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sumeria...I don't think it does what they say it does.
I'm not here asserting that the writers are lying/trying to deceive us by describing the effects of the switch as "shutting off all emotions"; I think they reached for a short, pithy way to explain the phenomenon, and I think some accuracy was sacrificed.
Consider: Damon clearly spent more than a hundred years living with his switch flicked, and he still loved Katherine. When Stefan was going through his libertine period, he still wanted Damon in his life badly enough to beg. And consider, too: every vampire we've seen in an "emotionless" state (Damon, Stefan, Isobel) has displayed a pretty profound tendency towards blood-soaked orgies and the like, which doesn't strike me as emotionless behavior per se.
That said, "switched" behavior does seem to be reasonably consistent across vampires, so whatever is going on, one should be able to define its parameters. I, being an enormous nerd who's overly invested in a tv show, and who is twitching with irritation over having to wait for the end of season, am interested in trying to work out exactly how vampire psychology/physiology are working here.
Since Rose told us that that switch stops working after a hundred years or so, I think all vampires older than the Salvatores have to be regarded as useless for investigating this question; we just don't know enough about any of their youthes. Further, I don't think we can say that we ever saw either Vicki or Caroline operating with the switch flipped; Caroline still seems in full possession of herself, and at the very least, there was no discussion of "turning off emotions" that we saw anyone have with Vicki. I'm also going to disregard Anna's bartending vampire minion; I don't think we know enough about him to know if he had himself switched or if he was just naturally kind of an asshole.
Which leaves us with Stefan, Damon, and Isobel as potential subjects for the main part of the inquiry. For purposes of clarity, when I say "switch on" I mean in sociopathic blood-soaked orgy state, and when I say "switch off" I mean in default emotional state.
One of the things I really like about this show is its use of semi-unreliable narrators; that is, we get tons of information, but the writers do a good job of remembering that it's all from someone's point of view, and limited by their own knowledge and understanding. So what do we actually know? We know that the default state for vampires is to experience all their emotions dialed up to eleven, more or less. They all report that experience pretty consistently, that they feel everything humans do, but much, much more strongly. We also know that they find themselves feeling some things that humans definitely don't; Stefan describes what "hunger" feels like to him on a couple occasions, and it's not what my experience of hunger is like at all. Stefan, granted, is an addict, but in combination with Caroline's remark to Liz that her "basic instinct" now is to kill, I feel pretty comfortable saying we can say that vampires have feelings and drives and wants and instincts that they didn't have as humans, and which seem to them to be as strong or stronger than their other feelings/instincts.
Either way, it seems to me clear that vampires who aren't policing their behavior both want things that humans just don't want and do things humans probably wouldn't do. (By which I mean "rip other people's throats out and drink their blood". It is, to a vampire, the instinctive, normal reaction to some scenarios.) At that, we got an admission from Stefan back in season 1 that vampires like to stalk, to hunt, to terrorize their pray, which is certainly born out by Damon's general behavior. In general, a vampire seems to have a higher quotient of both sadism and hedonism than most human people. (See: blood-soaked orgies.)
Thing is, when I think "emotionless" I don't think "sadistic hedonist". At all, really. Also, vampires who are switched on can clearly still get angry, which is definitely an emotion. Also, I would argue that all three test cases clearly still experience "love". It's hard for me to explain Isobel compelling Alaric to get over her as anything but a gesture of some kind of feeling. Likewise, I don't really feel like Stefan's desperate clinging to his brother was some kind of intellectual need. I'm sure I need say nothing about Damon's Thing for Katherine.
So all of that inclined me to wonder if the switch they described as "turning off their emotions" was actually doing something more like turning off their empathy. Actually, I'm willing to argue that whatever it does, it definitely does that; Isobel and Stefan seem pretty clearly to demonstrate that a vampire with the switch flipped is pretty incapable of registering other people as people.* Damon is kind of a more complicated case; he spent more time with his switch on than either of the others, if only because he's older than Isobel, but more-- it's pretty clear, to me, that somewhere in season 1 his switch just stopped working for him.
