Remember how just a few short weeks ago when I started this blog series I couldn’t say enough nice things about Damon Salvatore? At the time I was a bit obsessed with him and was watching The Vampire Diaries (TVD) like a fiend. But there’s a new vampire occupying all of my daydreams right now, and he too started as a character on TVD. Now, I’ll admit that I always enjoyed his appearances in the series and looked forward to him coming back since he’s a scary vampire, an interesting character, and exceptionally easy on the eyes. Over the past two weeks I’ve been watching the first season of The Originals, which is the spinoff show that deals with the family of original vampires that first appeared on TVD.

If you know me, you know I love vampires. I love all kinds of vampires—scary ones, sexy ones, sociopathic ones, silly ones, sympathetic ones, but I try to avoid sparkly ones. In fact, of the 21 posts I wrote this month three have been about vampires. Like I said, I started this series with Damon, then I wrote about John Mitchell and Spike. I compare Francis Dolarhyde to a vampire, and even included a picture of Tom Hiddleston portraying a vampire in my post about Loki. In all likelihood I will be writing about vampires in future posts when this series becomes a monthly feature on my blog. The point is I like vampires. The fourth vampire in this series is without a doubt totally fuckable.

February 29: Elijah Mikaelson

Elijah Mikaelson is the eldest brother in the original vampire family. He made his first appearance on TVD as an antagonist who plays a part in the Katherine Pierce and Elena Gilbert doppelgänger story arc but over time he becomes an ally and a recurring protagonist. Elijah’s first appearance on screen is the first in a series of his elegant ass-kicking scenes. The fact that he remains completely calm and shows no emotion while explaining how he’s going to kill everyone in the room before they can even think to run, makes him one of the scariest vampires on TV.

As one of the first vampires, he is unable to be killed. He, his siblings and his father can only be killed using a stake made from a white ash tree that was also enchanted when the matriarch of the Mikaelson clan, a powerful witch, cast the spell to make her children and husband vampires. When someone becomes a vampire, the strongest part of his or her personality becomes amplified, and interestingly enough, Elijah’s strongest quality is morality. Of all of the legendary original vampires, he is known as the noble one.

He’s also wonderfully sarcastic and a bit of a smart ass. He enjoys tormenting others by pointing out their folly and the fact that if he decides to kill them they don’t have a chance in Hell to defend themselves.

He is very restrained, almost repressed in some ways, and prefers logic to overly emotional responses to bad situations, unless one of his siblings or another person he cares deeply for is in danger. Then, he simply ratchets up the violence without even raising his blood pressure. He is exceptionally fast and powerful, spooky intelligent, and has a knack for rescuing damsels in distress. Sentimentality could be considered one of his weaknesses, and despite the fact that you can rarely guess what’s going on in his mind, he is a passionate and caring individual, but don’t take his kindness for granted.

He cares about his appearance a great deal and wears stylish suits, designer men’s wear, and seems to almost never have a hair out of place. In fact, the only time he really gets dirty is when he’s saving someone from explosions and/or fires, is the victim of torture when someone manages to get the drop on him, and when he’s covered in blood – usually someone else’s.

He has blood on his hands a lot, because his favored method of killing is to reach inside someone’s chest to rip their heart out. It’s kind of his thing.

I mean, every other vampire gets pissed and the fangs come out. Not Elijah. He doesn’t run around willy nilly biting people. He’ll just snatch the heart out of your chest before you realize it’s even happening.

Elijah is a vampire who, no matter how violent he gets, manages to inspire empathy in the viewers. In the more than 1000 years that he’s been alive, he has spent most of that time looking after his siblings and trying to save his brother Klaus from himself. And, that’s a full-time job. He neglects his own happiness, denies his own desires, and conspires with and often against his siblings to make sure they don’t end up making the biggest mistakes of their lives, which they do on a nearly weekly basis.

Although he is not as quick to fall in love as his sister Rebekah, he develops deep affection and admiration for a number of women in both series. Because he has a long history with Katherine Pierce, who he calls by her given name, Katerina, he is a constant in her life throughout their histories. Klaus had been seeking revenge against Katherine since the Renaissance, and I can’t help wonder if Elijah was one of the reasons Katherine was able to stay ahead of Klaus for so long.

When Elijah meets Elena, much like Stefan and Damon, he is a little awestruck by the fact that she looks exactly like Katherine. He conspires with Elena and the Salvatore brothers to keep Elena safe from Klaus, and in the process he becomes a bit infatuated with her.

Elena isn’t blind, and she definitely has a thing for vampires. She chooses to trust Elijah time and again, and even calls on him for help behind Stefan’s and Damon’s back. Would she be so willing to trust this cordial, yet ruthless killer if he wasn’t so attractive?

I have to admit that I was really hoping to see an Elijah and Elena scene where he kissed her. And then I got my wish. While pretending to be Katherine, Elena discovers that he has been having a secret affair with her doppelgänger, because he greets her like a lover and kisses her. I’m sure she told herself she was just staying in character as the kiss lingered, but I’m not buying it. She kissed him without thinking twice about it. And she liked it. Elijah didn’t seem to mind very much when he realized he was kissing Elena. Win-win.

I got really excited when his appearances on TVD became more frequent, and when the spinoff was announced I was glad to know that Elijah wasn’t going anywhere. As his character continued to develop, he became more interesting. His sexiest quality is his confidence. Unlike his brother Klaus, he doesn’t feel the need to boast and brag about his accomplishments and power. He is the calm at the eye of the storm, but he’s also a highly skilled killing machine. He rarely feeds, and only takes human blood out of necessity to speed up healing when he’s been injured. If he does drink blood more often than that, then he does it in private, because he’s usually the one offering his blood to help others.

I mentioned the fact that in many ways he represses his own urges and desires. He has been in love, but it’s a rare occurrence. When he does find love, he falls hard and almost imprints on that person. Because many of his love affairs have ended in tragedy due to his constant involvement in Klaus’s life, he tries to avoid relationships.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of sexual tension between him and the women he admires and desires. He holds back almost constantly, which I’m sure would drive some women completely insane. I can’t tell you how many scenes he has with female characters where you think at any moment he’s going to kiss them, almost does, then runs away using his vampire super speed. If I had to guess, I would say that in some sense he prefers the chase, and the continual denial of sexual release is actually a fetish. And there’s one scene in the first season of The Originals that we learn he has a taste for spanking his partners. I think I nearly fainted when he playfully suggested it to his lover, a black witch, in a flashback to the 1700’s. Another layer of the onion was revealed.

As much as I love his romantic scenes, his violence is like a beautiful dance of death.

I mean there is so much to like about this handsome monster.

His elegant hand gestures.

His love of old books.

The joy he finds in fatherhood.

And the pain he feels when he loses someone he loves.

If you aren’t watching The Originals or have never seen The Vampire Diaries, I recommend checking them out. The shows are supernatural soap operas on crack with all the eye candy your filthy little mind cares to feast upon.