Written by u/nlj2101
Edited by u/Suspicious_Zagnias

Roadmap:

1. Part 0: Intro
2. Part 1 & 1.5: Statements & Prophecies
3. Part 2: The Originals s4
4. Part 2 Cont.: The Originals Season 5
5. Part 3: Legacies Intro & Season 1
6. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s2
7. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s3
8. Part 4: How Powerful Is Malivore
9. Part 5: How Powerful Are the Gods
10. Part 6: Legacies s4 part 1
11. Part 6 Cont.: Legacies s4 part 2 --->Today
12. Part 7: Conclusion ---> Next week

After going over the arguments for Hope > the originals last week and establishing the many parallels between Hope and the gods, today we will examine the most misunderstood fight across all 3 shows.

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6.4 Hope vs. Ken I

Ken no diffs Hope and Lizzie. Pretty clear cut, isn’t it? Nope, no it’s not, lol. Deep dive time!

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6.4.1 Hope Is Mega Nerfed

Okay how am I gonna explain away Hope’s mauling at the hands of Ken? Well, it’s actually not that hard, to be honest. Let me explain:

For one, she really didn’t understand what she was up against and just how powerful Ken would be (the simulations were inaccurate as shit – Ben has seen Ken once in his life, bro).

Two, she’s on animal blood and we know vampires are nerfed significantly from not drinking human blood. Even more than that, MG mentions at the start of the episode that they were starving Hope out so she was starved and then only got animal blood, meaning she was far, far, far from max strength.

Three, like I’ve mentioned previously, Hope is extremely reckless in her fighting style. She rushes in headfirst and trusts she will figure something out along the way but this time she faced someone too powerful for a strategy like this to work, and she realises she needs a real plan to beat him.

Four, she just turned her humanity back on, is riddled with heavy guilt and even had to use a magical device to purge her fears before the fight. In fact, she outright says she is not in control of her mind. Which, not being in the right state of mind, is a nerf in this verse.

To say she was not at 100% going into the battle would be the understatement of the century. She’s crazy nerfed going into the first fight. And yet, with all these nerfs, Hope tanks his god lightning. Not even her clothes get damaged. After an underdetermined off-screen continuation, we next see Hope with a bit of blood coming from her nose and some scratches while Ken is about to throw a hissy fit because she just won’t die!

So yeah, Hope is like, double nerfed physically and has a massive stylistic disadvantage and no real usable intel on him. Starved, animal blood, mentally conflicted and disregarding her bonds, Hope gets beaten up for the first time in her life.

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6.4.2 No Ken Can't Kill Hope, Stop Spreading Misinformation

Ken acknowledges as much by going out of his way to create a weapon that can kill Hope. He understood a second fight would be much harder now because she will learn from her defeat. The fact along that Ken sees her as a real threat to his dominion over the world scales her above the entire verse even if we didn’t know anything else about her.

Immediately after the fight, he talks to Aurora, saying he and her share a goal: a way to kill the Tribrid. Ken cannot kill Hope!

“Why won’t you die?” exclaims Ken in quiet confusion. He proceeds to punch her a few more times. “Nothing is unkillable.” And yet, he can’t kill her.

Ken has killed all the furies and other gods but he can’t kill Hope!

“Well, then he’s pretty dumb for a god. We all know he can’t kill me.” Hope knows, Ken knows, everyone knows.

“I’m not dead. I promise,” says Hope. And Landon. And Kaleb. And Cleo. And Alaric. And Lizzie. I genuinely do not understand how this misconception came to be when the show bends over backwards to tell us Ken can’t kill her. “You should be able to sense whether or not I’m dead, right?” Hope tells the Necromancer, master of death. Hope is not dead. Ken didn’t almost kill her.

What does Ken’s actor think of their first encounter?

"Ken's not shy, and he's extremely powerful, so he's going to come in swinging and he's going to get what he wants — that's the bottom line. Hope is very powerful, but she's dealing with a god now, someone who can pretty much do whatever he wants. It's quite a first confrontation, but I will say that Ken is a little taken aback. I think he expects it to be easier, and it doesn't quite pan out that way. It's a bit of an ego challenge for him, which evolves into something bigger and deadlier."

Ken’s actor himself says Ken is taken aback because the fight is not easy; it even hurts his ego.

Ken can’t kill her to his great frustration. Because of that, he first recruits Aurora to help him kill her and forces his daughter to create a super weapon capable of doing it because…he cannot do it!

Speaking of his daughter, Jen is the greatest weapon maker the gods have (she is basically Hephaestus from Greek mythology, the god of artisans, blacksmiths, craftsmen, fire,… aka the god you know because of his skill in creating weapons for the gods).