We know from Rose that that happens, and more, I really cannot find any spot in the narrative of season 1 where it looks like Damon would have made anything like a choice to start feeling things again. Particularly given some of his recent actions in season 2 (Jessica, Andie) it seems pretty clear that he would, at least on some level, like to stop feeling things, and that he can't. Now, it is possible, I suppose, that he's unwilling to give up the way he feels about Elena (as per Lexi's assertion to Stefan that inability to feel love is a price of flipping the switch) but that doesn't really seem likely to me. I will now not get derailed into a long discussion of the kind of effects leaving the switch on for a century could have on a person, and why I think he's actually making shocking swift progress at reclaiming his decent-person-ness and so on.
Anyway, the one really consistent thing all the vampires say about their switch is that they don't feel pain when it's not. Pain, loneliness, guilt-- those seem to be the big things that they're trying to get rid of by flipping it. Now, guilt we could explain with the empathy hypothesis. If you don't empathize, if your father doesn't seem to you like a person, than presumably you're not tearing yourself apart over that time you accidentally killed and ate him. Loneliness-- I think Anna either said or implied to Jeremy that you could get rid of that by flipping the switch, but honestly, based on Stefan's reaction to the idea of Damon leaving him, I'm gonna say that doesn't happen.
But the real sticking point for me is pain. Total lack of ability to empathize with people doesn't cause the person so lacking to cease to feel (emotional) pain. (Why yes, I *did* use to read books on antisocial personality disorders, why do you ask?)
Mind you, Damon doesn't make a stellar case for "experiencing no pain". His anger and resentment of Stefan make a ton more sense if their fueled by hurt, but he does more or less explicitly say to Jeremy that the switch makes you not hurt. What I find myself wondering, though, is if what it does is make you not care. If the switch doesn't turn off their emotions, just destroys all their inhibitions and makes them give not a crap about much of anything. Basically, I'm theorizing that it's the morphine of the soul. That it deadens, but doesn't actually destroy sensation. That it makes them impulsive, and prone to act on whim, and instinct. And also possibly high as a kite. (Really, my experience with illegal drugs is insufficent here; I don't know if the effect I'm looking for is that of a narcotic, or an opiate.)
Problems with this theory: Isobel.
Evidence for this theory: Stefan.
Otoh, people do demonstrably react to mucking about with their brain chemistry in different ways, so neither of them is conclusive there. But I certainly think the theory fits the evidence a bit better than the "no emotions" explanation does. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else, or am I overthinking?
*I am here using 'empathy' more or less as a synonym for 'conscience', which for most people, functions based on emotional responses grounded in empathy. It is totally possible to have an entirely reason-based, non-empathic system of morality/conscience, but it is wildly atypical. For most people, a moral impulse is an emotional/empathic impulse.
I'm not here asserting that the writers are lying/trying to deceive us by describing the effects of the switch as "shutting off all emotions"; I think they reached for a short, pithy way to explain the phenomenon, and I think some accuracy was sacrificed.
Consider: Damon clearly spent more than a hundred years living with his switch flicked, and he still loved Katherine. When Stefan was going through his libertine period, he still wanted Damon in his life badly enough to beg. And consider, too: every vampire we've seen in an "emotionless" state (Damon, Stefan, Isobel) has displayed a pretty profound tendency towards blood-soaked orgies and the like, which doesn't strike me as emotionless behavior per se.
That said, "switched" behavior does seem to be reasonably consistent across vampires, so whatever is going on, one should be able to define its parameters. I, being an enormous nerd who's overly invested in a tv show, and who is twitching with irritation over having to wait for the end of season, am interested in trying to work out exactly how vampire psychology/physiology are working here.
Since Rose told us that that switch stops working after a hundred years or so, I think all vampires older than the Salvatores have to be regarded as useless for investigating this question; we just don't know enough about any of their youthes. Further, I don't think we can say that we ever saw either Vicki or Caroline operating with the switch flipped; Caroline still seems in full possession of herself, and at the very least, there was no discussion of "turning off emotions" that we saw anyone have with Vicki. I'm also going to disregard Anna's bartending vampire minion; I don't think we know enough about him to know if he had himself switched or if he was just naturally kind of an asshole.
