Tell me one thing you liked about Klaroline that is not something you see people commenting often about the ship.
In TVD’s universe most ships have a certain dynamic. The women are the love interests. The women see the best in men. The women are the portals of redemption or salvation or resurrection for the tormented lost souls. The men become the center of attention inside the relationship and the ship goals as the writing presents them (or at least in the way the relationship is written from an outside perspective when you dive just a bit more under the surface). The women lose parts of themselves in order for the men to gain more (usually a superficial change for the sake of shipping). The women are meant to teach men how to become better and their love will save them while the other thing does not happen as you see the women lose most of the time traits of their personality in order to fit into that kind of soap trope TVD is all about.
We are talking about ships that work with the man being the dominant and the woman the submissive in an uneven emotional playground.
This was not the case with Klaroline and it was something that personally intrigued me immediately.
Come to think about it many people that do not like Klaroline always complain about how Caroline did nothing for Klaus and how she was a bitch to him and always used him as a means to an end and yet this kind of concept is perpetuated in TV in all sorts of tropes and cliches all the time but with the man being in the dominant position. And when that happens it is accepted and glamorized but when you turn the mirror upside down then you do not see the same tolerance or the same excuses being used for the woman’s behavior. And in this case if Klaus was the innocent party it would be a whole different discussion and yet you see people complaining about Caroline having the power to put a villain under a perspective not altered by rose colored glasses.
When the man is a free spirit and arrogant and does not fall for bullshit then he is a sexy character. When a woman does it she is a bitch. When a man/sexy enemy is getting rejected by the woman that plays it hard to get while still falling for him then this is moonlighting because his attention elevates the woman’s worth by default. When the woman actually rejects a man because he is her enemy and it is not her worth that has to be revealed but the other way around and it is the man that falls then the woman is once more a bitch because come oooon…see the puppy eyes the psycho murderer is giving her and why does she not care for him in expense of her heart and soul and autonomy and hurts his poor feelings? (Insert sarcasm please). A woman redeeming a man by practically becoming his doormat is an all selfless love but when a woman puts herself and her mental health first and calls bullshit for what they are then of course we must condemn her for it. When the man is a manipulative asshole but also “cares” for the woman then we avert our eyes to it because deep down he is misunderstood and loving so all is forgiven but when the woman does the same acts of manipulation then she is once more the selfish bitch that fails to see the good in the man and help him out and what a bitch!! The man that is ingenious manipulator can afford to bend and brake the rules and it will be intriguing and awe worthy and multi layered but the woman especially in her relation to the man must be the paragon of virtue, purity and even fertility and if not so then she will be devoured by angry condemnation especially if she presents those ‘negative’ FOR HER GENDER traits inside the ship dynamic (while if the man does then he is applaud for it). So on and on and on and ooooon.
Now those kind of tropes and sexism exist in the media for decades and TVD is a major example for those. And somehow inside this toxicity Klaroline managed to present a different dynamic and it was totally an accident because as the writers have admitted Klaroline was meant to be a fluke and to highlight Forwood mostly for a few episodes and then Klaus would be killed. The writers did not focus on Klaroline and they wanted to presented it as a ship that was not meant to be favored by the fans. Well look how that backfired.
And yet despite the writer’s intentions this did not happen and this ship dynamic flourished more. Some call it dark stuff despite serving the gothic genre. Some call it dysfunctional. And it was dark and dysfunctional and it had many flaws and problematic aspects. It also was a great potential for the vampire genre but that aside it was still a ship where the man was the woman’s love interest and even yes…her prop.
Now I am not fond of ‘favoring’ one character over another inside a ship (and I was always a TVD Klaus stan and not a Caroline one) and I am not here to say that hey make the woman the abusive asshole instead of the man but since Klaus was presented as such AND WAS an abusive villain with no sentimental empathy or basic understanding of human emotion then this kind of nature when it came to the ship(that gave to Caroline agency and independence and had her acknowledge her own worth that came first for her as it should) actually managed to elevate Klaus’ traits more and to present him in a more favorable light.
