Posted by A.M. Hartnett | April 26, 2009, 12:00 (EST) | 6 Comments
Category: Books, TV Series
We’ve been wanting to feature guests posts here at Vampire-Diaries.net since we founded the site and A.M. Hartnett, who follows us on Twitter, provided the perfect impetus to kick off the venture. Beware of spoilers through Nightfall!
I love the CW. They’ve given me Jensen, Jared, and Jeffrey Dean, not to mention the five seasons of Angel, and for that they shall always hold a special place in my heart. However, they seem to be walking a very thin line when it comes to The Vampire Diaries. We could be treading into angry-ex territory very quickly.
You see, back when I was about 14/15 years old I read L.J. Smith’s series. When I was in university I used to joke about how I didn’t become a woman when I hit puberty, but instead when I read Wuthering Heights. A re-read of The Vampire Diaries reminded me of the error of this statement. Heathcliff Earnshaw hit the right buttons, but Damon Salvatore got there first.
Somewhere in the world someone has my first copy of The Struggle with the spine cracked so that it opens to the exact moment Damon creeps into Elena’s house and, like the cold-blooded bastard he is, blackmails her into letting him suck on her nubile, teenaged neck. It came down to simple biology: while Stefan was the dreamy, loyal boyfriend we all wanted, Damon was the one who would leave you looking like you had a hell of a time with him. He turned me into a raging fangirl that resulted in at least one detention after being busted reading in French class when I should have been committing to memory how to politely ask for a baguette should I ever visit Montreal. I’ve never been to Montreal, but I can probably say in all honesty that it was my reading of The Vampire Diaries that ultimately led me to focus so heavily on gothic horror while I was in university.
Ah, Damon. Since you there have been many bad boys but none can hold a candle to you. Not all the Mikails, the Byrons, the Nicholais, the Romans, the Dantes. No one. They all may come in various shades of bad ass, but in the end they usually show their redeeming qualities and become pussycats. Damon prefers to be a bastard and frankly I prefer him to be a bastard, even when he’s saving someone’s behind.
Now, when I first heard that the CW was turning The Vampire Diaries into a series I was a little excited – maybe it won’t suck! After all – Jensen! Jared! Jeffrey Dean! Only good things can come out of the CW! I wasn’t going to spoil myself. I was going to contain my excitement and the night it aired I was going to barricade the house and squee! myself silly. I fully intended to keep this promise until D-listed reported on the series.
Ian Somerhalder as Damon. “Wait, where do I know that – *GASP* IT’S BOONE! Boone! Pretty Boone! Pretty, dead, crushed-by-a-plane Boone! Lost hasn’t been the same since your sullen good looks were snuffed out by Evil Writers who were clearly jealous of your dreaminess.”
And he almost, almost looks like I pictured Damon. Not as close as model Tiago Riani (Google him, you know you want to, but not at work or school) but there were enough similarities to make me a happy fangirl.
Then I logged onto this site and checked out the TV series section.
What in Tyler Smallwood’s soiled underpants is this?
I won’t name all the reasons my brain is screaming MAKE IT STOP because the posters on this forum and others have been over it again and again. The changes are outrageous to many of us purists and why not? Many of us have been with these characters for years. Why is the CW messing with The Vampire Diaries to such an extent? When True Blood aired it was a highly successful book-to-television adaptation that made only moderate changes (and the Eric/Sookie shipper in me hopes it stays that way). It worked. The book purists are relatively happy thus far because the important stuff is intact – Sookie is cute and has enormous boobs, Vampire Bill is as dry as toast but still kind of sexy, and Eric is large and monosyllabic. With these three elements we can overlook the fact that Tara has been turned into the screeching harpy of doom because those other things are the bare-bones of the books.
Which brings me to the title of this post and the words that I tweeted to TVDnews earlier in the week: Ian Somerhalder had better be concentrated awesomesauce as Damon.
We need that one character that can put us on the edge of our seats. If not Damon, then who else? What happens in the books before Damon shows up? I’ll tell you what happens: Stefan runs through the woods and thinks about how much it sucks being a vampire, that’s what. Damon is the anchor. He’s the one we root for no matter what nefarious plot he schemes (actually, we’re probably rooting for him because of his nefarious plot).
