Two posts in a day? That's not like me
Mar. 21st, 2012 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthOkay, so I finally finished the first Vampire Diaries book (of maybe the first half of the first one, I checked The Awakening and The Struggle out separately but I don’t know if they were published together. It’s an easy read, but it takes a while when you have to stop and laugh hysterically at every other thing that happens.
Okay, let’s get this out of the way: This is a dumb book, the characters as dumb, the plot is dumb, it is just dumb. How this book became the show is an astounding feat on the part of the creators and writing staff, because they essentially took something flat and unappealing and breathed LIFE into it. Sure the show has problems, I may say things like “stupid dumb show” but it’s usually when it’s breaking my heart in spite of every fiber of my being telling me not to get invested; but the book? The book is borderline so bad it’s good even before you add in the comparisons to the show.
Things that made me laugh
-Any scene with Katherine, or where she’s mentioned, because no one can resist calling her weak and helpless and fragile. Katherine, people. I just want to see show Kat walk in and wipe the floor with her book counterpart.
-The fact that Klaus got mentioned like twice and I cared more about that than pretty much anything else. If Klaus exists, do the rest of the Originals? Am I going to get to/have to laugh at them too?
-The crow, except it actually makes sense here.
-A bum is attacked in Fell’s Church (the town isn’t Mystic Falls for...reasons I’m sure) and EVERYONE CARES. Maybe that’s way it’s not MF, people in MF either don’t notice or don’t care about all the people that keep dying/going missing/being attacked/appear to have fallen on BBQ forks.
-Stefan’s emo, he’s like Edward times Angel.
-Vickie Bennett is a character, she is not related to Matt or Bonnie. Also includes the fact that just about EVERYONE has different last names in the book except Elena and the Salvatores. Some even have different first names like Jenna/Judith. Some of the changes are amusing in their own right too (I never don’t laugh at Tyler Smallwood).
-Gee, I wonder if book Tyler is also a werewolf? It’s so subtle, everyone calling him an animal and dressing like a werewolf for Halloween. Not it was subtly foreshadowed on the show either mind you, I have to allow that.
-How obvious the teenage fantasy this is. Every guy is attracted to Elena and all the girls either want to be her friend or are jealous of her (or both), she has rich white girl problems like her teachers don’t all fawn over her and some actually make her do homework (speaking as a middle class white girl myself I shouldn’t complain since I had no real problems in high school either). Basically it’s Twilight but allowing our protagonist a LITTLE more agency in her life.
-So if Katherine did fake her death that’s a bitch move ALMOST worthy of Katherine, going so far as to leave a suicide note and even her daywalker ring behind (I assume she had a new one made if she was going to pull it off). It looks a whole lot weaker than the way she initially supposedly went out in the show, but if she was faking it doesn’t matter so much. If she actually is dead then...dear, your show counterpart would like a word with you involving owning your badass psychotic bitch self.
Things about the show that suddenly make a lot more sense
(In the sense that “Oh, I get why that was in the first few episodes but makes no sense looking back on it”)
-Caroline’s early personality. In the book they start off as frienemies and even that relationship goes to hell, largely over Stefan. On the show they didn’t seem that close early on because they were using a few lingering elements from this relationship. But clearly quickly they decided they wanted the three girls to actually be friends. So they just kind of ignored the early less close friendship they had and built the relationship as if they were always BFF.
-Actually, if you swap show-Caroline into book-Elena and show-Elena into book-Meredith the characters line up a lot better, especially after those first few, more bitchy Caroline episodes.
-That said, it’s pretty hysterical if you try and line book-Meredith up with show-Meredith. Yeah, same names but completely different characters.
-The crow, it’s pretty iconic in the book so they probably felt they needed to include it in the show, except they clearly didn’t want shape-changing to be a vampire power so they just never justified the crow’s existence (but did remember to throw it into the 1912 flashback).
Things that THANK GOD THE SHOW CHANGED
-Katherine, I think I pretty effectively covered that. But seriously, even at the height of Damon’s totally going to rescue Katherine obsession the reason he had loved her was because she was a total baddass hypersexual killer; he just wanted to play the white knight for once, no one would ever accuse her of being fragile.
-Caroline, again pretty obvious. Hence why I started playing musical chairs with which character was actually whose book counterpart.
