Esther’s grimoire states that “only the witch who cast the spell can undo it”. However, lore regarding ancestral magic shows that a direct blood relative sharing the same magical signature can bypass this law, IF they possess the power to do so.

In season 3 of the Originals, Freya reverses Lucien’s Upgraded status by stealing power from the ancestral realm. Her blood was used as a binding agent in place of doppelgänger blood. Esther needed the draw from the “entire Bennet bloodline made manifest living and dead” plus a full moon to reverse her immortality spell on her children.

Vincent performed the spell(channeled by the ancestors)by reverse engineering Esther’s spell for Lucien, but instead of using Tatia’s or Elena’s doppelgänger blood they used Freya’s. Freya as a firstborn Mikaelson witch possess a unique, potent mystical resonance. The fact her blood was used as a catalyst means her bloodlines tie to the spell itself. Therefore Freya can logically and canonically reverse the Original spell.

Even though she is undoubtedly powerful, she can’t just waive her hands and snap it. She’s undoing a 1,000 year old spell that has grown in power tied to eternals forces of nature like sun and white oak. That takes a lot of magic.

-Entire dead covens
-Celestial events
-Full power of the ancestral well?

Thoughts and Questions? Anyone?

Roadmap:

1. Part 0: Intro
2. Part 1 & 1.5: Statements & Prophecies
3. Part 2: The Originals s4
4. Part 2 Cont.: The Originals Season 5
5. Part 3: Legacies Intro & Season 1
6. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s2
7. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s3 -> Today
8. How Powerful Is Malivore -> Friday
9. How Powerful Are the Gods
10. Legacies s4

After the last post unexpectedly gained significantly more traction than all the previous (go back and read them, especially the TOs4 one), we’re back with season 3.

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3.6 Season 3

Season 3. Oh season 3. While season 1 was still mostly well-received and season 2, especially the first 8 episodes, is now generally liked, season 3 is where the show really lost many people. In terms of power-scaling it’s a very interesting season for Hope, with the introduction of Cleo, Malivore finally returning to his normal form, prison world shenanigans and even more monsters. Hope fights surprisingly few monsters this season but there’s nonetheless quite a bit to talk about.

I will ignore the plot point of the one true kiss bullshit for the sake of my own sanity. I just – no. No! BYE!

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3.6.1 Intelligence

1 Another notch in the Hope Is a Great Strategist column comes from Hope’s plan to save Rafael’s life. Rafael is dying after the Necromancer got Alaric on a technicality on their vow so the freshly resurrected Rafael is facing certain death.

To save him, her plan is to repurpose the Trident that can transfer consciousness into another person so that it instead transfers energy. She wants Lizzie to siphon Landon’s phoenix power away – his energy, his immortality – in a ritual and then transfer it to Rafael. However, it doesn’t work because Landon is not a phoenix anymore which she didn’t know yet.

(Every time Hope fails at something it’s because she didn’t have full information, basically never because she lacks the power.)

2 After the plan fails, Hope has a last second idea after noticing the supernova that she could send Rafael to a prison world. She and Lizzie send Rafael and dozens upon dozens of students over. In season 6, Bonnie and Kai had to work together to even ascend 4 people (which is including them) and before that Kai wasn't strong enough to allow them to physically interact with the PW. Now those two are ascending possibly a hundred people, the entire school. Which is more evidence for how LGC power gaps the previous shows.

(The reason she didn’t just turn him into a hybrid or even into an original is that the actor wanted to leave the show so they had to write him out)

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3.6.2 Magic & (Magic) Knowledge

1 Hope when slightly distressed sends out an accidental, unintentional wave of magic that knocks over books and turns off all electricity. Later, after Landon dies, Hope suffers from flashbacks and has issues controlling her magic. Electricity malfunctions, objects getting knocked over, a magic wave she sends out on accidents that sends tables, chair and students alike flying through the air and this wave fully knocks out all the students (they were out for a while).

Cleo was included in the knocked-out students, the same Cleo who can create monsters that satisfy Malivore’s hunger, dimension travelling Ferrymen, Goblins that can affect a full town of people not even close by, etc. Hope’s accidental magic is enough to knock someone on that level out cold. Or in other words, Hope’s accidental magic waves could beat 90% of TVD/TO.

Throughout this season Hope has unintended magical outbursts when she’s upset. And it’s around this time we can probably say Depressed!Hope is gone for the most part and that’s why her powers are leaking out more and more.

2 It feels redundant to still talk about this but did you know Hope has mastered telekinesis? No? Should I say it again? Hope shows more mastery over telekinesis! Did you know she can also perform locator spells? And you know what, Hope can create a boundary spell but not just a regular boundary, a boundary that only works specifically on supernaturals. The last repeat of spells we already know she can do is: Hope still knows invisibility spells!

Invisible, immobilised you, created a tornado, used a death spell, set you on fire, bit you with her venom. Endless win cons.

3 Hope performs the memory return spell Josie and Freya created for herself and later in the season when Cleo gets Malivore’d. As u/Suspicious_Zagnias pointed out to me, this spell is broken af. If she pulled this out in any fight, she insta wins because basically everyone (at least any vampire/immortal) forgot someone via Malivore and everyone we see passes out when hit with the spell.

New win con vs. Lucien unlocked: Malivore memory return spell.

4 Hope can use death spells without having the grimoire page (which she did have vs. the dragon) so she just can pull out a death spell at any moment in a fight should she desire to do so. But! This specific spell only works as long as she can see you.

5 Hope can use her telekinesis to press Alaric against a wall so hard and exert so much force he can’t move, barely move his mouth to talk, and even starts suffocating from the pressure.

6 Hope can do magic to create art, which is just another indicator for her mastery over all aspects of magic.

7 Hope has a dream that she’s in the black magic infested prison world and she fights Malivore there, using a wind torrent spell so strong it causes an earthquake and tornado in the real world. Her magic in her sleep is strong enough to cause tornados and earthquakes. She says it felt more like a vision than a dream which would mean she can do magic inside a vision which is kinda cool ngl.

