Stefan Salvatore

Stefan Salvatore is one of the male protagonists of The Vampire Diaries. He is a 163-year-old vampire. Stefan was born and raised in the supernatural town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. He left Mystic Falls to get away and start over. He is the youngest son of Giuseppe Salvatore and his unnamed mother. He has an older brother, Damon, who is also a vampire, an unknown half-brother and is the descendant and doppelganger of Silas. Stefan has had a love-hate relationship with Damon since 1864, when they both fell in love with Katherine Pierce, the woman who turned them both into vampires. In the 1920s, Stefan had a brotherly friendship with Klaus and was romantically involved with Rebekah Mikaelson. He was best friends with Lexi Branson until her death, and Caroline Forbes.

After many years away, Stefan returned to his hometown of Mystic Falls to visit his nephew Zach. On May 23, 2009, Stefan saw Elena Gilbert for the first time while rescuing her after her parents' car drove off of Wickery Bridge. Although he managed to save Elena's life, he could not save Elena's parents in time. Stefan was initially shocked and suspicious about Elena's uncanny physical resemblance to Katherine Pierce, and decided to research Elena's background in order to make sure that she wasn't the woman he'd fallen for over a century ago. Eventually, after finding her personal records and observing her from afar, Stefan determined that Elena was definitely not Katherine. Still, he was intrigued by her and decided to get to know her, posing as a new student at Mystic Falls High School.

Since then, Stefan's life has been fraught with change and complications: from falling in love and being with Elena to mending his complicated relationship with Damon; from sacrificing his freedom for his brother's life to growing apart from Elena and suffering the guilt of her becoming a vampire. After being trapped in a safe for three months by Silas, Stefan has recently been trying to bypass the trauma and after effects of his suffering.

Chapter One
In Chapter One Stefan is first seen in the Salvatore Boarding house talking with Elena, but he soons find himself in a panic attack. Elena manages to calm him down and the two are told that Allison wants to meet them at Caroline's house from Damon. Arriving at Caroline's, They find out hunters are in town, and the blood Caroline had went out to get from a blood bank was stolen from her car.

Stefan, Damon, Caroline, and Allison drive to The Grill where Allison last saw the hunters. Damon questions Matt and Stefan and Caroline stay outside; The hunters appeared to be gone. Then Allison walked over to a couple men (Castiel and Zerachiel) and started talking to them before she broke one of their phones. Stefan watched as Caroline took care of the situation by compelling the two men to forget about vampires, but it didn't work. Zerachiel stole the rings from Caroline, Stefan, and Damon, leaving the three in the sun without their dayrings.

Burning, Stefan rushed into a narrow area of shade to try and escape the sun, but was pulled by Damon into The Grill, where Matt closed the shades to the windows and led them to the back of the restaurant, safe from sunlight. The three are stuck in the The Grill until night fall.

Personality
As a human, Stefan was seen as being compassionate, kind, noble, honorable, intelligent, athletic, responsible, academic, dutiful, and a gentleman. He was definitely seen as the 'Golden Boy' and he had the admiration and respect of the entire town of Mystic Falls and most of all, of his father Giuseppe. Stefan was also seen to be ambitious and studious and he desired to become a doctor during his human life and this was his profession or career of choice before he was turned into a vampire against his will. In his human years, when it came to love and romance, Stefan was liked, admired by and popular with women. He was seen to be chivalrous, gallant, romantic, well-mannered, courteous and polite, traits which made Katherine Pierce fall deeply for the younger Salvatore.

In regards to Katherine, Stefan was much harder to get and challenging unlike Damon, who persistently chased and pursued Katherine as much as possible. Unlike Damon, Stefan had a very close relationship with his father Giuseppe and Stefan was Giuseppe's favorite son. Stefan was also close with his mother, before she had died when he was 10 years old. Before turning into a vampire in 1864, Stefan was seen to be happy, optimistic, light-hearted, playful, mischievous and naive. He was also seen as athletic, dutiful, respectful, intelligent, scholarly, noble, chivalrous and even-tempered. Stefan was very close to his older brother Damon growing up. Although Stefan was very popular and had many male friends during his human life, Stefan always considered Damon to be his best friend and companion. Stefan was also a bit idealistic when it came to love and romance, even naive at times. This is evident in Stefan when he very quickly and easily became infatuated and fell in love with Katherine Pierce, which is evidence of his youthfulness, naivety and simplicity as a regular teenage human. Although Stefan was only 17 years old, he displayed maturity, responsibility and had a wisdom beyond his years. Because of this, Stefan always seemed to be much older than his actual age.



As a vampire, Stefan's personality became increasingly complex. Much of Stefan's personality as a human transcended into his vampire personality, although his basic human traits became significantly more heightened. Although Stefan became increasingly darker by nature due to his vampire nature, he still retained the same basic personality traits that he had as a human. As a vampire, Stefan is described as mysterious, brooding, inscrutable, intense, kind, caring, empathetic, compassionate, loving, affectionate, heroic, noble, selfless, brave, intelligent, protective, and loyal. On the dark side, Stefan can be incredibly self loathing, self-destructive, addictive, guilt ridden, martyring, unpredictable, melancholic, self-righteous, naive, secretive and judgmental. Since he turned in 1864, Stefan has always had trouble controlling his blood lust, that has often become a major problem for him throughout the course of his immortal life.

Because of his blood addiction, Stefan is a certified "blood-a-holic" (which is a term coined from alcoholic by Caroline). When Stefan consumes copious amounts of human blood, his entire attitude seems to change. When Stefan gives into his blood lust, Stefan is unstable, volatile, unpredictable, rash, reckless, careless and can become highly destructive. The "ripper" side of him usually causes him to push people away and become emotionally cold, withdrawn and distant. When Stefan lets his blood lust take over, this is because unlike his older brother Damon, Stefan never learned how to control, his thirst for human blood, he often shuts off his humanity and his emotions to block out his suffering, guilt and pain. After he was newly transformed into a vampire, Stefan was seen to be extremely dependent towards Damon. This was not the case when Stefan was a human. When Stefan was a human, although he and Damon were very close, Stefan always had an independent personality. Stefan's dependence on Damon due to his newborn vampire-ism and heightened emotions is example by a time right after he transitioned and then persuaded an unwilling Damon to complete his own transformation into a vampire.

Relationships
Damon Salvatore - Stefan's older brother.

Henrietta Schneider - Stefan and Henrietta were friends in the 1800's.

Allison Moore - Stefan's most recent friend.

Katherine Pierce - Stefan's ex-girlfriend/former enemies

Elena Gilbert - Stefan's ex-girlfriend and friend.

Caroline Forbes - Stefan's best/friend.

Lexi Branson - Stefan and Lexi were friends from 1864-2013.

Bonnie Bennet - Stefan's friend.

Niklaus Mikaelson - Stefan's enemy/former partner in crime.

Rebekah Mikaelson - Stefan's ex-grilfriend/former partner in crime.

Name
Stefan is a masculine first name of Greek origin meaning "crown", "garland", or invested with a "crown of martyrdom". In turn, Stephen or Stefan comes from the Greek word "στέφανος", meaning "wreath", "crown", "honor", "reward", literally "that which surrounds or encompasses".