-Elena. Dear god this Elena is not nearly as sympathetic as her show counterpart. I’m not saying all characters should be sympathetic, but this Elena...like I said, she’s basically a Mary Sue in someone’s teenage self-insert vampire dream. Basically, the thing that most if not all of show Elena’s actions come back to is the death of her parents, book-Elena lacks that touchstone since her parents’ death is more distant, and caused her a lot less survivor’s guilt and PTSD. And as much as I used to complain about not being able to get into Elena’s head, being in book-Elena’s head kind of makes it harder to sympathize with her it turns out.
-Stefan and Damon’s relationship. Book Salvatores just hate each other instead of messed up, codependent, guilty consciences, “eternity of misery until someone threatens your life then I got your back”, “no one gets to hurt you but me”, “want so bad to see the good in you”, “I’ll prove I don’t care by...not actually hurting you”, complicated brothers. Granted if you had just watched say the pilot of TVD you might think that was them too, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the first book convey as much as the first six or seven episodes of the show.
-Elena’s reaction to finding out Stefan is a vampire. For one they let her do it by connecting the dots about him instead of ‘hey I’m a vampire’ moment. And I was all prepared to like her reaction when she started to RUN THE F AWAY FROM HIM when she saw that but then she...cuddled him and didn’t flip out that she looks like Katherine and decided they should do some “sexy” blood exchanging. Anyone who thinks show-Elena came around too fast to accepting it would probably hate the books.
-Really Elena and Stefan’s relationship in general. I’m not the biggest S/E fan to start with, but book them are just...not good.
-I may find Stefan’s emo funny, the way I do with Finn (in fact book Stefan is pretty close to being my Finn now that I think of it), but damn am I glad they made him a more fleshed out character on the show. Even just the journaling is something that is HIS, something he does that makes him feel more realized. Throw in some book/TV/music preferences and give him a friend like Lexi and a past going to Bon Jovi concerts and while he may not be the best developed character ever he’s definitely 100 times better than book Stefan.
Things that the show actually missed out on
-Bonnie has a family, and they have names and lives and stuff.
-Matt and Stefan actually being friends, I liked that.
-That’s about it.
Things I have concluded about the show’s PTB from this
-They wanted the show to be more American, and make Stefan and Damon younger relatively. Hence they were turned during the Civil War instead of Renaissance Italy, Bonnie’s notable witch ancestry is from Salem rather than Druids, and later the Originals are also early Americans...somehow.
This change actually allowed them to open up the story A LOT even if I think it was only originally done for the Americanization and maybe making the Salvatores younger of it. Things like Founders’ Council probably don’t exist in the book verse, and it’s actually one of my favorite parts of the show. It also means they didn’t need to have Stefan brooding for 500 years and then suddenly deciding he wanted to go to high school for...reasons I’m sure.
-They embraced the fact that the show takes place almost 20 years after the books. Sure the phone and bing based product placement may be annoying but everyone uses the technology available now. Sometimes to do things like get around vampiric hearing or just keep each other in the loop instead of having to go off separately.
-All forms of the verb “to compel” have been ruined for me. They don’t even call it that in the book, but whenever it says something like “something compelled her to...” sets off red flags for me now. The writiers of the show have done a good job of sticking to that, it’s not a word these people often use in every day conversation unless they mean compulsion. I had noticed this in a bit of writing I was doing recently too, so I think I ought to note it.
-The show may have some iffy race ideas, but at least it acknowledges that black people live in Virginia. I’m sure it was done at least as much for demographics as logic, but I find myself giving them more credit for it than I did before.
-It turns out that these guys are way more imaginative than I might have given them credit for. They technically had a source material but it really has next to nothing to do with the show they ultimately created. It’s almost just their own concept.
Now if someone had liked the books they’d probably be pissed off about that same thing. I can sympathize because I do get pissed off about any changes to say Game of Thrones from the book, but that’s a completely engrossing epic fantasy series and this is a really dumb teen vampire novel.
That still somehow manages to be better than Twilight, but only just.
Basically the book is basically everything the naysayer part of me figured he show would be. Twilight by way of the CW (more teenage angst than you can shake a stick at and way more sex going on). But knowing that the show is so MUCH BETTER makes the book all the more silly. On the other hand I doubt I would have finished even the one book if not for the fun of comparing it to the show, but because I can I do at least get to laugh my way through the book.
