Falls pageant meant so much to her and how her mother was the only female in 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 151
8/27/10 10:36 AM
152
• A V i s i t o r ’ s G u i d e t o M y s t i c F a l l s •
their family not to win it, the chasm that separated mother and daughter—and their inability to understand each other—was clear much earlier on.
When we were first introduced to Sheriff Forbes in the aptly named “Family Ties” (1-4), it was clear that she and Caroline had a somewhat strained relationship, and it wasn’t until “You’re Undead to Me” that the sheriff momen-tarily shifted her focus from the town council to her own daughter—a welcome change given that, by this point, Caroline had already been attacked, bitten, compelled, and belittled by a much older vampire right under the good sheriff’s nose. But when the elder Forbes asked Caroline if she was having boy troubles, the latter immediately shut down her mother’s tentative overtures with what was quite possibly her truly bitchiest moment of the entire first season, saying, “If I want to talk about boys, I’ll call Dad. At least he’s successfully dating one.” As blunt as she is, Caroline rarely says things with the explicit intention of hurting someone else, but she routinely makes an exception for her mother, who is single, alone, and does not appear to have a real friend in town. Caroline wants so much to be noticed, and every time she looks at her mother, she sees her greatest fears for her own future—a fear that was realized, in part, when Caroline introduced herself to Matt’s mom and was dismissed for being, among other things, her socially inept mother’s daughter.
For her part, Sheriff Forbes seems to view her daughter with the same eye-rolling condescension that Caroline gets 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 152
8/27/10 10:36 AM
• S w e e t C a r o l i n e •
153
from the vampires, her friends, and Matt. On Career Day, when Caroline proudly declared an interest in broadcast journalism, she was immediately shut down by her mother’s incredulous and dismissive reply, and yet, the moment the words were out of the sheriff’s mouth, you could see her wishing that she’d thought about the way they would sound before she’d said them. It was a Caroline moment for Caroline’s mother and the impetus for Caroline climbing into the car of yet another vampire, out for her blood.
Much like her rivalry with Elena, Caroline’s relationship with her mother marks her as the “normal” teen on the show, the one who struggles with hating and loving, disappointing and being disappointed by her mom. These conflicting desires—promising herself she won’t turn into her mother while secretly wishing her mom would be proud of the person she is—are quintessentially teen. While Caroline’s mom-drama may not be as shocking or sensational as the twists and turns of Elena’s extended family tree, it’s real in a way that vampire birth-moms and doppelgänger ancestors are not. Caroline wants to believe that she won’t grow up to be the kind of woman who men can abandon, and she wants, just for once, to be something other than a disappointment to the woman her dad left behind. To return to the Elena comparison, Caroline wants what Elena had with her mother—and deep down, she already knows that she’s never going to get it, just like there is a part of her that believes she will never find a fairy-tale kind of romantic love.
6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 153
8/27/10 10:36 AM
154
• A V i s i t o r ’ s G u i d e t o M y s t i c F a l l s •
Unlucky in Love
On the surface, Caroline has a very straightforward approach to romantic love: “Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Sex!” (“Night of the Comet,” 1-2). At the show’s start, Elena’s the one who doesn’t take sex lightly and Caroline is the . . . well . . . you know. Let’s put it this way: it was always clear that there was never going to be a Very Special Caroline Loses Her Virginity episode; whereas Elena, like the Joey Potters, Marissa Coopers, and Buffy Summers before her, got the full heroine treatment in between the sheets. Whether or not Stefan was Elena’s first, their first time together was a momentous occasion—the kind of momentous that