Aaron Whitmore

Aaron Whitmore IV was a character who first appeared in the fifth episode of the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries. He was a student at Whitmore College who was close friends with Megan King until her death. He was befriended by Elena and revealed to be the ward of Dr. Wes Maxfield as well as a legacy to the Augustine Society. He was killed by Damon Salvatore in The Devil Inside.
Aaron was a member of the Whitmore Family.
==Early History==
Not much is known about Aaron's early life, but he did told Elena that all his life, people he cared for died. This cycle of tragedy began with the deaths of his parents, Ashley and Aaron Whitmore III, who died when he was just six years old in 1997.
==Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series==
===Season Five===
Elena met Aaron at her former roommate Megan's memorial site after she was killed, and he informed her that he had been Megan's friend since childhood. She tried to make further conversation with him, but he walked away from her. Elena later ran into Aaron again at the Halloween party. Elena was suspicious of him and determined to learn who really killed her roommate, so she compelled him into answering her questions. He revealed that he didn't kill Megan, and that he was instead being hostile toward her because he believed himself to be cursed due to the fact that everyone he knew ended up dying. Elena then compelled him to forget the conversation and left him alone after she realized that they were alike in that way. At the end of the party, Wes ordered Aaron to give him his car keys as he was too drunk to be driving. Aaron asked him for cab money, and when he did, Wes also reminded that he cared about Aaron and encouraged him to stay away from Elena.
Aaron later mistook Katherine for Elena when she impersonated her at the Augustine Society mixer for new recruits at Whitmore House, where she was trying to gain information about the organization. When Katherine asked him if he was a member of the society, he was confused and had no idea what she was talking about. He became even more unnerved when he saw Katherine cough up one of her teeth as she began experiencing the side effects of taking The Cure, though he never mentioned it again.
in Dead Man on Campus, a frightened Jesse, who was Aaron's roommate, attacked and fed on Aaron after escaping from Wes' secret lab where he experimented on vampires. However, Caroline and Elena taught Jesse how to heal and compel people, and Jesse fed Aaron his blood to heal him and compelled him to forget what happened. Elena later invited Aaron to her party, though he initially declined until Elena, having accidentally mentioned something she had previously compelled him to forget, ended up compelling him to come to the party anyway. Later, Aaron arrived at the party, and when Elena greeted him with jello shots, he remarked on the fact that Wes told him to stay away from her. They then began to share stories of their tragic pasts, and Aaron confessed that his parents were killed in a "bear attack" when his family were on a camping trip. He also revealed that Wes took him in after all of the rest of his family members were killed, making him the only family he had left.
In The Cell, Elena came to Aaron's dorm to inform him of Jesse's death, which was ruled to be a suicide (though, in reality, Elena had to stake him to prevent him from killing Damon after it was revealed he was an Augustine vampire.) Aaron, saddened, lamented the fact that everyone around him eventually died. While conversing with Elena, she informed him about the circumstances of Megan's death, and dropped a hint that both Megan and Jesse's causes of death were ruled as suicides by Wes. Aaron, suspicious of Wes' involvement in his friends' deaths, formally invited Elena into the Whitmore House and revealed his last name to be Whitmore as well, meaning he had essentially inherited the school when his parents died. Wes then sneaked up on them and injected Elena with vervain before taking her down into the vampire cells in Wes' basement lab. Wes was then forced to inform Aaron about the "Whitmore family legacy," and how his family had known about the existence of vampires for decades and have historically studied and experimented on them in hopes of creating medical breakthroughs for humans.  
He also explained his own research, which involved making vampires crave the blood of their own kind so they would no longer be threats to humans. Wes gave Aaron his father's watch, which had been passed down the family for years, and which contains vervain to protect the wearer from vampires. Afterward, Wes officially explained the truth about Aaron's parents' deaths at the hands of a vampire in hopes of recruiting Aaron to Augustine's cause. Aaron, furious at the fact that he had been lied to all his life, punched Wes in the face and knocked him out before grabbing his watch and a gun to confront Elena in the cells, believing her to be the vampire who killed his family. Damon then was forced to reveal that it was actually he who was responsible for killing Aaron's parents, as it was part of his revenge against Dr. Whitmore and Augustine to punish them for torturing him for five years—he planned to kill Dr. Whitmore and all of his immediate family, leaving one member behind to spawn the next generation of Whitmores, who would then all be killed except for one, and so on. When Damon also revealed that he had even killed Aaron's aunt Sarah, the last biological relative of Aaron's to be his guardian, Aaron angrily shot Damon in the head, temporarily neutralizing him.  
