Damon Salvatore

Damon Salvatore is one male protagonists of The Inner Circle. Damon was a 190-year-old vampire and distant descendant of Silas but now he's human, since his younger brother, Stefan Salvatore, injected him with the cure. He was a major antagonist in the first part of Season One. He was born during the 1800s and lived in the colonial town of Mystic Falls with his brother Stefan, his father, Giuseppe Salvatore, and also with his mother Lillian Salvatore until her death in 1858. He became a vampire in 1864. At the time of his return to Mystic Falls, Damon and Stefan hadn't seen each other in fifteen years due to their bitter and violent relationship.

In the 1950s, Damon was captured and tortured by the Augustine society, led by the Whitmore family, who experimented on vampires for a "bigger purpose". During his five years of captivity, he meets another prisoner, Enzo, with whom he became best friends with. Eventually, the plan the two made failed at a critical moment and thinking Enzo "died" because of him, Damon turned off his humanity to suppress the guilt and sadness. He sought revenge, an act of hunting down every member over generations that left one alive to carry on the family name until he finally killed the last descendant in the Whitmore family, which ended with Aaron Whitmore's death.

Damon's sole purpose in coming back to Mystic Falls was to free his sire Katherine Pierce from a tomb she was never in. Damon deeply loved her after 145 years. After realizing that Katherine never loved him, his love for her fades as his friendship and love for Elena, Katherine's descendant and doppelgänger, grows. Due to her impact on him and the strengthening relationship with his brother, they begin working together to protect Elena, along with her friends and family. He lives with his brother Stefan, girlfriend Elena (when she wasn't away at college), and her brother Jeremy Gilbert (after Elena burned their house down) in the Salvatore Boarding House.

In the Season Three, Damon filled the role as a deuteragonist in the first half of the season due to Stefan falling prey to Klaus.

Throughout the series, his bond with Elena continuously grows and they eventually fall in love with each other. Shortly after her death and subsequent transition into a vampire, Elena's feelings for Damon are heightened which makes her admit her love for him and they start a romantic relationship in Season Four. The relationship is complicated when they realize that, due to the fact that it was Damon's blood that turned Elena, she is sire-bonded to him, so nobody is sure whether Elena's feelings for Damon are real or because of the sire bond, but most of the people they know insist that, once the sire bond is broken, Elena will return to Stefan. When Jeremy dies, Elena turns off her emotions; after she turns them back on, the sire bond is broken and Elena reveals that her feeling for Damon were real and she's still in love with him.

In Season Five, he discovers Enzo's undead status and they become friends once again however once "Elena" breaks up with him, he puts an end to his diabolical plan against the Whitmore Family and is then injected with a dangerous compound by Wes Maxfield, causing him to become an Augustine Vampire and the only one in existence. This injection would cause him to crave vampire blood and he would not be able to stop feeding until he had killed. He was later cured, thanks to Enzo, Stefan, and Caroline's actions. Due to the Other Side collapsing, Damon gave up his life to save his loved ones and this particularly caused Elena, Stefan, and Alaric much grief.

In Season Six, Damon and Bonnie are trapped in a 1994 Prison World, which Damon initially believes is his own personal hell, as they are continually reliving a day from his history that Damon believes is the worst thing he ever did. Bonnie is convinced her grandmother sent them there and there is a way out. They work together to find a way back to Mystic Falls. They also form an alliance to take down Kai. During this time, he is able to form a healthy friendship with Bonnie, and they are able to move on from their past and become friends. When Bonnie has a chance to send him home, leaving herself alone with Kai, she does so. Damon initially believes Bonnie was killed in the process, but when he realized she's still alive, he becomes determined to find a way to bring her back. After returning home, he learns that Elena has had Alaric compel away all her memories of their relationship and he attempts to win her back. Damon soon learns of Liz's sickness and soon after, she passes away in the hospital in front of him, leaving him devastated. He is soon reunited with Bonnie who made it out of the prison world and shows him a video of a mysterious lady, who turns out to be Damon's mother. Bonnie had managed to escape the 1994 Prison World by going to Nova Scotia and regaining her magic through Qetsiyah's calcified blood in Silas' tombstone. She also picked up the Cure for vampirism and gave it to him, who in turned gave it to Elena. He expressed the desire to take the Cure with her too and become human. At the end of the season Kai placed Elena into a sleeping curse and tied the spell to Bonnie's life, which was supposed to keep the now human Elena in a mystical coma until Bonnie dies; until then Elena would remain asleep. Damon was devastated by this and said a difficult goodbye to Elena as they locked her in a coffin while his best friend, Bonnie, lived out her remaining days.

