Despite vampirism initially believed to be permanent, the iconic CW series introduced a solution, leading to questions about who takes the cure in The Vampire Diaries. Over the years and through its end with season 8, The Vampire Diaries expanded its characters to include various supernatural creatures, and the series developed a complex (albeit sometimes convoluted) canon. One integral component was the Cure for vampirism, which became a significant plot driver more than once. The Cure, long thought to be a myth, was revealed to be very real in The Vampire Diaries season 4.

Even beyond the fourth season, however, the Cure continued to pop up and impact the plot throughout the following seasons. Understandably, giving up one’s vampirism and thus one’s immortality and supernatural powers is a big deal. That didn’t stop some characters in The Vampire Diaries from wanting to take it, however, yearning for a human life. Other vampires saw it as a weapon, a means to get rid of a powerful threat, or to be used as a bargaining chip. Whatever the intent of using the Cure, those who did use it were profoundly changed in The Vampire Diaries.

The Vampire Diaries Cure Explained

It Turned The User Back Into A Human

Far from being discovered thanks to new science, The Vampire Diaries Cure was very old. It was created by the powerful witch Qetsiyah, Bonnie Bennett’s ancestor, thousands of years before the events of the show to punish her immortal lover, Silas, for betraying her with another woman. The Cure remained hidden and was thought to be nothing more than a myth for 2,000 years until the characters discovered that the Cure was real in The Vampire Diaries season 4 and set out to find it.

Once a vampire drinks the Cure, it reverts them to a mortal state, enabling them to be harmed or killed.

There have been multiple cures for vampirism between The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. Still, the original Cure for immortality and vampirism created by Qetsiyah for Silas is the most potent and the most well-known. Technically, Silas wasn’t a vampire but the world’s first immortal, but, as the immortality of vampires operates in the same way, the Cure still works on them. Once a vampire drinks the Cure, it reverts them to a mortal state, enabling them to be harmed or killed.

There are two other cures in The Vampire Diaries franchise. Of the other two cures, one was the Immortality Reversal Spell created by the witch Esther to undo the curse she’d placed on her children, the Original Vampires. The third was discovered by the Travelers, and it involved mixing the blood of the last pair of dopplegängers and casting a Magic Purification Spell on it.

Did Damon And Elena Become Human Again?

They Both Took The Cure In The End

By the series finale of The Vampire Diaries, both Nina Dobrev’s Elena and Ian Somerhalder’s Damon were human, living a happy, married life. The series somewhat glossed over the details with more of an “And they lived happily ever after…” approach, but there are a few things that were confirmed, whether in the finale or later in the spinoff shows. Elena became the town doctor, pursuing the path of medicine she always wanted. She and Damon lived a long and happy life together, and had multiple kids: Jenna, Sarah Lillian, and a son, Grayson.

In the spinoff series
Legacies
season 1, it’s also mentioned that they have another daughter named Stephanie, albeit in an alternate timeline.

Elena taking the vampire Cure isn’t much of a surprise. From the start, she was never that enamored with being a vampire, having been made one against her will, as well as the bloodlust of Vampire Diaries‘ vampires running contrary to her compassionate nature. It’s more surprising for Damon since he loved being a vampire; when the Cure first presented itself, he was adamant that he’d never take it. Still, it’s not that shocking considering who Damon had been as a human before he’d been turned into a vampire. Back then, Damon was the more naive and idealistic of the two brothers and didn’t want to become a vampire. Getting to be a husband and a father and live out his life with Elena gave him back the human life he’d had taken away from him.

The finale also revealed in a flash-forward one last way in which Damon and Elena’s Mystic Falls humanity played out in their old age. In the future, when Elena dies, she finds peace in the afterlife with her deceased loved ones, including her adoptive parents Grayson and Miranda, her aunt Jenna, and her biological father John. Damon, who had feared for so long that he’d be trapped in Purgatory or go to Hell, also found peace in the afterlife after dying of old age, reuniting with Stefan. As revealed in the modern timeline in Legacies, Elena and Damon are still very much alive, though never made cameo appearances.

