Damon Salvatore

**Notice:** This **article** uses content directly taken from the Damon Salvatore **article** at the Vampire Diaries Wiki, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

## Biographical Information

### Born

* June 18, 1839  (Mystic Falls, Age 25/191)

### Turned

* By Katherine Pierce on September 25, 1864  (transition initiated by Giuseppe Salvatore)

* By Alexandria Gilbert's blood and Restore and Reversal Spell in 2030

### Occupation

* Confederate Lieutenant (Formerly)

* Soldier of the American Civil War (1864)

* Prisoner of Augustine (1953-1958)

* College Student (Formerly)

* Leader of the Founder's Council (2010)

* Prisoner (Formerly)

* Cade's Soul Harvester (Formerly)

* Ordained Minister (Licensed)

* The Cure (Formerly)

* Owner of Mystic Grill (Currently)

* Owner of Mystic Tap (Currently)

### Title(s)

* Dungeon Boy, Vampire Gigolo (by Caroline)

* Man Slut, Caveman (by Alex)

* The Fun Brother, Mate (by Klaus)

* Grandma (by Elena)

* Dick (by Jeremy, Alaric, and Alex)

* Eternal Stud (by himself)

* Deputy Matt Donovan (Alias)

* My Sweet Boy (by Lily)

* Hemingway, Buddy, Bro (by Stefan)

* Older Sexy Danger Guy, Stranger (by Bonnie)

* Honey Pie, Baby (Both by Bree)

* Dude (by Logan, Jeremy and Tyler)

* Love Struck Idiot (by Anna)

* My Handsome Henchman, Good Boy (Both by Sybil)

* Darling (by Kol)

* Grumpy Pants, Mate (by Enzo)

* Gorgeous (by Kelly)

### Species

* Human (Formerly)

* Vampire (Niklaus' Bloodline/Broken) (Cured/Formerly)

* Augustine Vampire (Cured/Formerly)

* Ghost (Formerly)

* Spirit of The Phoenix Stone (Formerly)

* Vampire  (Alex's Bloodline) (Currently)

## Family Information

### Family Members

* Silas † (Distant Paternal Ancestor)

* Unnamed Doppelgängers Of Silas † (Distant Paternal Ancestors)

* Giuseppe Salvatore † (Father)

* Lillian Salvatore † (Mother)

* Stefan Salvatore † (Younger Brother)

* Unborn Niece/Nephew † (via Stefan and Valerie Tulle)

* Unnamed Paternal Half-Brother †

* Zachariah Salvatore † (Paternal Half-Nephew)

* Zachariah's Unnamed Son † (Paternal Half-Nephew)

* Joseph Salvatore † (Distant Paternal Half-Nephew)

* Joseph's Unnamed Son † (Distant Paternal Half-Nephew)

* Zach Salvatore † (Distant Paternal Half-Nephew)

* Tom Avery † (Descendant)

* Sarah Nelson † (Distant Paternal Niece)

* Grayson Gilbert † (Adoptive Father-In-Law)

* John Gilbert † (Father-In-Law)

* Isobel Flemming † (Mother-In-Law)

* Miranda Sommers-Gilbert † (Adoptive Mother-In-Law)

* Arielle Labonair (Sister-In-Law)

* Elena Gilbert (Wife)

* Alexandria Gilbert (Sister-In-Law)

* Jeremy Gilbert (Brother-In-Law)

* Hope Mikaelson (Niece)

* Lizzie Saltzman (Step-Sister-In-Law)

* Josie Saltzman (Step-Sister-In-Law)

* Jaxon Salvatore (Nephew)

* Nikolina Gilbert-Salvatore (Niece)

* Lillian Gilbert-Salvatore (Niece)

* Grayson Salvatore (Son)

* Sarah Salvatore (Daughter)

* Sebastián Gilbert (Nephew)

* Miranda Mikaelson (Niece)

* Jenna Mikaelson (Niece)

* Camila Gilbert (Niece)

* Stefanie Salvatore (Daughter)

* Issac Gilbert (Nephew)

* Nik Mikaelson (Nephew)

## Supernatural Information

### Significant Sires

* Charlotte (1942)

* Isobel Flemming † (2007)

* Vicki Donovan † (2009)

* Caroline Forbes (2010)

* Alexandria Gilbert (2010)

* Bill Forbes † (2010)

* Abby Bennett Wilson (2010)