In Fifty Shades of Grayson, Damon teamed up with Stefan to hold Aaron hostage to use as leverage so they could rescue Elena from Wes, who had been captured and used in his experiments at an unknown location. When Damon threatened to kill Aaron if Wes didn't hand Elena over, Wes threatened to kill Elena if he harmed Aaron. Wes then instructed them to bring Aaron to his classroom, where he claimed he would be waiting with Elena. However, this was revealed to be a trap when Stefan, Damon and Aaron arrived to the classroom to find Damon's former cellmate Enzo, who Wes had let out to kill Damon in retribution for leaving him behind when he escaped Augustine in 1958.
While Damon fought Enzo, Aaron took Stefan to his dorm to look for information to where Elena could be, but once there, Aaron attempted to trick him and shoot him, though he was easily disarmed. Stefan, furious that Aaron would waste valuable time while Elena was possibly being tortured, started to choke him, but Aaron tried to goad him into actually killing him, as he believed his death was inevitable as long as Damon was still around. Stefan then released him, insisting that he wasn't like his brother, and Aaron, relieved, gave Stefan the documents he promised, which led Stefan to realize Elena was being kept at Grayson Gilbert's old medical practice in Mystic Falls. After Stefan had overpowered Wes and rescued Elena before she could be injected with his "cannibal Ripper compound," Aaron arrived at the lab and punched Wes in the face again, as he felt hurt and betrayed that Wes would risk Aaron being killed by Stefan and Damon just so he could keep experimenting on vampires. Aaron then demanded that Wes stay away for him, but not before taking Wes' "Ripper compound" with him so he couldn't use it on other vampires.
In The Devil Inside, he went to Elena's dorm room to apologize to her, only to find Caroline instead. Aaron asked Caroline to assure Elena that Wes would no longer be an issue, as his trust fund finally had been transferred to him, and the first thing he did was cut off Wes' funding so he couldn't use it to torture vampires anymore. When Aaron returned to his dorm, Enzo suddenly appeared and kidnapped him. Enzo then presented Aaron to Damon at the Salvatore Boarding House, where he suggested that they renew their vow to take their revenge on the Whitmores and Augustine, starting by killing Aaron. Damon, knowing that Aaron was important to Elena, snapped Enzo's neck instead of killing him, and then removed Aaron's vervain watch so he could compel him to leave town. Aaron did what he was compelled to do, but before he could make it out of town, he encountered Enzo lying on the side of the road. Aaron, upon finding Damon with Enzo, reminded him that he wouldn't kill him because Elena would hate him for it, but Damon pointed out that since Elena (who was actually host to a Passenger spell cast by Katherine) didn't want to be with him anyway, it didn't matter if she was mad or not. Aaron pointed out that Elena was too good for him anyway, which led Damon to viciously feed on him until he died, officially ending the Whitmore bloodline for good.
In Gone Girl, Aaron was repeatedly mentioned throughout the episode. After Katherine's death, Damon decided that he needed to confess to Elena that he was responsible for Aaron's death, as he didn't want to keep running away from his past mistakes like Katherine did.  
In While You Were Sleeping, Elena, who was suffering from the effects of the werewolf-venom-laced Ripper compound that Katherine had injected her with before she died, stated to Damon that she needed to reconcile with Aaron due to how they had parted. Damon, not wanting to tell her the truth until they found an antidote for the Ripper compound, tried to avoid discussing it as long as possible. As Elena started to succumb to the more severe effects of the werewolf venom, Aaron appeared to her as a hallucination and led Elena to the mistaken conclusion that she had been the one who killed him while Katherine was possessing her. Damon found her on the street, out of her mind with hallucinations and distraught over her incorrect assumption that she had caused Aaron's death, which forced Damon to be honest with her about the fact that he had actually been the one who killed Aaron.  
