The Vampire Diaries: 10 Worst Things Damon Has Ever Done
The fictional world of The Vampire Diaries is a very dog eat dog world where survival is the main objective, so it's no big surprise that most of the characters on the show have at least one or two corpses that they've left in their wake over the course of the series. But obviously, there is a scale of characters from the ones who have done the least damage to the ones who have done the most, and Damon Salvatore is undoubtedly one of the characters who has wreaked the most havoc.
Damon is certainly the problem child of the Mystic Falls gang, and he seems to be doing something unforgivably horrible every other episode. But of course, there are things that he has done that stick out as the worst of the worst. So here are the 10 worst things that Damon Salvatore ever did throughout the course of The Vampire Diaries.
10 Turning Bonnie's Mom
When Klaus Mikaelson arrived in Mystic Falls it's safe to say that everyone in the Mystic Falls gang was stuck under his thumb. Which makes Damon's choice to turn Abby Bennett into a vampire in order to break the Bennett witch bloodline understandable, even if it's not acceptable.
Bonnie has always shown herself to be a team player when it comes to protecting her friends, so it's incredibly unfair that she always seems to be getting the short end of the stick. And while Bonnie and Abby weren't close, this wasn't a burden that Bonnie or her mom really should have had to bear.
9 Snapping Jeremy's Neck
This entry should probably be much higher on the list, but the very fact that Jeremy luckily survived meant that Damon got somewhat of a pass on something that should have ended his relationship with Elena and the rest of the Mystic Falls gang for good.
It's normal to take it hard when the two doppelganger women that you're obsessed with reject you, but possibly turning Jeremy into a vampire, or even worse actually killing him for good, is an absolutely unacceptable reaction to rejection. Damon has always been, shall we say, problematic, when it comes to romantic relationships, but killing Jeremy in front of Elena because she made him upset is so far beyond crossing the line.
8 Ignoring Elena's Choices
Elena is clearly Damon's epic love, but because he's an emotionally damaged nut job he doesn't handle any bumps in the road of their relationship very well. And it's understandable that Damon is very attached to Elena and wants to make sure she gets what he thinks she deserves, but it's not okay that he ignores or goes against her choices so often.
As an example, when she was preparing to die in Klaus' sacrifice he really had no right to force his blood on her and ensure her survival without even accepting her input into the situation or considering whether or not she wanted to be a vampire.
7 Abusing Caroline
In the early seasons of The Vampire Diaries, Damon was unequivocally the villain of the story, but obviously that doesn't excuse or explain any of his abhorrent behaviors. And one of his absolute worst and grossest moves was compelling Caroline to basically be his slave. He used and abused her for whatever he needed, and he couldn't even be bothered to treat her with some basic human decency.
And of course, after it was all over he never even acknowledged how monstrous he'd been towards her, and although Caroline more than proved her strength he never showed her even a shred of the respect that she deserved.
6 Killing Uncle Zach
Damon obviously has a tendency to treat everyone around him terribly at one time or another, but Zach Salvatore really didn't deserve even one percent of the torment that Damon subjected him to. Their history is dark (a little more on that later), but Damon ultimately killed his "uncle" because he saw him as a minor inconvenience.
Zach was one of the few humans in Mystic Falls who had the courage to stand up to Damon, but he actually seemed willing to live and let live so long as Damon didn't start hurting people. However, obviously Damon was unwilling to comply.
5 Killing A Pregnant Woman
So yeah, about that whole dark history between uncle Zach and Damon... A few years before Damon came back and set up house in Mystic Falls for good, he made a return visit. Zach Salvatore had a girlfriend who was pregnant with their daughter at the time, and because Damon is Damon, Damon killed Zach's girlfriend and nearly killed their unborn child (but Stefan intervened and managed to save the baby).
Stefan compelled away Zach's memories of his girlfriend and child, but the very fact that Damon could do such a thing to anyone, let alone someone in his family, is absolutely horrifying.
4 Killing Aaron Whitmore
Literally any time Damon's relationships with Elena or Katherine are on the rocks he goes completely nuts, and there are always at least one or two dead bodies left in his wake as a result. And it's not that shocking that Damon decided to shore up his relationship with Enzo by tag-teaming Aaron Whitmore's death, but it's gross that he used Elena's rejection as an excuse to be a monster again.
Despite his relation to the Whitmore family, Aaron was an innocent bystander to all of the Augustine shenanigans, and Damon solely killed him because he knew that it would hurt Elena.
3 Killing Vicki
Damon's on-screen body count is high enough that it's difficult to keep track of now, but Vicki Donovan was clearly his first major on-screen kill.
Granted he only turned her into a vampire (which is still terrible, but relative to Damon's typical behavior it's not the worst thing he's ever done), but it ultimately resulted in her death and was just the first in a long line of Damon-induced deaths that wounded Elena and the rest of the Mystic Falls gang. And he turned Vicki because he thought her human life was pathetic and because he was bored, which obviously aren't reasonable excuses.
2 Killing Lexi
Damon and Stefan have both been absolutely monstrous towards each other at different times on The Vampire Diaries, but Damon always manages to cut Stefan just a little bit deeper than Stefan cuts him. And the saddest, cruelest thing that he ever did to Stefan was undoubtedly murdering his best friend Lexi.
Damon tries to reason away his actions by saying that killing Lexi was the easiest way to throw the Founder's Council off the scent of Stefan and Damon, but it was clearly a personal move. Robbing Stefan of one of the people he loved most seemed to give him the kind of cruel thrill that only someone like Damon would enjoy.
1 Leaving Enzo
Damon Salvatore has undoubtedly done hundreds of unforgivably terrible things in his lifetime, and he could at least take some small comfort in the fact that Enzo wound up surviving, but his worst and the most unforgivable move was leaving Enzo to die in the fire that consumed the rest of the Augustines.
Stefan and Elena were always the most important people in Damon's life, but Enzo was probably close to being on their level if not on their level, so leaving him to die so he could save himself is a moral and personal transgression that even someone as casually evil as Damon would see as unforgivable.