The Vampire Diaries is one of the most successful and long running TV shows in the history of the CW network. It's cast of characters were both friends and enemies, but honestly by the conclusion of the series it was difficult to say that these characters were the good guys and these were the bad guys, because there had just been so much blood shed. And that's honestly to be expected, because it's a show about vampires!
Every main character on The Vampire Diaries has done terrible things for the sake of themselves or the people that they loved. Sometimes their choices were understandable, and other times they were downright baffling, but either way they all did what they did. And of course, each character has that one thing that they've done that seems a cut above the rest. So here are the worst things that every main character on The Vampire Diaries ever did.
Enzo St. John - Getting Aaron Whitmore Killed
In the grand scheme of The Vampire Diaries, Enzo is a character who deserves some props. Yes, he does some terrible things, but most of the Mystic Falls gang has done much worse and had to endure much less. And Enzo managed to keep himself alive and keep his humanity throughout decades of torture. However, one of his main motivations to keep going was ending the Whitmore line. It's cool that he kept his eye on a prize, but Aaron Whitmore really did nothing, and aside from the symbolic destruction of the Augustines Enzo's decision to buddy up with Damon to end the Whitmore gene pool was pretty pointlessly cruel and unfair.
Alaric Saltzman - Using Caroline
So in one of the most bizarre and incomprehensible twists in TVD history, Alaric Saltzman meets Jo Laughlin, falls in love, they conceive some twins, they go to get married, and Jo is brutally murdered at the altar.
But oh, lucky Alaric, someone magically transfers his and Jo's fetuses into the dead vampire body that is Caroline Forbes and she somehow births his children. And Caroline is suddenly mommy to two children that she was forcibly impregnated with, and Alaric starts to fall for her even though A. she had no choice in the situation and B. she was literally his student! Gross, dude.
Tyler Lockwood - Assaulting Vicki
Tyler Lockwood is actually an interesting case in the world of The Vampire Diaries, because while pretty much every character on the show became a worse person over time, Tyler actually evolved into a better one. So it's not a huge surprise that his worst moment actually came in the pilot episode of TVD. Tyler and Vicki Donovan are hooking up on the regular, and when they find themselves at the same party Tyler wants a repeat performance of their regular non-dating situation. But when Vicki makes it clear that she's not into it, Tyler doesn't really want to take no for an answer, and he only backs off when Jeremy forces him to.
Jeremy Gilbert - Killing Kol
The revelation that Jeremy was basically the boy version of Buffy the vampire slayer was definitely a surprising one, and the fact that he was the only one in the Mystic Falls crew who had any idea of how to get to the cure for vampirism made him a hot commodity. And in an effort to fill in the magical map to the cure (which grows every time Jeremy kills a vampire), Jeremy and Elena come up with the absolutely genius idea of killing an Original. It's astounding that they actually manage to do it, but Jeremy literally commits vampire genocide when he does that, and he doesn't seem to care how many "good" vampires may have been collateral damage.
Matt Donovan - Killing Finn
In all fairness to Matt, he wasn't exactly the architect behind this plan, and he had no idea of what the end result was going to be. In short, he didn't know that when he killed Finn he was killing every vampire from Finn's bloodline. However, that's kind of a thin excuse.
Yes, Finn is an Original, but as far as anyone can tell he is probably the one member of the Original family who didn't deserve to die and had really done nothing wrong. The worst thing Finn apparently did was to make Sage into a vampire, which isn't a crime punishable by death.
Bonnie Bennett - Abandoning Vampire Caroline And Supporting Elena
This comes as no surprise, because everyone loves Elena and will do whatever it takes to make her safe and happy whereas with someone like Caroline, not so much. But Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline were supposed to be besties from elementary school onward, so the fact that Bonnie basically ghosted Caroline and wouldn't even help her assimilate to her vampire life was really unnecessarily mean. And it wouldn't have been quite so bad if Bonnie had felt that way towards anyone who was a human turned vampire, but when Elena became a vampire Bonnie was willing to do absolutely anything to help her and make her life easier.
Caroline Forbes - Killing 12 Witches
It's ironic that Bonnie's worst behavior as a character was bailing on Caroline in her time of need, because the worst thing that Caroline ever did is something she did to save Bonnie. When Silas was trying to create a magical expression triangle, that required a massive sacrifice in a triangular pattern over Mystic Falls. Pastor Young took care of the human sacrifice, Klaus killed off his hybrid pack for the hybrid sacrifice, and that left a witch sacrifice left to complete the triangle. And when Bonnie found herself throwing down with a dozen witches she was unfortunately on the losing end, until Caroline swooped in and killed them all to save her.
Damon Salvatore - Leaving Enzo To Die
When it comes to the main squad on The Vampire Diaries, Damon is probably at the top of the leader board when it comes to doing awful things. He has enough bad things to choose from that it's difficult to decide which one is the worst. But ultimately, it has to be his decision to leave Enzo to die in the fire consuming the Augustines.
Damon may have done more brutal things, but Enzo is someone who Damon truly loved and who trusted Damon with his life, so Damon's decision to turn of his humanity and save himself when Enzo was trapped and about to be burned alive is probably the most awful thing Damon ever did.
Stefan Salvatore - Letting Himself Become A Ripper
The Salvatore brothers are generally train wrecks when it comes to vampirism, but while Damon kind of chooses to be the worst Stefan is accidentally the worst. Or at least, sometimes accidentally. Stefan does try pretty hard to not succumb to the endless, overpowering blood lust that he seems to suffer from, but there have been more than a few times in his life where he has just let his worst impulses run wild and enjoyed every minute of it. A lot of what vampires do would be profoundly disturbing to any normal human, but Stefan relishes in his violence and brutality in a way that other vampires just don't.
Elena Gilbert - Convincing Jeremy To Kill Kol
Despite the fact that everyone around her seems to think the opposite, Elena Gilbert is often times the actual worst. Or at the very least, she is someone who can be incredibly short sighted, self absorbed, and has a bit of a god complex. And none of her actions are a better example of her worst traits and impulses than her brilliant idea of having Jeremy kill Kol so she could get the cure to vampirism. Aside from the fact that she was orchestrating the death of hundreds if not thousands of vampires, she was convincing Jeremy to do something that would inevitably end with him being tortured to death by another Original family member.