Vampire Academy just began airing on Peaco*ck, and there are a lot of characters to try to keep track of. Between friends, enemies, and side characters, it can be difficult to keep up. There's good reason to believe that the show will be able to pull it all together, however, because its showrunners both worked on The Vampire Diaries, a similarly deep world that was incredibly successful in building characters for the audience to love.
Despite having an impressive 171 episodes, The Vampire Diaries actually left very few loose ends when the first show concluded. Going down to the tiniest roles the show featured, there were only ten characters who weren't dead, in a spin-off, or in the final season of the show. While some of these characters had very limited screen time, a handful were critical characters for a while before disappearing with little explanation, never to be heard from again.
Duke
Duke is one of the few characters to successfully make it out of Mystic Falls. Caroline tells Jeremy that his real name might be Bob, but everyone calls him "Duke" because that's where he goes to college. He throws parties every time he comes home, which everyone takes advantage of.
In season 1, throwing a party was a dangerous position to be in, but Duke managed to get through it without suffering anything worse than some compulsion and a broken hand. While he was a very minor character, it's surprising that he didn't get brought up again. He was two years into college in season 1, so it would have made sense for him to throw parties on occasion for at least the next two years.
Alice
Alice was a minor character from season two of The Vampire Diaries who, like Bella Swan from Twilight, was hooked on the idea of becoming a vampire. She was dating a vampire named Slater, who she hoped would turn her. When he died, Elena tricked her into helping them take his research, only for Damon to compel her memories of the day away.
While Alice was just a means to an end, she could have easily become a main character in later seasons. Elena promised that she would have Rose turn Alice if she helped them, and if Alice eventually got her wish, she would have remembered the deception.
Derek
Derek was a human used by Klaus when he tried to create hybrids, but his ending on the show was actually very ambiguous. He was the boyfriend of werewolf Paige, and Klaus used his blood in his attempts to have the werewolves transition. When he became too weak to continue, Klaus healed him with his blood, and then, when all the hybrids had fed, Klaus killed him.
Any fan of The Vampire Diaries knows that vampire blood plus death equals transition, but that was never actually shown. Perhaps he chose to die because of what happened to Paige and the rest of the pack, but that should have been shown. As it was, Derek was forgotten about, never to make another appearance on The Vampire Diaries or The Originals.
Vanessa Monroe
Before becoming Nora Darhk in DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Kelly Kline on Supernatural, Courtney Ford had a bit role on The Vampire Diaries as Isobel Flemming's research assistant. Alaric, Damon, and Elena went to Vanessa for information about werewolves but ended up getting a lot more than they bargained for when she tried to shoot Elena with a crossbow.
Vanessa was a great resource for information on the supernatural world, yet she was never referenced again after providing the group with information on doppelgängers and the Sun and Moon Curse. This is especially significant given how important Shane became just two seasons later, specifically because of his expertise in the field. While Whitmore College is closer to Mystic Falls, Duke is referenced multiple times throughout the series, so it's surprising that another expert in supernatural lore wouldn't have been at least mentioned at a later time.
Lee
Lexi Branson was Stefan's best friend, but it was made clear very early on that they were not romantically involved. That honor belonged to Lee, who Lexi had fallen in love with and turned into a vampire. When Damon's former girlfriend called him to explain what had happened to Lexi, Lee came to town to make Damon pay. However, upon Elena's pleading, he let Damon go and left town.
While this was a powerful example of forgiveness for Elena to witness, it had surprisingly few consequences moving forward. Lee never returned to Mystic Falls, and Lexi never mentioned him in her many returns as a ghost. Despite the pair being the example of a vampiric true love, Lee was a shockingly irrelevant character, despite having the potential to be an intriguing ally or enemy.
Jamie
Bonnie suffered a lot of hardships, but one of the most painful was the discovery that her mother, after abandoning her, had become the perfect mother for a young man named Jamie. Despite being a sore spot for Bonnie, he went to the 20s dance with her, was in bed with her later, and then was never seen again.
Jamie was mentioned twice more in the show but had no major impact on any of the characters that were there, even as Bonnie tried to establish a stronger relationship with her mom. Perhaps he just didn't want to be involved in the supernatural world, but it seemed like the writers simply forgot about him in the later seasons.
Liam Davis
Liam Davis was one of Whitmore College's pre-med students, and he had a brief relationship with Elena. He seemed kind and smart, doing his best to save the students injured by Tyler's car crash. However, when he reacted poorly to learning about the supernatural world, Elena compelled him to forget their relationship.
Liam did show up one more time after this when no-humanity Caroline fed off of him and then compelled him to operate on Sarah Salvatore. He was stopped before killing her, but then never showed up again. It's entirely possible that Elena compelled him to switch schools altogether, but her compulsion should have worn off when she became human again, leaving plot holes that the show never addressed.
April Young
April was the daughter of Pastor Young, and her entanglements with the supernatural world helped show how young and inexperienced the main cast were when they first got involved. She was repeatedly dragged into dangerous situations and then compelled to forget them, which made her angry when she learned the truth.
After getting attacked by no-humanity Elena, however, she disappeared. Rebekah healed her and Matt drove her home, but then she never showed up again. April was an orphan with no friends except for Matt, Jeremy, and Rebekah, and she knew about the supernatural world. Getting rid of her felt like a missed opportunity, particularly in later seasons when Matt was working to keep Mystic Falls human.
Valerie Tulle
Season 6 introduced Valerie Tulle, one of the heretics Lily Salvatore adopted. She had a lot of history in Mystic Falls, having fallen for Stefan and become pregnant with his child in 1863. After losing her child, she sought vengeance against Julian, which she finally won many years later.
However, the writers didn't seem to know what to do with Valerie. She was brought in as a love interest for Stefan after Nina Dobrev left the show, but she left when it became clear he loved Caroline more. Technically, Valerie was referenced in the final season, when she put a protection spell on Lizzie and Josie, but her fate was never discussed, leaving fans to guess what she got up to next.
Meredith Fell
Meredith Fell was a descendant of the Founding Families, a Doctor, and the only one of Alaric's girlfriends to get out of town alive, yet she was removed from the show after multiple seasons with little fanfare. Stefan and Meredith commiserated about the pain of death and denial, and then she was never seen again.
Alaric mentioned in season 6 that she was "happily married to a pediatrician up in Alaska," but that's all fans know. Why did she leave? Did she continue using vampire blood to save people? For a character who had such an important influence in the early seasons, Meredith Fell is the character that was failed and forgotten about most.
NEXT: 10 Inside Jokes Only Diehard The Vampire Diaries Fans Would Understand
