History YMMV / TheVampireDiaries

** AngstWhatAngst: Jeremy, after Vicki dies. Justified, since Elena asked Damon to make it so he wouldn't worry about her. However, at this point Jeremy stops angsting about any number of things, stops doing drugs, and becomes a good student. Elena confronts Damon about it. Damon just says he "[[LiteralGenie took away his suffering]]."

** In "History Repeating" Caroline calls Bonnie a "little liar". In the episode, Bonnie was being haunted by Emily, played by Bianca Lawson, who starred in ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars''

*** In Season 8 he crosses it again when he murders [[spoiler:Tyler]] while he is under Sybil's control.

* UnfortunateImplications: The show's treatment of it's black characters, particularly Bonnie and her family has been heavily criticized due to the servitude role Bonnie and her family seems to be placed in with the white characters.

** Bonnie's ancestor Emily was Katherine's "handmaiden" in the Civil war era and many took this as the writers simply trying to avoid saying the word "slave."
** Bonnie is never attending any of the balls at the town and at one point is taking pictures of her friends during a parade. The parade is celebrating the town's founders who were unspoken slave owners, so Bonnie is essentially celebrating the fact that their ancestors owned her ancestors. Even worse down the line it was revealed that it was HER ancestor who brought the first white settlers (the Mikaelsons) to Mystic Falls, so her white friends' families are stealing a claim that rightfully belongs to her family.

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: The casting of Creator/MiaKirshner as Isobel is strange considering she and Nina Dobrev look nothing alike. Elena looks like more like her adoptive mother than her biological one, though this is justified by the fact that Elena is a doppelgänger, and therefore magically inclined to look the way that she does.

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: The casting of Creator/MiaKirshner as Isobel is strange considering she and Nina Dobrev look nothing alike. Elena looks like more like her adoptive mother than her biological one, though this is justified by the fact that Elena is a doppelgänger, and therefore magically inclined to look the way that she does.
* TheWoobie: Nearly ''everyone''.
** Caroline. Her dad abandoned her, she and her mother don't get along, she is constantly finding it difficult to fit in with her friends and is constantly overshadowed by Elena, she is abused and discarded by Damon and her boyfriend neglects her. Really, Katherine making her a vampire in ''Brave New World'' was probably the best thing for her. Later she has to deal with her mother getting cancer and not even turning her into a vampire could cure it and when she eventually dies, Caroline is so distraught that she turns off her humanity for the first time after her funeral.
** Stefan. There is NOTHING he hasn't been through: love issues, blood addiction, family problems, loss of loved ones, emotional and psychological torture, etc. The show should be called ''"The Perpetually Abused Stefan Diaries"''.
** Matt as well. He is still has feelings for his ex-girlfriend despite her finding someone new. His mother and sister are immature wrecks who don't care how much they mess up his life, and he's left with far more responsibility than anyone his age should have to deal with, and doesn't even have health insurance.
** Jeremy is one of the biggest cases. Lets count the ways Life has utterly screwed him, shall We? He loses his parents, he is in love with a girl who strings him along and is ashamed to be with him, he gets picked on by teachers, his girlfriend is later murdered and he is mindwiped into forgetting. When things start looking up, he finds out about his past and how the people closest to him deceived him. Just before his next girlfriend is murdered by his uncle and revealed to have been using him which makes him attempt suicide. And that's just in the first season.
** Bonnie should get the award for this trope. In season one, her grandmother dies after over-exerting herself by doing a spell that Bonnie had to convince her to do. Later, she hooks up with Jeremy, only for him to cheat on her with his dead ex-girlfriend's ghost. Then Damon turns her mother into a vampire. Caroline and Elena can go episodes without acknowledging her existence until they need her magic and while the latter makes out with the very vampire that has caused her so much misery. She was made the anchor to the other side and endured pain every time a supernatural being died. Then she was imprisoned in an eternally repeating day with one of her least favorite people then left there with murderous psychopath until she was eventually left ENTIRELY ALONE and almost committed suicide. Worse, her supposed bestie Elena went out of her way to have Jeremy – the only person who wanted to rescue her – graduate from high school early for no reason and get into art school so he could "move on" when they were closer than they'd ever been to getting Bonnie back. And after escaping the prison world she endured her PTSD alone… This girl needs a drink.
*** Culminated when Non-Humanity!Elena tried to kill Bonnie, all the while blaming Bonnie for her own faults. Taken into consideration, Bonnie's 'response' is quite expected. Of course, not long afterwards she dies anyway in the process of bringing Elena's brother Jeremy back to life, so yeah... And the first episode of the next season has Silas slit her father's throat in front of a brainwashed crowd, with Ghost!Bonnie there to see the horror.
** Rebekah is an original vampire who longs to be a normal human and clings to any sense of humanity she can find. Not only that, but she's used and betrayed on a regular basis; even by her own family. Her father, mother, and older brother have all attempted to kill her. Her mother actually took over her body at one point. She's stabbed in the back by a girl she begins to finally open up to. And to top it all off, Elena has murdered two of Rebekah's brothers: Finn and Kol. You don't get much more Woobie-ish than that!
** Elena. The SHOW seems to be about how many more times can life put her through the meat grinder. She can't seem to go a single day without herself or somebody she cares about being hurt, killed, or under threat by some supernatural being ever since the first episode, she has 2 boyfriends that endlessly fight over her that she's constantly conflicted about, she's too compassionate to just blow off anybody who's suffering so she ends up putting herself in even MORE trouble, and to top it all off she has serious loss and abandonment issues. Elena crosses into WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds territory once she becomes a vampire and turns her emotions off.
** Aaron in season five is a contender for the crown. In the space of nine episodes, he has seen two of his best friends murdered, found out that his only other friend is a vampire and a killer, his only remaining guardian is a sadist who has been lying to him for years and he has had almost every member of his entire family, including his parents and aunt, murdered by Damon for things They didn't even know about. It's no wonder the poor guy seems to have a perpetual rain cloud hanging over his head. And now [[spoiler: he's dead]].
** Amara, Silas's immortal love. Her only crime was falling for a man above her station who was supposed to love someone else, and as punishment for that she ends up tied to the afterlife, turned to stone, imprisoned for over two thousand years while her mind deteriorates, she feels the pain of every supernatural death over those years, and when she's finally woken she's DrivenToSuicide. And she only manages to get her wish after watching the love of her life die.

