Amara

Amara (Ancient Greek: Ἀμάρα, Latin: Amarantha; translates as "eternally beautiful", "eternal", "unfading" or "immortal") was a recurring character who first appeared in the third episode of the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries. Amara was the world's very first immortal woman. She was once the personal handmaiden of powerful witch Qetsiyah and the soulmate and one true love of Qetsiyah's fiancé, one of the world's most powerful witches and the world's first immortal man and being, Silas.
Amara's love for Silas became her downfall as their betrayal was revealed to Qetsiyah, who in retaliation staged Amara's death, and as punishment for her actions transformed her into the Anchor to the Other Side. For over 2,000 years, Amara felt the pain of each deceased supernatural being crossing over, and after her eventual release and short-lived reunion with Silas, she gladly welcomed death.
She was the progenitor of a line of doppelgängers that have come to be known as the Petrova doppelgängers, from which spawned three known female doppelgängers: the first, Tatia, the second, Katerina Petrova, and the third and final doppelgänger, Elena Gilbert.
Amara was the oldest known ancestor of the Petrova Family and the progenitor of the Petrova Doppelgängers. 
==Early History==
Amara was born some time during 1st century B.C.E. (100 B.C.). Over 2,000 years ago in Ancient Greece, Amara fell deeply in love with a young, gifted and powerful witch named Silas. Amara was the personal handmaiden of Qetsiyah, who was also a powerful witch in her own right. Despite Silas and Amara's love for each other, their love was forbidden, as Silas was engaged to be married to Qetsiyah, and Amara was a mere servant whereas Silas was a wealthy nobleman, leaving them incompatible with regard to their social class and societal norms.
Despite this, Silas and Amara still loved each other so much that they kept their relationship and love for each other a secret out of fear of being shunned. Silas desired to live forever with Amara, and began to desire a spell that would allow them to become immortal so they could be together for eternity. Silas manipulated Qetsiyah into creating an immortality spell by telling Qetsiyah that he didn't ever want to be parted from her, not even by death. Qetsiyah agreed to create the spell, as she was in loved with Silas and also desired to spend eternity with him, believing that she was the one with whom he wanted to share his immortal life. However, Silas always intended to give the second portion of the immortality elixir to Amara, not Qetsiyah as he had promised.
On the night Silas and Qetsiyah were meant to marry, he magically stole the immortality elixir that the two were supposed to consume after their vows, and instead drank the elixir with Amara in their tent in the woods, becoming the world's first truly immortal man and woman. Feeling betrayed after being left at the altar, Qetsiyah tracked Silas down and discovered Silas' tent in the woods. She also discovered that his betrayal was even worse than she had initially believed—not only had Silas fallen in love with another woman, but it was her own handmaiden, Amara.
thumb|250px|left|Qetsiyah staging Amara's death
Feeling angered, enraged and betrayed by both Silas and Amara, Qetsiyah created a cure for immortality, which she revealed to Amara before desiccating her and faking her death. Qetsiyah then confronted Silas and offered him the cure with the promise that she would forgive him of his infidelity if he were to spend the rest of his mortal life with her. She also led him to believe that she had used another dose of the cure on Amara before killing her by staging their tent with blood and a human heart. After faking Amara's death, Qetsiyah lured Silas to a remote island and desiccated him before entombing him with the only cure for immortality, hoping that he would take it and eventually die a mortal death, so that he would cross over to the Other Side.
After Qetsiyah desiccated Amara, she used Amara as the physical anchor for the Other Side, binding its existence to her immortal life in order to create a supernatural purgatory that would allow her to spend eternity with Silas even after both of their deaths as his final punishment for his sins. Qetsiyah specifically chose Amara as the Anchor for two reasons: first, she needed the anchor to be something both indestructible and eternal, like the newly-immortal Amara, to ensure that the Other Side would always exist; secondly, she knew that Silas could potentially try to get around her plans for him, should he ever be able to escape his tomb, so she needed to make the Anchor something Silas would be unable to destroy, even if he could make her mortal again.
