From the impending threat of Katherine Pierce rising up from hell only to use hellfire to burn Mystic Falls to ashes, to the return of Bonnie’s incredibly powerful magic, to the alternative sacrifices of the Salvatore brothers (and that ONE sacrifice in particular that had me crying endlessly until the hour was over), to Elena reuniting beautifully and simply with her friends (and Damon - begrudgingly accepting this as the series finale but it will never be canon to me #alternativeships) - the series finale was satisfying in many ways and kept my blood pressure up the entire hour. But one thing that has been nagging at me since the 100th episode, jokingly known as the Roast of Katherine Pierce, came back to remind me of the worst TV trope: the sweet innocent pure virgin vs the evil seductive whore. And no one wants an ending where evil wins.
This show has always enjoyed contrasting good and bad, but also demonstrating that the scales are easily tipped in either direction: Damon has had moments of selflessness and Stefan has the Ripper. Even Bonnie and Caroline, who have been moral centers in many ways, have done hurtful and vindictive things. No one is immune from pettiness, no one is immune from being a little bad.
In that same vein, the contrast drawn between Katherine and Elena was a huge driving force for the first three seasons of the show. Elena was pure, human, placed on a pedestal by Damon and fiercely protected by Stefan. Katherine was dark, seductive, a woman who lied and schemed to save her own skin, and responsible for foisting vampirism on the Salvatore brothers and creating the anti-vampire fervor of the Founders’ Council. But in seasons 4 and 5, the scales tipped: Elena became a vampire, uncontrolled and emotionally volatile, and in giving into the sire bond, she chose the “bad” brother. Katherine was injected with the cure, and became a human, vulnerable and terrified.
I enjoyed the switch because for once, we, the audience, could finally see shreds of humanity in Katherine (and remember, that no matter what happened to her, and considering the garbage circumstances she faced, she never chose to turn off her humanity) and we could see the darkness in Elena that most likely drew her toward Damon in the first place. So why, WHY, why did the writers choose to completely underwrite that humanity in this series finale?
Part of why I enjoyed the 100th episode so much was that we actually had a chance to understand Katherine’s history, and how she got to where she was. She didn’t ask to be a doppelganger, she didn’t ask to become a blood meal for Klaus so he could break the hybrid curse, and she chose vampirism as a way to stay (somewhat) alive without giving him what he wanted. And when he came back and slaughtered her entire family, which she admittedly brought on herself, we have to realize that Katherine was like 17 in the 1400s. She had no clue what she stumbled into when she met the Mikaelsons. And then she spent 500 years on the run from a vindictive Original vampire. She’s devious and she’s manipulative, but maybe as a consequence of the horrible circumstances she found herself in in the 1400s.
And then her finding the Salvatores and falling in love with both of them (and before everyone comes in here talking about how she loved Stefan, she did also love Damon very much and that’s why she fed them both her blood - she wanted them both and didn’t want to have to choose) felt like a moment in Katherine’s history when she truly could have been happy. But that quickly imploded when Papa Salvatore killed his sons and discovered that they had been turned. Then she was on the run again.
Katherine returned and turned Elena’s life even more upside down than it already was after she met Stefan, but come on, can you really blame her? She had a ready-made doppelganger to offer up to appease Klaus, and it just so happened that Elena was standing between her and Stefan. Plus it probably didn’t hurt that her threats to Elena maintained her manipulation of John and Isobel (sort of - arguably, Isobel didn’t care all that much about Elena) to do her bidding. Katherine wanted what Elena had: people willing to sacrifice themselves for her, and true unconditional love.
So when Katherine ended up in Hell, and while I am very amused that Katherine Pierce became the queen of Hell, because of course she did, I completely understood why she’d want to burn Mystic Falls down. What on Earth did Mystic Falls ever do for her? It’s a living memory of some of her greatest regrets, filled with people who she betrayed and who betrayed her. It’s a place she was persecuted, it’s a place she found love and lost it, it’s a place where her long-lost daughter died in her arms, and it’s a place her humanity truly died. If I were Katherine, I would have burned Mystic Falls down years ago.
If there’s one thing we could learn about life through “The Vampire Diaries”, it’s that everyone has demons. Some people have more and darker demons than others, and we’re all deeply flawed. But we all have humanity, too, even if there’s only a shred or it’s really hard to find. Katherine Pierce was no different. I’ll pour one out for her.
