The Vampire Diaries 2x04 Review
Oct. 1st, 2010 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaMemory Lane
• I think the fact that TPTB are really going with Katherine truly being in love with Stefan is really throwing me. I found myself trying to explain away Katherine being so obviously affected by Stefan’s declaration of love as her being an unreliable narrator and us seeing what she was telling Stefan, not what actually happened. But the end pretty much proved that false. Katherine’s actions back in 1864 – telling dead Stefan she loved him and kissing him – and her touching her lips with a smile as she remembers it in the present were done with no need for subterfuge and thus were probably truth. And that’s just so – weird.
I think I’m with Stefan here and I have this view of Katherine the manipulator and psychotic and so the idea that she actually would return for love feels bizarre and I am having a hard time believing it. If that is the entire truth I think I’ll be disappointed. I mean if Katherine loves Stefan so much why did it take 100 plus years and Stefan dating her descendant to get her to approach him again? I won’t believe that she didn’t know where he was for all that time and she could have gone for him at any time. Showing up now made sense when it was just possessiveness, and wanting Stefan made sense when he was just a challenge but now that it’s actually all about love – I’m kind of lost to be honest. It just doesn’t fit how I’ve seen Katherine up to now. Hmm.
It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Katherine actually truly loving Stefan and wanting him, regardless of whether it’s her only goal or not, actually feels a bit like a twist at this point (after all the scary stories of Katherine the unfeeling, the dangerous) and I don’t think, despite how much she’s been shoving it in all their faces, it’s something they’re actually going to see coming because they don’t yet believe.
There’s also the Damon/Katherine side of the equation – while I buy she never loved him she wasn’t only flirting/leading him on either. We’ve seen them in bed, we’ve seen her take him on a hunt, we’ve seen her enjoy being with him. I really hope that TPTB are not going to try and ret-con those flashbacks.
- Less importantly but tangentially connected Katherine truly loving Stefan and not Damon added to Elena truly loving Stefan and not Damon (though based on this episode Elena already seems to care for Damon more than Katherine ever did) and added to my suspicion that it’s Elena/Stefan end game and I am finding myself feeling really, really sorry for Damon here. He is seriously just the loser all the time with Stefan and this annoys me because it automatically makes me feel the need to be more on his side and go ‘aww’ about him. Meanwhile my actual preferred ending would be Elena leaving town with both Salvatore’s in the final episode, as a set team (whether canonically a threesome or with Elena with one of the brothers or neither, I’ll take any option).
• I, for the most part, loved Katherine this episode. Her sending the dream to mess with Stefan, and the dream she chose to send, was great. Her brazenness in curling up with Stefan and her smiling, and cheeky, “You have to admit I am getting better at this.” made me go ‘I love her, seriously’. I loved her easily swatting Stefan away. I loved that she’s been taking slight doses of vervain everyday for over a century in order to build up a tolerance to it. That’s awesome.
- Katherine having set up the entire vampire hunt in order to fake her death is very intriguing. I know in the books she had a horrible maker/sire and I wonder if that’s where the show is hinting towards.
• I had a problem with Katherine having set up Pearl to be trapped with no apparent thought given to it nor regret or sorrow, and the implication that she did send John to kill Pearl along with the rest of the tomb vampires, and thus that Katherine actually didn’t love Pearl. I was pretty attached to the idea of Katherine and Pearl as BFFs and genuine friends and this just makes me really, really sad. Sigh.
• I have been waiting for the Katherine/Elena meeting from very probably the first couple episodes and so I think their first scene probably couldn’t have lived up to my expectations. However except for one crucial thing I actually really loved it and I am eagerly looking forward to more. I loved the tension, I loved the way Katherine looked at Elena (I don’t even know how to describe it but I want more!), I loved the way Elena was afraid but kept her cool (and even asked the question she is most curious about), I loved the way Katherine touched Elena (to be honest it was just that sort of scary hot that always gets to me and now I find myself shipping Elena/Katherine a bit.)
But despite all that love I didn’t actually love that scene and that was because I spent the scene so distracted by how fake it looked. It was worst when Katherine first showed up behind Elena. That really looked like they were shot in two different scenes that were then put together and at a couple points Katherine didn’t even appear to be looking at Elena. How the scene was put together just didn’t seem well done and it threw the whole scene off for me unfortunately. I really hope the next time we get Katherine and Elena together TPTB do a better job of it (and I hope there are many more Katherine/Elena scenes to come. I really want now to see the two of them and the Salvatore brothers in a scene together.)