Which leaves us with Stefan, Damon, and Isobel as potential subjects for the main part of the inquiry. For purposes of clarity, when I say "switch on" I mean in sociopathic blood-soaked orgy state, and when I say "switch off" I mean in default emotional state.
One of the things I really like about this show is its use of semi-unreliable narrators; that is, we get tons of information, but the writers do a good job of remembering that it's all from someone's point of view, and limited by their own knowledge and understanding. So what do we actually know? We know that the default state for vampires is to experience all their emotions dialed up to eleven, more or less. They all report that experience pretty consistently, that they feel everything humans do, but much, much more strongly. We also know that they find themselves feeling some things that humans definitely don't; Stefan describes what "hunger" feels like to him on a couple occasions, and it's not what my experience of hunger is like at all. Stefan, granted, is an addict, but in combination with Caroline's remark to Liz that her "basic instinct" now is to kill, I feel pretty comfortable saying we can say that vampires have feelings and drives and wants and instincts that they didn't have as humans, and which seem to them to be as strong or stronger than their other feelings/instincts.
Either way, it seems to me clear that vampires who aren't policing their behavior both want things that humans just don't want and do things humans probably wouldn't do. (By which I mean "rip other people's throats out and drink their blood". It is, to a vampire, the instinctive, normal reaction to some scenarios.) At that, we got an admission from Stefan back in season 1 that vampires like to stalk, to hunt, to terrorize their pray, which is certainly born out by Damon's general behavior. In general, a vampire seems to have a higher quotient of both sadism and hedonism than most human people. (See: blood-soaked orgies.)
Thing is, when I think "emotionless" I don't think "sadistic hedonist". At all, really. Also, vampires who are switched on can clearly still get angry, which is definitely an emotion. Also, I would argue that all three test cases clearly still experience "love". It's hard for me to explain Isobel compelling Alaric to get over her as anything but a gesture of some kind of feeling. Likewise, I don't really feel like Stefan's desperate clinging to his brother was some kind of intellectual need. I'm sure I need say nothing about Damon's Thing for Katherine.
So all of that inclined me to wonder if the switch they described as "turning off their emotions" was actually doing something more like turning off their empathy. Actually, I'm willing to argue that whatever it does, it definitely does that; Isobel and Stefan seem pretty clearly to demonstrate that a vampire with the switch flipped is pretty incapable of registering other people as people.* Damon is kind of a more complicated case; he spent more time with his switch on than either of the others, if only because he's older than Isobel, but more-- it's pretty clear, to me, that somewhere in season 1 his switch just stopped working for him.
We know from Rose that that happens, and more, I really cannot find any spot in the narrative of season 1 where it looks like Damon would have made anything like a choice to start feeling things again. Particularly given some of his recent actions in season 2 (Jessica, Andie) it seems pretty clear that he would, at least on some level, like to stop feeling things, and that he can't. Now, it is possible, I suppose, that he's unwilling to give up the way he feels about Elena (as per Lexi's assertion to Stefan that inability to feel love is a price of flipping the switch) but that doesn't really seem likely to me. I will now not get derailed into a long discussion of the kind of effects leaving the switch on for a century could have on a person, and why I think he's actually making shocking swift progress at reclaiming his decent-person-ness and so on.
Anyway, the one really consistent thing all the vampires say about their switch is that they don't feel pain when it's not. Pain, loneliness, guilt-- those seem to be the big things that they're trying to get rid of by flipping it. Now, guilt we could explain with the empathy hypothesis. If you don't empathize, if your father doesn't seem to you like a person, than presumably you're not tearing yourself apart over that time you accidentally killed and ate him. Loneliness-- I think Anna either said or implied to Jeremy that you could get rid of that by flipping the switch, but honestly, based on Stefan's reaction to the idea of Damon leaving him, I'm gonna say that doesn't happen.
