Esther Mikaelson

Esther Mikaelson (Elder Futhark: ᛖᛋᚦᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᚲᚨᛖᛚᛋᛟᚾ) was one of "the most powerful witches in history", and she was responsible for creating the Original vampires. She appeared in the third season of The Inner Circle as a recurring character and a main antagonist.

Esther was the wife of Mikael and the former lover of Ansel. She was the mother of Freya, Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik. She was also the younger sister of Dahlia, and the grandmother of Freya and Mathias' unborn son, Klaus and Hayley's daughter, hope, and Freya and Keelin's son, Nik.

During the third season of The Vampire Diaries, Esther was revived thanks to the efforts of Bonnie and Abby Bennett. She planned to kill her children, linking them together and stripping them of their vampirism before killing Finn, who willingly helped her. To stop Esther's plan, Damon Salvatore was forced to kill Abby and turn her into a vampire, unlinking Esther from the Bennett witch line. Esther later helps Alaric Saltzman develop a dark, murderous, vampire hating alter-ego. She then turns him into an Enhanced Original vampire for the purpose of hunting down and killing the rest of her children with the indestructible white oak stake she crafted with his Gilbert ring. Alaric kills her soon after when his original personality briefly regained control after waking up in transition, stabbing her to save Jeremy and Matt from her magic attacks.

It was revealed in The Originals, that Klaus had been holding onto Esther's coffin. In New Orleans, when Klaus and Elijah helped Sophie Deveraux become an Elder, they offered her Esther's body. They consecrated Esther's remains, which later allowed her to revive herself in From a Cradle to a Grave and possess the last Harvest Girl, Cassie, with the completed Harvest Ritual. She also revived Finn and Kol, placing them in the body of two witches - Vincent and Kaleb, respectively.

In the second season of The Originals, Esther seeks to convince her children to give up their immortal lives and become mortal again. Finn willingly helps her and Kol follows his own agenda, eventually joining Klaus' side. Esther body jumps from Cassie to Lenore. In The Map of Moments, Esther's witchcraft is stripped after Rebekah put blood in her wine. Klaus eventually returns to her, informing her that she is no longer a witch and is now a vampire. Esther forms an alliance with Mikael and Finn, in an effort to kill Klaus and his allies.

Esther was, for a brief while, a vampire, while possessing the body of the witch Lenore, and was forced to transition without body jumping into a new witch host. She briefly became what she hated the most, a vampire. After reuniting with her eldest daughter, Freya, Esther aids her and Klaus in saving their sister Rebekah from her body host, the witch Eva Sinclair. After doing so, Esther warns Klaus that Freya will turn his siblings against him, and tells him that all her previous acts were only meant to undo her evil, in hope that he will love her again. Klaus mocks her and leaves her in the dark. Later, Esther is cold-heartedly executed at the hands of her daughter Freya, as punishment for giving her over to Dahlia over a thousand years ago.

In Ashes to Ashes, following her last resurrection in her original witch body - by the hands of unsuspecting Davina Claire, who thought she was bringing back her boyfriend, Kol Mikaelson - Esther was forced to participate in her children's plan to kill her sister, Dahlia. After begging with Dahlia to end her misdeeds, Esther allows herself to be killed together with her, by Klaus. She and Dahlia were shown to have found peace, with Esther asking for her older sister forgiveness, finally admitting that she did love her. Dahlia then forgives her younger sister, and the two of them finally make up.

Esther was the matriarch of the Mikaelson Family and was a member of an unnamed Norwegian family of powerful witches.

Witch
Esther was a devoted and loving mother to her children prior to them becoming vampires. She wanted the best for her children, and fearing they would die because of the werewolves, she used a spell which turned them into vampires.

Unlike Mikael who was hard on Klaus, Esther treated him like the rest of his half-siblings, and occasionally defended him against Mikael, telling the latter that Klaus only means well when Mikael went to confront Klaus, who was sparring with Elijah, but she never tried to stop him from humiliating or from physically/emotionally abusing her son, it was likely she was afraid to challenge her husband when trying to defend Klaus; however, this was proven to be untrue, as the reason why she never challenges Mikael, was because she valued her marriage towards her husband more than one of her own children, this also reveals that she was a horrible mother, if anyone of her children were physically abused by her husband, she would not lift a finger to protect them from Mikael, she even created a Starling Necklace that would not only weaken Klaus' untriggered werewolf strength, but it also took away his will to fight back, which made her son a victim to Mikael's abuse. She was capable of being deceptive and was willing to do whatever it took to fulfill her goals despite facing the consequences. She was a skilled liar, and was far from a forgiving person, which ultimately caused her to attempt to kill her own children. It is unknown if Esther knew killing her children would wipe out vampires but this likely wouldn't have deterred her from doing so, regardless of whether any of these vampires fed on human blood. However, her plan to kill the Originals required turning them human first, its unknown, if vampires would remain connected to their progenitors, had it worked. She also tried to kill Jeremy and Matt, knowing full well they were only there to protect Elena. She was ruthless in her goals but still admitted to loving her children but acknowledged that they are monsters who have killed countless innocents and all because she made them immortal. She created vampires, which are considered abominations to nature, therefore, she would stop at nothing to correct this mistake. Despite her sometimes ruthless nature, her actions stem from a good heart. She believes she cursed her children to become abominations and genuinely believes vampires are evil, and wants no human to suffer at the hands of them.

