Can you elaborate on your point about Caroline? I didn’t mind her but I always felt the show just threw her around
the show absolutely threw her around and often at the expense of her agency and characterization, but it also threw her around specifically into plotlines and stories that were tailor-made for bonnie, because inserting caroline into these scenarios meant they could: 1. keep their racist hegemony intact 2. pander to the racist fanbase 3. make sure the white dude characters were never truly threatened (because caroline wasn’t allowed to be powerful enough to challenge them)
i’ve written posts about this before, because people often talk about how much elena was written to overshadow and control bonnie, but if you look at the show’s choices caroline’s character supplanted bonnie in some really insidious ways. stefan knows all this stuff about the bennetts, but it’s caroline he forms a friendship with that then later turns into romance. tyler’s a childhood friend of the gang and a werewolf with a strong connection to nature, but it’s caroline that gets involved in his plot and who he ends up falling in love with (i love forwood, i really do, but the point stands), klaus is introduced as a lover of witches who always keeps them around, but he barely interacts with bonnie and inexplicably falls for and obsesses over caroline despite her not actually being able to offer him anything he can’t compel or buy. on this latter point, klaus and bonnie are required by the plot to talk on the phone about the literal apocalypse, but it happens offscreen. meanwhile caroline and klaus talking about infant sleep patterns is an entire crossover event. bonnie is constantly risking her life to save her friends, but it’s caroline who’s praised for being “full of light” and “seeing the good in people” and who supposedly sacrifices too much. bonnie is CONSTANTLY overshadowed and neglected by her friends, but caroline’s “never the one”, so it’s really the latter we should feel bad for. and finally, at the end of TVD, bonnie-the-powerful-witch is shipped off to africa (literally) while caroline does what? opens a school for magical kids, something she’s never before expressed an interest in doing, much less possesses the knowledge to carry out.
the particular kind of stanning i’m referring to is actually very similar to some of the sansa stark stanning that put me off last season: rallying behind a conventionally beautiful and adored white woman with immense privilege and wanting her to Reach her Full Potential. i’ve legit seen people say that TVD would’ve been a better show if they’d allowed K*laroline to take center stage and given them more material because supposedly this allows the greatest amount of subversion and expression for caroline’s character - nevermind that that whole storyline was executed on the back of erasing and demeaning a black girl (bonnie) and dehumanizing a brown man (tyler). at the end of the day, people are gonna ship what they want, and i’m not gonna police them or bug them. but it’s intellectually dishonest, imo, to talk about elevating caroline forbes on TVD without addressing the very real ways bonnie bennett was shortchanged to allow caroline the spotlight. the two are linked in fundamental, insidious, unchangeable ways. tldr, when i hear people say things like “caroline should’ve gotten to rule by klaus’ side/ she’s a badass queen/ she’s Vampire Barbie/ she’s subversive/ she’s so caring/ she’s so powerful” all i can think is…it’s TVD, she was guaranteed to be all those things the moment she walked into that show as a blonde white main. so what are you really stanning?
caveat: i adore caroline - in my own way. i love her unflinching positivity, her control freakishness, her outgoing nature, her principles, and her dynamic with bonnie in the later seasons. caroline appears in my stories way more often than elena, and i relish writing her, but as the fun and complex character she was introduced as in her own right, not as the pastiche of bonnie traits and stories she later became on the show. idk if this was the answer you’re looking for? but basically there’s a certain vein of caroline stanning - and i can sense it a mile away - that’s very bourgeoise white feminism, and it saddens me, cuz the folks doing this stanning are most of the time talented and clever, but their priorities are just fundamentally different than mine. one more tldr: imagine if fandom collectively prioritized bonnie bennett and viewed the show through the lens of her positionality.
A post that is finally honest about the show’s purposeful obsession to make everything about Caroline. She was inserted in every scene even when her presence wasn’t needed to advance the plot. They neglected Stefan/Bonnie & Klaus/Bonnie relationships when they had so much more in common considering that it always related to Bonnie’s magic and ancestry. The same omega magic used to solve most of the villain problems. Worse part is the majority fandom never addresses any Bonnie centric issues. I really blame Plec & Dries for force feeding us so much unnecessary Caroline content. Reminds me of that cringe worthy interview where Dries said Candice King has the most chemistry with all her male cast mates that’s why she’s constantly given romantic relationships. Really? (Sigh) With that said, Steroline shouldn’t have happened at all. There was no chemistry what so ever between that pairing. And no amount of Caroline’s begging to make Stefan care and that pointless wedding in season 8 will convince me.