8 More elemental magic: trapping a Banshee with vines. But not just vines, fire too: Hope is so good at using elemental spells, she can close up a cut on Clarke’s throat with an incendia. Crazyyyy control and precision over her magic. A lesser witch with lesser mastery would have set him on fire and killed him or not done enough and he’d have bled out.

9 Hope can spell you so you can only speak Sumerian, which is the oldest written attested language, dating back to 3100 BC or earlier. Imagine Hope fighting another witch, she does that, the other witch can’t cast any spells that need verbal casting lmao.

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3.6.3 Fights & Physicals

1 Hope throws a dodge ball so hard at Jed he’s sent flying and crashing into the gym wall. I’ll leave it to someone else to calc how hard you need to throw a ball to make someone fly that hard.

2 Hope can hear someone’s heartbeat as a hybrid but her supernatural hearing is a bit inconsistent in Legacies. Sometimes she can hear your heartbeat, sometimes she needs a vampire to listen in to someone’s conversation. In TO, like I mentioned in the season 5 part, she already has some level of supernatural hearing as a witch (more evidence she is not your regular witch/wolf/vampire, she's something new).

3 Hope with the Berbalang infection could easily snap a sword in two over her knee. Who you attribute this feat to, I leave up to you.

4 Hope can backflip multiple meters high, without any momentum, just free standing.

5 Hope obliterates Golem Landon who was created by Cleo out of Landon’s ashes and Malivore mud. He doesn’t even land a single hit on her once the fight starts properly. One of her coolest looking fights. This Golem Landon could lift 300 pounds and is low-key kind of capable at fighting; his punch even opened a cut on her through her clothes so he’s by no means weak.

6 Cleo stabs Hope with what is Alaric’s “deadliest” weapon (directly stated). Hope, impaled, punches the weapon in two, and barely even drops a few drops of blood from it because, say it with me, she has the best healing and durability in the verse! It only actually bleeds when Hope grabs the spear and twists it LOL. When she pulls it out, no blood drops from her stomach.

Considering the insane magical objects Alaric owns, this could be a super crazy healing/durability feat but sadly there’s nothing stated about this. This weapon could have been cursed, hold magical properties, whatever.

Alaric’s deadliest weapon is nothing to Hybrid Hope.

7 Hope is physically strong enough to punch a punching bag out of its holding, across a room until it gets stopped by a wall, the same way Elijah did in TO. Not only that, the punching bag has a hole in it from the punch. The impact of it crashing into the wall makes the wall wobble. For a direct comparison, you can watch this.

Any regular vamp on human blood and any crescent should be able to do this so it's not that impressive even though Josie's reaction tries to sell it as impressive.

8 Hope defeats Andi’s entire cult of brain-washed witches. 24 witches, put down, zero effort. Andi herself was dangerous enough to be locked up by Triad and entrusted to resurrect Ryan so pretty good stocks. We obviously don’t have any scaling for these witches but 24 witches is a quarter of 100 witches Bonnie and they get no diff’d :3 Could 100w Bonnie no diff 24w Bonnie?

(Yes, violent deaths, Bennetts, stronger than your average 24 witches, I’m aware, you don’t have to point it out to me)

9 Star Wars fanfic Hope can put Josie, Lizzie and Young Hope to sleep with her magic. She also beats Malivore in a sword fight in this shared psychotropic trip. This is more so a shared consciousness thing reflecting what they think would happen rather than reality. Tribrid Hope is, same as later, implied to gap Malivore, not just via blood hax but stats wise too. This god threat is helpless against the Tribrid, essentially.

10 Hope and MaliLandon beat the Vitruvian Man Cleo created as a new vessel for Malivore.

This vessel is immune to magic and allowed Malivore to speak while inhabiting it, but we have zero idea how strong that thing is now without Malivore using it as his body so I cannot tell you in any way how impressive this is. What I can tell you is that MaliLandon fights pretty well alongside Hope which is a good feat for him. He even gets the kill.

11 Hope styles on a monster called Cerufe, a humanoid creature made out of rock and magma according to the TVD wiki/mythology.

Hope used a torrent of water (more elemental mastery, she really is the avatar) to douse the magma/fire but it reignites. The fact this water was strong enough to turn the magma (or fire if you downplay) off in the first place is impressive. The monster could also instantly melt Hope’s metal sword upon his touch, fully liquefying it (I leave it to you to look up how high of a temperature would be needed for that), so he could probably melt the majority of the verse if it touched them. Hope could throw it around with her telekinesis and she then kills it by throwing a bunch of metal bars at it, impaling it, after hearing its heartbeat and likely locating the heart via her hearing even without vampire enhanced hearing.

So in case you were doubting it, Hope can throw something hard enough to impale a monster made out of rocks, as a non-vampire hybrid! Those pipes weren’t sharp.

We don’t have any scaling for this thing, at all, only narrative implication since it’s in the penultimate episode before Hope turns into a tribrid and is at the end of the Malivore storyline so it probably is pretty powerful? Maybe? Probably! But Malivore wanted Hope to kill it to torment her psychologically but then again, he knows she would beat basically everything he has sooooo.

I’ll leave it up to you.

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3.6.4 Statements & Lore

Yes, after a full post just on all the statements about her, there is still so much just in this season that it warrants its own section.

1 Hope’s touch unlocked the “make-a-wish” artifact which in reality housed Cleo.

This artefact was previously owned by Albert Einstein, Rasputin, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Queen Elizabeth I. Leonardo Da Vinci created it. Triad called it Project Pandora. Yes, this is actual lore, no I am not making things up to see if you’re still paying attention. The box can survive getting blown up without any damage. Same goes for acid, and hundreds of other tests to remove Cleo from that box done by Ryan and Triad. Hope’s touch is what did it.

Hope is the chosen one, the most special and unique of the unique. A fanfic character, really. Hope opened Pandora’s Box. Well, in reality the box could only be opened by the person capable of killing Malivore aka Hope so yeah, chosen one.

