Misconception: Katherine never loved Damon.
Okay, let me begin this monstrous answer as simply as humanly possible. In direct relation to the prompt that I reblogged, this misconception would be one to fall into the untrue category. Skin deep, that’s my response. If you do have some interest and time on your hands, then a sincere warning for length and scrutiny ahead. There are three ways in which I personally can approach this: by earlier TV canon, Stefan’s Diaries’ canon, and my own interpretation. In my mind, they all intertwine. So, without further ado...
Separately, Damon and Katherine are two individuals of extreme complexity. Their characterisation, traits; everything. They’re both very confident, driven and volatile when tested; despite being emotionally bruised and each battling their own internal demons. They’re so similar and so polar opposite at the same time, that I think it’s comical. For instance, they might wholly disagree on a matter but take the exact same approach when faced with it or vice versa. Even in the darkest of moments between these two, I feel like there exists a lot of humour in the fact that there is no middle ground ever. It is so extreme, to the point where they’re either on the same wavelength completely or they might as well not even be speaking the same language.
I think, in a modern world, they both exercise an unapologetic front of acquired tastes to say the least. What’s maybe most interesting to me (that I feel like most people do actually forget about) is that Damon met her front; he met the mask and the bravado of Katherine Pierce. Katherine, I must stress, is and always has been a character. She’s an invention that Katerina created for herself to make a hard life somewhat easier. So, from that first chapter, when their relationship was at it’s absolute purest and least complicated, there was still such an incredible dark cloud that followed Katherine into this and definitely took its toll on both of them. Aside from her supernatural state, right now I’m speaking solely of character, she lives and breathes a lie. She’s so haunted by her experiences, they literally follow her. There is no escape. This was never as simple a story of boy meets girl; this was boy meets a very complicated girl with almost four centuries of trails and tribulations under her belt.
Now, when the time comes where Damon does familiarise with her on a newer level, as a vampire. He doesn’t shy from it, he steps forward. Up until this point, everything’s been romantically playful and nothing more. Don’t get me wrong, she enjoys him; but this is Katherine’s game, she knows what she’s doing. Dropping the great supernatural revelation over him isn’t done out of trust or a bond, but of out entertainment. She expects a natural human’s reaction; fear, confusion. Instead, he gives her intrigue and willingly wanders into her world; a world of everything demonic and unholy to the era’s vocabulary, everything of blood and death like the war that he’s just walked from. Now, he’s playing her game but he’s changing it, taking it on an entirely new course. Surely then comes a whole different wave of intimacy between them, logically speaking, their relationship must have taken a serious dip. They spent so much time together during that summer and were oddly private about it as Stefan recalls (in Stefan’s Diaries); so, whatever it was, this was between them and only them.
Bearing in mind, this is a man who still continues to put her on a pedestal and treat her like a lady, before and after he watches her rip somebody mortal, somebody just like him to shreds. But, here’s the thing: he routinely allows her to lead and be in control, despite the absolute unconventionality of that for the time; and it’s borne out of respect to her feelings and opinions. Women were never treated with such consideration and he has it for her no matter who’s looking. Neither human nor vampire, she’s never been treated with such care in her life. This woman has faced exile and parental abandonment, she’s been manipulated by men— so she’s bitter, but above all she is eternally living inside the mind of an eighteen year-old. Time and time again, the thing she’s struggled most with is acceptance. While never expressed, of course she’s insecure, in the most plain sense of the word. She has had no stability in her life; and as a human, her value was so interchangeable for what it was worth to her father or a suitor.
And so, the persona Katherine has been created; for measure of safety, for reassurance and self-love. She gives the illusion amid her own instabilit that she’s taken care of by herself and has everything necessary to survive within. So, the real question is: what happens when she is taken care of and provided for? Well, here comes the tragedy. Where does Katherine go when she’s not needed; when Katerina is happy and not running nor scheming? Which parts of this fragmented personality are real; which are fake? Where do the identity lines blur and cross? How does she unpick them? Can she unpick them? See, that’s the tragedy of Katherine and Damon. With him, she doesn’t know. For the first time, she doesn’t know. That makes her completely and wholly, with every fibre of her being inconsistent towards him. She’s not practised in this air of truth he presents her with because nothing is typically natural with Katherine; everything is rehearsed.
Katherine is unfamiliar with how to love and how to be loved because, in short terms, Katherine doesn’t exist. Damon reinforces that truth in her mind and it unhinges her. Somehow, he strips away a lot of her armour and pulls out emotional reactions; good and bad. It’s impractical. It’s a game she doesn’t know how to play, and she doesn’t want to play a game that she didn’t create. A part of her wants to learn, to discover the remnants of her old self, but she’s frightened to be vulnerable. So, that’s only a small pull on her soul; or it’s a rare craving. The biggest part of her knows what is required of this pitiful existence she leads; the reason Katherine Pierce was established in the first place. She needs to be selfish and gritty and unforgiving, otherwise she cannot survive. That’s her biggest obstacle in all of this and it’s unavoidable.
Her rejection of him was practical. Practical is something that she knows how to do. It was cruel. Cruel is something that she knows how to do. It was selfish. Selfish is something that she knows how to do. All of these traits, as fake or misdirected as they might be, are things that she is comfortable with; they’re familiar and consistent in her life of change. She needs some of that consistency. Damon doesn’t give her that only because she doesn’t let him. He would, as proven by that promise to drop everything, so long as she’d tell him the truth, but look at her face in that moment. All she sees is somebody who never fails to confuse her in some way; he’s risen to any challenge that she’s presented him with, and she can’t afford to be softened by him, to expose everything to someone. She lives the way that she does and thinks the way that she does purely out of repetition; she’s a creature of habit because she knows that is works, not necessarily because she enjoys it. With Damon, especially in the 21st century, Katherine has met her match. He plays her villainous identity game, but he has such a strong grip over his own identity that he surpasses her, so in that way he is a lot stronger than she is and she knows that.
She doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how significant of a figure that he is to her. It’s very clear that cares from him deeply. I believe that to be because, aside from Klaus, he is seen to have the most sway over her decisions that truly matter. These two understand each other on a level that nobody else can interpret; not even Stefan and certainly not anybody in present-day Mystic Falls. It’s primal, it’s psychological, it’s emotional; it’s everything. She’s risked her safety and jeopardised her freedom for him and only him; twice (by bringing him the cure and altering Mikael’s plan). Katherine puts everybody she meets through pain and danger, some more than others, but seldom does she get anybody out of it; yet she quietly keeps him out of harm’s way and, most significantly, seeks for no reward for it.
For better or worse, these two definitely draw the most of out each other. It’s mutually passionate; it’s just that Damon is more vocal and expressive about it. It’s heated and callous, it’s raw and desperate, it’s intense and complex; but when push comes to shove, she trusts him in a world where she doesn’t trust anybody (otherwise, she’d have never pleaded for his help once she was at her most vulnerable; cured). It may always be difficult but it will never be indifferent. Damon remains to be the closest thing that she has to a friend, and he’s offered her the most positive relationship she’s experienced; not just with a man or lover, but with anybody. She simply doesn’t know what to do with that feeling, and comes to reject it more than anything.
