Although CW announced that The Vampire Diaries ending better. Although Legacies never quite reached the popularity of its sister show, depending on what metrics are used, it did still receive a strong following in its own right, bolstered by popular characters from The Vampire Diaries. Even more so, Legacies provided closure for some of The Vampire Diaries’ best heroes and villains.
Legacies primarily followed the adventures of Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), the daughter of the infamous original vampire Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan) and Haley Marshall (Phoebe Tonkin). However, Legacies also references several other descendants and cameos from The Vampire Diaries and CW’s other popular spin-off of the show, Alaric Saltzman (Matt Davis) of The Vampire Diaries as one of the main characters as well as his daughters with Caroline Forbes (Candice King), and appearances and references to Rebekah Mikaelson (Claire Holt), Jeremy Gilbert (Steven R. McQueen), Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig), Marcel Gerard (Charles Michael Davis), and, notably, Klaus Mikaelson himself. However, among this roster of The Vampire Diaries stars, descendants, and callbacks, Elena and Damon are notably missing, despite their role as protagonists in the original show.
Legacies creator Julie Plec recently said that the marked absence of Elena and Damon’s children would have been remedied should the series have been renewed for season 5. While their daughter, Stephanie Salvatore, only had a brief, non-canonical appearance in the first season of The Vampire Diaries more complete by honoring their legacies, especially as the show that made Legacies itself possible.
How Would Elena & Damon's Child Have Fit Into Legacies Season 5?
While discussing Stephanie’s potential future in Legacies season 5, Plec noted that she would’ve most likely been incorporated into the younger generation of Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted students. In all likelihood, this would have required some time-skipping or altered timelines in some way, as she was previously alluded to as 12 or 13 years old, and possibly even as a toddler if considered through the lens of Legacies’ official timeline. But Plec stated that she wouldn’t have wanted Stephanie to enter the show at such a young age, instead expressing a desire to introduce Stephanie as a peer of the now-teenaged Pedro (Reznor Malalik Allen). Should this arc have come to , Stephanie and Pedro could have been exciting characters to move the Salvatore School from Legacies' season 4 into the next generation, and potentially form a new group of students for Legacies to follow with mentorship from Hope’s super squad. Particularly after the full calamity of defeating both Ken (Luke Mitchell) and Malivore, Legacies could have used the next generation of students as a way to pivot into fresh narrative arcs without needing to continue raising the stakes from god-like entity to god-like entity while still maintaining its themes of complicated familial relationships and grappling with one’s power.
If CW had allowed Legacies to continue The Vampire Diaries legacy, the fifth season would have surely engaged fans of the original show by allowing them to follow up on their heroes through their children. Even more so, it would have allowed the narrative of Legacies the agility to move into new storylines and characters while still retaining its deep-seated connections to The universe and Elena and Damon's love. This honoring of Elena and Damon’s child would have overall strengthened the ties binding the canon of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies but the loss of season 5 means it will never happen.