• This was actually a really Damon/Elena heavy episode which I wasn’t expecting after the last episode. I found it very shippy.
- While the opening dream was just that, a dream, and one sent by Katherine to try and pry Stefan from Elena at that, it still gave us Elena and Damon together and acting like a couple. And they are very cute. (Though I was personally hoping for Stefan to walk over and join the two of them at the pool table instead of standing there looking pained.)
- We have Damon’s reaction to Elena’s ‘betrayal’ and complete rejection of him in the last episode being – to stalk her, to follow her with his eyes, to invade her personal space and to basically to behave exactly as if nothing had changed. He is not sulking. He’s not drunk or angsty. And most noticeably he is not angry – despite bringing up her ‘stabbing him in the back’ I got no anger from him towards her. He’s behaving like it was the last episode, or the one before or even months ago. It’s as if he’s decided that regardless of what she’s said or what she does he is not going to accept it. He seems determined to get her back. He is taking this whole thing really well. (I guess he really does love her. Still – he brought up Katherine and Elena’s supposed similarity to her during their confrontation at the end of the last episode and yet considering what Katherine has done, how he feels for her, you’d think that any resemblance on Elena’s part would make him want her less. I have always thought Damon has seen the two as separate being and it’s the differences between them that had him falling for Elena. I wonder if he stated that comparison because he was hurt and lashing out but not out of any actual belief in it?)
Also we have Damon once again making himself comfortable in her home and around her family. He specifically set up that BBQ at her house. Now he says it was about Mason but I’m guessing that wasn’t the only reason. I’m guessing it being a BBQ at the Gilbert house instead of dinner or drinking at the Grill had much to do with it being Elena’s home.
- When Damon suddenly appears beside her Elena jumps, but she always does, and more important she also still relaxes immediately
- Damon and Elena in the kitchen – there’s just something about it that I really, really love. I just – every time they’re in a kitchen together it makes me squee a bit. ♥ It was certainly giving me flashbacks to that season one kitchen scene. I loved how very intimate it felt – and casual. If I was watching just the start of that scene I wouldn’t have known that Elena had just recently stated they’d never be friends again. And of course we once again have him invading her personal space, speaking in her ear.
- “I don’t do jealous. Not with you. Not anymore.” – Damon. The interesting part here as relating to Elena/Damon is that middle sentence – “Not with you” – which strongly indicates that he is jealous about someone.
- I found it interesting that Elena brought up Damon possibly hearing their break-up, meaning despite everything going on in that scene she noticed him sitting with his back to her, and she’s the one who considers that perhaps they should confide in him that they are not broken up. Why though? Why would she care?
• “I tricked you into telling the truth. That’s not stabbing you in the back that’s using your own tactics against you.” – Elena. I loved this a lot. Elena not backing down, not even blinking but keeping her cool and turning it back on him. I ♥ Elena.
• The show tried two fake outs with Stefan this episode and I didn’t fall for either one. I don’t know if I was supposed to or not though. First there was Stefan being all “What is it about you... that makes me still care.” which was really well done on PW’s part but I just wasn’t buying it. So Stefan stabbing her with a vervain dart was a surprise but also not. I think this is a really interesting take – Stefan’s feelings for Katherine – and I’m glad they’re doing it but I just didn’t buy it then. It felt too sudden I guess. Now the show building of Stefan’s realisation that he truly had loved Katherine and that his feelings for her might not actually be gone – I’m buying that.
Second, there was the Stefan/Elena ‘breakup’ at the Mystic Grill which felt ever so subtly off. When he was showed up at Elena’s house later and it was revealed to be a fake-out I wasn’t surprised at all. I don’t know how I think it will happen when they actually break up but I don’t see it happening this way. Also it didn’t feel as much like a break-up as I would think. I mean there was no clear ‘this is over’. Since they’re trying to play Katherine and everyone else they’re going to have to be a lot more careful. I mean Katherine is a vampire and she can hear them from a distance. I don’t see how they’re going to pull off a fake break-up and still see each other for any length of time. All it takes is her to hear about a secret meeting between them for her to get suspicious.
