Who Does Elena End Up With On The Vampire Diaries? It's Complicated

The entire conceit of The CW's "The Vampire Diaries" is the eternal struggle between two hunky brothers: Stefan (Paul Wesley), the more empathetic of the two but with an addiction to human blood, and Damon (Ian Somerhalder), a loose canon with a heart of gold buried deep, deep down. At the end of the day, you can't go wrong choosing either of them. Both have their virtues and pitfalls. But by the end of "The Vampire Diaries," divisive Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) makes her choice — for better or worse.

After turning into a vampire, Elena makes her ultimate choice for Damon. The course of vampiric love doesn't run smoothly, and the two have a lot of twists along the way. She breaks poor Stefan's heart, settling down with Damon, only for him to become trapped in a prison world. Thinking that Damon's dead, she wipes their entire relationship from her memory, which makes things a little complicated when Damon returns, no worse for wear.

Damon even decides to become human for her — a wildly out-of-character move for him — because Elena takes the convenient cure for vampirism. But even as it seems they can sail into the sunset together, tragedy strikes. Dobrev was leaving the show, and to write her off, Kai (Chris Wood) gleefully puts Elena into a mystical sleep. Dobrev only returns in the series finale when Bonnie (Kat Graham) finds a way to revive her best friend. And just like that, Elena and Damon have their happy ending. They grow old together and walk hand in hand into the afterlife.

Even though "The Vampire Diaries" wrapped up years ago, the eternal struggle between Stefan and Damon remains. That is the strength of the show. There is no drama if only one brother is the obvious choice. But is Damon actually the love of Elena's life? The series certainly wants viewers to think so, but in retrospect, it's arguably a toxic relationship. Once they get together, each sacrifices their sense of self to make it work. Elena, defined by her compassionate nature and altruism, always has to compromise on her ideals. And any time Damon gets the slightest pushback from Elena, he goes on a killing rampage she has to make excuses for. When they are together, they create a codependent dynamic. It is so unhealthy that Elena cannot move on from Damon's supposed death in Season 6 without erasing her entire memory of their romance.

Is that really relationship goals? Stefan may not be the brooding bad boy that is so popular with fans, but he never made Elena compromise herself. Stefan's tendency to turn into a Ripper pales in comparison to all the deaths that Damon has caused — remember when he killed Elena's brother in front of her because she rejected him? Ultimately, Damon and Elena end up together because they are a couple that is full of passion. But it doesn't mean it's a relationship young people should be aspiring for.