ELENA GILBERT: 

Physical Appearance

Physically, Elena is described to be extremely beautiful and drop dead gorgeous. Because Elena is so beautiful, all of the boys in Fells Church want her and all of the girls in the town want to be like her. Because of this, Elena does exhibit a bit of selfishness, pride and vanity. This is displayed in a quote in Shadow Souls: "I ....don't think it's vain to say that I'm beautiful. If I didn't know I was, I'd have to have never looked in a mirror or heard a compliment. It's not something I should be proud of—it's just something that was passed down from Mom and Dad." There are repeated references throughout the series that state that she looks like an angel or angelic in appearance (the references to her looking like an angel were first used by Stefan Salvatore). Physically, Elena is described as having an intriguing eye color which is the same color as a Lapis Lazuli stone (a deep, dark blue). Her eyes also have flecks of gold in them; this is meant to be a parallel to the Lapis Lazuli Daylight Rings in which vampires (such as the Salvatore Brothers and Katherine) must wear in order to walk around during the day, as well as stay alive in the sunlight so that they don't burn. In some scenes, her eyes are mentioned to have some shades of violet in them as well, as referenced in The Awakening, when she wears her violet colored homecoming dance dress, which helps to bring out the violet in her eyes. Elena has thick, straight and very long hair (reaching above her waist). Elena's hair is quite long in length but her hair is not nearly as long as Katherine's (who's hair was extra long; trailing behind her like that of a train on a dress and pooling on the floor). Elena's hair is a soft pale gold in coloring and her hair texture is described as silky and smooth. Her hair is said to be a few shades lighter than Katherine's. Elena's eyebrows and her long eyelashes are a darker blond compared to that of her head hair. Her skin tone is described as being very white, pale and fair (said to be similar to that of a magnolia flower). Elena's skin is very opaque, which means that her blue veins and fjords are easily visible all over her body. Her complexion is described to be smooth, flawless, perfect, and translucent. Stefan has stated that Elena's skin reminds him of swans, alabaster or porcelain. Because of her fair skin and complexion, Elena does not tan easily and can get easily sunburned. Because of Elena's fair hair and skin, this was probably part of the reason why Elena has the nicknames Snow Queen, Ice Queen and Ice Princess. Elena is described to have a gorgeous body and her physique is described as being slim and slender. She is of average height for a teenage girl, between 5'3" and 5'6" and Stefan has said that Elena is taller then Katherine (who was described as petite) by "a good hand span". Elena is quite a bit taller than Bonnie (who is very petite in stature), but she is shorter than Meredith (who is described to be quite tall in height). In Shadow Souls, Elena describes her physical appearance as follows: "What do I look like? I have blonde hair that falls in sort of waves past my shoulders and blue eyes that some people have said are like Lapis Lazuli; dark blue with splashes of gold. Maybe that's why vampires like me" (p. 3, Shadow Souls). Stefan has described Elena's physical appearance in The Awakening: "Still, the resemblance was uncanny. That pale golden hair, so fair it almost seemed to shimmer. That creamy skin, which had always made him think of swans, or alabaster, flushing faintly pink over the cheekbones. And the eyes...Katherine's eyes had been a color he had never seen before; darker than sky blue, as rich as the Lapis Lazuli in her jeweled headband. This girl had the same eyes" (p. 26, The Awakening). Stefan has made frequent comparisons between Elena and Katherine, due to the similarities in their physical appearance but Stefan almost immediately realizes that beneath the looks, Elena and Katherine are two completely different individuals. Stefan says that Elena is significantly emotionally stronger and that Katherine was much more fragile and vulnerable. It is because of Elena's physical resemblance to his old flame Katherine, that Stefan makes all attempts to ignore Elena in the beginning because Elena reminds him of her and brings up old, painful memories of his life with her in the past. Elena's physical resemblance to Katherine is also the main reason why Stefan's elder, dangerous brother Damon, is also strongly attracted to her and wants to possess her. A good summary of how Elena looks would be to say that she has jewel blue eyes and long blonde hair with a gorgeous slender body.

