Klaroline's Age Gap in Vampire Diaries Verges on Problematic

The CW's The Vampire Diaries featured plenty of action scenes and interesting supernatural subplots, but the main focus of the show was always romance, as the vampires and witches spent most of their time either flirting with someone or trying to keep their relationships from falling apart.

And while the show's main love triangle has proven to be the one for the ages, the same can't be said for some secondary affairs. Surprisingly, the fan-favorite shipping of Niklaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes recently sparked controversy.

The thing is, some fans began to feel that the age difference between these two characters was a bit too big to overlook. In case you've forgotten, Klaus was a thousand-year-old original vampire-werewolf hybrid, which makes him dating a 20-year-old woman a bit questionable.

Even though Klaus didn't exactly groom Caroline to be with him, since she was a consenting adult at the time of their romance, some people still feel that the writers should've paired him with someone closer to his age. But on the other hand, considering that all vampires as old as Klaus were his blood relatives, the writers' decision to go with age difference instead of incest might have been more reasonable.

Also, it's not like Klaus was a disgusting old man who prayed on young girls. His age allowed him to mature psychologically, and that's what separates The Vampire Diaries' age gap from the similar problem seen in The Twilight Saga.

'Sometimes, like in Twilight, it's more annoying because it's canon that you're stuck at that age, not just physically but developmentally, including emotion. Edward may be 100, but he has now, and forever will, the emotional maturity of a 17-year-old,' one fan said.

In general, The Vampire Diaries fandom is not that concerned about the age difference between Caroline and Klaus. Since no one can live as long as Klaus, it's only normal that he would try to connect with someone younger than him, even if it creates a thousand-year age gap.

Besides, the idea that an immortal being can't enjoy a genuine romantic connection just because of their age is pretty unfair, don't you think?

Source: Reddit.