Katherine Pierce

And Technically, Silas

The first person to get the Cure in The Vampire Diaries was Katherine Pierce, who loved being a vampire and received the Cure against her will. During a brutal showdown with Katherine, Elena was forced to shove the vampire Cure down Katherine’s throat to save herself. The Vampire Diaries season 5 picked up months later, and Katherine was still in Mystic Falls, miserable and ill-equipped to live as a human.

Throughout 500 years, Katherine acquired many enemies, and she went to Damon, begging for protection. Damon offered to turn her back into a vampire, but since nobody had taken the Cure before, Katherine couldn’t be sure it would work. It turned out that Katherine preferred a mortal life to no life at all. Further complicating matters was Silas’s reappearance. He still wanted the Cure and the only dose of it in the world was running through Katherine’s veins.

Silas transferred the Cure to himself by drinking all of Katherine’s blood, becoming mortal once again. Shockingly, this didn’t kill Katherine. However, Silas’ actions revealed a dangerous side effect of the Vampire Diaries Cure: once it was removed from Katherine’s body, she began to die of old age. It wasn’t the end for Katherine, whose trademark was to survive no matter what, but her essentially being the guinea pig did reveal much about how the Cure worked in The Vampire Diaries. As for Silas, his mortal life didn’t last long. He soon is caught up in a trap of his own making and sucked into the darkness of oblivion.

Elena Gilbert

The Person Who Most Wanted To Be Human

After the Cure bounced around for a while, it reappeared in season 6 and was taken by Elena, who had been the initial intended recipient of it before being forced to burn it on Katherine. Once Elena drank the Cure, Damon planned to feed on her, and as long as nobody sucked it out of him, he and Elena could live the rest of their lives together as mortals.

Unlike Katherine, Elena wouldn’t be affected by having the Cure removed from her blood as she’d only been a vampire for a short time. Despite their uncertainties about their future, Elena took the Cure and regained her previously compelled away memories of Damon. However, Kai Parker meddled and kept Damon from taking the Cure; he wasn’t able to take it and become human with Elena until the end of the series.

Stefan Salvatore

Bonnie Injected Him With The Cure

The Vampire Diaries’ final season played a little loose with the canon of the vampire Cure, and episode 11, “You Made a Choice to Be Good,” introduced new and inconsistent information about the Cure. The rules regarding the Cure in The Vampire Diaries were fluid, depending on what suited the storyline. Previously, to gain the benefits of the Cure from someone who had already taken it, the recipient must drink every drop of their blood. However, The Vampire Diaries season 8 changed this up, revealing that multiple doses of the Cure could be extracted from Elena’s blood, but only one at a time.

In
The Vampire Diaries
series finale, Stefan died a hero and very much human.

When a humanity-free Stefan arrived at Bonnie’s house planning to kill Elena, the Bennett witch injected Stefan with the Cure, making him the first vampire to successfully transition into a human without drinking the Cure directly. Stefan relived every murder he committed, and everyone he ever compelled began to remember the things Stefan wanted them to forget. He was arrested for his past crimes (Caroline made the charges disappear by erasing the victims’ memories) and shot by Dorian Williams, whose father and sister Stefan Ripper-ed. In The Vampire Diaries series finale, Stefan died a hero and very much human. He ultimately joined his best friend Lexi in the afterlife, and, crucially, Stefan sent Elena a goodbye message after his death.

Damon Salvatore

He Drank It To Be With Elena

When the Cure first surfaced during The Vampire Diaries season 4, unlike humanity-hungry Stefan, Damon told Elena he couldn’t imagine anything more miserable than being human and even after he told Elena he’d take the Cure with her, it was unclear how committed he was to that idea. But like Stefan and Katherine, somebody chose for him. During the series finale, both Salvatore brothers were willing to sacrifice themselves to save Mystic Falls. However, Stefan secretly injected his older brother with his blood, which carried the Cure, and took Damon’s place, sacrificing himself to save the town and finding redemption in the end.

Presumably, Damon made a better human than anyone anticipated. While The Vampire Diaries finale’s final moments confirmed he and Elena lived a happy life together, details were scarce. They’ve presumably managed to keep knowledge of the vampire Cure from spreading as it was not a story arc or mentioned in Legacies. The vampire Cure does presumably live on, however.

