grumkin_snark | (no subject)

An Ode to Forwood

Some brief background:

Until not too long ago, I was dead certain I would never watch this show. I hate the romanticizing of vampires in this day and age, and there is no word in any language to describe my loathing for Twilight (which remains as potent as ever, unlike that for The Vampire Diaries). I saw the previews for this show, rolled my eyes, and vowed to never see it.

But then I realized that you can’t argue against something if you don’t know what you’re talking about. For example, I’ve read the first three Twilight books and a synopsis of the fourth, which means I know the vapid, Mary Sue characters and I know the bad writing. I can cite things from it. In short, if I get into a debate with a Twihard, I will win. Because they can’t use the “You haven’t even read the books!” retort.

The same went with The Vampire Diaries. Admittedly I didn’t know anyone who was a fan of it, but in case I ran across something on the internet or someone who enjoyed it, I wanted to have rebuttals at the ready.

And for a while, I was vindicated. All of the first season I found dreadfully cliché and boring. Pretty heroine, check. Attractive male leads, check. Over-excited, airheaded friend, check. “Regular” friend who has supernatural powers, check. Delinquent-but-misunderstood brother, check. Douchebag football player, check. Pining ex-boyfriend who constantly looks like he’s spacing out, check. Actors who don’t at all resemble high schoolers, check. Cheesy dialogue, check.

It had everything.

Around midseason, I vaguely began to notice that a character or two seemed to have more under the surface, but didn’t really pay attention. By default—since apparently I’m unable to watch or read something and not ship someone—I was drawn to the pairing of Damon and Elena. You know, the dangerous brother who has good inside him, blah blah blah. The show didn’t spend much time developing any of the supporting characters, so it was really a fifty percent chance I’d ship her with Damon anyway.

But, despite the fact that I idly thought Elena should leave Stefan to his brooding ways, I still wasn’t invested in the show. I kept taking breaks because I couldn’t handle the banality.

Then season two aired. And suddenly, it’s like over that summer the writers decided to actually give the characters some depth. It’s also at that point that I realized I wasn’t as drawn to Elena and Damon. I still shipped them (if you’ve read any of my fics, you’ll know this), but they stayed more or less the same in terms of character development. It was the same love triangle, nothing really special about it.

Then, Caroline—who’s Caroline? I had to ask myself. Oh yeah, the cheerleader, okay, got it—got vamped, and I became absolutely intrigued by her. I don’t know whether it was the writing or whether Candice Accola finally had something to work with, but abruptly, Caroline was a character. She had voice. She had a presence.

As the episodes passed by, I continued to watch primarily for her. I watched as she changed from this insecure, neurotic, bitchy little twit to a strong, self-assured, caring woman. Who would’ve thought, eh? (Okay, maybe some of you liked her in season one, but I didn’t, so give me a break.)

Oh, she still had many of her old traits, but for the most part, she was almost this entirely new, fantastic person. Where before I hardly even noticed Caroline, let alone gave a damn about her, now she turned into my favorite character. She’s someone who’s constantly changing and evolving, who has so many layers and complexities it’s riveting. She’s as bubbly as ever, but there’s this strength inside of her that has nothing to do with her supernatural enhancements. Not to mention Accola absolutely sells it. The audience feels every bit of her anger, her pain, her love, her heartbreak, her joy, everything.

I wasn’t at all fond of the fact that she was with Matt, chiefly because I think their relationship was totally dysfunctional—have you ever noticed how many times Matt rejected her and put her down and didn’t acknowledge anything she did? It’s insane—and Matt’s as exciting as a piece of cardboard, but Caroline herself was (is) so dynamic I could sort of overlook it.

Enter Tyler.

Tyler Lockwood was the character second only to Vicki Donovan in terms of the I-don’t-care-who-is-this-person-why-are-they-here category. There was nothing special about him. He was the prototypical dickish sports player, whose only defining traits were womanizing and drinking. As far as I was concerned, the only reason he was there was to show how great Matt was and cause trouble of the human kind. I barely noticed him, and when I did, it was just to shake my head at how he had no redeeming factors.

Again, then season two came around. The first couple episodes he was virtually the same person, but when Tyler’s father died, when the werewolf storyline materialized, when Uncle Mason rolled into town, he changed too.

His alterations were significantly more obvious than Caroline’s, considering he switched from being a Grade A asshole to actually learning what the word “mature” means. Like Accola, Tyler’s Michael Trevino took the new aspects of the character and ran with it. Suddenly Tyler wasn’t just out for number one, suddenly he cared about people, suddenly he grew the hell up. He still makes mistakes (leaving Caroline? Seriously?), but he recognizes them. He apologizes for them. He atones for them. He puts others before himself. The most important thing in his life changed from booze to, of all people, Caroline.

Which brings me to the ship itself, to the evolution of what would become “Forwood.”