But the real sticking point for me is pain. Total lack of ability to empathize with people doesn't cause the person so lacking to cease to feel (emotional) pain. (Why yes, I *did* use to read books on antisocial personality disorders, why do you ask?)
Mind you, Damon doesn't make a stellar case for "experiencing no pain". His anger and resentment of Stefan make a ton more sense if their fueled by hurt, but he does more or less explicitly say to Jeremy that the switch makes you not hurt. What I find myself wondering, though, is if what it does is make you not care. If the switch doesn't turn off their emotions, just destroys all their inhibitions and makes them give not a crap about much of anything. Basically, I'm theorizing that it's the morphine of the soul. That it deadens, but doesn't actually destroy sensation. That it makes them impulsive, and prone to act on whim, and instinct. And also possibly high as a kite. (Really, my experience with illegal drugs is insufficent here; I don't know if the effect I'm looking for is that of a narcotic, or an opiate.)
Problems with this theory: Isobel.
Evidence for this theory: Stefan.
Otoh, people do demonstrably react to mucking about with their brain chemistry in different ways, so neither of them is conclusive there. But I certainly think the theory fits the evidence a bit better than the "no emotions" explanation does. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else, or am I overthinking?
*I am here using 'empathy' more or less as a synonym for 'conscience', which for most people, functions based on emotional responses grounded in empathy. It is totally possible to have an entirely reason-based, non-empathic system of morality/conscience, but it is wildly atypical. For most people, a moral impulse is an emotional/empathic impulse.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 09:38 pm (UTC)I think what happens is that is turns off someone's empathy pretty much completely and they're left with their own selfish desires? Like, Damon loved Katherine and thus getting her back was selfish, he was hurting everyone around him, including his brother, to get her back to him. And Isobel loves Alaric and thus cannot stand him hurting and that's selfish? Even though she did let him go... And then Isobel also loved her daughter very much and wanted to protect her in her season 1 episode which, again, reflects on her own desires? This works for Stefan too because he didn't want his brother to leave him not because of any specific bond or empathy for Damon but rather because Stefan turned Damon to have him there forever and Damon was leaving and Stefan did not want that.
They describe it often as "turning on/off their humanity" which lies in our ability to empathize with others and to act selflessly so.
I don't know, thoughts. :) Thank you for sharing this! So happy that someone else thinks about these things.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 02:27 pm (UTC)But it's what they say about pain that convinces me that it can't be *only* a loss of empathy entailed in flipping the switch. Lack of empathy explains lack of guilt, but not lack of loss, or pain, or grief, and whatever the switch does, it does *something* about those, as well as the empathy thing.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 01:42 am (UTC)I actually find myself wondering if, like the sun and the moon curse, the "switch" is actually somewhat of a myth? I mean, we know from being a vampire that everything is "heightened," so I could see how a new vampire who indulges in all the most hedonistic parts of being a vampire and who is reveling in being at the top of the food chain and compelling people to do what he or she wants could experience feelings of invincibility and superiority so that it FEELS like their emotions are shut off. But once some of that initial indulgence is out of the way, it becomes harder and harder to use it as an escape.
We haven't really seen any vampires yet who don't have any signs of humanity - even with their switch "on." Stefan in his flashbacks seemed to be indulging in the hedonism as a way of escaping the guilt he was feeling over his brother/father (similar to the way I might over-indulge in chocolate and wine after a bad day??). Damon, even in S1, tells Stefan that things he's done is HIS guilt to feel, and that he does feel it on occasion. Even early S1 Damon displayed moments of humanity - he clearly lived to mentally screw with Stefan, but still didn't *really* want harm to come to his brother. Even KATHERINE has her moments of humanity - the grief over her family, her reaction to Stefan's confession of love in flashbacks, even her drive to survive is very human.
So I wonder if by "the switch," what Rose meant isn't so much that it goes away, but that it gets harder to escape into the joy/hedonistic parts of being a vampire as you grow older? There is only so many times you can eat your favourite food day-after-day even if it is your favourite.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 02:57 pm (UTC)That persistent description of a *switch*, and especially Damon's characterization to Alaric of it being "like a button you can press" just sounds so much like they're describing an experience more artificial than just denial and self-indulgence.