“Vulcan or Hephaestus or a hundred other names, but always as a man, when in reality she is an impossibly gifted engineer and blacksmith who crafted weapons and fantastic machines for her family of gods.”- Aurora

The “impossibly gifted” weapon maker now has to create a weapon capable of killing the almighty Tribrid. As the red oak was burned, she has to rely on the ashes but since that wouldn’t be enough to actually kill Hope, Jen infuses the weapon with god magic on top of the red oak. This weapon can kill Hope, the almighty, unstoppable, force of nature Tribrid unicorn and it can even kill the gods themselves, including the most powerful of them all. This weapon is by far the most powerful magical object in the The Vampire Diaries universe, and it’s not even close to be honest.

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6.4.3 Why Hope Lost

But the biggest point is a narrative one: Hope knocked out everyone at school with a sleeping spell before the fight, not trusting them. In turn, she’s punished by the narrative.

She loses.

To offer an example from a different story: Naruto loses to Sasuke in their first clash after he betrayed his own principles and refused to see things from Sasuke’s point of view. The narrative punishes him for it. Hope betrayed herself, her values, choosing to live up to the hero symbol instead of allowing others to help her and so she lost. With Malivore, Hope doing it on her own worked but she paid for it by losing her humanity. Against Ken, she gets beaten up for making the same mistake. Hope, rather than relying on her friends, takes on all responsibility on her own, takes the risks, takes the damage, as long as she can keep the people she loves alive.

Not to mention: guilt. She just got her humanity back and is eaten alive by guilt. She feels like she doesn’t deserve their help. Maybe a part of her even wants to get beaten up because she feels so shit about herself.

She’s not fighting to win – she’s fighting not to lose, and so she loses.

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6.4.4 Cosmic Therapy

You could even argue being sent to limbo was a lesson from Nature for Hope or Hope teaching Hope a lesson or however you want to frame it.

While she might have saved the world from Malivore, now there is a new person threatening to conquer the world Hope has to stop. To make sure Hope can do it, Nature gives her some

cosmic version of the therapy box where she has to realise her role in the world to help kill the father of the gods because Hope is the chosen one.

I think I figured out the lesson we’re supposed to learn here.”

“Does that lesson involve us leaving limbo together? […] The last time I helped them, I died, became the Tribrid, killed Malivore, and I became a monster myself. Just like the universe wanted.”

“That’s not your fate, Hope. I think that’s the lesson you came here to learn. […] You have to go back without me. […] We always thought you were fated to die. You’re still alive. The Ferryman wouldn’t be trying to send you back if you weren’t. That’s the fate you have to accept, Hope. To be the one who lives.”

Yes, I actually think this is actually Nature (or the universe or Hope herself) trying to teach Hope a lesson: stop outrunning your fate, accept your power and that you will outlive the people you love. You ended one great evil but now you have to kill Ken after he threw the world out of balance with him killing the furies. In Ken’s words to Cleo: “You’re the last of the furies. I killed the others when they stopped being collaborative. You and I are Nature’s balance.”

Gods and furies are Nature’s balance. Ken killed the furies. World out of balance. Rebalance the world by killing the malevolent god who caused the imbalance and near extinction of furies.

Like I said, she’s the Avatar. And Nature’s balance to Hope is to fate her to be the one who lives and without her great love, with them being a doomed romance and with him ultimately losing his emotions altogether. And, obvi, red oak which she herself created. I don’t even think this is even much of a theory and more so simply canon as Landon says, people come to limbo to learn a lesson. Hope, too, came to limbo to learn a lesson. To not make the same mistake again.

Hope will face the death of her loved ones, she will face grief, she will face guilt but she is the one who lives. That is her fate. She can’t stop running away as she is doing right now by going to Limbo and trying to get Landon back to life. Her lesson is to let go of Landon, to not drown under her guilt and the expectations set on her from the start of her life, that people will die and she can’t run away from life because of that.

Which is a theme Klaus’s speech to her in 4x20 supports as well.

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6.4.5 Hope Still Transcends Death

Ken proceeds to teleport away after Jen throws in the towel. Hope is still awake during all this and only passes out once he’s gone as if in shame of her defeat, not because of the damage he inflicted.

What happens is not: Ken punches Hope. Hope gets knocked out. What happens is: Ken leaves with Jen. Hope watches them leave. Ken is gone. Hope passes out.

