The Vampire Diaries (Books)

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Warning: These articles will contain detailed spoilers about the characters and events of the books. Proceed with caution if you haven't read the books.

Contents

The Books

The Vampire Diaries is a series of YA books by author L.J. Smith. Click in the titles below to go to their articles, which contain very detailed and spoilery synopses of the books.

The Original Series

The Return Trilogy

 

Overall Synopsis

Magazine ad for original release of book series. With thanks to Elektra Pendragon. (Click to see full size.)

In the first book of the original series, The Awakening, Elena Gilbert is a high-school senior who is popular and beautiful but lonely. When an attractive Italian boy enrolls at her school and ignores her attempts to attract his attention, she determines she’ll make him hers. However, Stefan Salvatore is a vampire trying to start a new life for himself, and he is rejecting Elena because she is the near-perfect double of his lost love, Katherine von Swartzschild. Katherine changed both Stefan and his older brother, Damon Salvatore, into vampires five hundred years ago; she then committed suicide and the brothers killed one another because each blamed the other for her death. Even when Stefan admits he loves Elena and starts dating her, he initially keeps his nature a secret. Elena discovers the truth after a teacher is murdered on Halloween and the town blames Stefan for it. Elena believes, however, that the killer isn’t Stefan but the more powerful Damon, who’s been trying to seduce her on the sly. Stefan confronts Damon and warns him to stay away from Elena, but Damon says he intends to make Elena his own, and the book ends with violence between the two brothers.

In the second book, The Struggle, Stefan and Elena find themselves in growing conflict with Damon. Damon tries to persuade Elena to abandon Stefan in favor of him and continues to threaten Stefan. Elena attempts to protect Stefan by not telling him how Damon has tricked her into blood exchanges with him. Meanwhile, Elena’s diary has been stolen by other high school students who intend to use it to make the town believe that Stefan is responsible for a rash of assaults and the teacher’s murder. When Elena finally is unable to find a solution and confesses the truth to Stefan, he promises to help her and stay with her no matter what happens, and the two become engaged. However, it is Damon who saves Elena and Stefan by stealing Elena’s diary back. The attack of a supernatural force causes Elena to drown unexpectedly, and Stefan, who believes Damon is responsible, tries to kill Damon in revenge.

In the third book, The Fury, Elena wakes up as a vampire and interrupts the brothers’ fight to the death. She identifies the force that killed her as someone other than Damon, and the three vampires band together to find it, despite the continuing tensions between Stefan and Damon. In the end, the Other Power is finally identified as Katherine von Swartzschild, who - it turns out - faked her suicide, and has since gone insane. Elena manages to kill Katherine but dies in the fight. Stefan and Damon make her a deathbed promise to end their conflict and look after one another.

In the fourth book, Dark Reunion, Elena’s high school friends receive messages from Elena’s spirit just before one of them is killed in a mysterious attack that seems to have supernatural elements. Elena’s friends summon Stefan to help them fight the new evil. Stefan and Damon arrive, but before they can identify the killer, another human girl is killed and a high school boy is identified as a werewolf. The killer turns out to be the ultra-powerful vampire Klaus, who made Katherine von Swartzschild into a vampire, and to whom she returned after her fake suicide. All of Elena’s friends receive mortal wounds on the battlefield, but Elena’s spirit appears and heals them; she also summons an army of restless Civil War spirits, who carry a screaming Klaus away into the night. When Elena comes back to life, now a normal human girl again, and is reunited with Stefan, the original series has a happy ending.

In the fifth book (first of the Return trilogy), Nightfall, the newly returned Elena appears more like an angel than a human being. She has White Powers and four sets of magic wings that can, respectively, allow her to fly, cause people to remember, redeem people from their sins, and destroy supernatural contaminating influences. Two malicious kitsune twins attack the town, causing hostile trees to walk and monstrous tentacled creatures called malach to possess humans. Damon is possessed by one of the tentacled creatures, and under its influence he helps one of the kitsune kidnap Stefan. Damon then pursues Elena, who flees and fights him until she is badly wounded. Damon heals Elena, who uses her magic wings to free him of the tentacled creature possessing him. Damon, Elena, and her friends fight the two kitsune, who are eventually defeated. To rescue Stefan, though, Damon and Elena will have to find the two halves of the kitsunes’ magic key. They set out to do so at the end of the book.

