10 Biggest The Vampire Diaries Plot Holes & Contrivances Across All 8 Seasons

Warning: This list contains spoilers for all seasons of The Vampire Diaries.

In its eight-season run, The Vampire Diaries introduced many plot elements that came across as contrived if not constituting irresolvable plot holes. Focusing on human teenager Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) as she is drawn into a love triangle with vampire brothers Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder), The Vampire Diaries depicts the exploits of a wide variety of supernatural beings. However, as each season adds to the lore with new characters and new types of magic, some contradictions take shape.

There are also cases where the writers contrived events to meet the needs of the Vampire Diaries cast in real life. This is not the fault of the story and the team behind the show simply must do their best when an actor wants to leave, but people still complain about the explanations offered for certain characters’ exits. Despite the weakest parts of the plot, The Vampire Diaries is still a popular show that spawned two spinoffs; fans can always at least say that The Vampire Diaries is better than Twilight.

The Vampire Diaries pilot implies that Damon can control fog and crows.

The first episode of The Vampire Diaries seems to be heading in the direction of including the extra powers Damon has in the books. In the source material, Damon can turn into a crow and somewhat manipulate the weather. A scene in the pilot involves Elena writing in her journal and finding herself surrounded by fog, with a lone crow watching over her. In the brothers’ first scene together, Stefan sees a crow fly into his house and seems to immediately know that Damon is present.

Stefan says to Damon: “Crow was a bit much, don’t you think?” Damon responds: “Wait till you see what I can do with the fog.” The episode strongly implies that Damon has retained some version of his book version’s abilities, but the series never follows up on this. These moments amount to aesthetic embellishments in the first episode, and Damon never demonstrates any of these additional powers again.

9 The Unexplained Vervain Supply

Zach Salvatore was supposed to be Mystic Falls’ only vervain supplier.

The early storylines of The Vampire Diaries raise the stakes by having vervain, a herb that can be used against vampires, be in short supply. Stefan puts the small amount he has left in a necklace for Elena so she will be protected from compulsion in an early episode. The Salvatores’ “uncle” Zach (Chris William Martin) then reveals that he has been growing it; Zach is suggested to be the town’s sole supplier. However, after Zach is killed, the rest of the Founders Council all have an unexplained supply of vervain.

Vervain is a tool the main characters use for years to come to deflect their vampire enemies, but the series never again addresses how they are getting it. It renders the circumstances at the beginning of the series as contrived to drive conflict only at that point in time. Vervain is supposed to be a rare plant, but there is apparently enough of it that the authorities will occasionally dump it into the town’s water supply, or the coffee served at the local grill.

8 The Salvatores Are Clueless About The Bigger Supernatural World

How did the Salvatores not know that werewolves existed?

Stefan and Damon are more than 150 years old, having been turned into vampires as young adults. It appears that they lived a relatively isolated existence during that time. Flashbacks throughout the series reveal the Salvatores’ encounters with other supernatural beings over the decades, primarily vampires. However, their knowledge of the supernatural world is surprisingly lacking in the early series. Stefan and Damon seem to be learning about the way magic works along with Bonnie (Kat Graham) and Elena, creating tension in the plot as they strive to find a solution to each new threat.

An especially glaring hole in their knowledge is how they apparently did not know about the existence of werewolves until Mason Lockwood (Taylor Kinney) came to Mystic Falls. Damon even takes a shot at stabbing Mason with a silver knife to see if it will kill him, which turns out to be only a myth. It raises questions about how oblivious they were for the last century and a half. Damon even spent some time in New Orleans, which The Originals reveals has a significant werewolf community that interacts with the local vampires.

7 Silas Is Older Than The Originals

The Original family are not the first vampires, as the series says they are.

Season 2 first introduces some of the Originals, the family who are said to be the first vampires. Flashbacks reveal that Klaus (Joseph Morgan), Elijah (Daniel Gillies), Rebekah (Claire Holt), and the rest of their siblings were made into vampires through magic rather than being turned. Their mother Esther (Alice Evans) is a powerful witch and wished to make her children immortal, so she would never lose any of them again after the death of her youngest son.

However, season 5 then reveals the backstory of Stefan’s doppelganger Silas, the “first immortal” of the Vampire Diaries world. In the time of Ancient Greece, Silas tricked his fiancée Qetsiyah (Janina Gavankar) into making an immortality elixir so he and the woman he truly loved could be together for eternity. Silas states:

“I came first. Vampires are nothing more than a disgusting perversion of me. I’m unkillable, I’m immortal, and I’m psychic, and to function, I need human blood, but don’t ever call me a vampire.”

Silas retained some of his abilities as a witch when he was made immortal, but despite his insistence otherwise, he is still effectively a vampire. The show knows that it is contradicting its vampire origin myth and tries to explain it away with this comment. However, the better solution would simply be an acknowledgment that the Originals are not the first vampires after all, and perhaps that Esther somehow knew about Qetsiyah and based her spell on the elixir.

6 How Much Of The Cure Do Vampires Need?

The dosage amount of the cure to vampirism in The Vampire Diaries is inconsistent.

Season 4 introduces the unique concept of the cure for vampirism, which represents renewed hope for the vampire characters who want to live a human life. Tensions are raised when they discover that there is only one dose of the cure in existence. Elena forcibly gives the cure to her doppelganger Katherine, who is then hunted by Silas in season 5 until he can consume her blood and be cured himself. Silas appears to almost completely drain Katherine of her blood; she survives through luck and possibly her own tenacity.

