One of the reasons why The Vampire Diaries became so popular was because of the sizzling love triangle between Elena Gilbert, Stefan Salvatore, and his brother, Damon Salvatore. Stefan was the good guy with some darkness in him. Damon, conversely, was the bad boy with a bit of good left in him. Elena is attracted to the men for very different reasons. As a human, she finds Stefan's humanity and gentle heart to be her true love. However, once she becomes a vampire, her attraction to Damon becomes unstoppable.
In 2017, The Vampire Diaries ended after eight tumultuous seasons of drama, love, and loss. Though it has run its course, fans still can't get over the series. Why? Because, for better or worse, fans found Damon immensely attractive and fascinating. He was the classic tale of a bad boy with a secret, beautiful heart. His story is easy to fawn over.
However, Damon is far from the average bad boy. He has a bit more baggage than most -- the kind of baggage that involves a lot of lost life, cruelty, and uncomfortable situations. There's actually a lot of proof that he was a terrible person, regardless of any good he did during The Vampire Diaries. The (not so) young Damon Salvatore got the girl in the end, though, so who's really winning?
With that said, here are the 25 Things That Make No Sense About Damon Salvatore.
25. Loving The Same Women As His Brother
There's sibling rivalries, and then there's Damon and Stefan Salvatore. When it comes to love, they are constantly competing. For most of Vampire Diaries, the men always seem to fall in love with the exact same women.
Fans can argue that people don't choose who they love, but Damon clearly likes to compete for things that his brother loves. After all, why does he only seem to want a woman more once he knows Stefan wants them, too? This happened with both Katherine and Elena. His competitiveness only stopped because, finally, the girl chose him.
24. Abandoning Enzo
When Damon was imprisoned by the Whitmore family, he was experimented on and tortured. During this terrible event, the only good things that happened to him was finding friendship in Enzo, a fellow vampire. To escape the horror, he sets the house on fire and is emotionally scarred when he cannot get Enzo's cage open and has to leave him.
Damon later goes on a "slaying the Whitmore family" rampage. However, if he was smart, he should have found the keys before he started to light everything up. It would be a riskier plan, but it would have ensured Enzo's safety.
23. Turning "Off" His Humanity
In the worst moments of Damon's life, he references how he "turned off" his humanity to survive vampirism. With all of the terrible things that happened to him, it's unsurprising he'd want to run from his feelings.
There is a problem with that, though. Emotions aren't exactly a thing that go away. They can be blocked, but they don't disappear. Talking about it that way is a gross understatement of the mental strain he had to endure in order to survive. He didn't "turn off" his humanity. Instead, Damon buried it so deep that he would stop feeling all of the pain that 150 years can cause. If it was just as simple as turning it off or on, it wouldn't have taken him so long to find it again.
22. His Relationship With Lexi Branson
During Damon's many years alone, he was eventually found by his brother's best friend: Lexi. Lexi comes to him, trying to help him regain his morals, emotions, and ultimately his humanity. She and Stefan may also be vampires, but they're trying to still be good people. Damon gave up many years ago.
When she's with him, he pretends to start feeling again and they have a romantic night together. However, in the morning, he locks her in a room that could incinerate her with sunlight. While it's clearly a tumultuous relationship, it is odd that either of them have interest in one another romantically. After all, they never really liked each other much in the first place.
21. Frequently Being Poisoned By Vervain
Vervain is Vampire Diaries' version of silver bullets or holy water. It is a compound that comes from a flower that can poison vampires. It weakens their entire system, including their mind, body, and vampire powers. The flower it comes from is said to be rare, which makes Elena's vervain necklace all the more special.
However, as the series goes on, it appears more and more often, and out of everyone, Damon gets poisoned the most. Not only is this unlikely because vervain supposed to be rare, but he should also feel more effects. Various people, including his brother, have poisoned him multiple times. With that much toxin getting put in him, he should be permanently effected.
20. His Mystic Falls Victim Count
At the beginning of Vampire Diaries, Stefan and Elena are flirting while Damon attacks humans and drinks their blood. In the early seasons of the show, it's a little alarming how there isn't nearly enough concern about the body that count he racks up. In the first episode alone, he bites three people and ends the lives of two of them. Shortly after, he takes Caroline, Elena's friend, and his personal blood bag.
There are only more casualties in Mystic Falls after that. While there is some concern, there isn't nearly enough for the amount of people losing their lives. For someone who wants to stay hidden and alive, Damon certainly takes a lot of risks.
19. His Apparating Powers In The Pilot
The pilot of Vampire Diaries has a few unique elements that never show up again. The one most fans note is Damon's weird, fog and crow-ridden apparating abilities. While Elena is visiting her parents' graves, a fog rolls in and some ominous birds appear. Unknown to her, Damon also appears nearby. It's quite the dramatic entrance.
However, after this, no vampire enters a scene like this again. Damon and the rest of the vampires go back to having fairly tame powers of super-speed, incredible strength, and being immortal. Of course, this means that his first appearance makes even less sense.
