#stefan meta

[ladydeath-vanserra]

wonder how much of the "I'm the good brother" "I'm the bad brother" has to do with how shielded Stefan was as a child, letting him grow up to be empathetic and kind and with Damon being the scapegoat and growing up being told he's selfish and all sharp edges. Honestly I wish TVD did a wholeeee lot more with their relationship with Guiseppe and Lily

In the flashbacks of them being human, Stefan is still trying to adhere to Giuseppes' humanity and thinking that he can reason with him, and this is long after Lily died

It stands to reason Damon kept being a scapegoat and a shield for Stefan long after Lily died, especially as despite him being softer and more willing to believe in love as a human, the sharp edges were forming and were prominent where their father was concerned and he begged Stefan to not go to him when trying to protect Katherine but Stefan didn't listen

Stefan, as both a human and a vampire, has this,,,, naivety that is encouraged by everyone around them especially in contrast to Damon

Stefan could not control his bloodlust and kept shoving it down over and over again and his friends (Lexi, Elena, etc) encouraged it but Damon gets painted as the Bad Guy [the bad brother] because he keeps trying to get Stefan to learn control

imho Stefan is far more dangerous than Damon. Damon has control over his vampirism. He makes bad choices, but he is in control. Stefan keeps trying to make good choices, to be the "good brother" but it creates a cycle of binge eating and inability to control himself that leads him on massacre after massacre

idk idk idk their relationship is *so* interesting to me and I wish we got even more details of their childhood than we did

[bonneibennett]

What’s the real purpose of the Phoenix Stone?

Figured I should make my own post, instead of completely hijacking @ihearttvsnark’s, lol. Definitely go and read her review though, it’s spot-on, as usual.

So I was questioning the supposed purpose of the Phoenix Stone too, especially considering every time they discuss it on the show, that premise seems to shift and warp.

First it was a prison, then it was a punishment, then it was them being forced to relive their worst actions, then we saw what it actually does and it doesn’t quite fit any of those definitions... and now the brothers seem to have decided that it’s trying to show them different paths to their true, happy selves, paths that just so happen to align with some of their most deeply ingrained insecurities:

Ever since the very beginning of the series, these are the two almost defining characteristics of the brothers and their dysfunctional good brother/bad brother dichotomy. Damon is the reckless bad brother who ruins things, and Stefan is the saint who gets dragged down by it.

But the show has proven over and over that those good brother/bad brother labels aren’t really grounded in reality. Stefan has a kill list that rivals Damon’s, and his actions are often just as self-destructive too. And Damon on the other hand we’ve come to see is broken and often floundering, but not hopeless, not irredeemable.

I hope that that’s what this storyline is headed towards... towards finally tackling these core themes head-on and completely overturning them, letting the brothers realize the truth about who they are, flaws and strengths both exposed, and then letting them grow from that knowledge.

It would be cool if the Stone actually was trying to teach them how to be reborn as their true, better, happier selves or whatever, and that the trials they’re weathering now are largely symbolic and being wildly misinterpreted by them both, lol.

The hallucination of Damon that Stefan sees is a very specific iteration of Damon’s character, it’s his unhinged “bad brother” side, on crack. Maybe the Stone isn’t trying to convince him to let go of Damon, it’s trying to show him that he has to let go of this definition he has of Damon as this total fuck up who can’t do things right, who will always maliciously drag him down?

And maybe Elena is holding Damon back, but not from becoming a true monster, but instead from realizing that the choice of acting like a monster or not has always been in his own hands, not in the hands of some external moral compass he “wins” and puts up on a pedestal.

They’ve been using these toxic relationship dynamics to define themselves all this time, Stefan desperately clinging to the “good brother” role and Damon desperately clinging to the idea that winning Elena’s love proves he’s worth loving. Maybe the Stone is trying to show them that they have to shed these notions, if they want to grow.

[silviakundera]

No they have not just made Stefan another Damon, no this is not a new Stefan at all

To me, Stefan has always been Stefan. Stefan being a wise ass? He bantered coldly with Damon plenty of times even back in Season 1. (When did people get the impression that Stefan doesn't do sarcasm? Stefan is all about the sarcasm.) Stefan going over the cliff about shit because he can't live in that middle place? That is a Stefan we know intimately. Couldn't just secretly date a vampire, noooo he yearned to talk to dad about it and make it sympathetic and accepted. Ate his father as a vampire in transition and then brought a girl to tempt his brother with. Then had horrible murder parties that freaked both Damon and Lexi out. Drank his girlfriend's blood after some righteous murdering and then ended up being touchy creepy with Matt's mom, smashing mirrors in public places, assaulting a teenage girl in an open parking lot, and then had to be stopped in the midst of hunting her to death in woods right next to the huge town pageant. (Discretion, what discretion?)

Dude does not understand moderation and he has always had a violent side -- he's never been anything like human, as much as he tries to live that life. Hell, in the very first episode we see Damon taunting Stefan, which Stefan responds to by THROWING HIMSELF AND DAMON OUT A WINDOW. Vampire stalking his girlfriend? Stefan tortures him from information with a stake in the stomach right in front of her. Elena leaves him alone with her dick father? Cut arm and force it into his mouth, promising death and vampirism if he doesn't take a permanent, immediate vacation. Look how quick he went from We Need To Have Peace to Kill Mason Now. Look at Stefan's cold, detached initial conversations with Alaric. His steely warning to Logan. His calm at Bonnie's threats in 1x22 with the implication that he would end up going to war with her if she decided to come after Damon. The guy could not have a civil conversation with Tyler without shoving him into walls, being passive aggressive with a side of ominous, and triggering the pack into kidnapping Caroline, AND HE WAS REALLY TRYING.

It's not that Stefan has ~become Damon or Stefan is gone, it's that Stefan has never been Edward Cullen and whenever people made him out to be the sweet boy next door, The Good Brother(tm), some storybook prince... that was just a mirage. That was never Stefan at all. And that's ok! Stefan is a complicated person and he's really, really interesting. Stefan never had any moral high ground to lose in the beginning of the series, we just didn't know very much about him yet, and it's not a betrayal for the show to keep pointing that out. He's not ~better than Damon. (I don't think there's any act Damon's performed that Stefan hasn't done himself at some point.) He's not ~worse than Damon either. He's just himself, with his own admirable qualities and weaknesses, and that person can help or hurt others depending on his personal relationship with them and who he's trying to be that day (what cliff he's dived over).