Summary

• The Originals' villains usually have an excellent reason for hating the Mikaelson family and wanting revenge.
• Lucien and Aurora both hate Elijah because he sent them, along with Tristan, on the run from Mikael for many centuries.
• The show's focus on villains allows for complex storytelling and nuanced character development.

Despite my love for the dysfunctional Mikaelson family, some of Vampire Diaries Universe, who are given backstories, personalities, and nuances.

However, the nature of having villains as the protagonists means that The Originals’ “villains” aren’t always wrong. Often, they have a good reason to hate the Mikaelsons. In my many rewatches, I’ve found myself secretly rooting for the characters the audience is meant to dislike because they aren’t actually in the wrong. I understand the antagonists’ perspectives and the reasons behind their actions. All these villains eventually cross a line where I can no longer excuse their choices, but that doesn’t change that sometimes the Mikaelsons deserve retribution.

7 Lucien Castle

An Enhanced Vampire Who Has A Grudge Against The Mikaelsons

Throughout The Originals season 3, Lucien Castle is the charming, morally ambiguous villain who leads all the nefarious things happening in New Orleans. His history with the Mikaelsons early into their vampirism makes him fascinating to watch. He’s one of the few characters who knew them before they were complete monsters. Despite the fact that the show presents him as an antagonist, I understand his side much more than the Mikaelsons’ perspective.

Of course, I never want the Mikaelsons to die because that means the end of The Originals, but Lucien’s desire for revenge makes sense. In the past, his closest confidant, Niklaus, repeatedly lied to Lucien about his relationship with Aurora. After that, Niklaus turned Lucien into a vampire against his will, and then Elijah compelled him to go on the run, believing himself to be Niklaus.

The Trinity’s autonomy was taken away for centuries, and Mikael terrorized them, preventing them from having any stability. He has every reason to want the Mikaelsons dead. At the very least, I feel Elijah should have faced some kind of consequences.

6 Aurora De Martel

A Member Of The Trinity Who Has Been Manipulated And Abused

While all of them are layered, Aurora de Martel is one of the most nuanced and complex villains in The Originals. On one hand, she’s smart, cunning, and driven. On the other hand, she’s cruel, ruthless, and loving to a flaw. Separate from both the negative and positive traits, she lives with bipolar disorder, which her brother Tristan uses to manipulate her. I don’t root for Aurora De Martel because her actions are right. After all, she kills Cami, who is nothing but an innocent bystander in the conflict between her and Klaus.

I do understand Aurora’s anger at the world and the Mikaelsons, though. She is a woman who has been repeatedly hurt, manipulated, and abused by the men around her. First, her brother, then Elijah twice, then her brother, then Niklaus. Aurora has every reason to want revenge on Elijah, like Tristan and Lucien. She becomes so used to the cruelty others show her that she starts exhibiting the same behaviors.

As such, I have always rooted for Aurora, despite her being a villain, because I want her to get revenge and break free from the people who trapped her in the cycle of abuse. She deserves so much better than the Mikaelsons and her brother Tristan. Her redemption in Legacies makes me unbelievably happy as it allows her to move past the shackles of toxic relationships for a while. Unfortunately, she falls under the thumb of Ken, another toxic lover, only realizing her mistake at the last moment. This causes her demise before the finale of The Originals season 4.

5 The French Quarter Ancestors

The Spirits Of The French Quarter Coven

When it comes to villains, the French Quarter Ancestors are the only ones who function as antagonists throughout every season of The Originals. This villain continually makes me bounce back and forth between rooting for them and being horrified by their actions. They have been forced to watch their kind get killed time and time again under Marcel’s rule.

The witches are once again oppressed under the rule of the Mikaelsons, even if it isn’t quite as bad. I wanted the ancestors to rain down terror on the people killing of the coven because there’s no reason to oppress an entire community. Despite this, I cannot forgive their choice to try and kill Hope Mikaelson as a baby in order to gain her power.

I’m also disturbed by the way they treat Davina, who is a child throughout most of the series. That doesn’t make her killing Kara Nguyen okay, but it does mean that they hold a teenager with the weight of the world on her shoulders as if she’s an adult. Regardless, I get excited every time they team up with Lucien to take down the Mikaelsons because the family can only do so much to hurt people before their enemies push back.