* Elena Gilbert (2010/Cured)

## Physical Appearance

### Height

* 5'9 ½" (Feet)

* 1.77 (Meters)

## Appearance

### Played By

* Ian Somerhalder

* Gavin Casalegno (Young, age 12)

**Damon Salvatore** is one of the two lead male protagonists of *The Vampire Diaries* and a guest character in fifth season of *The Originals* and a recurring guest star in *Legacies.* Damon was a 178-year-old vampire and distant descendant of Silas. Since his younger brother, Stefan Salvatore, injected him with the Cure, he is now human then was turned back into a vampire by Alexandria Gilbert with the restore and reversal spell. He was a major antagonist in the first part of Season One. He was born during the 1800s and lived in the colonial town of Mystic Falls with his brother Stefan, his father, Giuseppe Salvatore, and also with his mother Lillian Salvatore until her death in 1858. He became a vampire in 1864. At the time of his return to Mystic Falls, Damon and Stefan hadn't seen each other in fifteen years due to their bitter and violent relationship.

In the 1950s, Damon was captured and tortured by the Augustine society, led by the Whitmore family, who experimented on vampires for a "bigger purpose". During his five years of captivity, he meets another prisoner, Enzo, with whom he became best friends with. Eventually, the plan the two made failed at a critical moment and thinking Enzo "died" because of him, Damon turned off his humanity to suppress the guilt and sadness. He sought revenge, an act of hunting down every member over generations that left one alive to carry on the family name until he finally killed the last descendant in the Whitmore family, which ended with Aaron Whitmore's death.

Damon's sole purpose in coming back to Mystic Falls was to free his sire Katherine Pierce from a tomb she was never in. Damon deeply loved her after 145 years. After realizing that Katherine never loved him, his love for her fades as his friendship and love for Elena, Katherine's descendant and doppelgänger, grows. Due to her impact on him and the strengthening relationship with his brother, they begin working together to protect Elena, along with her friends and family. He lives with his brother Stefan, girlfriend Elena (when she wasn't away at college), and her brother Jeremy Gilbert (after Alex burned their house down) in the Salvatore Boarding House.

In the Season Three of *The Vampire Diaries*, Damon filled the role as a deuteragonist in the first half of the season due to Stefan falling prey to Klaus.

Throughout the series, his bond with Elena continuously grows and they eventually fall in love with each other. Shortly after her death and subsequent transition into a vampire, Elena's feelings for Damon are heightened which makes her admit her love for him and they start a romantic relationship in Season Four. The relationship is complicated when they realize that, due to the fact that it was Damon's blood that turned Elena, she is sire-bonded to him, so nobody is sure whether Elena's feelings for Damon are real or because of the sire bond, but most of the people they know insist that, once the sire bond is broken, Elena will return to Stefan. When Jeremy dies, Elena turns off her emotions; after she turns them back on, the sire bond is broken and Elena reveals that her feeling for Damon were real and she's still in love with him.

In Season Five of *The Vampire Diaries*, he discovers Enzo's undead status and they become friends once again however once "Elena" breaks up with him, he puts an end to his diabolical plan against the Whitmore Family and is then injected with a dangerous compound by Wes Maxfield, causing him to become an Augustine Vampire and the only one in existence. This injection would cause him to crave vampire blood and he would not be able to stop feeding until he had killed. He was later cured, thanks to Enzo, Stefan, and Caroline's actions. Due to the Other Side collapsing, Damon gave up his life to save his loved ones and this particularly caused Elena, Stefan, and Alaric much grief.

In Season Six of *The Vampire Diaries*, Damon and Bonnie are trapped in a 1994 Prison World, which Damon initially believes is his own personal hell, as they are continually reliving a day from his history that Damon believes is the worst thing he ever did. Bonnie is convinced her grandmother sent them there and there is a way out. They work together to find a way back to Mystic Falls. They also form an alliance to take down Kai. During this time, he is able to form a healthy friendship with Bonnie, and they are able to move on from their past and become friends. When Bonnie has a chance to send him home, leaving herself alone with Kai, she does so. Damon initially believes Bonnie was killed in the process, but when he realized she's still alive, he becomes determined to find a way to bring her back. After returning home, he learns that Elena has had Alaric compel away all her memories of their relationship and he attempts to win her back. Damon soon learns of Liz's sickness and soon after, she passes away in the hospital in front of him, leaving him devastated. He is soon reunited with Bonnie who made it out of the prison world and shows him a video of a mysterious lady, who turns out to be Damon's mother. Bonnie had managed to escape the 1994 Prison World by going to Nova Scotia and regaining her magic through Qetsiyah's calcified blood in Silas' tombstone. She also picked up the Cure for vampirism and gave it to him, who in turned gave it to Elena. He expressed the desire to take the Cure with her too and become human. At the end of the season Kai placed Elena into a sleeping curse and tied the spell to Bonnie's life, which was supposed to keep the now human Elena in a mystical coma until Bonnie dies; until then Elena would remain asleep. Damon was devastated by this and said a difficult goodbye to Elena as they locked her in a coffin while his best friend, Bonnie, lived out her remaining days.