In the series finale of The Originals, Klaus told Rebekah that the Cure was in Mystic Falls and that Caroline would give it to her. This implies Rebekah will be the last vampire to use the Cure; however, as of her cameo appearance in Legacies season 4, episode 5, “I Thought You’d Be Happier to See Me,” Rebekah was still a vampire. Whether the Cure would have come back into play if all The Vampire Diaries spin-offs hadn’t been canceled is unclear.

Character Who Wanted The Cure But Didn’t Get It

Klaus

Klaus had an interesting relationship with the cure in The Vampire Diaries. At first, he saw it as a threat, and spent much of season 4 seeking it out purely to prevent others from possessing it and potentially using it to strip him of his vampirism and the power it gave him. What’s more, he seemed somewhat offended that the cure even existed, and incredibly disdainful of the idea that any vampire would want to be mortal again.

However, he came to accept its existence over time. While it never seemed that he wanted the cure for himself, he did arrange for Rebekah to receive it in The Originals season 5. This marked a surprising shift for Klaus, as he seemed to accept that Rebekah didn’t want to be a vampire, and took steps to help her reach mortality again instead of simply dismissing her desires. Of course, this is Klaus Salvatore, so there were strings attached, and he refused to give Rebekah the cure until a few decades had passed and Damon was an old man.

Rebekah

Of all the characters in The Vampire Diaries who wanted to take the cure but didn’t, Rebekah was the most persistent in her efforts. She began seeking the cure from the moment she knew of its existence but, unfortunately, was never able to actually take it and restore her mortality. At one point she even believed she’d found it at Katherine’s home. Her moment of victory was short-lived, however, as it turned out to be a decoy.

However, by the end of The Originals, Rebekah was in a position to take the cure. The show ended before confirming her decision either way, but it’s entirely likely she opted to restore her mortality. The spinoff of The Vampire Diaries ended with Rebekah and Marcel agreeing to marry. It’s entirely possible that Marcel and Rebekah would take the cure together to have a happy mortal life — though, on the other hand, there’s also every chance that they’ll remain together as vampires to enjoy one-another’s company for eternity.

Bonnie

Bonnie may not have been a vampire, but she was one of the characters in The Vampire Diaries who spent an incredible amount of time trying to find and keep hold of the cure. She’s intrinsically tied to its existence in a number of ways, and without her it’s entirely possible that the likes of Damon and Elena would have had to endure vampirism for the rest of their immortal lives.

In fact, it was Bonnie who was responsible for freeing Silas from his tomb and, with him, the long-forgotten cure created by her distant ancestor, Qetsiyah. Bonnie also brought a duplicate cure back with her from the 1994 prison world in season 6. This duplicate then became the only existing version of the cure when Silas was ultimately defeated.

Bonnie also sought the cure to give to her mother, Abby. Abby was a former witch who’d become a vampire. Bonnie managed to deliver the cure to Abby in season 6 though, to her dismay, learned her mother didn’t want it and was happy as a vampire. Knowing she’d forever be in danger if she kept hold of the cure herself, Bonnie decided to pass it on to Damon.

How The Cure Is Different In The Vampire Diaries Books

The Show Is Very Different From The Books

The Cure in The Vampire Diaries exists in the book series that inspired the television series as well, but the two are very different. The differences aren’t that surprising since the television series makes a lot of changes to the world of The Vampire Diaries to better suit the TV narrative. One big difference between the two is that the original Cure is only enough for one person in the TV series. That’s not true in the book series as multiple vampires can be cured from the same dose. In the books, the vampire Cure is also not an elixir or pulled from someone’s blood and instead resides in a rose.

For someone to be cured of vampirism in the books, all a vampire has to do is smell the rose that holds the Cure. It’s a much simpler process but also means it’s easier to make a mistake and the wrong vampire smells the rose. That’s exactly what happens in the novels as Damon smells the rose that is meant for Stefan, and ends up cured of his vampirism. Of course, he doesn’t remain human but is turned back into a vampire later in the story. That’s a drastic difference from the television series in which Damon gets to live out the Cure in The Vampire Diaries alongside Elena.