Elena Gilbert

Elena Gilbert is the main female protagonist of The Vampire Diaries. At the beginning of the series, Elena appears to be a regular human girl, but is then revealed to be a Petrova doppelgänger. In The Departed, she becomes a vampire despite never wanting to be one. In I'd Leave My Happy Home For You, she takes the cure to become human again. She is currently in a magically-induced coma caused by Gemini Coven leader Malachai Parker as revenge against Bonnie Bennett for being imprisoned in the 1903 prison world. Kai linked Bonnie to Elena so that, as long as Bonnie lives, Elena will sleep; when Bonnie dies, Elena will wake from her sleep.

Elena has been struggling to live a normal life ever since her adoptive parents, Miranda and Grayson Gilbert, died in a car accident when she was seventeen years old. Her life also changes drastically as she and her friends are caught up in the supernatural world that surrounds them and are forced to face powerful supernatural enemies.

Elena is described as a star student. She is popular, sporty, smart, compassionate, empathetic, caring and friendly. She can be very vulnerable and a damsel in distress.

Elena is best friends with Bonnie Bennett, Caroline Forbes, Matt Donovan, as well as her current boyfriend, Damon Salvatore. She is also close friends with her ex-boyfriend, Stefan Salvatore. Her actions and beliefs throughout the series have been most influenced by her on-and-off romantic relationships with the Salvatore brothers, as well as by her antagonistic relationship with Katerina Petrova.

In Season One, Elena is still coping with her parents’ death when she meets a mysterious new student at Mystic Falls High School, Stefan Salvatore. Elena and Stefan fall in love with each other. However, not long after that, Elena discovers that both Stefan and his brother, Damon, are vampires. She also becomes aware of the existence of Katherine Pierce, the woman who turned the Salvatore brothers into vampires in 1864, and to whom Elena bears a striking physical resemblance. In the process, Elena discovers a shocking truth - she was adopted, and her real parents are John Gilbert, her uncle, and Isobel Flemming, Alaric's wife.

In Season Two, Elena learns that she is Katherine’s doppelgänger, which explains their identical appearance. Because of this, an Original Vampire, Klaus, wants to use her in a sacrifice to break an ancient curse. Despite Elena’s and her friends’ best efforts, the sacrifice takes place. Her biological father, John, sacrifices his own life to keep Elena alive and human. However, Klaus kills Elena’s aunt Jenna.

After Jeremy's death in Season Four, at Damon's command to ease her pain, she turned off her humanity. Vampires in rare cases form a sire bond to the one who turned them, based on how strong their human feelings were before transitioning. After a brief time, she was finally able to regain her humanity after a surprising plan was carried out by Damon and Matt.

During the events of Season Five, Elena's body was also possessed by Katherine, who was attempting to escape her fate caused by the effects of the cure. It took a while for Elena's friends to discover Katherine's deceit and when she died, she left a 'little present' in the form of infecting Elena's body with a deadly toxin, but this was later cured. Near the end of the season, she and Damon got back together near the end of the season, but it was short-lived. After Stefan's  shocking death, in order to bring him and others back from The Other Side, Damon, Elena and Caroline devised a plan, involving Liv Parker performing a spell that the Travelers had used to bring back their leader, Markos. However, the spell was interrupted before Damon could pass through the Anchor, Bonnie, and as the Other Side began to disintegrate, Elena and her friends were left heartbroken by their impending deaths.

For most of her life Elena lived at 2104 Maple Street, in the Gilbert family house. In Season Four, she briefly moved to the Salvatore Boarding House, when her brother, Jeremy, became a member of The Five and developed an uncontrollable urge to kill vampires, making it impossible for them to live together. Later than season, after Jeremy’s death, Elena burned down the Gilbert house. After that, she lived in the Salvatore Boarding House for several months, before moving to the Whitmore College dorm, where she still currently lives.

She attended Mystic Falls High School from Seasons One to Four, where she was a cheerleader, honor student, and one of the most popular girls in the school. Elena wanted to become a great writer and she has a diary in which she writes everything that happens in her life. She was originally turned in this direction by her adoptive mother, who gave Elena her first diary when she was ten. As of Season Five, she attends Whitmore College and majors in pre-med, wanting to become a doctor.

Elena is the last member of the Petrova Family, and a member of the Gilbert Family.