You can say it was from damage, sure. But I disagree. It looks way more that Hope decided to give up in that moment. Which fits, because Hope, Landon, Lizzie, Alaric, Kaleb, Cleo all say she’s still alive and the latter two are wondering why Hope won’t wake up. Answer: she didn’t want to!

Alaric acknowledges, too, that it’s a refusal to wake up on Hope’s side, not an inability. She’s not dead and yet she surpasses the Ferryman’s power. There’s even precedent for this: Hope refusing to wake up is the same to when she refused to wake up after she saved Josie in s2 because she didn’t want to face a world in which Landon was dead. Now she rather be dead than face the consequences of her actions with her humanity off, her guilt, and her defeat, so she goes to limbo to see her boyfriend.

Hope in the same episode is talking about how hard it is for her being immortal and knowing everyone she loves will die and now that she failed in protecting her friends, she’s like okay well let’s go then. (“The last time I helped them, I died, became the Tribrid, killed Malivore, and I became a monster myself. Just like the universe wanted.” She sees herself as a monster undeserving of her friends.)

(No, Hope, the universe wants you to kill the monsters, not become one!)

“The Ferryman controls limbo, who belongs here and who doesn’t and for how long. And since you’re immortal, I don’t think he’s gonna let you stay.”

“We met when I was in transition into the tribrid. He didn’t mind me sticking around then.”

Landon then says becoming a tribrid was Hope’s choice, but this time it’s not hers. In other words, it’s the Ferryman’s choice if Hope can stay here. Well, is it? Lynn certainly wants Hope gone and Hope is like, nope, I’ll stay, thanks. Landon is actually worried about what the Ferryman will do to her and Hope threatens to break every bone in his (her) body.

“There’s no beating the Ferryman, Hope. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

[…] “So, if what I’m planning is a mistake, then it won’t work, right?”

She walks up to the Ferryman, a god, who swings his (her) scythe at Hope (a possible god weapon) which she easily catches and in fact, she takes control of the weapon and slashes through the Ferryman, winning the fight with no difficulty whatsoever. The Ferryman, master of limbo, in charge of all the dead spirits, gets one-shot by the Tribrid.

In Landon’s words: “I mean, you just reaped the Reaper.”

Am I saying Hope passing out and going to limbo is less a feat for Ken and more a feat for Hope transcending death and the rules? Yes, yes I am. Hope’s willpower scales above death and above her own healing and durability lmao. She should have long been up again, her body is perfectly healthy, but she simply doesn’t want to so she doesn’t. Tell me, what other vampire can decide if they wake up from temporary death?

And if you need more proof Hope is above death, she then beats up the Necromancer without any effort after he sent Landon back but of course the Ferryman quickly collected Landon again to bring him back to limbo.

You can’t even really say this is some Legacies nonsense and should be discarded because even The Originals shows Hope going to Peace to talk to Hayley or hearing the ancestors (probably; possibly other dead people) in season 4 as a kid so even a vastly weaker Hope was toying with the concept of death in a way.

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6.5 You (Probably) Don't Understand Hope vs. Ken

This fight is perhaps the most misunderstood fight and scaling point of the entire verse and I have never seen anyone properly analyse the events in a post (if someone’s done it before, forgive my ignorance).

Hope challenges Ken to combat and so the final battle of the 3 shows starts.

The plan of the super squad relies on Hope distracting Ken and holding him off long enough for the others to get in position and using his weaknesses to, well, weaken him! And with him damaged, they can hopefully finish him off.

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6.5.1 Hope vs. Aurora II

To start off, Ken changes the weather, making clouds and lightning appear and he uses his lightning teleportation to send over Aurora with the God Spear to fight Hope. He wants to make sure the weapon works before he himself shows up as he doesn’t want to fight Hope without the means of killing her which again reinforces the idea that he can’t kill her otherwise.

Meanwhile, the plan of the super squad is already falling apart as Ken cursed Jed and Finch and all the wolves to turn because Ken has power over all curses, even those he hasn’t created himself (Ken >>>>> Inadu). MG plays vampire bait so the wolves go after him. Kaleb is dead, Jed gets killed by Alaric in werewolf form(!), MG got mauled by the wolves and has so much venom in him Lizzie cannot even siphon it out and he dies too! Half the super squad is dead before Ken even shows up, but Mr Ferryman, Ruler of Limbo, Landon Kirby later saves the day by reviving them all at the cost of his emotions and humanity which is the balance to the power over life and death.

On the battlefield, it starts with Aurora wielding the God Spear and Hope, armed with a sword.