2 When Hope touches the crystal, Andi – Miss Cult Leader – says Hope has “extraordinary power.” Hope is so powerful the ritual doesn’t have to wait any longer, in Andi’s words. “I needed a lot of witches with a lot of power who wouldn’t ask any questions. All I know is that it was a summoning ritual.” Andi has 24 witches already, plus Lizzie. But Hope showing up is like, oh okay well no need for more, that’s all I need, thanks.

In the end, the ritual revived Ryan Clarke as a human, not as Mini Mud-Man, which kinda goes against everything we know about resurrections but whatever.

3 Landon is scared of what Hope becoming the Tribrid will do to her and the world:

>“I shudder when I think about how becoming the Tribrid could change Hope. Change the supernatural world,” Landon says.

>“For better or for worse?” Cleo asks.

>“Well, if I knew that, I’d shudder less.”

Wow have some more faith in your girlfriend, dude! Again, Hope as a threat to the whole world. “An immortal, unstoppable force of nature.”

Literally everyone is terrified of Hope becoming the Tribrid, even her boyfriend.

4 Malivore’s whole plan to beat Hope is to bait her into transition, capture her, distract the rest of the school with monsters or bribe them by making promises or giving them powers while he waits her transition out and dies. He doesn’t even have the faintest intention of fighting her.

Being in transition actually disables Hope’s magic and wolf powers. Even without supernatural sides that enhance her strength, Hope is strong enough to punch the slightly cracked glass apart.

5 The moment Hope drinks Alaric’s blood to complete her transition into a full tribrid, the sky immediately gets cloudy, turning red, then fully black, red lightning striking. Like, it’s been 2 seconds. It looks like the apocalypse is starting, Nature shitting itself.

The only thing even remotely comparable in all 3 shows is when the Green Knight showed up.

Hope’s power, her mere existence, has the planet reacting like the world is about to end; it’s like an ancient power waking up. Dahlia creates a storm, Inadu’s powers/Klaus and Hope's physical proximity in s5 create a storm or hurricane (see the prophecies section) implied to destroy NOLA, but it’s Hope’s mere existence that turns the weather, just like Ken. Nature only calms down possibly hours later.

6 “You underestimate me, Tribrid. I eat monsters like you.”

“There is no monster like me.”

7 Show runner Brett Matthews states about the freshly turned Tribrid:

>"It's obviously a frightening thing because she is the most powerful person in our universe to this point, so what does that look like? Hope was a person who was so driven by her emotions and her love and her intelligence, so taking away the thing that has kept the power in check...you know, great power, great responsibility. She's been a person who has always managed both, and with that filter gone, it's obviously not a great thing."

This statement specifically includes a time frame. Up to this point in our universe. Everything we see in TVD season 1 to Legacies season 4 episode 3, Hope is more powerful than anyone we’ve seen. And notice he mentions her intelligence in this too. Her love and intelligence are what keeps her power in check.

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3.6.5 Hope vs. Malivore

She uses her beloved telekinesis spell to throw Malivore and speeds to him, punching him mid-air. The punch alone is enough to make him run for his life, realising he stands absolutely no chance against her. She turns into a wolf and jumps him, then turns back, just to flex on him.

And now, one of my favourite things she does in Legacies: she bites herself to draw blood (which, weirdly, might be an AP feat for her bite force considering it was nearly impossible to make her bleed before lol), draws it out with magic, and creates a dagger out of her own blood that is hard enough to pierce MaliLandon’s skin and get to his heart. She can turn liquid hard enough to make it a weapon lol. SHE IS A BLOOD BENDER FOR REAL!

His last try is to give Landon control over his body again because he is so utterly outclassed (and to use Cleo’s door to run away).

She kills Landon and Malivore and so the Mud-Man, Eater of Dark and the gods, meets his end. Immortal for 1000 years until Nature created the greatest loophole and exception to the rules to ever exist, the most powerful supernatural who ever existed, just to defeat him. If I was Malivore, I’d feel screwed over by Nature! Qetsiyah’s immortals get to chill and he gets Nature to bend over backwards to kill him?! Unfair! Nature had to break all the rules it created just to get rid of him loooool

It’s funny, they consistently play up the idea of teamwork defeating Malivore; as long as they stick together, they’ll win. In reality Hope solos Malivore without anyone there, fully on her own. This, then, is a point in season 4 when Hope has her friends helping her defeat Ken instead of doing it on her own and succumbing to her trauma again.

Ken says he wants to protect his family that hasn’t been eaten by him yet. So Malivore is a being that can take down even the gods and put the fear into Ken. Hope is above Malivore :P Malivore was taking over the world Ken had conquered but is terrified of Hope.

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The season ends with Hope’s humanity switched off after it flipped the moment she killed Landon (meaning it wasn’t a conscious decision, more so an automatic protection from her body/mind to protect her from the grief because my girl is traumatised). When Alaric realises what happened to her, he is full on terrified. It’s rare to see Alaric genuinely scared, let alone terrified, of another person. This man stared down the Hollow and couldn’t be bothered to be even remotely scared but Tribrid Hope? Now that is terrifying.

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3.6.6 Hope Transcends Vampirism And Death

First off, Hope (with Lizzie and Josie) creates the red oak, the only weapon that can kill her. She didn’t know what she was doing at the time but it’s hilarious that Hope was so strong, she had to create the only thing capable of ending her herself. Hope’s own powers, Hope’s trust in her friends, Hope’s bonds, it’s what creates the new life in the form of a tree, new life that holds power over her life.

It’s only her own powers than can take her life from her, not anyone or anything else.

The same way she dies at her own will, allowing a person she loves and trusts to guide her from one life to the next. And this goes hand-in-hand with:

Hope is the only case in history (as far as we know) who had the decision to not wake up from dying with vampire blood in her system. If she so chose, she could have gone to Peace instead of waking up in transition. Hope is above the rules of vampirism!

No, she’s not just a regular (original) vampire or just inherited Klaus's level of vampirism!

Not even the doppelganger who never wanted to be a vampire could decide against it, nor humans with willpower strong enough to resist compulsion could say no to waking up in transition, nor powerful Bennett witches. No one.

Except Hope.