** In "Things We Lost In The Fire", Matt is pulled over for drunk driving. His actor, Zach Roerig, was arrested for DUI in 2020.

* UnfortunateImplications: The show's treatment of it's black characters, particularly Bonnie and her family has been heavily criticized due to the servitude role Bonnie and her family seems to be placed in with the white characters. ** Bonnie's ancestor Emily was Katherine's "handmaiden" in the Civil war era and many took this as the writers simply trying to avoid saying the word "slave."

** Enzo, he's only been in a few episodes, but people love him, he even got promoted to regular for Season 6.

** Vicki and Damon dancing around and trashing Stefan's room to "Enjoy The Silence"? ''Awesome''. Especially when you notice how it seems to be sang from Damon's POV.

** After being bitten by a werewolf, Rose starts acting feral like a zombie, something Creator/LaurenCohan would later [[Series/TheWalkingDead be focused on killing]]

** In "Let the Right One In", Anna says that she won't turn Jeremy because he learned everything that he knew about vampires from

{{Creator/Netflix}}. Netflix later picked up the show for streaming.

* {{Narm}}: For those who watch both TVD and The Originals, it's difficult to find Tyler's "Don't be a werewolf again" storyline seriously.

* SeasonalRot: Season 5 is hitting this big time. Katherine's death, the zigzagging plotlines, an overall unlikable Damon, and the show focusing way too much time on the Delena back and forth rather than the actual plot of the season has resulted in plummeting ratings- with 5x21 and 5x22 hitting all time lows for the entire show during season five. Some have gone so far as to say the show's spin-off ''TheOriginals'', which had its first season alongside this one, is now the far superior show.

** The female Heretics from Season 7 have quickly won people over, especially lesbian couple Nora and Mary Louise.

** In season 6, episode 11, Jo is using the Salvatore house to train in her magic and Damon jokes that he has allowed Alaric to turn the house into Hogwarts. Flash forward to the series finale where [spoiler: Alaric turns the Salvatore Mansion into a school for magically gifted children]]

** In "Let the Right One In", Anna says that she won't turn Jeremy because he learned everything that he knew about vampires from {{Creator/Netflix}}. Netflix later picked up the show for streaming.

* MagnificentBastard:
** Damon.
** He learned everything he knew from Katherine Pierce/Katerina Petrova, who naturally is even better at the game and has enough back-up plans to fill out every letter in the alphabet.
** Elijah and, as far as we know, Klaus.
** Silas. Even more than Damon, Klaus and Elijah combined.
** Kai as well.