18. How He Survives As An Augustine Vampire
Unluckily for Damon, he is experimented on -- a lot. In season 5, Wes Maxfield injects him with a serum. This changes Damon from a normal vampire into an Augustine Vampire. These vampires are ones who were experimented on by the Augustine Society and solely crave the blood of other vampires.
When it comes to vampires, this can get a bit confusing. After all, vampires aren't mean to have blood quite like a humans, so how would any of that work? Moreover, eventually his girlfriend, Elena, gets injected and they somehow sustain for a while without destroying all of their friends. Though he's not known for his self-control, it seemed to work with this "Ripper Compound".
17. Romantic Womanizer
When fans meet Damon, he's quickly revealed as a womanizer and a user. He does keep Caroline as his food source for a long time, after all. However, the more we learn about him, the more we realize that his contradicts his past. Damon actually loves his creator, Katherine Pierce, more than anything else. Whenever he talks about her, he's quite romantic.
However, despite this, he still comes off as a womanizer. If he loves her so much, why does he seek other women so often? His personality is confusing, but it did convince fans that the selfish vampire was also a dreamy romantic.
16. His Lack of Vampire Knowledge
Vampires have been around for ages in the world of Vampire Diaries. In comparison, Damon and Stefan have only been around for about 150 years. They're children as far as vampires go.
However, their comparative youth doesn't explain their lack of vampire knowledge. Traveling around the country/world and meeting so many people, it's surprising that the two never meet other, more knowledgeable vampires. Throughout the seasons, they end up learning a lot about vampirism that seems like it should be basic information. Granted, their sire left them. However, at least Damon was the kind of person who would want to know more about his immortality.
15. Joining The Confederate Army
Under the orders of his father, a young mortal Damon joined the Confederate Army in 1963. Guiseppe Salvatore believed in the South's plight, but his eldest son didn't. After a poignant talk with another soldier, Damon decided to desert. In the next battle, they were decimated.
Though his father hated him for deserting the army, Damon was glad of his decision. However, it was oddly obedient of Damon to head to war. After years of rebelling and disagreeing with his father, it wouldn't be new for him to disappoint his dad and not go. It would have made more sense for his character to never enlist in the first place.
14. Inconsistent Emotional Maturity
Damon is sometimes quite the enigma. When it comes to his emotions, this is especially clear. Though he maintains that he turns them off, they clearly get the best of him often. They're his excuse for being an awful person. However, occasionally, he can have a level head and give good advice to others.
While his emotions are always brewing under the surface, his emotional maturity is highly volatile. Sometimes he comforts his brother expertly through rough times, while other times he ends his brother's best friend's life just because he's moody. Though he's a beloved character, his actions don't make much sense and are never consistent.
13. Turning Vicki
In season one, Damon tends to do a lot of things based on a whim. When he makes it to Mystic Falls, he starts to terrorize the teenagers and even drains a few of them dry. One such victim, Vicki Donovan, survives two different attacks. Her resilience fascinates him so much that he decides to take her home and turn her into a vampire. Afterwards, though, he seems pretty indifferent to her. Because of this, Stefan ends up being the one who tries to help her adjust to life as a vampire.
Unsurprisingly, after letting newborn Vicki loose, they lose her and later have to stake her. After all, she posed too much of an exposure threat. All of this drama and trouble for an impulsive attack and a subsequent whim seems highly irrational.
12. His Rudeness To Bonnie
Eventually, fans find out that Damon once made a deal with Emily Bennet, Bonnie's ancestor, to protect her family. Because of this, he works extra hard to keep Bonnie safe.
However, if this deal actually meant something to him, Damon wouldn't have been so cold and rude to Bonnie. After all, making her hate him would only make defending her even harder. Conversely, becoming Bonnie's friend would have made protecting her and getting closer to Elena all the easier. Damon's decisions are erratic at best sometimes, but this was one of his most illogical choices.
11. Not Questioning Elena's Sire-Love For Him
Since his vampire birth, Damon was obsessed with Katherine. His love for her became even more intense when he was turned. When Elena gets turned into a vampire and is suddenly drawn to him after years of refusing him, it's ridiculous that he takes her advances at face value.
He was spurned and manipulated by his sire-bond with Katherine. If Damon truly cared for her, he'd know that her feelings might not be real. Instead, he decides to keep getting closer to her until other people question it. As someone who suffered because of such a bond, he should have been more careful, but he wasn't.
10. Slaying Lexi
Damon and Stefan's best friend, Lexi, never quite liked each other. Other than one brief, intimate night, they've always disagreed. She and Stefan tried to be good, while Damon embraced the darkness of being a vampire. Despite their hatred of one another, though, Damon and Lexi still knew each other as children and, because of this, she wanted the best for him.
So, when Damon randomly decides to end Lexi's life when she comes to Mystic Falls, it makes absolutely no sense. The act seems like a whim at best. To slay someone who knew him for so long and just wanted to help him and his brother didn't match his character. It was needlessly cruel.