Early Life

 * -|1990s=

Elena was born on June 22, 1992 in Mystic Falls and for the first 17 years of her life, lived there peacefully for 17 years, with her parents, Miranda and Grayson Gilbert, as well as with her brother, Jeremy. They led a quiet small town life, free of the supernatural. However, in Season One Elena learns that she was adopted and her biological parents are John Gilbert, her uncle, and Isobel Flemming. John's brother Grayson and his wife Miranda, who desperately wanted to have children but were having difficulties conceiving, adopted Elena following her birth. Because Grayson was a doctor, he was able to tamper with the birth records, making himself and Miranda appear as Elena's biological parents on her birth certificate. If anyone ever became suspicious, they would have the birth certificate as documentation proof.

Later on, Elena also finds out that her parents were well aware of the existence of vampires and witches, and that, in fact, her father was part of the Augustine at Whitmore College, and even experimented on vampires in the basement of his Mystic Falls clinic. In fact, in 1999, when Elena was seven, she almost witnessed one of her father's experiments.


 * -|2007=

On December 22, 2007, Elena was fifteen years old and a freshman at Mystic Falls High School and was helping her town prepare for the Mystic Falls Lighting of the Tree Ceremony. While she was making hot chocolate, Bonnie threw a snowball at Elena and revealed that her father was taking her on a trip, meaning that Bonnie would miss Christmas with her friends. Caroline also got excited when Elena revealed that she was going to convince her parents to let Bonnie stay for the holidays as they had never spent a holiday away from each other.


 * -|2008 - 2009=

During her sophomore year, Elena had a relationship with Matt Donovan, her oldest friend with whom she formerly shared a crib. At a bonfire, the two of them get into an argument where, afterwards, she calls her parents to pick her up. While waiting to be picked up, she meets Damon Salvatore who originally confuses her with Katherine. He tells her she wants a love that consumes her as well as passion, adventure, and even a little danger when she admits she doesn't know what she wants. Damon then compels her to forget their meeting. Elena's parents then arrive to pick her up.

After Elena's parents pick her up from the bonfire, their car unexpectedly drives off Wickery Bridge. Stefan Salvatore, who is nearby, hears the crash and saves an unconscious Elena at Grayson's insistence. Stefan's unable to save her parents and takes Elena to the shore where she's found, with everyone believing Elena somehow made it out of the car and made it to shore. Afterwards, she breaks up with Matt and she and Jeremy begin to live with their aunt, Jenna Sommers, who became their legal guardian.

After her parents death Elena shut Jeremy and everyone else out to deal with her parents' deaths. She and Jeremy moved into Elizabeth Forbes house for a awhile as Jenna wasn't up to the task yet. Liz took her and Jeremy to school as well as tried to cook for them but wasn't good at it, just like Elena's adoptive mother/aunt Miranda.

Unseen, during the events of Season One and December 22, 2009, Elena would be aware of vampires at this point and would have also known about Bonnie's witch heritage. She and Bonnie were watching Elizabeth Forbes speech during the annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, until Caroline revealed the disappointing gift that Stefan Salvatore gave her.

Season One - Season Six
See Elena Gilbert's page on The Vampire Diaries wikia.

Human/Doppelgänger
Before her parents’ death, Elena used to be “way more fun” and “into everything, very busy”.

As a human, she's the sociable popular girl in Mystic Falls High School and the girl next door. She's compassionate, caring, empathetic, kind, intelligent, beautiful, friendly but she can also be pushy, judgmental, selfish, at times prying into other peoples' business, Elena is also athletic and a cheerleader. Her favorite hobby is writing in Elena's diary and says that she's always wanted to be a writer. Elena's "dark side" from the books as a human is never explored because it "didn't ever feel like a characteristic" the show wanted for their heroine. Elena's actual dark side is her "deep, deep connection to other people". Elena's always surrounded by drama. She's always helping around in her community events and Caroline calls her the mothering type.

Like her mother before her, Elena believes in family, honor, loyalty and community. She is shown to be consistently polite, calm and composed, though prone to great anxiety and panic. Despite being something of a skeptic, she has a vivid internal life. She is extremely introverted. She is brave and self-sacrificing, though much of her willingness to save others seems to come from survivor's guilt over her parent's death. She has a strong back bone and never displays a sense of inferiority. However, Elena can also be a hypocrite, and gradually becomes more and more self-absorbed as the seasons continue, but undergoes several huge changes due to trauma, stress, loss and finally healing. She is flawed; not always able to treat her friends with proper respect, and acting in a smothering, if not controlling, manner toward her brother Jeremy. Elena exalts personal choice and is known for her forgiving nature.