Personality

Personality wise, Elena Gilbert is described as a very beautiful, popular seventeen year old teenage girl from Fells Church, Virginia. Although Elena is extremely physically beautiful, she is still known to be the girl next door. In the very beginning of the series, Elena was in competition to be the Queen of Robert E. Lee High School with former friend and newly turned rival, Caroline Forbes. Elena is the girl that every boy wants and every girl wants to be. She is cool, likeable, approachable and popular. Elena is extremely active socially and she is on the Senior Welcoming Committee at her high school. Although Elena may be beautiful and popular, she is far from perfect and has many flaws and imperfections within her personality. Elena initially comes off as very shallow, bossy, selfish, competitive, self absorbed, vain, proud, overly headstrong and extremely spoiled, especially in the very beginning of the series. However, although she possesses these flaws within her personality, she is still a good person, is a generally kind individual, and someone who loves and cares about her family and friends strongly. She is outgoing, active, optimistic, determined, loyal, protective and strong-willed. Elena is a very good leader and therefore, is good at leading situations. As the series progresses, she is willing to put her life at risk and do anything in order to help the people she loves and cares about. Elena has endured much loss, grief, pain and tragedy in her very young teenage life; mostly due to the loss of her parents in a tragic, fatal car accident. She has stated repeatedly that she always used boys and treated the opposite sex as if they were prizes and trophies; using them as a way to enhance her vanity, self-confidence and self-esteem. None of the boys that she has ever encountered, met, or dated (including Matt Honeycutt, her first love since childhood) has ever had an enormous, unusual, and highly influential impact on her the way that Stefan Salvatore has. Elena has had many boyfriends in the past and because of this, she is often perceived to be somewhat promiscuous. Although she had always treated boys as prizes, she never saw Matt Honeycutt (her childhood best friend and first love) that way. She genuinely loves and cares about him, but more like a best friend, companion, cousin or a brother. Matt and Elena have an easygoing connection and he has influenced her in a positive way. Elena breaks up with Matt at the beginning of the school year, feeling that even though she loves Matt, that there is still something "missing". She still loves and cares about him like a best friend. Matt still looks out for her and he is also incredibly supportive of her as well. Elena has been best friends with Bonnie McCullough and Meredith Sulez since the first grade. She was also a very close friend with Caroline Forbes since kindergarten, although the two have become rivals mostly due to the competitiveness between them when it comes social status and popularity. Elena has been nicknamed Ice Princess, for she sometimes possesses the personality trait of being cold towards others (especially towards males as displayed with Tyler Smallwood in The Awakening), however, she immediately and dramatically becomes a much warmer, selfless, giving, kinder, open-minded, compassionate and spiritually awakened individual after she encounters and meets Stefan. Outside personalities wise, Elena is the complete opposite of Stefan in many ways. Elena is outgoing, Stefan is shy or quiet. Elena is popular, Stefan is a loner. Elena is more headstrong and aggressive, Stefan is more laid back and passive. Elena is more idealistic and optimistic, Stefan is more cynical and pessimistic. Elena is more selfish or self absorbed; Stefan is more humble and selfless. Elena is more cheerful, Stefan is more brooding. Elena is self confident, Stefan is self hating and self loathing. Although everyone seems to be convinced of Elena's intelligence, her academic performance actually seems somewhat uneven. Mr. Tanner says that Elena is failing history, and no one corrects him. Elena says she doesn't care if she fails trigonometry. She is enrolled in a General Business class even though she is a senior. Elena frequently writes in her own personal journal or diary and records all of her inner thoughts, dreams, passions and desires. She mostly writes about her life, her family, her friends and mostly about Stefan. Bonnie comments in Elena's diary when she first died that Elena was far from perfect and while she was never an angel, she died a good person. After Elena is dead (following Katherine's death), Bonnie describes her in her diary: "She wasn't a saint. She wasn't always sweet and good and honest and agreeable. But she was strong and loving and loyal to her friends, and in the end she did the most unselfish thing anybody could do." Before Elena starts the school year, she states in her diary that she feels strange and that something big is going to happen but she can't describe why she feels this way. She also says that she feels like she is "missing" something and that she doesn't know where she belongs. Elena's life dramatically changes forever upon first meeting a mysterious, gorgeous new foreign student from Italy, Stefan Salvatore, who is a centuries old vampire who renounced his living in the shadows and darkness and desired to live in the daylight amongst the humans. He enrolls at Robert E. Lee High School as a high school student and it is there, where Stefan inevitably and fatefully meets Elena Gilbert, whom he is immediately, undeniably and extremely intensely drawn to. Stefan had a highly unusual impact on Elena when they first met. Their first meeting was so deep, intense, indescribable and electrifying. Before meeting each other, Stefan and Elena were basically two dead, shattered and empty souls, who had both suffered similar, mirror experiences in terms of loss, grief and pain, and both Stefan and Elena have experienced hardships as well as heartbreak when it comes to love. For the longest time, Stefan had a hard time accepting love at all costs, feeling as though he was highly unworthy and unlovable because he was a monster and a hunter who lived in the shadows. Elena, on the other hand, had a hard time finding love and figuring out her own soul and her own heart, what she really wanted. She basically felt lost, unhappy and lonely despite her extreme popularity and her constant social behaviour. Stefan was still dealing with the loss and grief of his first and past love, Katherine Von Swartzschild, and Elena dated many boys and had various boyfriends in order to cover up her unhappiness and to conceal her loneliness and inner emptiness.
