For a certain period on the CW network, the unrivaled King of shows had been The Vampire Diaries. The show hadn’t taken off in popularity completely until a couple seasons in but when it did, it soared high. The Vampire Diaries came about at a time when vampire stuff was all the rage. Twilight had brought every teen girl’s fantasy to include vampires and The Vampire Diaries was the perfect show to cater to such an audience. It featured a teenage girl that viewers could relate to and had two extremely attractive guys – who just so happened to be vampire brothers – vying for her affection.
As the vampire genre fizzled out, so did The Vampire Diaries’ popularity, but the Stefan brothers’ fanbase always remained and the show continued for eight seasons. The fans of the series stuck with it the whole way through and many would even claim they know the storylines better than the actors themselves. While this just might be true, there are several things even these hardcore fans missed in the plot of The Vampire Diaries.
The show hasn’t swerved past plot holes. Every series at one point succumbs to inconsistent writing and The Vampire Diaries is no exception. However, it’s understandable that a show running for so long is bound to have inconsistencies considering new storylines overshadow previous ones. But ardent fans won’t like to have the perfect picture of their show to be tarnished, so once you read on this list you won’t be able to unsee the inconsistencies present in the show.
Here are 20 Glaring Plot Holes Fans Can’t Unsee.
Older Vampires Were supposed to be Stronger
Earlier on in the series, it was told openly that the longer a vampire lives, the stronger the vampire gets. This made younger vampires more vulnerable when fighting off these oldies because they apparently weren’t physically able enough to keep up with the more experienced vampires.
After this logic was initially applied, it was pretty much forgotten altogether as we saw Vampires tussle with other hundreds of times on the show and the whole “older and stronger” thing never seemed to factor in. In fact, the younger vampires seemed to be much stronger and able.
Damon's Fog And Crow Powers
Perhaps to make it clear that older vampires were supposed to be stronger, old Damon was initially introduced with a creepy pair of abilities. He could evidently control fogs and crows. It worked well to show off how foreboding he could be, and also gave us a character with one of the most useless powers one could imagine (Seriously, what use is this power for, really?), but over the next several seasons not once was this ability ever shown or mentioned again.
Not only did Damon lose these powers, none of the plethora of older vampires we saw ever displayed it either. Maybe Damon simply happened to be around a foggy and crow-abundant area when we first saw him?
Jenna's Non-Appearance
Nothing really seems to make sense about Jenna. Not only is it inappropriate to call her an aunt, considering the actress is a grand total of two years older than her TV niece, but her in-universe life also isn’t consistent either.
Aunt Jenna (it still feels wrong to call the poor young girl that) was sacrificed by the biggest bad of the series, Klaus, in order to complete his turn into a hybrid. Once she was gone, Jenna never showed up on The Other Side – a place supposedly that houses all supernatural creatures after their passings. Did we mention she was supposed to have turned into a vampire before she perished? So why wasn’t she there?
The White Oak Tree
A big deal was made out over the supposed ramifications of the Great White Oak Tree’s destruction, should it ever happen. The Originals were supposedly connected to this tree and without its presence, they would cease to exist. That’s not a bad storyline per se, had it been stuck to.
Literally, nothing happened once the tree did get destroyed, and not only did it get destroyed; it went all up in flames! So why was such a big deal made out to be there for the tree to connect the Originals to their immortality? If it was all immaterial, why was this tree ever even mentioned?
Burn Or Not?
Some people just have a perfect complexion. You could use all the fancy sunscreen lotion you want, or splurge in the best kind of cosmetics to shield yourself from the harmful effects of the sun, and it won’t matter because the sunlight is too strong.
This wouldn’t apply to you if you happen to be Damon, Elena or Stefan. The Vampires such as Isobel burned pretty quickly when they were exposed to sunlight without their daylight rings on, but as far as the main protagonists were concerned, they didn’t really seem to be in much discomfort. So does the sun itself know of the main characters’ plot protection?
