Hayley Week Day 2 - Favourite Quotes
So I’ve already released a gifset for today (x) which was supposed to be part 1 of a few sets however, due to technical issues I’m unable to complete the other gifs, so all the quotes I was unable to use in a gifset will also be explained in here, along with the quotes in the gifset I’ve already released. This text post is intended to explain why the quotes I picked are my favourite. I don’t explain all of them, because sometimes you don’t know why you like what someone’s said, you just do.
Quotes are listed in no particular order. Several quotes tie in together in little sections, but overall all the quotes tie in together in some way or another…and those mentioned not present in the gifset I’ve mentioned are the missing quotes.
Put under a cut because this gets very very long. Also goes off track just a lil. Sorry but not very organised either, a bit of a mess of thoughts under the cut. whoops my bad.
“I was a mother, and now I’m a monster.”
This resonates with me so much. Not only is the way it was delivered with heart-breaking emotion after Hayley’s shouting at Elijah. I think it was done perfectly. If it had been screamed at Elijah whilst Hayley was raging, I don’t think it would’ve been the same. The way Phoebe delivered it, her voice, her eyes. It was acted perfectly, honestly one of Phoebe’s shining moments on the show.
Now the actual words - Hayley has come to the conclusion, that she’s no longer a mother and now she’s no better than a vampire. She was barely a mother before, having her child for mere hours before giving her to another woman to raise, and now she’s fully crossed the line. “There’s nothing natural about what I am Elijah.” motherhood is supposed to be one of the most natural things in the world. The instinct a woman feels to care for her baby, looking after your own young. And Hayley has had the most natural thing ripped from her and instead she’s been turned into the most unnatural thing that could exist, a hybrid, all the while Elijah - someone she thought she could lean on, is just telling her it’ll get better and that it’s natural for her to feel like this. And her frustration is just so immense. No. No she’s not supposed to feel like this, she’s supposed to be in the nursery playing with her daughter or watching her sleep, she’s supposed to be looking after her child. Instead she’s tearing out the throats of the kin who she fought to protect. And that’s when it dawns on her. She’s not a mother, she has no child to look after, she’s just a monster who’s killing her own kind again.
It’s also a reflection of what she sees in Elijah mind.
To Elijah she carried hope for the family. Both literally as in Hope the child and figuratively as in the sense that things would get better one her child was born. To Elijah, carrying Hope was never something that Hayley did for herself - to experience family, it was to redeem his brother and make them all have a richer life. Hayley is not the same to him anymore, she’s aware of this. He can’t look at her the same. She’s no longer the family saviour by carrying the baby, she no longer embodies hope for his family, and now she’s slowly descending her way to the depths of depravity his brother has. As Marcel pointed out to Gia, Elijah likes to fix things that are broken and right now as this very moment in time Elijah can’t fix Hayey. He experiences her loss but nowhere near on the same level as she does and he knows he has no idea how to help her or to fix it. Hayley hasn’t spoken properly to him in months so I think we’re to assume this is the most substantial conversation they’ve had since Hope’s leaving. And she finally confronts him with what she perceives to be her own thoughts mirroring his.
And I’m not sure if it was written like this, but I also think “I was a mother and now I’m a monster.” refers to Hayley’s pack. Hayley took on the role of matriarch with the pack. She took it upon herself to release them from the curse Marcel had put upon them. She fought for them - which is where “We don’t want a fight Elijah, we just want a better life” and “The wolves deserve a voice. Give them one. You know it's the right thing to do .” Comes into all of this. Hayley became their advocate, looking out for them constantly throughout the season. She becomes the mother to her pack. And ow she doesnt have that any more. She doesn’t have them. She’s turned into a monster by killing her own kin.
Hayley was a mother, to Hope to her pack. And now she’s a monster who’s no worse than a vampire and has no children to consider herself a mother to and honestly it’s just so heart-breaking to see her come to that conclusion.
I’d also like to take a second to mention why I believe Hayley’s arranged slaughter of the hybrids was omitted here. (Aside from a writing mistake as people claim, there are other reasons why believe that the omission was a conscious choice)
Hayley was nomadic, moving from pack to pack to pack. Never staying put. She never considered a pack family. They weren’t like that to her. She was always on the outside looking in. Hayley didn’t consider Tyler’s hybrid pack to be family. And to her, killing them was necessary to gain information on her family. Please please note I’m not excusing what Hayley did. It was wrong. But I’m just saying, Hayley believes herself a monster for killing the werewolves in the compound because she didn’t have to. She let Oliver go. She could’ve quite easily just incapacitated the other werewolves with a blow to the head or otherwise. But she was filled with rage and decided to kill them instead. That is why she considers herself a monster. Killing because she wanted to and for no other reason than rage. That is why she considers herself no worse than a vampire.
Now, having mentioned that, it also links into another few of my favourite Hayley quotes.
“He was kind to me.”
“Sometimes when I feel like it’s me against the world it keeps me going.”
(Jackson: “I love you... I meant it.”) “Yeah, and that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that to me.”
“I can take care of myself. I’ve done it a long time.”