In later years, Bonnie discovers a second dose of the cure in a parallel purgatory world, which she and Damon give to Elena. This kicks off the main group’s practice of passing the cure from one person to the next when each host has lived out their natural lifespan. However, subsequent vampires in the lineup can be cured by one syringe of that person’s blood. This creates a confusing inconsistency, leaving viewers wondering if Silas ever needed to completely drain Katherine.

5 The Heretics Can Siphon Anything Magical (But Not Magical Scars)

Valerie tries and fails to siphon Stefan’s magical scar.

Valerie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and the rest of Lily Salvatore’s (Annie Wersching) adoptive family are siphon witches, who specifically need to siphon magic from another source to perform spells. Most of the siphon witches who appear in the show are also vampires, and as vampirism is a form of magic itself, they have a consistent source of magic. It is a useful ability for more than just performing magic, as they can siphon away inconvenient spells and magical ailments.

However, their siphoning abilities then fail when the writers want to drag out a certain problem or conflict. At one point in season 7, Valerie attempts to siphon away the mark left on Stefan by the Phoenix Sword, which inexplicably doesn’t work.Redditers have attempted to make sense of this, suggesting that because the Sword is associated with the magic-resistant Rayna (Leslie-Anne Huff) Cruz, it will remain intact. However, the show itself doesn’t make any attempt to explain this.

4 The Vampires Released From The Phoenix Stone Attack People In Broad Daylight

All the vampire bodies inhabited by those freed from the Stone couldn’t have had daylight rings.

The Phoenix Sword is a conduit for the Phoenix Stone; those stabbed by the Sword will have their souls trapped in the Stone. Both were used by Rayna to hunt and imprison vampires. However, Nora (Scarlett Byrne) and Mary Louise (Teressa Liane) destroy the stone, setting all the souls trapped in it free. These souls randomly inhabit the recently deceased bodies. Damon and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) then spend season 7, episode 19 hunting down all these vampires in exchange for Rayna saving Bonnie’s life.

However, all of these vampires walk around in broad daylight without burning up, and without confirmation that they all found a body with a daylight ring. Some of them demonstrate other vampire abilities, implying that the corpses they inhabit are other vampires. There may be some loophole to do with how the Phoenix Stone’s magic works, or not all the freed souls inhabited other vampires, but again, the show does not clarify.

3 Some Mystic Falls Residents Are Not Resurrected Or Do Not Appear On The Other Side

The Vampire Diaries doesn’t treat all of its deceased characters equally.

A huge complaint about the Other Side, a purgatory inhabited by ghosts, is that Elena’s deceased aunt Jenna (Sara Canning) is never seen there. Other deceased characters occasionally make appearances when the living, for one reason or another, can see and communicate with these ghosts. Vicki (Kayla Ewell) and Lexi (Arielle Kebbel) guest star in some episodes through this plot device. However, Jenna is conspicuously absent during episodes where the Other Side is in flux.

This is symptomatic of how The Vampire Diaries is inconsistent in its treatment of death and whether it is permanent. Events throughout the series establish that death is, more often than not, reversible. The characters actively search for ways to bring back Bonnie and Damon but don’t bother to do the same for Vicki, Lexi, Jenna, Tyler (Michael Trevino), or Stefan. This is somewhat insulting to these characters and undermines their importance in their family’s lives.

2 How Did Katherine Become The Queen Of Hell?

Katherine is a brilliant villain, but The Vampire Diaries doesn’t elaborate on how she accomplished this.

Katherine is doubtlessly one of the best villains from The Vampire Diaries; Elena’s sassy evil twin who runs circles around the show’s main characters. Her return for the series finale was in order, to send off the series with flair. Damon, Stefan, and the rest spend the episodes leading up to the finale trying to kill the devil Cade (Wolé Parks), believing that it will result in the destruction of Hell. They accomplish this, only to find out that since her death in season 5, Katherine has somehow manipulated Cade into making her his successor.

The show completely skips over how she accomplishes this, but it does seem to be a stretch of her abilities; for instance, she never managed to convince Klaus to see things her way. It is another plot contrivance that was included solely so Katherine could be a part of the finale. The only question is whether viewers are willing to ignore the rushed writing for the fun of Katherine’s return.

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1 Bonnie Undoes The Spell On Elena When Its Convenient

Bonnie gives up on Elena until The Vampire Diaries’ finale.

Dobrev’s exit from the show drastically changed the story for future seasons, while Elena’s absence received a weird explanation. Amid the chaos of Alaric (Matthew Davis) and Jo’s (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) bloody wedding, Kai (Chris Wood) curses Elena and Bonnie so that Elena will remain asleep as long as Bonnie is alive. Instead of doing anything about this, the characters accept this new reality, and Elena bids farewell to everyone telepathically (without it being completely clear how she can do this) and hunkers down, so Bonnie can live out the rest of her natural life.

After a burst of inspiration several years after being cursed, Bonnie gets to work, determined that she can break the spell without accidentally killing herself or Elena. When she succeeds, it only prompts the question of why she never so much as tried to do this in the first place. The only real answer is that Dobrev wanted to leave the show as a regular and cameo in the finale. While these circumstances couldn’t have been avoided, the writing still stands out as one of the biggest plot holes in The Vampire Diaries.

The Vampire Diaries

Based on the novels by L.J. Smith, The Vampire Diaries is a story about the developing love triangle between Elena Gilbert and two vampiric brothers, Stefan and Damon Salvatore. Set in the town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, the show follows the trio from high school through college as they battle for one another’s affection.

Cast

Nina Dobrev , Ian Somerhalder , Steven R. McQueen , Paul Wesley , Kat Graham , Michael Trevino , Michael Malarkey , Zach Roerig , Candice King , Matthew Davis

Seasons

8

Writers

Julie Plec , Kevin Williamson , L.J. Smith

Source: Reddit