After Qetsiyah was murdered by the Travelers, they took possession of Amara's body, and they moved it around every few days for over 2,000 years in order to ensure that it would never fall into the wrong hands.
During this time, Amara was forced to feel the deaths of every supernatural who passed through her to get to the Other Side. This slowly began driving her insane, and she would later admit to Qetsiyah in the modern day that she had more than suffered for what she had done.  
==Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series==
===Season Five===
In Handle with Care, Qetsiyah revealed that Amara was her handmaiden and she killed her brutally out of rage for her part in Silas' betrayal. However, this was revealed not to be the complete truth. It is revealed that Qetsiyah had desiccated Amara and then made Amara the physical anchor for binding the Other Side due to her being indestructible and immortal. This means that Qetsiyah lied about killing Amara to spite Silas. Silas, Damon and Jeremy go to a shipping yard in New Jersey, searching for the anchor to The Other Side. The Travelers fail to intervene.
Silas finds Amara and feeds her the blood of a dead Traveler. Silas explains what happened to her and she hugs him, telling him that she loves him and that she's sorry, before drinking his blood in order to obtain the cure as she can no longer live. Amara runs through an alley, arguing with beings that aren't there. Damon finds her there and she questions if he's real. He takes her back to the boarding house and shows her to Elena. Upon seeing Elena, Amara screams at the striking physical resemblance she bears to her as her doppelgänger.
In Death and the Maiden, Amara is locked in the boarding house basement repeatedly saying she doesn't know to the beings that aren't there. Damon is explaining Amara's situation to Stefan, and then she tries to kill herself. Damon runs in and holds her back but she says she doesn't want to live anymore.
thumb|250px|Silas and Amara
Qetsiyah agrees to do a spell to make Bonnie the anchor to the Other Side, so that she can finally kill Amara and Silas. Qetsiyah says she needs doppelgänger blood to complete the spell because there is no source like a moon. Elena takes Qetsiyah to see Amara, who is fine now and sat in a chair. She is shocked to see Qetsiyah as she walks through the door. Amara starts to look frightened and Elena looks sympathetic towards her, and even stands outside the door, possibly to ensure Amara's safety. Stefan kidnapped Amara so that he can lure Silas away. After Amara begged Silas to kill her, he took the knife and aimed for her throat. Stefan came and stopped him, and killed Silas. Upon seeing Silas' dead body, Amara took the same knife and stabbed herself, and thus, she died.
==Personality==
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|-|Human=
Not much is known of Amara's personality, but from what has been seen in flashbacks, she seems to be a young, innocent, beautiful and elegant lady. Silas called her an angel, hinting at a highly virtuous personality, however, as Qetsiyah's handmaiden, it was also highly unlikely that she was unaware of Qetsiyah's strong feelings for Silas, or that Silas was using Qetsiyah to attain the secret of immortality. Amara could be seen as slightly selfish by nature. Qetsiyah says that Amara was someone who was close to her yet Amara betrayed Qetsiyah by falling in love with the same man she was in love with and engaged to be married to (Silas). Amara seemed to have no regrets about betraying Qetsiyah in regards to Silas, as for Amara, her love for Silas was strong enough for her to go through with betraying Qetsiyah. In the present time, Amara has become human once more after 2,000 years due to consuming the cure for immortality through Silas' blood. After being cured, Amara desires to die in order to end her 2,000 year suffering. It is clear that though her love for Silas was indeed very powerful and strong, as for her, it caused her to sin, her desire for death to end her pain was just as strong. Amara kills herself as a mortal by stabbing her self. She has presumably crossed over to the metaphysical plane where dead human souls go and where she is finally at peace.
