Lillian Salvatore

Lillian "Lily" Salvatore is a vampire and a major recurring character and antagonist in the sixth and seventh seasons of The Vampire Diaries. She is the mother of Stefan and Damon Salvatore and the widow of the late Giuseppe Salvatore. She has been mentioned by both Damon and Giuseppe and also Stefan later on, but next to nothing is known about her. She supposedly died at some point in 1858. It has been suggested that she was a lot kinder than her husband, Giuseppe. In the books that are based on the history of the television series, she is a Frenchwoman.

She was turned in 1858 and she faked her death. When Lily was very sick with consumption, she was sent away by Giuseppe. An unknown nurse (who was assumed to have been a vampire) had fed her vampire blood while she was held in the TB ward. Lily did end up dying of consumption, triggering her transformation into a vampire. Realizing that she was a vampire and a creature of the night, Lily then faked her death and abandoned her family, feeling like she had posed a significant threat to her family as a vampire. When she fled to Europe, she succumbed to her bloodlust and became a Ripper vampire, a vampire that slaughters their victims for blood in the most gruesome ways. Lily, as a Ripper, tore through an entire city and left trails of dead corpses and drained them of their blood (much like her younger son Stefan did in 1917 as the Ripper of Monterrey). She moved on from city to city, killing many people and gaining a high body count, until eventually, she was encountered by the Gemini Coven in Manhattan, New York. As a punishment for her crimes as a Ripper for killing so many people, they trapped her in a prison world on October 31, 1903 and she has been stuck there for over a century.

In early 2013, Lily is finally freed from her prison world by Damon, Elena, and Bonnie.

She made her first modern day appearance in Season 6's Let Her Go.

Lily is a member of the Salvatore Family.

1858
Lily had consumption and had become very sick, to which Giuseppe sent her away. While at a hospital, an unknown nurse gave her vampire blood and Lily eventually died of consumption, and completed her transition. She had then came back to Mystic Falls to see her sons and when she was with Stefan, she had felt her bloodlust come and afraid she would hurt her sons, she left. She then went to Europe and met each of the Heretics at different times and turned them. She had then considered them family and they had stuck with each other over the years.

1863
Lily, wanting to check in on her sons, sent some of her "family" across the ocean to check on them. She sent Julian and Valerie to see Stefan in Mystic Falls and Oscar to see Damon while he was serving the Confederacy.

1903
In 1903, Lillian helped a man named Enzo who was dying from consumption and who refused to let him on the boat because of his condition. She helped the man up and offered him a ride with her on the boat. Lily and her companions at some point boarded the boat. After Enzo wakes up, Lily explains to him why she is immune to consumption and that she has already had the disease and died from it. Later, in her cabin, she compels a doctor to give her his honest opinion of Enzo's condition. After that Lily considers whether or not to turn Enzo into a vampire, she is seen cutting her hand with a scalpel and catching her blood in a glass and giving it to Enzo to drink, also revealing that Enzo must of been about to die since vampire blood normally leaves the system in about a day. Lily and her companions, killed everyone on board and drained them. At some point she spares a man and compels him to enter Enzo's cabin and offer himself to him as a blood bag. At this point, Lily was no where to be seen so this implies that the Gemini Coven had ambushed them on the docks and imprisoned them in a prison world, where she remained there for over a century.

Season One - Season Six
See Lillian Salvatore's page on The Vampire Diaries wikia.

Season Seven
In Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, Lily appears in a flashback where she discusses the Heretics' return with Stefan. She also appears near the end of episode in present time Mystic Falls. Her family of Heretics have killed two staff members of the Mystic Falls High School.

In Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?,

In A Date With Destiny,

In A Nightmare on Sorority Row,

In Something to Die For,

Personality
Lily is a beautiful and strong woman and described as "articulate and caustic", she has a reputation for protecting the ones she loves at any cost.

Before she was turned and when she was a regular human, she was assumed to have been a kind and gentle human. However, after she turned into a vampire, her personality changed for the worst. She is short tempered as she is terrifying when angered. As a Ripper, Lily is unpredictable, aggressive, violent and ruthless, traits that she unfortunately passed down to her youngest son Stefan. However, unlike Stefan, she has killed over 3,000 people in Europe and unlike Damon, she is unwilling to kill a pregnant woman. This shows that Lily has some morals and moral lines that she is not willing to cross. Her personality seems to be more in line with Stefan than with Damon.

She managed to keep her ripper side under control, upon meeting the Heretics and turning them into vampire-witch hybrids. Lily is also suicidal, as after she returned to the real world without the heretics, her ripper side started to take control of her. Lillian was consumed with guilt because of what she had done and how much she had killed. She was unwilling to become that monster again so she tried to kill herself.

Powers and Abilities
Lily possesses all the standard powers and abilities of a non-original vampire.

Weaknesses
Lily has the typical weaknesses of a non-original vampire.

Name

 * Lillian is a female given name and in Latin means "lily".
 * Salvatore is Italian and means "savior".

