There are villains that we love to hate, and then there are villains that we hate to love. The Vampire Diaries and The Originals are made up of both of these, and we’re asking: Why do we always seek out the good in them?
If you’re a fan of either The Vampire Diaries or The Originals then you’ll immediately know what we’re talking about here. If not, just remove those titles from the article and suddenly we’re talking about almost all villains on TV.
We’re here to talk about three villain-like characters from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals: Klaus Mikaelson, Damon Salvatore and Katherine Pierce. But before we explain why we try to humanize them, it’s important to remember that these characters are definitely more anti-villain than they are villain.
An anti-villain is a villain with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues. They do have humanity, as you would say in the world of TVD or The Originals, but the means to their ends are almost always evil or vile in some way. But it’s hard to remember this when Klaus Mikaelson is willing to kill a 17-year-old girl in the middle of New Orleans, or when Katherine Pierce invades Elena’s body, or when Damon kills almost every single Whitmore family member in each generation.
And those examples are barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the evil things these characters have done. In a police drama or horror film we’d classify them as complete villains, and viewers would want them locked away immediately; whereas in these shows we realize that they’re more relatable than we could ever imagine.
Now that we’ve classified these characters more as anti-villains than villains, we can further explain why these shows’ fandoms still try to humanize these characters despite the hundreds of murders and evil acts they’ve committed. It comes down to two basic reasons.
They’re relatable
We’ve come to know these characters so well that we know what drives them. You take love away from Damon Salvatore and he becomes an insatiable beast with a thirst for blood and vengeance. But once you make him realize that he can be good without someone always at his side, then maybe that’s when he’ll change.
Klaus Mikaelson, on the other hand, is harder to relate to. With a family of vampires there for him for thousands of years, he still feels completely alone. He probably has the world’s thickest skull, since his family has constantly tried to be on his side. He’s more villainous than any of the other characters in this world, but still there is something relatable about him: He’s looking for love!
It’s clear that all Klaus needs is someone to love him for who he is and accept his faults, much like Elena accepted Damon’s faults, despite how numerous they were. Yes, he has Elijah, but he needs someone who loves him more than a brother. Maybe when he gets that, he’ll be less villain and more anti-villain like the rest of the characters.
Katherine Pierce is probably one of the more relatable evils in the world of The Vampire Diaries – having run from Klaus for 500 years after her entire family was slaughtered and her only daughter was taken away from her at birth, that’s a lot of baggage to carry around. It’s clear she doesn’t trust anyone, and rightly so.
We love Katherine because she’s sassy and she does her own thing, even when she’s attempted to kill Elena and now she’s in Elena’s body, we’re still rooting for her at least a little bit. Why? Because we know her life, in comparison to Elena Gilbert’s, has been filled with more dread and fear than almost anyone in the show, and we just want her to live a few hundred years without having to worry about being killed or traded to Klaus.
There’s always hope
The great thing about both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals is that the characters arcs are phenomenal. Klaus Mikaelson appeared first on The Vampire Diaries as nothing more than a villain who was the most feared vampire of all time, and now he’s a man who’s taking care of his family and future daughter. Damon Salvatore was a blood thirsty, manipulative man whore who fed on humans and didn’t care, and now he’s become more monogamous and drinks from blood bags (let’s not talk about his recent…adventures).
With these character arcs, of course there’s going to be hope. These characters might do evil things but they aren’t necessarily evil themselves, and we’re always hoping to see the good in them.
Maybe that’s why, no matter who kills whom, we’ll always be rooting for these characters. Yeah, our favorite characters are murderers, but so what?!