4 Freya Mikaelson

A Long-Lost Sibling Who Fears Her Captor

Though she eventually shifts into a protagonist role, Freya Mikaelson starts out as an antagonist who is willing to do anything to stop her captor, Aunt Dahlia, from returning. In all honesty, I completely understand her perspective. She only wants to hurt others when it’s necessary to keep her ab away. Dahlia had stolen Freya, forced her into servitude, and used her power. She wants nothing more than to live a happy life with her family, but she’s bound to the person who hurts her the most.

Moreover, her actions against Hope in The Originals season 2 have nothing to do with wanting to harm the baby. Finn is the one trying to kill Hope, not Freya. However, this is by no means her preferred method of protecting Hope. Ultimately, she’s experienced the horrors of that life firsthand and knows how damaging that would be for Hope.

On top of all this, she only becomes a villain after Klaus repeatedly rejects her as untrustworthy. She becomes loyal to the people who accept her, even if it means betraying her hybrid brother. Had Niklaus simply accepted her, she would have been their ally from the start. As such, I rooted for Freya Mikaelson almost the entire time she acted against him, though I wish she had ditched Finn the first chance she got.

3 Kol Mikaelson

The Mikaelson Brother Who's Treated Like Dirt

Besides Freya, Kol Mikaelson is my favorite of the Mikaelson siblings, despite The Originals introducing him as an antihero who verges on a villain. His ire towards Niklaus is completely reasonable, since his brother runs around boasting “always and forever” while daggering his siblings. Though Klaus shows at least a small amount of comion and mercy for Elijah and Rebekah, he only ever shows contempt for his younger brother, keeping Kol in a box for a little over a century at one point.

Due to the way Klaus treats him, I cheer Kol on as he tries to make the dagger with the Fauline paragon diamond to put his hybrid brother down. Despite Klaus’s claims of treating all his siblings the same way, he treats Kol like he isn’t actually family. As such, I want Kol to succeed so that he can fight back against his tyrannical brother.

I also understand his lashing out at Rebekah, putting her into the wrong body for betraying him to Niklaus. While Rebekah doesn’t harbor hatred for Kol, she stands aside as Klaus hurts him over and over again. His family, including his sister, had turned him into the black sheep from day one, so he has no reason to side with them when they continually outcast him.

2 Marcel Gerard

An Enhanced Vampire Who Both Loves And Hates The Mikaelsons

Marcel Gerard bounces back and forth between an antagonist and a protagonist, and he’s undoubtedly the strongest villain in The Originals. Surprisingly, I find him equally compelling in both these roles and root for him no matter which side he’s on. Of all the antagonists in The Originals, he has the biggest reason to hate Klaus and the Mikaelsons.

There is an extra degree of sinister-ness when the person who is meant to parent a character neglects them. Kol might have been treated poorly by Klaus, but Klaus didn’t choose Kol as his family. He did, however, choose Marcel as his son, making his behavior towards him all the more despicable. I absolutely don’t agree with or Marcel’s oppression of the witches and werewolves, but I fully defend his desire to best the Mikaelsons and keep them in their place.

I also cheered for him as he tested his supposed family, took the serum to make him an Enhanced Original, and then banished the family from New Orleans at the end of The Originals season 3. I even secretly rooted for him as he trapped Klaus in the basement of the compound, even though the show clearly wants viewers to side with the Mikaelsons.

1 Davina Claire

The Teenage Harvest Girl With A Vendetta Against Klaus

Davina Claire is one of the most divisive main characters in The Originals. Most people either love or hate her, with very little in between. I fall onto the side of loving her. She’s smart, driven, and ionate. I frequently found myself agreeing with her perspective and rooting for her to break the sire bond, make the dagger to put him down, and protect her loved ones.

Davina has every reason to hate Niklaus. For starters, he repeatedly puts Marcel and Josh in danger. These are the only two people the young girl has a close relationship with, so her defense of them makes sense. Secondly, he kills her first love, Tim. For the other characters who have been through centuries of death, this might not matter. However, Davina is a sixteen-year-old girl who has experienced very little loss.

In addition, Klaus repeatedly puts Josh in danger throughout The Originals, threatening him to manipulate Davina. I can’t help but feel empathy for this child who has very few people in her life, who is getting her loved ones threatened and manipulated by a thousand-year-old Original, knowing that he will follow through on his threat since he already killed Tim.