Doppelgänger

### Distinction

Mystical, naturally occurring humans born physically identical to the first two Immortals and the accidental creation.

**Doppelgängers**, also known as **Shadow-Selves** or **Mortal Shadow Selves**, are a supernatural occurrence that were created by Nature as a result of Silas and Amara becoming true immortal after consuming Qetsiyah's immortality elixir. The purpose of this supernatural species is to maintain the natural balance by dying in place of their immortal progenitors. For this reason, doppelgängers have existed for at least 1,000 years during which time they have been born and died in the place of Silas and Amara, who, as true immortals, were invulnerable to any conventional weapon. Same goes for the Salvatore doppelgängers.

There are three known doppelgänger lines which stem from Silas, Amara and Mandy, respectively. Known doppelgängers of Silas are Stefan Salvatore and Tom Avery, and known doppelgängers of Amara are Tatia, Katherine Pierce, Charis Petrova and Elena Gilbert. The doppelgänger of Mandy is Tatum Avery.

## History

The Doppelgängers were created to restore the balance of nature. Nature began to create doppelgängers of Silas and Amara that could die to counter the balance that was disrupted by these new immortals.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Blood:** Doppelgängers, being mystical and recurrent, are massive sources of magical power.
	+ The blood of a doppelgänger can be used to link supernatural beings with the help of magic conducted by any witch.
	+ Their blood can also be used to bind an extremely powerful curse or spell or to use as a power source in spells that require more magic than the witch in question possesses on their own.
	+ For some spells, the blood must come from a human doppelgänger. For other spells, the blood of a doppelgänger can still be used even if they've been turned into a vampire to transfer the Anchor from Amara to Bonnie. There are certain spells and uses that require the doppelgänger to be "pure" and human, however, like the undoing of the Hybrid Curse and the siring of hybrids.
	+ The blood of the last two "living" doppelgängers can be used to reverse spells cast using non-traditional forms of magic, especially Spirit Magic (e.g. turning a vampire back into a (dead) human, undoing the spell that bound the Other Side, reversing the spells cast on daylight rings for vampires, removing a triggered gene in those cursed with lycanthropy, etc).
* Buckets of blood from the last pair of Doppelgängers

**Linking:** Doppelgängers, being modeled after immortals and other doppelgängers, have an inherently strong mystical connection to each other that can be used to invoke linking spells.

* **Unique Physiology:** Doppelgängers are fully capable of being turned into vampires, and can retain the mystical properties of their blood despite their vampiric abilities. Since they can also be born witches, as in the case of Katerina Petrova, it can be assumed that doppelgängers could theoretically also be born as other supernatural species, such werewolves or Brotherhood of the Five hunters.

## Weaknesses

* **Magic:** Doppelgängers are susceptible to the powers of witchcraft. This is inclusive of mystical objects such as Papa Tunde's Blade, and Dark Objects.
* **Mortality:** Despite of their supernatural status, doppelgängers are very much human and share many of the same weaknesses as non-supernatural beings (e.g. age, decapitation, disease, heart-failure, suffocation, etc.)