Esther was delusional, she believes that everything she had done including the fact that she once tried to kill her children, was for their own good, she was also a hypocrite, as she blames both Elijah and Klaus for Hope's death, when she was the one who ordered her granddaughter's death in the first place (unaware that Hope is still alive).

No matter how harsh it was, when Klaus tells Esther that she was the monster who made the Original Vampires who they are, it was actually a true fact.

According to Finn and Klaus, Esther was a very smart strategist and skilled in making people suffer, traits she passed on to several of her children, including Klaus, despite this, she can sometimes underestimate her children.

Esther was extremely immoral, as she took over the body of Cassie, later Lenore without the two latter's consent; against their free will, even attempted to put Rebekah into the body of Camille, without any consent from the two latter.

Like Mikael, Esther had failed to acknowledge her mistakes as a parent, as most of her children (Freya, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, and Rebekah) eventually grew to despise her and turned their backs on Esther, partly because she tried to kill them, and mainly because she tries to kill Hope.

Ghost
Even as a ghost, Esther was set on eradicating the world of her granddaughter. Esther ordered the witches of New Orleans to kill Hope at all costs. Although this made her children hate her more, she was doing so to save her children from her sister Dahlia, who would kill her children to get the power of the firstborn Hope.

After being resurrected by Davina Claire, Esther's personality changed drastically. Esther realized that what she had done to her children was wrong, and even so, leaving Dahlia a millennium ago was too wrong. Esther showed no retaliation to helping her children kill her sister, although knowing that she too would die in the process.

Physical Appearance
Esther was a tall, slim and beautiful woman in her mid to late 40's, somewhere between 45-49. She has long natural blond hair and brown eyes. She had fine facial features, which testified to her Scandinavian origins. She did not use makeup in 10/11 century, but after returning to the life she began to emphasize her beauty. Long, flowing dresses she turned on aristocratic dress - her taste alluded to taste of her husband and children. Freya and Rebekah greatly resemble her, inheriting her pale skin and blonde hair along with features. Her sons (except Klaus) inherited the color of her eyes.

Powers and Abilities
According to Elijah, she was also a master of possession, with evidence provided by her possession of; Rebekah, Cassie, and the latest, Lenore. She was able to not only overwhelm the consciousness of each of the other women but able to leave them unharmed. Even in the bodies of other witches and not her original, she still displayed great power with pain infliction and telekinesis spells in order to harm original vampires. She would even use this skill in order to gain the upper hand over Kol. According to Klaus, Esther was also highly proficient in the art of producing magical talismans, evident by the indestructible White Oak Stake, an amulet that purposefully weakens werewolves, whom she had given to a young Klaus so that he would not trigger his Werewolf gene, and the creation of Daylight Rings. During her third life, she created a better moonlight ring for Werewolves for them to harness the full strength of their curse, an adapted version of Genevieve's crude spell. When the other side began to collapse she was able to resurrect her Werewolf lover, with no known balance. Other unusual feat, only she or various few other witches have been shown to be capable of controlling animals, specifically Starlings, creating minor Earth shakes with a wave of her hand, create a boundary with ashes within a matter of seconds with no incantation, Astral projection (while maintaining a conscious form), spells to invade the mind to sooth, block or to restore memories and (like her older sister and Bonnie) to control and disrupt electromagnetic signals of phones. She was also one of the first witches shown to utilize runes, as such when she sent Kol a message by marking his skin with a warning.

Esther was amongst the greatest and most powerful, dark witches in history, due to her various acts of great significance to the future, mostly negative.

In her first life, Esther was an accomplished witch, being known as the creator of the moonlight rings by combining various spells into one (for her werewolf lover). Esther's most notable spell was turning her Husband and Children into the world's first original vampires. She drew on multiple sources of power, such as the sun and the white oak tree for power and immortality. Despite being warned against doing so, by her friend and mentor, Ayana, she tapped into dark magic and performed the spell, giving a rise to a predatory species that spread throughout the world like a plague. Shortly thereafter, with her infidelity exposed with Klaus' first kill, Nature would not allow such a powerful creature to exist, thus she bound him with the hybrid curse, locking away his werewolf side. After the creation of vampires, she also created the daylight rings, used as protection against the sun. Eventually though Klaus ended her life.

