While Hope Mikaleson accessing all of her powers was endlessly hyped up by Legacies, The Vampire Diaries' spinoff failed to turn Tribrid Hope into a compelling character. After both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals introduced a range of antiheroes with impressive supernatural abilities, Legacies naturally needed to up the ante when it came to the show’s lead character. For Hope Mikaelson to be a worthy addition to her famous family, she needed to be blessed with a truly extraordinary set of paranormal powers. Fortunately, Hope’s status as the Tribrid covered the character on this front.
The Tribrid was a mythical being that combined the powers of a werewolf, a vampire, and a witch to become arguably the strongest non-god creature in The Vampire Diaries' universe. As such, the topic of when Legacies heroine Hope would access her Tribrid powers was a major theme of the show’s early seasons. Not only did it take a long time for the character to gain her much-vaunted vampire powers, but when she finally did, Tribrid Hope immediately became a villain. This decision ended up badly limiting the dramatic impact of Tribrid Hope’s role in Legacies.
Hope’s Legacies Season 4 Plotline Failed the Tribrid
All the hype around Tribrid Hope’s powers turned out to be a waste of time, since she only returned to her normal self and used them for good in the last few episodes of Legacies. For the majority of her time as the Tribrid, Hope was the villain of Legacies season 4. After earlier seasons spent a lot of effort focusing on the Hope and Landon relationship, seeing a glimmer of the character’s dark side could have been compelling. However, Tribrid Hope was a cartoonish evil villain who quite literally turned off her humanity, thereby limiting her potential growth in Legacies season 4.
Hope’s Tribrid powers had been relentlessly teased throughout the first three seasons of Legacies, with each battle she faced revealing another side to her inherited abilities. When Hope realized that she could become the Tribrid, but had to die to access the final, vampiric portion of her powers, this choice became an even more high-stakes proposition. As such, when Tribrid Hope’s arrival saw her almost instantly turn off her humanity and become the main villain of Legacies season 4, the result was a huge let down. Tribrid Hope could have beaten any of the many bizarre monsters of the week Legacies introduced in earlier seasons, but never got a chance.
Why Legacies Season 4 Made Tribrid Hope A Villain
After years of fighting Malivore, Legacies season 4 needed its heroes to face a new main antagonist following his defeat. To be fair to the spinoff, it was initially an exciting surprise to see that Hope herself was now the villain of the show. Hope Mikaelson was a lot less morally complicated than the stars of The Originals and The Vampire Diaries and, at first, an exploration of her mean streak had potential.
However, as Tribrid Hope spent the vast majority of Legacies season 4 as an over-the-top villain, it became increasingly clear that The Vampire Diaries' spinoff had no plan for her arc beyond initial shock value. By refusing to engage with Tribrid Hope as a hero and mishandling her transformation into a villain, Legacies season 4 killed the entire concept behind her powers. The extent to which these were built up previously only made that pill harder to swallow.