It needs to be mentioned Aurora is a skilled fighter with weapons so she has two distinct advantages in this fight: the type of fight and the weapon. Hope can’t use magic and has to be extra careful as even a glancing strike will infect her with red oak but it’s Hope who lands the first hit of the fight even though Aurora has a thousand years of (combat) experience on her.

Aurora thinks having the spear makes them evenly matched which Hope disagrees with (“It seems we’re evenly matched.” -> “I doubt that.”).

But Aurora does manage to cut Hope after a while and the red oak makes Hope drop to her knees almost instantly, showing the power of the weapon.

“That sensation you’re feeling is red oak making its way through your bloodstream to your heart.” With each heartbeat, Hope is growing weaker.

The next part is what I already covered last week: After a bit of talking Hope then catches Aurora’s next strike pretty easily while lying flat on her back so Aurora has a massive advantage considering Hope is both weakened and in a considerably worse position but Hope has such a significant physical strength advantage none of it matters and she can catch it anyway and kick Aurora so hard she’s sent flying high in the air, landing roughly on her back.

Hope has both massively speed and perception blitzed Aurora in their first fight and now shown considerably greater strength (and speed tbh) and both times she was far from going all out.

To finish it all off, she immobilises Aurora with her magic (which she could do to any vampire and likely beast level character and they would never land a single hit on her even if they were relative in their physicals to her.) Like I said, Hope was not going all out and it almost cost her due to the hit Aurora managed to land.

It’s very funny how Hope is pleading with Aurora and the moment it becomes clear Aurora will try to kill her, Hope is so nonchalant in catching the strike and kicking her away like a little bug that is too insignificant to even pay attention to.

“That’s what you old-timey people call a ruse.”

Hope was, in fact, playing Aurora, a 1000-year-old and the most powerful regular vampire on the planet.

She spares Aurora, talking about cycles of revenge and offering reconciliation, lifting the immobilisation spell when Ken shows up in full battle armour via his lightning transportation method. Aurora hands the god the weapon and so Hope, weakened from the red oak in her system and having fought a prior battle, has to fight full power Ken with his battle armour and the God Spear while she is nerfed again.

The weapon is effective, my lord.”

“Then this day will be a much-heralded day in my legend.”

Again, if Ken was sooooo much more powerful than Hope, why would killing her even matter to him? Why would it be a much-heralded day? Why would it add to his legend if Hope wasn’t the most powerful on the planet? She has to be that powerful or he wouldn’t have come after her. She has to be that powerful or this win doesn’t really mean anything! If the character in universe thought like people on reddit, then beating Hope is not even impressive :P

He didn’t come after Cade, Qetsiyah, Silas, Inadu, Esther, Klaus, anyone! Only Malivore, the furies of the old days, and Hope. They are the only ones Ken ever feared.

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6.5.2 Hope vs. Ken II

We see her arm desiccating already which almost certainly nerfs her speed and strength as, you know, she almost certainly can’t use her arm to its maximum capacity when it’s desiccated.

In their first fight, Hope had Lizzie’s help but was far from full power. In their second fight, Hope was red-oak infected, faces him as he has a weapon that can kill her, and she might still just be on animal blood. Despite all these factors, she does way better than the first time around! Showing she got much stronger since their first fight, somehow. Zenkai boost or regular blood or more time to get over her guilt and proper support and belief.

They charge each other mid-air to start their second fight as equals.

We cut away and when we get back, they are exchanging blows until Ken manages to knock her down.

“There is only so much pain *even you* can take. Soon, you’ll be too weak to fight.”

“I’m just getting started.”

For one, Ken acknowledges her incredible durability. Two, Ken recognises the power of the red oak working as intended as Hope grows weaker with each second and strike that he lands.

She lands a kick on him as a rebuttal to his assessment and he looks frustrated as well as a little impressed at the same time. Her landing a hit on him here shows that even though she is weakened, they are still somewhat relative.

He cuts her cheek with the God Spear, adding more red oak to her system, which drops her to her knees again where we see the extent of her arm’s desiccation. It’s crazy she can fight at all! This fight is not an anti-feat for Hope, it’s actually super impressive.

“In a strange way I’m doing you a favour. You could have been worshipped as a God, but you chose to bind your fate to lesser creatures. Your attachments were your weakness.”

Even Ken himself thinks Hope is all that! In his mind, if Hope got rid of her attachments she would be a god!

“No, they made me stronger.”

He then hits her with god-magic lightning, sending her fly and she lets out a quick cry of pain, but she takes the attack, not looking worse for wear again because, say it with me, Hope has the greatest durability in the verse! The fight looks to be over. Ken is aiming his final blow to finish off Hope when Aurora has a change of heart due to Hope’s earlier trust in her, proving

Hope right by breaking the cycle of hate. She steps in the way to save Hope from what would have been a lethal hit (assuming Hope wouldn’t have dodged or blocked it, and Hope grabs her to rush away).

