New to this boards
Hello Everyone. I'm sorry if this has been repeated again and again. But I have several issues with Caroline at the moment.
1. She's being a horrible friend to Elena at the moment. Horrible.
There's really no other way to look at this IMO. Stelena/Delena politics aside she's supposed to be Elena's friend FIRST, and she seems to be more interested in helping Stefan than Elena. She seems more interested in protecting Stefan than Elena. I say this because that's the way the show presents it to me. Caroline has every reason to dislike Damon, but as a friend Elena asked her not to tell Stefan about her and Damon and that she would do it when she felt it was right. It was not Caroline's place to tell Stefan about Damon and Elena, as neither one of them intended to keep it a secret from Stefan in the first place. Elena wanted to tell Stefan right away, but Damon struggled with this because he really was in no rush to hurt his brother. But then the whole sire-bond stuff happened, and as we saw Damon was going to invoke the sire-bond right away, but Elena had already known about it and stopped him. He didn't do it like he promised Stefan, but I mean its not easy to just let go of love (Stefan should know that, given how he claimed he should've walked away from Elena but he never could.) But as we saw Damon struggled with this the entire day, from the moment they woke up all he could think about was how "wrong" it was, how he promise Stefan he'd do the "right" thing (whose to say that's even the right thing, but that's another debate). Ultimately he did what he thought was "right."
My problem with Caroline is her meddling in people's business under the false pretense of "concern" for Elena when she really doesn't care. If Caroline was so concerned about Elena and truly believed Elena was in some kind of danger with Damon, she would have taken off to the lake-house the moment she realized Elena and Damon were together. At the very least she would have asked Bonnie to be on the look out and make sure nothing happened. She did none of that. Once she got her piece of gossip (because really this is what all of this is to her) that Damon and Elena were together, she took it all in and saw the opportunity to stir the pot when Stefan rambled on and on about family and trust, and decided at that moment it was time to tell him. The implication being that Damon was not family that Stefan could trust. That kind of meddling is going to have severe consequences for Stefan and Damon's relationship, a relationship that's already fragile. And I hope very serious consequences for Caroline and Elena's. Basically Caroline's meddling, and her inability to keep her mouth shut has the potential to ruin relationships. Had she not said anything, Damon ultimately would have done the right thing anyway, and it would have saved a lot drama, but of course she didn't.
Not to mention, that I got the impression that after dropping that bomb on Stefan, she didn't even bother to clarify. I was under the impression that Stefan thought Damon and Elena were sleeping together despite the sire-bond and thus he was taking advantage of her, and Caroline made no effort to clear that up. Of course she couldn't know and that's precisely why she should have never opened her mouth.
2. Caroline is a raging hypocrite and down right ridiculous at times.
"Say what you want about ripper!Stefan but at least he's not a man-s***."
?? Really? In what universe is being a "man-s***" so to speak worse than being a mass murderer? Caroline's words not mine, and not that I'm implying that Damon hasn't also killed a bunch of people, but geesh that was just plain stupid right there. Like I said, Caroline has every right not to like Damon, he did abuse her in S1. But see that's precisely the issue right there. This isn't about Caroline at all, her feelings toward Damon while maybe justified are completely irrelevant I'm sorry! No one is asking her to be in a relationship with Damon, and it's presumptuous of her to assume that because he took advantage of her that he'd do the same to Elena. Especially since it's common knowledge in Mystic Falls that Damon is absolutely in love with Elena. But that's not even where her hypocricy irritates me. Stefan was less than great to Elena last season, one might even say that he was horrible to her even when he didn't have the "ripper" to blame it on. He used her and her family as a pawn in his pissing match with Klaus and it was all forgiven relatively easily (much too easily if you ask me but I digress). If this was actually about how "awful" Damon is, and Caroline is just looking out for Elena, why the hell would Caroline be pushing Elena towards Stefan who more recently did awful things to her? Does she have sudden amnesia where Stefan is concerned that all of the bad things he did suddenly cease to exist? See I could respect Caroline being against Damon and Elena being together, if all her reasoning weren't complete crap and hypocritical. But I suppose that's on purpose, the writers can't possibly be that tone deaf when it comes to the story they're telling.
3. This sudden idealization of Stefan annoys the crap outta me.
Listen I like Stefan as a character, I think he's very complex and I'm intrigued by the darker aspects of his character. That being said Caroline's idealization of Stefan is the worst IMO. And it is idealization, she refuses to acknowledge anything other than how awesome he is. It's actually turned me off to the possibility of the Steroline pairing which I loved so much in S2. In S2 I felt they were both
genuine with each other and she brought a certain levity to his character that was much needed. But now I feel like the writers have ruined that with Caroline so blindly and hypocritically stanning Stefan for apparently no reason at all (I don't actually get Caroline's motivation here). Stefan and Caroline haven't had proper scenes since S2, and have been mostly uninvolved in each other's affairs for a very long time, and now all of a sudden she's his biggest cheerleader. Betrays her boyfriend and one of her best friends for him, it's absurd that she has this loyalty towards Stefan all of a sudden for seemingly no reason at all, when it was never there before. It seems like the writers needed someone for Stefan to interact with, someone to have in his corner, and Caroline was the only character that fit the bill because she's the only other character that Stefan has some sort of relationship with, but didn't take into account that Caroline and Stefan's relationship was never this. This was a relationship that they started to develop in S2 and more or less dropped, and now are trying to frame it as this epic friendship where he's her first priority and it fails. And I think this is why so many people have a problem with it, it's not believable IMO.
I also have an issue with how Caroline just like Lexi feeds into Stefan's belief that he's better than Damon. Stefan, for reasons I can't explain, seems to think that despite all he's done and all those he's hurt, he's always been better and more deserving than his brother. (How he manages to think this is beyond me) but I know this is a notion that a lot of people in his life have echoed and perhaps that's part of the reason why he believes it. And Caroline is one more person who reaffirms this very false idea, that Stefan is deserving while Damon is not, despite the fact that they both have done terrible things, despite that Damon has grown so much from the person we met in S1. Caroline has her reasons for not liking Damon which are completely valid and justifiable, however her dislike of Damon is detrimental to Stefan's ability to understand his brother especially since she lets it bleed into their affairs and other things that are not any of her business. Stefan already struggles with that on his own, he's incapable of giving Damon any credit for growing or changing and whatever else. He already expects the worst of Damon, sees himself as more deserving etc. And the last thing he needs is Caroline reinforcing/reaffirming these ideas, because they are not only false, but bad for their relationship.
Sorry this is so long. I have a lot of feelings when it comes to Caroline this season. I'm hoping they're setting her up for a huge fall and big realization at the end of the season. I don't hate her by any means, but as much as she's been wrong this season, I actually prefer this kind of writing for her as opposed to S3. I just hope that there's a comeuppance somewhere down the line though.