And the rules are usually for everyone else that you need to give the Ferryman a coin to go over to Peace but for Hope she could have given over her necklace because she’s so super-duper unique not even the Ferryman rules apply to her lmfao. Gosh, people really think Marcel, Lucien and Alaric would beat her? Yes, I am really hung up on that! What show did you watch?!

Even the Ferryman, ruler of limbo, a god, is like, oh hi Hope, what’s up? You wanna go to Peace? You don’t have a coin? Oh yeah, uh, sure, go ahead! Also, like, the Ferryman doesn’t even take her back! Hope jumps into the lake and wakes up. She brought herself back lolol.

-> This actually, funnily enough, fits with her seemingly going to Peace in TOs5 to see Hayley when that doesn’t really make any sense and only works if you think she hallucinated it or that Lynn just said, oh yeah sure, go see your mom, girl. All good, I’ll allow it, no coin needed! Hope went beyond the rules and skipped limbo to go straight to Peace to talk to her mom.

And to jump ahead to s4 already, when Ken beats her, Hope finds herself in limbo and despite Hope, Landon, everyone stating that she is alive and needs to go back, Hope might have been able to go to Peace since she could overpower Lynn. She could have gotten into the boat there and then.

So… if Hope is ever tired of living, she could possibly just break her own neck and just go to Peace. Especially now that Landon is the Ferryman.

The concept of the Ferryman, the extremely strict coin system that binds even reality warping jinn, doesn’t apply to Hope. The rule system of vampirism does not apply to Hope. She transcends it all. This would also be the point where Hope outright scales above the jinn imo.

Remember this the next time someone is trying to tell you Hope is just a regular vampire or just like Klaus and stuff. No, Hope is her own being. She had the decision not to turn which no other vamp had. Her healing is so great she can barely bleed at all which no other vampire can claim. She’s not just an original, don’t let others tell you that lol.

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And with that, we’ve reached the end. On Friday we will go over Malivore and where he scales in relation to the first two shows.

 

TL;DR if you need tldrs this is the wrong post for you. And like I said in the intro post, this is meant to be like a handbook: you choose which parts are interesting to you and you can read them, or skip them, or not read at all.

u/Nlj2101’s recent posts about Hope made me think about a scene from season 5 episode 4 of The Originals where Hope is trying to bleed out into a little bowl, but fails due to her healing factor that is derived from inheriting the vampire magic Esther cast onto her father a thousand years before. Which is remarkable considering that among those who enjoy a healing factor derived from that magic (the seven Originals Esther created + Lucien and Marcel) Hope really stands alone here. Marcel, who I would think should be the king when it comes to every vampire stat you could think of (aside from potentially Alaric and Lucien), bleeds quite a bit in his fight with Klaus in 4x05.

Klaus regularly blood lets for venom curing purposes (at the start of 3x06 he pours what looks like 50ml, or a little over half a quart of his blood into a glass for Elijah, which I eye-ball estimated by pouring water to the approximate level in a cup identical to the one he uses in that scene. The amount of blood Hope is able to pour into her little bowl by 5x05 is a quart, according to Klaus) and faces none of the difficulties Hope does.

Since becoming a vampire takes everything you are to a heightened level, which we get from statements by Originals show runner Michael Narducci and that one guy from TVD who talks about things being heightened (I forget who), “activated” Tribrid Hope’s healing factor should be elevated even beyond this.

Roadmap:

1. Part 0: Intro
2. Part 1 & 1.5: Statements & Prophecies
3. Part 2: The Originals s4
4. Part 2 Cont.: The Originals Season 5
5. Part 3: Legacies Intro & Season 1
6. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s2 -> Today
7. Part 3 Cont.: Legacies s3 -> Sunday
8. How Powerful Is Malivore -> next week
9. How Powerful Are the Gods
10. Legacies s4

As you may have noticed, today was supposed to cover season 2 & 3 but it's a bit over the character limit so I will split it. Makes it easier to read. S3 on Sunday so the schedule overall doesn't change, with the Mud-Man coming next Friday.

Fun fact: Earlier this week I realised the LGC season 4 part was over 15000 words long… which is why it’s now gonna be a 3 parter and this whole thing is gonna take a 2 weeks longer than expected (part 1: Hope’s physical strength scaling and currently debated question of whether Hope's vampirism is beyond originals or not; part 2: Hope vs. Ken; part 3: conclusion & epilogue).

Anyway, welcome back once again. Let’s not waste any time and get right into it.

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3.5 Season 2

Hope starts the season in Malivore where the Mud-Man is desperately trying to kick her out since she is toxic to him. Then she spends some time while no one remembers her, still protecting the school from monster attacks. And later the season shifts its focus to Josie and Lizzie more as Malivore and Hope take a backseat. Same format as s1, let’s go.

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3.5.1 Magic, Abilities & (Magic) Knowledge

This is gonna be quite a lot so bear with me. Spells/Magic Hope shows this season:

1 More sleeping spells and more boundary spells.

2 She knows comfort spells that provide peace of mind as well as truth spells which are super useful and makes you wonder why they weren’t commonly used in TVD and TO. Especially TO season 3 could have benefitted from some good old truth spells (or just Ariane being alive! Stupid Elijah!!).

3 Hope knows a billion telekinesis spells (not literally, don’t be obtuse) and generally has mastered telekinesis on a level no one has shown before.

4 Not just regular spells, Hope also knows how to create potions. For example, a potion that creates artificial sunlight. At a different point, Hope is praised by her teacher for her skill at healing potions because Hope is great at every aspect of magic I guess.

5 Invisibility. Hope, like the Gemini loved doing in TVD, can turn herself invisible. Any fight vs. someone who might be faster or physically stronger than her, she can just go invisible and they are pretty much screwed. Lucien? Invisible + sleep spell. How on earth is he supposed to counter that?

And before anyone comes at me with a “Lucien could still hear her!” I would say: when Kai did his invisibility trickery, Damon was full on clueless. Ethan’s/Pukwudgie’s invisibility on the other hand does not suppress sounds for sure.

6 Imitation spells and freezing spells, i.e., spells that force the person she casts it on to mimic all her movements and a spell that immobilises you. Imagine this one combined with the invisibility spell. Boundary around her, invisible, immobilises you, puts you to sleep. Hope can and does use these things in character.

