The Vampire Diaries fandom is split right now, most of them upset (but for different reasons). Julie Plec clears up some issues concerning Elena and Damon’s [spoiler].

Zap2It caught up with the showrunner, who is sure to have been bombarded on Twitter following last night’s surprising revelation that Elena has been sired to Damon.

Chiefly amongst fans’ concerns is whether or not Elena is really attracted to Damon, or if it’s the sire bond which made her sleep with him.

Plec responds to this issue, and has some reassuring words for Delena fans. “There is more hope than ever for them,” she says. “It’s just combined with a lot of very deep questions. Damon is a character who, his whole life — as a vampire and as a human — was looking for love and acceptance, and for someone to finally say, “Hey, you’re good enough.” He finally gets that from Elena, and now he has to question it.”

But as she says, Damon wants to believe that his connection with Elena is real. And as for Elena, “she truly believes it’s real,” Plec says. “But there’s that nagging doubt, as to how much of it is true love and how much is the effects of a sire bond. It’s a question that’s going to take these two people who do care about each other so deeply, and just put the tiniest bit of an obstacle in their path. They have to figure out how to get around it.”

Plec also confirms that Stefan is, “clearly emotionally driven by a desire to ‘fix her.'” But, “to Stefan’s credit, he might be right. He might actually be right, that this is not who she is and this is not who she’s supposed to be.”

Previewing next week’s flashback episode “We’ll Always Have Bourbon Street,” Plec reveals that, “It’s a nice window into Damon and who he was then, and who he wanted to be, especially in relationship to his brother.” It’ll give us a glimpse of how he tried to do right by Stefan in the past, and how he’ll try to do right by him now.

What do you think about the fact that Elena is sired to Damon? Is this why she’s been experiencing romantic feelings for him, or would those have come regardless?