Oh, yeah. It's time to talk about the villain we love to hate and hate to love.
Malachi Parker, more commonly known as Kai, is the main antagonist for Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries. A canonical sociopath and murderer.
Despite his offenses, many people have fallen in love with the character. They explore his vague familial history and harped on his exclusion from the Gemini Coven to make Kai seem like any other character in the TVD Universe. And because of this, Kai is a very popular love interest.
To be honest, I absolutely love Kai! He makes a fantastic villain.
When it comes to Kai being a love interest, I will say that I'm not the biggest advocate. I've only read one Kai Parker story since I started my Wattpad account, and it will probably be my last. Not because I don't like Kai, we'll obviously established that I don't, but because he would be the worst significant other.
Like I say earlier, Kai is a sociopath. He doesn't have any feelings. He doesn't care about others, certainly not his own family, and he will never care for anyone else. This makes it hard to write him as a love interest.
Kai is capable of infatuations. From his first encounters with Bonnie Bennett, Kai is clearly attracted to her. But that is as far as his "feelings" can ever go. Lust and love are two completely different things.
There is one exception. After the Merge between Kai and Luke, Kai absorbs Luke's soul into himself. In doing so, Kai inadvertently gains the ability to feel. Well, more so adopts Luke's feelings as his own. He feels remorse for what he did to Bonnie, sadness for what he did to Luke, and fear for when Bonnie traps him in the 1903 Prison World. Who's to say he can't feel happiness, or some kind of affection after that?
With that being said, there is another thing to not overlook. Good manipulation can do wonders for a story. But in this case, it would be an injustice to Kai's character to make him seem like something he was not written to be. Don't make him seem like a loveable guy before the Merge. He isn't. He doesn't have the capacity. After the Merge is when a relationship can happen.
That is, if you can ignore what happens at the end of Season 6.
Comment suggestions for what I should post next.
-Jordan
Information mentioned in this chapter can be found at vampirediaries.fandom.com