Basically: Tristan and Helena are twins, backstory has it that they were always extremely close especially after their mom died and they were essentially orphans. Tristan was extremely possessive of her and tried to have her all to himself (when they were introduced they told backstories like how Helena fell into the water as a toddler during a boat trip and Tristan jumped after her even though he didn't know how to swim either). When they hit puberty and she started getting interested in boys he started to get jealous and behind Helena's back payed off all the guys or threatened them to dump her (which is why Helena has/had low self esteem because from her POV it always looked like every guy who seemed interested in her dropped her like a hot potatoe). They were seperated for a bit when they went to study/Helena went on an archeology excavation to Cambodia. [one thing we did see was a scene where Tristan beat a guy to a pulp and then mocked him just for talking to Helena]
They met up again in Düsseldorf where Helena fell head over heels for construction worker Andi. Tristan sensed that for the first time she was really in love rather than just casually interested and went nuts with jealousy and slowly started to realize that he was in love with Helena/wanted her in a non-brotherly way. But (my interpretation) he knew Helena would never go for that, so he went with a "if I can't have her, nobody can" strategy.
He did everything to break up Helena and Andi, starting with smaller things, like trying to befriend Andi so Andi wouldn't be able to date Helena due to the "bro code", hiding Helena's phone, trying to tell her what a loser and womanzier Andi was graduating to heavier stuff like throwing himself down the stairs (and I believe breaking his arm) so he could frame Andi for it, dating a girl and convincing her to unfairly accuse Andi of rape and trying to beat Andi to death with a tree branch ;) One of the core moments was his co-conspirator Jessica tried to blackmail him into marrying her other else she would tell Helena about Tristan's sick obsession with her. The night of his big engagement party to Jessica Tristan gave Helena knockout drugs (the same ones Jessica and Tristan had used on Andi to frame him for rape) with the intention to rape her, he groped her, started to undress her, but then caught their mirror image of the two of them in the mirror and ran away. He broke his engagement with Jessica and then tried to kill himself.
<= I always thought that that was one of the saddest things, Tristan trying to kill himself with Helena on the phone, begging him to tell her what is going on with him and that he would rather kill himself rather (and rather confess to all the things he did to break up her and Andi) than admit that he was in love with her.
Anyway, he survived, Helena forced him to admit the truth, freaked out, hated him for the things he had done to Andi (ruined his reputation, almost landed him in jail, made Helena doubt him) and broke off all contact with him. This made Tristan only more nuts and he started talking to his mirror image that talked back and basically acted as the "demon on his shoulder", urging him to get rid of Andi and get Helena back under his control again even if it meant faking being sane. (one of the choicest bit from that era was Tristan paying Jessica to let him use her as a stand in for Helena, wearing Helena clothes and a Helena wig for them to have sex in Helena's bed)
The story culiminated with Andi and Tristan getting into a huge fight where Tristan tried to beat Andi to death, but instead fell down a cliff. Andi saved his life, Tristan fell into a coma and had a near death experience which showed him the error of his ways. He woke up, confessed to his family his murder attempt on Andi and that he had just faked being sane again to have a better chance of breaking Helena and Andi up again. He was kicked out of the caste for about... 4 weeks or so? Then Helena suddenly decided that she could "sense" that he was healed this time and invited him back into the family.
I think they were still semi distant while Helena still dated Andi, but since Helena and Andi broke up for some unrelated reason they are pretty much back to happy pretty sibling hood (minus the constantly sleeping in each other's bed and undressing in front of each other which they used to do while the incest story was still going on).
There are some music videos from that time that give a a pretty good consolidated overview of the feel of the storyline (and quite worth it because it's not the usual shippy stuff).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOrmO-exqVo[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lHgjg3eBtg[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmoX5aGZ9jw[/youtube]
I always thought that a big undercurrent of the storyline was that Tristan was very vain and entiteled and felt like he had a right to everything, even to Helena.
Rebecca, still being played by Jasmin Lord back then, mostly played into the story first at the beginning of the story, before Andi had even entered the scene yet. She was portayed at always having felt left out of the bond the twins had and that she tried to spend time with Helena, but was foiled by Tristan at every step because he wanted Helena to himself. I remember a time or two of Rebecca sitting around in the kitchen and bawling because Tristan was so mean to her/the twins had yet again stood her up due to Tristan's schemes. Then she was a larger presence when the truth about Tristan's obession came out as a support for Helena as Helena was freaking out and wanted nothing to do with Tristan.
That said, Rebecca 1 was kinda the "kumba ya" type when it came to her family and just always wanted everybody to get along, so she was supportive of Helena letting Tristan back into the family. [but the way I read it Rebecca's family harmony tendencies were broken/ruined in the storyline where Jasmin Lord exited the show where Rebecca felt her family had screwed her/their morals over for money and tried to teach them a lesson, ripping them off to show them their own greed, she infamously exited driving away in a car, giving the family home the finger as she left]
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