Yes, I’m going here. I tried to avoid it. But, damn near every day, I get more pissed off about the ending of The Originals. So, time for me to let myself rant.

I’m a writer, I get it. This was her story to tell the way she saw fit. Yadda yadda yadda. But, there are limits to that. When “telling the story the way you see fit” depends on making your characters suddenly act completely out of character for no good in-story reason, then there’s a problem. The problem being that this is obviously not the story you started out telling.

And Elijah’s actions in the final moments of the series finale made no sense. Taking Klaus’s place so that Klaus could stay with Hope, and he could go to Hayley would have made sense. It would have been the final sacrifice of a man who has spent a thousand years making sacrifice after sacrifice for his family. His final act of redemption to make himself worthy of finding peace with the woman he loves. It would have been a proper send-off.

Instead, we got Elijah fucking Mikaelson committing suicide. Not only was there no good reason for him to die, it was the ultimate act of selfishness. He left his siblings to mourn not one brother, but two. He left HOPE. The girl just lost both of her parents, within like a week. The Elijah Mikaelson we all know and love would have stayed to take care of her. His penance for letting her mother die. Elijah’s death made no fucking sense. Not the way it was written.

Not only that. But, even worse, it GLORIFIED suicide. In a show meant for teenagers. In the end, what we got was Elijah was literally just tired of living, so he decided to end it. No real reason. As someone who has been suicidal, I can say with absolute certainty that that is an extremely dangerous message to send. Now, this is a show about vampires. Nobody is expecting bunnies and rainbows. And nobody is saying not to have dark themes or tackle rough issues. And “some things are worth dying for” IS a valid theme. A theme that Klaus’s death exemplified. He was a parent willing to die for his child. That made sense. And, again, Elijah taking Klaus’s place and being willing to die for his niece/stepdaughter and his little brother, so that Hope wouldn’t have had to lose both parents, would have made sense and fit the same theme.

Elijah dying INSTEAD of Klaus would have made sense. It would have fit a decent theme, been a proper send-off, and been a fitting end to both of his character arcs – Julie’s word-of-God stated one, and the one we were promised in the first episode (more on that in a minute) and watched play out for four years. Elijah dying WITH Klaus made no sense, and sent a message that ending your life out of boredom and not caring about the people you are leaving behind is perfectly fine. Have I mentioned that this show was aimed at TEENAGERS?!

Okay, deep breaths. Like I said, I’ve been suicidal. And Elijah’s death was just… Kind of triggering, to be honest. But, time to move on to something else.

Still talking about the finale and their deaths, though. Just a different aspect of it. The existence of the afterlife is canon in this universe. We have seen most characters who have passed in this afterlife, which they call “finding peace”. It’s really kind of cool getting to see that. The finale of The Vampire Diaries was beautiful. Those last few minutes, showing Elena reunited with her parents, Jenna, and John – and Damon reunited with Stefan – were totally worth putting up with the last season and a half of that show.

But, did we get a scene like that for Klaus and Elijah? Did we get to see Elijah reunited with Hayley? Klaus reunited, not just with Cami, but with ANSEL? Did either of them get to see Finn or Henrik? Nope. We’ve seen DAHLIA at peace. Fucking DAHLIA, the fucking VILLAIN of the second season, who could maybe be said to have the redeeming quality of loving her little sister – but had a real funny way of showing it. SHE found peace, and we got to see it. But, the final fates of Klaus and Elijah were left intentionally vague.

I believe that she gave some bullshit reason of leaving it open to interpretation, or some such bull. But, let’s not sugarcoat this. The real reason is so that we would all watch her new spin-off hoping for any crumbs of information she might deign to give us. And, that spin-off is the real reason she killed off those three characters. None of the actors wanted to do the spin-off, and since the spin-off was about Hope, and there was no way any of those three characters would just leave her to deal with things alone, they all had to die to explain where they were, and why they weren’t swooping in to help her.

So, yeah. The finale was crap, on so many levels. Mainly in the way the deaths were handled, and the final scenes we DIDN’T get. But, there was more wrong with it. Namely, dropping the ball on promises made to the audience. Which is like… Writing 101.

The biggest one is Hayley and Elijah. Remember when I talked about Elijah having two different character arcs? Julie’s word-of-God is that this was supposed to be a show about Elijah redeeming Klaus. Okay. Fine. Except… that’s not what we were given in the first episode.

The first episode was basically all about Elijah meeting Hayley. The fact that Klaus is his brother was practically an afterthought. The first episode didn’t promise us a family drama of Elijah redeeming Klaus. It promised us a love story between Elijah and Hayley. Going by the first episode, the family drama should have been a subplot. A complication to these two eventually coming together.