While Paul Wesley can get away with acting emo as Stefan, Ian Somerhalder has to pull off the Byronic model of mad and bad to know without looking like a tool. He has to convey the ability to get whatever it is he wants with as little effort as possible on his part. He has to be ironic without being smarmy. He has to balance being a complete bastard with moments of barely-there concern for others.
Ian Somerhalder must never sulk because Damon never sulks. That’s Stefan’s job.
So CW, go ahead and ride the Twilight wave all you like but leave us Damon. We love us some smarmy, sexy vampire and we love this one in particular. Get him right and we’ll pretty much forgive you anything. (Seriously. We completely looked the other way when L.J. Smith introduced the horny tree-men in The Return: Nightfall just because she gave us Damon sucking naked-Bonnie-in-a-bathtub’s blood.)
A.M. Hartnett is currently recovering from an overdose of vampire fiction with copious amounts of zombie fiction and romantic comedy. Old broads can visit her at www.amhartnett.com. Broads-in-training can visit when they’re old enough to vote.
Want to guest blog for Vampire-Diaries.net? Contact us. Please include a topic proposal and a link to your blog/writing.
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6:25 pm on April 26th, 2009
THIS.
while i love the cw for bringing me my winchester men, i really hate how the network handles their shows. they barely promote or acknowledge supernatural as a main show for the network (at least until kripke repeated that season 5 would be the last, then all of a sudden the network would do anything to keep it going)and they have a tendency of obliterating book series (gossip girl, anyone?) beyond recognition. i don’t trust the network to stay true to the books completely. the one thing keeping me from turning out for the pilot is my need to see if they do damon justice.
hopefully iam somerhalder can bring the awesomesauce. Aims(Quote)
8:26 pm on April 26th, 2009
ROTFLMFAO! I love it! Yeah…. Damon/Bonnie bathroom scene is like one of the few things my mind has chosen to retain from Nightfall…hmm interesting all the parts i actually can bring to mind were involving Damon..
You’re right. Damon makes the story. Portray him wrong, it ruins it. Now I am freaking terrified of seeing how Boone…I mean….Ian does this. Victoria(Quote)
12:38 am on April 27th, 2009
That blackmail scene is still so controversial in fandom. Though everyone seems to agree that it’s the skeeviest thing Damon ever did throughout the series. Well – until Nightfall anyway. (I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to scrub the Matt/Elena video porn thing from my brain. Ugh.)
On a side note: It’s always interesting seeing others’ visual touch points for Damon. Mr. Riani sure seems to like that inner tube. Cough. Vee(Quote)
3:18 am on April 27th, 2009
Yeah I agree wholeheartedly. It’s one thing to completely screw around with the books, but if they wreck sexy, snarky Damon, I will never forgive them. He’s my last hope, despite the whole Whitmore b-shit. Demi(Quote)
10:08 am on July 30th, 2009
Ok, I am tired of all you Twilighters and Vampire Diaries-fans, its a tv series they have to make changes!!! Frankly i don’t see the problem when some of us haven’t even read the books!!! Nothing can be taken away from Meyer and Smith’s world of vampires but the creators of the movies and the show have to be able to express their creativity and make it their own while cherrishing the outline of the books!!!! I admit i didn’t picture some of the cast members as these characters but now that i see them i accept them!!!
I love the True Blood show, read all the Twilight saga and saw the movie and I just got into the Vampire Diaries books, i know when not to take things too seriously!!! So i’m not going to shunn this series just because some of you fans have high expectations for these adaptations!!! These are the writers, creators and prouducers that gave us Dawsons Creek, Dexter, Scream, I know What you did last Summer, Kyle XY, Gossip Girl etc. so i am not worried!!!! Fans need to get over these changes seriously, you want the books READ the books but plz don’t ruin it for the rest of us that are becoming fans!!!
By the way they said this show is also suppose to appeal fans of Supernatural (Which i love with a passion), Smallville (which is another i like) and Buffy (which use to be my favorite show of all time!!!). So no argument on this end!!! ForsakenMoon19(Quote)
10:12 am on July 30th, 2009
For the record, Damon does not make the books!!! AS much as i have love for the character HE does not carry the story. By the way i don’t see Damon acting all badass while he’s helping Stefan’s human friends throughout the series after the Awakening and the Struggle!!!!! ForsakenMoon19(Quote)