While The Vampire Diaries was wildly successful for The CW — the series ran for eight seasons and got two spinoffs — the show was far from perfect. As is the case with most long-running series, The Vampire Diaries had its fair share of moments that fans weren’t sure about or simply didn’t like. The series also had a handful of storylines that were controversial among fans — and that remain so to this day, nearly a decade after the series finale.
Videos by ComicBook.com
From dating violence to confusing spells to characters that simply deserved better than what they got, there are storylines that both anger and divide fans even know. Let’s take a look back at seven of the most controversial storylines from The Vampire Diaries. A couple of them might just surprise you.
Damon and Caroline’s Toxic and Abusive Relationship
The first season of The Vampire Diaries is, in retrospect, very different from the rest of the series and for good reason The series, an adaptation of L.J. Smith’s novel series of the same name, was establishing its lore and finding its footing which meant experimenting with things like Damon’s unusual powers (that were ultimately scrapped). But there’s one aspect of Season 1 that fans still can’t get behind and that’s the toxic relationship between Caroline and Damon. While Caroline initially enters into her relationship with Damon arguably of her own free will, Damon ends up compelling Caroline and repeatedly feeding from her as well as controlling her behavior. Damon’s actions make their relationship non-consensual which is extremely icky in retrospect. It’s so unsettling that, for some fans, the fact that Caroline and Damon ended up friends — and Damon ultimately got a happily ever after — still sits wrong.
[RELATED: Should The Vampire Diaries Get a Reboot?]
Bonnie, Elena, and the Sleeping Beauty Spell
Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries saw a major change to the series when star Nina Dobrev chose to exit. With her character, Elena, being central to the story, the series had to come up with a way to remove her from the action and that’s where what might be the show’s most divisive storyline comes in. To conveniently get Elena out of action, Kai Parker (Chris Wood) curses Elena, tying her life to that of Bonnie Bennet (Kat Graham). The catch? It’s a “sleeping beauty” spell, meaning that as long as Bonnie is alive, Elena will sleep.
The move effectively dismissed Dobrev’s character from the series, but how The Vampire Diaries handled things for the show’s remaining two seasons was incredibly frustrating. Not only did the characters not look for a way to wake Elena up while keeping Bonnie alive, but the series essentially hand-waved it all away for the finale when Bonnie suddenly just reverses the curse without any explanation. Even for the fans that accepted the concept of the curse to begin with, the idea that it was so easy to break that it was practically a footnote never really sat well.
Caroline’s Pregnancy
Vampires are, technically dead. However, that didn’t stop The Vampire Diaries from having Caroline be pregnant. Season 7 saw Caroline Forbes end up pregnant, but with a twist. At the end of Season 6, Alaric’s pregnant fiancée Jo is murdered but in Season 7, it’s revealed that, due to a magical transfer, the Gemini Coven “placed” Alaric and Jo’s twins in Caroline to protect them. Caroline ends up giving birth to two girls, Josie and Lizzie. At some point, Caroline and Alaric become engaged, but that falls apart with Alaric and Caroline ultimately co-parenting the girls. Caroline and Alaric end up opening a school for supernatural children and Josie and Lizzie end up being central characters in The Vampire Diaries spinoff, Legacies.
While this storyline was born largely out of a need to accommodate Candice King’s real-life pregnancy, it remains extremely controversial. Not only is the idea of a pregnant vampire — and one pregnant via magical transfer at that — just odd, but it also led to an uncomfortable relationship between Caroline and Alaric, a much older man who had once been her high school teacher. The storyline also ended up being a bit confusing even as the universe moved into Legacies because while Josie and Lizzie are technically not Caroline’s children biologically, it’s heavily played that Lizzie is just like her mom, Caroline, down to her blonde hair.
“Enhanced Original” Vampire Alaric
In The Vampire Diaries, all vampires can trace their heritage back to the Originals, a family that are the first vampires As they are the first vampires, they are the strongest and most dangerous of them all — at least until Alaric gets turned int a turbo charged version of one. In Season 3, Alaric is turned into a vampire by Esther, the mother of Original vampires the Mikaelsons. Esther, who was responsible for turning her children into vampires to begin with, wanted to use Alaric to kill her son Klaus so she turns Alaric into a more powerful vampire, an Enhanced Original.
The whole thing is one that fans still dislike, especially with how it undermines the series’ general lore that nothing is more powerful than an Original. Fortunately, Alaric, who was killed off at the end of Season 3 and appeared as a ghost a few times, is brought back from the dead in Season 5 and, eventually, is made human again. We know, it makes no sense.
Doppelgangers Everywhere
The concept of doppelgangers is a whole thing in The Vampire Diaries universe and when it was just a matter of Katherine and Elena, that was fine. The idea that Elena was the doppelganger of the vicious and delightfully evil Katherine actually made for a great story. But the show took the idea a little too far, adding another doppelganger (Amara who, like Katherine and Elena, was played by Dobrev) and then even more by having Stefan have doppelgangers, too. By adding more doppelgangers — and seemingly switching up the general lore a few times — the show kind of jumped the shark and in the process made what was special about its main character much less so.
Cade, the Sirens, and Too Little, Too Late
By the end of The Vampire Diaries’ run, the series needed some fresh villains. Enter siren sisters Sybil and Seline and their master Arcadius, aka Cade. While the sirens aren’t really that important, Cade’s story is at least interesting. He was the world’s very first psychic and went on to become the creator of Hell, functionally making him The Vampire Diaries’ version of the Devil. While the concept is intriguing, the execution isn’t great. The story ends up feeling contrived (though Wolé Parks does a fantastic job as Cade) and ends up simply being just a mechanism to push the series towards its finish line. Cade is ultimately defeated all too easily making fans wonder what the point was in the first place.
Bonnie Bennett Deserved Better, Especially in The Prison World
If there is one thing that The Vampire Diaries fans can agree on is that Bonnie Bennet deserved better overall, but the Prison World storyline might be the most controversial example of that. In Season 6, Bonnie and Damon end up in a 1994 Prison World where they relive the same day over and over until Bonnie figures out how to get them out. However, things go a bit awry because the prison world is also the home of the evil Kai and Damon ends up being the only one to get out, with Bonnie staying behind to ensure his return to the present.
While there is a lot that goes on as part of the Prison World story, the aspect of things that is most controversial among fans is that Bonnie eventually ends up alone there and nearly kills herself due to her crushing loneliness. While the story itself is engaging, it’s the fact that Bonnie once again is made to suffer in ways the rest of the series’ main characters aren’t that fans take issue with. One of if not the most powerful character in The Vampire Diaries, Bonnie is often the one to sacrifice or endure pain for the sake of her friends and this storyline really drives that point home.
The Vampire Diaries is now streaming on Peacock.
