The Anchor

The Anchor to the Other Side, simply known as the Anchor, was a mystical object supernatural being to which the spell that created the Other Side was bound to. Qetsiyah bound the world's first immortal woman, Amara, to the Other Side for centuries. However, right before Qetsiyah died, she transferred the status to Bonnie Bennett, making the deceased witch the new Anchor. As of Home, the Anchor no longer exists with the destruction of the Other Side.
==History==
In 1st Century BC, Silas stole the Immortality Spell and left Qetsiyah, his fiancée, at the altar. When she found him in the wilderness with the secret young lady he gave her immortality to—her handmaiden and Silas' true beloved, Amara, she vowed vengeance. Not content to allow Silas and Amara to spend the rest of their lives happy together, Qetsiyah created the supernatural purgatory known as the Other Side and bound the spell to Amara, thereby making her the Anchor to the Other Side.
However, she had lied to Silas, and led him to believe that she had actually killed Amara by pretending that she had brutally slaughtered her by slitting her throat and cutting out her heart just in case there was a chance he would return to her. To add to Amara's suffering, Qetsiyah desiccated her and left her as a statue, unable to move as she was forced to feel and endure the pain of every supernatural being who died and passed through her to get to the Other Side. Qetsiyah then entombed Silas with the Cure for immortality on a lone and remote island off of Nova Scotia in hopes that he would take it, die a mortal death (as a witch), and be trapped on the Other Side with her forever. However, shortly afterward, Qetsiyah was killed by the Travelers for creating the immortality spell in the first place, as in doing so, she went against her duties as a servant of nature and upset its balance, which then caused a rift in the witch community. It was this rift that eventually led to the Travelers being cursed by the witches who were against Qetsiyah's actions, and the curse's side effects eventually gave the group their name. Shortly afterward, the Travelers gained possession of Amara's petrified body and spent over 2,000 years constantly moving it around to various hiding places to prevent it from ending up in the wrong hands.
==Throughout The Vampire Diaries==
The Anchor to the Other Side was first mentioned in Monster's Ball, when Silas revealed to Damon that something bound the spell that kept the Other Side together, though he was unsure of what exactly the mystical object was. Silas then claimed he needed to find it and destroy it in order to finally destroy the Other Side so he could finally die and be reunited with Amara in the afterlife. After Damon snapped Stefan's neck to temporarily sever the linking spell on them and give Silas back his powers, Silas pretended to be Stefan so he could have an excuse to accompany Qetsiyah while she looked for her long-lost talisman, which she planned to use so she could find and protect the Anchor from being destroyed. Qetsiyah later found her talisman and cast the locator spell to find out where the Anchor was located, and at that exact moment, Silas appeared and used his psychic abilities to read her mind to also find out where the Anchor was hidden so he could find it first.
In Handle with Care, Silas, Damon and Jeremy go on a trip to a warehouse in New Jersey, where the Anchor was hidden. Silas, who had just drank Katherine's blood to cure himself of his immortality, used his newly-regained magical powers to place a boundary spell around Qetsiyah's cabin so she and Stefan couldn't leave to interfere with his plan. In response, Qetsiyah tricked Elena to bait her into entering the cabin, trapping her inside with them, and then began to torture her in order to blackmail Damon into killing Silas for her before he could find and destroy the Anchor, as she was unable to do it herself.
When Damon called Qetsiyah to update her on the Travelers who showed up, Silas found the Anchor, at the exact same moment that Damon realized that the Anchor wasn't an object, it was a person—Amara, who was not actually dead as they all originally believed. Qetsiyah confirmed that Damon was correct, and explained that in order to make sure the Other Side existed forever, she needed to bind it to something that was not only eternal, but indestructible, and since Amara was immortal, she was the perfect anchor. Additionally, Qetsiyah used Amara as a failsafe, knowing that even if Silas tried to destroy the Other Side, he would be unable to kill his one true love. Silas managed to awaken Amara by feeding her the blood from one of the dead Travelers, and they hugged for the first time in two millennia. However, when she learned that Silas had the cure in his veins, she apologized for what she was about to do before stabbing him in the neck with a piece of glass and feeding on him to cure herself, confessing that she couldn't bear to live another day and hinting that there were more negative side effects of being the Anchor than originally believed.
