I became a bit confused by how the sirens' mind control worked after ''We Have History Together'' and throughout the remainder of their appearance. Despite it appearing beforehand that Sybil and Seline had no trouble "sirening" vampires as old as Damon, Stefan, and Enzo, why was it that Sybil seemed so unassertive with Caroline in the episode when prior she seemed so fearless and confident. I was confused why she had to resort to manipulation and trickery to get Caroline to do what she wanted, as opposed to just mind controlling her. A few episodes later Bonnie expressed worry Sybil would mess with her and Caroline's minds should they release her from her confinement, implying she should have had no issues mind controlling them. Was it that Sybil, unlike Seline (or so it seemed), needed to come into physical contact with those she wanted to control? Did she have some sort of personal preference towards controlling men? Or, did no longer serving Cade directly weaken her mental powers? I don't know if there was something I missed or not when watching the season.
All posts by Eve - Mother of All Monsters
Yeah... Some things in my head canon that sort of makes sense to me are:
1) Sybil disliked fisticuffs - in 8x07 I recall her saying she "preferred to catch her flies with honey." Caroline had vampire speed, so maybe this was more about Sybil disliking the idea of possibly being "killed" and then brought back by Cade before she had ample time to possibly siren Caroline. We saw in their first encounter that she was able to easily enter her mind by making tactile contain so I am leaning more into this. It also seemed that no longer serving Cade directly led him to no longer prioritizing her revival, like in 8x09.
2) Sybil needed to make tactical contact with others first to mind control them. In almost every instance of her really controlling others she made some sort of physical contact with them - for instance, she ambushed Stefan from behind after he neck snapped her; she touched Violet Fell's cheek after sirening her; and she placed her finger on Ethan Maxwell's lips after sirening him too.
3) Maybe she can only "siren song" those who are unsuspecting? Or those with a lot of will power can resist her. She seems to imply this in 8x02 and 8x03.
4) She boasted about controlling 50,000 men in her life, so maybe she can control men more easily than women.
Personally, to maintain the siren's high threat-level it would've been nice, plot wise, for them to say maybe they had acquired some sort of supernatural protection against Sybil's mind control. Though they had the tuning fork, few of them carried it around with them and even that would have made the whole Sybil and Caroline altercation more believable.
I kinda wonder at this too. The siphon Kai described it as him "consuming [magic] from others", as he doesn't generate magic himself. Whereas channeling can come from various sources, both magical and non-magical (other witches, a doppelganger, celestial events, nature, and etc.), to obtain power. It seemed that channeling was more 'tapping' into power, as opposed to siphoning which seemed more intrusive and 'forcibly taking' power. Its like the siphon ability is a more developed/destructive form of channeling and they're actually different versions of the same ability.
Dryad was really, visually, stunning. But monster wise, probably the Arachne or Cyclops.
</p><p>I also observed that the sirens apparently had to form a psychic link with another person to totally enthrall them — they seemed to only be able to implant psychic suggestions in other's minds otherwise — and this was probably why they didn't just mind control Beatrice into freeing them.</p>