• I love how mature and together Elena and Stefan are as a couple. They are just so drama-free it’s shocking. I love it. They talk to each other – they don’t keep secrets, they don’t hide worries or anger – they communicate. They’re honest with each other. They’re a team. It’s excellent.
• “I don’t pretend to be anything when I’m with her. That’s the whole point. I get to just be myself.” – Stefan. That’s nice too.
• “I’m be nice when Damon learns to keep his hands off you.” – Jenna to Elena. Hmm. Once again we miss a conversation between two of the women that we should have gotten. The first between Bonnie and Caroline (with regards to Bonnie being a witch) was more important but I think getting to see the Jenna/Elena talk about the kiss she saw between ‘Elena’ and Damon was pretty important as well. It’s felt very weird that we hadn’t gotten any real reaction from her about the kiss. In the first three episodes this season there were a couple of minutes they could have given to this conversation and that they didn’t indicates to me that they didn’t think it was important enough. I disagree. I think it was a moment in the Jenna/Elena relationship that we should have seen and if their relationship was important to TPTB we would have. This doesn’t make me mad like the lack of the Bonnie/Caroline scene but I don’t like this trend that’s appeared this season of the relationships between the women being... marginalised. Plus I really want to know what the hell Elena told Jenna!
• “You have never dated you. I have dated many yous.” – Jenna. So Jenna’s objection to Elena kissing Damon is about the kind of guy Damon is and not say his age or the fact that she’s dating his brother? Huh. I do definitely believe that Jenna has dated a lot of ‘Damon’ types. Though of course she’s wrong in Damon never having dated someone like himself – Katherine, of course, who he modelled himself on.
• “I’ve heard great things about you.” – Mason
“Really? That’s weird. Cause I’m a dick.” – Damon
LOL. So clearly Mason’s talked to Carol but who else has he heard from? Liz? I can’t think of anyone else.
• “Don’t try to be the hero Damon. You’ll only end up dead.” – Katherine
“Been there, done that. At least this time it will be worth it.” – Damon
Oh, Damon and his bitterness. Katherine’s expression was interesting – irritated, exasperated? The flashbacks seemed to confirm that Katherine never loved. So what was this expression about? Does she think he’s going to ruin some plan of hers? Was there actually some concern for him in there?
- Is the show really and truly done with Damon and Katherine now? It doesn’t seem possible. I hope it’s not. He loved her so much that he devoted over a century to rescuing her and even turned against his brother. He’s feeling betrayal and pain and fury towards her but is all that love really gone? And despite all the evidence piling up does Katherine truly feel nothing for Damon? It just seems kind of a letdown for all the build up we have gotten on them for it to end this way. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
• I enjoyed the Elena/Caroline interactions though I didn’t get that Caroline was working for Katherine until she sabotaged her own tire. Up until then despite Caroline’s harsh and apparently unthinking words about Stefan, and the Elena/Stefan relationship it did just come off as Caroline being her usual self. She never means to hurt people but certainly last season we had enough evidence of how she doesn’t always connect her words and how they might affect others. Anyway, what I really loved about Elena and Caroline’s interactions was how at ease it was. Elena didn’t seem significantly wary or closed off from Caroline, and seems to have accepted her new status with aplomb, exactly as I was expecting. I just wish that we could have had the two of them interacting without the spectre of Katherine’s machinations hovering over them. I want to watch Elena and Caroline talking about the changes Caroline is going through, and Elena being there for her, and them just being friends.
• Katherine blackmailing Caroline into being her minion isn’t surprising. Poor Caroline. I do love that Stefan and Elena have already figured it out.
• I liked the twist that Mason knew exactly what Damon was and what he wanted. I wasn’t expecting that and I find it interesting. Of course as soon as he was all “Let’s be above this” and actually offered a hand in truce I knew how that was going to end because he chose the wrong brother for that. I wonder if this is going to affect his opinion on Stefan and Caroline as well?
• An interesting point – the supernatural ‘curses’ on this show are in a way choices people make far more so than other canons. Werewolves happen when someone with the gene takes a life. Don’t take a life and you don’t become a werewolf. Vampires turn someone but the process isn’t complete until that person drinks human blood. Don’t drink human blood and you don’t become a vampire. Of course, it’s vampire or death but that’s still a choice that they get to make. I like it.