From the very first day when she met Stefan, Elena is immediately and undeniably drawn to him and is willing to do anything to be with him at all costs. She even gets her friends Bonnie, Meredith and even Matt, to help her with her cause. Her connection to Stefan is so overwhelming and intense that she can't describe it or understand it herself and she states this throughout her personal diary on a daily basis. Elena states in her diary that encountering Stefan was so incredibly profound and intense, that it has changed her daily life patterns, affecting her ability to eat, sleep and concentrate on anything else important, including her extra curricular activities. Elena has repeatedly described this connection with Stefan as overwhelming, intense, scary, frightening and terrifying. Upon arriving in Fells Church and meeting Elena physically, Stefan is able to immediately sense her consciousness, her presence and her mind, and it is extremely intense and overwhelming for him that he makes a consistent effort to ignore her and stay away from her as much as possible. Stefan also does this because he has a huge fear of harming her in any way because of his intense desire and longing for her. Stefan also tries to stay away from her, because Elena coincidently happens to be the near doppelganger or spitting image of his long lost past love which caused him much significant pain, Katherine Von Swartzschild. Despite the strong, mutual, intense connection that both Stefan and Elena share with each other even from afar, Elena is taken back when Stefan repeatedly makes attempts to avoid her and she is deeply, indescribably hurt and tortured by this. Elena has said the pain caused by Stefan avoiding her repeatedly is so incredibly painful and bad that she can't eat, sleep or concentrate on anything important. Stefan's challenging ways and his constant escaping from her only make Elena even more eager to be with him and makes her more determined for her to stop him from running away from her. With each passing day, Elena knows deep down that she must be with Stefan, but she can't explain why. Curiosity completely takes over her and she does everything she can to find out all about Stefan with the help of her friends. Her current rival Caroline Forbes, also takes a significant interest in Stefan as well, causing the rivalry between Caroline and Elena to heat up intensely. Elena's school reputation is important to her, so she makes up a fake boyfriend named Jean-Claude, to hide her deep feelings for Stefan. Caroline becomes intensely jealous of Elena when Stefan eventually begins to bond with Elena and also reciprocate Elena's affections. Elena is deeply, madly, intensely, passionately and unconditionally in love with Stefan Salvatore. She consistently states throughout the course of the series how she feels incredible magnetic and electrifying intensity, love and passion between them but strangely at the same time, she also feels a sense of warmth, comfort, safety, stability and security when she is with him or in his presence. Elena has frequently said that she feels "home" when she is with Stefan. Immediately after meeting Stefan, Elena becomes an irrevocably enlightened individual. She experiences an intense inner spiritual awakening, both before and upon meeting him; overwhelming feelings in which she has never felt before in her lifetime. Elena has said in so many words in her diary that for the first time in her life, she feels incredibly alive and happy. In some ways, Stefan had/has a special influence on her that even Elena can't seem to understand at times. Elena loves Stefan with a fiery passion and unconditional love. She is loyal and protective of him and will do absolutely anything and everything for him, including sacrificing her own life, risking her own life and dying for him. Elena has stated that if she Stefan dies, she will die with him. In the beginning of the series, although Elena had everything she wanted in life and appeared to be generally content with what she had on the outside (her beauty, her popularity, her status etc), Elena was deeply, painfully lonely and incredibly sad and empty on the inside. When she first met Stefan and began to develop a deeper bond with him, her loneliness and inner emptiness was immediately evaporated away and she became an alive soul; she became a significantly happy and content individual. Elena's connection with Stefan is so intense, profound and powerful, that she has said that she is able to read Stefan's thoughts (while she was still human, before she was a vampire and a spirit) and feel Stefan's feelings. These senses between Stefan and Elena became significantly more intense when Elena becomes a vampire and especially after Elena came back from the afterlife. Stefan and Elena often have telepathic communication with each other. Stefan and Elena are bound together by the "Silver Cord Of Destiny" (also known as the Silver Cord Of Fate, Cord Of Love, Cord Of Fate, Cord Of Destiny, the Twin Soul Concept or the Soul Mate Principle), which is a long, bendable, nonbreakable string connecting destined soulmates and true lovers from heart to heart (soul to soul). This implies that Stefan and Elena are destined lovers for all of eternity and many, many lifetimes beyond (including the afterlife); that they are unbreakable and inseparable regardless of time, space and distance. This was revealed in Shadow Souls when Elena had an OBE (out of body experience) while having an intense lucid dream about Stefan and saw the silver cord connecting her soul to Stefan's soul, therefore, using their silver cord connection to be able to visit Stefan while he was in the prison in the Dark Dimension.