As of Season Eight's *I Was Feeling Epic*, Bonnie managed to break the spell, allowing Elena to wake up, while not killing herself in the process due to the spell, and Damon being able to reunite with her. In the final flash forward, the newly human Damon married Elena Gilbert and they lived a long and happy life together before passing away and finding peace.

In Season Five of *The Originals*; Damon goes with his wife Elena, brother-in-law Jeremy, and Jeremy's wife Valentina; to New Orleans after Elena finds out about her twin sister's death. He say's his goodbyes with his nieces Hope, Nikolina, and Lillian as well as his nephew Jaxon.

His best friends are Elena Gilbert, Alexandria Gilbert, Alaric Saltzman, and Bonnie Bennett. He was close friends with Elizabeth Forbes until her death. His friendship with Caroline Forbes, has improved during the last season and they now consider themselves as close friends. Damon was also best friends with Enzo from the time he first met him, until the latter was killed by Stefan, despite the two occasionally being at odds. He is the uncle to Hope Mikaelson, Jax Salvatore, Nina Salvatore, Lily Salvatore, Miranda Mikaelson, Jenna Mikaelson, Nik Mikaelson, Sebastian Gilbert, Camila Gilbert, and Issac Gilbert.

**Damon** is a member of the **Salvatore Family** and was a member of the **Town Council**. He is also a member of the **Petrova Family**, the **Labonair Family**, and the **Gilbert Family** through his marriage to Elena and he also has ties to the **Mikaelson Family**.

## Early History

Damon Salvatore was born June 18, 1839, to Giuseppe Salvatore and Lillian Salvatore in what would eventually become the town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. He is the oldest and first born child of Giuseppe and Lillian. During his human years, Damon was seen and described to be rebellious, carefree, emotional, independent, troubled, insecure, misunderstood, principled, impulsive, competitive, and irresponsible and seemed to lack a general sense of direction. People of the town of Mystic Falls even described Damon to be irresponsible and cowardly, including his own father Giuseppe. The reason for this is because Damon rebelled against the town's and his own father's wish, by leaving the Confederacy on his own terms during the time of the Civil War. Later on it was revealed that Damon hated everything the Confederacy believed in and left after an inspiring conversation with Oscar, one of the Heretics that his mother sent to look after her sons. In his human years, when it came to love, Damon was always seen to be the chaser and the pursuer, the opposite of Stefan, who appeared to be harder to get and challenging with women, especially in regards to Katherine. Damon during his human years, also displayed womanizing tendencies with the opposite sex. Damon and his father, Giuseppe, never got along or had a good, close relationship and Giuseppe frequently expressed extreme disappointment and resentment in the elder Salvatore. Despite his very strained relationship with Giuseppe during his human life, Damon was very close to his younger brother Stefan and they shared a very close relationship and bond. Damon described Stefan as his best friend or companion and the person who trusted the most. However, the brothers eventually became strained after Katherine Pierce came into their lives and both brothers started to compete fiercely for Katherine's affections, with both of the brothers not being aware of Katherine playing them against one another. He was turned into a vampire in 1864, when he was 25 years old, after he drank Katherine Pierce's blood willingly and was shot by his father, Giuseppe, after attempting to save Katherine from being buried in the tomb.

