Should Bonnie take her ball and go home?

[Slash]

Elena is one of Bonnie's best friends, right? We can all agree on that. But ever since all...'this' started, with the Salvatores, Bonnie discovering her Witch heritage and just in general all the supernatural stuff getting out of hand, her life has gone to hell. Look at her current situation: she's cut off from the Spirits/her ancestors because she tried to help Elena, she's lost her Grams, her mother is a Vampire and is in the wind and she's hanging out with a creepy professor.

She's been wronged on multiple occasions but she still throws herself in the fire for these people and always comes up short/more damaged when it's all over. At what point does she say, "Ok, I'm your friend Elena and I'm there for social calls and hanging out (shopping, sleep overs, giving you a ride someplace, dinner/lunch, whatevs) but when it comes to the Salvatores and the supernatural stuff, I'm out. You need another Daylight Ring or something like that, I'll budge for it but get another Witch to do the heavy lifting from now on. I'll be keeping my Witch powers otherwise to myself cause I get burned every time I try to go all in for you or when someone comes telling me you're in trouble. I love you, but damn, I got to start looking out for myself at some point. I think that's also a sign for you to ease off the gas cause a lot of the crap we've been through this past year+ is because of you. Just saying sister..."

I'm not the biggest Bonnie fan but the girl needs to draw a line with these 'friends' cause they're using her and she's just taking the beating. Professor Shane is now using her for another means and Damon is in on the fact that she's needed for a spell and is just going to let the Professor play through cause it's possibly for Elena's sake with the cure.

[Deleted]

I get what you're saying in regards to Bonnie needing a break but what I don't agree with is blaming all of this on Elena. It's not Elena's fault if someone chooses to go all out to save her, in fact Elena's stated many times that she doesn't want anyone to put their selves on the line for her. Not once has Elena gone up to Bonnie and forced her to do a spell.

In 4x01 Elena didn't even have any idea at all what Bonnie was doing. Her immediate words when she tuned wasn't, "Oh my god get Bonnie to fix this now!"

Also another thing to point out is that Bonnie is very stubborn when it comes to protecting the ones she loves. Really how many times does Jeremy have to tell her to slow down or her Grams gives her warnings, or she herself knows of the dangers but still does it regardless?

Even when Stefan wanted Bonnie to do a spell, as soon as he learned of the dangers of performing that spell from Jeremy, Stefan wanted to immediately stop her from performing the spell but Bonnie is headstrong and did it anyways, channeling power from Luka to use it. Damon has also gone out of his way to help Bonnie when she's so adamant about doing something for Elena.

The gang has never forced Bonnie to do something that she herself wasn't already planning on doing in the first place in regards to Elena. Bonnie is Elena's friend and thinks of her as a sister. She'll do anything to help her which Elena hates that people keep sacrificing themselves for her. It's really frustrating when the fandom pins all of this on Elena when everyone is their own person, with their own freewill.

[Slash]

Then in that case, the gang needs to intervene on Bonnie's behalf. Would probably amount to nothing as she'd do it anyways but they seriously need to tell her "Hey, don't worry about it. We'll try something else." I think the gang probably does need another Witch in the mix just so Bonnie can take herself out of the position from time to time and alternate with someone (Cousin Lucy). She's in limbo right now with her powers because the Spirits wouldn't help her so she turned to black magic (granted the final straw was Klaus after she had already put herself in the dog house after trying to help Elena).

She just needs to start choosing these times she's going to magically get involved more carefully. The Esther thing was a mess and so has this black magic trip. The current thing with Professor Shane is understandable cause it's way for her to get her power back without the limitation of the Spirits but she should probably be a bit more on guard with the Professor going to such lengths to help her.

As for Elena hating what people put themselves through for her, she probably needs to put her foot down more on that subject but now being a Vampire, she can probably have some peace of mind with the fact that she can defend herself and hopefully those that think of themselves as protectors, mainly the 'mortal' ones, should also pick up on that and kick back for a change. Worse case, Elena asserts to these people that she doesn't need them all the time protecting her now.