Caroline brought him down to earth and he showed her the potential of the stars even if she was not ready to grasp them yet. Caroline was a major blow to his ego (which was much needed because Klaus is not a good person or one that actually needs coddling) while Klaus helped Caroline’s pride and confidence flourish (which was much needed due to her insecurity issues as a character in general and because she was always the second and third and last choice by everyone else). Less was of course more and by having the man become a woman’s love interest while he possessed all the physical strength and all the traits that are the prominent inside patriarchy then immediately the ship was leveled and balanced.
Klaus actually got major character development throughout the ship but during those times he was not the center of attention when it came to the ship dynamic. Something that was extremely rare if not unique inside the TVD verse.
Plec herself more or less in one of her interviews has said that Klaus fell in love with Caroline and that gained him the spin off. And it was true. Surely the Original family and Klaus as a character had immense potential but Klaroline was one of the pillars that gave to Klaus and JoMo immense popularity that was the boost it was needed for the creation of the spin off. The writers planned to kill Klaus by the end of S3 but the network forbid it and Klaroline was one of the major reasons because the fandom was huge and aggressive and devoted and supported the ship and Klaus.
In that sense Klaroline was the origin story of Klaus (and surely after a point and especially in S4 Klaroline was by at least 70% the major focus of Klaus characterization and storyline). Let us focus on that. The origin story of a male lead with his own show now was a love story where he was the love interest for a woman that held all the cards. That did not take away from his character. It did not take anything away from his manhood. It did not make him any less a force of nature while he was in TVD at least. Because it was honest. Because he was treated for the villain he was. Because his character did not need redemption. Because his character progressed. Because the character got his own freaking show because of it (and then got destroyed but that is another story).
But Klaus origin story was not about him. He was the villain. In the mind of the writers he was the disposable villain. He was a secondary character. Hell not even secondary because he did not belong to the secondary characters that were part of the Mystic Falls group that was the center of attention around the major triangle (like Caroline, Bonnie, Tyler, Matt, Jeremy, Alaric etc etc).
So in the end Klaus was a secondary character that was more or less the villain and a tritagonist in TVD that was used as the love interest of a supporting female character. And not only he was used as a love interest for a secondary female role but he was not even her story 100%. Caroline was never consumed by Klaus. Klaus never became Caroline’s story while the other thing actually happened. Caroline never became the kind of woman to lose herself because she was part of a man’s story without having a story or purpose of her own outside him. Klaus was not inside the narrative the one and only love story of Caroline but he was the one that was in pursuit of her and he was the one that dreamed of her. Caroline never sugarcoated anything when it came to Klaus’ problematic aspects. Caroline was not there to redeem a man but the man was there to highlight the woman’s worth and story. It was controversial for many reasons (basically because we are not used to it) and also intriguing because it was rare inside TVD and in tv in general and it subverted many tropes. TVD is an extremely misogynistic abusive environment that attracts many times fans with certain views that Plec’s offensive writing constantly feeds so along with the immense positivity the ship got it also got aggressive hate because this ship did not fall in line with the certain mindset TVD generally promotes.
And if we see the complaints for this ship then you see people that hate Klaus for Caroline call on his abusive ways (I accept that totally even though Caroline is not an angel either) but when you see people that hate Caroline for Klaus you see them calling out the same behavioral traits they praise on …Klaus. Why? Because these people want a ship that is all about the man in expense of a woman even if it means an early grave and engraving in her gravestone words of love for the man. It will still be worth it right? Well at least then a woman served her true purpose in life. Yay.
In the end of the day Caroline was not there to feed Klaus’ ego and pride. She was not there to delude herself into believing she can “save” a monster. Klaroline had abusive aspects that were not glorified by the narrative and the fans. Klaus’ romantic interest for Caroline entered exactly when Caroline was trying to find out who she was and was in need of taking care her needs first. The roles inside the narrative and in their presentation were turned upside down.
This was about Caroline’s boost of confidence and not Klaus’. Aside of the way they balanced each other and aside from the ship dynamics that helped both characters develop in spades in the end of the day this ship was for once the kind of ship that gave agency to the woman and had the man being her support when it came to her development.
Klaus was Caroline’s love interest. And not the other way around.
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