## Personality

### Human

Damon was originally a very free-spirited young man, who was best friends with his younger brother Stefan Salvatore, both of whom were instantly smitten with the vampire Katherine Pierce. He had a positive relationship with Stefan and he held his position as elder brother in high regard, being the one to teach Stefan how to fight when they were younger. As a human, Damon also held a sense of duty as he enrolled in the confederacy, however their father saw him as very irresponsible and reckless, proving he was very much a free spirit who did things on a whim, taking no mind to what people thought.
Damon could be considered much the opposite to his brother in many regards. Whilst they both were respectful and polite, Damon had a dark side which came to play when he fell in love with Katherine, whilst initially terrified at the prospect, his love for Katherine and dependency for her affections made the choice easy and he willingly drank her blood and conspired with her to kill innocent humans, a trait which passed on to his vampire lifestyle. Damon was very naive as a human, he loved Katherine deeply and recklessly, regardless of the consequences and not caring that his father was ashamed of him. His carefree life fell apart when Stefan betrayed Damon by alluding to their father that Katherine was a vampire; information that resulted in Katherine being trapped and taken to a church to be burned, also doing whatever he could to get her back, even if it resulted in his death.

### Vampire

After he became a vampire, he left Stefan's side, wanting no part in the life of the man who betrayed him. He selfishly kept the fact that Katherine was still alive from Stefan, jealous that his brother had also been turned by their shared lover. By the time he appears in season one, he's been away from Stefan for at least eighty years (including the meeting in *1912*), and he immediately begins taunting his brother, as a colder, more calloused version of his human self.

Throughout season one, Damon pretends to be arrogant and sarcastic, showing little to no regard for human life and using whatever people he can get his hands on as his personal playthings. He shows pity to neither Caroline Forbes nor Vicki Donovan, even going so far as to kill Stefan's football coach to "prove" that he has no humanity left. He is also portrayed as a very impulsive vampire, known for his self-destructive behavior and his devious, sadistic mind. Despite this, he stays focused on his only goal: getting Katherine out of the tomb. This shows his ability for planning and forethought, and certainly the patience to wait one hundred and forty-five years for the necessary comet to return.

After Katherine is discovered to have been alive the entire time, and his reason for doing the things he has been doing shattered, Damon becomes more dangerous because he drinks alcohol constantly, bonding with others at the bar. He destructively taunts Alaric Saltzman about being the one to kill his wife, Isobel Flemming, but is confused when he finds that Isobel is Elena and Alex's birth mother. He tempts his brother with human blood, though he knows exactly what Stefan used to be, and when Stefan goes off the deep end, Damon helps Alex detox him. He also genuinely thanks Bonnie Bennett for disabling the device that could kill him, surprising her with his sincerity.

Every time his brother is put in a situation that endangers his life, Damon protects him, but he's not afraid to cause Stefan non-lethal harm. Despite his anger with Stefan for his actions in the past, he hangs around, protecting him and working with him, sometimes destroying the good in his life. Their perplexing relationship seems to center around Alex, who anchors them to Mystic Falls.

Alex is the oddity of Damon's behavior, the anomaly that makes his personality far from psychopathic. In the beginning of the first season, Stefan is prepared to give up on his brother, believing him to be an irreparable monster, but Damon displays true feeling for Alex. Alex Gilbert is physically identical to Katherine, the woman who turned him into a vampire, making her not only a constant reminder of what happened to him and Stefan, but a temptation to let history repeat itself. When Katherine reveals that she never loved him (in the beginning of season two), Damon reacts by trying to get Alex to admit that she loves him, and when she tells him that she loves Stefan, he reacts impulsively, set off by both Katherine and Alex choosing his brother instead of him. He kills Alex's brother, spending many weeks afterwards trying to make it up to Alex, showing true regret for his actions. Their relationship began with taunting and cruelty, but she became what he clings to for humanity; he became her occasional protector, a guardian of sorts. His impulsive actions often drive her away but she refuses to let him die, and he does the same for her.

With Alex influencing him throughout the second season, Damon becomes slightly kinder, if only for the fact that he no longer mindlessly kills and torments humans without good reason, and he controls himself to be strong for Alex's sake. He proves that he is capable of love, nobility, loyalty, and selflessness, masking the most intense of his emotions to spare himself from seeming weak, but expressing just enough to draw in a very small circle of friends (which he later drives away). He continues to claim that his emotions can be turned off, but several older vampires reveal that this is a lie; after a certain amount of time, a vampire has to pretend they can't feel. The only time Damon had ever admitted his pain was when Alex told him that she would never kiss him back, to which he responded, "Now I'm hurt."

### Augustine Vampire

When Damon fed on Joey in *Total Eclipse of the Heart*, he was shown to have no remorse or guilt over ripping the young vampire's head off.