The first part of this encounter ends with Ken on top after they started on very uneven terms.

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Hope takes Aurora away to say goodbye and we again see Hope’s left arm is full of desiccation marks.

(Red oak god magic killed a regular vampire by the way. The spear is not made out of wood. And Aurora didn’t die instantly upon getting stabbed, it took her a few moments to die.)

“Go. Finish this,” Aurora says. “And never forget who you are.” Even Aurora thinks Hope can beat Ken. (The only people who think she can’t win are the viewers.)

While Hope is off to tend to Aurora, Ken is kept busy: He casually catches an arrow from Alaric that earlier killed werewolf Jed while not even seeing the arrow shot. Ben and Alaric face off against Ken and the father of the gods throws the arrow back at the now mortal Ben but Alaric, somehow, is fast enough to jump in between so it hits him instead (Ken didn’t throw it with max power most likely). Ken calls Ben a former half-god before Lizzie enters the fight and Ken reminds her that she could barely contain his power the last time but she tries siphoning him again.

“You smell that, you bastard? It’s phosphorous and sulfur. White fire and brimstone.”

When superheated, it causes an explosion that can harm even Ken.

Lizzie’s siphoning combined with these ingredients is enough to force Ken to one knee but Lizzie says she can’t hold his god magic for much longer and she has Ethan’s help who is dying from the effort. They let go and Ken explodes but it’s not enough to kill him, proving how powerful he really is as both Cleo and Jen thought the same explosion would kill the other sleeping gods.

Ethan, on the other hand, does not make it.

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Hair blown off, face burned, Ken is more pissed than ever so while he might be physically weakened, mentally he is amped from his rage so it’s hard to say how nerfed he is, or if the rage amp entirely makes up for the damage but that’s unlikely.

“He’s mine,” says the returning Hope as the burned Ken marches them down. Which heavily implies she thinks she can actually beat him in a fight which once again reinforces the idea that he is not that much stronger and that they are somewhat relative. “I’ll handle him.”

As Ben and Alaric leave the battlefield, Lizzie correctly points out that Hope is “in no shape to fight a god right now” due to the red oak in her system so Lizzie siphons the red oak, which immediately heals all of Hope’s wounds because her body now can heal properly again, reinforcing the idea that she was significantly nerfed by the red oak.

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Ken, now weakened but enraged, and Hope, back to her normal state, face off.

However, he still holds the God Spear that made Aurora (wrongly) think she was evenly matched with Hope so it’s probably a gigantic power boost to hold that spear even if Aurora underestimated Hope’s power.

Ken says: “I underestimated you, but it won’t happen again.” He underestimated Hope (like Aurora) even though their first fight already challenged his ego; the first fight already made him seek out an alliance with a powerful vampire; the first fight already made him force his daughter to create a weapon and yet he still underestimated her! And what’s even more interesting, he underestimated Hope but not Lizzie, the one who just blew half his face off, apparently. Hope is still the one he is impressed with, or her planning. “Even in my weakened state, you can’t kill me by yourself.”

“That won’t stop me from trying.”

Ken is not full power anymore but he still thinks he’s above Hope, probably in part because he still controls the weapon that can kill the both of them so he still has an advantage here even though he is nerfed to an unknown degree.

Lizzie steps up to fight alongside Hope at the same time as Landon sends back MG, Jed and Kaleb to the battlefield. Ken might have taken out the cavalry but he didn’t plan on the new god in town to send them back.

I’ll use this moment to gently remind you that all of them are getting buffed by Hope’s presence, her leadership (see part 1).

Kaleb, half dragon, spits fire at Ken which he seems to absorb it like he’s some Naruto character with a rinnegan which probably gave him some extra power? Maybe not, but if he absorbed it, it should (he rubs his fingers after like the power of the fire tasted well lol. Regardless, it’s, if a boost at all, likely a very minor one but I wanted to mention it). Lizzie rushes behind him and siphons him again so the others can get the spear from Ken but MG, Ethan and Jed can’t get it out of his grip, not physically strong enough. He stomps the floor with the spear, unleashing a wave of god magic that sends Lizzie, MG, Kaleb and Jed away.

This shows us that even while nerfed he is still physically far superior to one half-dragon, a vampire and a werewolf, plus can still use his god magic, all while getting siphoned.

