I just don’t see how it’s even remotely possible for Stefan to be able to “reach” Elena when the entire season we have been shown that he simply cannot fathom her as a vampire. He called her “unrecognizable” at the beginning of 4x05, and that was at her most like human Elena. Pre-hallucinations; pre-break up; pre-Damon; pre-bond reveal. If Stefan didn’t recognize Elena then, how on earth can he do so now? If she was alien and unrelatable to him as a self- loathing vampire, how can he relate to her “this is me like or fuck it” self now?
The point has been made repeatedly that Elena isn’t reverting back to who she was, so how can Stefan - who scarcely knew her then - be the one to reach her now? Well, realistically. This is TVD, so, the power of SE defies logic, but my cursory review of SE opinions seems to support the idea that they all think Elena must be “fixed” and go back before she can be with Stefan, too. There is just zero foundation for Stefan being able to get through to Elena.
I'm just a bit horrified by what the writers have actually done to Elena's character this season.
I mean, it was supposed to be about her growing into her own, but instead, it has been a season of her steadily losing any control over her life (turned against her will), her choices (sire bond), her emotions (forced to turn them off)’ and even now her actions (Damon telling her what to do via bond, SC and whoever else wanting to turn her human, everyone being upset because she won’t just turn it back on). It’s all just awful, really. She’s not even a real character anymore. Everyone discusses her like she’s a thing, not a person. She has no say in anything because everyone around her can just nullify whatever she says as being “not what she would really want” if she were herself. Which, of course she isn’t because of vampirism, the sire bond, being switched off and/some combination of all of the above. Jesus.
I’m not going to say it’s for sure happening, but I’m totally prepared for the last scene of the season to be Damon waking up in an S3 finale parallel, but instead of gasping, he looks at Elena and says “Katherine?” Fade to black. Because, that’s something this show would actually do.
And next season, we can have Stefan and Elena trying to help Damon cope, except that Damon has no clue how awful Stefan is, and Stefan’s manipulating everything to keep Damon away from Elena by telling him how much like Katherine she is — she came between them, tore them apart, etc. — by shading the truth like he does because Stefan wants his brother to himself. And, Elena’s trying to overcome that, not even fully aware that it’s happening, and it’s a whole lot like S1 and S2 in reverse.
