History Characters / TheVampireDiariesUniverseElenaGilbert

!Elena Gilbert

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elena_55.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I don't question why everyone tries so hard to save me. You shouldn't question why I try so hard to save everyone else."'']]

!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/NinaDobrev
!!!'''Full Name:''' Elena Gilbert
!!!'''Birthdate:''' June 22, 1992
!!!'''Age:''' 25
!!!'''Gender:''' Female
!!!'''Birthplace:''' Mystic Falls, Virginia, United States
!!!'''Species:''' Human/Doppelgänger, Vampire (Niklaus' Bloodline) (Cured/Formerly), Augustine Vampire (Cured/Formerly), Ghost (Briefly/Formerly), Spirit (Currently)
!!!'''Hair Color:''' Brown
!!!'''Eye Color:''' Light Brown
!!!'''Occupation:''' High School Student (Graduated/Formerly), Cheerleader for the Timberwolves (Formerly), The Cure (Formerly), College Student (Formerly), Hospital Volunteer (Formerly), Doctor (In Flash-Forward)
!!!'''First Appearance:''' "Pilot" (1.01)
!!!'''Last Appearance:''' "I Was Feeling Epic" (8.16)

'''Elena Gilbert''' was born on June 22, 1992 in Mystic Falls, Virginia. She is the only child and daughter of John Gilbert and Isobel Flemming. She is the adoptive daughter of Grayson Gilbert and Miranda Gilbert. She has a younger adoptive brother, Jeremy. Elena is a popular, beautiful human girl and the protagonist of the series from Season's One to Six. Elena reassesses her priorities following the tragic death of her parents in a car crash of which she's the only survivor. Elena fatefully meets a handsome, mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore, and she feels an instant and undeniable connection with him. After a period of time, Elena starts to realize that Stefan is in fact far from normal. Unbeknown to her, Elena is far from normal as well. As a Gilbert, she is a descendant of one of the town's Founding Families. In season two, she learns that she is a Petrova doppelgänger, having an appearance just like Katherine Pierce, which means that she has to be sacrificed to release Klaus' werewolf side. The sacrifice later happens, but Elena is saved, because John sacrificed himself for her after being put under a spell by Bonnie. However, her aunt Jenna is turned into a vampire and, as part of the sacrifice, is killed by Klaus, leaving Elena without a guardian. In the season two finale, while Damon is dying due to a werewolf bite, she forgives him for forcing her to drink his blood and kisses him with the thought that it might be Damon's last day, however Damon gets cured by drinking Klaus' blood. In season three, Elena does everything in her power to make Stefan get his humanity back, which was turned off by Klaus as payment for saving Damon from a werewolf bite in the latter part of season two. Meanwhile, she grows closer to Damon while working together on saving Stefan and trying to defeat Klaus, eventually even sharing a kiss. She later admits to Stefan that she has feelings for Damon as well but that she never stopped loving Stefan. While in Denver together, Elena kisses, Damon, later telling him that she doesn't know how she feels about him. It is eventually revealed that Elena met Damon the night of her parents' death, though he compelled her to forget. She eventually chooses Stefan in the season finale but before she can tell him, Elena drowns while having vampire blood in her system. During the last moments of season three, she awakens as a vampire in transition. In season four, Elena is faced with the tough decision of whether to die or to feed on human blood so she can fully transition into a vampire. Elena, after realizing Stefan's desperation to keep her alive, decides to complete her transition. Her relationship with Stefan ends, allowing her to begin a proper romance with Damon. Although, it is later revealed there is a sire bond between them. Sometime later whilst searching for the cure for vampirism, Jeremy is fed to the immortal Silas by Katherine. As a result, Damon used the sire bond to convince her to turn off her humanity, due to her incredible grief over losing her brother and the last remaining member of her family. Elena became ruthless without her emotions, going on killing sprees and being very hateful towards her friends. Towards the end of season four, Damon kills Matt in front of Elena to trigger her grief. After revealing that Matt had the Gilbert Ring on, Elena's humanity was switched on and her emotions were focused on hate towards Katherine for killing Jeremy. Season four ended with Bonnie as a ghost after bringing Jeremy back to life and Elena fed Katherine the cure for vampirism in a moment of desperation as she was about to be killed. Elena had chosen Damon as the Salvatore that she loved, leaving a devastated Stefan. In season five, it was revealed that Elena is the doppelgänger and distant descendant of the world's first immortal woman, Amara.

