Elena Gilbert

Elena Gilbert is a Main Character and Leading Female on 'The Vampire Diaries'.

Early Life
Elena Gilbert was born on June 22, 1992 in Mystic Falls, Virginia, to John Gilbert and Isobel Flemming, who fled town a few days after giving birth. John Gilbert's brother, Grayson and his wife Miranda Gilbert, who desperately wanted to have children, but were having difficulties conceiving, adopted the abandoned baby girl. 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, Grayson and Miranda had the birth certificate for documentation proof. Elena later learned that she was a descendant of Katherine Pierce, the vampire that caused the feud between Damon and Stefan Salvatore back in 1864 and turned both brothers into vampires before faking her own death. During her sophomore year, Elena was dating Matt Donovan, her oldest friend with whom she had formerly shared a crib with as children. At a bonfire, the two of them got into an argument where, afterwards, she called her parents to pick her up. While waiting to be picked up, she met Damon Salvatore, who confused her with Katherine, not yet aware of doppelgängers. She told him, "I don't know what I want," she said."That's not true. You want what everybody wants," he answered. "You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and even a little danger."After talking to her, Damon told her that he wanted her to get everything she wanted in life, but compelled her to forget their meeting, because he didn't want anyone to know he was in town yet. Elena's parents arrived to take her home in their car, and she then had no recollection of meeting him. They were later reunited in the Pilot but she didn't remember him. After leaving the bonfire with her parents, their car unexpectedly drove off of Wickery Bridge. Elena somehow miraculously ended up in the hospital, alive, but her parents were not so lucky, and died. It was later revealed that Stefan Salvatore arrived at the scene during one of his visits to his nephew, Zach and, after hearing the car crash into the river, he dove into the water and swam to the car. He tried to save Grayson, who was still conscious, but he gestured to Elena to indicate that he wanted her to be saved first. Stefan therefore took Elena to safety and she survived the accident, but unfortunately, her adoptive parents died before Stefan could save them, too. It was later revealed that John, her supposed uncle, was actually her biological father due to a relationship with Isobel in their teenage years.

Season 1
For information about Elena between episodes 1x01-1x22 go here.

Season 2
For information about Elena between episodes 2x01-2x22 go here.

Season 3
For information about Elena between episodes 3x01-3x22 go here.

Season 4
For information about Elena between episodes 4x01-4x23 go here.

Physical Appearance
Physically, Elena is a very beautiful young woman with an oval face, light olive complexion, almond-shaped brown eyes which are sometimes mistaken as doe-eyes, and smooth, long, straight dark brown hair. Her height is about 5'5" to 5'6" and she has a slim, slightly athletic physique. Elena has an uncanny physical resemblance to her ancestor and her doppelgänger, Katherine Pierce, who often poses as Elena in order to trick others, mainly Stefan and Damon. However, even though Elena and Katherine look exactly the same in terms of physical appearance as a result of being Petrova doppelgängers, there are some slight differences between the two girls in terms of fashion and style, and especially personality. Elena physically resembles the original Petrova Doppelgänger, Tatia, who is Katherine's doppelgänger. In terms of fashion sense,while Elena was still human, she was 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. Katherine favors wearing tighter clothing, both shirts and pants (mostly in the color black), and often wears high heels (mostly spike heels). Another distinct difference between Elena and Katherine's physical appearance is that Elena always wears her hair flat and straight, which Katherine does not 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 Original witch Esther's talisman which cannot be destroyed; it was given to her by Stefan Salvatore. It protects her from vampire compulsion.Elena also has a scar on the left side of her neck from when Rebekah and Stefan bit her. Now that Elena is a newly turned vampire, Elena is currently wearing a small lapis lazuli daylight ring, made by Bonnie and given to her by Stefan, in order to protect her from the sunlight. Elena’s appetite isn’t the only thing changing now that she’s a vampire. Her wardrobe is going through a transition too. Elena will have a slightly more sophisticated look and will be trading in her usual jeans-and-T-shirt ensembles for more dresses and boots on season 4 of the supernatural series. And since Elena now has the freedom to accessorize, she’ll be dipping into her jewelry box more often. We’ll be seeing Elena in more chain necklaces this season. The new Elena will be rocking out a hot, sexy, more womanly look starting in Because the Night. And for her hair, she will add red streaks and stylish new waves to her tresses. Her wardrobe will be a little hipper, a little more contemporary more skirts and belts and accessories.