Maybe I'm blind. What I took for her being used is her pushing to do this stuff for Elena or just saying "To hell with it" and doing what's asked of her anyways by the group of friends.

[Deleted]

The only things I see as Bonnie being forced to do something were those moments of "Do this spell now Bonnie or Jeremy/Tyler/Jamie/etc. dies!" and most of those times have been from Klaus himself. Other than that it's Bonnie's own free will, doing something for someone she cares about.

There are times when they don't depend on Bonnie, in 4x05 Damon made an offhand comment about getting Bonnie but she never did show up and he didn't bother with it. Things went on regardless of Bonnie having her magic there. In fact most of this season Bonnie has been MIA where magic is concerned and they still manage to help/save Elena/Jeremy/Matt etc. without needing magic.

I don't get what you mean about the gang intervening as that's basically Jeremy for every spell she does. Bonnie has always been headstrong, she can put her foot down anytime she wants but she doesn't. And she does spell after spell like it's nothing when it really does a toll on her. But she tells no one of this but Jeremy. She even told him that she didn't want certain people to know about that weakness. The gang can't read her mind. Just like I said with Stefan and her trying to get the tomb open, he didn't know that it was a huge spell that she couldn't handle and when he found out he tried to get her to stop but she still did it anyways.

Unless you want Stefan and co. to grab Bonnie in a choke hold and tie her to a chair, I don't know what other intervening they can do aside from warning her constantly about how dangerous, or how she doesn't have much power for the spell, which she does anyways regardless.

If Bonnie came out and said, "Sorry guys I can't do this," then they'll find some other way.

It's not like it'd be a big deal. Damon is the king of finding alternate ways so I don't think that's going to be much of a problem.

[Slash]

Intervening to the extent of not even getting her involved if they can help it. It's nothing new of them not telling someone something. Yeah, as friends, she should be informed of certain things but for the most part, if they think she's going to stress herself in trying to help them, they should just tell her after it's done if it can be helped. The gang isn't on good terms with any other Witches unless Klaus brought in his own that he touts he still has so she's really the only one in that position and probably knows it which is why she always pushes to do magic when she deems it necessary.

The whole toll thing and her power has always been a point I've been annoyed with. She's had somewhat limited guidance with Grams dying and any other potential teachers dying off (Jona and Luka, Abby ran and doesn't have the use of magic anymore, Esther was more concerned with other things) yet she's able to nail all these spells for the most part on the first attempt and has the power to do so to boot. "Bennett" Witch and all but come on. I'd like to see the 'toll' be a storyline for her or an angle she works later. They ask her to do something and she just feels drained and says she can't do it. A period where she still has her magic but she can't do any of the 'heavy lifting' that's needed and it keeps her in the loop but not exactly depowered but also shows that this stuff does impact her to a degree.

And Jeremy should have probably told the gang that the stuff is taking a toll on her earlier on. Weaknesses or not, these are her friends. None of them are going to use it against you and if you truly need some down time, they'll understand and still be thankful.

[Doppelgänger]

"The witch who loses her powers gets left out of the loop." - Damon.

Bonnie knows her only usefulness to the group is her witch powers. She also knows that sometimes she is the only answer to save her friends. I don't think that Bonnie will ever quit doing what she does even if they told her not to. They've tried that before and she still will go ahead and do stuff, maybe even behind their backs if they don't agree. She's willing to die for her friend as she pointed out back in the episode with the 60's dance.

[Slash]

She can't be put into a role similar to Matt if she loses her powers or takes some vacation time off from the Witch thing?

I actually had an entirely different expectation on the landscape of this season for Bonnie after her S3 ending but that's shot. I really expected her to ignore the Spirits entirely and do what was best for her friends, regardless of what those Spirits thought and although we kind of got that (her tapping black magic after they told her they weren't going to help), it was in one episode and she's been semi-powerless since. Maybe it's all the rules that are enforced on her that makes me kind of 'eh' to it all and I was really looking forward to her taking more/complete control of her powers. Professor Shane is still an avenue to that I assume with him teaching her about this new source.