## The Doppelgänger Progenitors

* Silas
* Zenobia
* Amara
* Mandy
* Unknown

    Silas or Silvanus (Ancient Greek: Σίλας or Σιλουανός, Latin: Silvanus, Modern Greek: Silouanos) was born sometime in the 1st century B.C., during the Biblical Times. His origins are from Ancient Greece. Silas was the world's very first immortal being and was the earliest known ancestor of the Salvatore family bloodline, as well as the progenitor of the Salvatore doppelgänger bloodline, which spawned Stefan Salvatore and Tom Avery, presumably among other unknown doppelgängers over the course of two thousand years. Before becoming an immortal, he was a very gifted and powerful witch in a community that eventually became known as the Travelers. Silas was deeply and passionately in love with his true love and soulmate, a young woman named Amara. Silas' love for Amara was so strong that his love for her was the major motivator behind him wanting to create the very first spell of immortality. To do this, he sought out the help of his best friend Qetsiyah, to whom he was betrothed, though his heart truly belonged to Amara. Silas and Amara's love, though powerful and strong, was also forbidden as Silas was engaged to be married to Qetsiyah and Amara was her personal handmaiden. Silas manipulated Qetsiyah and convinced her that he loved her and wanted to spend an eternity with her. Out of love for Silas, she created the world's first spell of immortality in the form of an elixir, which was intended to be drunk by them both at their wedding ceremony. However, Silas had no intention of allowing Qetsiyah to become an immortal with him, so on the night he was to marry Qetsiyah, Silas stole the elixir and left Qetsiyah at the altar, instead meeting with Amara in the woods and sharing the elixir with her, turning them both into the world's first immortal man and woman.
After Qetsiyah discovered that Silas had granted the gift of immortality to his true love Amara and not her, she supposedly cured Amara of her immortality and then brutally killed her out of jealous rage by slitting her throat and cutting out her heart. Silas was completely and utterly devastated. Qetsiyah then lured Silas to an isolated island and entombed him in darkness, leaving him to starve and desiccate for eternity. Buried with Silas was the cure for immortality, in which Qetsiyah created. Silas had two choices: either take the cure, die a mortal death and be on The Other Side, which is a purgatory meant for dead supernatural beings, with her for eternity or stay entombed in darkness and desiccate forever. Out of spite, anger and vengeance towards Qetsiyah murdering Amara, Silas chose to not take the cure and ended up staying entombed in darkness and starving for over 2,000 years. Because Silas refused to take the cure and die out of spite, Qetsiyah ended up creating the Other Side in order to trap Silas should he take the cure and die. Creating the Other Side would prevent Silas from finding eternal peace and being together in death with Amara on the earth's metaphysical plane, which is where human souls go after they die. Qetsiyah also created The Five, a group of supernatural hunters whose main goal and mission was to find Silas, cure him of his immortality and kill him, so that Silas would end up on the Other Side with Qetsiyah instead of with Amara as she wanted. After over 2,000 years of being entombed in darkness, Silas has risen and plans on wreaking havoc everywhere he goes. He is determined to join his true love Amara in death by getting Bonnie, who is a very distant descendant of Qetsiyah , to drop the veil so that he could take the cure and die a mortal death and cross over to be with Amara. It was revealed after 2,000 years that Qetsiyah had lied to Silas about Amara and had faked her death. Qetsiyah had actually desiccated and entombed Amara and then used her as the physical anchor for the Other Side spell in which Qetsiyah had created in order to trap Silas' soul shall Silas die a mortal death. Silas reunites with Amara after she is re-awakened, Qetsiyah having lied about her death. Amara tells Silas that she loves him and that she is sorry. She then stabs Silas in the neck in order to obtain the cure for immortality which is running through Silas' veins as she doesn't wish to live anymore. Silas still intends on destroying the Other Side so that he could be with Amara in peace in true eternal death. Silas and Amara reunite once more and Amara begs Silas to kill her so that her suffering can end for good and she can find peace. Amara tells Silas that she loves him and that she will always love him but that she cannot live for another day and wants to end her suffering. Silas tells Amara that he understands. Amara stabs herself and dies, crossing over to the metaphysical plane where humans go to after they die. Afterwards, Silas is stabbed by Stefan, his doppelgänger and descendant, and he dies. Unfortunately, Silas dies before he ever had a chance to destroy the Other Side. Silas ends up crossing over to the Other Side, which means that he is separated from Amara forever. To make matters worse and more tragic, Qetsiyah ends up killing herself after transferring the anchor from Amara to Bonnie. Qetsiyah crosses over to the Other Side, where Silas is stuck with her for all eternity. This means that Qetsiyah got her 2,000 year old wish; Silas being stuck with her on the Other Side and being separated from his soulmate for all time and for all eternity. When Silas made himself truly immortal, he created an imbalance in nature and nature needed a loophole, a version or versions of Silas that could die. Therefore, shadow selves, doppelgängers or a doppelgänger bloodline of Silas was created in order to maintain the balance of nature. Silas was a distant ancestor to the Salvatore family.

