The CW’s supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries had quite an impressive run, and over the course of its eight seasons the characters on the show went through more than they could have imagined and learned more about themselves than they would have ever thought possible. And because they found themselves in so many life and death situations that required them to do horrible things in order to survive, all of the characters need to be judged on a pretty gray moral spectrum.
However, the same can’t be said for the legendary role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, because D&D is very much about the battle of good versus evil. Although the characters on TVD have all had their ups and downs, ultimately they either ended the series with red in their ledger or they didn’t. So with that in mind, here are the D&D character alignments of the characters in The Vampire Diaries.
Klaus Mikaelson - Lawful Evil
Klaus Mikaelson is undeniably one of the worst, most deliciously cruel and evil characters in the history of The Vampire Diaries. And although Klaus doesn’t follow anyone else’s rules or instructions, he seems to believe that his own rules and commands are pretty much law.
And in typical Klaus fashion, any deviance from those laws are universally punishable by death. Klaus seems to be a pretty clearly lawful evil character. Even if his behaviors aren’t predictable to the people who are witnessing them they make total and complete sense inside of his own head, and obviously he thinks everyone should understand that.
Alaric Saltzman - True Neutral
Alaric Saltzman is a character who’s morality seemed to fluctuate throughout the course of TVD, and even though he started things off as a pretty morally upright vampire hunter he eventually wound up pretty firmly on team vampire.
We can’t judge him for becoming BFF’s with Damon, obviously Damon has quite a bit of charm, but the very fact that Alaric was so ready and willing to overlook the utterly monstrous things that Damon does on the regular would seem to indicate that his morals are more guided by the people that he cares about than any sense of objective justice and righteousness.
Jeremy Gilbert - Chaotic Neutral
Jeremy Gilbert initially seemed like he was a relatively average, if slightly emo, teenage boy. But once he got wind of the existence of the supernatural absolutely everything changed.
When he first found out that vampires existed he fully intended to become one himself, but later on in the series it was revealed that he was basically the boy version of Buffy the vampire slayer, and ultimately he wound up having the highest vampire body count in the entire show. Probably in the entire world. Jeremy’s morality is somewhat flexible, but he definitely tends to bring a fair amount of chaos wherever he goes.
Tyler Lockwood - Chaotic Good
The vast majority of characters on The Vampire Diaries seem to be primarily concerned with protecting the people they love. That’s certainly easy to understand, but that also means that their guidelines for right and wrong can change on a whim. Tyler Lockwood seemed like the most unlikely of heroes, but he was pretty much the only character in the series that actually tried to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing.
He freed the hybrids from Klaus even though he barely knew them and it posed a great danger to himself, which makes him a pretty solidly chaotic good character.
Matt Donovan - Lawful Good
Matt Donovan was really the only stable representation of humanity throughout TVD’s long run, and despite the fact that he obviously did compromise his morals on occasion in service of saving someone he cared for, he, for the most part, was one of the few characters who’s moral compass seemed to aim straight.
Matt tries his best to operate within the guidelines of the human world, and he tries to do as much good, or at least mitigate as much damage, as he can. And since he decided to join the Mystic Falls police force it seems pretty undeniable that he’s a lawful good character.
Bonnie Bennett - Neutral Good
Most of the characters on The Vampire Diaries eventually paid very little mind to the greater good or to the dangerous and sometimes deadly effect that they could have on so many innocent bystanders, but Bonnie Bennett never lost sight of that.
Bonnie would absolutely go out of her way to help her friends, and she’d prioritize the people that she cared about over strangers, but she also wouldn’t hesitate to foil her friend’s plans if those plans could potentially result in serious collateral damage. And Bonnie doesn’t need rules to understand what’s ethically right, she understands it inherently, which is why she is a neutral good character.
Caroline Forbes - Neutral Evil
Calling Caroline Forbes a neutral evil character isn’t entirely fair to her, because all of the supernatural characters on The Vampire Diaries, especially the vampires, have to operate on a much more ethically relative playing field than the rest of us.
So in the context of standard human ethics, Caroline is undoubtedly an evil character. She has done whatever it took to protect herself and the people around her, and she doesn’t seem to beat herself up about doing terrible things. However, in terms of the average vampire, Caroline does try to be a halfway decent person, she just seems to understand that her nature fundamentally contradicts that.
Elena Gilbert - Chaotic Evil
Elena Gilbert is a character who undoubtedly sees herself as a decent person, but the reality of everything she’s done is nothing short of monstrous. Elena is a character who has quite an intense god complex, and she’s not one to typically think things through in any kind of emergency situation.
And that recklessness combined with her inability to understand that doing terrible things does in fat make you a terrible person is why she falls into the chaotic evil category of character alignments. Elena’s very existence seems to be a cause of chaos, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good that comes out of what she does.
Damon Salvatore - Chaotic Evil
Apparently Damon and Elena really were written in the stars. Damon certainly isn’t under the impression that he’s a remotely decent person, and his inability to regulate his own emotions combined with the fact that he already sees himself as leaning towards the evil side of the good-evil spectrum means that he often wreaks havoc wherever he goes.
Damon has good days and bad days, but on his good days he rarely does any good deeds, whereas on his bad days he usually goes on a murder spree. Just like Elena, Damon falls into the category of chaotic evil, but he seems to accept that and even take delight in it.
Stefan Salvatore - Lawful Evil
It’s easy to see why Stefan was so insanely obsessed with the rules and restrictions that he put on himself. Because whenever he let himself step even a toe out of line, he immediately transformed into one of the most violent and dangerous vampires in history.
Stefan at least deserves a little credit for giving it the old college try, but maintaining his blood sobriety for long stretches and then going absolutely wild when he falls off the wagon kind of negates all of that trying. Plus, he never really stopped anyone from doing horrendous things even when he was on the straight and narrow. Stefan seems like a pretty picture-perfect lawful evil character.