As of Season Eight's I Was Feeling Epic, Bonnie managed to break the spell, allowing Elena to wake up, while not killing herself in the process due to the spell, and Damon being able to reunite with her. In the final flash forward, the newly human Damon married Elena Gilbert and they lived a long and happy life together before passing away and finding peace.

His best friends are Elena Gilbert, Alaric Saltzman and Bonnie Bennett. He was close friends with Elizabeth Forbes until her death. His friendship with his sister-in-law, Caroline Forbes, has improved during the last season and they now consider themselves as close friends. Damon was also best friends with Enzo from the time he first met him, until the latter was killed by Stefan, despite the two occasionally being at odds.

Damon is a member of the Salvatore Family and was a member of the Town Council.

Human
Damon was originally a very free-spirited young man, who was best friends with his younger brother Stefan Salvatore, both of whom were instantly smitten with the vampire Katherine Pierce. He had a positive relationship with Stefan and he held his position as elder brother in high regard, being the one to teach Stefan how to fight when they were younger. As a human, Damon also held a sense of duty as he enrolled in the confederacy, however their father saw him as very irresponsible and reckless, proving he was very much a free spirit who did things on a whim, taking no mind to what people thought.

Damon could be considered much the opposite to his brother in many regards. Whilst they both were respectful and polite, Damon had a dark side which came to play when he fell in love with Katherine, whilst initially terrified at the prospect, his love for Katherine and dependency for her affections made the choice easy and he willingly drank her blood and conspired with her to kill innocent humans, a trait which passed on to his vampire lifestyle. Damon was very naive as a human, he loved Katherine deeply and recklessly, regardless of the consequences and not caring that his father was ashamed of him. His carefree life fell apart when Stefan betrayed Damon by alluding to their father that Katherine was a vampire; information that resulted in Katherine being trapped and taken to a church to be burned, also doing whatever he could to get her back, even if it resulted in his death.

Vampire
fter he became a vampire, he left Stefan's side, wanting no part in the life of the man who betrayed him. He selfishly kept the fact that Katherine was still alive from Stefan, jealous that his brother had also been turned by their shared lover. By the time he appears in season one, he's been away from Stefan for at least eighty years (including the meeting in 1912), and he immediately begins taunting his brother, as a colder, more calloused version of his human self.

Throughout season one, Damon pretends to be arrogant and sarcastic, showing little to no regard for human life and using whatever people he can get his hands on as his personal playthings. He shows pity to neither Caroline Forbes nor Vicki Donovan, even going so far as to kill Stefan's football coach to "prove" that he has no humanity left. He is also portrayed as a very impulsive vampire, known for his self-destructive behavior and his devious, sadistic mind. Despite this, he stays focused on his only goal: getting Katherine out of the tomb. This shows his ability for planning and forethought, and certainly the patience to wait one hundred and forty-five years for the necessary comet to return.

After Katherine is discovered to have been alive the entire time, and his reason for doing the things he has been doing shattered, Damon becomes more dangerous because he drinks alcohol constantly, bonding with others at the bar. He destructively taunts Alaric Saltzman about being the one to kill his wife, Isobel Flemming, but is confused when he finds that Isobel is Elena's birth mother. He tempts his brother with human blood, though he knows exactly what Stefan used to be, and when Stefan goes off the deep end, Damon helps Elena detox him. He also genuinely thanks Bonnie Bennett for disabling the device that could kill him, surprising her with his sincerity.

Every time his brother is put in a situation that endangers his life, Damon protects him, but he's not afraid to cause Stefan non-lethal harm. Despite his anger with Stefan for his actions in the past, he hangs around, protecting him and working with him, sometimes destroying the good in his life. Their perplexing relationship seems to center around Elena, who anchors them to Mystic Falls.

