TVD – The Violent Diaries?

With “Twilight” and the beginning of the new vampire era in mass culture, humans, vampires and usually many other beings are thrown together in a fusion of supernatural world. Yet, in some instances there seems to be more throwing around than in other. Blood, lust and death are of course expected in anything that involves vampires. However, as the death toll in “The Vampire Diaries” nears the one of World War I, I can’t help but wonder whether the PG-13 rating of the show might be a little off.

One might agree that the TV show can be compared with wine; it gets better with time. Not only do the love interests become more complex and compelling, but the action and horror elements become more profound. But, all things come with a price, and for this show the price are the wages of at least five new actors per episode, just for the sake of murdering their characters. Truly, it seems that any new character that appears in an episode is doomed to die. In trying to make the show as different as possible from the infamous and highly criticized “Twilight Saga”, the writers of this epic vampire love story have made certain that every season has at least one big bad wolf (the last one actually being a half-wolf). During the first season, the main problem was getting the main vampire brother and human girl couple, Stefan and Elena, married before Damon, his evil vampire brother, kills the entire population of the town, including the priest. As the second season came and Damon’s thirst for blood lessened, Katherine was brought into the show. Because of her malicious ways, murder becomes the favorite pastime in Mystic Falls. But if you thought that killing a girl in ten seconds by choking her with her own necklace was the worst that this show has to offer, Klaus is there to make you reconsider. Obviously, the producers weren’t satisfied with the quick and painless ways in which people had been killed in the first two seasons, that they brought us two entire new breeds of vampires- rippers and hybrids. Stefan, as the main representative of the first, likes to not only kill his victims, but play with them first. Naturally, most memorable are the two girls that he pulled to pieces after feeding on them, and then later put them back together in a sitting position in front of their TV. Still, because seeing this gruesome picture wasn’t enough to last us a lifetime, the series showed you what should be a completely new form of gore- killing creatures called hybrids. One of the main goals of the protagonists in the latest season is to destroy the entire hybrid breed. Because these are a combination of vampires and werewolves, there are only two extremely horrible ways to kill them, decapitation and removing the heart. The one prop in the entire show that must be used more than the vampire fangs, definitely must be the pumping heart. Throughout the last couple of episodes, I think that this heart has gotten more air time than any one of the main characters. Nevertheless, the show is trying to make amends for its high level of violence. The only underage character in the last season was compelled to leave the town and its supernatural residents behind, because his sister decided that he shouldn’t be in such a vicious world. Needless to say, before his departure, he single-handedly murdered a bunch of vampires and hybrids, the most remarkable being chopping a hybrid’s head off on the front porch with a kitchen knife.

Although the center of the show is the love triangle between a mortal teenage girl and two vampire brothers, it’s what’s happening to the secondary characters that really enthrall the viewers. And while Damon and Stefan are battling for Elena’s heart, the hearts of many other more loveable characters are pulled out of their chest. Hence, I believe that a moment of silence is necessary for Jenna, Vicky, Anna, the Mayor of Mystic Falls, the old guy who had a five-minute-long boring speech, the girl who made Damon cry and needless to say for the girl that ran away from Klaus screaming “Help!” at the top of her lungs.