Vampire

 * -|With Humanity=

As a vampire, Elena's personality is amplified. In some ways, Elena is considered to be the opposite of Katherine. In terms of blood consumption, Elena wants to live on a diet of animal blood, like Stefan Salvatore, in an attempt to avoid hurting someone. However, after she is unable to keep down animal blood, human blood from a blood bag or vampire blood, she begins to feed from Matt. It is discovered that her inability to consume other sources of blood was unintentionally due to her sire bond with Damon, and eventually begins to live on a diet of blood bags from a human blood bank. Now that Elena is a vampire, her feelings are magnified, including her feelings for Damon, and they're much harder for her to ignore and push aside.

She also struggles with magnified grief from the loss of so many family members, and anger towards those who put her remaining friends and family in danger. As she's learning to live as a vampire, she begins to learn that she has more in common with Damon than she does with Stefan, and while it scares her, it also makes things more exciting and opens her eyes a bit. These feelings eventually lead to her break up with Stefan as well as the discovery of the sire bond, which pushes everyone to find the cure, hidden with Silas in a tomb. Elena has now accepted being a vampire. With her humanity back, she becomes more determined than she wants, she goes back to being tearful in situations of pain and suffering. And more determined to discover mysterious situations making use of their gifts of compulsion.

Elena had gone through a drastic change after Damon's death.


 * -|Without Humanity=

When Elena's brother Jeremy dies during their failed attempt at obtaining the cure, Elena's in denial that he's dead, believing the Gilbert ring will bring him back to life and rejecting anyone who says otherwise. When she finally accepts that he's gone, she breaks into tears. Damon hugs her and tries to calm her down, eventually telling her to "turn it off." She complies.

She doesn't care who sees her doing what. As well as losing her humanity, she's lost her modesty. She doesn't care about the rules. Elena always lived by her set of rules, what she thought was right and wrong, and now it's like she's thrown all the rules to the wind and she just does whatever she wants to do. Elena is more blunt and honest and, "It is what it is and I am what I am and want what I want. And right now I would like to feed on that girl over there. And I resent you for trying to stop me." Elena is more direct about getting exactly what it is that she wants. Elena speaks the truth all the time and it's brutal and not fun for the people who have to listen to it.

Without her human emotions, such as compassion and grief, she doesn't care about anything anymore. She feeds indiscriminately, walks around without clothes, and does what she pleases. While she and Katherine differ in their personalities, with Katherine always lying and playing games, Elena is more blunt and brutally honest, speaking without any tact for anyone's feelings, and saying whatever she has to so that she can get her way. She and Katherine are similar in their abilities to manipulate others, and to think several steps ahead of Stefan or Damon, who are trying to save her. Her actions without her emotions push Stefan and Damon to track Katherine so that they can steal the cure back from her and give it to Elena, hoping it will solve her problems, but they are pushing their beliefs and what they want on her so hard that she feels resentful and frustrated with them, which causes her to act out in unexpected ways, such as getting into a physical fight with Caroline after attacking Caroline's mom. She tells them she has no interest in the cure now that she's taking advantage of the perks of being a vampire, and wants them to respect her choice; the more they push her, the more she pushes back. While Damon and Stefan are worried that she will cross the line while her human emotions are shut off and won't be able to take it back, Elena warns them that she has no intentions of taking the cure, and if they don't accept her decision, that there will be consequences.}}

Physical Appearance
Physically, Elena is a very beautiful and attractive young woman with an oval face, light olive complexion, almond-shaped brown eyes which are sometimes described as doe-eyes, and long dark brown hair. Her height is 5'6'' (168 cm), and she has a slim, slightly athletic physique. Elena has an uncanny physical resemblance to her ancestor and doppelgänger, Katherine Pierce, who often poses as Elena in order to trick others. However, even though Elena and Katherine look exactly the same in terms of physical appearance, there are some slight differences between the two in terms of fashion and style, and especially personality.

In terms of fashion sense, while Elena's human, she's much more casual, sporty and "girl next door" and doesn't wear a lot of make up or favor fashionable clothing unless attending a formal event. Elena favors wearing dark blue jeans with t-shirts of various colors and Converse sneakers. Elena primarily wears fashionable clothing or dresses up for special occasions or formal events. Katherine's fashion sense or style, on the other hand, is much more high maintenance, expensive and trendy. Another distinct difference between Elena and Katherine's physical appearance is that Elena always wears her hair straight with a middle part in which Katherine doesn't like, while Katherine wears her hair curly. However, Katherine often straightens her hair in order to fool people when she's posing as Elena. Elena wore a special necklace containing the herb vervain in it as a human, which is really the Esther's talisman which cannot be destroyed; it was given to her by Stefan to protect her from compulsion.