Okay, let’s get this out of the way: This is a dumb book, the characters as dumb, the plot is dumb, it is just dumb. How this book became the show is an astounding feat on the part of the creators and writing staff, because they essentially took something flat and unappealing and breathed LIFE into it. Sure the show has problems, I may say things like “stupid dumb show” but it’s usually when it’s breaking my heart in spite of every fiber of my being telling me not to get invested; but the book? The book is borderline so bad it’s good even before you add in the comparisons to the show.
Things that made me laugh
-Any scene with Katherine, or where she’s mentioned, because no one can resist calling her weak and helpless and fragile. Katherine, people. I just want to see show Kat walk in and wipe the floor with her book counterpart.
-The fact that Klaus got mentioned like twice and I cared more about that than pretty much anything else. If Klaus exists, do the rest of the Originals? Am I going to get to/have to laugh at them too?
-The crow, except it actually makes sense here.
-A bum is attacked in Fell’s Church (the town isn’t Mystic Falls for...reasons I’m sure) and EVERYONE CARES. Maybe that’s way it’s not MF, people in MF either don’t notice or don’t care about all the people that keep dying/going missing/being attacked/appear to have fallen on BBQ forks.
-Stefan’s emo, he’s like Edward times Angel.
-Vickie Bennett is a character, she is not related to Matt or Bonnie. Also includes the fact that just about EVERYONE has different last names in the book except Elena and the Salvatores. Some even have different first names like Jenna/Judith. Some of the changes are amusing in their own right too (I never don’t laugh at Tyler Smallwood).
-Gee, I wonder if book Tyler is also a werewolf? It’s so subtle, everyone calling him an animal and dressing like a werewolf for Halloween. Not it was subtly foreshadowed on the show either mind you, I have to allow that.
-How obvious the teenage fantasy this is. Every guy is attracted to Elena and all the girls either want to be her friend or are jealous of her (or both), she has rich white girl problems like her teachers don’t all fawn over her and some actually make her do homework (speaking as a middle class white girl myself I shouldn’t complain since I had no real problems in high school either). Basically it’s Twilight but allowing our protagonist a LITTLE more agency in her life.
-So if Katherine did fake her death that’s a bitch move ALMOST worthy of Katherine, going so far as to leave a suicide note and even her daywalker ring behind (I assume she had a new one made if she was going to pull it off). It looks a whole lot weaker than the way she initially supposedly went out in the show, but if she was faking it doesn’t matter so much. If she actually is dead then...dear, your show counterpart would like a word with you involving owning your badass psychotic bitch self.
Things about the show that suddenly make a lot more sense
(In the sense that “Oh, I get why that was in the first few episodes but makes no sense looking back on it”)
-Caroline’s early personality. In the book they start off as frienemies and even that relationship goes to hell, largely over Stefan. On the show they didn’t seem that close early on because they were using a few lingering elements from this relationship. But clearly quickly they decided they wanted the three girls to actually be friends. So they just kind of ignored the early less close friendship they had and built the relationship as if they were always BFF.
-Actually, if you swap show-Caroline into book-Elena and show-Elena into book-Meredith the characters line up a lot better, especially after those first few, more bitchy Caroline episodes.
-That said, it’s pretty hysterical if you try and line book-Meredith up with show-Meredith. Yeah, same names but completely different characters.
-The crow, it’s pretty iconic in the book so they probably felt they needed to include it in the show, except they clearly didn’t want shape-changing to be a vampire power so they just never justified the crow’s existence (but did remember to throw it into the 1912 flashback).
Things that THANK GOD THE SHOW CHANGED
-Katherine, I think I pretty effectively covered that. But seriously, even at the height of Damon’s totally going to rescue Katherine obsession the reason he had loved her was because she was a total baddass hypersexual killer; he just wanted to play the white knight for once, no one would ever accuse her of being fragile.
-Caroline, again pretty obvious. Hence why I started playing musical chairs with which character was actually whose book counterpart.
-Elena. Dear god this Elena is not nearly as sympathetic as her show counterpart. I’m not saying all characters should be sympathetic, but this Elena...like I said, she’s basically a Mary Sue in someone’s teenage self-insert vampire dream. Basically, the thing that most if not all of show Elena’s actions come back to is the death of her parents, book-Elena lacks that touchstone since her parents’ death is more distant, and caused her a lot less survivor’s guilt and PTSD. And as much as I used to complain about not being able to get into Elena’s head, being in book-Elena’s head kind of makes it harder to sympathize with her it turns out.
