5 Things We Learnt From Each Character In Vampire Diaries

Aug 9, 20208 min read

|By- Alok Parekh|

The Vampire Diaries, an American drama series that has been streaming on various platforms like The CW Television Network which is an American English-language free-to-air television network, Amazon Prime Videos, and Netflix for quite a few years, has remained a top priority for many people throughout the world. The show has won 4 People’s Choice Awards and many Teen Choice Awards. Having aired 171 episodes stretched over eight exhilarating seasons of love, lust, drama and loss, the pilot episode was streamed on September 10, 2009, and the last episode was aired on March 10, 2017.

Vampire Diaries revolves around the lives of some supernatural creatures like werewolves, witches, and of course vampires, as the name suggests. This story talks about the relationships of normal human beings with these extra-mundane, unfriendly creatures that later turn out to be very helpful and supportive. As the story progresses, these humans no more remain normal. All of them are turned into these mystical creatures either by other vampires or have turned themselves by triggering their family curses and this has interested and attracted more viewers.

At least once after watching any new show, all of us must have thought of becoming like some of the best characters from the show, isn’t it? Similarly, I too wanted to be like some of the characters from The Vampire Diaries. Even though all those characters also had their bad sides which I would never want to incorporate within myself, somewhere in my mind I still thought of copying their style. In addition to just becoming like them, we also learn things from our beloved characters who for me are Elena Gilbert and the Salvatore brothers.

Here are 5 things that we should learn from them!

1) Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev):

Majority of her story talks about her relationships with the Salvatore brothers. She was a part of the show for first six seasons, after which she departed from the series. She then made a guest appearance in the finale of last season as Katherine and doppelganger Elena. It would have been very difficult for her to play the two roles that are absolutely divergent and irreconcilable to each other.

· In the second and third seasons, she had done a lot of selfless deeds. One of them was breaking up with her boyfriend Stefan so as to protect her aunt Jenna from dying. Second of all was when she herself died to save her ex-boyfriend Matt as Rebekah (one of the Original vampires) caused their car to swerve off the bridge. Elena forced Stefan and convinced him to save Matt first and as a result, she died herself. In many more such incidents, Elena has made a lot of selfless decisions. So, I think that this is one quality we must all adapt from her, being selfless when it comes to our near and dear ones. It is not always advisable to put yourself first in such cases.

· Throughout The Vampire Diaries, after Katherine being introduced, no one ever thought that Elena would ever show even a little bit of kindness towards her. But Elena, she proved the masses wrong. In season 5 when the cure to vampirism was found, instead of taking it herself, Elena gave it to Katherine. She believed that after five centuries of utter hatred, Katherine deserved a second chance to rediscover being a human and having a normal life. Here, we should learn from Elena that showing kindness automatically avoids many redundant as well as undesirable situations. It is important to give a second chance to people who are sorry for their evil nature and wish to improve.

· Elena also teaches us to always be supportive of your family and friends. After all, that is what all of us would do, isn’t it? Since the pilot episode, it is clearly shown that Elena and Jeremy have lost their parents. Rather than mourning over it, she accepted the fact and started moving on in life with Jeremy and has constantly been the support system for him. Being an elder sister, though just 16 years old, she was responsible for her brother, and apparently she was successful in taking care of him.

·Talking about friends and family, Elena has also taught the viewers to care for their loved ones. She shows that we must always choose the people who we love above everyone else without worrying about the consequences for even once. Right from the beginning, she has protected her dear ones. Without thinking about what would happen to her when she would go against one of the strongest creatures on the entire planet, she just thought of protecting her friend from the beast.

· Apart from all of the above qualities, one thing of utter importance that she taught us was to be strong and brave in any damn situation. All of us must always stay strong no matter what our condition is. Elena was going through a lot on her part. It was too much for any girl of that age, to be honest. But again, she acted brave and defeated all her enemies with the help of others. On her way throughout the show, she came across many powerful creatures but defeated them all only when she was strong and courageous.

2) Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder):

He portrayed himself as a bad guy with a secret, beautiful heart. Until almost three seasons he had made sure that due to his terrible and miserable past, he would never show that there is something called kindness he owns.

I think he was one of the most irresistible characters on The Vampire Diaries with not only his supernaturally gorgeous looks but also the hidden person that he is beneath a mad, impetuous vampire he is. In addition to this, definitely his quotes that best suited his role were cherry on the cake. Having said that, let us take a look at what we must learn from the crazy vampire.