    Zenobia (Ancient Greek: Ζηνοβία, Latin: Zenobia) was born sometime in the 1st century B.C., during the Biblical Times. Her origins are from Ancient Greece. She was born to Silas, a powerful witch and an unknown witch, who died during childbirth. Zenobia was left to be raised by her father whom she always had a strong and close relationship with up until Qetsiyah got rid of him.    Amara (Ancient Greek: Αμάρα, Latin: Amarantha) was born sometime in the 1st century B.C., during the Biblical Times. Her origins are from Ancient Greece. She is the oldest known ancestor of the Petrova family bloodline. Personality wise, Amara comes off as gentle, docile, and innocent, similar to that of Katherine before she became evil. Her age is unknown but it could be assumed that she was anywhere between fourteen to eighteen years old. As a human, she was the handmaiden to Qetsiyah, a very powerful witch. Amara fell deeply and passionately in love with a young, gifted and powerful warlock named Silas. Amara's love for Silas was so strong that she desired to be with him forever. However, her love for Silas was also strongly forbidden as Silas was engaged to be married to Qetsiyah. Therefore, Silas and Amara had a secret relationship. Silas also strongly loved Amara, so much that he desired immortality so that he and Amara could be together for eternity. Silas manipulated Qetsiyah into creating the spell of immortality with the intention of sharing the gift of eternal life with Amara, instead of Qetsiyah. However, after betraying Qetsiyah's trust after she created the spell, Qetsiyah became filled with anger and rage and she wanted revenge. After Silas and Amara drank the immortality elixir, Qetsiyah found the latter by faking her death and forced her to become the phyiscal Anchor to The Other Side, binding it's existence to her immortal life and desiccating her. After her awakening two thousand years later, the pain of her existence was too much to bear and she wished to die. She consumed the Cure in order to become mortal again. Amara reunites with Silas after 2,000 years of being apart from him and she confesses her undying love for him but says that although she loves Silas, she desires to die just as much. Amara then asks Silas to kill her and end her 2,000 years of suffering. Silas is hesitant to do so at first but he then understands. Unexpectedly, Silas is killed by Stefan after he is stabbed with a blade. Silas passes through Amara as she was still currently the anchor before Qetsiyah had transferred the spell and made Bonnie the anchor instead. Amara, realizing that she has officially nothing to live for now that her beloved is dead and she has endured endless suffering for centuries and centuries, tells a dead Silas that their eternity together would start with her death. She then takes the same knife that killed Silas and stabs herself, killing her and ending her endless suffering. She is presumed to have found peace and has passed on to the afterlife where human souls go to once they die. Unfortunately for Amara, she did not get her dying wish which was to be reunited with Silas in true death as Silas ended up stuck on The Other Side with Qetsiyah, who ended up killing herself to be with Silas. It is currently unknown whether or not Amara reunited with Silas and found happiness in death with her true love after the Other Side deteriorated since Silas was seen being sucked into oblivion.

     Amanda Salvatore, more commonly known as Mandy Salvatore was turned into an Immortal on accident. Emily Bennett intended on performing a spell to turn her into a vampire, but turned her into an Immortal instead. There is an unknown woman, who also was the progenitor of a doppelgänger line

## Known Doppelgängers Lines

### Amara

* Tatia
* Katerina
* Charis
* Elena

     Tatia was born during the 10th century A.D. in the area where Mystic Falls was to be formed. She was a contemporary of the Mikaelson Family around the early 10th century. During the Middle Ages, Tatia had a child with an unknown man; later in time, she met Elijah and Niklaus Mikaelson, both of whom fell in love with her (especially Klaus, according to Elijah). Esther, the mother of Elijah and Niklaus and also the Original witch, used Tatia's blood in the spell or ritual to create the Original Vampires, as part of the wine laced with blood in which Mikael had given his children. Her blood was also part of the spell Esther used to bind Klaus' werewolf side, which resulted in Klaus' werewolf gene being dormant. Katerina Petrova (a.k.a. Katherine Pierce) was born in Bulgaria during the 15th century on June 5, 1473. In the year 1492, when she was still a human, she was captured by Klaus. She knew that she was going to die, so she tricked Trevor, one of Klaus' servants, into helping her escape. Katherine was clever, cunning and smart; she knew that if she became a vampire, she'd be rendered useless to Klaus. Katherine stabbed herself with a knife but was given vampire blood by Rose in an attempt to heal her stabbing wound and afterwards, Katherine hung herself and came back as a vampire. In return for her escape, Klaus made her suffer by killing her entire family in Bulgaria, thinking that the doppelgänger would never appear again. What Klaus didn't know was that Katherine had a child out of wedlock that was kept secret and this child continued the bloodline of the Petrova family, leading to the birth of Elena Gilbert. Tired from running, Katherine intended to make a deal with Klaus by giving him the ingredients he needed to break the curse in exchange for her freedom. She planned to hand over the moonstone, Elena Gilbert, Caroline Forbes (a vampire), Tyler Lockwood (a werewolf) and Bonnie Bennett (a witch). When Katherine was about to take out her own doppelgänger, Elena shoves the cure, into her mouth. She is the doppelgänger of Tatia.

     Charis Petrova was born in Mystic Falls, Virginia in the 1800's. Not much is known about her, just that she was turned into a vampire by Katherine as part of her wicked plan. Charis survived 1864 and Emily Bennett took her in.

