Character Sketch: Rebekah Mikaelson

     It's difficult being a teenage girl. It's even more difficult to be a teenage girl who is immortal and one of the oldest vampires in history. Rebekah Mikaleson waltzed onto The Vampire Diaries scene in season 3 after eighty years in a coffin. Beautiful, intelligent, naive and also possessing a selfish and vengeful nature, Rebekah is constantly battling her  vampire immortality with the desire to be a normal human girl.

     Rebekah was born over 1,000 years ago to a Viking family hailing from Norway. Before her birth, her mother and father left their homeland and traveled to North America where they settled in what is now Virginia. Rebekah grew up as the only girl surrounded by five brothers. She was a sweet and independent girl who adored her powerful mother and felt that her father underestimated her. For years her family and their small settlement lived in peace where they were protected by the servants of nature (witches) and were friendly with the native people who transformed into werewolves every full moon.

     However, Rebekah's happy life ended when her younger brother was killed by a werewolf during his transformation. Overwhelmed with grief (and already burdened by a lost of their oldest child back in Norway), Rebekah's parents defy the natural order and use magic and blood to make their family immortal. However, immortality and strength came at a cost and the whole Mikaleson family became slaves to their insatiable blood lusts. Soon, Rebekah and her brothers became hunted by their own father who seeks to destroy the evil he created.

     For as long as she has been a vampire, Rebekah has forever been on the run from her father. Fear can make people deny goodness and mercy in order to survive. In the beginning of The Vampire Diaries, Rebekah is just as cruel and inhumane as her brothers, but the overwhelming kindness and discipline from the residents of Mystic Falls (also her former home) begin to sink into Rebekah. Overtime, she begins to see that she can be good, decent and sacrificial. Once away from the influence of her brothers, Rebekah becomes the independent woman she always longed to be and know that her choices, her life and heart are hers and hers alone to control.