Despite the eternal bond and unconditional love that Stefan and Elena have for each other, Stefan and Elena have a somewhat chaotic, tumultuous relationship for there has been much chaos, obstacles and outside forces that consistently manages to come between them. This includes the personal inner struggles that both Stefan and Elena have endured as individuals, unusual events occurring in the town of Fell's Church and also many outside forces "deliberately" separating Stefan and Elena from each other beyond their control (i.e. Stefan being trapped in a prison in the Dark Dimension). Although Elena possesses the flaws of sometimes being too headstrong and sometimes a little selfish, Stefan brings out her best inner qualities and Elena has written in her journal that Stefan makes her an overall much better person and that he makes her blissfully happy. Like Stefan, Elena can be very stubborn. Elena has a deep, strong and passionate romantic relationship with Stefan although, later on in the series, she does realize that she is strongly drawn to Stefan's elder and dangerous vampire brother Damon Salvatore. Damon is the complete opposite of Stefan in terms of morality, temperament and compassion for human life. While Stefan has a strong hold on his humanity and has a strong regard for human life, Damon wants to harm, hunt and kill many humans for fun without any guilt or remorse. Unlike Stefan, Damon views huma being as objects and as food to sustain a vampires strength and power. Unlike Stefan, who hates being an immortal and who refuses to kill innocent people just for the sake of succumbing to drinking human blood for power, Damon strongly enjoys vampirism and greatly revels in killing innocent human life for their blood for his own selfish reasons. In regards to Elena, Damon wants to possess Elena mind, body and soul and he will stop at nothing to possess her, control her, and take her away from Stefan and make her his Princess Of Darkness. He'll even kill other innocent human beings, including his very own brother Stefan (who Elena is deeply, strongly and passionately in love with), in order to possess her. Because of Damon's extreme obsession with possessing Elena, he has threatened Stefan's life on many occasions. There have been times when Elena has almost given into Damon's influence but she has repeatedly remained stoically loyal to Stefan and her profound, unbreakable love for him. Damon has repeatedly tried to coerce and force Elena to join the dark side (the "winning side", as Damon calls it), live in the shadows of darkness alongside him for all of eternity by turning her into a vampire, and to crown her his Princess of Darkness, but Elena consistently displays her stoic loyalty and fierce devotion to Stefan by consistently defying Damon's wishes. Elena has repeatedly said that she does not want to live in the darkness and wants to live in the light amongst her friends, family and with her beloved Stefan. This, of course, angers Damon greatly and has caused Damon to become intensely jealous, envious and hateful of his younger brother. Elena dies twice throughout the course of the series, changing from a mortal human to a vampire (after she gets enough blood from both Salvatore brothers, where her killer, Katherine, thought she only got blood from one boy; the one boy being Stefan) to a spirit of the afterlife (after an unknown power brings her back). In The Return: Nightfall, she comes back as a perfectly normal human albeit with supernatural angelic, spiritual powers intact, making her blood extremely irresistible to all vampires and also, to all supernatural creatures, entities, beings. Elena has an incredibly strong sexual, romantic relationship (although rather up and down, tumultuous in the beginning and during the original trilogy) with Stefan Salvatore, which is the basis of the entire series, although in the later books, she starts to develop feelings for Damon as well. Elena is a female or feminine name of Greek origin which means "light" or "the bright one". Elena has many and various nicknames throughout the course of the series, and most of them are nicknames coined by Stefan. Elena's nicknames include Golden Girl (frequently used for Elena throughout the course of the whole series), Angel (used by Stefan Salvatore only, often referring to her physical appearance), His Elena (referenced by Stefan Salvatore), His Angel (used and referenced by Stefan Salvatore), Love (used by Stefan), Lovely Love (used by Stefan only), Little Lovely Love (used by Stefan only), Ice Princess, Ice Queen, Snow Queen, Queen Of Shadows (used by Damon Salvatore), Princess (used by Damon Salvatore) and Princess Of Darkness (used by Damon).