The Ship that Launched a Thousand Fics

It was only a few episodes into season two that I started to see something. More accurately, sense something. I realized the massive personality morphs that these two characters went through. I realized how similar they are. Both without a father, both with supernatural abilities, both forced to deal with things most people twice their age wouldn’t be able to handle, both suffering from things they didn’t really comprehend.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I started to ship them right off the bat, but I paid more attention to them, to their (albeit at the time limited) interactions with one another, and with others. They both resided on the fringe of the circle of main characters, having more personal baggage and complications than the rest, yet because they’re not of the Big Three, their screentime is less. We as an audience didn’t get as much time to figure them out. This ended up being a benefit, in a way, though: they separately and together turned into “show, not tell.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it’s a term used in literary analysis and execution, something that should be utilized whenever possible. Basically it’s where subtle actions and reactions, intangibles, “show” the progress of the storyline and of the characters. Instead of, for instance, a character repeatedly saying their thoughts or pointing out things that should be clear, you can see it in their expressions and in the way they behave. It’s profoundly more effective and more visceral, because in real life, you never hear people “telling” what’s going on with them. You never hear someone say “Wow, I feel really changed because of this-or-that and I notice this other person has changed too because of this-or-that isn’t that interesting? Look, here’s Chekhov’s gun—don’t forget it!”

This is where Tyler and Caroline’s relationship, whether platonic or romantic, differs from any other relationship on the show. These two characters matured on their own, through experiences they had to endure on their own (Caroline more so than Tyler). Their personalities made the biggest shifts on the show. Every other character has remained pretty much how they’ve always been; no one’s really expanded.

By the time “Rose” aired, I was full-on shipping them. Oddly, however, not so much in the romantic sense as in a friend sense. I was hoping down the line they would become more—yay I got my wish—but for the meanwhile, I was perfectly content with them being friends. It’s an odd and rare trope, to be sure, the concept of a male and female character not getting it on; not friends with benefits, just friends.

Caroline was there for Tyler when no one else was, she understood him. And in kind, he could relate to her where no one else could. He of course didn’t know exactly what it meant to be a vampire, still doesn’t, but he could relate. He had killed someone, just as she had, he had to deal with a part of himself that was so foreign and strange just as she had. An unlikely partnership, definitely, but a partnership nonetheless. Caroline is friends with Elena and Bonnie, and Tyler’s friends with Matt, but those just aren’t the same. Tyler and Caroline get each other.

It all came to a head in “By the Light of the Moon,” when Tyler had his first transformation. Up until then Caroline had been available to him, but not in much more capacity than being simply helpful. In this episode, though, she was so much more. She stayed with him through the worst of the night, flat out refused to leave him while he changed, even though one nip from him would kill her. She stayed because it was the right thing to do, because she cared for him.

When she had to leave, it was out of necessity, not desire. She sat outside the door crying, wishing she could be in there with him, wishing she could take away his pain. And she still stayed. Tyler didn’t in the least expect that she would, but the moment she heard him whisper her name, she was by his side in an instant.

However, he didn’t pull the I-can-handle-anything macho thing, because Tyler realized that in Caroline there was no judgment. It didn’t matter that he could kill her. All that mattered was that he was hurting, that he needed comfort and understanding. He lay naked in front of her—figuratively and literally—and cried, reached out for her because he knew she would be there for as long as he needed her. She would stay with him for days on end if she had to, just holding his hand and hugging him close, because she could see he needed her.

Which was a new thing for her, too. She’d never really had someone who needed her. She had always been taken for granted, no one tended to acknowledge all that she did, everything her efforts did. People found her annoying or intrusive, her mom was hardly ever around, she was always left to fend for herself. Then comes Tyler, who’s saddled with this massive burden, and she knows she can help. And rather than reject it, reject her, he latched onto that support like a lifeline.

She was quite literally his saving grace, the one person who understood, who saw him as Tyler, not as someone with some freaky abnormality. She’s a vampire and he’s a werewolf, but they found each other, were drawn towards each other like no one else. And where a past incarnation of Tyler would have seen Caroline as simply a piece of ass he could tap, now he saw her as just a friend, someone who could help him, wholly and truly, without expecting anything in return.

For the first time, both of them had someone they could put their faith and trust in, without fear of repulsion or abandonment (excepting when Tyler left temporarily, obviously). And neither would give that up for the world.

Of course, no couple is without complications, and because this is The Vampire Diaries, Tyler and Caroline were bound to be put through the ringer. Which is exactly what happened: by a convoluted series of events, Caroline got captured and tortured by werewolves, and while Tyler came to get her, he half-assed it; if the witch Jonas hadn’t been there to magically make all the werewolves aneurysm, Caroline (and probably Damon and Stefan as well) would have died.

Yeah. Kind of a point of contention there.

Caroline was logically hurt in more ways than one, but unfortunately Tyler took her justified but harsh words a little too literally, and took off. He didn’t come back until his mother fell down the stairs, and was almost immediately captured along with Caroline to be sacrificed for an ancient vampire’s ritual. Naturally.