· Always being humorous is one of the best life hacks. Talking about Damon, apart from his non-matching sense of humour, his sarcasm has always been on point. No matter what the situation is or how big the fix is, this guy has mostly always had these scintillating wits up his sleeves. Throughout the series, he has delivered so many sarcastic dialogues, that it is difficult to make a count.

· Another quality that we must adapt to Damon is honesty. It is very well said that Honesty is the best policy. When you are honest, you can steer clear of all the unnecessary problems. Damon has followed this policy of honesty in each and every problem to avoid any further issues. He was ready to always put himself as a bad person and move out to face people and problems. He was very sure about this and honestly made it clear to his younger brother, Stefan.

· On the show, he was shown to be fiercely practical in most of the situations and that has helped him to achieve what he wanted. He knew that Stefan was somewhere not capable of facing all their enemies alone so he practically thought about it and rather than Stefan being hurt, he decided to face everyone alone. He never took any decision emotionally or in haste. Being practical helps us to stick to the present which is very useful.

· Being yourself, that is the best thing you can do. It is a fact that most of us live based on expectations and limitations set by others. But then what is our identity? If we can’t live our life how we want to, then is it even worth being born?

Damon teaches us to be who we are. Throughout The Vampire Diaries, he has been himself and has not thought about how people would react to it. Yes, he hasn’t cared about anyone. One of his quotes that describe this nature of his and that I love is When people are good they expect good and I don’t want to live up to anyone’s expectations. He has always made his own decisions without any help.

· Into the bargain, another thing that is very essential for all of us to do is to love vehemently. We must love like it is the only thing that we have got. The love that is amorous, consumable and the love that can-only-exist-in-parallel-universe.

Damon has taught us to believe in this. He has loved Elena and Katherine (back then) passionately. With his love for them, obviously, comes their protection and safety. He has loved like there is never any tomorrow. Having said this, I got reminded of a dialogue - Chaar din ki Zindagi hai aur aaj chautha din hai - from the Bollywood film Baadshaho.

3)Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley):

He played the good Salvatore brother and was the heroic vampire. On the contrary to what his elder brother Damon was, he was the nice guy and showed that he cared for people. He too had a despairing and an unsettled past where he ripped peoples’ heads off their bodies and fed on other humans as well. He somehow managed to kill that part of himself until when he turned his humanity switch off. According to me, this switch is definitely not good for anyone to have especially when talking about such strong and powerful creatures. Following are some things that we ought to learn from him.

· The young Salvatore was quite noble throughout his life. He had always kept his family and friends the first priority. He had these moral principles made for himself that he did not follow. He was always limited to these principles and never crossed the boundaries until when he was forced to go on a killing spree which was gain to protect his loved ones. He teaches all of us to have our moral principles in life and understand the difference between what is correct and what is wrong, not only for us but also our closed ones.

· It is always said that dogs are the most loyal animals in the entire world. Have we ever thought about the most loyal person? Talking about the show, Stefan was the most loyal one amongst all the characters.

Does being loyal to anyone ask for a lot from us? No, right? This is the thing we all must include within ourselves. We should be loyal to the people who are precious to us and never hurt them.

· Whether we know someone or not, isn’t it our duty to show some humanity to each and every person or animal? It definitely is. So, once again Stefan has shown his good deed of humanity to all the people who he meets on The Vampire Diaries. He had become what he was due to all the guilt from his cruel past. He carried this guilt because he killed his father when he couldn’t control his heightened emotions just after he was turned into a vampire by his then-girlfriend, Katherine.

I think, even if we aren’t guilty of anything that has happened to us, we must always show our humanity to people and animals.

· Don’t you like if anyone turns up to you to discuss anything very personal? This means that you are very trustworthy to that person. You can keep their secrets no matter what. Stefan was one such person who was the most trustworthy when compared to all the others. He always kept things to himself and never let others know anything about someone else. Why not become like him when all of us like this quality so much? Let us all now make sure that we are available for others and they can trust us whenever they need us.

· Apart from being all the above, Stefan was also the introvert guy. I know you all must be wondering what is good in being an introvert. Here is a brief answer to it.

When you are an introvert, you automatically become good listeners. Being an introvert makes you think before you speak. There are high chances that you make quality friends and you also observe things with much deeper perspectives. Aren’t all these things enough? Hence, this was one last thing that we should follow from Stefan (and sometimes not).

These were the things that the viewers must take away from Vampire Diaries. I would like to end this article with a few questions now.

Do you really think that vampires exist? If yes, then have anyone of you ever thought about how would your life be if you were one?

Will you actually need to carry blood bags for yourself wherever you go? If you haven’t yet thought about these things, guys just give it a go.