Now there is a catch 22 to all that, when a character goes through all that to become a better person, it forces that person to put walls up. Blair has had many a heartbreak throughout the shows four seasons, some done to her and some done by her and it has caused her to surround herself with emotional walls.
First up we have Nate Archibald, her first true love, well her first childhood love. I say this because Nate is her high school romance, her ideals, what she would always has seen herself with in the most fantasy of worlds. He was to UES King to her Queen, in photos they looked like they were made for each other. The downside is that he would never be able to keep up with her intellectually, and well he cheated on her with her best friend. Nate was the second person to have her put up the emotional walls around herself, the first being her mother of course but that is for a different time. The one thing that Blair felt was pure for the longest of time was her relationship with Nate and he betrayed her by having sex with Serena. After a brief stint of longing over Chuck she decided to give Nate another chance and in the end she realized that he was just her High School romance and that she needed to let go of him in order to grow up and move on with her life.
Second we have Chuck Bass, who quite a few would say is her best relationship. It definitely is the relationship that gave her the most growth at of any of them. Chuck was her walk on the wild side in High School; he was what she could never really have. The fact that Chuck could never tell her that he loved her when she let her guard down and expressed her feelings to him made her put her walls back up tenfold. Finally, in the season 2 finale Chuck was able to let his guard down and tell her that he loved her, this helped her bring her walls back down, that someone she really loved was able to reciprocate those feelings. Though happiness is a fleeting thought when you are Blair Waldorf.
Personally, I was a huge fan of Chuck and Blair, I thought that they could really rule the UES with an iron fist, but then something happened. Chuck became Chuck again. He started not looking at them as a partnership, but Blair as a tool to get what he wants. He whored Blair out to his uncle so that he could get his Hotel back. Some might argue that Blair was going to do it anyway so there isn’t a problem with that, and to that I say: huh?! The fact that Chuck would allow her to do that in the first place is a sign of how little he cares about her compared to how much he cares about himself. That Blair even had the thought in her head that she had to do this to show Chuck how much she meant to him is a sign of a pretty bleak relationship. I mean, if you are in a relationship do you really think that you should have to have sex with someone else so that you can prove your love to that other person?
Then we have the Jenny situation. If you remember way back in Season One, in the Pilot, we saw Chuck not only try to have sex with Serena against her will, but also little Jenny Humphrey. This should have been a red flag for anyone as to what kind of person Chuck really is. Honestly, I blame it on the scarves as to my blindness to this, because they were just so darn fun. Now let us fast forward to the end of Season 3 and Chuck is sad because Blair won’t forgive him for whoring her out to his uncle and thinks that she no longer loves him, so what does he do? He sleeps with a girl that Blair really, REALLY despises. Blair finds out about this and pretty much says it is over for good, and then (in my opinion) unjustly kicks Jenny off the island forever.
Chuck himself is poison to Blair. He only goes after her when he is in an emotionally dark spot and needs someone to vent to or make him feel better. This is not the key to a great relationship; it is one person using another when they need them. This would not necessarily be a bad thing if Chuck would also just be with her when he didn’t need that and not get what he wants and then hurt her again. This is another reason why Blair has a hard time trusting those that she loves. She feels that she could just be used and thrown away once she gives them what she wants.
Though relationships are not the only thing that has shaped Ms. Waldorf, her friends and family has also had their fair share of shaping our Queen B. Like any child, their parents whether present or not have a huge impact on the way they turn out. Though she lives a life of extravagance, her family life is far from that.
Blair has never really had a great relationship with her mother. In fact, she barely raised her and most of those duties went to Dorota, who from early on in the show we could tell was a very maternal figure to her. A hired mother if you will. Eleanor has always been really hard on Blair, she is more than likely the reason that pushed Blair into her eating disorder. In ‘Bad News Blair’ we have Eleanor fussing over what Blair eats hinting that should she eat the carbs it will make her fat even knowing that Blair is still fighting with her Bulimia disorder. In ‘Bad News Blair’ we find that though Eleanor did try to make Blair apart of her life she is only out for herself and does not care what it does with her relationship with Blair.
“And as my daughter, I knew that you would forgive me, in time, but if my company had lost this deal because of you, I'd never forgive myself.” - Eleanor in episode 1.04 'Bad News Blair'
Eleanor is there for her company first and her daughter second, it is just another example of Blair being second fiddle. It is the reason why she is so quick to forgive Chuck about the Hotel situation, it was how she was raised, it is what she knows and is quick to adapt to it.