|-|Immortal=
Amara desired immortality and wanted to live forever so she could spend an eternity with Silas. Silas had created the very first spell of immortality alongside Qetsiyah, whom Amara was the handmaiden to. Amara consumed the immortality elixir alongside Silas, and became the world's first immortal woman. However, Amara's life and eternity didn't go as planned, as Qetsiyah discovered her and Silas' betrayal. She was then desiccated by Qetsiyah, used as the physical anchor for the Other Side and then entombed where she ended up starving and desiccating and being trapped within her own body for over 2,000 years. As the anchor to the Other Side, Amara ended up feeling every single supernatural death for over 2,000 years. Each time a supernatural being passed on, they would go through her. Amara's body was being protected by the Travelers so that nobody would have access to her body. After 2,000 years, Amara is finally awoken. For being trapped inside of her own body for over 2,000 years, it appears to have driven Amara extremely insane, unstable and crazy as she was seen talking to figures that weren't there about it or something not being their decision. It is very clear that Amara has suffered severe emotional, mental and psychological trauma for the past 2,000 years, similar to what her true love Silas endured when he was entombed in darkness for eternity, desiccating and starving. Amara is cured of her 2,000 year old immortality after she consumes the cure for immortality through Silas' blood.
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==Physical Appearance==
Amara was a very beautiful young woman with an oval face, light olive complexion, almond-shaped brown eyes, and dark brown hair. Her height is about 5'6" and she has a slim physique. Amara is physically identical to her doppelgängers and descendants: Tatia, Katerina and Elena. She wore long dresses, sandals with straps, hair tied with braids and fabric covering her face when she was alive as a human before becoming Immortal.
==Powers and Abilities==
As an Immortal for over 2,000 years, Amara had unconditional and true immortality. Like Silas, she was immune to disease, age, and all forms of physical and magical death save for the Cure. She likely possessed the same advanced psychic abilities inherent as an Immortal although the extent to which she developed this skill (as compared to Silas) remains unknown. As testament to her immortality, Qetsiyah chose her to be the Anchor to the Other Side knowing that nothing could destroy her.
==Weaknesses==
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|-|Immortal=
Amara had the typical weaknesses of an Immortal. However, after being given the Cure, she had the typical weaknesses of a human.
|-|Anchor=
During her time as an immortal, Amara was bound to the Other Side as its Anchor. Being the Anchor allowed her to co-exist between the Living World and The Other Side and be the only passage in between both. Her foothold in the latter allowed her to be a medium that could speak with Spirits. Consequently, she also felt the pain of every supernatural species who had died in the last 2000 years as they passed through her to get to The Other Side.
As Anchor, her blood, along with her doppelgängers (Katherine and Elena), was used for the Anchor Transference Ritual which seemed to be a necessary component to facilitate the transfer (of Anchorage from herself) to Bonnie (via Bonnie's talisman; her Grimoire) successfully.
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==Relationships==
===Silas===
Not much is known about the history or the background of their relationship, but it was Silas' strong and powerful love for Amara that motivated him to become immortal so that they could spend eternity together. Amara was deeply in love with Silas, so much, as she consumed the immortality elixir along with Silas so that she could live forever and spend an eternity with him. From the flashbacks, it is clear that Amara's relationship with Silas was rather forbidden, as Amara was not only the handmaiden to Qetsiyah, but Silas was also engaged to be married to Qetsiyah. After Silas learned of Amara's murder, he was visibly shaken and emotionally distraught. Qetsiyah made it impossible for Silas and Amara to be reunited together in death by creating The Other Side, a purgatory for supernatural creatures and beings such as witches, vampires, doppelgängers, werewolves, etc., to go to after they die. Since Silas has risen from his tomb of darkness of two millennia, Silas made it his number one goal to consume the cure, destroy the Other Side, and then die so that he can pass on and be reunited in true death with Amara in the afterlife. After 2,000 years, Silas and Amara are reunited. Amara has gone crazy due to being the anchor to the Other Side and has therefore, suffered immense pain and torture. Amara obtained the cure from Silas' blood, telling him that she loved him but that she couldn't live another day in pain. Silas and Amara's ultimate fate is a very tragic one. Silas is killed by Stefan and crosses over to the Other Side before Silas ever had a chance to destroy the Other Side and be reunited with Amara in death. Amara, as a result of being the anchor, could feel Silas' death as he passed on to the Other Side. As a result of suffering for 2,000 years without Silas and enduring endless torture, Amara tells a dead Silas that their eternity begins after she dies. She then kills herself by stabbing herself with the same blade that Silas was killed with. Although Amara desired to be at peace with Silas in true death, it turns out that this will not happen as Qetsiyah transferred the anchor from Amara to Bonnie. This means that Silas and Amara's love story ended in tragedy with Qetsiyah achieving her 2,000 year wish: Amara dies, ending up alone on the metaphysical plane and separated from Silas for eternity and Silas dies and crosses over to Other Side where he is stuck with a dead Qetsiyah, who kills herself as Silas and Amara both die, forever, separating the "two fates" and the pair of star-crossed lovers for eternity and for all time.
