Rewriting Inconsistent Fight Scenes — Kol Mikaelson vs. Damon Salvatore
To watch the video essay version of the article click here.
We all love The Originals and The Vampire Diaries and everyone loves a good fight scene. However, as many have carefully observed over the years, both of these shows can have fight scenes that are a little bit… inconsistent with the established lore. A little bit… hard to swallow. A little bit… complete and utter bullshit, particularly as it pertains to vampire strength, speed, established skill, basic logic, etc. If you were just as blood-steamingly annoyed at this as I was, you’re in luck! Because, being the martyr that I am, I have taken it upon myself to rewrite some of these scenes in the lovely series of articles of which this is the first. In this series I will endeavour to rewrite these scenes not only in such a way that they become logically plausible and consistent with the lore but that also retains the same outcomes and achieves the same goals the writers had in mind with the original scene. Long-winded preamble over, you all want to know: Which scene is first on the chopping block? It is the one, the only, the truly infuriatingly perplexing…
Kol vs. Damon in “Dangerous Liaisons”
In season 2 of “The Vampire Diaries” the writers introduced “The Originals.” A gang of super badass ultra vampires. Now, while these new characters were great villains and absolutely awesome they also ended up being victims of their own awesomesauce. In season 3 it became increasingly clear that the originals were way too overpowered for the setting they were in. The writers’ solution was naturally to come up with creative ways to allow our characters to outsmart them through enginuity and inv- Nah, I’m just pulling your leg. They just started handicapping the originals by pretending they were much, much weaker than established to be. As a result, the worst of the atrocious crimes against logical writing in all of The Vampire Diaries were against the members of the original family.
One of the biggest victims of the above-mentioned trend is probably Kol Mikaelson. He’s often been, to put it kindly, defeated by younger vampires or others far below his own level of strength and skill (as far as the lore goes). And to put it less kindly: He got curbstomped by Damon like a little bitch.
I am, of course, referring to the scene in the fourteenth episode of season 3 of The Vampire Diaries where this original fights the blue-eyed wunderkind that is Damon Salvatore and loses spectacularly by getting his neck snapped. Which also happens to be the first real fight scene Kol ever had. Yeah… what a way for this new character to really blow your socks off, writers.
Before we actually rewrite the scene though, let’s take a short look at the original scene and what it was trying to accomplish.
Analyzing the Original Scene
What happened: Kol starts to break Matt’s hand while standing on a balcony. Damon sees this, makes a snarky comment and charges at the original. As a result Kol is flung off of the building. Damon jumps after him, slaps aside Kol’s feeble resistance and then snaps Kol’s neck. Afterwards Damon proceeds to stroll away unharmed despite being in full view of the other members of the original family (including the very tempramental Klaus).
So what’s the point of this scene from a writing point-of-view? Damon had just been rejected by Elena and so, Damon being Damon, that means he had to engage in reckless behaviour and snappin’ some o’ dem necks! Sadly, no Jeremies were close at hand so the writers figured Kol was the next best thing.
On top of that, he had to cause trouble in such a way that it is a wrinkle in Elena’s peace talks with Esther and pisses his dear lady, and the originals, the hell off. All of this as part of an re-emerging rift between Damon and Elena caused by his tendency towards reckless behaviour. Something which would culminate in Damon sleeping with Rebekah at the end of the episode.
Now that we know all that, it’s time to rewrite to our heart’s content. Let’s turn this atrocious frog of a scene into a beautiful prince!
Rewriting the Scene
What should have happened: Kol starts to break Matt’s hand while standing on the balcony. Damon sees this. He makes his snarky little comment and charges at the original. Kol, of course, being an original, simply backhands him unto the floor. Damon, having had quite a bit of bourbon, isn’t deterred by this, however. He gets up and charges at him again at which point Kol easily swats his hands aside and then lifts him up by the neck like a little toy.
Stefan, who’s been looking for Damon, hears the noise and comes upon the scene. We see a shot of him in the doorway right before he belts one of his classic panicked “Damon!” lines. We then see him galanetly charging in to try to save his brother. A cut is made in the scene.
When we come back both Stefan and Damon are thrown into the main hall of the building like ragdolls. They land on the various expensive tables with food which shatter and spill their food all over the floor. Kol charges at them and prepares to kill one or both of them.
However, since they are now in full view of everybody, Elijah and Finn (being the two that wish to follow Esther’s rules) restrain their brother.
“What is wrong with you?” asks Elijah to Kol.
While Kol is being restrained by Elijah and Finn, Damon, being a spiteful son of a bitch, gets up and grabs one of the table’s legs (one of the ones that he was flung unto and broke). He charges at Kol and stabs him right through the heart (thus desiccating him). Kol of course is unable to react to stop Damon because he was being restrained by two originals.
Elijah and Finn look down at their brother and back at Damon, clearly angry. Damon starts backing away towards his brother as he looks around. He sees Rebekah to his right and Klaus to his left, both fuming.
The originals prepare to tear Damon’s head off and we see close-ups of Damon and Stefan.
“You take the two supernatural killing machines on the right, I’ll take the two on the left.” says Damon.
There is a tense stand-off for a few seconds.
Suddenly we hear a voice. “Enough!” shouts Esther.
We see Esther and Elena walk unto the scene from down the stairs. Esther angirly tells Damon and Stefan to leave the party. She looks at her children for a moment (judgingly, as she is wont to do) saying “No harm will come to either of you if they leave right now. I promise.”
Damon makes a hateful comment as he leaves. Stefan simply nods, apologises and leaves. Elena is left gawking down from the stairs at Damon and Stefan, stunned and angry at what they’ve done.
This version of the scene seems longer. As far as text goes it’s certainly longer. But in actual screen time it really would’ve been only a few seconds (definitely less than a minute) longer than what we actually saw. More things just happen at once.
What do you get for that extra 30 seconds? A scene that retains its original purpose (to show Damon acting recklessly and breaking up the party with Elena being left upset) while at the same time staying true to the lore and respecting the power of an original vampire like Kol Mikaelson. All sprinkled with just a few moments of tension. And isn’t that a trade you’d take in an instant?
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Read More
- The Pint-Sized Powerhouse — How Powerful is Hope Mikaelson Really?
- Selfless Redeemer or Selfish Controller? — Why Elijah Made Klaus a Worse Person
- What Character Arc? — Why Damon’s Transformation into a Human Was a Betrayal
A previous version of this article was originally published on March 26th 2016 on The Vampire Diaries wikia and then analyticalmadness.com.
Copyright: The images used in this article are screenshots taken from the episodes of the show. We are allowed to use them under section 107 of the US Copyright Act of 1976. The Originals belongs to the CW and Alloy Entertainment.
