The Vampire Diaries Characters, Ranked From Lowest To Highest Kill Count

The Vampire Diaries, while not an overly gory show, features a lot of death scenes, many of which are caused by the show’s main characters. While some morally object to killing, others see it as a means to an end. It can be hard to get a complete tally of how many deaths were caused by each character, as some happened off-screen or large groups were taken out, but for the most part, it’s possible to track the kill counts of the show’s main characters

The characters have reputations for being good or bad, which largely correlate to how often they kill, and whether or not they kill innocents. But some fans might be surprised by ‘innocent’ characters who have high kill counts and ‘evil’ characters who are lower on the kill count rankings.

10 Elena: 5

Over seven seasons of screentime, Elena managed to only kill five people, all taking place in seasons four and five. In general, Elena tries to avoid the violence associated with being a vampire, wanting to be human more than anything.

Elena only kills when she feels she has no other choice, either in defense or when it is needed to fulfill a plan. Even then, Elena only survives because her friends do the dirty work for her. Because of this, she remains the most innocent of the main characters, which leads to her frequent bouts of moral righteousness.

9 Jeremy: 5 +

Jeremy’s arc of becoming a vampire hunter involved a few on-screen kills and several off-screen kills, in which he killed as many vampires as was necessary to fully reveal the map that would lead them to the Cure. Generally speaking, these were unnamed characters that the audience was told were worthy of death, making it so that his kills were largely excused until he began developing a blood lust that threatened Elena.

Despite Jeremy’s journey from regular teenager to vampire hunter, he remained a fairly innocent character, dying more often than he killed and trying to help his friends and family out of difficult situations.

8 Katherine: 12

Katherine Pierce isn’t afraid to kill to get what she wants, but she tends toward manipulation rather than killing. She had a handful of kills every season she was in, spaced out just enough to keep audiences on the edge of their seats when she was on screen. Katherine was one of the most iconic, dangerous characters on the show, but that often came from her versatility.

She could kill, or she could run, or she could manipulate. She is a survivor, using whatever means are necessary to stay alive and live the life of luxury that she prefers.

7 Elijah: 12

Elijah was introduced as a powerhouse character, but he is also the ‘good’ brother compared to Klaus, which meant he rarely killed just for the fun of it. Viewers saw far more violence out of Elijah on The Originals, where he shed plenty of blood to get what he wanted, but even there, he lives by a code, rather than killing indiscriminately.

During his time on The Vampire Diaries, Elijah was portrayed as yet another poor fool who fell in love with Katherine and was taken advantage of. He has power, to be sure, but was not a serious killer.

6 Bonnie: 15

Bonnie Bennett may be one of the most caring and self-sacrificial characters on the show, but she does have her darker moments, and there are a few things about Bonnie that have not aged well. Although for the vast majority of the show, Bonnie does not kill or only does so in self-defense, she does have a tendency to get misled by her mentor figures, and one such time resulted in the deaths of twelve witches.

Although Bonnie is generally more likely to sacrifice herself than kill a threat, she is not as innocent as many of the other characters on this show, having knowingly harmed innocents. She’s far from one of the show’s top killers, but she certainly is a force to be reckoned with.

5 Caroline: 19

Most fans acknowledge that Caroline became a more interesting character when she turned into a vampire, but that didn’t mean she was as quick to kill as some of the other characters on the show. She had a kill or two each season leading up to season six, where her kill count shot up because she turned off her humanity.

Even then, Caroline remained mostly in control, but one of the worst things Caroline did with her humanity off was getting Stefan to turn off his own, a decision which dragged her along on his no-humanity kill streak, racking up sixteen kills in just a few episodes of season six.

4 Kai: 12 + Gemini Coven

Kai Parker is one of the show’s best villains, and certainly the best TVD villain in season six. He was a dangerous figure, willing to kill anyone, including his own family, for power. He certainly has a dark backstory, having been shunned by his family for being born a siphoner and raised to hopefully die in the Merge, but that doesn’t justify going on a killing spree.

Kai doesn’t actually kill that many people individually on the show, but he manipulates the Gemini coven curse to kill the entire coven by killing himself, an act that takes his kill count way up.

3 Klaus: 50+

Klaus Mikaelson, the killing machine. Unlike his brother Elijah, Klaus is willing to kill with no remorse, which led to him taking Jeremy on a killing spree, massacring werewolves for the sake of his hybrid experimentation, and generally killing at will. While fans discovered that Klaus was actually good at heart in The Originals, he was definitely portrayed as a villain in The Vampire Diaries, barring his courtship of Caroline.

Klaus’s instinctual way of dealing with problems is killing them, and he showed off that problem-solving technique many times on the show. He was only on the show for around three seasons, but killed ten to twenty people on-screen per season, making Klaus one of the most show’s prolific killers.

2 Damon: 66+

Damon is the bad boy, and the show really wanted audiences to understand that from the get-go. In season one, Damon killed eighteen people, most of whom were innocent. Though his kill count per season dropped significantly after that point, with only three kills in season six, and five each in seasons three and four, he was still ready and willing to kill if the moment demanded.

Though Damon was seen as the bad guy for feeding on humans, the vast majority of his kills were in defense of himself or others, typically throwing himself into dangerous situations to take out as many threats as possible. While there are many things about Damon that aged poorly, his kill count is actually not nearly as bad as fans might suspect.

1 Stefan: 83

Coming in at first place, Stefan is credited with eighty-three kills over the span of the show’s eight seasons, most of which were during his ripper periods. In season eight alone, there were thirty-seven kills attributed to Stefan as he worked out his inner demons. For being the show’s “good guy,” Stefan’s dark side is infinitely darker than his brother’s, which proves that Stefan was actually a villain on the show.

While Stefan was seen as a good guy because he refused to drink from humans, that was just a way of trying to stave off his ripper state, a strategy that only worked for so long. He may have felt guilty about his kills, but Stefan was definitely the top killer on The Vampire Diaries.