### Ghost

Damon's personality as a Ghost was much like his personality as a Vampire. He did, however, seem to grow closer to Bonnie Bennett, and the two met Malachai and grew to have a mutual hatred of him.

## Physical Appearance

Damon is very handsome, standing 5'10" in height with a well-built, toned physique. His physical appearance is of a 25 year old despite being over 190. Damon has a light complexion with olive undertones and has a strong bone structure with high cheek bones and a solid jaw line. He has dark brown almost black hair, which hangs just over his ears, usually styled in a casual disarray yet sometimes gelled for special occasions. With striking, intense light blue eyes contrasting wonderfully against dark eyelashes and eyebrows, a "bad boy" smile, he can be described as relatively athletic, tall, strong, sexy and seductive. He also considers himself the "eternal stud".

Damon's clothing style has remained somewhat similar throughout the series, usually favoring darker clothing; black shirts, t-shirts and boots underneath darkened jeans and black trousers, although on occasion has been seen wearing lighter colors. Damon is rarely seen without his leather jackets and his favorite clothing designer is "John Varvatos". On special events, such as dances, he wears smart attire such as tuxedo's and dress shoes. As a vampire, he wears a large lapis lazuli daylight ring enchanted by Emily Bennett, as a means to walk around in the sunlight as a vampire. The ring has the Salvatore crest and an embedded "D" for his first name.

In flashbacks, as a human in the 1860s era, Damon generally wore the same attire as his younger brother; Stefan, including dress shirts with suspenders, waistcoats, dress coats, hats, cravats and leather laced boots as his usual style. His color scheme as a human was much lighter, Damon was seen wearing a red waistcoat, yet still formal, showing the Salvatore family's wealth. His hair was slightly longer in style, with slight curls, showing a much more youthful appearance.

## Powers and Abilities

### Vampire

Damon possesses all the standard powers and abilities of a non-Original vampire. He has shown himself to be an experienced fighter easily able to subdue his enemies. Being that Damon is over 170 years old, he is an old and powerful vampire. For vampire standards, he is a relatively young non-Original vampire to appear in the series, along with his younger brother Stefan. Damon's initial advantage (being stronger and faster) over his brother was due to him being older and regularly consuming human blood. Due to this Damon is physically able to easily beat younger vampires, although he has been shown capable of standing up to vampires much older than him, this is in part due to his determination. Though ultimately still inferior to those of much older vampires like Katherine Pierce, Pearl and Annabelle Zhu and the Originals to name a few. However given his intellect, he has been shown to take vampires down through surprise attacks, such as fighting the ancient vampire, Elijah Mikaelson with his brother's help and surprising Kol using his super-speed. Damon, when at full strength, can be extremely dangerous, especially when fighting for the ones he loves. Such as when Damon, alongside Stefan, were able to fight Katherine Pierce, a non-Original vampire of 538 years of age, though she still bested both of them. Damon is also a very skilled user of mind compulsion. Damon has been shown to use this power effectively many times throughout the long course of the series. Mind compulsion remains to date as one of Damon's most frequently used powers of being a vampire. Stefan has noted that when at full power and angry, Damon can be very dangerous. This is evidently shown in situations concerning Elena Gilbert. In *Live Through This*, Damon became emotionally distressed when he learned that it was Lily's idea to place the sleeping spell on Elena. This led Damon to become angry and lash out at his mother, strangling her. Initially Damon's strength was much more powerful than Stefan's due his to frequent feeding spree on humans, Stefan was unwilling to face him without an advantage and told his nephew he wouldn't be able to beat Damon without feeding on humans himself, something that Damon told him earlier. Later in the series the power distance between the brothers shortened as Damon fed less frequently and usually on bloodbags, and Stefan may have moderated at some point as demonstrated by the battles where Stefan is able to fight evenly against his brother, though Damon still usually wins the fights.

### Augustine Vampire

In *No Exit*, Damon appeared to have an increase in strength whenever he felt the urge to feed on Vampire blood, he had all the abilities that a normal vampire would have except, enhanced to further levels making him much more powerful than vampires that are much older than him. For example, Damon was able to break free from his chains in a matter of seconds when Enzo chained him up. Though this is something any-other vampire might not be able to do.

## Weaknesses

### Vampire

Damon has the typical weaknesses of a non-Original vampire.

### Human

Damon had all the typical weaknesses of a human.