Legacies Theory: Lizzie Doesn’t Want To Kill Hope (Just Her Vampire Side)

In Legacies season 4, episode 7, Lizzie emerges from the therapy box seemingly wanting to kill Hope–but, in theory, she could simply want to kill Hope’s vampire side. After Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) became the Trbrid and put Alaric (Matthew Davis) in a coma, Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) became obsessed with finding a cure for her dad. In the most recent few episodes, however, her focus has turned to wanting to get revenge on Hope and all signs are pointing to Lizzie wanting to kill her.

It’s a backslide into their younger days, when Lizzie was consumed with resentment and anger about her dad paying more attention to the pre-Tribrid Hope Mikaelson than to her and Josie (Kaylee Bryant). Lizzie has struggled to get a handle on her resentment and to let it go over the past few seasons, and she has grown closer to Hope. But the bitterness is still there under the surface and has bubbled to the surface off and on throughout Legacies. Hope attacking Alaric was seemingly the final straw for Lizzie, and the bottled-up rage she’s felt for her enemy turned frenemy turned friend is finally boiling over.

Still, while Lizzie appears to be on a mission to kill Hope Mikaelson for good in Legacies season 4, it’s possible it’s a misdirect. Things often aren’t what they seem in Legacies, and this could be just another example. Instead of killing Hope, in theory, Lizzie may just want to kill Hope’s vampire side. Here’s why.

Lizzie Killing Hope Would Be A Huge Step Back For Her Character

Even more than Hope, Lizzie has been Legacies’ most complicated character. She started out in Legacies season 1 as the stereotypical mean girl–catty, judgmental, bossy, and downright cruel on occasion. But as the seasons progressed, so has Lizzie. Where the old version of Lizzie was selfish and manipulative and had no self-awareness, the events of the past few years have helped Lizzie to mature and to start accepting responsibility for her actions. This has been most apparent in her relationships with Josie and MG (Quincy Fouse), but Lizzie has been making an effort across the board. Rather than lashing out in the moment and allowing her intense emotions to hurt those around her like she used to, Lizzie has genuinely been trying to control her impulses and to think of others.

It’s why Lizzie killing Hope would be such a disappointing regression for her character. The hardest relationship for Lizzie to work on, even into Legacies season 4, has always been her friendship with Hope and she still occasionally struggles with latent resentment. Despite that, she’s learned to stop blaming Hope for everything, gaining empathy and understanding. By the time Hope dies to become the Tribrid, she and Lizzie are as close as they’ve ever been, surrogate sisters at last. For Lizzie to throw all that away, no matter how upset she is about Alaric being in a coma, would not only undo all the work she’s put into her friendship with Hope, but also all the work she’s put into herself. It would be an unfair turn for a character who has come so far. It would be far better if the end of Legacies season 4, episode 7, “Someplace Far Away From All This Violence” were a misdirect and the “game” Lizzie is playing isn’t to kill Hope.

Lizzie emerges from the therapy box in the Legacies season 4 episode and runs into Josie entering it. She tells her sister, “Don’t worry, Jo, I know exactly how to fix Hope,” then follows that up with, “Your game’s just beginning. But mine’s over. And I won.” It’s a really odd choice of words. For starters, Lizzie doesn’t say she’s going to kill Hope, or end Hope, or stop Hope, but that she’ll “fix” Hope. She also says she “won,” which is interesting. Lizzie has grown so much. If she were to “win” by killing Hope, it would be no win at all as she’ll lose all the ground she’s fought so hard to gain inside herself. The old Lizzie may not have realized this, but the more recent version of Lizzie who has emerged in Legacies may very well know that the only way for her to win is to solve the Hope problem without losing herself in the process.

Hope’s Vampire Side Could Be Killed Without Hope Dying

The vampire part of Hope being killed without dying seems an impossible feat, but it’s not without precedent in The Vampire Diaries universe. It hasn’t been as prominent a storyline in Legacies as it was in The Vampire Diaries, and even The Originals, but it’s still an established fact in the mythology that it’s sometimes possible to kill part of a supernatural creature without killing them entirely. The Vampire Diaries season 5 fleshed out the concept of Travelers, witches able to possess the bodies of humans. It was revealed they could be killed while in their Passenger form in a human body if they were stabbed with the Traveler Knife, a mystical blade that had the power to permanently kill a Traveler without killing their host.

The existence of hybrids also raised a number of really interesting questions in The Vampire Diaries, especially vampire-werewolf hybrids. Vampires are weakened by vervain, but not werewolves, while werewolves are hurt by wolfsbane, but it’s not harmful to vampires. The Vampire Diaries season 6 also showed that if a vampire has the magic that turned them stripped from them, they’ll revert to the moment of their human death. However, if that death is prevented and they can somehow be saved, as doctor Jo Laughlin (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) saved Alaric, they’ll survive, but they’ll no longer be a vampire, only human.

It’s entirely possible that Legacies will reveal a way that Hope’s vampire side can be killed without killing her completely. At this point, it appears no emotional plea will get Hope to turn her humanity back on, nor will making her feel fear. More physical means may be the only way for the Super Squad to win and get Hope back as she was before she died and became the Tribrid, and it could be that something Lizzie saw in the therapy box gave her an idea about how to do it. There is likely a way to strip the vampire from Hope so she’s still a witch and a werewolf, but no longer a vampire. Her humanity would automatically be turned back on, which would be devastating for Hope at first, but far better in the long run.

Technically, Hope Doesn’t Need To Be The Tribrid Anymore

It’s possible, even probable, that Malivore will find a way out of the afterlife and become a problem for Legacies‘ Super Squad again. But for now, the protagonists don’t know that. Setting aside the current plotline that’s setting up Triad to be the big bad of the second half of Legacies season 4, for now, Hope technically no longer has to be the Tribrid. Nature created her as the ultimate loophole, the only weapon capable of killing Malivore. Now that that’s done and Malivore is dead, her job is done.

In theory, according to the established rules of The Vampire Diary universe, not only is there no longer a need for the Tribrid, but it’s likely that nature will no longer allow her to exist–at least, not as the Tribrid. As the Tribrid, Hope is the ultimate perversion of nature, a creature with far too much unnatural power; nature only created the loophole that allowed for Hope’s creation as she was meant to be the weapon against an equally powerful, unnatural force in Malivore. Now that he’s gone, it’s very likely that nature will find a way to close the loophole. That could mean Hope has to die, but it also could mean there’s simply a way to stop her from being the Tribrid and revert her to her original state. She’d still be incredibly powerful and rare but less of a perversion of nature than the Tribrid. The Vampire Diaries clearly laid out what Legacies has yet to explore in as much detail: magic always provides a loophole. Lizzie, not Josie or MG or Alaric, figuring this out and finding a way to bring Hope back from the dark side without killing her, would be the most interesting and unexpected twist Legacies could offer, evolving not just her character, but also her relationship with Hope.

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