I myself am really getting fed up with the persistent use of "humanity" as a descriptor for "decency" in fantasy fiction; it crops up all the time, and it drives me batty. In TVD, it appears that when they say "humanity" they claim to mean "having the emotional capacity of a human", but that doesn't really make any sense. I mean, Damon kills Jeremy, and the characters say "he's lost his humanity". As though lashing out in pain and rage uncontrollably and hurting people was A.) outside the range of possible human behavior, which any police officer who's responded to a domestic disturbance call knows it's not and B.) as though it were some kind of gesture of having no feelings. Which it also totally is not; it's a gesture of having tons of feelings and dealing with them in a wildly inappropriate way. It was totally "human" it just wasn't very nice.
Which I guess is kind of a long-winded way of agreeing with you: I don't think any vampires are as "inhuman" or "emotionless" as they *think* they are. I do think there is *some* kind of switch that does *something*... kind of like vampire training wheels, maybe? Spend a hundred years living in a particular way, and it becomes habit forming, even if you loose the high.
If one of the effects of the switch is to shut down your empathy, you won't even notice the damage you're doing to yourself. It's fairly well documented, I think, that doing monstrous things erodes your capacity to see them as monstrous. It's why torture is as bad for the torturer as it is for the tortured; engaging in heartless behaviors *makes* you heartless. In effect, I strongly suspect that a lot of vampires destroy their own capacity for empathy without even realizing it because they've got it artificially suppressed. And that this is why we tend not to see massive personality shifts occur in vampires when the switch starts to cease functioning.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 08:27 am (UTC)Especially the difference between not being able to empathize and not feeling emotional pain, I think that hits the nail on the head with the switch; a lack of empathy but still a presence of emotional pain and in addition having inhibitions reduced.
My view on Damon's switch is that it has worn down slowly and gradually over time, it will be interesting to see flashbacks of the inbetween decades and see the state of things, but definitely over season one there seem to be gradual changes even though I feel Damon implies his switch was flipped back only towards the end of the season. For me Damon's conversation with Rose implies that it was his choice (even if it had already reduced to a point where it was almost non-existent)because he seemed unaware of the idea of the switch going away.
I've also thought about the possibility that the switch lasts different lengths of time for different people, possibly due to things such as how much it's used or maybe compared to how empathetic the person was in the first place (i.e. it takes more power to turn everything off if there's more there to begin with so it gets worn out quicker) it would explain Katherine potentially still having her switch off as she was still quite bitchy as a human, it would also explain Anna talking about the switch like she still had use of it.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 03:17 pm (UTC)And of course, the other thing complicated about Damon is that he profoundly doesn't want other people to know what's going on with him. He went out of his way to conceal every charitable or unselfish impulse he had in season 1 from everyone, and he never does sit down and monologue to the camera about his *feelings*. So lord knows what's going on with when he stopped operating under the switch, though it's interesting that Stefan was saying in episode what, three? that he "felt something" for Elena. (Which, I have no idea where he got that from. I know where *I* would have gotten it-- from the exchange in the kitchen where she sympathized with him for his loss of katherine. Based on his face, I suspect it was the first time in a hundred years or so that anyone had given a damn about him. But Stefan didn't know about that, and even if he did, I wouldn't have been anywhere near as sure as Stefan seemed to be that there was some kind of continuing emotional engagement on Damon's part.)
But I agree: the switch definitely lasts different amounts of time for different vampires. Otherwise, there's no reason for Rose to be so vague about when it wears off. And we do have no idea whatsoever how old Anna actually is, other than "older than Damon and Stefan". I could certainly see the switch starting to wear of gradually for Damon, which opened him up enough that he flipped it back off himself because of feelings he was starting to have. As for Katherine... She was a mite bit sociopathic when she was human. Some people are. I see no reason why she'd need the switch to explain her present behavior; it's not out of line with how she acted when she was human.