* VillainousFriendship: The only person she got along with during this period was actually Rebekah, who previously disliked Elena. They team up to tract down Katherine and get along surprisingly well.
* VillainProtagonist: She becomes the ArcVillain during this period while maintaining her status as the main character.

* AcademicAthlete: She's both an honor student and a talented cheerleader, which helps her transition from an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent to an ActionSurvivor.

** Initially {{subverted|trope}} with Stefan, who proclaims that he is 'done with her' after realizing she was in love with his brother. It's only in season 5 they move on from each other and [[BetterAsFriends renew their relationship as friends]], though they still have some UnresolvedSexualTension and jealousy moments.

* BlessedWithSuck: Elena is a {{doppelganger}} and therefore, because of it, she is the target of much danger from the supernatural world. Elena's blood is special and is used for many spells and binding rituals, such as breaking Klaus' werewolf/hybrid curse and also, creating hybrids. So basically Elena is a human blood bag for vampires, witches, werewolves and hybrids. Being a doppelganger doesn't really give her any real benefits either, other than sometimes being immune to some sort of magic or spell.

* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: Elena did this with Stefan in season two by breaking up with Stefan in order to protect Stefan and her family and friends from Katherine Pierce.
* BreakTheCutie: Elena goes from a happy, normal girl next door (despite the loss of her parents) to a girl who suffers almost everyday on a daily basis. In the past year, she has gone through so much chaos in such a short amount of time.
* BrokenBird: Especially after her parents had died, Elena becomes cynical about life. She even admits that after the accident, she feels like she doesn't know how to live anymore. She's constantly losing loved ones, there is her {{doppelganger}} curse, being turned into a vampire etc.

* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler: After she was turned into a vampire, it was discovered that Elena is sired to Damon.]]
* CharacterTics: Elena tucks her hair behind her ear a lot.
* ChildhoodFriend: With Matt. They grew up together since childhood and [[ChildhoodFriendRomance eventually began dating in their teen years]]. They broke up, but still remained AmicableExes after that.

** The first time she met Stefan's vampire BestFriend Lexi, she catcher her in his house in nothing but a ModestyTowel and [[NotWhatItLooksLike assumes they have a thing]] and becomes catty about it, until Stefan makes it clear he and Lexi's relationship is purely platonic.

** She's overall very jealous of Katherine's involvement with both Stefan and Damon, and is a big part of why she dislikes Katherine so much.
* CoolBigSis: She's a cool older sister to Jeremy. She's very protective of her troubled younger brother.
* DatingCatwoman: With Damon. Many of her friends and family seem to disapprove of her romantic relationship with Damon, most notably Caroline.

* DesignatedVictim: She's targeted by pretty much every BigBad or {{Arc Villain}}s in the show, such her being a {{Doppelganger}} makes her a valuable PlotDevice for whatever it is they're trying to achieve, but it's mostly done so the show can have her act as the ActionSurvivor FinalGirl in a SlasherMovie.
%% * DestructiveRomance: With both of the Salvatores at various points in each relationship.
* DeusAngstMachina: It's a wonder the girl hasn't broken down yet, with all the tragedy she's experienced. Parents dead, discovered they're not really her parents, her biological parents, aunt and father-figure die, faces death and supernatural horrors on a daily basis, her boyfriend went insane and homicidal, became a vampire, the list goes on and on and on. [[spoiler: And then she finally breaks down, flips her vampire switch and literally burns the whole house down in the wake of Jeremy's death.]]