Shortly afterward, Damon found her wandering around outside the warehouse, where she was seemingly yelling at people who weren't there. Damon discovered that she had fed on Silas and was now human again, and noted that being desiccated for so long seemed to have affected her sanity. He later introduced her to Elena, and informed her that they needed to keep her alive until they brought Bonnie back.
In Death and the Maiden, Amara was locked in the basement cellar of the Salvatore Boarding House, while the gang brainstormed on how to bring Bonnie back. When Bonnie went to see Amara with Jeremy, they discovered that Amara could not only see Bonnie, but could physically interact with her despite the fact that Bonnie was a ghost. She also recognized Jeremy as being a Brotherhood of the Five hunter who had previously died, and specifically stated that she has never forgotten a dead supernatural's face before she began to complain about the difficulty she was experiencing in discerning whether a person she was talking to was alive or a ghost after her two thousand years of isolation. These reactions revealed to the Mystic Falls Gang that Amara, as the Anchor, existed in both the living world and the Other Side; or, as Jeremy put it, Amara "had a foot on each side" of their plane of existence. Jeremy suggested to the gang that to solve everyone's problems, they could have a witch make Bonnie into the new Anchor so that she could interact with the living world and her loved ones again, and in return, Amara could have the death she desperately craved.
Damon, after discovering Silas decided he didn't want to help them, then went to Qetsiyah, who reluctantly agreed to help them make Bonnie the Anchor, as she did not want to allow Silas to get the peaceful afterlife that he craved. Since such a large spell required a large source of power, Qetsiyah used the blood two Petrova doppelgängers, Katherine and Elena, along with the blood of their progenitor, Amara, in order to transfer her role as Anchor to Bonnie. Silas interrupted the ritual and almost managed to mortally wound and kill Qetsiyah, but before he could finish her off, Stefan called him and revealed that he had captured Amara to use as bait to lure him into a fight. As Stefan intended, Silas rushed to find Amara. They confessed their love for each other in the woods, but Amara pleaded with Silas to end her suffering by killing her himself. Silas is highly hesitant to do so at first, but he then realized that if he killed her, then he could kill himself in order to join her in the afterlife and find peace with her in true death.
At the same time, Elena had found Qetsiyah and forced her to finish the ritual to ensure that Bonnie's ghost form would not be destroyed along with the Other Side. In the woods, Stefan killed Silas by throwing a dagger into his chest. Silas, as a supernatural being (a witch) passes through Amara to go the Other Side, though his spirit wasn't seen, and Amara then screamed in pain, both from the physical pain of his death, in addition to the emotional pain of him dying before her. Amara, realizing that she has nothing to live for now that her beloved Silas is now dead, knelt beside his body and whispered, "Our eternity starts now" before stabbing herself with the same dagger that killed her soulmate. Damon found her as she was dying on the floor of the woods and desperately tried to heal her with his blood to keep her alive long enough to save Bonnie, but since she had consumed the cure, it didn't work. Bonnie, who knew that Amara had just killed herself, rushed to Jeremy to say goodbye to him, but just as Amara died and the Other Side was supposed to disappear, Qetsiyah finally finished the ritual and Bonnie became the new Anchor.
Satisfied with her plan succeeding, and ready to join Silas on the Other Side, Qetsiyah killed herself by slitting her wrists and died from a severe loss of blood. Just before she passed to the Other Side, she appeared in front of Bonnie and revealed the fact that, as the Anchor, she will now feel every supernatural's death as they pass through her, which is why Amara was so desperate to die and free herself from the agony of such an existence. To prove it, Qetsiyah grabbed Bonnie's arms and became the first person to pass through her to the Other Side as the new Anchor, which caused her to double over and scream in agony.
