#looks like the eternals did not get the memo during endgame | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kiss-my-freckle · 3 years

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8x10.

This episode is the entire series, but it pushes back to 8x1 in a huge way. They reverse the brothers and their humanity switch to build for the finale. The brother that forced his brother to turn is the brother that should sacrifice himself. Sorry, not sorry. Had they written season 8 with the intent to kill both brothers together, I wouldn’t have cared. But every bit of season 8 speaks of a Delena endgame... 8x1 to 8x9 being the biggest fraction of that.

In Damon’s mind, he died at age 24 during the CIvil War. He died as a human, and he died a hero.... the way he wanted his father to see him. He also timed it so that he never met Katherine. This plays out in his Phoenix stone hell. Bonnie walks in to find him sitting still as stone. This isn’t Sybil’s doing, it’s Damon’s. Stefan claims he’s hiding for the sake of not owning up to his shit, but he’s wrong. If Damon weren’t owning up to his shit, he wouldn’t be punishing himself. The front door is him purposefully doing that. He believes he belongs in hell, but he’s not dead, so he’s putting himself there in his mind. No different than 1994 pancakes, self-medicating while punishing himself. After all these years, Damon is giving it a rest, and resting purposefully to protect those he cares about. Meaning... no one can get in his head and hurt his friends the way Sybil did. She dug so deep, she got him to kill Tyler.

Stefan is in Ripper-mode for the sake of showing just how much he’s like Sybil. They switched shoes with Elena in season 2, but season 8 solidified it in a way that they needed to. Damon selling Stefan’s soul to Cade is no different than Stefan forcing Damon to turn. Damon’s hell through the front door is the memo he refers to when he’s talking to Stefan. That’s why he has it backwards. He didn’t go through the front door, Sybil took him straight through the back. Damon isn’t seeking forgiveness, but choosing to punish himself for what he blames himself for. He has no problem accepting responsibility for his own actions... as a monster.

"Everything on this planet is not your fault. My actions, what I do, it's not your fault. I own them. They belong to me. You are not allowed to feel my guilt."

Stefan plays a different role in creating the monster. To better explain it, just look at their scene cuts and the violence within them. They purposefully cut to Matt with his father. A creator is no different than a parent. A monster creating a monster. No different than The Blacklist being Jon Bokenkamp’s baby because he created the series. You can just as much destroy what you create. A quote from The Blacklist for the sake of it. “Your mother brought you into this world, Colin. Did you really think she couldn't take you out?” If Stefan ever wanted to be rid of Damon, all he had to do was kill him.

Consciously, Damon believes that he is in hell. For some reason, Damon thinks that's where he belongs. Well, how do we change his mind? Well, that's a question only Damon can answer. So I suggest you go in there and ask him yourself.

Understand the whole of his mind. Damon died as a human, so no one in his mind knows him as a vampire. Damon never became a vampire, so he never helped Liz accept her own daughter being a vampire. That’s why she’s torturing Caroline in his mind. And being tortured for the sake of forgiving the vampire that abused her at the beginning of the show. Her forgiveness pushed her out of Damon’s head because in that, she accepted his humanity. The theme of forgiveness, pushing back to her gifting him the vervain necklace in 8x7.

“It means that if you don't want to ring that bell, you have to forgive Damon for killing your sister. And if you can't, then you have to ring that bell 12 times by the top of the hour."

Stefan compels Matt, knowing full-well he won’t forgive Damon, his sister... with nothing but a hickie on her neck in Damon’s head. Because he doesn’t need Matt’s forgiveness.

As his creator and the vampire in his head, Stefan should be the one burning in hell in Damon’s front door. He’s choosing to carry Stefan’s blame, basically burning for him as he’s burning anyway because he no longer wishes Stefan an eternity of misery. Damon and Matt part on a sliver of good terms after he saves him and his father, then apologizes for what he did to Vicki. Even though he felt it, he never said it. And Stefan was the same that way. He forced Damon to turn, and felt that guilt, but didn’t apologize to Damon for it until season 2.

Damon’s letter to Bonnie is one of my favorite of the series. She herself said Damon didn’t have a choice while under Sybil’s control. She knows all about vampire Damon, and just how much Elena changed him. They spoke a lot in 1994 world.

Sybil knows. Stefan makes for a good partner when their agenda is the same, but he’s every bit like her sister. The argument they have at the end of the episode is every bit the reason Damon doesn’t apologize to Stefan. “You’re right. And I'd do it all again. Because you've always been the weak one.” Seline’s response is every bit what Stefan said of Damon. Sweet and earnest to a fault, but never strong. “You're weak. You'll be dead soon. You need this."

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