Elijah Mikaelson

Elijah Mikaelson (Elder Futhark: ᛖᛚᛇᚨᚺ ᛗᛁᚲᚨᛖᛚᛋᛟᚾ) was the major recurring character in The Inner Circle, serving initially as an antagonist in the second season and eventually becoming a supporting character and protagonist in the third season and fourth seasons. Elijah was an Original Vampire.

Elijah was the third child and second son of Mikael and Esther. He was the younger brother of Freya and Finn, and the older brother of Kol, Rebekah and Henrik and the older half-brother of Klaus. He is also the uncle of Freya and Mathias' unborn son, Klaus and Hayley's daughter, Hope, and Freya and Keelin's son, Nik.

Throughout his long life, Elijah had several romantic relationships. In the early 11th century, Elijah and Klaus were both in love with a Petrova Doppelgänger named Tatia. Elijah accidentally killed Tatia after he became a vampire and was traumatized and horrified by the violence of his actions towards her. Elijah's mother, told him to seal the event behind a "red door" and to clean himself up. As long as he was clean, nothing of what happened behind the red door could hurt him. As such, this became Elijah's defense mechanism to cope with the horrors of his vampirism for the next thousand years.

In the 15th century, Elijah was romantically involved with another Petrova Doppelgänger, a young girl from Bulgaria, named Katerina Petrova. In the 19th century, Elijah was romantically involved with a witch named Céleste Dubois, whose death was later caused by his half-brother Klaus. In the 21st century, Elijah rekindled his relationship with Katerina Petrova aka Katherine Pierce, before ending it to go to New Orleans to help Klaus. In New Orleans, Elijah has developed feelings for Hayley Marshall, after he promised to protect her and the child she was carrying. Elijah respectfully kept his distance while she was married to Jackson Kenner.

In the second season of The Originals, he and Klaus continued to work in a combined effort to stop Esther, Finn and a resurrected Mikael, while struggling with reawakened sins from his past. He also took Gia, one of Marcel's vampires as his protégé, and eventually began a romantic relationship with until Klaus killed her.

In the third season, he made it his mission to prevent a prophecy depicting his family's downfall from coming to pass, even taking on his first sired vampire to do it. However, unknowingly, Elijah completed the prophecy himself, by killing Marcel Gerard. After the latter came back to life as the Beast from the prophecy, he bit Elijah and his younger brother Kol, knowing his bite would kill them both. He then banished the Mikaelsons from New Orleans. However, unknown to Marcel, Elijah's older sister Freya linked him and all their siblings to Klaus's life force, giving Hayley time to find cures for them all.

In the fourth season, the Hollow used the magic from Elijah's sireline to resurrect herself. Before his death, Freya was able to transfer his soul into a pendant. Elijah was later on restored to his body. However, every vampire in his sireline remained dead. In the series finale, Elijah chose to die once again alongside Klaus when his brother sacrificed himself to destroy the Hollow once and for all.

Elijah is a member of the Mikaelson Family and an unnamed Witch Family.

Human/Witch
Elijah is a very attractive, positive, quirky and upbeat person. He always tries to see the good in people and tries to be a friend to everyone. He lives by a code of honor and morality that has been with him since he was a witch. As he told Elena in All My Children, he valued qualities such as compassion, honor and virtue long before his mother turned him into a vampire. Having learned to take care of his family over the years and being naturally responsible, Elijah had developed into a very free-spirited, mature and independent person. Elijah was close with his half-brother Klaus and his sister Rebekah, he was also a little close with his youngest brother Henrik and he was devastated after he was killed by werewolves.

Original Vampire
Elijah is described as unpredictable, over-protective and stubborn, but also very kind, intelligent, selfless, empathetic, compassionate, and friendly. He is extremely loyal and has a loving nature. He strongly believes in trust, honesty and loyalty and whenever he would give his word to someone, he would keep it, as he has said "I'm a man of my word". Elijah has been known to break deals but only when he realized he was lied to, such as in his deal with Sophie Deveraux. He has a lot of respect and admiration for human life, which is unseen in many other vampires and is normally very reluctant to kill anyone when unnecessary.