“You get a hell of an education when you leave home at thirteen”
Okay. So. “He was kind to me.” Officially the moment I went from being a casual Hayley fan to a hardcore fan. We know Hayley was thrown out at 13 for triggering her curse and turning in front of her parents. The people that were supposed to love her the most... kicked her out. (Look I’m sorry but whether or not you love your kid, adopted or not, transforming wolf or not you don’t fucking throw a 13 year old out on the streets to fend for herself.)
This is also probably the time Hayley learned Mr & Mrs Marshall weren’t her real parents. Imagine having your life ripped apart like that right now. Whatever age you are.
You’ve accidentally caused the death of another person, most likely a friend. You were stupid and drunk, but it was an accident and they were your friend all the same.
The full moon rises in the sky and suddenly you’re going through the most agonising pain you’ve ever felt in your entire life and nobody can make it stop.
You then turn into a wolf. A wolf. In your parents room and trash it up.
And when you finally come round. Your parents drop the bomb that not only are you not their real daughter. But they’re also kicking you out because you’re scared.
So now you’re completely alone and have no idea what to do.
Now (and I’m operating on the assumption that most people reading this will be at least 16, but most likely older) imagine you’re 13. You’re 13 years old and you have nobody and nothing. Except the will to survive. (“Sometimes when I feel like it’s me against the world it keeps me going.”) It’s been noted quite a few times that Hayley was on her own at 13. So that means that if Mr & Mrs Marshall had family, they weren’t interested in helping Hayley. So imagine you have an entire family that wants nothing to do with you. You’re scared and alone and a child and your bones break every full moon.
Honestly I empathise with Hayley so so so much. She was so young and had to go through so much crap. She toughened, she hardened, she made selfish choices because selfish choices in situations like that is like making the choice between living and dying. Homeless women are especially vulnerable to all sorts of violence and abuse. Imagine a 13 year old facing that down. God knows what Hayley had to face before she found a pack to integrate with. Hayley found packs and wandered from pack to pack to pack. Never fitting in. She was put in situations where she had to learn how to make a splint with branches and clothes and god knows what else she would’ve had to learn how to do (“You get a hell of an education when you leave home at thirteen”). Imagine being in those packs though. She clearly never felt at home with any of them at all. Never felt the sense of family. Imagine as a kid, your parents throw you out, and someone else takes you in, yet you sit every night and watch families interact with each other. You see a girl just like you and her parents are there for her, she’s a monster like you are, but her parents don’t care. They love her anyway. That must’ve been tough.
Hayley is finally approached by and told that if she makes a selfish choice and arranges for the hybrids to be killed. She can have that. Family that don’t care that you’re a monster because they’re a monster too. The family she’s needed so much since she was thrown out. A sense of belonging, of community, finally a sense of family and being loved and wanted. A pack of her own. So she took it.
Hayley has never sounded positive about her home life. “I don’t know how I feel about being a mother, because I - I never really had a good one.” So when she says to Jackson that nobody has ever told her they love her before. I’m inclined to believe that her family weren’t overly loving and she didn’t just mean that in the romantic sense, which is also where we come back to ‘He was kind to me.’ Have you noticed that Hayley falls for the men that are kind to her? That see something good in her? It’s because she’s never experienced it from her family so she seeks it out elsewhere. Tyler, Elijah, Jackson. Three men who were kind to her and saw something she couldn’t see in herself.
Elijah was kind to her where she’d never thought to experience kindness. Hayley had probably assumed she was in for 9 months of pure hell with no light at the end of the tunnel, and Elijah gives her this hope that maybe she’ll make it through and he’ll be here for her at the end of it to stop Klaus doing anything to her. Hayley hasn’t experienced much kindness in life and she was so surprised and uplifted to have found it somewhere she was expecting it least.
With Jackson, this is a man who expected someone so different. (“Jack, that girl you were waiting on was Andrea Labonair, mythic revolutionary. You got Hayley Marshall, knocked up tomboy with a bad attitude”) In Hayley’s eyes he expected so much more than what he got. And yet he loves her anyway. He loves the Hayley he got, and doesn’t miss the Andrea he never got to meet. And to Hayley that is so so much. This man loves her, warts and all, for who she is. He’s always loved her the same.
Also, just another off track note, I think that’s why Hayley told Elijah not to tell her he loved her. Elijah is very stoic, we know that. He doesn’t express his feelings openly very often, especially not ones so close to heart. Hayley just wants to be happy. She said it to Elijah. She thought that being with Jackson she could have a happy life where she was constantly told she was loved. And she was loved for her. With Elijah, it would be different and she knows that. And she doesn’t think she can have the life she craves with him. It’s clear she loves Elijah more than Jackson, but she things that Jackson can make her happier… which is all she’s wanted. To be loved and happy with a family.
Now. Less related to the others, but honestly my fave nonetheless. “Nothing true.” I’ve written so so much based on this. How it’s such a crucial point to the episode, the series. To her own development, to Klaus’ development, to their development as individuals and as a couple, as parents. That line is literally one of the single most important lines in the entire series in my opinion. Two words. The way it’s delivered with a soft reassuring smile and a warm tone. The way Klaus receives it. He’s breath taken.
