Hi. Could someone please explain the Helena backstory? People who have been watching the show seem suprised that she and Tristan even talk to each other. It sounds like he did something nasty to her. She seems syrup-y sweet with him now, tho. I'm wondering where she's coming from. Thanks.

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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Thanks, Lola Runs, for that thoughtful answer. Ewe! and Ewe! That sheds totally different light on this story. Wow.

Let's just say Tristan knows a thing or two about boundary issues. <= That's why I always get creeped out when he gets kinda obsessive about the "where were you/how long did you take at that appointment/I hate not always knowinng exactly where you are" stuff (which to me as a big thing between Tristan/Helena too, that they essentially had this extremely emotionally co-dependant relationship where he wanted to be with and around her all the time and know exactly where she was and how long and then freaked when she fell for somebody and hence started to remove herself from his circle of influence like staying at her boyfriends and staying late and hiding him from Tristan) like he did during the jealousy arc. I think it's kinda unhealthy for him to be dating his employee/the person he manages (which gives him complete control over her schedule and plans) when he should know that he has issues with ownership/possessiveness. He also had this emotional caretaker thing with Helena too. Only with her he would even do things to make her unhappy so she would run into his arms to cry and snuggle, or make himself sick or fake it so she would be there for him. Like I said, knows a thing or two about boundary issues ;)

The Helena stuff is also the reason why I'm rather curious about his reaction when he'll find out about Rebecca's love. In theory he should be able to relate to being in love with a forbidden person who is very close to you.

That said, I think chances are good that it might not come up at all. It wasn't that long ago (2 summer ago in real time), but the writers like to play the "out of sight, out of mind" game a lot. But I think for a lot of people who watched the story, it might not have been necessarily a great story, but it was very striking/memorable, especially some of the really dark scenes. Plus, that story back then put *a lot* of work into portraying how Helena had been the most important person/really the only person in his mind for really most of his life. That's why some people still expect her to be able to have influence over him, but imo the writers generally don't feel like using that (and I can understand, it would probably complicate the story even more).

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so following on the Helena theme... Helena gives Rebecca a big hug today. Sweet moment. I haven't seen much interaction between the two sisters. What is their relationship like? Thanks in advance.

I'd like to know this too. To me, it seemed like it was new Rebecca and Helena's first scene together? Also, I thought Helena left after Tristan became all obsessed with her? When did she come back or did she never leave? And one last more, are Rebecca, Tristan, Helena and the rest of the siblings all full brothers and sisters or are any half or step? I thought I read somewhere that Rebecca and Helena were half but that would make Tristan Rebecca's half too him being Helena's twin and all or am I completely wrong.

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Nope, they are all full siblings (well to our knowledge, but I don't see them changing that anymore considering how long they've been with the show already).

Helena never left the show, she just moved out of the castle for roughly half a year and moved in with her boyfriend (in the flatshare together with Christian and Olli). I believe she moved back in after she and Tristan had made up because her dad had had health issues. (she also periodically whenever something bad happened to her threatened to move to Cambodia for an archeology project, but never actually succeeded in leaving)

This hasn't been the first scene between Tatjana and Helena. There was a group scene after Rebecca arrived where the entire family quizzed Rebecca about her time in New York. And there was the scene around the beginning of the Marbecca story where Marlene is supposed to meet up with Rebecca to look at the pictures of their photoshoot. Helena arrives at Rebecca's place, notices that Rebecca is all nervous and dressed up and teases her about having a date (episode where Rebecca looks at the book signature Marlene wrote for her and cries). There was also a scene where Helena dropped by to congratulate Rebecca on her first press showing of her swim suit line and generally some smaller scenes around that mostly centered around Helena's boyfriend though who was secretly in love with one of Rebecca's models (basically Helena+boyfriend would show up at Rebecca's work so boyfriend and model could make googly eyes at each other). There was also a scene where Rebecca tells Helena that she's not coming to the big opening party of Tristan and Marlene (where Marlene came to fetch Rebecca).

Helena and Rebecca have always had a cordial relationship and liked each other (well aside from when they were really small children where Rebecca was supposedly a pest as per Helena's stories).

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Thanks for clearing that up, Lola. I can vaguely remember Helena in those scenes you mentioned now. I think because I never actually knew who she was I never fully acknowledged her character, I thought she was just a friend/extra. Same with Marlene's sisters, it's hard to keep track with who's who when you only watch certain scenes.

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Hi!

Is there any Marbecca fan fiction available you know about - either in German, English or French?

Thanks!

There's some in German on the German board: http://forum.daserste.de/showthread.php?t=1266334

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I don't get it.. how is it that Sturm der Liebe (a supposedly kitschig show) brings in almost twice as many viewers as VL? does it have something to do with the time slot?