Elena as a newly turned vampire wears a small daylight ring made by Bonnie in order to protect her from the sunlight. Elena has a slightly more sophisticated look and trades her usual jeans and t-shirts to dresses and boots. Since Elena now has the freedom to accessorize, she dips into her jewelry box more often. Elena is seen wearing more chain necklaces in season 4. After she abandons her humanity, she becomes more womanly in the way she looks. She gets red streaks in her hair and curls it. She also begins to wear skirts and belts. When Katherine possessed Elena, she removed the red streaks.

In American Gothic, Elena impersonates Katherine for the first time. As she has now changed her style, she's able to temporarily fool Elijah of her identity. As Katherine's wardrobe is much more adult, Elena switches her comfortable boots for high heels, casual denim jacket for slim fitting leather and took Katherine's sparkly eye catching jewelry including earrings, bracelets and her watch. To pass for Katherine, Elena also applies more make up, particularly dark eye shadow and eyeliner to a much more "sluttier" degree, as said by Rebekah. At first glance, Elena and Katherine are identical yet their personalities, mannerisms, style, and makeup differ greatly and are generally aspects which give away their identity.

In Season Five, Elena starts to wear more skinny jeans, low-heeled boots, low heels, combat boots, sleeveless blouses, leather jackets, short skirts and super short shorts, varied dresses, makeup, and plunges more in her jewelry box.

Powers and Abilities
Elena possesses all the standard powers and abilities of a non-original vampire. When she was human, she possessed fighting abilities to defend herself against vampires as she trained under Damon and Alaric. She knows how to stake vampires and also the traits of a vampire hunter.

Weaknesses
Elena had the typical weaknesses of a non-original vampire.

Name

 * Elena is a feminine first name of Greek origin ‘Ελενη (Elene) or ‘ελενη (Elene) which means "torch". The meaning of Elena is "the shining light", "the bright one" or "light". It is a variation of the name Helen.
 * Gilbert, which is Elena's surname, is a surname of Germanic origin. The English-language surname is derived from Giselbert, a medieval personal name composed of the following Germanic elements gisil ("pledge", "hostage", "noble youth") and berht ("bright", "famous").

Trivia
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 * Elena's birthday is June 22 and her astrological sign is Cancer.
 * Elena is right handed.
 * She sometimes misses being human.
 * Elena doesn't speak French even though she was taking French class at Mystic Falls High School as mentioned in the Pilot, as she also had this class with Stefan besides History and English.
 * Elena along with all the doppelgänger's names end with the letter "A". Amara, Tatia, Katerina.
 * Miranda, Elena's mother gave Elena her first diary when she was 9, and began writing in it a year later.
 * The type of man Elena is attracted to is the Hero-type as revealed in The World Has Turned and Left Me Here, when she tells Liam before she kisses him.
 * This explains why she was attracted to both Damon and Stefan.
 * Elena's car is a 2008 Ford Escape SUV and the license plate is EFG 3J85.
 * Elena has had a variety of different cell phones over the years. She had a Blackberry Pearl, Blackberry Bold, a Purple Blackberry Curve 8520 and a Nokia Lumia 610 White. In season three, she had an AT&T Samsung Captivate and a White AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket.
 * In the series physical and personality aspects of Elena from the books are passed to Caroline.
 * In the novels Elena becomes a vampire. In the series Caroline becomes a vampire first, and Elena became a vampire in the Season 3 finale.
 * In the novels Elena is friends with Bonnie McCullough and Meredith Sulez but in the series, Meredith and Elena aren't close and Bonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes are Elena's best friends.
 * In the novels, Elena has a little sister named Margaret Gilbert and an aunt named Judith Maxwell. In the series, Elena has a younger brother named Jeremy Gilbert and an aunt named Jenna.
 * In the series, Elena's first significant kill was the Original Elijah. In the books Elena kills Katherine (They die together) and is the first to destroy one of the Old Ones (Klaus).


