Mood: Depraved Indifference
Music: Sort Of by Silversun Pickups
Chapter six catches us three weeks after Elena and her friends ran like a pack of, well, scared teenagers out of the cemetery. The homeless man that was attacked woke up and started ranting about “eyes in the dark.” Of course, everyone thinks he’s insane. Not one level-headed person suggests he was attacked by some nocturnal animal with light bouncing off the tapetum at the back of it’s retina.
Tapetum. Go ahead and google it. I’ll wait.
Not that rationale enters into the equation at all as he is more or less senseless. Remind me, when I get ravaged (again in all the wrong ways) by a vampire not to cry out some oblique clue. But then again, I’m not poetic enough for obscure comments in the moment. I’d be shouting, “Fucker bit me!” History will not recall me as the coquettish ingénue I so wish I really were.
Elena has come up with a plan to ensnare Stefan that is so brilliant and original that it is almost guaranteed to work… in middle school. Plan-B, as she refers to her new avenue of romantic attack, is to salvage her image and make Stefan jealous? I’m not really clear on this last point. She makes up a fake older boyfriend “Jean Claude”. Of course, she met him in France over her summer break. Oh Elena. You are so relatable. Because everyone I knew spent their 17th summer on the French Riviera. Anyway, Jean Claude sends Elena flowers and love letters. And all the school seems to have forgotten the snubbing that Elena experienced from Stefan.
Frankly, when I was in high school, I didn’t know or care about the social maneuverings of the popular crowd, So it’s almost a sure bet that nobody beyond the people lingering in 7th period History when it happened even know anything about it.
I’m also not sure how or if this is supposed to make Stefan jealous. Maybe I’ve watched Clueless too many times and am reading too far into Elena’s actions. Because development of jealousy is dependent on the presence of desire. And Stefan’s action, to the outside world, indicate a total lack of desire. In fact, he hasn’t said a word to Elena since that day.
Internally, Elena is obsessing about Stefan to the detriment of most other lucid thoughts. We see the beginnings of a very healthy attraction here that I hope teenage girls will adopt for themselves en masse. It’s the kind of attraction that breeds Erotomania and immolation of small hand crafted poppets and keepsakes. Keepsakes like the rag he wipes his sweat on during athletic practice or the loose hair in his comb. Personally, I like my teenage girls on the obsessed feral side.
Elena has noticed that her rival Caroline seems to have dropped off the radar and, frankly, doesn’t care. Oh, Elena. What kind of queen bee are you not to know that this is trouble. Rivals don’t declare themselves just to give up. And everyone seems to be staying away from Stefan. This may or may not have to do with Elena’s little group starting a rumor that he is a narc. Classy. But our heroine in focusing her obsession away from herself has actually managed to acquire the extraordinary (or in normal people: ordinary) ability to notice other people’s actions that don’t relate to her. She sees that Stefan’s otherness and isolation from the crowd is of his own making.
The only person Stefan even seems friendly with is Elena’s Ex, Matt. I like the Yaoi turn this implies but it will fail deliver. When Elena asks Matt about Stefan we are again treated with a painful display of how good Matt is and how much Elena doesn’t deserve him, even as a friend. Matt is insightful about Stefan’s isolation as an outward projection of his internal loneliness. And when Elena uses this clue as the lynchpin of her new plan Matt FINALLY calls her out on her manipulative ways. Unfortunately, the instant that Elena looks hurt and gets all watery eyed, Matt crumbles and acquiesces to do anything she wants. All she wants is for Matt to make sure Stefan attends homecoming. Classy, Elena. Ask the guy who still loves you to help you land the guy he is certain you dumped him for.
When Elena and her friends are dressing for the Homecoming dance we learn that dark-horse Elena is the Homecoming Queen and her friends are her court. I have to say this shocked me almost as much as the next paragraph lauding Elena’s beauty and perfection. Which is to say the only thing that really surprised me was how little blood there actually is when you try to scratch out your own eyes.
At Homecoming everyone crowds around beautiful Elena as though she is actual royalty. The extreme sycophantic nature of nearly everyone at the high school in respect to Elena is disturbing.
Our queen gathers herself in all her cool perfection and singles out Stefan to ask him to dance. Sure that in this instance he can’t refuse. And just as it seems she may actually have maneuvered successful, BAM! Caroline, the rival, slides her arm through Stefan’s and makes it clear who Stefan is there with and why she has been MIA recently. She has been laying the groundwork for this humiliation. Bravo, Caroline. *golf clap*
Elena then delights us by showing the emotional maturity of a gnat and doing all the stupid things we would never do. She alienates her friends, flirts with every boy at the dance, and encourages the attentions of all the wrong people. So that when she leaves Homecoming with drunken delinquent Tyler and another couple to go to the hottest make-out spot in town, the cemetery, none of Elena’s friends know where she went. So when trusty Matt comes to Bonnie and Meredith with the news that Elena left the dance with Tyler I could have high-fived Bonnie for her “So what?” attitude. But eventually the Scoobies set out looking for her Majesty, unsure of where she went.