This is what I’ve written before on the subject:
It’s Hayley finally coming to see that although Klaus is a massive d bag as she’s been pointing out for the past 20 episodes, he really does care for their child on more than a selfish level, and he cares for her too as a person as well as the mother of his baby.
And for Klaus, well you can see the effect it has on him. All his life people have believed him irredeemable. And I know he has Elijah who believes he can be saved, but that’s something Elijah’s always believed so to Klaus I don’t think it really counts? (Poor Elijah lmao) But when Hayley, someone who’s gone from believing him to be a monster who will do nothing good for their child, to refuting Mikael’s views and telling Klaus she believes what Mikael believes to be untrue. Someone has changed their mind concerning him, for the good, and I doubt Klaus has had many people change their opinion on him from negative to even somewhat positive, it’s always gone from either bad to worse or good to bad. So when he hears and can tell that Hayley has changed her mind about him and doesn’t believe him wholly to be an irredeemable bastard it takes his breath away and renders him speechless.
Now, for me to carry on from that first line about Hayley. She’s realised that someone else cares for her as a person. Up until this point, the only people she’s truly 100% cared for her as a person are Eve and Jackson. Eve is dead now. So she basically had Jackson. With Elijah and Klaus she’s never been sure they cared for her as an individual and not just a walking womb. It was a little bit harder to tell with Elijah because he was kind to her and he was soft, but there was all the business with the wolves and he essentially kept her alive in the beginning to carry Klaus’ child and redeem his brother, but in Hayley’s mind Klaus made it clear to him she wasn’t a person, she was only there to please him and carry his child. Until that moment in the nursery. She finally feels this sense of relief and security that she wont have to battle for her baby with him. She’s seen as a person, cared for as a person.
Another favourite quote of mine is when Hayley is in Klaus’ home whilst being wined and dined by him. “So this is your thing – Show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?”
Why is it a favourite? Hayley isn’t letting herself be played by Klaus. She knows exactly what he’s playing. The game he’s weaving to try and get her to talk about Katherine. And she’s not having any of it at all. She’s using his need to know about Katherine to have herself a good time. She doesn’t know what he’s going to do to her. For all she know Klaus will snap her neck like a twig when she gives him what she wants, so she’s stringing it out. She has no sympathy for him with his childhood, she knows the stuff he’s done, she may see them being on par. Crappy childhood = poor decisions in life. Also, the snarky low blow to Klaus’ art just made me chuckle considering it’s something he prides himself in and the comment was a lil below the belt.
Now, something that links into the above. Though I will say that it’s not the words themselves that make this quote a favourite to me. When I first heard it. I rolled my eyes. I thought it was cliché or whatever. But as we’ve learned more and more about Hayley, and as I’ve wrote more and more about her, what it means has come to resonate with me. This is something I’ve written about before, but I feel the need to include it here too. It’s the line about the painting just before the KH sex scene. “I saw how twisted it really is. And Maybe I can relate.”
I think Hayley sees the painting as twisted when she see’s Klaus painting himself as this loner with nobody, surrounded by darkness when she knows (and so does Klaus) that a lot of it is down to his own actions. She knows how much Klaus has screwed people over, and that’s probably why nobody is close to him. The darkness that surrounds him is mostly what he’s created over the years.
She can relate to that because she had the chance to be part of a pack, but she screwed them over and had them killed on the off chance that Shane actually had quality information on her birth family. There’s probably a part of Hayley that was all “I’m alone and have nothing and nobody.” but when she thinks about it, for whatever reason she did it, she gave up a chance of having a family and a pack on an off chance Shane wasn’t bullshitting. Klaus destroys relationships because of his paranoia, he screws people over for his own selfish gain.
After she picks up the painting they talk about Tyler, and she hear’s Klaus basically admitting he’s gonna do to Tyler what he did to Katherine. Not actively hunt them down, but let Tyler think he has to keep running, for the mental torture of it. That’s twisted.
“Do you wanna know why I like that painting?”
“Well, perhaps it was because it allowed you to see into my deep, wounded soul.”
Hayley never said anything about her thinking he was wounded or anything. That’s how Klaus likes to think of himself, maybe that’s how he was hoping to come across for whatever reason.
“I saw how twisted it really is. And maybe I can relate.”
I think when Hayley say’s she can relate she means that they’ve both done shitty things to push people away, yet deep down they both have a sense of “why am I so alone” Hayley probably doesn’t see it as her fault, all that she’s done, and we know from what Klaus’ said before that he blames what he is and his parents for how he’s ended up. But at the end of the day Hayley realises that it’s futile blaming other people for your actions.
I’ve waited until the end to say this, but these quotes are my favourite because they explore Hayley. Her life. Her past, her thoughts and feelings. Who she is in that moment, who she’s becoming. They’re my favourite because they’re enlightening. Maybe not overly, but as with the cluster of quotes above, put together they tell her story.
