The Vampire Diaries arrived at a time when the vampire fad was through the roof. If you were a teenager in the late-2000s, then you’ll remember how crazy every girl went at the mere mention of vampires. The cool vampires from the material such as Van Helsing was a thing of the past and the sparkly boy-toy versions from Twilight were the new norm. In 2009, The Vampire Diaries was commissioned to cater to this market and brought a similar protagonist to Twilight’s main character on the show.
Elena Gilbert was altogether a better character than the one from Twilight, and evolved into a more developed character as the series progressed and vampires weren’t associated with romance as much anymore. She was still supposed to be a girl-next-door figure when she was introduced and displayed naïve personality traits to the mysterious Stefan Salvatore. Elena’s love life deviated a few seasons down the line and her characterization also changed to accommodate changes such as her becoming a vampire later on.
The popularity of Elena and the Salvatore brothers made The Vampire Diaries an instant hit and for a couple years, it was the top-rated show on the CW. Although it didn’t last as long as initially believed (let’s face it, the show’s no Supernatural), it was the main characters’ fame that made the show stand out. We’re here now to dive a little deeper into the character traits of the main character.
Here are 20 Things Wrong With Elena Gilbert We All Choose To Ignore.
Choosing Stefan at first then switching to Damon
For the first three seasons of the show, Stefan was built up to be the absolute one for Elena. No matter what Damon did, Elena would only harbor feelings for Stefan. This made Damon likable to the audience who wanted their favorite bad boy to end up with the girl.
Perhaps seeing this response, the show had Elena suddenly switching her preference from Stefan to Damon. At the end of Season 3 and beginning of Season 4, she’d firmly stood by choosing Stefan; since then, it was as if she never really liked Stefan in the first place and quickly turned her feelings toward Damon.
The story changed because the actress left
The fact of the matter is that The Vampire Diaries would never have gone the pathway it did had Nina Dobrev not left the show. You can talk about the whole spell Elena had with Bonnie being alive and all, or the entirety of the seventh and eight seasons, but none of it would’ve been the way it turned out to be had the actress not gone away.
Had Nina decided to stay, most likely the angles we saw Damon and Stefan go through would’ve been radically different. But we did find out that the show didn’t hinge on Elena as it ran for two more seasons without her.
We never found out how Bonnie woke her up
In the finale, the closing moments had a lot of things happening at the same time and by this point, we weren’t as attached to Elena as we once were. By now, it was the relationship between Stefan and Damon that the audience truly cared for. Due to this, Elena’s eventual awakening from her permanent sleep wasn’t seen.
Instead, Bonnie somehow came up with a magical solution that negated the previous spell Elena was under. We never found out what Bonnie used to wake Elena up, but maybe that wasn’t important anymore.
She Should've Been the weakest Vampire
In the first season, it was established that the older vampires were the stronger they would get as the years passed by. This was at first put into motion to show how powerful Damon and the Originals were. Soon after, though, this clause was taken out entirely and newer vampires seemed to be stronger.
In the same vein, Elena didn’t show any problems after becoming a vampire. Considering she was an absolutely fresh vampire, she should’ve been the weakest of the bunch; this never played out that way, and Elena was shown to be pretty good with her new abilities.
The huge age difference between her and the brothers
These people were supposed to be vampires and to illustrate the immortal aspect they carried the how had the main two guys be over a hundred-years-old. But there’s no hiding the fact that they were in love with a girl who was supposed to be 17!
Sure, they were biologically around that age themselves, but they had had over a century of life experiences at that point, which the whole thing kind of gross that Elena had over a century of age differences with both her love interests. Really puts a new spin on someone being into older men, right?
Being involved with two brothers
Someone who’s supposed to have a Girl-Next-Door persona isn’t a person who one would expect to be running around jumping onto a new guy. While Elena didn’t have a long list of dating history, her record of having been intimate with two brothers isn’t something you’d associate with a Nice girl, is it?
No matter how okay you might be with her being involved physically with two brothers, there are most certainly people who would be uncomfortable knowing this fact. Turns out the Girl-Next-Door thing wasn’t so literally placed onto Elena.
Her brother didn't care she was in a coma
For the time that Elena’s brother Jeremy was on the show, he didn’t do much other than being the guy who constantly falling into trouble. Basically, the guy was a load for the heroes and he developed this reputation. In-universe, Jeremy had a similar epiphany and left Mystic Falls to craft his own legacy.
He must have been very invested in his own stuff because Jeremy never showed up to check on the permanently asleep Elena. His sister had always placed him first in importance, but it seems Jeremy wasn’t all that attached to her considering he never came to see his sister.
The actress is older than the character
Nina Dobrev will be turning 30-years-old in 2019. This made her 20 when the show began in 2009. Elena was supposed to be 16-17 when The Vampire Diaries started, marking a 3-4 year age gap between Elena and her actress.
This isn’t as big of a difference than many other actors, but as the show progressed, the gap enlarged. By the time the show ended in 2017, Nina was 28-years-old, making her far too old to be someone playing Elena’s age. Even now as of 2019, Elena is only 26-27.
She's attracted to boys who are bad for her
Some girls just have a type they are attracted to. You can’t help who you find alluring, it’s just something that comes naturally. That usually applies to physical attractiveness, but in Elena’s case, her attraction is toward a boy with certain attributes in personality.
Elena’s attraction is usually toward boys who are clearly bad for her. We first had Stefan – a mysterious, brooding lover who obviously had a dark secret and was nothing like the usual boys. Then there was Damon – a rebellious bad boy with a mean streak. She might have been the Nice girl, but she was certainly attracted to the Bad boys.