Her father is probably the only one she feels she can always count on besides Dorota, but he left the family to be with his new beau in Paris. Though she does not feel abandoned by him completely as she does with her mother, but there is a bit of resentment there since he was pretty much the only parent present in her life. Then he gets a boyfriend and brings him around during Christmas when Blair thought she would be able to finally have one on one time with him and feels once again like she is playing second fiddle. She does come to realize though that this is indeed not the case and that she will always be his Blair Bear.
This leads us into our next topic: Serena Van Der Woodsen. She is Blaire BFF and at times (quite a bit actually) frenemy. Blair feels that she is always in Serena’s shadow and that she is trying to rule over Blair’s life. First she sleeps with Nate, then she takes over as the face of her mother’s clothing line, and further on she gets into Yale over Blair which sends her into a blind frenzy since Yale is pretty much the only thing that she has always had her heart set on. This is just a sample of what Blair feels that Serena has taken from her. It is the reason why Blair feels it is so important to be Queen B at school and basically all over the UES. Serena seems to be able to do anything and everything without even trying and looks to be doing it all flawlessly in Blair’s eyes. Serena really is Blair’s only true friend at school because even when her minions drop her for the next best thing, Serena is still standing there waiting to be her friend again.
Blair is always trying to prove herself no matter who she is around. It’s how she was raised and how she feels about her peers. She comes off as an ice cold bitch, but it is the classic cliché of her trying to appear cool despite how completely insecure she is. She has never really had a stable family life, her friendships while they have high points also have a really, really low points, and her relationships are a lot of times filled with manipulation with her just being there at her boyfriends convenience.
Enter Dan Humphrey. They have always loathed each other, but underneath it have had a quiet understanding for one another. In the previous three seasons, using the word ‘friends’ would have been pushing boundaries that neither of them would want to go past, but Blair has grown up since then. All it took was Blair and Dan to be alone in the city for them to casually hang out and watch some movies for them to actually grow a bond that neither of them would like to admit to. They both have feelings for one another but have been enemies for so long that admitting that would just be weird to them. Not to mention that those feeling are for more than just casual hangout buddies. They are having actual romantic feelings for one another and with who they have both dated in the past it would be hard. Dan has dated and loved Serena (and those feeling will always be there, she was his first true love) and Blair is Serena’s best friend. Then you have Chuck who Blair will always have a torch lit for.
For the two of them to actually date, there would be a lot of steps that would have to happen. Blair’s last escapades with Chuck has made her put up more walls then ever and for Dan to ever really see the vulnerable side of her he would have to start knocking those down. Not to mention Blair would have to get through Rufus and Jenny. Rufus really isn’t trusting of Blair, and from ‘Empire of the Son’ we see that he thinks Dan being with Blair would just be ridicules. With Jenny, her a Blair have such a bad history I can see Jenny telling Dan that she feels that he is choosing Blair over her.
The other downside to Blair dating Dan is that since she would be the one with the “power” in the relationship I could see her becoming the Chuck of that relationship with manipulating Dan to get what she wants. It will be the first relationship where she wouldn’t necessarily be the submissive one, she would take what she knows from her previous relationship with Chuck and use that on Dan. Though this wouldn’t last long when she realizes that she doesn’t have to worry about Dan hurting her like Chuck would, she wouldn’t need to use that defense mechanism to keep her guard up.
“Just to clarify, I do think you deserve to be with someone who makes you happy.” – Dan [to Blair] in episode 3.18 ‘The Unblairable Lightness of Being’.
“You’re too happy… content” – Dorota [to Blair] in episode 4.17 ‘Empire of the Son’.
Dan is what Blair needs, plain and simple, whether or not it is “end-game” or not she needs this relationship to help build herself as a person. It works on the other side as well, Blair would be great for Dan, he would be dating a powerful woman who can keep up with him intellectually and that would also help Blair being with someone who can both give and take rather than just take. It would show her that not all relationships in her life, romantic or platonic, have to be about her sacrificing herself for them.
Blair was a woman who knew what she wanted and took it, but along the way lost that through many factors. The writers really need to work on her character again and get her back on track. She was on the right path with her (albeit unrealistic) internship/running of W. They need to go back to basics with Blair and get her on that right track to being the powerful independent woman that she wants to be. As much of a fan I was of Chuck and Blair in the beginning, she cannot be with him to do this, he isn’t mature enough for her to be able to date him and do that at the same time. She needs to either find a guy that can help her blossom or be without a guy for a while and just focus on herself.
Nice article. Thanks!
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