#MAIN TAG SICKLYSCRIBE META? IS THIS 2015???

[sicklyscribe]

How would you have done the klaus/Hope relationship if you wrote the show? Especially when she’s old enough to see him. Your tag on the klaus gif set made me wonder

You mean this set by the beautiful and talented Sahar?

This is a ginormous and multi-layered question the likes of which I haven’t seen in a long time so I’m going to try to do it justice. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of the young and teen Hope dynamics, I’ve really loved the way the tone of the relationship was set and the general idea of him being estranged/captive during a portion of her elementary years, then willfully and somewhat-cowardly-y absent during some of her adolescence.

Mainly, I would introduce plot that forced the pair to acknowledge tensions that I really value and the show did not approach, in order to really solidify the similarities/differences/love between them. When Hope is a child, Summer!Hope age, I would force Klaus into a situation where he felt he must kill someone that Hope loves in order to protect her (Mary would be the ideal candidate) the way he killed his own father in order to protect her. He can sacrifice his own frivolous hopes and affections — but what about hers? I think that he would do it. I think that he would be the big bad wolf and let her hate him for it, knowing that she will never believe (and maybe the rest of his family will also never believe) that he did the right thing.

I believe that Legacies has done something or other on the subject of Hope reading the history books on Klaus. What about a notebook, a stack of printed papers, and a flash drive left to her by Camille O’Connell in her will? A draft of the biography that she was writing from Klaus’ perspective. Perhaps Vincent would give them to her one day, asking her not to read it until she was sure she wanted to know. She wouldn’t go to Klaus first after reading it -- maybe not even Hayley, because Hayley is so young -- but she’d go to Elijah, and he would acknowledge it all and still love Klaus anyways, and Hope would have to figure out if she wanted to do that -- if she could do that -- too. 

Finally, and the most important thing that I would do to develop their father-daughter bond: I would put Hope in danger at the end of season 4, still Summer!Hope age, and the only one who can save her is Klaus. I would do a reprise of Klaus’ fight in “The River in Reverse”, maybe even with the same song and a different cover. Klaus would be restrained, and then he draws on his Hybrid strength, and he fights back. But there are too many foes, and he is still shackled somehow, and Hope screams. 

Klaus HOWLS. 

It’s ludicrous to me that the show ended without this moment, without Klaus choosing to shift fully into a wolf in order to harness his full power and protect his baby girl. The thing that he most hates about himself isn’t the loathing ingrained in him by Mikael, it’s the never-ending conflict in being a beast, and he craves his wildness. He is the same as the creatures that slaughtered Henrik. He is the creature that will save Hope. 

Hope will recognize him. Shocked and still a bit scared and the whole area drenched in blood, she will look him in his yellow eyes. He will approach her, but stop an arm’s reach away, suddenly remembering that he is a monster, that he should be ashamed. She will throw herself into the gap and wrap her arms around his neck and cry into his fur, and he will be at peace in a way he has never known existed. 

When Hope is a teen and more threats abound, there will be a few times when she is at risk of killing someone, and triggering her werewolf gene. There is the same discussion over whether or not to bind Hope as Klaus was bound, and repress the gene, repress her birthright, and Klaus will not let anyone make this choice for her. Whether or not she chooses, for some plot-reason she does trigger her gene without this binding ritual, and she must turn. 

She’s terrified. Hayley tries to be there for her and sympathize and show her how to move forward, but she feels the way the other werewolves watch her and doubt her and whisper bloodsucker’s bastard behind her back. She tells Hayley she doesn’t want to be part of the pack at all. 

Everyone notices how lonely she is. Everyone sees the way she throws herself into her magic studies with Freya and Vincent and never says a word about wolves or vampires, and finally one day an entire room implodes and Klaus finds her in the wreckage bawling. Forgetting himself as he holds her, he calls her Little Wolf, and she rages at him, and he takes her punches, and he tells her he knows how lonely she is, he feels it too, and she should not hide from herself. 

“Like you do?” she asks, and he realizes his hypocrisy is a tool she’s using to hurt herself the way he hurts himself, and so he abandons it without a thought. 

“I’ll go with you,” he promises. “I’ll... try, too.” 

And the next time the pack gathers to run and hunt, Klaus is there with Hope under his arm. Hayley kisses Hope’s forehead and lets the two of them hang at the outskirts as she leads. They learn together how to accept themselves for the anomalies they are, how to fit in the world that polarizes self against self, and find balance.

(Klaus learns how to barbecue)