===Qetsiyah===
Amara was Qetsiyah's handmaiden. Although Amara was in love with Silas, her love for him was forbidden because Silas was engaged to be married to Qetsiyah. According to Qetsiyah, she and Amara were not friends. When Qetsiyah had learned that Silas had given immortality to Amara instead of her, Qetsiyah killed Amara out of jealous rage. Qetsiyah also created The Other Side so that Silas would not find eternal peace with Amara after he died a mortal death and instead, Silas would be trapped with Qetsiyah for eternity. It is revealed that Qetsiyah did not murder Amara, but instead, used her as a physical anchor for the spell in creating the Other Side. Qetsiyah needed an anchor which was both indestructible and eternal to bind the spell, hence Amara, who was immortal. Amara ended up suffering for over two millenniums trapped inside of her own body and seeing endless dead supernatural beings. It is clear that what Qetsiyah did to Amara by using her as an anchor for the Other Side is a fate much worse than actual death for Amara and that it has made Amara become extremely traumatized, emotionally, and psychologically unstable and highly overwhelmed. Qetsiyah made Amara suffer just as much as she made Silas suffer by entombing Silas in darkness to starve for 2,000+ years. Qetsiyah conducted her extreme actions towards both Silas and Amara out of pure maliciousness, revenge and spite due to Silas and Amara's betrayal. After 2,000 years, Qetsiyah seems to have gotten her wish. Both Silas and Amara die mortal deaths, although Amara dies and crosses over to the metaphysical plane where she will be at peace and Silas dies and crosses over to the Other Side where he is stuck with Qetsiyah forever. This means that Qetsiyah has succeeded in separating Silas and Amara for eternity. 
===Other Relationships===
*Amara and Damon (Former Allies)
*Silas, Amara, and Qetsiyah (Former Love Triangle)
*Amara and Bonnie (Former Allies)
*Amara and Jeremy (Former Allies)
*Amara and Elena (Ancestor and Descendant/Former Allies)
*Amara and Katherine (Ancestor and Descendant/Former Allies)
==Appearances==
Season Four
*We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes (Mentioned by Atticus Shane) 
*O Come, All Ye Faithful (Mentioned by Atticus Shane) 
*Into the Wild (Mentioned by Bonnie and Jeremy) 
*Stand By Me (Mentioned by Silas as Shane) 
*Pictures of You (Indirectly Mentioned by Klaus)
Season Five
*Original Sin (Flashback Only) 
*Handle with Care (First Modern Day Appearance)
*Death and the Maiden (Death)
Season Seven
*This Woman's Work (Mentioned)
Season Eight
*We're Planning a June Wedding (Indirectly Mentioned)
==Name==
*Amara is a feminine name of Greek origin, which means "eternally beautiful", or "one who will be forever beautiful". It is a short form of the feminine Latin name Amarantha (Greek: Aμαραντηα), meaning "unfading" or "a flower that never fades".
*In West African culture, the name Amara means "night beauty" or "chosen by the God".
*Other common definitions for Amara include "eternal", "eternally loved", and "unyielding".
*The most commonly given meaning for Amara is "bitter" or "the bitter one" and the name is often unduly criticized by speakers of some Romance languages due to its connection to the word for "bitter" in their respective languages. However, one must remember that it may be that Amara has the same root as names such as Mary and Maria, and may actually be a variant form. Given that both names contain the stem "Mar", and Mary is given meanings such as "sea of bitterness" and "rebelliousness", it may well be that Amara has a similar meaning and is intended as variation on or bastardized form of the aforementioned name. The suggestion that Mary stems from the Egyptian "mr", meaning "love", is also valid for Amara.https://nameberry.com/babyname/Amara
* Variations of Amara include Amarah (Aμαραη), Amarya (Aμαρυα), Amaira (Aμαιρα), Amaria (Aμαρια), Amar (Aμαρ), Amari (Αμαρι), Amaree (Αμαρεε), Amarri (Αμαρρι), and Amarra (Αμαρρα).