You can’t see her and then she immobilises you without you being able to do anything about it. Alaric, Lucien and Marcel are NEVERRRRRR beating her, lol. Sorry, I’m being petty, saw a serious post on that where people were arguing in favour of the vamps.
[Editor Me: this comment reminds me how long ago I wrote this section lmao].

7 Hope knows silencing spells that literally remove your mouth, which would come in very handy against any witch in a fight. Invisible, immobilised and no mouth. GGs.

8 Fire spells, a wind torrent spell, magic that accelerates the growth of flowers/plants because Hope’s the Avatar. On top of that, she can turn off electricity at will (which she could even do as a baby) – lightning bending! I’m gonna keep pushing this Hope Avatar thing, sorryyyyyyy

9 Hope knows of mora miseriums and how to protect them. She says Vincent told her about them, but it’s not clear if she called him in that moment or that was in the past and she just remembers it. This is why I said in the TO sections that it’s possible Vincent was one of her magic teachers.

10 Hope, the twins, and the Salvatore School Coven together create a new prison world and send the mora miserium there (but Alyssa tricked them, sending Alaric and the twins to Kai’s prison world). 27 people (if I counted correctly) were involved in the creation of this prison world and they used a meteor shower as the celestial event.

In other words, Hope has knowledge of prison worlds and how they work.

In season 3 she states that only a Gemini witch can activate the ascendant which is a retcon, probably, unless you think Bonnie always had an already activated ascendant from Kai (or the twins in s8). A different possibility is that only a Gemini or a Bennet could use the ascendant properly which could make sense as all PWs we know about were created by the combined power of Gemini and Bennett.

11 Hope creates a magical ear piece that allows her and MG to communicate even though they are not physically close to each other. Spyware tech created by magic because she knows everything about magic lmao

12 Hope can project herself into the prison world but for some reason only Dark Josie can see her. Hope and Landon both think astral projection into the prison world is dangerous.

Hope also has prophetic dreams about Dark Josie (or Dark Josie can enter Hope’s dream while being in the prison world, you pick) so even though her future-seeing abilities seem to have gotten less after the Hollow possessed her, she still has the ability.

13 Hope can do magic inside Josie’s mind.

On top of that, Hope defeats the big bad wolf in Josie’s fairy-tale mind and saves the pig/Good!Josie. The wolf represents the darkness so Hope just defeated the darkness. Then the real Dark Josie shows up after noticing Hope was in her head and turns Hope to stone which obviously doesn’t scale since it’s quite literally inside Josie’s mind where she has full control.

14 One feat that could indicate Hope knowledge gaps the entire school when it comes to magic is when no one knows how to return Rafael to human form. Not any teacher, not even Josie who is extremely smart and actively working on it, not even supernatural expert Alaric can figure out how to turn Rafael back.

Hope later implies she is the only one who can turn him back as she cast the spell so this might not be a knowledge gap but it could also mean she is the only who can do it because she is the only one who knows how to. I’ll leave it up to you. But, considering no one had any clue whatsoever – like, listen. No one is like, /we know what’s going on, we just don’t know who turned him/ or something like that. They straight up have no clue what to do.

So, yeah. Knowledge gapped. And apparently it’s not siphonable either.

15 Hope demonstrates she’s capable of catching magic spells like Darth Vader would block a blaster shot with his hand when she catches the incendia thrown at Lizzie by Alyssa. [Editor Me again: I’ve been informed tutaminis is the name of the ability]

Sooooo, in a fight vs. any witch, Hope might just catch the spell of the other person but granted, she only does this once so it’s not an in-character thing she spams like, say, telekinesis or sleep spells or even silencing spells.

16 Hope was the strategist to ensure Lizzie would survive the merge regardless of if she wins or loses. She had a plan for both scenarios and it worked flawlessly. Which goes out to those of you who think Hope isn’t smart or a great strategist and just a punch first, think later type of girl like Landon sometimes accuses her of. She’s actually very intelligent.

She linked Lizzie’s life to Landon’s and through his ability to revive, Lizzie revived. And that’s just plan B. While Josie was vulnerable, MG sent Hope into Josie’s mind. Fully played Josie.

Or in other words: Hope has mastered mental magic too and even found an on-the-fly solution to the merge within a few hours. Meanwhile, finding a way to beat the merge is the reason Caroline was gone for all these years, travelling the world, talking to ancient covens, all to somehow beat the merge.

Hope does it in a day.

17 Freya helps Josie create a black magic spell in Japanese that can reverse Malivore’s memory erasure. We don’t see Hope speak Japanese and she doesn’t understand Kurruta but considering she can do magic in 12 different ancient languages I’m inclined to believe she could probably do magic in Japanese too. And, well, you know, she does do the spell later in s3, multiple times, so maybe she learned Japanese in her free time while watching movies and cuddling with Landon or whatever, idk man.

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Okay, I know this was a lot. But Hope shows a lot of different magic in this season and I have to at least mention it. It’s important to establish how many things she can do and what she does use in character.

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3.5.2 Monsters Hope Fights And Beats in Season 2:

1 A Cyclops.

This monster could flip over a bus that Hope was gonna take to travel to New Orleans. It looks like a tour coach which would weigh – assuming it’s empty of passengers – roughly in the 10+ tons range, give or take. It’s hard to get a good look at the size of it so take this with a grain of salt.

Hope with her telekinesis can throw the Cyclops around, casually. In hand-to-hand combat, Hope could inflict damage with a punch but the Cyclops could compete with Hope, managing to hold her in place. Once she knows it’s a Cyclops and not a troll, she one-shots (without magic) – a very familiar pattern by now.

Considering the Cyclops can flip over something so heavy it’s comparable to feats the originals show, such as Elijah (with Oliver – which he couldn’t do on his own despite being an activated crescent (pre unification)) casually holding up a trailer that likely weighs a few tons, Hope then being able to tank its attacks and hit it puts hybrid Hope on quite the absurd level physically already.

