon that could kill him and under a risk free enviroment he forced them to play their hand. If he's shown nothing else throughout the series it's that he's extremely arrogant, which acceptable when you've spent most of the last century as one of only three beings walking the earth with a hope in the world of slowing you down and only one able to kill you. He's not the type to double check.
• Why are the Originals so certain Klaus sired the Salvatore line. Vampires are rare yes, but we're given the impression that there are enough of them in the world that given just the five hundred years between their origin and Katerina you'd think the Originals (who alledgedly ran as a bit of a pack for a long stretch before Klaus got all dagger happy) would have long since forgotten who sired who since until right now it wasn't particularly important. That's a lot of book keeping over a thousand years.
  • Because most vampires probably do Originate from Klaus, he is after all the only one obsessed with creating an army for himself. Fin turned Sage because he loved her but like you said, the originals were a pack. Klaus was the only one who wanted a back up family.
• Unless the whole line dying if you kill the original was something that Ester did why didn't they all die when Micheal was killed. We know he's the true Original.
  • He was probably the first to transition, but that doesn't mean all the other vampires came from his blood. His children only drank Tatia's blood and a human before they turned.
• How was Jeremy able to be resurrected by Bonnie after his death if his body got burnt along with the Gilbert house by Elena?