*Other suggestions claim that Amara has similar meanings to names such as Amarantha or Amarante, or is a shortened form of such names, which stem from the Greek word for 'unfading' (αμαραντος; amarantos).
==Trivia==
*The spell that binds the Other Side was bound to Amara. Qetsiyah did this because Amara was immortal and so the Other Side would exist eternally. She also knew that, should it ever come to it, Silas would be emotionally unable to kill Amara in order to destroy the Other Side, even if he could find a way to reverse her immortality.
*Amara was first mentioned in We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes although not by name.
*Amara's origins are from Ancient Greece. It is unknown or uncertain if Amara was of Greek descent, although it is a possibility, considering that Bulgaria, Katherine's home country, had not been formed yet. 
*Like Silas, Amara was the progenitor of a line of doppelgänger's, known currently as the Petrova Doppelgängers. This is a consequence of Amara becoming truly immortal like Silas, who has his own line of doppelgängers. 
*Amara was the first woman to ever become immortal.
*Amara's mortal age is unknown. All that is known about her age is that she is over 2,000 years old, and that the events involving herself, Qetsiyah, and Silas occurred in the 100s BCE. It is most likely that she was younger than both Silas and Qetsiyah in mortal age. 
*Amara is depicted in the Hunter's Mark as the young lady being killed by the witch Qetsiyah.
*Tatia, Katerina and Elena are Amara's doppelgängers. Tatia has been confirmed as Amara's first doppelgänger.
*Amara is a very distant ancestor to all of the Petrova women (i.e. Tatia, Katherine, Nadia, Isobel, Elena, etc.). However, it is unknown if the Petrova women are direct descendants of Amara (i.e. descended from a child she may have had prior to the events that led to her immortality), or if her bloodline was continued through one of Amara's siblings, such as in the case with Silas' doppelgängers. There is also a possibility that the Petrova women were not actually descended from Amara, and that their doppelgänger line came from another bloodline. However, since Stefan and his other fellow male doppelgängers were confirmed by Silas to be distantly descended from his family (he referred to Stefan as his multiple-great-grand-nephew), this theory seems unlikely. 
*It was thought for a time that Tatia was the originator of Petrova doppelgängers, but this was proven false when the true story of the immortals and their doppelgängers was revealed in Original Sin.
*Silas called Amara Elena's doppelgänger, even though Amara wasn't actually a true doppelgänger in the supernatural sense of the word like Tatia, Katherine and Elena were; Amara was the progenitor of their doppelgänger line. However, going by the general definition of a doppelgänger being a person's double, Amara still fits this description.
**Colloquially, she was implicitly referred to as a "doppelgänger" by both Damon and Qetsiyah.
*There are several theories in the show's fandom that speculate the true number of doppelgängers spawned by Amara and Silas' immortality. One theory suggests that there were nine total doppelgängers for each line, not including Silas and Amara, one for each century. This theory came from Qetsiyah's comment in Original Sin that she has been forced to watch as century after century, Silas' doppelgängers fell in love with Amara's doppelgängers and vice-versa. However, Qetsiyah could have been exaggerating or using hyperbole to describe the torture of watching their love. The second theory is that there has been one doppelgänger from each line every five hundred years, meaning that there would be Amara (1st century BC), her first doppelgänger (5th century AD), Tatia (10th century AD), Katherine (15th century AD) and Elena (20th century AD). However, since Executive Producer Julie Plec and actress Nina Dobrev had described Tatia, the Petrova doppelgänger who came between Niklaus and Elijah Mikaelson, as the first true doppelgänger after Amara became immortal, making this theory also unlikely.