Her Terrible Personality Change
Turns out Elena’s innately good personality only hinged on her being a human. After she was converted into a vampire, Elena didn’t go totally dark side, but she was by no means a good person. Ironically, in the earlier seasons, she had always shunned the alpha cheerleader syndrome and chosen to be a nice person albeit attractive and in a good position at the school.
The Vampire!Elena was nothing the sweet girl who was human, and would treat other people like dirt. It’s a good thing she became human again because Vampire!Elena was just like Katherine.
Paul Wesley Thought Stefan and Elena still had a chance
After the sudden breakup between Stefan and Elena at the beginning of Season 4, fans were rightly riled up due to this unforeseen development. Stefan had his fair share of followers and these girls weren’t happy he was tossed aside by Elena like he was an afterthought.
The actor who played Stefan, however, urged fans not to lose hope. According to Paul Wesley, the relationship couldn’t be disregarded so easily as it had formed the core of Season 1. He maintained fans should hold onto hope Elena might return to Stefan. Ultimately, nothing of this sort happened and Stefan never became Elena’s love interest again.
Breaking Stefan's Heart
The explanation given for Elena’s sudden love Damon in Season 4 was that she had been sired to him, although at then of the season she claimed she had loved him regardless of the sire bond. This was sweet and all but what about the poor younger brother Elena tossed away?
There’s no denying that Elena did break the poor (and really old) vampire’s heart when they broke up. Stefan may have been about 140-years-old, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t genuinely have feelings for Elena. But this little fact is ignored in favor of Elena and Damon’s love.
She Gets Extra Jealous
For a girl who is supposed to be understanding, Elena sure isn’t that way when it comes to seeing guys she’s attracted to dating other girls. When Elena had been into Stefan, she couldn’t conceal the jealousy she had felt as she had been the one wanting to be with him at the time.
After she disposed of Stefan once she got interested in Damon, she turned these jealous tendencies toward the elder Salvatore sibling. Most likely, it was the writers who chose this route to display Elena’s burgeoning feelings for someone she likes, but it still ended up making her look like an obsessive jealous girl.
The Reason Why Damon and Stefan Loved Her
Damon and Stefan were both in love with Elena, that much is for sure. We’re not denying both Salvatore brothers’ genuine love for Elena, but it was all only because they had both earlier been in love with the original vampire Katherine, who Elena resembles.
To this end, there can be claims that Stefan and Damon had merely channeled their earlier love for Katherine over to Elena. While inwardly they were in love with Elena herself, the motivation to be in love with her came from her resemblance to Katherine.
She's easily forgiven
The Vampire Diaries’ favoritism toward painting its main characters as inherently good people was always striking. In the end, Damon turned out to be a protagonist and got his happy ending, but what about all those innocent people whose lives this guy took? The same can be said for Stefan, who brutalized a sizable amount of people himself.
Elena herself is easily forgiven not only by the show, but everyone in-universe as well for the many mistakes she’s made. It seems just because she’s supposed to be a “nice” person, it doesn’t matter how badly she messes up because everyone is quick to forgive her.
Drinking the cure
In one of the seasons, Elena and Damon had an absolutely moronic plan of taking the cure for being a vampire and become a human couple. While they had their apprehensions toward it, it wasn’t because of the most obvious reason. You see, after one takes the cure, they are supposed to be reverted into the age they were as human beings.
While Elena was just a teenager, Old Damon was, well, really old. Had the two taken the cure, Elena would’ve stayed the same while Damon would’ve been turned into a bag of bones. Looks like being smart isn’t one of Elena’s attributes.
Not wondering where Damon went
In the very final scene before the actual final scene, Elena and Damon were shown to have lived out their human lives and passed away in order to arrive in the afterlife. They walked in hand-in-hand before Damon vanished from her side and Elena caught sight of her family. They were happily reunited and Elena got her happy ending.
But didn’t she wonder where Damon had disappeared off to? We know he showed up to his brother – you could say the real love story had been between the brothers all along – but from Elena’s point of view Damon had simply vanished.
Her Pointless sacrifice
When Elena had originally died after drowning, it had been a moment to highlight how good of a person she had been considering she could’ve had Stefan save her. However, Elena told Stefan to save Matt instead and perished. This was all noble and everything, but it actually means Elena was a dum-dum.
Stefan had the vampire super strength on his side and could’ve easily been able to rescue both Matt and Elena at the same time. Thus, the big sacrifice of hers was just something that could easily have been avoided if she had taken a moment to think.
Getting Together with Damon so quickly
After Stefan realized Elena’s feelings for Damon were too great for her to control, he promptly broke up with her. The breakup wasn’t wholly clean, but it did free Elena up to pursue Damon without being unfaithful to Stefan. Following this, we saw Elena approach Damon and the two getting together.
Longtime fans of this couple must have rejoiced but if you think about it, it was a very low thing for Elena to do. Why would you be intimate with the brother of your ex-boyfriend right after you two break up? Elena didn’t even have any guilt over this and was happy to be with Damon instead.
Her Ridiculously Young aunt
Finally, we have the weirdest point saved for last. In the show, Elena didn’t have her parents with her and was being raised in the early seasons by her aunt. The two characters looked eerily similar in ages and her aunt could very well have passed for her very slightly older sister.
This is because in reality there was a mere 2-years age difference between the actresses! Nina Dobrev was 20-years-old while Sara Canning was 22-years-old when the latter played Elena’s legal guardian! How does that even begin to be believable in any way?
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