** Stefan and Klaus, OH SO MUCH.

* InternetBackdraft: The deaths of lesbian couple Mary Louise and Nora Hildegard who were both part of the Heretics in season 7, got swept up in the 2016 controversy over the BuryYourGays trope that got started over the death of a lesbian character on ''Series/{{The 100}}'', another show on the CW.

** Aaron in season five is a contender for the crown. In the space of nine episodes, he has seen two of his best friends murdered, found out that his only other friend is a vampire and a killer, his only remaining guardian is a sadist who has been lying to him for years and he has had almost every member of his entire family, including his parents and aunt, murdered by Damon for things They didn't even know about. It's no wonder the poor guy seems to have a perpetual rain cloud hanging over his head. And now [[spoiler: he's dead]].

** Persia White, who plays a vampire from Klaus's bloodline, later married Joseph Morgan.
** After being bitten by a werewolf, Rose starts acting feral like a zombie, something Lauren Cohan would later [[Series/TheWalkingDead be focused on killing]]

** As of season six, Damon/Bonnie (a.k.a. Bamon) has become a fan favorite amongst the audience and a very popular ship. There are many fans and viewers wishing that Damon and Bonnie will become romantically involved. Hell, even some Delena fans have jumped ship and are hopping on the Bamon ship. Quite a few notice that there is a strong and undeniable chemistry between Ian Somerhalder and Katerina Graham (probably because Ian and Kat are extremely close offscreen) as well as between their characters. Numerous fans are coming out and openly shipping Bamon and even the media seems to be crazy about the potential couple or pairing.

* ActorShipping: Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev. Though it has died down considerably after they broke up- and ''especially'' after some disparaging things Ian said about Delena and Nina's potential return to the show.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Markos and his minions are not killed in a confrontation or fight, instead he is killed when Damon and Elena kamikaze the Mystic Grill. Later his ghost is curb stomped by Lexi and DraggedOffToHell in under ten seconds.

* AssPull: The Sun and Moon Curse turning out to not exist and the actual curse being a curse on Klaus, to keep his werewolf side suppressed.
** Both times that people need to find Alaric in Season 1, he's at the school...on a Saturday. The first time he has a semi-viable excuse of needing to use the copier but the second...no reason is given.

** The Originals. Many fans are happy they got their own spin off, but it's divided between people who like them and want to see a whole show based around them and people who think TVD has become too much about them and want them off their show. And people who just hate and/or like them, and people who like individual Originals.

** Klaus who is probably the most evil vampire on the whole show.

** ''Rebekah''. Oh God Rebekah....

** "Turning off" the humanity switch universally causes even the nicest of vampires to do a FaceHeelTurn for the duration and JumpOffTheSlipperySlope leading to these sorts of moments. Elena, Stefan, and Caroline all quickly go on psycopathic StupidEvil murder sprees until somebody forces them to turn it back on.

** There has been an increase in Damon/Caroline since she's been turned and so is now more than capeable of sticking up for herself.

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Most of the cast, but especially Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley. Even people who don't like the show have commented on how good their acting has gotten, especially Dobrev as both Elena and Katherine.

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: The casting of Mia Kirshner as Isobel is strange considering she and Nina Dobrev look nothing alike. Elena looks like more like her adoptive mother than her biological one, though this is justified by the fact that Elena is a doppelgänger, and therefore magically inclined to look the way that she does.

** Elijah - Mysterious {{Badass}} NobleDemon Original vampire, with an ability to punch another vampire's head off without so much as breaking a sweat.

** So... we're just going to ignore Damon and Enzo? I was basically waiting for them to share a passionate kiss since they found each other again. Even though he spent much of the second half of S6 with Matt, everything he was doing for Stefan's comeuppance on Damon's behalf.

** Rebekah. It's painfully clear by now that her AlphaBitch personality is a big cover for her deep fear of being left alone and unloved, given how much her family keeps stabbing each other in the back -- and now that her own ''mother'' has possessed her body and teamed up with Dark Alaric to massacre the Originals (and thus kill every vampire alive), God only knows if she'll make it out in one piece. When she does get her body back, she has to clean after a dance that she organized but didn't get to attend because of her mother. Who didn't want to give her a hug after that?

** Silas. Even more than Damon, Klaus and Elijah combined. ,

*** Damon pretty much zig-zagged this trope throughout the series because of his HeelFaceRevolvingDoor where in this he has killed Jeremy who only survived because of the Gilbert ring, murdered Aaron when he thought Elena broke up with him, and has generally came close to killing Stefan and the rest of the gang on several occasions.