• I think the fact that TPTB are really going with Katherine truly being in love with Stefan is really throwing me. I found myself trying to explain away Katherine being so obviously affected by Stefan’s declaration of love as her being an unreliable narrator and us seeing what she was telling Stefan, not what actually happened. But the end pretty much proved that false. Katherine’s actions back in 1864 – telling dead Stefan she loved him and kissing him – and her touching her lips with a smile as she remembers it in the present were done with no need for subterfuge and thus were probably truth. And that’s just so – weird.
I think I’m with Stefan here and I have this view of Katherine the manipulator and psychotic and so the idea that she actually would return for love feels bizarre and I am having a hard time believing it. If that is the entire truth I think I’ll be disappointed. I mean if Katherine loves Stefan so much why did it take 100 plus years and Stefan dating her descendant to get her to approach him again? I won’t believe that she didn’t know where he was for all that time and she could have gone for him at any time. Showing up now made sense when it was just possessiveness, and wanting Stefan made sense when he was just a challenge but now that it’s actually all about love – I’m kind of lost to be honest. It just doesn’t fit how I’ve seen Katherine up to now. Hmm.
It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Katherine actually truly loving Stefan and wanting him, regardless of whether it’s her only goal or not, actually feels a bit like a twist at this point (after all the scary stories of Katherine the unfeeling, the dangerous) and I don’t think, despite how much she’s been shoving it in all their faces, it’s something they’re actually going to see coming because they don’t yet believe.
There’s also the Damon/Katherine side of the equation – while I buy she never loved him she wasn’t only flirting/leading him on either. We’ve seen them in bed, we’ve seen her take him on a hunt, we’ve seen her enjoy being with him. I really hope that TPTB are not going to try and ret-con those flashbacks.
- Less importantly but tangentially connected Katherine truly loving Stefan and not Damon added to Elena truly loving Stefan and not Damon (though based on this episode Elena already seems to care for Damon more than Katherine ever did) and added to my suspicion that it’s Elena/Stefan end game and I am finding myself feeling really, really sorry for Damon here. He is seriously just the loser all the time with Stefan and this annoys me because it automatically makes me feel the need to be more on his side and go ‘aww’ about him. Meanwhile my actual preferred ending would be Elena leaving town with both Salvatore’s in the final episode, as a set team (whether canonically a threesome or with Elena with one of the brothers or neither, I’ll take any option).
• I, for the most part, loved Katherine this episode. Her sending the dream to mess with Stefan, and the dream she chose to send, was great. Her brazenness in curling up with Stefan and her smiling, and cheeky, “You have to admit I am getting better at this.” made me go ‘I love her, seriously’. I loved her easily swatting Stefan away. I loved that she’s been taking slight doses of vervain everyday for over a century in order to build up a tolerance to it. That’s awesome.
- Katherine having set up the entire vampire hunt in order to fake her death is very intriguing. I know in the books she had a horrible maker/sire and I wonder if that’s where the show is hinting towards.
• I had a problem with Katherine having set up Pearl to be trapped with no apparent thought given to it nor regret or sorrow, and the implication that she did send John to kill Pearl along with the rest of the tomb vampires, and thus that Katherine actually didn’t love Pearl. I was pretty attached to the idea of Katherine and Pearl as BFFs and genuine friends and this just makes me really, really sad. Sigh.
• I have been waiting for the Katherine/Elena meeting from very probably the first couple episodes and so I think their first scene probably couldn’t have lived up to my expectations. However except for one crucial thing I actually really loved it and I am eagerly looking forward to more. I loved the tension, I loved the way Katherine looked at Elena (I don’t even know how to describe it but I want more!), I loved the way Elena was afraid but kept her cool (and even asked the question she is most curious about), I loved the way Katherine touched Elena (to be honest it was just that sort of scary hot that always gets to me and now I find myself shipping Elena/Katherine a bit.)
But despite all that love I didn’t actually love that scene and that was because I spent the scene so distracted by how fake it looked. It was worst when Katherine first showed up behind Elena. That really looked like they were shot in two different scenes that were then put together and at a couple points Katherine didn’t even appear to be looking at Elena. How the scene was put together just didn’t seem well done and it threw the whole scene off for me unfortunately. I really hope the next time we get Katherine and Elena together TPTB do a better job of it (and I hope there are many more Katherine/Elena scenes to come. I really want now to see the two of them and the Salvatore brothers in a scene together.)
