While “Roswell” and “Smallville” fit neatly into the
genre of Science Fiction, that category has always seemed too limiting for
Vincent and Catherine. Our story is a
romance with supernatural and/or fantasy elements. In more recent years, the Vampire Romance as
been wildly popular. When examined more
closely, this “new” kind of paranormal romance is really just a slightly darker
twist on the Beauty & the Beast
theme. The vampires at least started out
as humans. But, what could be more
Beastly than a boyfriend who must drink blood to survive? There is always the threat that he might lose
control over himself and drink his love’s blood as well - much the same way
Vincent feared losing control and hurting Catherine. The Beauty & the Beast elements we love are almost always present
in these stories – it’s simply an adjustment in the symbolism.
In The Vampire
Diaries, there are many Beauty &
the Beast nuances. Stefan comes into
Elena’s life at a very difficult time, when she is grieving the death of her
parents. For Elena, this is the
life-altering event that parallels Catherine’s attack. It is later revealed that Stefan actually
witnessed the crash that killed her parents.
He pulled over and rescued Elena from the car that was quickly becoming
submerged in a lake and then vanished back to his solitary life. She had no memory of the event and he had no
intention of ever seeing her again. But
he then returns to Mystic Falls, in the same way Vincent returned to
Catherine’s balcony eight months later, because, as he puts it, he “had to know
her.”
As the title of this show would suggest, Elena keeps
a diary. At one point she misplaced it
and Stefan found it and returned it to her.
He assured her that he didn’t read it.
When she asked why he didn’t take advantage of the obvious opportunity
he responded, “I wouldn’t want anyone reading mine.” The sensitive Stefan, like Vincent, also
keeps a journal.
Towards the end of the first season, the show even
managed to produce a very good recreation of The Trilogy. Stefan does not normally drink human blood
because he is against killing humans.
However, this makes him weaker than most vampires. At one point, he was forced to drink a lot of
human blood and it had the effect of bringing on an illness or “madness” very
similar to what Vincent went through.
Stefan was slowing losing control of his more Beastly urges and we saw a
side of him that, up until now, we would not have believed existed. Not wanting to alarm Elena, he pretended for
a time that all was well – but it was clear that he was coming unraveled. When she confronts him about it, he snaps at
her and tries to drive her away with a Beastly growl. Then, in the next instant, he realizes how he
has frightened her and collapses in her arms sobbing and apologizing
profusely. Through it all, Elena stands
firm in her love for him and belief that he won’t hurt her.
It is interesting to also consider the Beauties in
these stories. Elena and Lana begin their
respective series being the most popular girl in school. They were most certainly the high school equivalent
of Catherine’s Upper East Side socialite persona. Lana and Elena were even both cheerleaders. Lana
was dating the star of the football team. But they both make changes – such as quitting
the cheerleading squad - after meeting Clark and Stefan. They see the shallowness of their activities
for the first time and decide they want to devote themselves to more meaningful
things. Lana became restless with her quarterback
boyfriend and he was written out of the show in the first season. But my feeling was that she would have stopped
dating him eventually, for the same basic reasons Catherine ended things with Tom.
The female leads in these shows, Liz, Lana and Elena,
play the role of the Beauty well by being unbelievably dedicated and
understanding, as Catherine was, and loving him in spite of his differences –
whatever they might be. The Beauty’s job
is to love the Beast in spite of the fact that he might not love or accept
himself. In a larger sense, it is what
holds us back from love that makes us “Beastly,” that could be many things. Likewise, it’s what gently brings us toward
love that makes us “Beauty-full.”
Liz and Lana were more Catherine-like in that they held
back and didn’t always say in so many words what they were surely thinking in
some of the more obvious displays of Beastliness. Elena, on the other hand, is
a bit more outspoken. She puts herself
in danger quite often and when questioned about it has declared, “If anyone is
going to die in this [situation] it’s going to be me.” It was very hard not to
think of Catherine at that moment and how she is often put down for being
“careless” when I believe this was always much closer to her true motivation. That’s just how Beauties are – unselfish to a
fault. They would much rather put
themselves in danger than have the people they love hurt because of them. Didn’t the original Beauty of the fairytale volunteer to take her father’s place
without giving any thought to herself or the danger that might be involved?
Another interesting parallel between our show and
these others is the question of how to deal with The Secret. It was very
clearly understood, and never challenged, that Catherine could not tell anyone
about Vincent and the Tunnels. Poor
Catherine was very much alone with The Secret.
Liz tried to keep the secret with all good
intentions, but her best friend, Maria, soon knew that something was wrong and
coaxed it out of her, as any best friend would.
Maria was a bubbly Jenny-like personality that contrasted sharply with Liz’s
more elegant Catherine personality.
Maria wound up being drawn into the alien drama and even dated the other
alien, Michael.
Once again, Elena was a bit bolder on this issue as
well. She made a conscious decision to
tell her best friend in the first couple of episodes! Then she went straight to Stefan and told him
that she had shared his secret with Bonnie.
In response to his look of surprise she said, “I can’t do this
alone.” To which he relented, “You
shouldn’t have to.” It’s difficult to
not feel Catherine’s influence on these two.
(continued...)
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