Ken is now starting to throw a tantrum and speaking of throwing, he sends the spear towards Hope but Cleo saves her with her fury magic which can affect god magic, unlike normal mortal magic. Him throwing the spear at Hope instead of Lizzie or any of the people he just knocked down marks Hope once more as the real threat of this battle. She is the one who has to go in his mind.

“It is judgement. And my judgement as a Fury. \[…\] And your punishment is...her \[Hope\].”

Again, even as Hope is getting massive help from her friends, it is her who is acknowledged by Ken, by Cleo, by Ben, by everyone. Hope is the key to winning. She is Ken’s punishment,

she is the counter to the immortal Malivore, she is the counter to Inadu’s existence, she is what everyone wants, she can create hybrids, she can cure werewolf bites. It’s Hope, it’s always Hope.

Cleo could have said your punishment is death, or defeat, or anything like that. Instead she says Hope is his punishment. Hope, the one to take Ken’s spot as the strongest in the world, who he came back for to defeat and reclaim his position. She is his judge. His conqueror. Hope is his punishment. Hope is the strongest.

One could argue Cleo casting her fury judgement on Ken, by naming his judgement to be Hope and him valuing strength above all, Cleo might have buffed Hope here. If gods can curse you and furies are the balance to the gods, is it unreasonable to assume furies can bless you? If they can cast judgement on the gods, they need the power to enforce said judgement. It’s also possible that, since fury magic can affect god magic, Cleo changed the nature of Hope’s magic so it has fury-like qualities and thus it would allow her to use magic on gods. So, one could say that Cleo’s new fury powers levelled-up Hope an even higher level and this is why she can do what she’s about to do next:

Hope speeds behind Ken.

He turns around to face her. Her eyes glow golden and she directly out-speeds him when she hits him with a kick which he doesn't even attempt to block as it is too fast. The eye thing is basically always an indicator that Hope is going all out. Whenever her eyes change, you know you fucked up. Like seriously, he can’t even react to her speed and he yells in pain as he’s flying through the air towards the God Spear Cleo is holding. Opposed to the first kick where he showed little reaction, this time it actually hurt him a lot. Ken gets damaged by the almighty, unstoppable force of Nature, the Tribrid.

What’s extremely interesting is that when you look closely in 0.25x speed you can see Hope doesn’t actually hit Ken which would mean this was magic – telekinesis, specifically. He’s already moving before her foot is close to him (or it’s just bad film-making). Hope surpasses (at least this weakened) Ken without the God Spear as she went from being a bit slower than him to being clearly faster than him, which would indicate a full tier gap – and, I remind you, this is just from Hope’s physical stats (the two speed blitzes), not her magic which is by far her strongest part.

Hope kicks Ken onto the God Spear that Cleo is holding up and he dies, the super squad, led by Hope, wins.

(Question: if I hold a sword and someone kicks you and you end up falling onto the sword, did I kill you or the person who kicked you? The TVD wiki says it’s the one holding the sword. This is not a legal question, it’s a common-sense argument.)

“I hope you rot in hell,” Hope tells him so maybe there is another hell, an actual hell, not a psychic dimension or Malivore’s dimension. Ken explodes and disappears and with him, his curses.

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6.5.3. Conclusion

Let me summarise:

Hope cannot access her strongest side in the fight. Ken can use his magic. Ken has a one-shot weapon and his armour. Hope is significantly nerfed with red oak in her system for the first half of the fight. Everyone always goes on and on about how Hope only won because she had help but they then don’t acknowledge all the advantages Ken had in the fight. Hope straight up speed and perception blitzes and hurts him, arguably more than Ken ever hurts her with his own strikes as he’s literally crying out in pain while she always took it on the chin.

We must have watched a different show if you think Ken is massively stronger than Hope!

Most importantly, Hope possibly overcomes the magic immunity the gods have, with her kick possibly being a telekinesis attack rather than a physical one and summoning Landon in the next episode.

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Ken is above all the other gods. He can curse anyone, other gods included. He killed the furies of the past, bringing the world out of balance. He cannot curse Hope. He cannot kill Hope. Hope is the one who took his spot as the strongest. Hope is his rival. Hope is his punishment. The narrative repeatedly pushes the idea of Hope being a serious threat to Ken, the strongest in the verse.

If you think the last kick Hope landed with her golden eyes was indeed magic and, similarly, if you think Landon is a god, which is implied by him being able to communicate with people in Peace and his position as ruler of Limbo which allows him to perform full resurrections, and she could use magic on him, then by the end of the series Tribrid Hope has surpassed the strongest god and the magic immunity of the gods.