I am not saying hybrid Hope is physically superior to an original. I’m saying, the Cyclops can flip over a bus that is probably around 10+ tons in weight and Elijah casually can lift a trailer that is a few tons heavy. We don’t know Elijah’s upper limit for his physical strength or that of the other originals in terms of lifting strength. Hope without her vampire side beat this monster multiple times on- and off-screen. The only reason it survived this long is because Hope was under the assumption it’s a troll and so her methods of killing it didn’t work.

The one possible counter to this is: we don’t actually see the Cyclops flip the bus. The bus flips and then the Cyclops appears so if you wanna be annoying, you can say the monster used some unknown ability or threw something rather than using physical strength.

In other words, Hybrid Hope is far, far beyond regular werewolf and young vampires and probably already puts her physical strength in the ancient vampire category which would fit with Hayley.

2 A Shunka.

This monster literally hunts werewolves. Think about this: Werewolves are prey to this thing! In wolf form! Not human. Consider how crazy that is. It even spit out a human because, you know, not a werewolf!

It’s a mix of wolf and hyena, and it’s huge (Hope in wolf form is tiny next to it). Shunka can walk on two legs and on four. Physically it’s much stronger than a werewolf (even Hope who is likely stronger than your average werewolf in wolf form), obviously, since it hunts and eats them. It could also easily tank an incendia from Hope.

Hope is not the one to deliver the kill this time but the one to distract it while Rafael and Landon do the actual killing after she turned Rafael back to human form. As Landon says, “She saved us both,” and don’t say girlfriend bias, he didn’t even know who she was at the time.

3 A Croatan.

Croatan can walk through barrier spells (!) like he’s a god and is an absolute menace, genuinely. The fight is a masterclass in elemental magic from our favourite tribrid, trapping the Croatan by spawning roots out of the ground and wrapping it around the monster’s ankles (the same way Ken later does to Cleo). She follows it up by using a wind torrent spell that sends the Croatan flying and off its feet. MG then shows up to bring Hope the talisman that Casandra gave Sebastian to protect him from the Croatan.

Hope, zero confusion how to use it, immediately uses another (unknown) spell to kill the Croatan, turning it into blue-black goo.

This fight encapsulates the Legacies formula: a monster that runs through all the characters, resistant to all the conventional ways of killing and trapping things and then Hope no diffs it, never any doubt what spell to use, how to use some new artefact she just got her hands on and has never seen before, just pure mastery of magic.

4 The next “monster” Hope doesn’t fight but since she scales above him and he does some pretty cool things, I wanted to get over it too.

Santa!

Yes, Santa is canon to the world of The Vampire Diaries. Before you roll your eyes, TVD gave us the devil, why not Santa too? Well, Santa (or possibly Krampus, depending on your interpretation) changes the weather to make it snow and gets people in Christmas mood even though it’s October. Weather changing and psychic-like mind manipulation. Thanks Santa!

Hope stays the only one unaffected which I’ll take as another point for my Hope Can Block Out Silas And Psychics agenda. Well, and Clarke but he is literally made out of Malivore’s DNA sooo.

Santa was never directly caught by Malivore since Ryan doesn’t think he’s real so maybe Santa would beat up Mud-Man and the Gods (but Santa was trapped by the Krampus who was caught by Malivore so Malivore likely would beat Santa too (sorry Santa :c)

Soooo. The elephant in the room. Santa is real. Kaleb remarks that he is really fast. Santa counters by asking, “How do you think I make it to all those houses in one night?” Meaning… this Santa is not freezing time, he’s just that fast. That would put TVDU characters on a much higher level of speed than we currently assume for them if you think Santa brings gifts to kids around the world in one night. I’m gonna ignore this one, yeah? Okay, cool. Because, yk, this wouldn’t just apply to Hope. Kaleb speed blitzed the Krampus who is fighting somewhat evenly with Santa and who managed to trap Santa in the past sooo. Yeah.

And don’t ask me how Santa comes up with the gifts, such as a car he gifts to Kaleb. He can possibly create them out of nothing. Uhm. Moving on.

Santa might beat Ken! Who knows!

5 Pothos.

Our first god of the TVD universe!

Hope shows up twice to easily beat the self-proclaimed God of Love (who claims to have never been with a mortal – if he considers vampires as mortals, I don’t know. He might have just been dating gods). Later, Pothos hits Hope with an arrow in a surprise attack. The only reason Pothos didn’t die earlier was because Hope was under the false assumption she was dealing with Cupid and so her method of killing was the incorrect one (another familiar pattern).

The first time she beats Pothos she speed blitzes him quite disgustingly as she comes from out of frame to catch the arrow Pothos shoots at Landon. The camera shows no one is around Landon, Pothos lifts his bow and shoots at Landon and boom, there is Hope, in front of Landon, having caught the arrow mid-air. And Pothos looks shocked, communicating he had no clue she was there.

In other words, Hope perception blitzed a god. Even in their second encounter the arrows she telekinetically throws at him are too fast for him to dodge. Ken saying she could have been worshipped as a god when Hope as a hybrid is already out there beating down gods...

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3.5.3 Hope vs. Mini-Malivore, Ryan Clarke

Clarke with the Trident that can swap bodies + he has an illusion ring. I’m gonna cover this one in-depth because it’s crazy.

So, Clarke can absorb monsters like Malivore, he can make people explode by touching them, he has a weapon. And Hope is extremely weakened:

In fact, trust Alaric’s words if you don’t trust mine: “You’re in no shape to move.” And: “You have just enough blood in your veins to breathe.” Hope, with just enough blood to breathe, is then further nerfed by Clarke putting magic suppressing shackles on her (which Clarke found in the school’s armory so it’s a different set of shackles than those in NOLA most likely).

Okay so Clarke is a worse version of the terror of the gods, Malivore. Hope has almost no blood in her body. Her magic is suppressed by the shackles – and if you think the magic suppression applies to Hope’s wolf powers too, then she has no hybrid/crescent strength boost now either since lycanthropy in this verse is magic and using the power of the wolf in human form is magic. But maybe she can still tap into that power, hard to say for sure.