• This was actually a really Damon/Elena heavy episode which I wasn’t expecting after the last episode. I found it very shippy.
- While the opening dream was just that, a dream, and one sent by Katherine to try and pry Stefan from Elena at that, it still gave us Elena and Damon together and acting like a couple. And they are very cute. (Though I was personally hoping for Stefan to walk over and join the two of them at the pool table instead of standing there looking pained.)
- We have Damon’s reaction to Elena’s ‘betrayal’ and complete rejection of him in the last episode being – to stalk her, to follow her with his eyes, to invade her personal space and to basically to behave exactly as if nothing had changed. He is not sulking. He’s not drunk or angsty. And most noticeably he is not angry – despite bringing up her ‘stabbing him in the back’ I got no anger from him towards her. He’s behaving like it was the last episode, or the one before or even months ago. It’s as if he’s decided that regardless of what she’s said or what she does he is not going to accept it. He seems determined to get her back. He is taking this whole thing really well. (I guess he really does love her. Still – he brought up Katherine and Elena’s supposed similarity to her during their confrontation at the end of the last episode and yet considering what Katherine has done, how he feels for her, you’d think that any resemblance on Elena’s part would make him want her less. I have always thought Damon has seen the two as separate being and it’s the differences between them that had him falling for Elena. I wonder if he stated that comparison because he was hurt and lashing out but not out of any actual belief in it?)
Also we have Damon once again making himself comfortable in her home and around her family. He specifically set up that BBQ at her house. Now he says it was about Mason but I’m guessing that wasn’t the only reason. I’m guessing it being a BBQ at the Gilbert house instead of dinner or drinking at the Grill had much to do with it being Elena’s home.
- When Damon suddenly appears beside her Elena jumps, but she always does, and more important she also still relaxes immediately
- Damon and Elena in the kitchen – there’s just something about it that I really, really love. I just – every time they’re in a kitchen together it makes me squee a bit. ♥ It was certainly giving me flashbacks to that season one kitchen scene. I loved how very intimate it felt – and casual. If I was watching just the start of that scene I wouldn’t have known that Elena had just recently stated they’d never be friends again. And of course we once again have him invading her personal space, speaking in her ear.
- “I don’t do jealous. Not with you. Not anymore.” – Damon. The interesting part here as relating to Elena/Damon is that middle sentence – “Not with you” – which strongly indicates that he is jealous about someone.
- I found it interesting that Elena brought up Damon possibly hearing their break-up, meaning despite everything going on in that scene she noticed him sitting with his back to her, and she’s the one who considers that perhaps they should confide in him that they are not broken up. Why though? Why would she care?
• “I tricked you into telling the truth. That’s not stabbing you in the back that’s using your own tactics against you.” – Elena. I loved this a lot. Elena not backing down, not even blinking but keeping her cool and turning it back on him. I ♥ Elena.
• The show tried two fake outs with Stefan this episode and I didn’t fall for either one. I don’t know if I was supposed to or not though. First there was Stefan being all “What is it about you... that makes me still care.” which was really well done on PW’s part but I just wasn’t buying it. So Stefan stabbing her with a vervain dart was a surprise but also not. I think this is a really interesting take – Stefan’s feelings for Katherine – and I’m glad they’re doing it but I just didn’t buy it then. It felt too sudden I guess. Now the show building of Stefan’s realisation that he truly had loved Katherine and that his feelings for her might not actually be gone – I’m buying that.
Second, there was the Stefan/Elena ‘breakup’ at the Mystic Grill which felt ever so subtly off. When he was showed up at Elena’s house later and it was revealed to be a fake-out I wasn’t surprised at all. I don’t know how I think it will happen when they actually break up but I don’t see it happening this way. Also it didn’t feel as much like a break-up as I would think. I mean there was no clear ‘this is over’. Since they’re trying to play Katherine and everyone else they’re going to have to be a lot more careful. I mean Katherine is a vampire and she can hear them from a distance. I don’t see how they’re going to pull off a fake break-up and still see each other for any length of time. All it takes is her to hear about a secret meeting between them for her to get suspicious.