In Dead Man on Campus, Bonnie began learning to deal with her new situation, as she worked to get used to all of the pain she would now constantly feel every day. Not only did she learn how to fully transport herself to and from the Other Side, but she also learned the positive side of her new role, such as the position to comfort the recently deceased as they passed through her. She demonstrated this by comforting an old witch as she crossed over and bonded over their shared identities. Later in the evening, when Bonnie was having quality alone-time with Jeremy, Jesse was killed by Elena after he tried to kill Damon and appeared in their hotel room. When Jesse passed through her, Bonnie began screaming in pain, and was then forced to confess to very-concerned Jeremy the negative side effects of being the Anchor, which she had tried to hide from him so he wouldn't feel guilty about the consequences of her return to "life." 
In 500 Years of Solitude, Bonnie was at the boarding house with the rest of the gang while they awaited Katherine's death. Just as Katherine was about to die, Bonnie saw her spirit on the Other Side for a brief second, until Katherine managed to force herself back into her body after claiming that she wasn't done living yet. At the end of the episode, Matt asked about Bonnie's Anchor status, and Bonnie explained how it works. Just then, Vicki appeared, making a joke on her own account that caused her and Bonnie laugh. Soon after, Alaric, too, joined the crowd, and Jeremy and Bonnie both see him with their abilities of mediumship.
In Gone Girl, Bonnie was first seen with Jeremy on campus, where she made a reference to her Anchor role when she mentioned that a coven of Russian witches had passed through her the previous night while she was sleeping. She later joined the gang at the boarding house, and helped Nadia come to terms with her impending death by assuring her it wouldn't hurt her at all, choosing not to tell her that she herself would be feeling all the pain. As Nadia died, she passed through Bonnie with a smile as Bonnie grimaced in pain.
Later, Katherine, too, was killed by Stefan with the Passenger-killing knife to force her spirit to leave Elena's body. Bonnie was at a church, praying for her father, when Katherine appeared behind her, ready to pass through to the Other Side. She claimed that after 500 years, it was unlikely she believed in a higher power. After she revealed what she did to Elena, she was finally ready to pass through Bonnie, but when she grabbed Bonnie's arms, nothing happened. She was sure Bonnie was pranking her, but Bonnie claimed that had never happened before. Then, Katherine was ripped away by a powerful dark force and sucked into darkness, while she pleaded with Bonnie to help her. Bonnie simply stood there, unable to do anything to help her, and watched her being sucked into oblivion.
In Rescue Me, Bonnie was studying for exams at the campus library, where she spoke to Elena on the phone for a while and noticed that Liv's brother Luke, who was studying nearby, was there and kept staring at her. She started to introduce herself to Luke when a witch appeared behind him, a ghost who only Bonnie could see. The ghost was Hazel, a witch from Luke's coven who was protecting Tom Avery with a cloaking spell and was subsequently killed by Enzo. She then asked Bonnie to deliver Luke a message to apologize for her failure before passing through Bonnie. Bonnie later learned everything about the fight between Luke and Liv's coven and the Travelers from Luke. At the end of the episode, Sloan and the Travelers prepared the spell to finally resurrect their leader Markos. All of the Travelers in attendance (except Sloan) ingested Elena and Stefan's mixed doppelgänger blood before they all committed mass-suicide by burning themselves alive. Bonnie, who was alone in the dorm room, suddenly became overwhelmed by agonizing pain as all of the recently-deceased Travelers passed through her one by one. The pain was so severe that she ultimately passed out onto the floor. As she laid there unconscious, a shadowy form crawled out of her body from the Other Side and formed Markos' resurrected body.
In Resident Evil, Bonnie was waiting for Jeremy when suddenly, she was summoned to the Other Side by her Grams, who explained to Bonnie that the witches on the Other Side believed that the Travelers purposely overwhelmed Bonnie in order to allow one of their dead members to escape and return to the world of the living. It was revealed that the mixed doppelgänger blood the Travelers ingested before passing over to the Other Side, which was proven to have the power to undo Spirit Magic, had begun to unravel the magic binding the Other Side. As a result, many of the ghosts on the Other Side were being sucked into the dark oblivion that had previously taken Katherine as it slowly began to disintegrate. A consequence of this was proven further when Matt, who was killed by a Traveler while wearing his Gilbert Ring, briefly saw his sister Vicki before as she was sucked off into oblivion. Another consequence of the Other Side unraveling was that Matt remembered everything that happened to him while on the Other Side after he was resurrected, which was an alarming development, as those who die wearing the Gilbert ring are supposed to forget everything that happened to them upon their revival. Matt then asked Bonnie what was happening over there, though she had no answers for him.
