Esther Mikaelson (Elder Futhark: ᛖᛋᚦᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᚲᚨᛖᛚᛋᛟᚾ) was one of "the most powerful witches in history",[1] and was herself alone responsible for the creation of the Original vampires. She appeared in the third season of The Vampire Diaries as a recurring character and a main antagonist. She was also a major recurring character and a primary antagonist in the second season of The Originals.
Esther was the wife of Mikael and the former lover of Ansel. She was the mother of Freya, Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik. She was also the younger sister of Dahlia, and the grandmother of Freya and Mathias' unborn son, Klaus and Hayley's daughter, Hope, and Freya and Keelin's son, Nik.
During the third season of The Vampire Diaries, Esther was revived thanks to the efforts of Bonnie and Abby Bennett. She planned to kill her children, linking them together and stripping them of their vampirism before killing Finn, who willingly helped her. To stop Esther's plan, Damon Salvatore was forced to kill Abby and turn her into a vampire, unlinking Esther from the Bennett witch line. Esther later helped Alaric Saltzman develop a dark, murderous, vampire hating alter-ego. She then turned him into an Enhanced Original vampire for the purpose of hunting down and killing the rest of her children with the indestructible white oak stake she crafted with his Gilbert ring. Alaric kills her soon after when his original personality briefly regained control after waking up in transition, stabbing her to save Jeremy and Matt from her magic attacks.
It was revealed in The Originals, that Klaus had been holding onto Esther's coffin. In New Orleans, when Klaus and Elijah helped Sophie Deveraux become an Elder, they offered her Esther's body. They consecrated Esther's remains, which later allowed her to revive herself in From a Cradle to a Grave and possess the last Harvest Girl, Cassie, with the completed Harvest Ritual. She also revived Finn and Kol, placing them in the body of two witches - Vincent and Kaleb, respectively.
In the second season of The Originals, Esther seeks to convince her children to give up their immortal lives and become mortal again. Finn willingly helps her and Kol follows his own agenda, eventually joining Klaus' side. Esther body jumps from Cassie to Lenore. In The Map of Moments, Esther's witchcraft is stripped after Rebekah put blood in her wine. Klaus eventually returns to her, informing her that she is no longer a witch and is now a vampire. Esther forms an alliance with Mikael and Finn, in an effort to kill Klaus and his allies.
Esther was, for a brief while, a vampire, while possessing the body of the witch Lenore, and was forced to transition without body jumping into a new witch host. She briefly became what she hated the most, a vampire. After reuniting with her eldest daughter, Freya, Esther aids her and Klaus in saving their sister Rebekah from her body host, the witch Eva Sinclair. After doing so, Esther warns Klaus that Freya will turn his siblings against him, and tells him that all her previous acts were only meant to undo her evil, in hope that he will love her again. Klaus mocks her and leaves her in the dark. Later, Esther is cold-heartedly executed at the hands of her daughter Freya, as punishment for giving her over to Dahlia over a thousand years ago.
In Ashes to Ashes, following her last resurrection in her original witch body - by the hands of unsuspecting Davina Claire, who thought she was bringing back her boyfriend, Kol Mikaelson - Esther was forced to participate in her children's plan to kill her sister, Dahlia. After begging with Dahlia to end her misdeeds, Esther allows herself to be killed together with her, by Klaus. She and Dahlia were shown to have found peace, with Esther asking for her older sister forgiveness, finally admitting that she did love her. Dahlia then forgives her younger sister, and the two of them finally make up.
Esther was the matriarch of the Mikaelson Family and a member of an unnamed Norwegian family of powerful witches.
