Friday, October 23, 2015

The Originals: The Rise by Julie Plec

Family is power. The Original vampire family swore it to each other a thousand years ago. They pledged to remain together always and forever. But even when you're immortal, promises are hard to keep.

Arriving in New Orleans in 1722, Original vampire siblings Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah Mikaelson believe they've escaped their dangerous past. But the city is lawless, a haven for witches and werewolves unwilling to share territory. The siblings are at their mercy…especially after Klaus meets the beautiful and mysterious Vivianne. Her impending marriage is key to ending the war between the supernatural factions—and Klaus's attraction to her could destroy the uneasy alliance. As Elijah works toward securing a piece of the city for his family, and Rebekah fights her unexpected feelings for a French captain, will Klaus's volatile desires bring their world crashing down—and tear them apart for good?
 






Ahhh Julie, you’ve done it again. Take pre-established and well-liked characters and destroy them for your fanfiction, and people say you can’t make money off of that.

The Originals: The Rise is the first book in a trilogy based on the TV show “The Originals” which is, at the same time, a Spin-off of The Vampire Diaries. I know, but wear with me. It’s basically about the original Family, the first vampires ever created (yes, yes I know it was reckoned and it changed to Silas and what’s her face) and who are the creators of every vampire in existence in the TV show.

Now, I started up late with show I think when it was in its third or fourth season, and I did because some of my Tumblr friends watched it so I wanted to see how it was like. Overall, the story of the doomed love triangle between a teenager, Elena and two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon was entertaining but nothing amazing. Maybe the vampire fever was over for me but whatever the reason, I missed the show’s spark. I still loved some stuff, like Caroline Forbes my sweet precious baby (who was butchered by the lady in the wrecking ball) Bonnie the witch, who hasn’t had a plot whatsoever in this show for about four mothereffing seasons.

And, of course, the Original Family.
 
Look at them all dashing and awesome… until Julie Plec came along.
DAMN IT! WHY??

Look, for me the Mikaelson family was a welcomed relief from all the overpowering romantic drama. They were what I picture when I think of vampires; twisted, unapologetic, sassy, sexy, cunning and all kinds of awesome.
 

Their family dinamics were great, imagine spending a thousand years with your siblings. Their relationships were possessive, hateful, resentful but overall, they love each other more than anything in the world, despite what they have done to each other.

We had Klaus, the first and only werewolf-vampire hybrid, a product of his mother’s infidelity. A sweet and caring child despite his “father’s” abuse. After he discovers what he is and how his mother cursed his werewolf side to be hidden, making him weaker he becomes paranoid, always questioning his siblings loyalty and his place in their family. The things he went through to keep them all together, he went from caring to possessive, hateful and abusive, much like the father figure he grew to hate. His obsession with breaking the curse on him and creating more hybrids was what drove him for a thousand years. It was fascinating to see him destroying himself and his family in his quest for power and immortality.

There was Elijah, the more level-headed brother who always tried to keep them together. He was the bridge between Klaus and the rest, the one who tried to solve the conflicts that always came up. He was also awesome and fancy.

There is Rebekah, turned when she was only sixteen she is, in many ways, a spoiled girl… with the habit of killing and torturing when things don’t go her way but yes, a girl nonetheless. She is Klaus’ favourite sibling who always tried to compensate for what their mother had done to him, becoming herself a mother to him in a way, and the two have a very… well pretty weird relationship that stays that way because this is a kid’s show.

Kol, HE WAS A SARCASTIC PIECE OF SHIT, AND WE LOVED HIM. But he was taken away from us… BECAUSE OF REASONS.
 
Finn, he’s the oldest and kind of a momma’s boy. Never liked being a vampire so his siblings just staked him and left him in a coffin so he wouldn’t bother the rest and couldn’t try to kill them/himself. But he was still cool.
 

When it was announced that they would get their own show, you can imagine my excitement! I loved this family, and we only got a few glimpses of them in TVD but they made a bad episode worth the watch just to see them, imagine forty-five minutes filled with them! Oh man, it could have been awesome. It was supposed to be darker than TVD, more like Game of Thrones they said.

And then, the day comes when it airs and:

 

Way to go guys! Nothing makes people think “mature” and “dark” like special snowflake teenager pregnant with magical vampire baby.

But still I kept watching, we would still get the Original family and their story, right?!

All we got was OCC versions of Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah, and some weird ass plot about taking over New Orleans and being Royalty… because that makes sense. To be honest, the episodes were boring, I never cared about the plot (protect the baby we knew was never going to be killed and take over a city nobody gave two craps about), I disliked how women and POC were killed left and right (let’s not forget the incident when they requested women with large breast to play murder victims), and I never cared about Hayley, the poor pregnant werewolf.
In TVD she was the typical asshole who thought she was better than other girls because she wasn’t into “girly” stuff. She was dumb, backstabbing and selfish, but on the show she was re-written to be the perfect poor orphan whose parents never loved her. And…

She turns out to be a lost werewolf princess!!!!!

Even though Werewolves organize themselves over alphas and betas, and the strongest rule, somehow, they suddenly obey royalty who are not particularly smart, strong or superior in any way (Just check out Hayley for God’s sake).

Yeah, right. I was hoping that, mayyyybe her new plot of becoming Queen will make her a better character, but the misogynistic narrative was still there. Hayley is the second most powerful being in the world (because of MAGIC) and yet she always needs rescuing. In order to become Queen and have power the narrative always involves a guy (being pregnant by Klaus, having Elijah help her with his connections, having to marry and sleep with a guy for a ritual. Literally everything was written leading off to that direction; instead of making her take matters into her own hands she always needs a guy to guide her.). And honestly, Phoebe's acting skill didn't help.


So the show ended up being a disappointment, obviously but when the book series was announced I thought there was another chance to make everything better! We would finally get the story we wanted about this powerful family through history.

But it turned out to be Klaus wanting to be King of New Orleans and falling into insta-love with a witch/werewolf princess-ish. While Elijah just… goes around looking for a home to buy and Rebekah is OCC and sadly, dumb.

To be fair, it’s just like one of the show’s episode, I was just hoping for something different.



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