He is known for speaking his mind and having a fierce temper, which he possibly inherited from his father though unlike Mikael, Elijah is capable of controlling it. Elijah very rarely has tolerance for those who broke their words to him, shown when he killed Trevor for betraying him and imprisoned Katherine for her own betrayal. He also has no tolerance for those that disrespect him. He has been shown to go to great lengths to make those that disrespect him suffer, such as Damon, Thierry, and Marcel. When Marcel disobeyed and disrespected Elijah, he killed Marcel's best friend Thierry in front of him so Marcel would suffer that loss for eternity instead of killing Marcel.

Elijah is very knowledgeable and deceptive in many ways. This encompasses knowledge of how to fight, wield a sword and defend himself. He exhibits an open-minded and optimistic personality. When he meets Elena, he respects her for her bravery and willingness to put herself in harm's way to protect her loved ones, which is something that Elijah himself has done for his family many times.

Elijah in general is a very emotionally hardened character and has difficulty at times handling and accepting certain emotions. This is evident when after losing his family because of Klaus, he turns his sadness and pain into revenge against his half-brother. Elijah is also seen to be uncomfortable and has difficulty accepting romantic feelings, particularly towards Hayley. However, despite this, Elijah does believe in love but also believes that, at least for him, it is rare. He even mentioned that for the thousand years the he has lived, he has only been in love twice.

While Elijah is capable of forgiveness, some acts such as betrayal is usually considered unforgivable by him, and even if the betrayer seeks atonement, Elijah has been known to mercilessly kill them. Elijah does have morals, but when ever a member of his family is in danger of being killed, he is forced to commit immoral acts, something he doesn't like to do in the first place, like Klaus, he has a sense of humor. Unlike Klaus, Elijah is caught off guard more easily, even more so when he attacks his opponent(s) in anger. Elijah is most characterized by his devotion to his cause of "redeeming" his half-brother; Klaus. As such, he has, with only one known exception, stayed by his half-brother's side, and will constantly search for the good in him, no matter the situation. However, he is not unaware of Klaus' spiteful, violent nature, and is familiar enough with it to predict his younger half-brother's movements. However, with the birth of his niece, his priorities have begun to shift from redeeming him to ensuring her safety.

Elijah purposefully seeks to uphold the image of the being he most aspires to be; a well kept, honorable, moral man who is devoted to his family. However, his vampiric nature, as well as insane devotion to Klaus has caused this being to become little more than a facade for him to hide behind. He is just as vicious, just as conniving, just as treacherous, just as dishonorable, and just as hypocritical as his siblings. This is most blatantly shown in his claims of familial loyalty, and then standing aside and permitting Klaus to dagger and abuse them, even helping in the instances of daggering Kol.

Elijah is noted for his ability to control his more violent urges, and rarely ever so much allows his face to show its vampiric features. However, after his mother's assault on his mind, revealing the Red Door-a mental barrier of sorts that he hides the fallout, and even memories, of his most vicious deeds behind-he began to lose control and give in to these urges, despite consciously trying to control them. After the birth of Hope, Elijah's priorities have begun to shift, to the point where, when Klaus began spiraling after the threat of Dahlia made came, Elijah stabbed Klaus with a golden dagger, leaving him daggered in a coffin, all to prevent him from bringing danger to Hope with his violent lashing out.

In Season Three, of The Originals, when Elijah learns from Klaus (who learned it from Lucien Castle; the first vampire his half-brother ever sired) that the remaining Original Vampires will fall in one year, unlike his half-brother at first, he realizes that Lucien may be right about the prophecy, he also joins forces with Klaus and Freya to try to stop the prophecy.

Unfortunately, his actions result in the Prophecy coming true by the end of the third season. Before he was placed into the slumbering spell by Freya (linking him to Klaus' life force until a cure for an Upgraded Original Vampire's venom is found) Elijah apologizes to Klaus for his actions. Elijah set in motion the fulfilling of the prophecy, Marcel, who was their family and friend, became their foe, and poisoned the Mikaelson siblings in The Bloody Crown. He also corrected Klaus when Klaus stated that he will make Marcel pay for what he did to their family, as Elijah stated everything was his fault, referring to himself being indirectly responsible.

In Season Four, now that Klaus has redeemed his nature for the sake of Hope, Elijah now acts as the families enforcer. Elijah has lost most of his previous traits of being honorable, noble, and moral towards humans, vampires and witches alike. He has become utterly ruthless in defense of his family in their war against the Hollow, willing to kill and sacrifice innocent children, such as forcing Vincent to recreate the Harvest Ritual to help stop the Hollow by killing four innocent young girls. Vincent asks if Elijah even remembers how it was to be human, which Elijah responds as no. Elijah's personality has become much darker, his violent and ruthless actions mirroring the other members of his family such as Klaus, Kol, and Mikael.

