The Vampire Diaries -- Why Does Stefan Think He's Better Than Damon?
This isn't about a fan declaring one brother is better than the other. This is about Stefan and him constantly saying how he's so much better than Damon is. It's got me wondering on just why Stefan believes he's better than Damon.
Maybe it's because Damon deserted the army, although we saw him defending Damon to their father, Giuseppe, for the choice he made. And by Stefan's own mouth he said he didn't care if it hurt Damon that he went out with Katherine when he knew Damon wanted her. He also promised Damon he wouldn't tell their father about Katherine and he betrayed Damon. So what in that behavior makes Stefan feel he's so much better than Damon? Or does he only feel that way about Vampire Damon?
Damon didn't want to become a vampire, and Stefan wouldn't respect his wishes and manipulated Damon into becoming a vampire by bringing a girl to Damon and opening her vein so Damon would feed on her and complete the transformation. Stefan also murdered their father and fed on him. As a vampire, Stefan was out of control and Damon felt he was going to get them killed. Damon finally left Stefan when Stefan met Lexie and she wanted to devote herself to helping him conquer his blood addiction. Before Damon left, he asked her to look after Stefan. So what in that slice of history gives Stefan the belief he's better than Damon?
The brother met up again in 1912 and the first words out of Stefan's mouth were to suggest that Damon had murdered their relative. It was like Stefan was casting his own sins on to Damon, since it was Stefan that murdered their father, not Damon. He wanted Damon to adopt his animal blood regime. Damon, instead, met a woman named Sage, who taught him to embrace the darker and more pleasurable parts of being a vampire. Damon wanted Stefan to enjoy this new lifestyle he discovered and got him to go off the wagon with disasterous results: Stefan decapitated the woman he was feeding on. Now he may think he's better than Damon because his animal blood regime Damon wouldn't embrace and that Damon got him to fall off the wagon.
However, if he's blaming Damon for becoming The Ripper, sorry, but just like Stefan killing his own father, that's entirely on Stefan. Stefan's horror over decapitating someone should have been more than enough to make him go back on his animal blood diet, immediately. Instead, he went in the other direction. He killed and dismembered more and more people to the point he even slaughtered an entire settlement in one night. Instead of the horror and guilt over his actions making him go cold turkey and get back on animal blood, he dealt with his guilt by writing his victims names on a wall of shame. Maybe Stefan feels he's better than Damon because he writes his victims names down on a wall.
It's very possible that Stefan does blame Damon for what he became, but there's a big difference between blaming someone for the horrible atrocities you commit and actually believing you're better than they are. It doesn't even make sense. If you blame someone for the horrible things you've done, then how can you feel you're better than they are when they haven't done the horrible things you've done?
When Damon came back to town he was intent on ruining the new life Stefan was trying to build for himself. He did a lot of horrible things, including killing Stefan's sobriety sponsor, Lexie. In return, Stefan imprisoned Damon and starved him, waiting for Damon to dessicate and saying he'd decide in fifty years if Damon deserved a second chance to live. Then he lied and betrayed Damon, making him think he was going to help him get Katherine out of the tomb, when he had no plans to do any such thing. Stefan then fell off the wagon when he got kidnapped by the tomb vampires. Stefan may blame Damon for that, since Damon forced them to open the tomb, hoping to save Katherine. But it was Damon who saved Stefan from the tomb vampires. In the bad brother sweepstakes it seems a pretty even race on which one is the worst brother. And since Stefan forced Damon to complete his transformation into becoming a vampire instead of respecting his choice not to do it, should Stefan with his highly developed sense of guilt blame himself for what Damon became as a vampire? And if you blame yourself for what someone has become can you really feel you're morally superior to them?
Let's be honest, Stefan is just as bad of a vampire as Damon is. They're both serial killers. They're both mass-murderers, although you could blame Stefan for Damon becoming a mass-murderer since Stefan starved him and his mass-murderer was based on starvation, not addiction like Stefan. Stefan and Damon have both betrayed each other. Stefan got Damon to complete his transformation as a vampire and Damon got Stefan to fall off the wagon. There's really no ground for one brother to think he's better than the other brother when they're pretty much done the same things to differing degrees.
Damon's belief he isn't as good is Stefan is easy to understand. Every time Stefan opens his mouth it's to put Damon down and tell him how inferior he is. Stefan's belief he's better than Damon is the one that's hard to understand since he's done just as bad of things as Damon has done. Maybe Stefan thinks he's superior to Damon because he embraced the animal blood regime, a regime I might add his own sobriety sponsor Lexie didn't even embrace. Or maybe it's because everyone tells him how much better he is than Damon. Whatever the case, he's no better than Damon is, he only thinks he is.