The Easiest Rare Item To Locate
Sci-Fi or Fantasy shows always play up something big when it’s initially introduced, only to forget these strong attributes entirely when the show has been on for a while. Take for instance the case of the plant Vervain. In the first seasons, Vervain was supposed to be extremely rare, so much so that stocks of it were carefully guarded in Mystic Falls. However, by the time the final season came round, just about every person seemed to be in possession of it.
It appears some magical tree of Vervain suddenly grew out in Mystic Falls, or maybe finding Vervain on the internet is super easy to purchase, but the plant was never difficult to find.
Bonnie's Powers
A little encouragement goes a long way; this is certainly possible in real-life to boost one’s confidence and help them achieve what they are more than capable of doing. However, in the case of Bonnie, she only seems to work when everyone has to cheer her on.
It seems as if there’s nothing Bonnie can’t do when she’s being encouraged. Every time something out of the box needs to be done, Bonnie panics and says she can’t do it, only for someone around her to coax her into finishing the spell and voila, Bonnie’s done it. If she is capable of doing just about anything, then why is she always claiming she can’t do it?
Bonnie's Lack Of Common Sense
Perhaps the reason why Bonnie doesn’t believe she can pull off a certain spell (which she always totally can) is because she doesn't always use her common sense. We’ve seen her use the locator spell, which can be used to track down people too, in order to find someone. Then why in God’s name was she looking up the identity of her mother by searching the name of Abby Bennet?
All she had to do was use the locator spell to, well, locate her own mother. It wouldn’t have taken long and she only needed to use her own powers.
The Originals Aren't Originals
Like the Vervain before, much hoopla was made about the ’fact’ that the Originals were the oldest supernatural beings in the world. Add to this the obviousness that they were immortals, which made them seem like they were the most powerful beings in existence too.
Except, hold on, the Originals weren’t the oldest in the world, after all, were they? Later on, it was told that Silas predated them by a long distance. So does that make him an original Original? Going by that, it would also make the Originals the not-really-Originals. So are they the Originals or not? We don’t blame you if this makes your head hurt a bit.
Damon Shouldn't Want To Drink The Cure
At one point, Damon Salvatore was all in on the prospect of taking the cure to heal his vampirism. It was shown to be a big deal and the idea of Damon becoming human was something of intrigue. What would have been really intriguing, however, would’ve been seeing Damon turning old once he did take the cure.
This is because it was said that once a vampire did take the cure, it would stop their anti-aging. If this were the case, then handsome young Damon would have been turned into walking carcass Damon because this dude was over one hundred and forty years old.
The Rules of the Cure Keep Changing
The cure itself is kind of vague in what it does. Not only would Damon have become an old bag of bones if he’d taken it, we don’t know how he would have taken the cure. By that we mean we literally have no clue how you administer the cure upon yourself.
It was left unclear if the cure was supposed to be injected into the vampire’s bloodstream or if it could have been drained directly from the victim. Maybe the cure was shrouded in mystery intentionally so we didn’t ponder too much about Old Man Damon, and yet here we are.
Stefan's Inconvenient Strength
It always helps to have a big, strong man to look out for you. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a guy or a girl because having someone with pure strength watching your back is always beneficial. At least that works fifty percent of the time when it comes to Stefan Salvatore.
Vampires were established to possess super strength and Stefan had shown this strength earlier before he was faced with a situation of saving Elena or Matt from drowning. Elena makes Stefan save Matt and succumbs to the water. However, Stefan had super strength on his side and could’ve saved both with relative ease.
What spell did Bonnie use to wake Elena up?
After Elena went into permanent sleep (and ended up starring in the god-awful xXx: Return of Xander Cage), Bonnie was the one tied to her; as long as Bonnie was alive, Elena would be in slumber. To her credit, Bonnie did whatever she could to figure out a way to save Elena, and ended up achieving this in the series finale.
Too bad for us she somehow saved Elena without us knowing what method she used. The action happened offscreen, and by the time we saw them again, Elena had awakened. If only Bonnie had woken Elena up sooner, she wouldn’t have been involved in xXx 3.
