The Vampire Diaries: 10 Things That Only Make Sense If You Read The Books – Screen Rant

The CW TV series The Vampire Diaries is based on a book series by LJ Smith, but what elements of the series only make sense to book readers?

Ostensibly the long running CW series The Vampire Diaries was based on the book series of the same name, written by LJ Smith. But unsurprisingly, while TVD seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from it's novel counterpart, the differences between the books and the television series were quite stark.

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However, the show did go out of it's way to pay homage to it's originator, and it often incorporated elements of the book series in some way, even if it wasn't a perfect adaptation. So what elements of The Vampire Diaries TV show can only be fully understood and appreciated through the lens of the book series?

In the TV series, it seems that a big reason why Katherine is so interested in Elena is because she wants to get Klaus off of her back, and Elena is the easiest way to do that. But that also means that torturing Elena the way that she does doesn't seem to be in her best interest.

But this might be a reference to the books as well, where Katherine also can't resist the temptation to torment Elena because she's jealous that she has the Salvatore's attention.

It's interesting that Damon and Stefan's house in The Vampire Diaries is always referred to as the Salvatore Boarding House. Historically it obviously was a boarding house, however it's been years since it was used as a boarding house and there is no particular narrative relevance to it once being one.

However this is likely a book reference as well, because in the books Katherine actually met Damon and Stefan while she was staying at the Salvatore Boarding House.

In the books, Katherine was originally known as Katherine or Katerina von Swartzchild, a young girl from Germany. For the TV series, Katherine was transformed into Katerina Petrova, a young Bulgarian girl instead.

Clearly the difference in origins was designed to play to Nina Dobrev's strengths, as it was considerably easier for her to perform scenes in Bulgarian (Dobrev was born in Bulgaria) than it would have been for her to perform in German.

Notably, in the flashbacks of TVD the TV series, Damon is portrayed as a Confederate soldier who has deserted the army because of his personal disagreement with their cause.

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And while Damon is not a Confederate soldier in the book series, he is a mercenary soldier. Given that Damon is portrayed in the TV show as a soldier but not Stefan, it seems likely that the show's writers were inspired by this little tidbit from the books.

Although Katherine seems to ultimately wind up loathing Damon and she claims that Stefan was the one she was always truly drawn to and in love with, she seemed to be pretty into both brothers for a very long time in the TV series. The same goes for the books.

Actually, the book version of Katherine took things a step further, in the books both Stefan and Damon wanted to marry her, and instead of choosing one of them she literally gave them both rings and expected that they would live together forever.

In the book series, the superpowers that are available to vampires are much more extensive than they are in the TV series. And one of the notable powers that exists in the books but not the show is the ability of vampires to turn into animals.

TVD didn't take things that far, but they certainly hinted at Damon potentially having the power to control animals with the strange crow that was following Elena in the earliest days of the series.

Although the storyline overall is completely different, Elena's death and turn to vampirism is nearly identical to the death and turn that she experiences in the book series. She is driving in her car, gets in an accident, goes off of a bridge and crashes in a river, and she ultimately drowns and is turned into a vampire.

However there is one major difference. In the TV series it's Rebekah who runs Elena off the road, but in the books it's Katherine.

Much like in the TV show, Alaric Saltzman mysteriously shows up in town and seems to be playing a normal teacher by day, but a vampire hunter by night.

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And the motivation for Alaric's sudden appearance in Mystic Falls is his missing and presumed dead wife who was allegedly killed by Damon, but in the books he arrives in Fell's Church simply because the town is aware they have a vampire problem and they want a hunter to deal with it.

Oh yeah, and the names of the towns in the books and TV show are actually different. The town that Elena and the rest of her compatriots live in according to the books is a place called Fell's Church, but in the TV show it was changed to a slightly more magical sounding Mystic Falls.

However the show didn't abandon Fell's Church completely, instead of being the name of the town it's the name of an old church that used to exist in the town.

It's not entirely unbelievable, but it was a bit strange that a family of Italians wound up in an upstart town in Virginia in the 1800's, however this is clearly another holdover from the books.

Originally Damon and Stefan weren't actually from a town in Virginia, but they were born in Florence, Italy during the Italian Renaissance, making them far older in the book series as well.

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The Vampire Diaries: 10 Things That Only Make Sense If You Read The Books - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero