Hope managed to stab Kaleb without killing him on Legacies, but how did this scene make sense in the lore of The Vampire Diaries spinoff? Debuting in 2018, Legacies is the second spinoff of the 00s YA phenomenon The Vampire Diaries. Following on from the show’s first spinoff The Originals, Legacies tells the stories of a group of students attending the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted.
While every student attending the school has some form of supernatural power, Legacies mostly focuses on Hope Mikaelson. A legendary Tribrid, Hope is a combination of a witch, a werewolf, and a vampire. Rare even in the world of The Vampire Diaries, Hope is a powerful heroine — but not all of her fights end in decisive wins, as proven by a surprising scene in one season 4 episode.
In the episode “See You On The Other Side” (season 4, episode 4), Hope stabbed Kaleb straight through the chest, yet somehow the character survived. The scene seemed somewhat nonsensical, but there is actually a valid canon explanation for the odd event. Kaleb is a vampire, but he has also been part-dragon for the past few episodes. When Hope snuck up behind him and stabbed him through the heart, viewers could be forgiven for assuming that this was the end of Kaleb as vampires are typically killed by being staked through the heart. However, Hope (and Malivore/Phoenix/human Landon) is not the only Legacies character who can call on numerous different supernatural abilities at once.
According to the lore of Legacies, every dragon has a "soft spot" that can kill them. For example, in the case of the dragon killed in Legacies season 1, its weak spot was the throat. Therefore, viewers can reasonably surmise that judging by Kaleb’s survival, Hope stabbed him in a spot that killed the dragon but missed his heart. Thus, the vampire part of Kaleb was not skewered through the heart, meaning he recovered just as any vampire would on the show. However, the fact that Hope killed the dragon part of Kaleb may mean the character is now weakened and, as a normal vampire, it will now be possible to kill him by staking.
The lore of Legacies can be complicated, and it may seem like a stretch that Kaleb’s dragon weak spot was so close to his heart, his vampire weak spot. However, as evidenced by Landon’s many deaths on Legacies, The Vampire Diaries spinoff is not shy about rewriting the rules of its supernatural creatures depending on what works for an individual episode. While this undeniably keeps the action of the spinoff entertaining, some viewers have been annoyed by how many characters survive seemingly certain death thanks to these sorts of loopholes. That said, it can’t be denied that, in the case of dragons having soft spots, Legacies did effectively foreshadow Kaleb’s unexpected survival well before his apparent death.