Human
As a human, she was the sociable, popular girl in school who was the girl next door. She’s compassionate, caring, empathetic, kind, smart, beautiful, friendly and easy to get along with. Elena is also athletic and was a cheerleader on the cheerleading squad. Elena's favorite hobby was writing in her journal. Elena has said that she had always wanted to be a writer. In The Vampire Diaries, Elena's "dark side" from the books as a human was 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.  As we see in almost every episode, Elena is always surrounded by drama. She's always helping around in her community events like the Founders Party, school dances. As Caroline puts it, Elena is a mothering type.

Vampire
As a vampire, Elena's personality is heightened. In some ways, Elena is considered to be the opposite of Katherine; Katherine wanted to become a vampire as a way to better protect herself from Klaus, but Elena had no interest in becoming a vampire, even as she fell in love with one, and as a result has had a harder time adjusting to vampirism. In terms of blood consumption, Elena wanted to live on a diet of animal blood, like Stefan, in an attempt to not hurt anyone. 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, who feels guilty about her death and desperately wants to help her. It is later revealed that her inability to consume other sources of blood was unintentionally due to her sire bond to 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, such as Rebekah or Klaus. 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, but it also makes things more exciting and opens her eyes a bit and let's her see that Damon isn't that bad after all. 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 for vampirism, hidden with Silas in a tomb.

Without Humanity
When her brother Jeremy died during their failed attempt at obtaining the cure, Elena was in complete denial that he was dead, believing the Gilbert Ring would bring him back and completely rejecting anyone who tried to tell her otherwise. When she finally accepted that he was gone for good, she broke into tears. Damon hugged her and tried to calm her down, but even he couldn't take away the pain she was feeling. After several failed attempts at calming her down, Damon's only other recourse was to use the sire-bond to get Elena to turn off her human emotions, and when she complies, she stops crying immediately with a numb look on her face.

She doesn’t care who sees her doing what. As well as losing her humanity, she’s lost her modesty. She’s out to shock. It’s not even that she’s trying to show them anything, she just 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 kind of 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 just more direct about getting exactly what it is that she wants.. The beauty of Elena with no humanity is that she’s speaking 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 passion 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 flirting and playing games, Elena is more blunt and brutally honest, speaking without any tact for anyone's feelings, and saying whatever she has to to get her way. She and Katherine are similar in their abilities to manipulate others, and to think several steps ahead of Stefan and Damon, who are trying to save her from the edge. Elena has always lived by her set of rules, what she thought was right and wrong, and now it’s like she’s kind of thrown all the rules to the wind and she just does whatever she wants to do. 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 Sheriff Forbes and Caroline. 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. Nevertheless, Elena has warned the brothers that she has no intention of taking the cure, and if they don't accept her decision, that there will be consequences.

Powers and Abilities
Some of these powers are more potent when the vampire gets older and feeds on human blood.


 * Super Strength - Vampires are much stronger than humans and grow stronger with time. Even new vampires who are still in transition can toss a fully grown human across a room with great speed and force. Their strength is also more powerful then werewolves that are not in wolf form.
 * Super Speed - Vampires can accelerate their movements to cover short instances in an instant, faster than the human eye can see. When running across long distances, they appear as vibrating blurs of motion.
 * Emotional Control - Like all vampires, Elena has the ability to switch off her humanity.
 * Dream Manipulation - Vampires can control dreams and subconscious. The vampires can produce and modify dreams, bestow nightmares or lucid dreaming. Other effects of this ability is the distortion of reality and trapped in the dreams.
 * Heightened Senses - They can hear whispered conversations, even ones in far off buildings, smell blood, and see in total darkness.
 * Mind Compulsion - Vampires have the ability to control minds, plague people's dreams, and alter/erase human memories.
 * Immortality - A vampire stops aging once turned. Upon their transformation, vampires then on become immune to all conventional illness, disease, virus and infection. The only known disease or infection that can kill a vampire is a Werewolf bite.
 * Healing Factor - Vampires can snap their finger bones back into place after being broken and have been seen to fully recover from gunshots, stab wounds, and torso impalement.
 * Lapis Lazuli - She possesses a Lapis Lazuli ring that enables her to walk in daylight without being harmed.