* DistressBall: Especially when she was a human, she was always the DesignatedVictim who got attacked, kidnapped, or hurt every single week. Her {{Doppelganger}} blood made her the [[DoomMagnet target of all kinds of supernatural beings]], including vampires, werewolves, witches and Originals. Not to mention all the personal tragedies she suffers.

* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Elena became this to both Stefan and Damon, since they were both in love with Katherine who was Elena's {{doppelganger}}. Although they both eventually grew to love Elena much more than they did Katherine.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Elena isn't the best judge of character and she often always gives people the benefit of the doubt too much. Elena has been shown to be rather naive and trusting of people way too easily. Therefore, she always finds herself in trouble as a result.

* ItsAllAboutMe: PlayedWith. Elena being a {{doppelganger}} makes her such a DoomMagnet that she grows to become paranoid and starts to assume anything supernatural that happens in Mystic Falls is because of her. She can come off self-absorbed at times, and some of her friends even call her out of it, but humorously enough Elena's [actually correct most of the time.
* ItsAllMyFault: Elena often feels extremely guilty, feeling that she is responsible for every bad thing that has happened to her friends and family because she's a {{doppelganger}}.

%% * TheJinx

* LifeDrinker: Elena is a vampire since being turned at the end of season 3 and sustains on blood, which causes her a lot of stress due to her strong morality. When her attempts to be a VegetarianVampire fail, she relunctantly starts to feed on blood bags, or her friends who offer themselves for her to be fed on.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Elena has committed some immoral acts (especially as a vampire) where she has been overwhelmed with guilt and appalled by her own actions. One example is in 4x05 when Elena kills Connor. She ends up consumed and overwhelmed with guilt, shocked that she actually killed a human being. Due to her inner guilt, Elena ends up being haunted afterwards by Ghost!Connor. In 4x04, Elena and Damon feed on endless humans at a party and she gives into her blood lust, not realizing what she is doing. Elena comes off of her blood high when she sees Bonnie looking at her concerned and Elena realizes her out-of-control actions. She then breaks down to Bonnie about how what she was doing was not her and that she doesn't want to be that person.

* NotHerself: For most of Season 4 when she becomes a vampire. She can't keep any blood down (including animal blood, human blood from blood bags and even vampire blood); she became irrational, impulsive, moody and she had the serious urge to feed off of humans and kill; she killed someone for the first time (Connor); she hallucinated Ghost!Connor; she's tried to kill Jeremy a few times; she became suicidal and tried to kill herself and finally, [[spoiler: she's sired to Damon]]. And to add to that, in 4x15 she has her humanity switched off. Elena is most definitely NOT herself.
* OfficialCouple: With Stefan for the first 3 seasons and with Damon for the rest of the series.
%% * OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome: Her relationship with Stefan. There is NOTHING that Stefan and Elena have not been through.
%% * OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: She was this before being involved in a lot of supernatural events and characters.
* ParentalAbandonment: Both her parents died before the beginning of the series
%% * PinballProtagonist
%% * PlatonicLifePartners: With Matt, her childhood friend and first love.
%% * PluckyGirl: Considering everything she has been through.
* ThePollyanna: Despite all of the hardships that Elena has gone through, losing family members and friends, losing the love of her life a few times, and all of her loved ones constantly being put in danger, Elena still manages to put on a happy face most of the time. She tries to remain as optimistic as possible.
* PutOnABus: After Creator/NinaDobrev left the show at the end of season 6, Elena is put in a coffin after a spell renders her into a ConvenientComa till whenever Bonnie dies. She does come BackForTheFinale in season 8 when Bonnie manages to break the spell.

%% * TheRedStringOfFate applies more to Stefan and Elena in the books.