During her time as a spirit in the afterlife, she still possessed great power, though only usable as long as her talisman in the living world remained intact. She managed to perform a spell from the other side to give Vicki a foothold in the world of the living, making her a corporeal ghost, though her magic was blocked by Bonnie who sent Vicki away.Esther then used Bonnie to wedge open a doorway between worlds, allowing various ghosts with unfinished business to return. Bonnie managed to undo this spell, with her Grams help by destroying Esther's only link to the living, her talisman, though it fixed itself immediately, much to Bonnie's surprise.

1,000 years after her death, Esther managed to resurrect herself in her preserved body, by channeling the entire Bennett witch Bloodline, including Qetsiyah, both living and dead. In her original body, she continued to demonstrate various feats of power and skill. She was able to link the original vampires with wine laced with Elena's Doppelgänger blood ( though the spell was reversed by Bonnie, who was forced by Klaus.) Esther planned on reversing her centuries-old curse thereby effectively curing all of her children, in the end, to kill them as humans, though due to Abby becoming a vampire, she lost her connection to the Bennett's Bloodline and unable to finish the spell. Do to her lost connection, she claimed that the spell that preserved her body and weakened and was dying. This was later shown to be a ploy in order to get close to Rebekah, whom she possessed Rebekah though she quickly returned to her body afterward once she obtained the white oak stake. Her skill allowed her to jump back into her own body. Even without channeling the Bennett bloodline, though using her own death spot, she was shown to have superior control over telekinesis and able to cloak and fight against a locator spell all the while to create the indestructible white oak by binding the protective magic, from Emily's protection spell on the Gilbert ring, to the stake. Prior to her second death, she channeled dark magic and the Doppelgänger once again in order to turn Alaric into an Enhanced Original Vampire, making him stronger and faster than her children, though she bound him to Elena, therefore, she was his only weakness. He too would turn against her and ended her second life.

Given her power, she was consecrated as a New Orleans witch, allowing Sophie to complete the Harvest ritual, which renews the power of hundreds of witches by reconnecting them to their dead ancestors. Even in spirit, she became leader of the New Orleans Ancestral Witches. Esther was also capable of bending the entire ancestral plane to her will, consequently controlling the New Orleans coven as a whole. Her control was so great, that she managed to force Genevive and the Quarter witches to kill Hope, in fear that Dahlia would come. Given a second attempt, she was able to perform another rare feat of self-resurrection, though this was more in the form of possession when instead of the last Harvest girl being resurrected, only her body was, though it was inhabited by Esther's spirit. Utilizing ancestral magic and knowledge of the other side, she was even able to pull and performed the same spell with her sons, Finn and Kol, by invoking their souls into the bodies of witches, Vincent and Kaleb, respectively. She ultimately 'purified' them by placing them into witch bodies, giving them back their magic. According to Elijah, she was also a master of possession, with evidence provided by her possession of; Rebekah, Cassie, and the latest, Lenore. She was able to not only overwhelm the consciousness of each of the other women but able to leave them unharmed. Even in the bodies of other witches and not her original, she still displayed great power with pain infliction and telekinesis spells in order to harm original vampires. She would even use this skill in order to gain the upper hand over Kol. According to Klaus, Esther was also highly proficient in the art of producing magical talismans, evident by the indestructible White Oak Stake, an amulet that purposefully weakens werewolves, whom she had given to a young Klaus so that he would not trigger his Werewolf gene, and the creation of Daylight Rings. During her third life, she created a better moonlight ring for Werewolves for them to harness the full strength of their curse, an adapted version of Genevieve's crude spell. When the other side began to collapse she was able to resurrect her Werewolf lover, with no known balance. Other unusual feat, only she or various few other witches have been shown to be capable of controlling animals, specifically Starlings, creating minor Earth shakes with a wave of her hand, create a boundary with ashes within a matter of seconds with no incantation, Astral projection (while maintaining a conscious form), spells to invade the mind to sooth, block or to restore memories and (like her older sister and Bonnie) to control and disrupt electromagnetic signals of phones. She was also one of the first witches shown to utilize runes, as such when she sent Kol a message by marking his skin with a warning. However, Esther was not always the great and powerful witch as known to the supernatural community. Instead, it was recently revealed that what led Esther to improve her power and tapping into dark magic again was the loss of her first-born child, her daughter Freya whom she had to give to her elder sister Dahlia, a much more powerful witch at the time as a part of their bargain. On that day, Esther angrily promised her sister that she will rise in the black arts and become a powerful witch in order to avenge her daughter, despite her achievements, Esther's powers and abilities are still inferior to that of her older sister Dahlia.

Weaknesses
Esther had the typical weaknesses of a witch.