9. His Pre-Vampiric Obsession With Katherine
When Damon was human, he was a rebellious young man who was trapped under the thumb of a man who hated him. A vibrant, unique breath of fresh air like Katherine was naturally appealing to him. She was beautiful, wild, and daring. He was bound to fall in love with her.
There was one snag, though: Katherine was a vampire. Though this would send any normal boy running, it didn't stop Damon. He seemed to only love her deeper. While it made sense why he'd fall in love, his growing obsession with her didn't add up. After all, she was being unfaithful and sleeping with his brother. Katherine didn't hide the fact that she would use him and leave him.
8. His Attack On The Whitmore Family
Understandably, the Whitmore family members that imprisoned Damon and Enzo deserved the retribution they got. However, Damon spending years tracking down all of the branches of the Whitmore family to utterly destroy them was a bit much. After all, it's not their fault that the rest of them family was awful.
Even worse, Damon eventually stops with only one Whitmore left: Aaron. The rampage seems to end when Damon learns how to become a better person. Instead, though, Damon decides to end Aaron's life later and truly ends the Whitmore line. A revenge rampage was already a lot, but Aaron's passing only made his actions more despicable.
7. His Extreme Anger Issues
Damon doesn't deal with his anger well. Though he gets better as the show goes on, it's hard to forget his rage in earlier seasons. After all, he did snap a few necks just because he was upset.
His anger issues led to quite a few lives ending. The most prevalent ones include Vicki, Jeremy, and Stefan's best friend, Lexi. He justified a lot of his actions with his anger. However, just because he has the means to do drastic, terrible things this doesn't mean he should. For someone who cares about his brother, he rarely considers him when he impulsively destroys the people he loves.
6. He Is The Creepy Vampire Boyfriend Trope
Akin to Edward Cullen, Damon is not free of the creepy vampire boyfriend trope. He's watched Elena sleep, there have been times he's lurked from afar, and he's manipulated Elena's life. In a way, he even took advantage of their sire bond when it was happening. Though he knew the effects of sire bond, he still had relations with her. It was just lucky for him that she actually cared about him.
Damon has made fun of Edward by calling him whipped. However, for a guy who watches his brother' girlfriend incessantly, he doesn't seem to be much better.
5. His Casual Assaults Against His Brother
Whenever Damon and Stefan are fighting, they aren't afraid to hurt one another. However, this doesn't just mean that they will hit each other every once in a while. Instead, they occasionally seriously injure one another. It's not just Damon in the wrong here, either. Stefan has assaulted his older brother as well.
While Damon has stabbed Stefan, Stefan has also poisoned his brother. They are both also known to snap each other's necks during fights. There are a lot of issues between the two, but the constant abuse is a bit much -- especially when, deep down, both of them want to be close again. It's just a bit absurd how much violence they use whenever they try to communicate.
4. Caroline Forgiving Him
In the first season of Vampire Diaries, Damon uses Caroline as a slave for her blood and body. His cruelty towards her is remarkable and terrible. He very openly tells her that he will end her life when he is done with her.
However, despite his promises, Caroline lives on. She even becomes a vampire, joins the group, and marries his brother, Stefan. Near the end of the show, the pair are even on good terms. After all, they're family now. It's a nice sentiment, but it's hard to believe that she'd ever forgive him. Damon may have become a better person, but he still very willingly tortured her. It'd make more sense if she avoided him forever.
3. Wanting To Be Human Again
Initially, Damon is reluctant to become a vampire. However, once he's officially a bloodsucker, he fully embraces it. This new life gives him the freedom that his human life never could. Even when he is with Elena, he still seems to appreciate being so different from everyone else.
However, when the cure becomes an option, Damon seems eager to take it. While he grew a lot as a character over the seasons, it doesn't make much sense for him to want to become human again so badly. Of all of the vampires, he seems like the one who enjoyed that life the most, so it seems odd that he'd want to throw it away so quickly.
2. His Animosity Towards Stefan
Stefan is the reason why Damon was turned into a vampire. He was the person who convinced him to accept vampirism. This is reason enough for the brothers to have some issues. Also, that same night, he also lost the love of his life. However, it doesn't explain why Damon would shun him and give him hot/cold signals for the next 100 years.
If Damon chose to either stay mad or forgive Stefan, perhaps it would make sense. However, the fact that he occasionally wants to follow him and later wants to hurt him doesn't add up at all. It takes way too long for Damon to be on good terms with his brother, especially since they are the only good family they have left.
1. His Relationship With Elena
From vampirism and dopplëgangers to love triangles and mortality, Elena and Damon have been through a lot. As the edgier bad boy brother, Damon was more of a wild card when it came to love. However, he and Elena still ended up together.
The only problem is that he snapped her brother's neck... and he creepily watched her sleep and she dated his brother for while and told him that she'd always pick Stefan. While Vampire Diaries ends with Elena and Damon getting together, their past has too many bumps for any real relationship to get past. After all, they each broke the other's family in different, terrible ways. There's too much to overcome.
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Are there any other things about Damon in The Vampire Diaries that don't make sense? Let us know in the comments!