Inconsistencies in the Original Series

  • Meredith's Grandfather: In The Fury Meredith says that her grandfather was attacked by a vampire before she was born.[1] Yet in Dark Reunion she states he was attacked on her birthday, and that he then went on to attack her grandmother and herself.[2]
  • Klaus' Death: In The Fury Katherine says that she killed Klaus a century or two after she turned Stefan and Damon into vampires.[3] In Dark Reunion Klaus is very much present and active.
  • Vickie's Ability to See in the Dark: In Dark Reunion Vickie describes Klaus' attack vividly: "He's tall. . . . He's reaching for me, laughing. But Sue screams, 'No, no' and tries to pull me away. So he takes her instead. The window's broken, and the balcony is right there. . . . And then I watch him--I watch him throw her . . . ." She is also able to see well enough to describe Klaus' clothing and the color of his hair and eyes.[4] However, Bonnie describes the house as being pitch black because the electricity is out. The electricity does not come on until after Klaus throws Sue out the window.[5] In addition, the two versions of the scene are slightly different as to whether Klaus breaks the window when he enters, or when he throws Sue to her death.
  • Dr. Feinberg: In The Struggle, Bonnie gives details about Mr. Tanner's autopsy. According to Bonnie, she learned the details from her sister Mary, who heard them from Dr. Feinberg, who heard them from the medical examiner.[6] In The Fury, Dr. Feinberg is the one who finds the body to have been exsanguinated and lacerations made in the throat.[7]
  • Matt Watching Mrs. Flowers: In Dark Reunion Matt says, "When I think of the days we spent watching her potter around that basement--do you think she knew we were watching?"[8] In The Fury Matt was in denial about Elena being alive and vampires existing while the rest of them kept an eye out for the Other Power. He only came onboard after they gave up spying on people and decided to patrol the dance; he never spied on Mrs. Flowers himself.

Differences Between the Original Series and the Return Trilogy

There are several differences and inconsistencies between the original books published in 1991 and the Return trilogy published in 2009 onwards.

Nightfall

  • Technology: The original series states that it was set in 1991/92, with very little use of technology. No character has a mobile phone, Caroline has a Polaroid camera, and there is only one reference to email.[9] In the Return trilogy, set only a week later, the characters make use of video-capable mobile phones, digital cameras, computers and the internet.
  • Animal Forms: Damon's forms in the original series are a crow and a wolf. In the Return trilogy, his bird form is also referred to as a raven. Stefan's bird form is a falcon,[10] yet in Nightfall his bird form is that of a hawk.[11]
  • Matt's Dad: In The Fury Matt states that his dad died.[12] In the Return trilogy, his parents are referred to, implying his dad is alive.
  • Damon Entering Caroline's house: In The Struggle Damon tells Elena how he retrieved her diary from Caroline's house: "I got invited in for coffee this morning after scraping up an acquaintance last week."[13] In the Return trilogy, Damon is unable to enter the house and must ask Caroline for an invitation.[14]
  • Principal's Gender: In The Fury the principal of Robert E. Lee High School is identified as "Mr. Newcastle" and "Brian."[15] In Nightfall Meredith tells Sheriff Mossberg that the principal can vouch for Matt "if she's not on vacation."[16]
  • Town Doctor: In the original series, Dr. Feinberg is a minor recurring character and the only doctor referenced by name. In Nightfall, Dr. Feinberg is never mentioned and we are told that Dr. Alpert is a town institution.[17]
  • Car Color: In Dark Reunion Damon drives a black Ferrari.[18] In Nightfall his Ferrari has become yellow.[19]
  • Stefan and the Police: In the first three books of the original series, Stefan Salvatore is suspected of the murder of Mr. Tanner and assaults on Vickie Bennett and the homeless man. The police informally question him.[20] In Dark Reunion Stefan carefully avoids being seen because he felt sure Fell's Church didn't want his help. He was a stranger again, an intruder here. They would hurt him if they caught him. One week later in Nightfall, Stefan openly shops for a car and fills out the paperwork in his own name. Matt tells the sheriff that his friend, Stefan Salvatore, owns the car parked in front of Matt's house. Other than saying he'd like to speak to Stefan, the sheriff completely fails to react to the name of someone suspected of murder and multiple assault a mere six months before.[21]
  • Talking about the Supernatural: In Nightfall Stefan reminds Bonnie and the others that no one can know that Elena has come back from the dead. Bonnie is indignant: "We've stuck together through rogue vampires and the town's ghost, and werewolves, and Old Ones, and secret crypts, and serial killings, . . . and have we ever told people about them?"[22] Bonnie seems to have forgotten that she herself took both of Elena's diaries to the public library the previous December and put them on display so that people can pick them up and read them. Because the truth is in here. This is where the real story is. And I don't want anyone to forget it.[23] She also seems to have forgotten how upset she was after Sue's death when no one--not parents, not police, and not teenagers--was willing to admit that there might be a supernatural cause.[24]