[[folder:No Humanity]]

!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/NinaDobrev

Elena Gilbert was born on Jun 22, 1992 in Mystic Falls, Virginia. She is the only child and daughter of John Gilbert and Isobel Flemming. She is the adoptive daughter of Grayson Gilbert and Miranda Gilbert. She has a younger adoptive brother, Jeremy. Elena is a popular, beautiful human girl and the protagonist of the series from Season's One to Six. Elena reassesses her priorities following the tragic death of her parents in a car crash of which she's the only survivor. Elena fatefully meets a handsome, mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore, and she feels an instant and undeniable connection with him. After a period of time, Elena starts to realize that Stefan is in fact far from normal. Unbeknown to her, Elena is far from normal as well. As a Gilbert, she is a descendant of one of the town's Founding Families. In season two, she learns that she is a Petrova doppelgänger, having an appearance just like Katherine Pierce, which means that she has to be sacrificed to release Klaus' werewolf side. The sacrifice later happens, but Elena is saved, because John sacrificed himself for her after being put under a spell by Bonnie. However, her aunt Jenna is turned into a vampire and, as part of the sacrifice, is killed by Klaus, leaving Elena without a guardian. In the season two finale, while Damon is dying due to a werewolf bite, she forgives him for forcing her to drink his blood and kisses him with the thought that it might be Damon's last day, however Damon gets cured by drinking Klaus' blood. In season three, Elena does everything in her power to make Stefan get his humanity back, which was turned off by Klaus as payment for saving Damon from a werewolf bite in the latter part of season two. Meanwhile, she grows closer to Damon while working together on saving Stefan and trying to defeat Klaus, eventually even sharing a kiss. She later admits to Stefan that she has feelings for Damon as well but that she never stopped loving Stefan. While in Denver together, Elena kisses, Damon, later telling him that she doesn't know how she feels about him. It is eventually revealed that Elena met Damon the night of her parents' death, though he compelled her to forget. She eventually chooses Stefan in the season finale but before she can tell him, Elena drowns while having vampire blood in her system. During the last moments of season three, she awakens as a vampire in transition. In season four, Elena is faced with the tough decision of whether to die or to feed on human blood so she can fully transition into a vampire. Elena, after realizing Stefan's desperation to keep her alive, decides to complete her transition. Her relationship with Stefan ends, allowing her to begin a proper romance with Damon. Although, it is later revealed there is a sire bond between them. Sometime later whilst searching for the cure for vampirism, Jeremy is fed to the immortal Silas by Katherine. As a result, Damon used the sire bond to convince her to turn off her humanity, due to her incredible grief over losing her brother and the last remaining member of her family. Elena became ruthless without her emotions, going on killing sprees and being very hateful towards her friends. Towards the end of season four, Damon kills Matt in front of Elena to trigger her grief. After revealing that Matt had the Gilbert Ring on, Elena's humanity was switched on and her emotions were focused on hate towards Katherine for killing Jeremy. Season four ended with Bonnie as a ghost after bringing Jeremy back to life and Elena fed Katherine the cure for vampirism in a moment of desperation as she was about to be killed. Elena had chosen Damon as the Salvatore that she loved, leaving a devastated Stefan. In season five, it was revealed that Elena is the doppelgänger and distant descendant of the world's first immortal woman, Amara.

* ActionSurvivor: In the earlier seasons, she's far too likely to be a DistressedDamsel, but she is pretty competent while trying to defend herself. For example, when a strange vampire is trying to kill her, she stabs him with pencils - repeatedly - and then breaks a mop over her knee to try to stake him, and when a werewolf attacks her, she instantly sticks a knife into his gut. She's also adept at using her surroundings while trying to run away if pursued by a supernatural.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elenaseasonsix.png]]

Elena Gilbert was born on Jun 22, 1992 in Mystic Falls, Virginia. She is the only child and daughter of John Gilbert and Isobel Flemming. She is the adoptive daughter of Grayson Gilbert and Miranda Gilbert. She has a younger adoptive brother, Jeremy. Elena is a popular, beautiful human girl and the protagonist of the series from Season's One to Six. Elena reassesses her priorities following the tragic death of her parents in a car crash of which she's the only survivor. Elena fatefully meets a handsome, mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore, and she feels an instant and undeniable connection with him. After a period of time, Elena starts to realize that Stefan is in fact far from normal. Unbeknown to her, Elena is far from normal as well. As a Gilbert, she is a descendant of one of the town's Founding Families. She dies in "The Departed" before it's revealed that Meredith gave her vampire blood earlier in the night and she wakes in the transitional stage. In season five, it was revealed that Elena is the doppelgänger and distant descendant of the world's first immortal woman, Amara.