(If you think her werewolf powers are indeed suppressed too, then this is further evidence for Hope’s regular state being far beyond human level. You really have to stop comparing her to regular wolves or vampires (or even humans and witches) because Hope is fundamentally a different being.)

He has a dark object that insta wins the fight if he hits her with it. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a clean hit – a crazing hit that just cuts her slightly would be enough for him to win the fight. He wants to become her/take her body so he can stand up to his father. (Yet another person wanting Hope's body for its immeasurable power. Get in line, Clarky!)

Hope is giga nerfed – literally about as much as you could possibly nerf Hope – while Clarke has a genuine one-hit win condition.

How does the fight go?

While lying in bed, she blocks his attack with the Trident, kicks him away and runs away. Which is already insane. Reminder: “You are in no condition to move.” Or as Clarke says: “You literally have no blood.” Probably not quite literally since she’d be dead then but you get the idea. Basically, she just has enough blood in her system to stay alive but literally nothing more. The fact she is fast and strong enough to intercept his attack in time while this nerfed is unbelievable.

He tries to find her, singing her name like a horror villain. She seemingly super-speeds around even though she has no blood and then he finds her but sike, it’s an illusion! The trident goes right through her! Turns out, she stole his ring without him noticing when she blocked his earlier attack and apparently the ring isn’t negated by the magic suppression for whatever reason.

The illusions must be something other than magic, then, even though when Josie siphoned Clarkedemus, it stripped off the illusion to reveal Clarke. Maybe the ring is just more powerful than the shackles! It genuinely might be. This thing is some god-like device.

Back to the fight: Ryan takes the trident back and punches the door apart which prompts Hope to jump from the balcony. She lands knees first, belly, arms and face second from a pretty significant height, maybe 5-6 meters (I’ve been told this would be 5.4-6.5 yards by u/Suspicious_Zagnias which I will blindly trust instead of double checking)?

And she takes zero damage from it, just a lil bit of pain. Again, she has "literally no blood", is “in no shape to move” and has “just enough blood to breathe” and possibly without any werewolf healing but she can still tank the damage.

She’s panting now, screaming for help.

Clarke shows up behind her, grabbing her throat when Landon shows up to grab his arm and punch him. He tackles Clarke to the ground but Clarke fights him off, kicking Landon as he’s on the ground, punching him, beating him up. It goes on for a bit with Clarke beating both Hope and Landon in 1v1s as the other tries to regain composure.

Landon eventually manages to hold him in place, getting Ryan to use the trident on him but sike^(2), it’s not the real Landon: Clarke’s consciousness goes into Simul!Landon.

Hope takes the moment to stand up and then she literally kicks the shackles off her wrists lmao why didn’t you do that earlier girl??!

“You’re gonna whammy me, aren’t you?” Clarke in fake Landon’s body asks. The same body was just able to hold Clarke in place. She creates an orb and hits Clarkedon? Rydon? Lanke? Clarke in SimuLandon. Anyway, she wins the fight in the end.

This is the TVDU version of the Goku with no limbs, blind and deaf and gagged, after a long fight, heart virus,… meme. No blood, no magic, and she still holds her own pretty well against a lesser version of Malivore! She’s still physically relative (or even above, at least before the fall) to Ryan with a one-shot weapon while barely alive.

The moment she got her magic back, she obliterated him even though she’s still very nerfed. So in any vs. battle that has Hope starting with the shackles on for some reason, she can just kick it off and beat you up even while half-dead basically. I covered this one in so much depth because it’s actually insane lmao. Similar to No Blood Rebekah holding off Aya and beating a bunch of Strix members!

In the next scene after the fight, Hope is dandy, fine, chilling, no damage, no exhaustion. I reiterate my earlier take from part 2 that Hope has the best durability and healing out of anyone in this verse.

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3.5.4 Hope vs. Kai

Kai, my beloved. Heretic Kai gives Bonnie one of her worst ever beatings, tanking her attack, laughing it off and then one-shotting her. This same Kai, 10+ years older and more experienced from play-fighting with Jade, Wendy and Diego (who is a genuine half wolf-human and potentially the strongest pure wolf in the verse?), gets no diff’d by Hope though he is intentionally not trying. He’s sand-bagging.

What’s important, however, is how easily Hope deals with a siphon.

I would make the argument Hope might have blocked his powers, both magic and siphoning, as she chains him up with what should be normal regular chains and he cannot free himself for hours until Alaric shows up to chop his head off. Even if you think those chains had magic suppressing properties, he should be able to siphon off the magic in that too as he could even siphon a spell that purified magic and unmade beings as strong as originals.

If the chains aren’t magic/siphoning suppressing, then Kai should be able to use magic to get them off. If they do have magic in them, then Kai should be able to siphon them and then use magic to get them off. So this is just a gigantic plot hole, Kai wanting to die, or Hope somehow spelled the chains in such he way he couldn’t siphon or destroy them which would be crazy.

Kai, the magical prodigy, can’t get out of this. Because Hope made magic unsiphonable? One of the stronger TVD characters stands zero chance against Hope! The gods and Ken himself could be siphoned but apparently not these chains. Even magic-siphoning beings aren’t relevant to someone on Hope’s level if you take this interpretation.

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3.5.5 Hope vs. Dark Josie

Now I have to talk about Dark Josie. I’m of the opinion that s2 Dark Josie is actually unbelievably powerful but she loses that power when she gives it to the Necromancer who uses it to raise and control Malivore and all his monsters. S3&4 Dark Josie is essentially just Josie, no power boost except for maybe a confidence boost which probably makes her slightly stronger since it’s a bit of a mental amp. It is season 4 Dark Josie who states she is not originals level so s4DJ = Josie ~ Lizzie < originals (at least in terms of turning someone’s humanity back on).

This does not apply to s2 Dark Josie.

(Furthermore, what s4 Dark Josie is referring to in that moment is most likely psychic/mental power as she is trying to turn Hope’s humanity back on. Josie isn’t talking about how strong Hope or an original is but more so that she lacks the psychic power (or general power) to override her mental which makes sense as it is incredibly difficult to do so. Certain people want to accuse me of making stuff up but then can’t understand basic context of statements lol)

Vampires can’t compel witches for their psychic powers are so great and weaker vampires generally can’t do head dives on stronger vampires unless they are caught off guard or sleeping or otherwise with lowered mental defences.