Weaknesses

 * Vervain: When ingested, vervain causes a vampire to become severely weak and feverish. Also, If a vampire's skin is exposed to vervain, it can result in burning them.
 * Wood: If a vampire is wounded by wood it will cause the vampire to become severely weak and if a vampire takes a wooden stake through its heart it will result in death.
 * Fire or Sunlight: Any exposure to fire or sunlight will result in death to a vampire.
 * Heart Extraction: The act of removing a vampire's heart will result in death.
 * Werewolf Bite: The bite of a werewolf is extremely lethal to normal vampires.
 * Magic: Witches are able to give supernatural aneurysms that cause the blood vessels of vampires to explode.
 * Decapitation:The act of dismembering or removing the head of a vampire will result in death.
 * Uninvited Invitation: Vampires cannot enter a house without being invited in. If they are in the house without being invited in they will become disoriented.
 * Vampire bloodline: Vampires who were turned by an original who turned others will die if the original is staked by the white oak stake.
 * Werewolf Venom: It is lethal to vampires if it is ingested. If ingested, a vampire will start to feel sick and start hallucinating, normally of their biggest fears.
 * Sire Bond: Elena is sired to Damon because she had feelings for him before she was turned, so will do anything Damon tells her. The sire bond is currently inactive due to Elena shutting off her emotions, and remained that way after turning them back on.
 * White Oak Ash Dagger: Although never seen, it has been said if a vampire daggers an Original, they will die.
 * Hunter's Curse: If a vampire kills a member of The Brotherhood of the Five then they will be tormented for decades until they kill themselves, or in the case of the original vampires that cannot be kill by anything, except by the white oak stake, will continue to torment them, until it where's off, according to Klaus it lasted for 52 years, 4 months, and 9 days

Relationships

 * Elena and Stefan
 * Elena and Damon
 * Elena and Katherine
 * Elena and Jeremy
 * Elena and Bonnie
 * Elena and Rebekah
 * Elena and Caroline
 * Elena and Alaric
 * Elena and Matt
 * Elena and Elijah
 * Elena and Meredith
 * Elena and Klaus
 * Elena and Jenna
 * Elena and April
 * Elena and Kol
 * Elena and Silas

Season 1

 * Pilot
 * The Night of the Comet
 * Friday Night Bites
 * Family Ties
 * You're Undead to Me
 * Lost Girls
 * Haunted
 * 162 Candles
 * History Repeating
 * The Turning Point
 * Bloodlines
 * Unpleasantville
 * Children of the Damned
 * Fool Me Once
 * A Few Good Men
 * There Goes the Neighborhood
 * Let the Right One In
 * Under Control
 * Miss Mystic Falls
 * Blood Brothers
 * Isobel
 * Founder's Day

Season 2

 * The Return
 * Brave New World
 * Bad Moon Rising
 * Memory Lane
 * Kill or Be Killed
 * Plan B
 * Masquerade
 * Rose
 * Katerina
 * The Sacrifice
 * By the Light of the Moon
 * The Descent
 * Daddy Issues
 * Crying Wolf
 * The Dinner Party
 * The House Guest
 * Know Thy Enemy
 * The Last Dance
 * Klaus
 * The Last Day
 * The Sun Also Rises
 * As I Lay Dying

Season 3

 * The Birthday
 * The Hybrid
 * The End of The Affair
 * Disturbing Behavior
 * The Reckoning
 * Smells Like Teen Spirit
 * Ghost World
 * Ordinary People
 * Homecoming
 * The New Deal
 * Our Town
 * The Ties That Bind
 * Bringing Out The Dead
 * Dangerous Liaisons
 * All My Children
 * 1912
 * Break On Through
 * The Murder of One
 * Heart of Darkness
 * Do Not Go Gentle
 * Before Sunset
 * The Departed

Season 4

 * Growing Pains
 * Memorial
 * The Rager
 * The Five
 * The Killer
 * We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes
 * My Brother’s Keeper
 * We'll Always Have Bourbon Street
 * O Come, All Ye Faithful
 * After School Special
 * Catch Me If You Can
 * A View To A Kill
 * Into the Wild
 * Down the Rabbit Hole
 * Stand By Me
 * Bring It On
 * Because the Night
 * American Gothic
 * Pictures of You
 * The Originals
 * She's Come Undone
 * The Walking Dead
 * Graduation