Guilty or not guilty: Caroline murders Carter — but is she guilty of the crime?
Disclaimer: I only have a passing knowledge of criminal law based on Wikipedia, legal dramas and police procedurals. Vampirediaries.wikia.com was also used as a reference. The aim of this article isn’t to disparage or commend characters solely for their criminal homicides or lack thereof.
Vampires in the media used to be unsympathetic, faceless monsters in conflict with the hero/protagonist. To have sympathetic villain vampires or vampire protagonists, the vampire characters need to be fleshed out and conflict shifted to internal conflicts or intervampire conflicts. One type of conflict deals with attitudes towards killing. There’s a lot of killing on The Vampire Diaries. Vampire on vampire, vampire on human, vampire on werewolf, vampire on hybrid, human on vampire, and even human on human! All werevolves (and hybrids) have killed at least one person. Most would agree that killing is illegal because killing is wrong and/or society couldn’t exist if murder was legal.
Homicide is a legal term. Homicide means the death of a human caused by a human. There are criminal and non-criminal homicides. The killing of an enemy combatant in the theater of war or the justified use of deadly force by a police officer is a non-criminal homicide. Justification defenses for homicide (e.g self-defense) seek to avoid liability. Excuse defenses acknowledge liability but excuse it due to personal defiencies such as age or insanity. Vampires have hunted werewolves to near extinction but that doesn’t justify killing random vampires. Vampires have killed many humans but that doesn’t justify killing random vampires. Werewolf/hybrid bites are lethal to vampires but that doesn’t justify killing random werewolves/hybrids. I think it would be fun and informative to consider and categorize the homicides in the series.
Let’s change the definition of homicide to the permanent death of a person caused by another person (excluding turning and coming back as a ghost). Personicide sounds silly. Among each of these groups there are individuals who don’t consider other groups or members thereof as persons. However, I’m going to consider all characters (besides ghosts) as persons and equal under the law. The following categories aren’t exhaustive.
Characters who have committed homicide
Damon, Stefan, Alaric, Caroline, Jeremy, John Gilbert, Rose, Harper, Logan, Mason, Tyler, Klaus, Elijah, Jules, Brady, Stevie, Liz Forbes, Ray Sutton, Paige, Giuseppe Salavatore, Katherine, Trevor, Samantha Gilbert, Matt
Characters who have committed murder
Damon, Stefan, Alaric, John Gilbert, Jeremy, Logan, Klaus, Elijah, Katherine, Trevor, Giuseppe Salvatore, Rebekah, Jules, Matt
Characters that have committed voluntary manslaughter
Caroline (?), Harper(?)
Characters that have killed while insane
Rose, Alaric, Samantha Gilbert
Characters that have killed in the defense of others
Caroline
Characters that have killed in self-defense
Tyler, Mason
Case Studies
Unnamed hybrid at Homecoming
The hybrid blocked Damon’s entrance to the Homecoming party at Lockwood Mansion. Damon ripped out his heart. Damon committed murder.
Sarah
Sarah attacked Tyler with a knife at the Masquerade Ball at Lockwood Mansion. Tyler pushed her away. Sarah hit her head and died. Tyler is not guilty on the basis of self-defense.
Carter
Carter died at the hands (teeth) of Caroline. New vampires (usually) have little to no control of their hunger. She didn’t plan on killing him. She didn’t want to kill him. She couldn’t control herself. She was out of her mind. This was a crime of passion. Caroline isn’t guilty of murder but she may or may not be guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
The two unnamed cops in the Lockwood cellar
Liz and the two cops were about to kill Stefan and Damon. As they and Liz were armed with guns that shoot wooden bullets, Caroline was in danger herself. Caroline used one as a human shield and knocked out/killed the other. Actually, I don’t even know if it was Caroline or Damon that killed the second cop. Caroline is not guilty on the basis of the defense of others.
So, Matt, Damon, and Jules have committed murder but Caroline and Harper have not. What are your thoughts?