This statement is not: Hope is an original in terms of stats. This statement is: DJ admits she cannot turn Hope’s humanity back on. This statement gets misused /all the time/.

Anyway, all of this doesn’t really scale to Hope anyway. I wanted to cover Dark Josie and Josie scaling but it got too big so I’ll eventually do a separate post at some point breaking down how crazy DJs2 actually is. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll keep it very short:

Dark Josie in s2 successfully manages to hit Hope with a sleeping spell when Hope was off-guard, and in their fight Hope is blatantly not trying to kill her. Dark Josie even acknowledges as much. “This isn’t any fun. You’re not even fighting back.” Hope is trying to reach the real Josie by talking to her, telling her to fight. Hope has zero interest in hurting Josie and is willing to put her own life at risk if it means getting Josie back.

And this is all her plan anyway – Hope had the whole thing planned out and Josie walked right into it. In other words, this fight is meaningless for scaling Hope. It’s more so a feat for her intelligence and a showcase for how reckless she is in regards to her own wellbeing (hence why I said you can read some level of (passive) suicidality into her actions in the last part).

The cliff-notes scaling for season 2 DJ:
The “all-holy” and “ever-divine” sphinx, the oracle who can see the future, the being unable to lie, thinks Dark Josie will be worse, more terrifying than even Malivore - the guy who scared even Ken. Dark Josie’s power can raise and control Malivore and his monsters. Dark Josie’s power turns an entire prison world radioactive, so much so that even opening a portal to it is killing her (regular Josie), Lizzie and Hope at the same time. Dark Josie’s power is described as beyond apocalyptic (two steps beyond it, even). I hate to say this but Malivore is a god level, world or humanity ending threat. DJ is described as worse than that, has feats greater than Expression Bonnie with turning a vampire’s humanity back on, straight up destroys one prison world on her own and turns another one radioactive.

Trust me, I take no pleasure in say all this. In fact, it pains me to say it. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut DJ probably is above the entirety of TVD and TO. Ugh. Blegh.

And yet, Hope is still above that!

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3.5.6 Conclusion Season 2

Like I teased in the intro, Hope takes a backseat just a bit in this season as the Malivore storyline is basically on pause and repeating season 1 while the show focuses more on characters like Josie, Lizzie, Landon, MG and Alyssa. Hope still has a bunch of very solid feats and one extremely impressive showcase when she’s giga nerfed and basically half dead from blood loss. But most of all, Hope shines through her wealth of spells, potions and general magic knowledge in season 2. Hope has by far the craziest move set, so to speak, of any witch. No one shows as much variety!

(Hope is such a cheat code, Lizzie siphoned her to cheat on finals. That feels like a meta joke from the writers lmfao)

See you in 2 days to talk about Season 3 and next week we go over just how crazy Malivore truly is. Also, the s3 part will technically include s4 parts but I wanted to cover up to Malivore's death so that the season 4 parts can focus on the gods and Hope's physical scaling.

I’m working on a fanfic centered around Finn and I’m really scratching my head over what the answer could actually be. Because going off of what we’re given in the show, I’m not sure the answer Klaus or Elijah could give would be any different to what Mikael gives Klaus here. I mean I guess I *could* just have Klaus and Elijah say “hur dur, we did it because we’re evil dickheads and you were getting in the way of it DUHHHHH” but I’d rather give a more interesting explanation than that.

The answer also can’t be some variation of “Finn hated vampirism to the point that he wanted to die” because this story acknowledges his relationship with Sage, who he turned so he could be with forever and remained committed to that when reunited with her in TVD.

It would be more Natural, Hayley the wolf queen with the hybrid king, and the noble Elijah with the kind and smart Camille

I don't like when people say Marcel wasn't really Klaus's son just because they weren't biologically related. By that logic, Klaus and Hope aren't "real" Mikaelsons either since they're not biologically related to Mikael. Family in this show was always supposed to be about more than blood.

Klaus raised Marcel from the time he was ten. He gave him his name, taught him to read, write, fence, ride horses, and play the piano. Marcel acts more like Klaus than almost anyone else, and the reason Klaus kept forgiving him was because he loved him like a son. Hope even refers to Marcel as her brother.

What frustrates me is that the rest of the family rarely seemed to see Marcel that way. Elijah killed him and expected forgiveness. Freya was willing to sacrifice Davina without caring how Marcel would feel. Hayley told Klaus to forgive Elijah, but when Klaus asked, "What if it had been Hope?" she had no answer. It always felt like Marcel mattered less because he wasn't blood.

I also hate that the show puts so much focus on Klaus becoming a better father for Hope after failing Marcel. I would've loved to see more flashbacks of Klaus raising Marcel instead. Sometimes it feels like the adopted black son was treated as less important than the biological white daughter, and that has never sat right with me.

And then there's Finn. He also deserved so much better. He hated being a vampire because he didn't want to kill innocent people, and for that his siblings left him daggered for 900 years. Imagine being conscious but unable to move while everyone else lived their lives. Of course he resented them. The only person who ever spoke to him was Esther, so it's no surprise he became loyal to her. Even after Finn died, his siblings barely mentioned him again. If anyone was the forgotten Mikaelson, it was Finn.

To my mind, I cannot think of a single feat done by any of the nine Originals (excluding Hope) across the TVDU that reaches the same scale as this one. Lucien annihilating the Strix? Child’s play. Marcel resisting Inadu’s mental manipulation? Kids stuff. Mikael will do it all and then compel a crowd of hundreds to applaud him and then go home and celebrate having basked in the glory of Papa Origial’s power.

On a serious note, is there another psychic, or mental manipulation feature in the verse that actually tops this one in terms of scale? Silas compelled the people in the Mystic Falls town square to look for Katherine, and Dahlia was able to exert some sort of control over an undefined amount of people with Kenning, but even my most generous guess would put the number of people under their power at less than half of what we see here.