In Season Five, after recovering the memories he lost from Marcel's compulsion, Elijah returns to his old personality. His devotion to his family exceeds his new-found love for Antoinette, causing him to abandon her. Elijah also blames himself deeply for Hayley's death and particularly feels an extreme amount of guilt for depriving Hope of her mother and repeatedly tries to apologize.

Physical Appearance
Elijah is a handsome man who stands about 5'11" in height, and has a thin but muscular body. He has short brown hair which appeared to have darkened slightly in the fourth season, with hazel brown eyes. His facial features are angular - high cheekbones, a strong jawline, and a straight nose. Despite being centuries old, he appears to be 23 or 24 years old. He is older than his half brother Niklaus, but is younger than his brother Finn and his sister Freya, making him the third oldest sibling of the family. Elijah is similar to his younger brother Kol in facial features, but resembles all of his siblings in a more general way.

Elijah in the present day is consistently well-dressed. His wardrobe typically consists of a dress jacket, dress shoes, dress pants, shirt and sometimes a tie. This continues his trend of dressing well throughout the centuries. As a human, he wore more simplistic clothing, along with the other males in his family. But ever since he and his family journeyed to Europe, it seems he upgraded his attire to clothing indicative of a nobleman. Elijah has also worn different hairstyles in keeping with the times. It was revealed that Esther placed in his mind the idea of remaining clean and forgetting about his victims to save him from the guilt of it.

Powers and Abilities
As the third oldest of his siblings, Elijah is the eldest Original Vampire alive and the oldest Vampiric immortal in the world, now that Silas, Amara, Mikael, Finn are dead and Freya is mortal. As an Original Vampire, Elijah is stronger and faster than any non-original vampire, he is one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the TVD/TO universe, on par with his siblings, with the exception that Klaus is stronger and faster due to his werewolf side. His strength is inferior to Mikael and the beasts Lucien and Marcel as Lucien was able to overpower him with ease when he was upgraded. It is unknown how Elijah would do in a fight against his siblings such as Rebekah and Kol, Finn, or Alaric Saltzman when he was an Enhanced Original Vampire at the time.

His supernatural attributes aside, Elijah's greatest asset is his sharp intellect. His penchant for strategies and forming contingencies way ahead of time easily rivals Klaus', despite this, he has been outsmarted by Klaus on more than one occasion. Often, Elijah is able to discern a great deal of whatever or whoever presented to him after only a few keen observations. He was able to identify Elena masquerading as Katherine when they met at Pennsylvania after seeing her daylight ring and was also the first to discern that his former lover, Celeste, was in fact inhabiting the body of Sabine, and then later formulated a plan with Monique Deveraux to corner her the next time that Celeste jumps into another body.

Because he is much more calm, composed, and strategic in battle than Klaus, Elijah is able to fight Klaus almost evenly shortly after being undaggered by Damon despite losing most of his strength from months without blood. His composure also enabled to him to single-handedly subdue Marcel's army without getting so much as a scratch on him, evidence by the lack of cuts on his clothes, something Klaus is unable to do, due to his lack of composure. Due to his long existence, Elijah has seen countless battles and is very experienced in battle. He is also very adaptable as seen in Diego's attempt to flank him, which apparently failed. It is presumed Diego also tried other tactics which also failed miserably against Elijah. Elijah's prowess in combat even allowed him to defeat ancient vampires like members of the Strix with relative ease, even when outnumbered. Elijah has slaughtered vampires and werewolves, alike, most often by ripping out their hearts, ensuring immediate death.

Despite his prowess against Klaus and Marcel's army, he has been defeated by lesser vampires before, in fact only two, Stefan and Damon; however, they were using hit and run tactics against him, as well using a stake gun and vervain bombs, which ended in Damon outflanking him and staking him to a door. Also at the time, Elijah underestimated them and showed hubris, believing himself unbeatable. Elijah has not made this mistake since. Elijah also has an extremely high pain tolerance as he didn't even flinch when he used his own body as a makeshift lighter after taking off his daylight ring to kill Finn.

Weaknesses
Elijah had the typical weaknesses of an Original Vampire.