==Personality==
Aaron was a young man with a troubled past. He began attending school at his family's college, Whitmore College, in an attempt to escape his background and start anew. He was described as sad and secretive, most likely the result of the hardship and adversity he experienced in his youth. Due to the many deaths of his friends and family, Aaron displays signs of depression and survivor's guilt. Upon learning Damon's part in tormenting his family's descendants, he believes that there was no point in living, and egged Stefan on when he threatened to kill him, not wanting to give Damon the satisfaction of killing him and any potential descendants. Aaron was also shown to be extremely bold, as he didn't show any signs of fear upon learning Damon and Enzo were planning to kill him and instead gloated how Damon was never good enough for Elena. He also developed a sympathy for vampires when he learned about his family's history of torturing them in the name of science, and cut off Augustine's funding to prevent them from continuing those barbaric practices.
==Physical Appearance==
Aaron had blue eyes and short, blond hair. He also had a very innocent and sad look that gave impression of the "tortured-soul" type of young man. He also had an athletic build and tall stature, wearing a mixture of dark and light colored clothing.
==Relationships==
Wes and Aaron were like family, especially since Wes became Aaron's legal guardian after the boy's parents died. Despite having a somewhat-argumentative relationship at first, they both cared for each other. However, Aaron wanted nothing to do with Wes after he found out about his former guardian's involvement at Whitmore College. Aaron resented him after Wes used his life as a "bargaining chip." Their relationship was never resolved being they both died, soon after their fallout, at the hands of Damon Salvatore.
===Other Relationships===
* Elena and Aaron (Former Friends)
* Damon and Aaron (Enemies)
==Appearances==
Season Five
*Monster's Ball
*Handle with Care
*Dead Man on Campus
*The Cell
*Fifty Shades of Grayson
*The Devil Inside (Death)
*Total Eclipse of the Heart (Corpse)
*Gone Girl (Mentioned)
*While You Were Sleeping (Hallucination)
==Name==
*Aaron is a unisex name of Hebrew origin. It has many meanings including: mountain of strength, high mountain, exalted and enlightened.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_(given_name)
*Whitmore derives from the Villages of Whitmore (Staffs) or Whitmoor (Devon) or from residence by a Chalky Moor or Mere (lake or marsh).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitmore_(surname)https://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/whitmore
==Trivia==
*Aaron was presumably originally going to be the name of Mikael and Esther's first-born child, as the name "Aaron" was written in Runic in the cave under the Lockwood property, along with the other names of the Mikaelsons. However, it was later revealed that Mikael and Esther's first-born child was actually a daughter named Freya.
*He and Megan were close friends until her death at the hands of Enzo in I Know What You Did Last Summer. He was also Jesse's roommate until his death in Dead Man on Campus, following being turned into an Augustine vampire by Wes Maxfield, who killed him after he learned Jesse had Caroline's blood in his system.
*Aaron was originally led to believe that his parents were killed by a wild bear while the three of them were on a camping trip, but it was evident they were killed by a vampire.
**Aaron discovered in The Cell that Damon was the vampire who killed his parents. In this episode, Wes explained to Aaron that his family were aware of the existence of vampires and have been experimenting on them for decades.
**Aaron also learned that Damon had killed his grandfather, his Aunt Sarah, and every other member of his family to exist after he was held in captivity by Augustine in the 1950s. Damon eventually killed Aaron, the last living Whitmore, in The Devil Inside, thus ending their bloodline.
*Aaron was Damon's first on-screen human kill since Jessica Cohen in The Descent, who was killed in the similar manner—in both cases, Damon originally decided to not kill them, only to ultimately change his mind and fed on them to death. Both times were also after Damon had a difficult conversation with Elena, though the instance of Damon killing Aaron was after a conversation not with Elena, but Katherine (who was possessing Elena and who was believed to be Elena by Damon) told him she couldn't be with him.
*Wes Maxfield was Aaron's legal guardian after his parents died.
*With confirmation human souls are found in the dimensions, he either found peace or went to Hell.
==Gallery==
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==References==
==See also==
Category:Characters
Category:The Vampire Diaries (series)
Category:The Vampire Diaries Characters
Category:The Vampire Diaries Season Five Characters
Category:Guest Characters
Category:Recurring Characters
Category:Male Characters
Category:Whitmore Family
Category:Humans
Category:Deceased
Category:Guest Characters