 

Comparisons to Twilight

Elena vs. Bella Elena Gilbert is a popular, self-assured blonde who knows what she wants and goes after it. Bella Swan is a quiet, isolated brunette who has little self-confidence or experience with boys.

Stefan Salvatore vs. Edward Cullen Stefan was born several hundred years ago in Italy and died fighting his brother over a girl. Edward died a century ago in America of disease. He had never been in love or a relationship with a girl. Both do have old-fashioned views of male protectiveness but fall for very different girls.

Major Plot Points In The Vampire Diaries Elena Gilbert tries to solve the mystery of the new boy at school. She has a close group of friends that help her to win over Stefan's affection and to solve the mystery of his identity. In Twilight Bella is the new student at a school and Edward is the one drawn to her first, and unlike Stefan, Edward's "family" is supportive and not evil.

Types of VampiresThe Twilight vampires cannot go out in the sunlight because their flesh "sparkles." They are fast, strong, immortal, and seem to have skin that is marble-like in hardness and temperature. The vampires' eye color is dependent upon the type of blood they are ingesting and how recent they have fed. These vampires have what is known as venom in their bite, which causes extreme pain in the victim and causes the victim to change into a vampire. In The Vampire Diaries the vampires are allowed in sunlight with the use of a talisman made of lapis lazuli. They are also strong, fast, and immortal, but maintain their mortal eye color and do not have venom in their bite. The bite is described as pleasurable and only causes a change in the victim with the introduction of the vampire's blood into the victim.

Links

References

  1. ^ ch. 11, The Fury
  2. ^ ch. 2, Dark Reunion
  3. ^ ch. 14, The Fury
  4. ^ ch. 6, Dark Reunion
  5. ^ ch. 3, Dark Reunion
  6. ^ ch. 6, The Struggle
  7. ^ ch. 11, The Fury
  8. ^ ch. 5, Dark Reunion
  9. ^ ch. 3, Dark Reunion
  10. ^ ch. 16, The Struggle
  11. ^ ch. 16, Nightfall
  12. ^ ch. 12, The Fury
  13. ^ ch. 14, The Struggle
  14. ^ ch. 1, Nightfall
  15. ^ ch. 4, The Fury
  16. ^ ch. 18, Nightfall
  17. ^ ch. 20, Nightfall
  18. ^ ch. 5, Dark Reunion
  19. ^ ch. 21, Nightfall
  20. ^ ch. 5, The Struggle
  21. ^ ch. 18, Nightfall
  22. ^ ch. 3, Nightfall
  23. ^ ch. 16, The Fury
  24. ^ ch. 3, Dark Reunion
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