Mittwoch, 11. Juli 2012

Sturm der Liebe Folge 1570 - 2,14 Mio - 21,3%
Verbotene Liebe Folge 4106 - 1,22 Mio - 8,3%

maybe i'm just being a worrywart but i would be so sad if they cancelled VL b/c of not so good ratings.

SDL is on at a time when there is next to no competition. Hence most people watch it, especially older people. Plus, I'm sure it has something to offer to their target audience

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Thank you for all your detailed answers! So I've had this question for a good long while - how did Marlene and Tristan's relationship begin and how did Marlene and her first husband's relationship end? I guess the question is how did Marlene move from one sibling to the next? Initially, I thought she might have just cheated with Tristan...but it seems that Dana led to the break up Marlene's first marriage? Can you also give some background to Marlene's character evolution on the show?

Thanks in advance!!

Marlene and Tristan and Rebecca's brother Hagen met off screen, based on stories when she was singing somewhere and he was smitten. They came to town even though Hagen was estranged from his family because his father needed a bone marrow transplant. During the influence of narcotics he proposed to Marlene. Marlene was over the moon and invited her sister Dana to meet her fiancee. On the way there Dana's car broke down or something and she got her leg stuck in a wolf trap. They quarrelled because she mistook him from an animal thief, but then he saved her from the trap and she fell for him on the first sight. He took her to the castle where she realized that he was Marlene's guy.

Around the same time Marlene and Hagen asked Rebecca to sew Marlene's wedding dress and Tristan to be Marlene's manager. Dana did all the traditional soapy things like trying to get Hagen out of her head and yelling at him a lot while falling more and more deeply in love with him every day. Marlene and Hagen fought occasionally like about Marlene pushing Hagen to agree to take the lead of the company from his grateful father while his father was recuperating when Hagen had no interest in that. Hagen then took over the stables instead and Dana became a horse trainer there. Dana around that time started casually dating Tristan which was enthusiastically supported by Marlene. Tristan eventually confessed his love to Dana, which made Dana freak out. Tristan guessed that the guy she was still secretly in love with was Hagen and broke up with her, but in a friends manner. Marlene and Hagen got married. There were various stories around that time about Marlene being insecure and Tristan as her manager pushing her into things she didn't really want to do, like paying radio stations to get her song played or pushing her to do musical again when she wanted a pop/jazz singer career or pushing her into some seriously weird advertisting stunts.

Dana decided she needed to get things off her chest to get Hagen out of her mind and told Hagen that she was in love with him. This in turn made Hagen freak out, to know that Dana loved him and made him realize that he was in love with her too. There were various "push and pull" episodes around that time in the Marlene and Hagen marriage like positive stuff like Marlene helping Hagen to get some sort of license for his stables by talking up the guy who gave out the licenses, Hagen protecting Marlene from Tristan giving her unnecessary drugs when she lost her voice, Hagen and Marlene both being pissed at Tristan when Tristan leaked a made up affair to the press to get people interested in Marlene again, but also bad stuff like Hagen and Marlene fighting over Hagen wanting kids and Marlene wanting to focus on her career first, Marlene giving out private details and private pictures of Hagen and her to the press and Marlene dragging him to public events to show off their marriage when Hagen didn't want that.

Hagen and Dana spontaneously slept together around that time, from what I remember because their star horse had run a perfect time. Marlene walked in on a dishelved Dana after the fact and through stuff like this Tristan found out that Hagen and Dana had slept together and agreed to be their cover story. Dana pushed Hagen to go back to Marlene, Hagen tried to fix his marriage with Marlene including a romantic getaway but eventually he couldn't take how he always reacted to Dana when he saw her and confessed to Marlene that he had cheated on her and that he was divorcing her. Marlene broke down completely and went into denial. She wanted Hagen back at all costs. There was a lot of push and pull because Tristan felt she was endangering the musical, he was even ready to call off the premiere because Marlene was in no condition to sing, but when she then sang after all and was successfull he fell in love with her (now that she was sort of free/available again from a Hagen POV). Marlene meanwhile was still determined to 1.) find out who the other woman was that Hagen was still crazy about to punihsh her and to 2.) win Hagen back. Dana meanwhile insisted to Hagen that Marlene must never find out because she didn't want to ruin their sister relationship. Eventually Dana broke down and told Marlene the truth. Marlene completely broke down, Dana begged Marlene to metaphorically "take her back" and that she had no plans of ever really being with Hagen anyway, Marlene was pissed still and hated Dana for it and was still determined to get Hagen back. One night she and Dana had a big fight and she spontaneously slept with Tristan. The morning after Tristan declared his love for Marlene and Marlene told him she would rather stay friends, she cared about him a lot as a friend but she couldn't wrap her mind around falling in love with anybody right now. She then slept with Tristan again after being jealous about Dagen and was distraught when Hagen wasn't jealous of her having somebody new like she had hoped for. She ended the sex with Tristan and instead at the advice of her friend Tanja faked being pregnant by Hagen in the hope that he would come back to her. She was crushed when she realized that Hagen was indeed super happy about the baby, but still intended to divorce her and just be an affectionate divorce dad. Tristan realized around this time that the pregnancy was just a lie to get Hagen back, he was superpissed and forced Marlene to confess all to Dana and Hagen and lie to the public that she had had a miscarriage. Marlene around that time had a breakdown when she was chased by paparazzi and nearly run over by a car. She agreed to take a time out to see her grandmother.