Trivia

 * In the books, she played a crucial and important role in the relationship between the Salvatore brothers. Her death caused Damon to hate Stefan, as he blamed Stefan for her untimely and unexpected death. After Stefan was born, their mother became ill and never recovered. She died a few years later when Damon was a small child and when Stefan was a toddler. There's also the fact that Damon did have a close relationship with his mother (being the first child) and that when Stefan was born, their mother and their father started to pay more attention to Stefan, with Stefan being the newest addition to the family and also being the youngest child who needed constant care and attention. Because of this, Damon ended up getting jealous of Stefan, feeling like Stefan robbed Damon of the attention and affections of their mother after he was born. Unlike Damon, however, Stefan has little to no memory of his mother as she died when Stefan was only a couple of years old.
 * Damon and Stefan's mother in the novels (her name is unknown) was said to have possessed a personality and temperament similar to Stefan: kind, compassionate, caring, nurturing, but very vulnerable and physically fragile. She was said to have been the opposite of Giuseppe in personality (according to the books, Damon seems to have inherited Giuseppe's personality and temperament, especially his hot headedness and his quick and short temper).
 * It is revealed by Stefan Salvatore in Prayer For the Dying that his and Damon's mother was sent away by Giuseppe when she became severely ill with consumption.
 * Damon places flowers on her grave annually, this explains why he was in Mystic Falls in 2009.
 * This places her death around May, taking into account that Damon first met Elena on May 23rd.
 * Damon volunteered to write his mother's eulogy but never even went to the funeral.
 * Contrary to everyone's belief, Lily did not actually die. It was presumed she was dead but in fact she was stuck in 1903, in a alternate prison world to Malachai's.
 * She has pictures of her sons from 1864, as Damon is in his Confederate Army uniform.
 * According to Julie Plec, she may be evil.
 * According to Kai, she is a Ripper. Like her youngest son Stefan, she became addicted to blood and she had killed over 3,000 people after she was turned into a vampire. It is apparent that Stefan took after his mother after being turned.
 * Unlike her son, although killing more people than him, she did not earn a title such as 'the Ripper of Monterrey'.
 * However it is entirely possible that she received multiple tittles due to the number of kills she made while traveling in Europe. They simply haven't been revealed in the show yet.
 * Going by physical appearance, Lily's oldest son Damon takes after her as there is a strong physical resemblance between the two. Elena even comments that Damon has Lily's eyes.
 * Stefan, on the other hand, does not physically resemble either of his parents in Giuseppe or Lily, as Stefan is a doppelgänger or shadow self of Silas, who is an ancient and the oldest known ancestor (going back to 1st century B.C.) of the Salvatore family. Therefore, Stefan is physically identical to Silas in every way. It could be safe to say that physical appearance wise, Stefan took after Giuseppe's side, since the doppelgängers are presumably from the Salvatore side of the family.
 * Personality and temperament wise, it could be assumed that Stefan took after Lily, considering that after both were turned into vampires, they went from being kind and gentle humans to vampires who became blood addicts that did not know how to control their blood lust. Both Lily and Stefan became Rippers who ended up killing innocent humans in the most brutal and gruesome ways. It could be assumed that before Lily was turned, she had a kind and gentle personality similar to her youngest son, although vampirism brought out the bad and immoral side of her.
 * Lily reveals that she despised Giuseppe and actually told Damon that it was good for Stefan to do what he did to his father.
 * It is currently unknown as to why Lily despised Giuseppe.
 * It's possible that Lillian despised Giuseppe because she disliked his personality and the fact that he was a harsh, stern man who had a terrible temper. It could also be because Giuseppe had abandoned her by sending her away from her family when she had become deathly ill.
 * It was mentioned by Lillian that Giuseppe was an abusive husband, which could explain her disdain for him.
 * Lily has a group of vampires that accompanied her and they were the ones that helped her keep her Ripper tendencies at ease. They also were sent to the Prison World with her and they were mummified corpses. She claims they are her family as well.
 * While in the prison world, Lillian has claimed that she lives on two drops of blood a day to survive and so she won't desiccate.
 * Lily revealed to Damon that the day of her funeral, she had visited Stefan to say goodbye (hence, why Stefan thought he saw his mother in angel form). She said that she had just wanted to see her boys one last time before she went away for good. But as she was saying goodbye to Stefan while he was asleep, she almost lost control of her blood lust and was tempted to feed from Stefan. This was the major reason why Lily said that she left in the first place, so that she could spare her sons the possible danger of her being in their lives as a dangerous vampire.
 * Lillian is presumed to have been born some time between 1810 and 1820. Her exact age is unknown.
 * It is assumed that Lillian is American and was born in the United States (like her portrayer, Annie Wersching was), although it has not been confirmed.
 * Lillian is assumed to be of French-American descent, as Stefan's Diaries seems to suggest (although "Stefan's Diaries" is not considered to be canon in terms of the show).
 * Lillian is Stefan's emotional trigger, as it was seeing her that caused Stefan to turn his humanity switch back on.
 * Although a ripper with no regard for human life, Lily would not kill a pregnant woman unlike her son Damon.
 * Lillian is the second female Salvatore family member to appear on the show. Sarah was the first.
 * Lillian has never met Jeremy and Alaric.
 * Unlike most vampires on the show, it's unknown which of the Original Vampires bloodline she descended from.
 * According to Damon himself (or at least from his perspective), Stefan is Lillian's favorite son. Interestingly enough, Stefan was also Giuseppe's favorite son, if flashbacks are anything to go by.