At the cemetery we are treated to some tomb desecration, creepy hallucinations and attempted date rape. If I had known Homecoming could end this way I would have gone at least once. And while Elena is getting her pretty dress torn by an inept lothario, Stefan is making his way to the cemetery, drawn on by his preternatural ability to sense Elena’s growing fear. But on his way to rescue the damsel in distress, Stefan gets the vapors. Vampires are so delicate. And yet he still manages to beat Tyler senseless while offering a monologue on the virtues of being a gentleman. He nearly kills the would be rapist by shaking him like a baby until Elena screams for him to stop. Beaten, and potentially hemorrhaging, Tyler is left lying limply at his grandfather’s headstone and Stefan escorts Elena out of the cemetery.
Stefan and Elena go back to his boarding house and while Elena is cleaning up in the restroom she exits her state of shock and slides into righteous indignation. She precedes to try to push every button she can to irritate him in what we hope will be the catalyst for him to decide that rescuing her again will not be worth it.
At some point I am assuming that I will develop some kind of empathy for Elena. I mean the girl was publicly embarrassed and nearly raped. But when all her actions are accounted for, the scales heavily tip in favor of me slapping her around for a good half an hour. And so, when Elena demands less obvious answers to the question of “why do you hate me?” from Stefan, we basically get this: “you look like a dead chick I know. get away from me. let’s make out.” Sure, there was bit more exposition, but not much. And then we fade to black on the approach of a first kiss.
As Elena’s friends and assumed-eunuch ex-boyfriend look for her, they find the girl who was with Elena in the cemetery. Vickie is an apparent victim of some evil eyes-in-the-dark attack. They call off their search for Elena to take Vickie to a doctor and call the police. Which is all and good because the only danger Elena is now in involves forgetting to come up for air.
I like to call what the author describes next as a Lovegasm. All doubts are erased. Two hearts meet. Tenderness and intensity combine and all walls fall away. There is complete acceptance and in the distance there is a full on Double Rainbow. Plus, they make out.
The Lovegasm is not an uncommon writing device. It makes us feel like these characters were meant for each other. It also helps us to destroy our own romantic prospects by building false expectations that no one can meet. Except me. I am that awesome. Call me.
Stefan takes Elena home, like gentleman, and they encounter a gaggle of concerned friends, family and police officers. And when the Scoobies recount what Vickie told them about her attack, Stefan reacts by going all sulky and trying to internally revoke the Lovegasm. The Queen is not amused and refuses to let him distance himself from her.
At the start of chapter nine Stefan is driving “home” and comparing Elena to Katherine. Somehow Elena comes across favorably. No accounting for taste.
All this reverie causes Stefan to flashback while he is driving. I highly caution against having flashbacks while driving unless you are a vampire. I hear it’s nearly as dangerous as texting while driving. In his flashback Stefan recalls being deeply infatuated with Katherine and being proud of his secret knowledge about what she is. And since Stefan is dumb, and written by a woman, when he learns that Damon also knows Katherine is a vampire he is not hurt by Katherine’s actions, rather he is enraged at his brother. Like how women will fight for a man who has played them both.
Back in the real world, Stefan worries that he is blackout drinking. Not really a good thing to start in high school. He didn’t think he drank enough from the homeless guy to have done him any real harm, And he is afraid that when he got weak and disoriented in the cemetery on his way to rescue Elena that he may have been the one to attack Vickie. What is a self-hating vampire to do?
The following morning Elena is on cloud nine. She makes up with her friends and her perfect life is perfectly perfect in all it’s perfection. She then enlists the companionship of her friends to go calling on the Attack victim from the previous night. And when Elena questions the practically catatonic girl she reacts much like we all do at Elena’s intrusion into our lives. Vickie thrashes violently, screams “NO!” and calls Elena evil. All perfectly natural. Unphased, Elena then decides to drag her friends on a twenty minute walk to the boarding house where Stefan lives and then insists that they wait outside. Lovegasm.
Back at school Stefan can’t seem to decide if he wants to love Elena or protect her from his love. It would be very noble if it weren’t done to death. His distance would give Elena insecurities if she weren’t so perfect. And as such, she is blissful in her love. And I am nauseated. Thankfully a dark dangerous stranger shows up and makes it known to Elena that his intents are focused on her. And despite his considerable charm and preternatural charisma Elena is able to resist him and runs away. Chapter ten ends with Elena fleeing in the darkness.
It’s too much to ask that she stumbles and breaks her neck.
Come back for the thrilling conclusion to the Vampire Diaries – The Awakening. I have to.