Elena is the oddity of Damon's behavior, the anomaly that makes his personality far from psychopathic. In the beginning of the first season, Stefan is prepared to give up on his brother, believing him to be an irreparable monster, but Damon displays true feeling for Elena. Elena Gilbert is physically identical to Katherine, the woman who turned him into a vampire, making her not only a constant reminder of what happened to him and Stefan, but a temptation to let history repeat itself. When Katherine reveals that she never loved him (in the beginning of season two), Damon reacts by trying to get Elena to admit that she loves him, and when she tells him that she loves Stefan, he reacts impulsively, set off by both Katherine and Elena choosing his brother instead of him. He kills Elena's brother, spending many weeks afterwards trying to make it up to Elena, showing true regret for his actions. Their relationship began with taunting and cruelty, but she became what he clings to for humanity; he became her occasional protector, a guardian of sorts. His impulsive actions often drive her away but she refuses to let him die, and he does the same for her.

With Elena influencing him throughout the second and third seasons, Damon becomes slightly kinder, if only for the fact that he no longer mindlessly kills and torments humans without good reason, and he controls himself to be strong for Elena's sake. He proves that he is capable of love, nobility, loyalty, and selflessness, masking the most intense of his emotions to spare himself from seeming weak, but expressing just enough to draw in a very small circle of friends (which he later drives away). He continues to claim that his emotions can be turned off, but several older vampires reveal that this is a lie; after a certain amount of time, a vampire has to pretend they can't feel. The only time Damon had ever admitted his pain was when Elena told him that she would never kiss him back, to which he responded, “Now I'm hurt.”

About halfway through the third season, Damon believes that Elena is trying to turn him into Stefan by constantly telling him to be the 'better man.' Others continue to underestimate him and, to display that he doesn't care at all, he kills Alaric, with whom he'd developed a strong friendship. He also spends time trying to make it up to Alaric after his ring brings him back to life, treating him like a friend even though Alaric is extremely angry with him. He also snaps and feeds from Caroline's father, and, after a very violent fight with Caroline, he is confronted by Elena. He's even cruel to her, accusing her of trying to make him into something he's not. His inner turmoil continues when Katherine reappears, and he recklessly takes her offer of a 'road trip,' leaving Elena defenseless only because he is mad at her. When he returns, he displays genuine regret and, in one of his most tell-all, modest moments of the show, he tells her that he will never leave her again, showing his extreme love and devotion to Elena, and his regret for making another impulsive decision.

By the end of Season Five, Damon makes the biggest decision he's ever made; sacrificing his life to saved his brother and everyone else he cares about over on The Other Side. He was unable to come back in the process but was thankful to Elena that she had became a part of his life and for falling in love with him.

Elena's Impact

He compels her to forget that he said this (late in season two), because he believes it would be selfish to confuse Elena with his feelings. This is right after Stefan apologizes for making Damon turn in 1864, something that surprises Damon to the point of revelation: He realizes what he's been doing to his brother, all following one stupid mistake. In reality, what Damon said to Elena proves that she has been molding him into a better person, because before that moment, he never would've done something so selfless. Damon also admits to missing his human life before he drunkenly kills Jessica Cohen in the middle of the road; this secret is kept from everyone around him. He lets the girl go, but immediately chases her down and kills her anyway in an effort to prove that he doesn't really care. When his spirits are down, Damon solves his problems with alcohol (mostly bourbon), but he often uses violence and murder to console himself.

By his own testimony, Damon claims that the reason why he can control his vampiric urges is because he embraces what he is.

Damon is also very self-confident, given that he'll confront older, stronger vampires like: Lexi, Anna, Pearl, Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah, Kol, Katherine and Rose, without hesitation, and without regard to manners, even when they themselves pose no signs of hostility towards him. He often taunts them, which results in him nearly being killed quite often as they are undeniably stronger than him; though of course, there were cases when he was able to best some of them on some occasions, as in the case of Kol and Silas. Further into Season Four, Damon seems to have lost part of his authoritative and dominating personality, most likely because of Klaus, who is much stronger, older and more powerful than him.

