The Vampire Diaries: 10 Times Klaus Should Have Died & Only Survived Because Of Plot Armor

While The Vampire Diaries is set to leave Netflix on September 3, The Originals doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. While the loss of the original show will certainly be felt, fans of Klaus Mikaelson and his family are happy to know they’ll at least have part of his story available for rewatches, especially since the franchise is at an end after the Legacies finale this past June.

When Klaus was introduced in The Vampire Diaries, he was virtually unkillable, even more so than his likewise indestructible siblings. However, he became more vulnerable over time, and as greater threats arose, it became unbelievable that he managed to survive everything they threw at him. At a certain point, there was no other excuse than plot armor, which kept him safe from mortal harm until the last moment, when the writers were finally willing to say goodbye.

10 Tortured By Papa Tunde’s Blade

Klaus was pretty hard to kill in the first season of The Originals, but his enemies found ways to push him out of fights they wanted to win. While it might have been a little excessive to introduce a weapon capable of killing an Original so soon in the show, Papa Tunde’s blade seemed like it might have been powerful enough to do it.

The blade had been used to kill a massive number of supernatural creatures, and it seemed possible for it to take Klaus down given its ability to desiccate Rebekah. Still, it was only given the ability to do “things worse than death,” rather than being a fatal weapon, because Klaus was the centerpiece of the show.

9 Hollow-Fueled Fight With Marcel

The Hollow had the ability to force Klaus and Marcel into a fight to the death, and both were giving the fight everything they had. By this point, Marcel had a bite powerful enough to kill Klaus, so the fight provided a very real threat.

However, Marcel fought back against the Hollow long enough for Freya to arrive and give Klaus a weapon that could kill Marcel. He showed mercy, and the two men began to heal their shattered relationship. While Elijah died only a few episodes later from Marcel’s venom, Klaus was safe because his dynamic with Hope was so fragile and new. The writers couldn’t kill him off without upsetting the fans, lessening the stakes of what could have been an epic vampire fight.

8 Fight With Enhanced Original Marcel

The season 3 finale of The Originals came with a war against the Mikaelsons, and they very soundly lost. Marcel takes on three Mikaelsons and beats them all, biting Elijah and Kol. Klaus gears up for his final stand, but Rebekah tells Klaus to take his brothers and leave, and somehow Marcel and all his allies allow that to happen.

Marcel might love Rebekah, but he was in his hour of triumph and there was no reason to let them go. Whether he was truly willing to let Rebekah die or not, he had more than enough followers to get her out of the way and finish the job. By all reason, all three Mikaelson brothers should have died in that courtyard.

7 Abused By His Father Throughout His Life

Perhaps it isn’t plot armor to have survived something before the start of the show, but given how deep The Vampire Diaries and The Originals went with how much Mikael hated Klaus, it’s genuinely surprising that he survived long enough to become a vampire in the first place.

Mikael beat Klaus nearly to death on multiple occasions, and that was before he found out that Klaus was the product of Esther’s affair. Klaus could easily have been killed by his father’s abuse. This obviously couldn’t happen since the show needed him to exist, but the more the show insisted Mikael was evil, the more surprising it is that he didn’t kill Klaus as a child.

6 Volunteered To Die To Save Elijah

In season 4, Elijah ended up getting infected by venom-infused rose thorns, which led to his death. Before he died, however, Klaus attempted to sacrifice himself in his place. He believed that Vincent killing him would allow Freya to channel his death and save both Elijah and Hope, which is relatively close to how he did end up dying in the finale.

However, just as Klaus was preparing to die, a coven of witches shows up, distracting Vincent to keep him from killing Klaus and then burning the thorns so they couldn’t be used to kill him. It was a major loss for the family, but it was also yet another time Klaus escaped a dangerous situation for no good reason.

5 Fight With Upgraded Original Lucien

After getting the power of an Enhanced Original, Lucien bit and killed Finn and Cami, trying to prompt a confrontation with the Mikaelsons. When they don’t come to him, he brings the fight to them, and his newfound powers give him a major advantage. He easily beats Klaus and Hayley and threatened to kill Hayley in order to make Klaus kneel to him.

Wasting time feeling superior was Lucien’s downfall, as it gave the other Mikaelsons time to arrive and take away his powers. However, this only happened because the writers wanted Marcel to be the true big bad of the season. Lucien easily could have killed Klaus and Hayley before he could be stopped, and their survival was a plot convenience, not a logical progression.

4 Nearly Killed by Elijah

Klaus ended up being in more episodes of TVD shows than most other characters, but his end very easily could have come in season two of The Vampire Diaries. After killing Jenna and Elena, Klaus was finally able to transform into his wolf side again, a victory that actually left him more vulnerable than he had been before. Elijah had Klaus’s heart in his fist… and then didn’t kill him.

Klaus only escaped by having one last piece of leverage – the locations of his siblings. Fans are glad Klaus survived, as he is a fan favorite villain, but it was certainly a moment that he could have been killed.

3 In The Trial

Marcel decided to be honorable by giving Klaus a trial, and Klaus did everything he could to be judged as guilty as possible. His plans hinged on riling up the crowd and having Rebekah keep her sanity long enough to declare that death is too good for him.

It all goes according to plan, but by all logic, Klaus should not have survived the trial. His sire line was broken and Marcel was strong enough to kill him with just one bite. Papa Tunde’s blade might be considered worse than death, but someone who knew the Mikaelsons as well as Marcel did should have known that killing him was the only option.

2 ‘Killed’ by Alaric

Esther believed it was her duty to kill her children, and she turned Alaric into an Original vampire to do it. Alaric had all the strength and power of the Mikaelson family, years of training in killing vampires, the White Oak stake, and a desiccated Klaus Mikaelson at his mercy. He plunged the stake into Klaus’s heart, and that should have been that.

However, Klaus survived by virtue of a body-swapping spell from Bonnie and a coincidence that left his body intact. This move was brilliant from a story-telling perspective because it showed Bonnie truly betraying her friends (although she was also saving them in the process). However, that’s about as clean-cut as a death scene with an Original vampire can be, so it’s still getting called out as plot armor.

1 Stabbed by Mikael

Mikael came back for his son one last time in The Originals, and the two had a proper showdown. Klaus put up a good fight and was seconds away from killing Mikael, but he had to save Cami, a rescue that gave Mikael the chance to plunge the White Oak Stake into Klaus’s heart.

That should have been the end of it, but Davina and Kol managed to perform a spell that rendered the stake inert. While it makes sense that Davina would want to save him with so many other lives on the line, it definitely crossed the line from reasonable escape to blatant plot armor, as any other character would have died – even if only for a little while.