![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
...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.
( If for some reason you're interested in my long, rambling thoughts on vampire emotional capacity... )
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.
( If for some reason you're interested in my long, rambling thoughts on vampire emotional capacity... )