She came back and apologized to her family about the baby lie. Around this time Tristan's best friend from college came to town and Tristan told him that Marlene was off limits because Tristan was interested in her. During a time where all of them hung out with Dana and Hagen (who were a couple by then) Marlene got into a huge fight with Dana and Hagen and got pissed at Tristan for not supporting her, so she went off with Alexander to sleep with him (Tristan slept with a one off girl instead). During the foreplay Marlene had second thoughts because of Tristan and called stop, but Alexander ignored her and raped her. Dana sensed that Marlene was in pain and found the injured Marlene. She guessed what had happened and supported her. They also let Marlene's parents in on the secret and eventually even Hagen. Marlene was determined not to have anybody find out because she had chickened out on going to the doctor after the rape and thought nobody would believe her without proof/she just wanted to go on with her life. Meanwhile Tristan was pissed because he thought, encouraged by Alexander, that Marlene and Alexander had casually slept together and threatened to fire Marlene when Marlene didn't want to do sexy photoshoots or ran out on a recording session because Alexander was stalking her. A few weeks in he showed up at the Wolf house to deliver Marlene's firing where it broke out of Dana and she yelled at him that Marlene had been raped. Tristan was furious and tried to stab Alexander to death and then choke him during a supposed training fencing duell (fencing was sort of Tristan and Alexander's thing). Alexander had him arrested, but because Tristan knew that Marlene didn't want anybody to know about the rape he claimed in front of the police that he had attacked Alexander for a more casual reason which put him in danger of receiving a much harsher sentence. Meanwhile Tristan's other brother, Sebastian the lawyer had figured out what was really behind it all and forced Marlene to finally register her rape with the police or else he would do it. Tristan was released from jail due to excusing circumstances and once again declared his love for Marlene and once again received the same "not now/I only need a friend" answer. Marlene's dad tried to fix up Marlene and Tristan and even though they had a fun time together, Tristan afterwards overheard Marlene say to her dad that there was nothing between her and Tristan and there wouldn't be in the future either. Tristan was hurt and told Marlene he wanted to break off all personal contact other than stuff about business and in regards to the rape. Marlene was unsure what to do and went to her friend Tanja where she expressed fear that it would be lying to Tristan to tell him she loved him, Tanja assured her that Tristan had done so much for her Marlene would regret it if she let him go and he went for somebody else. So Marlene went to Tristan and gave him a vague promise that she would love him eventually and Tristan was satisfied with that.

On continued the rape story for a while (including Tristan almost being exposed for trying to bribe a false witness and Marlene storming out of the trial room and being found by Dana). Eventually Alexander was sentenced (he broke down at the trial after a confrontation with Marlene, his story was that he had genuinely thought that it was consensual until Marlene made him realize that he had indeed raped her and that she wasn't just some crazy bitch out to ruin his reputation [that is how the writers skirted around Alexander being sentenced even though there was not a shred of evidence against him]). After the trial Marlene and Dana had another big fight and then made up and Marlene told Tristan that she was now ready to give the whole relationship thing a try. Of course Marlene freaked out when it came to the sex aspect and started seeing a therapist => that's where the backstory videos starts, Marlene find out that she was pregnant, Marlene befriending Rebecca and Marlene and Tristan fighting about Marlene's abortion.

It's kinda hard to cover the feel of the story though. For example I never got any genuine couple vibes from Trima because this covers about 1,5 years and for half a year Tristan genuinely showed now deeper interest in Marlene other than casual lust and trying to push manager stuff on her which she didn't like and Marlene showed no interest in him at all. During her marriage with Hagen she really was devoted to Hagen and never showed any interest in Tristan. Tristan only fell in love with Marlene after a friend of his (who he'd just made out with) told him he needed to be more emotional and spontaneous. During the rape story there again were loooooooooooooooooooong stretches of Marlene not showing any interest in Tristan and all the "money shots" from this storyline imo went to Marlene/Dana (like Dana cradling Marlene in her arms). (Tristan around that time had a secondary story as well about his other best friend Philipp being in a coma/Philipp's wife being distraught and not wanting to pull the plug [she's the one who told Tristan to be more spontaneous and then having to protect Helena from the wrath of the distraught wife] and he split his screentime between that and Marlene) I always thought that Marlene kinda "slid" into the relationship with Tristan post Hagen because he was just so persistent/insistent rather than really choosing him.

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