A Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls - By Red Page 0,52
right.
By this point, you may already be wondering why I would choose to write about Caroline when there are brooding vampires and butt-kicking heroines to be discussed and a dark and twisty Damon Salvatore to be pondered, adored, and dissected. The answer is simple: in a world of vampires, witches, and tragically beautiful girls who never asked to be loved nearly so well as they are, Caroline is an exception to nearly every rule—even the ones she tries desperately to follow. Tactless, shallow, materialistic, and quick to judge, our Miss Forbes is the latest in a long line of loveable TV
bitcas, heir to the throne of One Tree Hill’s Brooke Davis, Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s
Cordelia Chase. But this Mystic Falls mean girl is a new brand of power princess: overeager, self-aware, and—unlike her predecessors—far from the top of the food chain (in more ways than one).
More than any other character on the show, Caroline is defined by what she wants and cannot have. Even Damon occasionally swerved from his single-minded pursuit of Katherine, but throughout the first season, Caroline never stopped wanting simple, everyday things: to be special, to be loved, to be seen and not found wanting. By her own tearful 144
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admission, she works so hard, and no matter what she does or who she does it with, she’s never number one. She volun-teers at school and in the community, dresses for success, puts a smile on her face when she feels like crying, and still, no one notices.
No one cares.
Caroline has appeared in nearly every episode of the show, but it’s as easy for the audience to overlook or dismiss her as it is for her family and friends. After all, what’s the everyday drama of wanting to be liked compared to the life or death stakes of love with a vampire? Who really cares about Caroline’s relationship with Matt when Damon is making pithy one-liners about keeping soccer moms in the fridge? I love Caroline. I’m writing an essay about her, and even I had to look up her last name online.
It would be easy to dismiss her as a bit of a witch—and not the kind who can cast spells that unlock ancient tombs—but Caroline wants so badly to be something or someone more than that, and I would argue that of all of the characters on the show, she’s the one who truly exemplifies the high school experience. As much as the rest of us might like to be the Chosen One, smart and savvy and beautiful and good, the kind of girl who other people just can’t help but love, most of us aren’t Elena.
We don’t have a Stefan—let alone a Damon, too.
We’re just people who want to love and be loved and feel like if we disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, someone would care. From her stint as Damon’s chew toy to her third-wheel friendship with Bonnie and Elena and her 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 145
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heartbreakingly sincere (and almost definitely ill-fated) relationship with Matt, Caroline is the embodiment of this very human desire. In the next few pages, we’ll dive into the shallow end of the kiddie pool and explore the idea of Caroline as the ultimate in-style outsider—and the true coming-of-age story in a world where everyone else seems to discover very quickly who they are and where (and with whom) they belong.
The Anti-Elena
Once upon a time, there were two girls: one light-haired, one dark, both from Founding Families—lifelong friends with the same taste in boys. One was brave and kind and apt to sitting in cemeteries, writing in her diary and thinking Deep Thoughts, and the other was . . . not.
From the very first episode, Elena and Caroline were set up as yin and yang—if yin got absolutely all of the good qualities and yang got all of the flaws. Elena’s first voice-over made it abundantly clear that she was a girl with real problems: she was tragic, she was deep, and she could not seem to care about all of the stupid little things that used to matter to her. Enter Caroline, bright-eyed and chipper, who