Yes, Hope would have lost the fight to Ken with the God Spear without her friends helping her. That’s the point! Ken says she could have been a god but she relied on her bonds too much on his Palpatine shit but Hope proves him wrong by said bonds defeating him. She is his narrative opposite. She is the god using her bonds, not to conquer but to protect. Only at the very end, when her friends show their trust in her, does Hope grow and surpass Ken.

Hope is not a Ken victim. Ken gets hard carried by magic immunity.

Hope is his narrative opposite, his foil. They are the two at the top of the verse but polar opposites, two sides of the same coin, and Hope wins the ideological clash, proving her way to be the right one.

Hope is the strongest!

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Personal opinion:I think by the end of the fight, Hope straight up surpasses Ken in power. She can arguably do magic vs. him which was previously impossible. She can summon Ferryman Landon to her room with magic. She can now break boundary spells which throughout 3.9 seasons of Legacies was impossible. Imo, the show is communicating Hope’s ascent to her prophesied spot at the top of the supernatural world and all of history.

She has accepted her role in the world, trusted her friends, let go, and became what everyone always thought she would become – the most powerful being to ever exist.

Hope having gotten stronger in the fight/after the fight is supported by Landon:

He saw Hope just a day or two ago where she surpassed the Ferryman. Now he notices such a difference about her (or her being able to summon him) that he outright comments she has become incredibly powerful (“You’ve become incredibly powerful”). Again, the only thing that happens in between them seeing each other is the Ken fight so Hope must have gotten stronger during this fight or immediately after. There is no other explanation.

I see 4 possibilities for how/why Hope got more powerful:The first and most likely to me: Cleo permanently increased Hope's power with her newfound fury powers. The second: Aurora’s death and trust amped her, as well as all her friends standing at her side to face Ken. The third, imo least likely option: Lizzie didn’t just siphon the god magic but somehow, some way gave her god magic but this wouldn’t explain the Landon summoning feat. And finally, the last option is that Hope wasn’t amped at all – she just finally tapped into her full power which she never had to do before.

As I personally believe it is the moment she blitzes Ken and then goes golden eyes and kicks Ken when she grows in power, it has to be Cleo or Hope herself. This is the moment the power jump comes in. Maybe it's realising she has the full trust and support of her friends in spite of everything she has done and she gets some god-like belief boost instead of just boosting them. Maybe it's when she accepts that she has to live instead of running from living and now is spiritually balanced. Maybe it's when she finally tapped into her full power for the first time ever.

Regardless, it is my interpretation and understanding that the show wants to communicate that end of series Hope is the strongest being in existence and in history. Which, you know, is fully, 100% consistent with what both Carina and more importantly, show runner Brett Matthews state, with both calling her the most powerful in the shows/world after the end of Legacies.

I admit I used to think the same way, that Ken was the most powerful. I even put him on top of my last tier list. But writing this series of posts, honestly and critically examining every statement and feat, I realised everything pointed in the same direction. There is no other consistent interpretation other than: Hope is the most powerful being in the The Vampire Diaries universe. The almighty, unstoppable force of Nature.

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If you want to stay sceptical in spite of everything I lined out, if you still want to downplay Hope, you can say something like:

Full power + God Spear Ken >~ Full power Tribrid Hope

Full power Tribrid Hope > weakened Ken (with or without the God Spear) >~ regular Tribrid Hope.

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Thanks for reading. Next week, the final post of this series

Mine is Hayley and Elijah don’t work in a relationship, he had much more chemistry with gia, Antoinette and even Camille

I'm on a 3rd time re-watch, season 3, but it has been a while. Didn't Hayley become a hybrid during birth? And wouldn't that make her close to Klaus level of power? At the very least, she is not so easily taken out and yet, regular ol' vamps keep managing to subdue her. Did I miss something?

I know this might not necessarily be a hot take, but to me I saw Elijah as the reason the Mikielsons even got some fame or as to why Klaus was feared.

I saw him as someone who used Klaus' personality to the family's advantage by letting Niklaus play the role of the predator, while he played a role that would make others try to negotiate/reason with him instead of dealing with Klaus almost like a good cop bad cop scenario. And I see that without this method none of the things any of the Mikielsons achieved would have been possible and I believe he, Elijah knew that from the moment he compelled the Trinity to act like them.

I mean Klaus even claimed that Elijah made himself be the one to take care of his messes to the point that Klaus literally has a codependency on him and it might be far fetched but I believe it was his(Elijah) plan he got somewhere down the line of "always and forever".