And, let’s not forget just how much of the plots of the first four seasons WERE about putting complications in the way of their relationship. Klaus’s jealousy, thinking Elijah’s feelings for Hayley meant that he would end up losing both Elijah and the baby. The baby to Elijah, and Elijah to Hayley. In the second season, we were given the bullshit werewolf bonding ritual, and Hayley’s marriage. Which… I may come back to that one, later. Suffice to say that it served no real purpose except to be a means to keep Hayley and Elijah apart. Which… actually could make a kind of sense in a love story. Things aren’t supposed to be easy. “Earn your happy ending” is a thing for a reason. Season three continued Hayely’s marriage, and then gave us the Strix and everything that came with them. Season four… Well… about halfway through season four is when it started to fall apart. Not just in their relationship, but in the narrative as a whole.

Season four gave us the events that took place in Freya’s pendant. Which, if Julie had any fucking idea how to tell a proper love story could have worked as the black moment. The moment when all hope seemed lost. Watching them come back from that could have been a fascinating story to watch. Except, the external plot got in the way, creating a SECOND potential black moment in the form of Elijah being so distraught over being forced to separate from everyone that he loves, that the only way he could deal with it was to NOT deal with it, and have his mind wiped. There are a few ways this could have still been done and still keep the promise made in the first episode. Either it could have gone similarly to how my fanfic “You Can’t Fight Destiny” is going: Hayley can’t bring herself to stay away (which, we see in 5×11 that she COULDN’T stay away), and they end up reconnecting and he falls in love with her all over again. Or, he would eventually get his memories back. Which, in all honesty, would have been the better narrative choice. Because, when that happened, they would still have to work through their issues before they could get their happy ending.

But, that’s not what happened. Instead, the relationship that was a major part of the series for four years was ignored. After four years of watching the back and forth between Hayley and Elijah, four years of rooting for them, four years of being invested in this relationship, and having it be one of the most important aspects of the entire story… their love story ended with her death – while he still didn’t even remember her. After four years of investment in THIS relationship, we were forced to watch Elijah PROPOSE TO SOMEONE ELSE. The first episode promised us a love story. And then we were never given a satisfying conclusion to that love story. It just… fizzled out, for no real reason.

One last thing I want to talk about. The reason Julie gave for why she ended the relationship. Namely, the scene in Freya’s pendant, and this somehow being in response to the election. Some bullshit about how when one of the writers gave her the script for that episode, she knew that that was going to have to be the end of Hayley and Elijah. First of all, umm… she was the showrunner. If she didn’t want to end their relationship, she didn’t have to accept that scene the way it was written. But, also… why did that scene mean the relationship had to end?

Supposedly, this one incident – while Elijah was literally not in his right mind – turned the entire relationship abusive, and she couldn’t promote that. (But, glorifying SUICIDE was perfectly fine…) But… Umm… that doesn’t exactly line up with other relationship decisions that were made on the show.

Kol MURDERED Davina. But, they got their happy ending. They got married. They were happy together. Davina understood that Kol was under a witch’s curse, that he wasn’t responsible for what he did, and that he did love her. And she forgave him.

Freya kidnapped Keelin. Held her captive against her will. And TORTURED her. And didn’t even have the excuse of not being in her right mind that her brothers had. In all honesty, I’m not entirely convinced that this wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome. But, not only did they get married, we got to SEE their wedding.

But, Elijah has one moment, where he isn’t in his right mind. One moment where his mind was trapped in the past. And that one moment means that this relationship that we’ve been so invested in is completely doomed, because Julie claims to not want to promote an abusive relationship. (Despite all of the ACTUALLY abusive relationships there were on the show.) Actually calls their entire relationship toxic – because of one incident.

Right, their relationship was toxic. Sure. Honestly, I personally think that the only relationship of ANY type that was less toxic than their romance – in the entire The Vampire Diaries universe, not just on The Originals – was the friendship between Josh and Davina. All of the other relationships that we were supposed to still be rooting for at the end had major issues. But, they were the ones singled out as being toxic.

I can write an entire other blog post about why I ship Hayley and Elijah so hard. I probably will, actually. But, that IS a post for another time. My biggest complaint is just the whole Writing 101, don’t make promises to your audience and then not keep them, issue. And keeping characterization consistent. And just… honoring your fans.

I will not watch a single minute of Legacies. I have a few reasons for that. I admit that one of those reasons is being upset because it is the reason for so many of the things I don’t like about the end of The Originals. First of all that show is the reason why Hayley, Elijah, and Klaus were killed off to begin with. Then, I can guarantee that the reason we didn’t get to see Klaus and Elijah in the afterlife was to bait us into watching Legacies. We’re supposed to watch that show in the hopes of someday getting something. Another near-death experience allowing Hope to see them. Or one or more of them come back as a ghost or something. Or… just SOMETHING to give us closure for them.

But, my other reason is far less petty. I don’t trust Julie. The last two seasons or so of The Vampire Diaries were a mess that got redeemed in the final moments with the flash forward. The Originals took a dumpster fire of a final season and rolled it into an oil refinery and blew the whole thing all to Hell. I am afraid to let myself get invested in another show that Julie is involved in, because I’m afraid of what she’ll end up doing at the end. Add in that I have seen people comparing the love story between Hope and Landon to Hayley and Elijah. I can’t watch that relationship go the same way.

You know it’s bad when having a relationship in a show compared to the ship you would die for is a reason NOT watching that show. And yet, here we are.