** There were plenty of Elena haters before, but the planning and then killing of Kol by Elena to grow Jeremy's hunter's mark, despite the fact that this would kill all of Kol's line of vampires, which is anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of vampires is considered by even Elena strongest supporters to have swung Elena so far past the MoralEventHorizon that she is now completely irredeemably evil.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Most viewers and critics initially (And sadly still do, in some cases) dismissed the series as a rip-off of ''Twilight''. The ''Vampire Diaries'' books actually predate ''Twilight'' by fourteen years.

* OpinionMyopia: Some fans debate when a character they like has raped another and make up excuses as to why it's not rape like for example stating that the sex was consensual before the compulsion. Though of course the other argument is that compulsion is mind rape and also forcing somebody down a bed while said person is crying, then manipulate this person's mind to have her be okay with you being a sociopath vampire that drinks your blood is technically rape since her free will was taken and so she is not truly consenting to continuing to sleep with you.

** In the TV show, Stefan, who is in a mutually loving, trusting and respectful relationship with Elena, is often vilified in favour of his [[DracoInLeatherPants murdering rapist brother]], Damon. He gets it in the book fandom too, but Damon isn't nearly as bad in the books so it's not quite as mind-boggling. Stefan was even listed as having a MoralEventHorizon for threatening an extremely unpleasant and fan-hated character and telling him to get out of town. It comes off as a rather harsh judgment considering that when the FemmeFatale cut off the same character's fingers, taunted him and then stabbed him it was considered a KickTheSonOfABitch instead. Post season 2 [[spoiler: the show has been kind of trying to make a point that Stefan isn't the white knight that they sort of built him up as in season 1 and to a degree in season 2. His behavior in season 3 is just down right despicable in his need to get revenge on Klaus, and his holier-than-thou attitude ends up derailing his relationship with Elena]]
** Elena gets it herself in both the book and TV fandom. In the book she's antagonized by fans for being a sometimes selfish but also brave, driven and compassionate young woman, in favour of her less self-assured friend. Despite her being a compassionate, considerate and downright selfless young woman in the TV show, she's been seen this way as well. Right down to 'in favour of her less self-assured friend.' Her big mistake, asking to have her brother's memory of his girlfriend's murder (after she attempted to eat his sister) erased to protect him in the aftermath of Elena's own assault by and witnessed death of said girlfriend is treated as unadulterated evil and 'pure selfishness.'

** Emily, Bonnie's ancestor who all of Bonnie's annoying traits and none of her likable ones.
** Esther, an annoying hypocritical villain who's no better than her children who is also a terrible mother.
** With Season 4, Elena definitely qualifies. The fanbase has all but completely turned on her when she helped kill Kol and, for all purposes, committed a mass vampire Genocide. The way she broke things off with Stefan and got with Damon certainly didn't help (even if she was sired to him).
** Damon in parts of season four and almost all of season five. Many fans turned sour against Damon and found him to be extremely unlikeable, especially after he became the main love interest for Elena. Some fans say that Damon became boring and dull since he became Elena's boyfriend. There's also the fact that he treated his brother Stefan poorly, especially regarding the whole Elena situation. Also, the fact that he did not look for Stefan over the summer or months that he was missing and did not seem to show too much concern over Stefan suffering from PTSD. Add onto the fact that after "Elena" had broken up with him, Damon resorted to killing Aaron, a friend of Elena's and resorting to hurting or torturing Elena's loved ones to get back at Elena, primarily Jeremy.

** Enzo has become this as of season 6. Enzo was originally a relatively well liked an dwell received character in season 5, so much that he even ended up being upgraded to a series regular for season 6. However, since Enzo has made it his mission to make Stefan's (a generally well liked character and one of main characters) life a living Hell, most of the fandom find him completely annoying and useless and are wishing for him to be killed off.

** Stefan and Elena in the first two episodes. Elena meets Stefan, a mysterious new student, they have two awkward conversations, and the next day they both already knew they were meant to be. They agree that "We met. We talked. It was epic" before sharing their first kiss and becoming a couple. However, despite the rushed beginning, the rest of the relationship was well written.

** Lexi who in her debut episode is killed by Damon as her friendship with Stefan was interesting and she could have been a good ally, though she does make appearances in flashbacks and makes guest appearances as a ghost until moving on in the afterlife.
** In the season 2 finale Jenna, who's just become the last major character to learn about the {{Masquerade}}, is turned into a vampire herself. And is just as quickly killed off, rather than the multitudes of story possibilities that could have come from it.