Despite Elena's influence, it seems that he is a very vengeful person and it is routed in his core. After the torture he and Enzo experienced in the 1950s, he continued to carry out the revenge he swore to take even well into his and Elena's relationship. This also proves him to be very secretive, as he told nobody of his experiences, not even Stefan in the aftermath of the torture until it was revealed in the present.

Ghost
Damon's personality as a Ghost was much like his personality as a Vampire. He did, however, seem to grow closer to Bonnie Bennett, and the two met Malachai and grew to have a mutual hatred of him.

Physical Appearance
Damon is very handsome, standing 5'10" in height with a well-built, toned physique. His physical appearance is of around a 24-25 year old despite being over 170. Damon has a light complexion with olive undertones and has a strong bone structure with high cheek bones and a solid jaw line. He has dark brown almost black hair, which hangs just over his ears, usually styled in a casual disarray yet sometimes gelled for special occasions. With striking, intense light blue eyes contrasting wonderfully against dark eyelashes and eyebrows, a "bad boy" smile, he can be described as relatively athletic, tall, strong, sexy and seductive. He also considers himself the "eternal stud".

Damon's clothing style has remained somewhat similar throughout the series, usually favoring darker clothing; black shirts, t-shirts and boots underneath darkened jeans and black trousers, although on occasion has been seen wearing lighter colors. Damon is rarely seen without his leather jackets and his favorite clothing designer is "John Varvatos". On special events, such as dances, he wears smart attire such as tuxedo's and dress shoes. As a vampire, he wears a large lapis lazuli daylight ring enchanted by Emily Bennett, as a means to walk around in the sunlight as a vampire. The ring has the Salvatore crest and an embedded "D" for his first name.

In flashbacks, as a human in the 1860s era, Damon generally wore the same attire as his younger brother; Stefan, including dress shirts with suspenders, waistcoats, dress coats, hats, cravats and leather laced boots as his usual style. His color scheme as a human was much lighter, Damon was seen wearing a red waistcoat, yet still formal, showing the Salvatore family's wealth. His hair was slightly longer in style, with slight curls, showing a much more youthful appearance.

Powers and Abilities
Damon possesses all the standard powers and abilities of a non-Original vampire. He has shown himself to be an experienced fighter easily able to subdue his enemies. Being that Damon is over 170 years old, he is an old and powerful vampire.

For vampire standards, he is a relatively young non-Original vampire to appear in the series, along with his younger brother Stefan. Damon's initial advantage (being stronger and faster) over his brother was due to him being older and regularly consuming human blood. Due to this Damon is physically able to easily beat younger vampires, although he has been shown capable of standing up to vampires much older than him, this is in part due to his determination. Though ultimately still inferior to those of much older vampires like Katherine Pierce, Pearl and Annabelle Zhu and the Originals to name a few. However given his intellect, he has been shown to take vampires down through surprise attacks, such as fighting the ancient vampire, Elijah Mikaelson with his brother's help and surprising Kol using his super-speed.

Damon, when at full strength, can be extremely dangerous, especially when fighting for the ones he loves. Such as when Damon, alongside Stefan, were able to fight Katherine Pierce, a non-Original vampire of 538 years of age, though she still bested both of them. Damon is also a very skilled user of mind compulsion. Damon has been shown to use this power effectively many times throughout the long course of the series. Mind compulsion remains to date as one of Damon's most frequently used powers of being a vampire.

Stefan has noted that when at full power and angry, Damon can be very dangerous. This is evidently shown in situations concerning Elena Gilbert. In Live Through This, Damon became emotionally distressed when he learned that it was Lily's idea to place the sleeping spell on Elena. This led Damon to become angry and lash out at his mother, strangling her.

Initially Damon's strength was much more powerful than Stefan's due his to frequent feeding spree on humans, Stefan was unwilling to face him without an advantage and told his nephew he wouldn't be able to beat Damon without feeding on humans himself, something that Damon told him earlier. Later in the series the power distance between the brothers shortened as Damon fed less frequently and usually on bloodbags, and Stefan may have moderated at some point as demonstrated by the battles where Stefan is able to fight evenly against his brother, though Damon still usually wins the fights.

Weaknesses
Damon had the typical weaknesses of a non-Original vampire.