Logan Shouldn’t Need An Invitation
The age-old myth of inviting a vampire in to your own doom also prevailed in The Vampire Diaries. Here, we saw this rule being invoked a few times to varying results. For one, Damon’s vicious side was shown when he seemingly both complied and defied the rules at the same time. Poor Samantha Gibbons’ life was brutally taken by Damon in order to enter her house, as she was too dead to invite him in and the clause was made void.
This doesn’t seem to work for Logan, who was the dead owner of his own place but couldn’t enter because no one could invite him. However, if he himself was the owner, and was deceased, shouldn’t there be no clause at all?
Inconsistent Drain
If you do happen to find yourself bleeding, then never go by The Vampire Diaries to gauge how much time will be left for you to survive. The series conveniently shows people perishing from being fed to vampires in varying levels. If there are random characters who happen to become victims, it won’t take them a couple of seconds to succumb to their assailant.
Meanwhile, if a main character happens to be on the receiving end, they could potentially survive weeks – it seems as if they have an endless supply of blood coursing through their veins. It’s too bad they never went to a blood donation drive.
Mystic Falls' Origins
The foundation of Mystic Falls itself is shrouded in mystery. First of all, isn’t it just convenient a town that houses vampires, supernatural creatures galore, happens to have a weird name like that; and no one ever suspects something is off about this place?
More importantly, the sign in the entranceway states the town was founded in 1860, which can’t really be the case unless people had been dying for about seventy years before Mystic Falls was named. This is because the cemetery explicitly has a 1792 date set on it. So are we supposed to believe the cemetery alone was founded in 1792 and not the remaining town?
How Are Teenagers able to act like adults?
We would have to be living under a rock to assume– especially the male ones – are really the ages they are supposed to be portraying. Even Nina Dobrev was around 20 when she began playing Elena, who was three to four years younger than her actress. On the other hand, Damon’s actor was pushing 30 by the time the show began.
However, it seems the in-universe people also consider them as such seeing that every teenage or underage character has easy access to bars and establishments. It doesn’t take them any effort to be downing anything that is intoxicating. Doesn’t anyone ask for any ID proof before serving these kids?
Stephan and Damon know Nothing
Damon and Stefan might get away with the drinking seeing that they are actually over one hundred and forty years old, but this only makes the two seem like clueless vampires when it comes to supernatural lore.
Despite being ridiculously old, neither brother has any real knowledge in supernatural matters. They didn’t know who the Originals were, even though Stefan dated Rebekah (facepalm), they are clueless in the matters of werewolves or anything remotely supernatural. So what exactly have these two been up to for over a century and a half? You’d think they would be familiar with some things, but like the audience, they themselves are in the dark over normal supernatural facts. They didn't even know what to do about Tyler when he turned!
Blood Sharing Turns Into a casual affair
In the earlier seasons, sharing blood with one another was made out to be something so intimate it was pretty much the equivalent of being physically close to one another. So if you were a vampire and found out your girlfriend had shared blood with another vamp, it would have been awful for your relationship.
Forward over to the later seasons and this is hardly the case as characters share blood on a casual basis. If it really wasn’t a big deal, then Elena sharing blood with Damon wasn’t all that to be aghast over for Stefan, was it?
Elena’s Brother Doesn't Care About Her
God forbid, but if your sibling happens to fall into a coma you would definitely drop everything in the world to go visit them in their vegetative state, wouldn’t you? At the very least, you would stop by a very quick visit. That would be the norm for anyone who wasn’t named Jeremy Gilbert because this dude didn’t really seem to care much about his sister being in a permanent sleep.
Jeremy left Mystic Falls after it became too obvious to everyone watching he was basically a liability to everyone; in-universe he was implied to be hunting on his own. However, when Elena falls asleep, Jeremy never once visits her. He is not exactly Brother-of-the-Year.
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Can you think of any other plot holes in The Vampire Diaries? Let us know in the comments!