Elena Gilbert: The Death of the Protagonist

For six seasons, Nina Dobrev starred as the protagonist (as well as several other characters) of the CW show The Vampire Diaries - her character was often at the centre of many dramatic and tragic storylines. However, as a protagonist Elena Gilbert was more of the damsel archetype. A valid argument for this character could be that for the majority of the series, she was human and by default a weaker character in comparison to the supernatural counterparts.

Yet as a character, she slowly started to diminish any real agency on the plot as the series progressed. If you’ve read my Bonnie Bennett article, you know that I feel Bonnie had more of the character traits you’d expect in a protagonist. Elena Gilbert initially started out as a counterpart to Twilight’s Bella Swan, but it was around season 3-4 that her character derailed into a background character within her own narrative.

This may be because the writers really forced the love triangle narrative, which by 2013 was getting very old – especially after we seen it in the Hunger Games and Twilight. The Damon and Stefan conflict was getting a bit tedious, but Elena became downright unbearable after her vampire transformation where the love story shifted to the Delena arc.

Now this in no way is criticising the shippers of this pairing, I am criticising the writing that really went downhill with Elena. Everything that defined her as a character was gone when she got with Damon – she had no real moral compass and was willing to do despicable things without feeling guilty or remorse. Elena had become a very unlikable character for viewers, but the writers did not realise that until it was far too late. Quite frankly, the damage was done by Season Six - where she was more consumed with grief for her boyfriend of a year, rather than her childhood friend.

Everything was either about Damon or herself, even when her best friends were going through difficult or traumatic times – Elena would still find a way to make the situation identify with her experiences. Yes, she herself had gone through terrible experiences and losses but when you let that define you passed adolescence into adulthood then there is an extreme issue with your emotional development. I think that was apparent here, but the writers never really addressed the fact their heroine of the story was defined by her trauma.

Also Elena seemed to lose her identity in a relationship with Damon from season 4 onwards, as in there was never really a healthy dynamic between them – and when they were, we were constantly reminded that they were toxic or bad for each other and again this felt incredibly juvenile. The sire bond arc was the most problematic element, because it gave a valid attempt at wanting to backtrack on the story rather than showing Elena choosing Damon herself.

On a side note, I'm glad Elena and Stefan never rekindled their romance - and as a teenager, I initially liked the early days of Stelena, but Elena's inability to make a firm choice and how the writers barely acknowledged how unhealthy this was for all three characters... it was a tough pill to swallow when you realised this was actually the driving force of the plot.

Key character moments were also omitted with Elena. For majority of the series, we are led to believe Elena wanted to be a writer, but lost that passion after her mother died. A great story arc would have seen Elena rediscovering that love of writing, but she doesn’t. Instead in her freshman year of college, she’s studying a medical degree and that choice was quite jarring.

Keep in mind, her senior year of high school was spent dumping one Salvatore brother for another, struggling with her vampirism and ultimately switching off her humanity for the majority of the year after being unable to cope with another loss of a loved one. As I said in my previous article, Bonnie and Caroline had the most healthy friendship which only grew stronger from childhood to adulthood. Given Elena's behaviour in later seasons, I often wondered why Caroline or Bonnie didn't drift away from the Elena drama in college and onwards.

Where did Elena want to become a Doctor and specifically work with children? It was made clear that her father had the same career, but Elena was never written to be medically inclined or even being great with kids. It wasn’t foreshadowed or even hinted that throughout the previous seasons before, which therefore made me think – and I feel pretty confident with this theory - that this was more plot convenient to get the medical side of vampirism and not character driven which it should’ve been.

Towards the end of the show’s run, Elena became more and more of a prop rather than a protagonist with agency. This was solidified when Nina Dobrev left to series and her character was put into a sleeping beauty like coma. Her purpose from then on was to be a symbol for the living characters, which was a pretty lazy way to write her character off.

What made matters worse was how much we were reminded of the former heroine’s curse, her presence was very much known and forced into the narrative. When you finally got to the final episode, it became apparent that Elena was a plot device for Damon’s redemption arc rather than having a conclusion herself. She spent the last forty-minutes literally asleep, while everyone else progressed the plot around her. If Elena was going to revolve around the plot even in sleep/death, why not recast? Like in the Originals, where they incorporated a body-swap spell, which allowed the writers to bring back characters and having the freedom to cast any actor right for the role. Personally, I would have done that.

This is another example of how the leading actor is not always the protagonist of your story. If Bonnie Bennett was the true hero of the story who was overshadowed in trauma, Elena was the a plot device forced into the role of the heroine.