As of now, however, that’s been the biggest thing they’ve had to overcome. Matt was in the picture for a long while, but he was always just an afterthought, a pesky reminder whenever Tyler and Caroline would get a bit too close, a tool to stall their relationship until the tension (again, both platonic and otherwise) snapped.

As much as I hate Matt, though, I have to admit it was good that he delayed them being fully together. It caused the both of them to do even more growth as individuals before even thinking of becoming a couple. In all the other relationships of Mystic Falls, it’s been the opposite. The characters have been defined by the relationship they inhabit. Not so with Tyler and Caroline. No, in theirs, they matured as people, intellectually, as friends, at the time with no other thought than to just be there for one another. Be there even in just the smallest of ways, to sit there and hold the other while they cried out their problems. No empty promises, just comfort.

When they finally got together romantically, then, it was not only such an organic development it felt like a fitting end (or, rather, a fitting new beginning), but was yet another facet of their deep connection. A prime example of this is in the episode “The End of the Affair,” when Caroline gets captured and tortured—poor girl never sees the end of that!—by her own father, simply for being a vampire.

Not only does Tyler not go in half-cocked by enlisting her mother’s help, but he’s there for her. He uses his werewolf strength to snap the shackles off of her wrists and ankles as if they’re nothing, but then pauses to ask her, silently, if he can pick her up. He winces when she does, he carries her as gently as possible, the love and concern in his eyes palpable. Love, though, that has nothing to do with sexual attraction, but instead true friendship. And, dare I say it, with that of a soulmate.

Later, when Caroline is safely at home, she beckons him into her bed as if it’s something they’ve done countless times before. Not to have sex or make out, but simply for him to hold her, like she had done to him through each of his transformations. With her mother, she held everything in, didn’t allow a single tear fall or her resolve break. But with Tyler, the moment she leans against his chest and he puts his arms around her, she lets it all out. He holds her close, saying nothing, just lets her cry. She’s not afraid to bare everything in front of him, because she knows he’ll be there for her no matter what. He’ll sit there with her as long as she needs, he’ll stay even after she falls asleep, he’ll be her rock while she sews herself back up.

She can show her true feelings and thoughts in front of Tyler, because they’re best friends first. She couldn’t do the same with Matt. With Matt, there was always that legitimate probability of him not being able to handle it. She couldn’t explain everything that happened without him cringing at the thought of vampires or him bitching her out because at least she still has a parent, or anything of the sort. He would tell her things that aren’t necessarily true (“It’ll be okay”), hug her but not really.

But Tyler, he knows. She doesn’t have to tell him about the torture or about her father or about why she was captured, because he already knows. She tells him anyway, because she has to say it, and it’s as if she’s writing in a diary: no matter what she reveals or how much of a mess she is when she does so, she won’t be judged.

You can argue that, for instance, Stefan and Elena are the same way, but I’d like to counter. Foremost, while Stefan was a human, that was well over a century ago. Emotions haven’t changed, but circumstances have, and despite posing as a high school student, Stefan can’t understand fully what Elena goes through. Likewise, Elena wouldn’t be able to understand Stefan’s thoughts or feelings completely. We’ve never seen the same kind of transcendent connection or scenes with the two of them like we have with Tyler and Caroline, because it just isn’t there.

Doubtless Stefan and Elena do love each other, but they don’t have that crucial element that Tyler and Caroline do: they weren’t friends first. They jumped into a romantic relationship. They would do anything for each other, yes, but there’s not that underlying layer, that underlying understanding.

Tyler and Caroline’s unique relationship is so solid and real because of what they went through to get where they are now. They bonded not over attraction to one another, but through shared pain. They bonded not over sexual desire for one another, but for the need to find someone who had experienced the same things. They bonded not over intrigue for one another, but because they knew the other would say or do exactly the right things.

Once again, because I haven’t reiterated this enough, their love has progressed to that of a romantic nature, but it began as love of a platonic persuasion. And because they began as friends, as best friends, as I’ll-be-there-for-you-always, their connection is that much more intrinsic. It’s why I have hopes—nay, why I know—they’ll last. I’m sure the writers will find more roadblocks for them, more angst and torment to inflict upon them, but they’re not a couple that will wash away or fade out. There’s just too much there. They’ve gone through too much to not survive anything thrown at them.

The Tyler and Caroline in season one are unrecognizable from the Tyler and Caroline in season two and beyond. In all the best ways possible. They’ve matured and blossomed as complex characters in their own right, and naturally gravitated towards one another through shared experiences and shared blights. We’ve not been bashed over the head with being told their love is for real, we’ve been shown it is. We’ve been shown how much they mean to each other, at their very cores and beyond.

And that, my dear readers, is why I ship Tyler Lockwood and Caroline Forbes.