     Elena Gilbert was born in Mystic Falls, Virginia during the 20th century on June 22, 1992. Elijah was the first one who found out about Elena before Klaus. At first, when Rose told Elijah about this, he didn't believe it. But soon enough he found out that the Petrova Family line didn't end with Katherine because she had given birth to a baby girl, thus continuing the Petrova bloodline. Once Klaus learned of the Petrova doppelgänger, Elena, he came to Mystic Falls, and he kidnapped Katherine, temporarily taking over the body of Alaric Saltzman. As with Katherine, Klaus is responsible for the death of Elena's family, most notably their aunt Jenna Sommers, Elena and Jeremy's legal guardian. He turned Jenna into a vampire and killed her for the sacrificial ritual. Unlike with Katherine, Klaus successfully killed Elena and as a result, he breaks the curse. Fortunately for Elena, John Gilbert had Bonnie form a special spell that bound Elena's life force or essence to his. This spell brought Elena back to life, but in return, killed John and took his life. In The Departed, Jeremy took Elena to Mystic Falls Hospital after discovering her lying unconscious at home. Meredith Fell discovered Elena was suffering from a serious cerebral hemorrhage and secretly injected her with vampire blood to heal her. This action fortunately saved Elena from death. The same day, Rebekah ran Elena and Matt off Wickery Bridge to save her siblings from Alaric, since his life force was tied to Elena. That way, if she died, so would Alaric. Jeremy arrives home to see Alaric, and he talks to him and Jeremy realizes that he is a ghost, and that if he is dead, that means his sister, Elena, must also be dead. Stefan hurried to Wickery Bridge, intending to save Elena, but she insisted that he save Matt's life instead, who was unresponsive after crashing into the water. By the time Stefan pulled Matt out of the water, Elena had drowned and died. Stefan brought her body back to Mystic Falls Hospital, where she woke up, transitioning into a vampire with Damon's blood in her system. She is the last of Amara's doppelgängers. She later reverted back to human after taking The Cure.
### Silas

* Stefan
* Tom

     Stefan Salvatore was born in Mystic Falls, Virginia during the 19th century on November 1, 1846. He was turned into a vampire along with his older brother Damon in the year 1864 by Amara's distant descendant, Katherine Pierce. Like his ancient ancestor Silas, Stefan was involved in a love triangle with Katherine and Damon. Stefan was unaware of the fact that he was a doppelgänger during his human years, and had no idea Katherine herself was a doppelgänger. Stefan was turned into a vampire against his will; Katherine had been compelling Stefan to consume her vampire blood for weeks. When Katherine is captured by the Founders Council Members, Stefan and Damon plot to rescue Katherine from being burned in a church by fire. Although Stefan and Damon do end up rescuing Katherine, Stefan and Damon are both shot dead by their own father Giuseppe. It was then that Stefan transformed into a vampire. When he first transitioned, Stefan suffered from severe hunger for blood and therefore, had problems controlling himself around human blood. Regarding the bloodline of Silas, not too much is known about it, its background and its history. Qetsiyah mentioned to Stefan that she has seen doppelgängers of Silas preceding Stefan while watching from The Other Side. Stefan later received the Cure and became human again, and died a while afterwards.

     Tom Avery was born during the 20th century. He was a doppelgänger of Silas. He is a paramedic who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Later it is revealed that he was kidnapped by a witch named Hazel and put in a comatose state under a cloaking spell in order to protect him from The Travelers. He is later found by Caroline and Enzo. Caroline snaps Enzo's neck in order to prevent him from killing Tom. Caroline then takes Tom to a diner and compels him to tell her about his life. Confirming he is a good person, she compels him to run, far from the Travelers and Enzo. Before he can leave, however, Enzo catches up to them and snaps Tom's neck, killing him and making Stefan the last living doppelgänger of Silas.
### Zenobia

* Meghan

     Meghan Reyes is the youngest doppelgänger of Zenobia and the only known one.
### Mandy

* Tatum

     Tatum Avery is the first Salvatore doppelgänger. She was born during the 20th century as the younger sister of Tom Avery.
### Unknown

* Grace
* Calista

     Grace is the daughter of Tatia, who also is part of a doppelgänger line. She was born in the 10th century A.D. in the area where Mystic Falls was to be formed.

     Calista is the daughter of Alaric Saltzman and an unknown woman. She was born around 1992 and was raised by her father. She later followed his footsteps and became a vampire hunter.

## Trivia

* According to Qetsiyah, the shadows of Silas and Amara are destined to find each other and fall in love, based on her observations throughout the centuries. It is unknown if Qetsiyah saw versions of Silas and Amara fall in love when they were alive or if they died and fell in love on The Other Side. However, evidently, they are also capable of developing romantic feelings for other people