Female Characters of the Week: The Girls of The Vampire Diaries

My favorite television drama, The Vampire Diaries, returns tomorrow to the CW.  This little show that could is much, much better than any soapy teen vampire show has any right to be.  Its characters are much more dynamic and complex than the ones on Twilight (not that that’s much of a challenge), and it had more plot twists and character development in its first season than Lost had in all six.  In honor of the show’s return, I wanted to honor one of its great female characters.  But I decided that, even though each girl on the show deserves a post of her own, I couldn’t possibly talk about one without talking about the others.  My Female Characters of the Week are The Girls of The Vampire Diaries: Caroline Forbes, Bonnie Bennett, Elena Gilbert, and Katherine Pierce.

In the first season of the show, Caroline Forbes was a ditzy cheerleader who felt neglected by her mother.  She was insecure, neurotic, flighty.  She was the prey of Damon Salvatore, the girlfriend of Matt Donovan (who wasn’t quite over his ex-girlfriend), and felt on the outskirts of her friendships with Bonnie and Elena – but she never lost her intrepid, bubbly spirit no matter what.  In the premiere of season two, Katherine Pierce turned her into a vampire, a mere pawn in her battle with the Salvatore brothers.  The episode where Caroline first adjusted to being a vampire and fed off of her human prey was terrifying and disgusting.  Damon predicted that she would completely fall apart.  Instead, Caroline has proven to be the most well-adjusted vampire on the show.  She learns to control her cravings for human blood faster than Damon and Stefan ever did, she uses her powers to protect Matt and her mother, she protects herself and her friends when she was previously helpless.  Even though she’s technically dead, becoming a vampire is probably the best thing that happened to Caroline.  She has power now, and uses it for good, and finally has confidence in her abilities.  Her progression is one of my favorite things about the second season.

Another person who is no stranger to power is Bonnie Bennett.  At the beginning of season one, she started to become aware of her supernatural powers and began experimenting with witchcraft.  She became closer to her grandmother, researched her heritage, and tried to see how far she could go with her powers.  In season two, she’s still struggling to figure that out.  Sometimes she goes farther with her spells than she should and it makes her bleed or lose consciousness.  Usually, she pushes too hard because she’s trying to save a friend in danger, but I also get the sense that she enjoys pushing herself, that she’s tempted by the danger.  I like that the show portrays Bonnie’s use of magic as mostly positive but potentially dangerous, even when used by the best of people.  I also love that Bonnie is one of the few humans left in Mystic Falls that hates vampires, and is only barely willing to make exceptions for Caroline and Stefan, and even less of an exception for Damon.  As much as I love the vampire characters on the show, it’s good that at least one of the humans doesn’t make excuses for them.

Finally, we have Elena Gilbert and her doppelganger vampire ancestor, Katherine Pierce, for it is impossible to speak of one without the other.  I envy Nina Dobrev’s job.  She gets to play the protagonist and main antagonist on the show, the sweet ingenue and the psychotic bitch villain, and in the process, gets to make out with at least half the boys on the show.  And she does such a good job of it that I can’t even hate her.

I love Katherine because she’s one of the best villains I’ve ever seen on TV.  She doesn’t waste her time on idle threats or natter on about her plans like a Bond villain.  If she threatens to kill innocents until the Salvatores give her what she wants, then dammit, she’s killing innocents, snapping their spines in one quick stroke and tossing them into Stefan’s arms, in the middle of a crowd of people, no less.  She’s the most dangerous type of villain because she’ll protect herself at all cost, even if the cost is the man she claims to love.

Then we have Elena.  It would be so easy for the writers and actress to make Elena boring compared to Katherine, but Elena’s wonderful.  She’s the anti-Bella Swan.  She loves her boyfriend, but not at the expense of loving herself.  She loves him despite the fact that she’s a vampire, not because of it, and deeply values her humanity.  She has rich, fulfilling relationships with people other than Stefan, and will even sacrifice her relationship with him if it means keeping her family safe.  She’s self-sacrificing without being a perfect Mary Sue, and she’ll risk her life to save those she loves and people will do it for her as well.  Elena’s the best, and in the Team Stefan vs. Team Damon arguments, I am firmly Team Whatever Makes Elena Happy – which really means Team Stefan, but you get the idea.  With Twilight, just as a comparison, I was firmly Team Everyone Sucks, Especially Bella.

Anyway, the reason I talked about all these women at once, even though they each deserve their own post, is because I love the relationships they have with each other.  The Caroline/Bonnie, Bonnie/Elena, Elena/Caroline, and Caroline/Bonnie/Elena relationships are all complex and based on real friendship.  They have conflicts with each other, of course – but I love that, for the most part, their conflicts have very little to do with boys.  Caroline was, at a time, a little jealous that Matt still had feelings for Elena, but she seemed more hurt that Elena seemed to consider her as a “backup friend” for Bonnie.  Bonnie and Elena butt heads over Stefan and Damon but it has nothing to do with romantic jealousy; they have clashing opinions about how to deal with vampires.

The Vampire Diaries is one of the best-plotted shows on television, and also, to my delight, one of the most feminist ones.  The women are all strong in different ways and find much of their strength in their friendships with each other.  I hope the teenage girls who read Twilight will eventually make their way to The Vampire Diaries to see such powerful female characters as Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena.