Julie Plec Teases Birth of "Supernatural Heroine" on The Vampire Diaries

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The Vampire Diaries will start over this fall.

That's how Julie Plec put it during an interview with E! News at the ATX Television Festival in Austin last week, as the producer focused on the main storyline heading into the Vampire Diaries Season 4 - Elena Gilbert as a vampire - and said:

"We're starting a new story. Same world, same characters, same feelings, same everything but for our ingénue, and our heroine, we are beginning."

Elena Gilbert Photograph

Considering how transitioning typically emphasizes a human being's most dominant personality traits - Caroline is more bubbly, Damon more… Damon-y - what can fans expect from a blood-sucking Elena?

"Her compassion is her gift and her Achilles heel," says Plec. "She is fiercely loyal, fiercely protective, and very, very compassionate to those around her in that she can see the good and the bad. When all that stuff gets amplified, it's going to make her, hopefully, kind of a badass... it's like the birth of a supernatural heroine."

But Elena was also in a dark place even before turning, experiencing guilt over all the pain she's caused those around her.

How might that play out in vampire form? Explained Plec:

"Elena's dark side, so to speak, is actually in her deep, deep, deep connection to other people, whether they are light or dark. So now that these things get magnified, it is her connection to darker things and darker people, is that going to bloom at all or is she still going to be the infallible heroine? I think that grief can do a lot to send somebody off their rocker a little bit, so who knows what she could go through as a vampire."

No one but Plec and her team, that's for sure. We won't find out until TVD returns in October, but you can relive the past three seasons now when you watch Vampire Diaries online at TV Fanatic!

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.

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