The rage, the snap of
anger and burning pain and tough-guy attitude, people understand. They can
comprehend the chaos, can relate to it. People understand what has become known
as the “Chaotic Good,” or even the “Chaotic Evil,” because they can wrap their
minds around the assorted emotions that come with each side. Every villain has
a backstory, every “big bad” has a purpose—even if it’s not as evident to begin
with.
What audiences have a
hard time understanding is the borderline-perfect character that still somehow
has evident flaws; the one that holds true to their purpose, to their morals,
without much visible emotion. A sort of neutral, lawful good.
And I get that—it’s
hard to empathize with a seemingly emotionless character. It’s difficult to
look at the borderline perfection of someone like Stefan Salvatore (from the
CW’s hit TV series The Vampire Diaries)
and cheer him on, especially when he’s standing against his love-wrecked,
angry, and obviously faulted brother,
Damon Salvatore—a fix him upper’s dream.
What people seem to
miss, though, is the heart of Stefan’s character and his necessity for order
and morality. Granted, without his raving addiction to human blood, it appears
that the writers have “successfully cured him of anything interesting about his
personality” (Damon, Season 1, Episode 21), but that’s the interesting part.
Stefan, unlike most other characters, has two strictly unrelated sides to his portrayal—the good, moral, “uninteresting”
Stefan and the blood-addicted, ripper-esque, terrifying Stefan. He’s probably
the closest representation of a true addict in the entire series.
Viewers seem to cast
this aside, however, as if his being a vampire makes his addiction any less
valid. Yes, he’s a vampire. Yes, he’s addicted to human blood. Yes, it’s a
fairly clichéd characteristic all things considered. But look at the other
vampires that the show provides—Damon (who’s got more problems than LOST’s heroin-addict Charlie), Caroline
Fell (with her personality issues heightened to the point of insanity),
Katherine Pierce (a manipulative, maniacal seductress with more of a sense for
self-preservation than for affection). Are any of them as helpless to resist
their life source as Stefan? No.
And it’s this
addiction, this helplessness, that makes Stefan Salvatore what he is: weak. He puts on a good show, pretends
that he’s strong enough to resist his temptations, and does everything in his
power to do so, but the fact of the matter is that he’s not what he says he is.
He proves this over and over again by taking what is undoubtedly one of the worst routes for an addict to take. He shuns human blood, completely cuts himself
off, and denies himself even the smallest taste for decades. It just takes a
drop to send him reeling again.
There’s more to
characters than their surface personality, and while the “chaotic” or “bad”
ones make audiences want to learn their story, it’s the “lawful,”
“boring,” and “moral” ones that seem to need it more. If the writers have done
their jobs properly, then no protagonist is simply moral or a “hard ass”
without a reason, no antagonist is “bad” without cause.
Next time, look for it.
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