• I love how mature and together Elena and Stefan are as a couple. They are just so drama-free it’s shocking. I love it. They talk to each other – they don’t keep secrets, they don’t hide worries or anger – they communicate. They’re honest with each other. They’re a team. It’s excellent.
• “I don’t pretend to be anything when I’m with her. That’s the whole point. I get to just be myself.” – Stefan. That’s nice too.
• “I’m be nice when Damon learns to keep his hands off you.” – Jenna to Elena. Hmm. Once again we miss a conversation between two of the women that we should have gotten. The first between Bonnie and Caroline (with regards to Bonnie being a witch) was more important but I think getting to see the Jenna/Elena talk about the kiss she saw between ‘Elena’ and Damon was pretty important as well. It’s felt very weird that we hadn’t gotten any real reaction from her about the kiss. In the first three episodes this season there were a couple of minutes they could have given to this conversation and that they didn’t indicates to me that they didn’t think it was important enough. I disagree. I think it was a moment in the Jenna/Elena relationship that we should have seen and if their relationship was important to TPTB we would have. This doesn’t make me mad like the lack of the Bonnie/Caroline scene but I don’t like this trend that’s appeared this season of the relationships between the women being... marginalised. Plus I really want to know what the hell Elena told Jenna!
• “You have never dated you. I have dated many yous.” – Jenna. So Jenna’s objection to Elena kissing Damon is about the kind of guy Damon is and not say his age or the fact that she’s dating his brother? Huh. I do definitely believe that Jenna has dated a lot of ‘Damon’ types. Though of course she’s wrong in Damon never having dated someone like himself – Katherine, of course, who he modelled himself on.
• “I’ve heard great things about you.” – Mason
“Really? That’s weird. Cause I’m a dick.” – Damon
LOL. So clearly Mason’s talked to Carol but who else has he heard from? Liz? I can’t think of anyone else.
• “Don’t try to be the hero Damon. You’ll only end up dead.” – Katherine
“Been there, done that. At least this time it will be worth it.” – Damon
Oh, Damon and his bitterness. Katherine’s expression was interesting – irritated, exasperated? The flashbacks seemed to confirm that Katherine never loved. So what was this expression about? Does she think he’s going to ruin some plan of hers? Was there actually some concern for him in there?
- Is the show really and truly done with Damon and Katherine now? It doesn’t seem possible. I hope it’s not. He loved her so much that he devoted over a century to rescuing her and even turned against his brother. He’s feeling betrayal and pain and fury towards her but is all that love really gone? And despite all the evidence piling up does Katherine truly feel nothing for Damon? It just seems kind of a letdown for all the build up we have gotten on them for it to end this way. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
• I enjoyed the Elena/Caroline interactions though I didn’t get that Caroline was working for Katherine until she sabotaged her own tire. Up until then despite Caroline’s harsh and apparently unthinking words about Stefan, and the Elena/Stefan relationship it did just come off as Caroline being her usual self. She never means to hurt people but certainly last season we had enough evidence of how she doesn’t always connect her words and how they might affect others. Anyway, what I really loved about Elena and Caroline’s interactions was how at ease it was. Elena didn’t seem significantly wary or closed off from Caroline, and seems to have accepted her new status with aplomb, exactly as I was expecting. I just wish that we could have had the two of them interacting without the spectre of Katherine’s machinations hovering over them. I want to watch Elena and Caroline talking about the changes Caroline is going through, and Elena being there for her, and them just being friends.
• Katherine blackmailing Caroline into being her minion isn’t surprising. Poor Caroline. I do love that Stefan and Elena have already figured it out.
• I liked the twist that Mason knew exactly what Damon was and what he wanted. I wasn’t expecting that and I find it interesting. Of course as soon as he was all “Let’s be above this” and actually offered a hand in truce I knew how that was going to end because he chose the wrong brother for that. I wonder if this is going to affect his opinion on Stefan and Caroline as well?
• An interesting point – the supernatural ‘curses’ on this show are in a way choices people make far more so than other canons. Werewolves happen when someone with the gene takes a life. Don’t take a life and you don’t become a werewolf. Vampires turn someone but the process isn’t complete until that person drinks human blood. Don’t drink human blood and you don’t become a vampire. Of course, it’s vampire or death but that’s still a choice that they get to make. I like it.