*Silas and Amara's names also both have five letters. 
*Amara's the fourth character out of five to be portrayed by Nina Dobrev after Elena, Katherine and Silas' illusion of Elena. The fifth character to be portrayed by Nina Dobrev was Tatia on The Originals series. 
*In Handle with Care, Amara was seen hallucinating and arguing with people who weren't there. It was later revealed that Amara was the anchor to the Other Side, and as such, Amara existed in both the real world and the Other Side, allowing her to could interact with ghosts of supernatural beings as well as living people.
*Amara ended up dying by stabbing and killing herself as she told Silas that she loved him and will always love him. She hoped that her eternity with Silas would begin with her death. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Amara died and ended up finding peace in the human afterlife, due to her being a mortal human.
**Unfortunately for Amara, Silas died and crossed over to the Other Side through Amara, and before Amara died, Bonnie became the anchor to the Other Side, ensuring that that Silas and Amara would remain separated for eternity. However, despite the fact that the Other Side was eventually destroyed by the Travelers' Magic Purification Spell, Silas was sucked into Hell before he could find peace, and is presumably still separated from Amara for all time.
**Amara stabbing and killing herself with Silas' dagger is very reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet when Juliet stabbed and killed herself with Romeo's dagger. It is also very fitting as Silas and Amara's love story is just as tragic (or even more tragic) as Romeo/Juliet's love story.
*The process of a dying supernatural creature passing through her to go to the Other Side perfectly explains her psychological pain and insanity after feeling the constant suffering of other beings deaths for centuries. The pain and emotional trauma over the centuries had forced Amara to go as far as wanting to commit suicide, risking never again being able to spend the rest of eternity with her true love Silas in the afterlife.
*Although it was not shown, it is believed that Stefan buried Amara alongside Silas. 
*Both Amara and her second doppelgänger Katherine have taken their own lives or committed suicide. Katherine in 1492 via hanging and Amara in 2011 via stabbing herself with a knife.  
*Silas was the last person to cross over to the Other Side through Amara while she was still the Anchor. This happened in the final moments of her life, just seconds before the role of Anchor was transferred to Bonnie Bennett.
*Amara, like her three doppelgängers (Tatia, Katherine and Elena), was also involved in a love triangle. However, she is the only one that was not centered in the love triangle, as hers was between herself, Silas and Qetsiyah, with Silas being the middle, or center component of the triangle and both Amara and Qetsiyah being in love with Silas. The other love triangles revolved around her doppelgängers Tatia, Katherine and Elena.
**Amara was also the first out of the Petrova women or Petrova doppelgängers to be involved in a triangle that did not involve siblings or family relationships (i.e. Tatia with Elijah and Klaus, Katherine with Elijah and Klaus and Damon and Stefan, and Elena with Damon and Stefan). 
*Amara means "the undying" in the Nepali language, which plays into the fact that she was the very first immortal (undying) woman. 
*Since two of her doppelgängers, Elena and Katherine, were both born in the month of June (with Elena being born June 22 and Katherine being born June 5), it could be assumed that Amara was also possibly born in June. However, since Amara lived in the time of Ancient Greece, the calendar system used was completely different, making it impossible to know for sure in which month Amara was born.  
*Amara and her doppelgänger Elena are the only known members in the Petrova Family not to have children.
*With confirmation that human souls are found in the dimensions, she either found peace or went to Hell.
==Gallery==
Amara as Qetsiyah's handmaiden.png|Amara as Qetsiyah's handmaiden
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Amara's death place.PNG|Amara's "death" place
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Amara's heart.PNG|Amara's "heart"
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Amara.jpg|Amara in Damon's trunk
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Silas and Amara last moment.PNG|Silas and Amara
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Amaradeath-5x07.png|Amara's death
==References==
==See also==
Category:Characters
Category:The Vampire Diaries (series)
Category:The Vampire Diaries Characters
Category:The Vampire Diaries Season Five Characters
Category:Recurring Characters
Category:Female Characters
Category:Supernatural
Category:Immortal
Category:Medium
Category:Ghosts
Category:Petrova Family
Category:Deceased