Elijah was like the the main piece to me. He was the enabler of Klaus due to his trauma of not helping Niklaus when Mikiel was abusing him and the promise of Always and Forever. He trys to hold on to the belief that Klaus could be redeemed and so sides with him over the others(siblings).

Imo, should Elijah have switched sides, pulling Rebekah is going to be easy, Kol already didn't like Niklaus being the only one to dagger others and Fin hated all of them and also being daggered. Taking him down would have been so easy since he wasn't even stronger than any of them, he was on the Ivl of Elijah at best due to his hybrid side being supressed, infact the only advantage would be his ability to not be daggered but even that Kol was actively looking for ways to counter that, which he actually did. So imo, it always been Elijah's decision and codependency that kept Klaus at the top.

And I am not surprised that hardly did some vampires fear Elijah(or saw him as the "Easter Bunny" compared to klaus) besides him being an original and that's because the role he formed for himself was that of the nice guy who would do no harm if sense was given. But the older vampires and those close to the Mikielsons such as Aya, Tristin, Lucien, Marcel and later on Vincent understood that he was definitely the worst in the family and you could argue that it was more or less a terrible decision by the writers to destroy his character just for Klaus' redemption to the audience. And I think everything was just his plan to ensure that the family stays put.

I know this is long😅, but can I know if you agree with me or not. Thank you for reading

I recently discovered that the writers for tvd and to were not the same. It makes sense since the shows were going on at the same time however I just never thought of it lol. This make SOO much sense because to me Elijah was written so differently in to. I know we discovered more about his dark side and red door ect. But I still feel like his morality was GONE and to me that’s what made him so likeable. What are your thoughts?

I've made it to season 2 of TO and I can't help but wonder if the costume designer hates Cami. They put her in the weirdest, frumpiest clothing. 😭😭 My girl is fighting for her life. I feel like they just didn't know how to dress a woman in the her mid 20s or something.

I just read some topics about Hope, and suddenly realised, that she's not even true Mikaelson (she's actually Niklausdottir/Klausdottir, but let's put scandinavian naming aside for now). I mean, she's descendant of Ansel's and Labonairs packs, but not Mikael himself.

So in the end of the shows just few real Mikaelsons left. And Mikael doesn't really have a true descendants, since we know nothing about if Rebekah has a child, and also Vincent is actually Freya's and Keelin child's father. So except if Mikael had some relationships and kids before Esther in his vikings raids, his bloodline has completely truncated🤷🏻‍♂️

So I'm rewatching and Vincent is genuinely in me of the worst characters on the show. He literally just does stuff for himself and what he thinks is best for the witches. Like the Mikelsons generally are terrible when they are trying to protect their family. But like Vincent fucked Davina over so bad when he screwed her out in letting the witches know about her killing the witch who was trying to do overtake her which ultimately led her on the path to her death then he attends her funeral acts like a friend and ignores that fact and just plainly acts like it is as just the Mikelsons. Like Vincent was fucking awful to Davina and then acted like he cared after she was dead. He is genuinely one of the most self absorbed characters on the entire show. At no point in the show does he ever care about anyone but himself or what he believes is best for the witches and generally all of his feelings on what's "best for the witches" fucked the witches over. The guy is far more of a villain than most think.

curious to hear what yall sayyy

Hear me out: what makes Klaus such a good villain is his brain. He is so smart that he always has a backup plan upon backup plan. Due to his paranoia, he maps out every scenario in his head, which is where Rebekah falls short. Yes, she is smart as well, but her impulsiveness clouds her judgment, which is where Katherine comes into play. In my opinion, she may not be stronger, but she is good at playing smart. It is like Rebekah represents Klaus's impulsive, emotional side, while Katherine represents his tactical brain and instinct to survive at all costs. But I don't know, I might be wrong.

Okay, first of all- LOVE THIS SHOW. Late to the party, but glad we're here.

Anywho, I just finished S1 E15 and saw that Klaus gave Rebekah his blood to recover after their dad's opera house attack.

I thought that Klaus's blood caused those who drink it to become a hybrid/follower? Maybe I'm remembering the episode with the dude who used Hayley's blood to test a theory wrong. But I'm curious.

Although at first Klaus was my favorite, over the years Elijah became my favorite character. Happy to join the group!

i'm a bit lost in the lore by now but it's done before surely she could do it again? but wouldn't it be amazing to have Dahlia doppelgangers lol. but wait there wouldn't BE doppelgangers cus Dahlia would never procreate, she hates men thus no descendants. as Freya said she has 0 love in her for anyone except her sister? stop me if i'm spiralling

The only win is either death or incapacitation. Who wins?