-Stefan and Damon’s relationship. Book Salvatores just hate each other instead of messed up, codependent, guilty consciences, “eternity of misery until someone threatens your life then I got your back”, “no one gets to hurt you but me”, “want so bad to see the good in you”, “I’ll prove I don’t care by...not actually hurting you”, complicated brothers. Granted if you had just watched say the pilot of TVD you might think that was them too, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the first book convey as much as the first six or seven episodes of the show.
-Elena’s reaction to finding out Stefan is a vampire. For one they let her do it by connecting the dots about him instead of ‘hey I’m a vampire’ moment. And I was all prepared to like her reaction when she started to RUN THE F AWAY FROM HIM when she saw that but then she...cuddled him and didn’t flip out that she looks like Katherine and decided they should do some “sexy” blood exchanging. Anyone who thinks show-Elena came around too fast to accepting it would probably hate the books.
-Really Elena and Stefan’s relationship in general. I’m not the biggest S/E fan to start with, but book them are just...not good.
-I may find Stefan’s emo funny, the way I do with Finn (in fact book Stefan is pretty close to being my Finn now that I think of it), but damn am I glad they made him a more fleshed out character on the show. Even just the journaling is something that is HIS, something he does that makes him feel more realized. Throw in some book/TV/music preferences and give him a friend like Lexi and a past going to Bon Jovi concerts and while he may not be the best developed character ever he’s definitely 100 times better than book Stefan.
Things that the show actually missed out on
-Bonnie has a family, and they have names and lives and stuff.
-Matt and Stefan actually being friends, I liked that.
-That’s about it.
Things I have concluded about the show’s PTB from this
-They wanted the show to be more American, and make Stefan and Damon younger relatively. Hence they were turned during the Civil War instead of Renaissance Italy, Bonnie’s notable witch ancestry is from Salem rather than Druids, and later the Originals are also early Americans...somehow.
This change actually allowed them to open up the story A LOT even if I think it was only originally done for the Americanization and maybe making the Salvatores younger of it. Things like Founders’ Council probably don’t exist in the book verse, and it’s actually one of my favorite parts of the show. It also means they didn’t need to have Stefan brooding for 500 years and then suddenly deciding he wanted to go to high school for...reasons I’m sure.
-They embraced the fact that the show takes place almost 20 years after the books. Sure the phone and bing based product placement may be annoying but everyone uses the technology available now. Sometimes to do things like get around vampiric hearing or just keep each other in the loop instead of having to go off separately.
-All forms of the verb “to compel” have been ruined for me. They don’t even call it that in the book, but whenever it says something like “something compelled her to...” sets off red flags for me now. The writiers of the show have done a good job of sticking to that, it’s not a word these people often use in every day conversation unless they mean compulsion. I had noticed this in a bit of writing I was doing recently too, so I think I ought to note it.
-The show may have some iffy race ideas, but at least it acknowledges that black people live in Virginia. I’m sure it was done at least as much for demographics as logic, but I find myself giving them more credit for it than I did before.
-It turns out that these guys are way more imaginative than I might have given them credit for. They technically had a source material but it really has next to nothing to do with the show they ultimately created. It’s almost just their own concept.
Now if someone had liked the books they’d probably be pissed off about that same thing. I can sympathize because I do get pissed off about any changes to say Game of Thrones from the book, but that’s a completely engrossing epic fantasy series and this is a really dumb teen vampire novel.
That still somehow manages to be better than Twilight, but only just.
Basically the book is basically everything the naysayer part of me figured he show would be. Twilight by way of the CW (more teenage angst than you can shake a stick at and way more sex going on). But knowing that the show is so MUCH BETTER makes the book all the more silly. On the other hand I doubt I would have finished even the one book if not for the fun of comparing it to the show, but because I can I do at least get to laugh my way through the book.
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Date: 2012-03-22 03:01 pm (UTC)But somehow Julie and Kevin took this source material and made something great? Mystery of ours times.
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Date: 2012-03-22 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 04:11 pm (UTC)If you REALLY want some CRAZY ASS LULZ, read The Return series. They are some of the WORST books I've ever read.
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Date: 2012-03-22 06:08 pm (UTC)But now I'm just reading them for the lulz, and maybe a little for the better understanding of the show's roots. I plan to keep going, because it is rather fun poke fun of them at least.