->'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/NinaDobrev

!!!Elena Gilbert
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elena_gilbert.jpg]]

->''"I don't question why everyone tries so hard to save me. You shouldn't question why I try so hard to save everyone else."''
\\

Elena Gilbert is a 17-year-old popular, beautiful human girl and TheProtagonist of the ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' from season 1 to 6. Elena reassesses her priorities following the death of her parents in a car crash of which she's the only survivor. Elena fatefully meets a handsome, mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore, and she feels an instant and undeniable connection with him. After a period of time, Elena starts to realize that Stefan is in fact far from normal. Unbeknown to her, Elena is far from normal as well. As a Gilbert, she is a descendant of one of the town's Founding Families. She dies in "The Departed" before it's revealed that Meredith gave her vampire blood earlier in the night and she wakes in the transitional stage.

* LongHairIsFeminine: She's the GirlyGirlWithATomboyStreak of her ThreeAmigos group, with her long straight hair being her most feminine feature, often in contrast to her sporty clothes.

[[No Humanity]]

* WillTheyOrWontThey: Elena has this type of dynamic with Damon in the earlier seasons, with a lot of {{Belligerent|SexualTension}} and UnresolvedSexualTension between them, even when she was dating Stefan. In season 4, TheyDo and even become the OfficialCouple of the series.

* ShesGotLegs: As a MsFanservice, her legs are one of the most emphasized body parts whenever she gets a {{Fanservice}} scene, likely due to her past as a cheerleader. She frequently wears outfits that leave her legs bared as a result.

[[WMG:[[center:[-''Series/TheVampireDiariesUniverse'' '''[[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverse Main Character Index]]'''\\

* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: In 4x17, she gets a new hairstyle to better illustrate the difference between her old self, sporting bangs and [[SkunkStripe bright red streaks in her hair]]. Elena keeps them until the next season until she's [[GrandTheftMe possessed by Katherine, who gets rid of them]].

* AcademicAthlete: She's both an honor student and a talented [[TheCheerleader cheerleader]], which helps her transition from an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent to an ActionSurvivor.

* ClassPrincess: Before her parent's death, she used to be the most popular girl at school, being [[HeadTurningBeauty attractive]], fun, charismatic, [[TheCheerleader a cheerleader]] and was an honor student that was on friendly terms with most of her peers. Post-accident she becomes too depressed to keep the same attitude and later gets too involved with the supernatural happenings around town to care much for school.

[[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseMysticFallsGang The Mystic Falls Gang]] ('''Elena Gilbert''' | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseStefanSalvatore Stefan Salvatore]]) | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseMysticFallsCitizens Mystic Falls Citizens]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseStefansAndDamonsFriends Stefan's and Damon's Friends]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniversePetrovaFamily The Petrova Family]] ([[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseKatherinePierce Katherine Pierce]]) | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseTheOriginalsAndAssociates The Originals & Associates]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseWerewolfPacks Werewolf Packs]] |[[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseBrotherhoodOfTheFive The Brotherhood of The Five]] |[[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseTheTravelers The Travelers]] ([[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseSilas Silas]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseQetsiyah Qetsiyah]]) | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseWhitmoreCollege Whitmore College]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseGeminiCoven Gemini Coven]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseTheHeretics The Heretics]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseTheSirens The Sirens]]\\

[[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseMikaelsons The Mikaelsons]] | ([[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseKlausMikaelson Klaus Mikaelson]]) | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseMikaelsonAssociates Mikaelson Associates]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseOtherHumans Other Humans]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseOtherVampires Other Vampires]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseOtherWitches Other Witches]] | [[Characters/TheVampireDiariesUniverseOtherWerewolves Other Werewolves]]\\