 * When Elena was in high school she wanted to be a writer.
 * Elena used to be a cheerleader along with Bonnie and Caroline.
 * Elena and Tatia share some similarities.
 * Both were born in Mystic Falls.
 * Tatia is the first Doppelgänger of Amara while Elena is the last.
 * Both were killed by being drained of blood, by a Mikaelson brother. Though Elena was killed by Klaus while Tatia was killed by Elijah.
 * Elena can't cook, as established in Friday Night Bites, just like her adoptive mother Miranda.
 * In the novels, her middle name is Marie.
 * Damon Salvatore tried to turn Elena into a vampire on two occasions;
 * He used Elena to force Stefan into giving him Emily Bennett's Grimoire.
 * Elena was ready to die in the sacrifice, Damon force fed her his blood to make sure she would come back after.
 * Elena is the only person to die with vampire blood in their system and wake up human. This is because of a spell Bonnie cast, binding Elena and John's life forces together.
 * Both Elena and her mother Isobel were both turned by Damon's blood into a vampire. They are also one of three mother/daughter vampires seen in the series to date.
 * Elena is the only human to neutralized three Originals (Elijah, Rebekah, and Mikael).
 * Two times an Original killed her as a human; Klaus drained her of her blood and Rebekah caused her to drown when she ran Matt's truck off Wickery Bridge.
 * Elena had a hand in the death of 2 originals, Finn and Kol.
 * Elena killed Alaric Saltzman, but he became possessed by an Original later. Ironically Elena was also responsible for Alaric's death as an Original because Esther turned him, she bound Elena's life with Alaric's.
 * Before she became a vampire, Elena was the (presumably) fourth Petrova Doppelgänger.
 * In both the books and the series, Elena drowns with vampire blood in her system after a vampire causes the vehicle to drive over the Wickery Bridge. In the books, it was Katherine; in the series, it was Rebekah.
 * Elena is the sixth recurring character turned into a vampire after Vicki, Caroline, Jenna, Tyler, and Alaric.
 * Elena wears her lapis lazuli daylight ring on her right hand, ring finger.
 * Elena is the first vampire character shown in the series to form a sire bond, whose bond is based on romantic feelings.
 * Elena is one of two characters sired to Damon. The other was Charlotte.
 * Her first kill as a vampire was Connor Jordan in The Killer.


 * Elena has yet to kill by heart extraction, though Katherine did so in her body in Total Eclipse Of The Heart after have been given full control over her body.
 * She has also yet to be shown to use dream manipulation, as before Katherine used it in Gone Girl to give Nadia a perfect day before she dies.
 * She is the third person in her family line to have slept with Damon Salvatore. The first being Katherine Pierce, and her birth mother; Isobel Flemming.
 * Elena, Stefan and Damon, are the only main characters who have appeared in every episode, until Total Eclipse of the Heart and No Exit when Elena's body it taken over by Katherine.
 * Elena was one of the three last members of the Petrova Family, Elena, Katherine and Nadia. but as of Gone Girl, she is the last surviving member.
 * Though being a vampire made her Doppelgänger genes inactive, in Death and the Maiden, Tessa used her, Amara, and Katherine's blood to transfer the anchor powers to Bonnie and the Travelers used her blood to bring back Markos.
 * In Fifty Shades of Grayson, it is revealed that Katherine's father was a Travelers, meaning Elena was possibly a witch before she was turned.
 * In 500 Years of Solitude, Katherine became a passenger in Elena's body. Making Elena the first vampire in the series to be possessed through a Passenger spell, the second vampire (after Rebekah) to be possessed, and the fifth recurring character to be possessed after Klaus possessed Alaric Saltzman and Tyler Lockwood, Esther possessed Rebekah, and then Matt Donovan being possessed by Gregor.
 * After the events of The Devil Inside, Elena's body had been placed under the complete control of Katherine, she recovers control of her body in Gone Girl.
 * Elena is the youngest vampire on the show.
 * Both Elena and Stefan have been impersonated by their doppelgängers at least once. Elena by Katherine and Stefan by Silas.
 * With Damon's death, Elena becomes the last vampire made with his blood in The Departed in the series to date. It's unclear if Vampire feeding Ripper Damon turned anyone to control his bloodlust or it was all Enzo.
 * She has lost both her Locket and Ring at one point. Both are presented to her by Stefan; both have been returned to her by Damon after being lost.
 * Elena is the only one shown other than Damon to have driven his 1969 Chevy Camaro.
 * Elena died for the third time in Home making her the only supernatural character that has returned from the Other Side three times.
 * Elena never turned someone into a vampire, though in While You Were Sleeping she almost turns Luke Parker to satisfy her thirst for vampire blood. This as she was suffering the effects of the enhanced Ripper Virus that Katherine had injected her with in Gone Girl.
 * She doesn't like to drink Chardonnay.
 * Elena is the third main character to enter the Other world after Damon and Bonnie and the one who spent the less time there.
 * She is the first vampire in the TVD/TO universe to have their Daylight ring destroyed in any way, in this case magic as Kai  was trying to turn Elena's blood into acid with a spell for the second time in Woke Up With a Monster.

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