In Home, Elena and Damon triggered an explosion at the Mystic Grill, where the Travelers were having a party, in order to sacrifice them and use their deaths as a power source so that Liv and Bonnie could perform a spell to resurrect their dead friends before the Other Side was completely destroyed. Stefan, Tyler, Enzo, Alaric, Luke, and Elena were all able to be resurrected by pushing their way through Bonnie and back into the living world. Unfortunately, Bonnie, whose Anchor status did not change the fact that she was still the ghost of her dead self, was unable to be resurrected, nor was Damon, as Luke had forced Liv to stop the spell before he could be brought back. Once the Traveler's anti-magic spell had finally disintegrated the Other Side in entirety, Bonnie's role as the Anchor was destroyed along with it, and she and Damon were both magically sent to the 1994 Prison World as part of Grams' plan to ensure Bonnie could be resurrected later.
==Purpose==
In order for the Other Side to continue existing (as it did for thousands of years), it had to be bound to something that was eternal. This is what prompted the witch; Qetsiyah, to create the first Anchor and placed it on Amara; one of the first immortals. 
This ensured that the spell that created the Other Side continued to exist. If the Anchor was destroyed somehow, the spell would be broken and the Other Side would be destroyed, freeing every deceased supernatural ghost residing there to whatever dimension they are meant to go after death.
The Anchor was also used as a "gateway," or, as Qetsiyah referred to it, a "tollbooth" for ghosts to cross over to the Other Side. As a result of this role, the being who is the Anchor is forced to feel the death of the supernatural as they pass through them. In certain instances, such as when a particular spell is being cast by a witch, it is possible for a ghost to exit the Other Side (through the Anchor) and be resurrected in the world of the living again. However, doing so causes a lot of damage to the Anchor, which risks destroying the Other Side along with it.
==Powers and Abilities==
*Mediumship: Being the Anchor allowed the bearer to perceive ghosts who are normally invisible, regardless of whether they had known the deceased when they were alive or not.
*Co-Existence: The Anchor co-existed on both sides of the veil, giving the being a physical foothold in both the living world and the Other Side, and allowing him/her to interact (see, talk, hear and make physical contact with them) with the inhabitants of both planes.
==Spells and Rituals==
==Appearances==
===Season Five===
====Amara====
*Handle with Care
*Death and the Maiden
====Bonnie Bennett====
*Death and the Maiden
*Dead Man on Campus
*500 Years of Solitude
*Total Eclipse of the Heart
*Gone Girl
*While You Were Sleeping
*Rescue Me
*Resident Evil
*Man on Fire
*What Lies Beneath
*Promised Land
*Home
== Gallery ==
Amara 3 TVD 5x06.jpg|Amara, the first Anchor
TheAnnchor3.png|Matt passing through
TheAnchor5.png|Traveler passing through
TheAnchor1.png|Katherine trying to pass through
==Trivia==
*The last supernatural being to pass through Amara while she was still the Anchor was Silas, just moments before Qetsiyah transferred the position to Bonnie. Consequently, the first supernatural being to cross over through Bonnie was Qetsiyah.
*Supernatural beings can be "denied" access to the Other Side through the Anchor. This was the case of Katherine, who was dragged away to Hell when she tried to gain access through Bonnie.
*The spell that bound the Other Side to the Anchor was slowly undone by the mixed doppelgängers' (Stefan and Elena) blood used by the Travelers during their ritual to resurrect Markos, which ultimately led to its destruction. The inhabitants of the Other Side all either were sucked into Hell or presumed to have found peace.
*When Bonnie was the Anchor as a ghost, it was assumed she was eternal, as this was the primary requirement for anchoring the Other Side. Therefore, she was presumed unkillable by all conventional means, else Qetsiyah's statement would have been pointless. 
==See also==
Category:The Vampire Diaries (series)
Category:Supernatural
Category:Species
Category:Objects
Category:Enchanted Objects
Category:Witchcraft
Category:Medium
Category:Ghosts
Category:Humans
Category:Dimensions