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Wasn't Matt the one who killed the original Fin? Isn't that murder as well. Tyler may have killed the woman he fed on we don't know for sure, but that may be due to the being recently turned. You might want to include aprox number of kills in order to define mass murderer from just murderer.
Eric does include Matt. (Truth be told he was writing this since before last week's episode, so y'know.) He's in there, it's just that he didn't make a case study for him.
Matt definitely committed murder — and he planned it — because Finn was no threat AND at that point didn't want to die. Though, we could argue that Matt was trying to save Stefan in the immediate situation.
TVD: where murder is blurry, basically.
I think that Matt should be included (along with Elena) it was premeditated murder as well and in the end it turned out to be all for nothing. The ends justified the means to them.
Elena would definitely be an accomplice. ALSO not only did they kill Finn, but Sage as well… and anyone that's a vampire from his bloodline. So they could have mass murdered god knows how many vampires!
They didn't know about Sage and the others dying then so I don't think that could be included. There was no premeditation for them. If anything it would be manslaughter. But they did believe they would kill the entire original family, but they failed so it wasn't murder for them either. Only for Fin.
I could write about assault, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder or I could write about murder, mass murder, and genocide.
I can write up more case studies if there's sufficient demand. There's Liz's killing of Jeremy for instance.
I was thinking of writing an article about genocide (particularly after last episode).
What about doing phycology studies not on the characters but on the viewers, specifically shippers and why they ship certain characters. Many of us have theories about their underlying motives. On second thought my experience with them tells me that it would probably make them really really angry.
How about doing a phycology study not on the characters but on the viewers specifically shippers and the underlying reasons on who they ship and why. Many of us have our own theories as to the motives behind their choices. But on second thought, after dealing with some of them in the past, it probably would make them really angry.
Sorry about the repeat it looked like it didn't take so I typed it over again.
There's enough shipping/anti-shipping articles already.
You can edit your comments by the way (click on the Edit link)
I don't believe you have the edit link when you are guest.
As for my comment on on shipping, I retracted my recommendation in the last sentence.
I think this is ridiculous. Vampires are not people. There are things. Dead things. Soulless creatures of the night. It is in their nature to kill and feed on the living. The living hold priority over the dead. And thus any harm that comes to the living from that which is dead should be controlled/eliminated (in this case vampires).
This is why I stopped watching this show. Too much sympathy for the devil and not enough upholding of the law of right and wrong; good and evil. There's no morality or it's just too many gray areas for me to comfortably enjoy. Perhaps I've been too groomed and trained by shows such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Charmed," "Angel," and "Supernatural." All of these shows had/have a morality that they stuck/stick to: Good vs. Evil. Yes there were moments with shades of gray portrayed through a characters internal battles, but eventually they would/will always choose what was/is good and right to "protect the innocent" and "fight against evil;" personal sacrifice. TVD is a show about vampires, so this will have a much different approach, understandably. However, "Angel" was also a show about a vampire (with a soul) on a road to redemption who "helped the helpless," so the argument of plausible amorality falls flat.
If you enjoy the show in spite of what to me are shortcomings, there's nothing wrong with it, I just can't. It's not my cup of tea. Show me something where the heroes are flawed, but not to the extent of being murderers. Not to the extent where said murder is quickly brushed under the rug and not properly dealt with (no consequences). That, I can't get behind. It's a personal preference, I suppose.
Elena killed Alaric
I don't count temporary deaths but thanks for pointing that out.
I moderately enjoy this show, but I still don't recognize half of the names on this list. I think the lists of deaths and those who commit murder/homicide is so long because this show is notorious for introducing a new character almost every other episode. Yes, the core cast of the show is still around and has gone through much growth in 3+ seasons, but I find myself taking a lot of breaks from the show and having to re-watch episodes when I come back because I lose track of what's going on so easily. Great job though, buddy!
So much killing on this show! It sometimes hinders my enjoyment of it when I suddenly recall how many PEOPLE Damon has murdered. SO MANY PEOPLE. And then we're just supposed to be cool with him wandering around unpunished! At least Stefan is tortured with guilt over the murders he's committed.