Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings! This week’s Femme Fatale Friday is all about my favorite character from my favorite show of my teen years, Caroline Forbes from The Vampire Diaries. Caroline begins the series as the perfectionistic and slightly annoying friend of Elena and Bonnie. However, she quickly becomes so much more than just the neurotic control freak when she gets turned into a vampire at the beginning of season 2.
The fact that she was turned into a vampire led Damon to believe that she could never be a good vampire and even try to kill her! This is totally ironic when we see Caroline being one of the most controlled and well-rounded vampires. One of the main things that is a universal truth within The Vampire Diaries universe is that when a human becomes a vampire they become even more extreme versions of their human selves. Since Caroline always had control freaky tendencies, it was unsurprising that she also was able to teach herself to control her vampiric urges so well when she became a vampire!
I have to state that Caroline is one of the best friends in the series, being that she actually puts her friends above herself. She is an overall caring, nurturing, supportive, and loving person, which leads to her being a good shoulder to cry and an excellent friend. Bonnie and Caroline actually care and try to help Elena, while Elena is usually far too wrapped up in her own drama to be a good friend! Caroline was even willing to risk her own life in order to help Tyler through his first transition into a werewolf, had he bit her she would have died, since Klaus was not yet in Mystic Falls to save her. By the end of the series, Caroline had also gone through a magical pregnancy to give birth to the twins of Jo and Alaric, after Jo had died. She was essentially a vampire surrogate, and she seemed willing to give the babies up to their father to be raised (at first). Of course, this led to an even larger case of being a great friend, Caroline could not let the unprepared Alaric raise babies alone, so she became a co-parent with him! Getting to see Caroline grow into her womanhood and get to be a mother was a lovely development.
Caroline is the driving force of the final two seasons in many ways, given that she had become one of the main focal points without Elena. Bonnie also gets a lot more plot, and finally a good love interest, but she still seems to not be as important as Caroline. It is sort of funny to think that Caroline, who began season 1 as the friend that Bonnie and Elena seemed to not want to hang out with became way more beloved than Elena! It is a very beautiful character development to have Caroline go from being a character that others seemed to think of as a vapid waste of space to becoming a universally loved character.
One of the most interesting things about Caroline’s development was actually her love life and the impact on the rest of her life. Caroline goes from simply wanting to have a sweet little romance with Matt, (even into her early time as a vampire) to wondering if even villains can be redeemed. Caroline’s relationship with Tyler begins as being sweet but quickly gets boring. Tyler does not seem to want a bigger and more interesting life than being a big fish in a small pond, while Caroline truly desires to explore the world. Tyler does travel to learn to break his sire bond, but only ends up in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, not really exploring the world around him. Caroline always seemed to have dreams of seeing the world and learning about all of the interesting things in the world! Klaus himself points out that a small-town boy and a small-town life would never be enough for her. I think that this is one of the reasons that I could not really get behind Caroline and Tyler as time went on. It was very unfortunate that Caroline ended up falling for Stefan, and had to wait for him to see that she was worth his time. Eventually, they got together, and I was okay with it at the time because she deserved to be happy. This did not last, as they got separated, but eventually reconciled. Caroline even married Stefan, but then he died less than a day later to save the town from Katherine. While I was fine with the idea of having one of the brothers die for the finale, in fact, I expected it, I did not like that they had to make Caroline a widow! This seemed to be a rude and horrible thing to do when there was no reason to have them get married if they planned to kill Stefan off.
Finally, I have to discuss the relationship between Caroline and Klaus! Regular readers will know my thoughts about Caroline and Klaus being so right for one another, and never being given a real chance to be together. From the very beginning of season three, we get to see Klaus as a character who wants companionship, which is why Stefan is with him. When he gets back to Mystic Falls, the first thing he does is successfully turn Tyler into a hybrid, and Caroline is there for this. It is not long before Caroline begins to be of greater interest to the Original Hybrid. At first, Caroline seems fascinated but more annoyed by Klaus’s attraction, due to his position as a villain. Klaus saved her from the werewolf bite he had made Tyler inflict upon her, and we can see the sparks begin to fly here, with him gifting her the bracelet, and feeding her from his own wrist. It is not long before we see her softening to the Big Bad. At the Mikaelson Ball, they dance together and flirt up a storm, with Caroline being willing to stand up to him. She even kept the drawing he had made of her and the horse! The attraction grows and they have many sweet and flirty interactions over the third and fourth seasons. He even promised to be her last love at her graduation! However, all the audience got to see was a one-night stand of having sex in the woods. Later, during the final season of The Originals, it is Caroline who is able to get through to Klaus and help him reunite with his daughter before he sacrifices himself to save her. That means that even when they could have been together, with Caroline as a brilliant and talented adult woman running a school and traveling to find a way to prevent the merge of her twin daughters, his death prevented their love from blossoming!
Over the course of the series, Caroline goes from insecure human to badass vampire to mother of magical twins to the successful head of a school to train magical children! She showed that her heart and her maternal instincts allowed her to foster the growth of future generations of supernatural beings. I truly adore Caroline for her grit, determination, and love of her friends which make her stand out from the rest of the characters. I hope you have enjoyed reading my thoughts about Caroline Forbes. What is your opinion on the character development of Caroline? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Caroline. I found the image on https://twitter.com/cwtvd/status/383632984709939200.
Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services! I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon! Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/
Further Watching
- The Vampire Diaries (2009)
- The Originals (2013)
- Legacies (2018)