Episode 1 : Matt Donovan – TVD: The Vampire Diaries – “When enough is enough?”

Written by DCS and DIS

Disclaimer: This article is a form of satire and should be treated accordingly.

I am wondering… is there anyone out there actually on team Matt?!

What a character!… what a show!

The first time I watched TVD, I didn’t pay much attention to him. He started off as a deuteragonist but at the same time he was portraited as a love interest, confident and then was transformed into a recurring character, who surprisingly survived till the end of the whole TV series, as a human being.

Matt was there to serve a purpose; portraying the average good looking guy with nothing upstairs, but who would have made a good husband if all that you wanted as a girl was to graduate, get married, have kids and live forever in the same little town, Mystic Falls. He was in a relationship with Elena and they were happy together.

At the same time, Elena was portraying the silly little teenage girl, who seemed to be curious about discovering life. The series brings together two of the most powerful vampires in the world: Stefan – the protagonist and Damon – the antagonist. The Salvatore Brothers. Elena falls in love with Stefan, who seems to be more attractive than Matt, due to the fact that he is a vampire. He is good looking, has super powers and takes her under his protective “wing”.

The dream of any teenage girl: dating the ideal hot smart good looking guy, who is better than anyone else in the school. So was Stefan.

Therefore, Matt’s masculinity was overpowered by supernatural forces and people already started to see him as a looser.

Was this fair for his character? Well, I do not think the audience actually cared. The story was not about Matt, but about the two brothers and Elena, so the fact that no one “fought” for his character is because he was designed to serve a purpose, rather than have a huge impact in the life of the main characters of TVD.

Still, somehow, characters developed sympathy for him and that’s one of the reasons why he stayed on the show. In order to portrait Damon as the bad guy, you need reasons to be angry at Damon, but was there actually anyone angry when Damon tried to kill Matt? Or was it quite the opposite, meaning that the audience wanted Damon to kill Matt, but then had a conflict when thinking how Elena would fell about this?

Another question that troubles me is how would TVD have evolved if Matt Donovan was not a part of the cast for the entire series?

I did not really see the unique point of sale so to speak of this character. Really now, thinking of all the events happening in this series, I am wondering who has this character on top of the producers’ mind when thinking of a meaningful moment? Could we find any memorable moments when this character’s presence had an unforgettable impact on the course of events? On any scene what so ever? What type of character is he?!

Background? He has no meaningful impact on the turn of events that actually kept the audience of the show feeling the drama happening in there.

So maybe a recurring character? He certainly appeared on this show way more than needed.

Why did he have so much screen time? This is what I have been asking myself constantly after seeing him in Season 1, when let’s say he had a reason to be there. Being Elena’s ex, the good guy who always supported her, a shoulder to cry on, a supportive friend for Elena, Caroline, Tyler.

Even in season 1… surpassingly his love for Elena, jealous of Stefan, he ends up having a love story with one of her best friends? What moral, good guy does that? I mean he had a photo with Elena along with his sister’s, in his room and had Caroline on his sofa…

The part where Caroline sings for Matt in season 2? Lovely. Why did that scene exist? I personally, did not feel the feelings between them as a love couple.

Season 3 was a revelation of the so called love story between Matt and Caroline when out of the deepest love for Matt, she falls for his best friend Tyler. So Matt goes back to square one, only this time having had his heart broken by both Caroline and Tyler. Instead of a progression of his character, he is hurt and is portrayed as the lonely boy, who tries to find his way in a world where vampire and werewolves seem to attract the hottest girls.

At the end of season 4, he becomes the love interest of a vampire, after he made clear throughout the entire show how much he hated vampires, considering them monsters, only to this very point, when he ends up kissing an original vampire, who probably was more dangerous than Stefan and Damon put together : Rebekah Mikaelson.

Now that is what I call a twist of events. So just when I thought Matt would finish his part on TVD, he reaches the only moment of glory of his entire path, by dating an original ‘monster’. You’ve probably noticed by now, I am not a big fan of Matt, but I saw an opportunity to save this character from the lonely, boring, reserve-option-boyfriend, when the plot brought him together with Rebekah. Picture this: Matt, the only ‘normal human’, surrounded by supernatural creatures, reaches the cold, stone heart of an original vampire. Too much fiction? Sure it is.

If only the script made Matt an evolving character, taking him out of the misery and loneliness, by making him leave everything behind, as he didn’t have much anyway, and start living a little more adventurously with Rebekah. He could have complemented her with his humanity and she could have shown him a totally different perspective of life.

It was not meant to be this time either for Matt. This time or any other time whatsoever.

I find particularly intriguing how this character was shaped to exist in a world, in a city full of supernatural creatures, with no incredible skills, most of the time feeling out of place and alone. Sometimes I think this character would have been the perfect candidate for suicide. Yet, he ‘rises’ and becomes a sheriff. He, out of everyone, becomes the protector of Mystic Falls, the city owned by the supernatural. How was he protecting ‘his’ city? By kicking the supernatural out? Why would anyone listen to him in the first place?

The most crazy thing about Matt is that he somehow manages to stay alive just by being a simple human being, whilst the original vampires die.

How out of proportion is this? The very creators, the most powerful originals die, but he stays alive ! It is simply mind-blowing that after everything, one of the main characters, the protagonist, Stefan, dies. It is hard enough to comprehend how Elijah dies while this human stays alive, nevertheless Klaus.

To conclude, there is way too much to explore about the character of Matt Donovan and this will be done throughout the next episodes.