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Most of the cast but especially Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley. Even people who don't like the show have commented on how good Their acting has gotten, especially Dobrev as both Elena and Katherine.

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: The casting of Mia Kirshner as Isobel is strange considering she and Nina Dobrev look nothing alike. Elena looks like more like her adoptive mother than her biological one, though this is justified by the fact that Elena is a doppelgänger, and therefor magically inclined to look the way that she does.

** Bonnie should get the award for this trope. In season one, her grandmother dies after over-exerting herself by doing a spell that Bonnie had to convince her to do. Later, she hooks up with Jeremy, only to be dumped for his dead ex-girlfriend's ghost. Then Damon turns her mother into a vampire. Caroline and Elena can go episodes without acknowledging her existence until they need her magic and while the latter makes out with the very vampire that has caused her so much misery. She was made the anchor to the other side and endured pain every time a supernatural being died. Then she was imprisoned in an eternally repeating day with one of her least favorite people then left there with murderous psychopath until she was eventually left ENTIRELY ALONE and almost committed suicide. Worse, her supposed bestie Elena went out of her way to have Jeremy – the only person who wanted to rescue her – graduate from high school early for no reason and get into art school so he could "move on" when they were closer than they'd ever been to getting Bonnie back. And after escaping the prison world she endured her PTSD alone… This girl needs a drink.

** Stefan jumped off the roof of the boarding house in the pilot. Yes, it was meant to show his vampire powers, but it just seems random

** Pre season 5 Katherine for being a smart, menacing, charismatic villain with dozens of backup plans and a complex backstory.
** Elijah - Mysterious Badass NobleDemon Original vampire, with an ability to punch another vampire's head off without so much as breaking a sweat.

** Amara. Many fans actually love her more than both Elena and Katherine and wished that she had more screen time as a character and with Silas.

** As of season six, Damon/Bonnie (a.k.a. Bamon) has become a fan favorite amongst the audience and a very popular ship. There are many fans and viewers wishing that Damon and Bonnie will become romantically involved. Hell, even some Delena fans have jumped ship and are hopping on the Bamon ship. Quite a few notice that there is a strong and undeniable chemistry between Ian Somerhalder and Katerina Graham (probably because Ian and Kat are extremely close off screen) as well as between their characters. Numerous fans are coming out and openly shipping Bamon and even the media seems to be crazy about the potential couple or pairing.

** Season 6 has been called an improvement over the previous seasons

** In "Lost Girls" Damon comments on how Vicki doesn't want to die. She dies in the next episode

** In the pilot Jeremy asks Vicki "When was the last time that you had sex with a puppy?". Since she was dating Tyler, who was later revealed to be a werewolf, pretty recently.

** In "162 Candles" Damon kills a guy, what's the name of the actor: John Gilbert
** In "History Repeating" Caroline calls Bonnie a "little liar". In the episode, Bonnie was being haunted by Emily played by Bianca Lawson who starred in ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars''

** Persia White, who plays a vampire from Klaus's bloodline later married Joseph Morgan

** Is Stefan a tortured soul who's too good for this world or is he just as selfishly taking advantage of everyone? Furthermore, was his mission to get the vampirism cure for Elena the actions of a caring boyfriend seeking to free them both from a curse was thrust upon both of them so they can live HappilyEverAfter, or the actions of a clingy, controlling stalker that just wants Elena to go back to the way she was pre-vamprism because he just can't stand that she's changing into a different, perhaps better person?

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome:
** Vicki and Damon dancing around and trashing Stefan's room to "Enjoy The Silence"? ''Awesome''. Especially when you notice how it seems to be sang from Damon's POV.
** Within Temptation's "All I Need" during the Damon & Elena dance scene in "Miss Mystic Falls".
** "Bloodstream" by Stateless in the season one finale, when Damon kisses Elena. Except it's Katherine.
** "I Was Wrong" by Sleeperstar in 2x08 when Damon tells Elena that he loves her, and then makes her forget.
** Damon and Elena scenes get this ''a lot.'' Another highlight has to be "Never Let Me Go" by Florence+the Machine in 3x19 when Elena kisses Damon and they have an extended and passionate kiss scene.
** The series finale has a few, but especially "Don't Let Me Go," by The Fray playing while [[spoiler: Stefan reveals that he is dead, having sacrificed himself for Damon, and is reunited in death with Lexi.]] "I was feeling epic," indeed.