Oliver is painfully killed by a witch's curse just when he'd begun taking real steps toward redeeming himself.
Hayley's death in season five had gained her a lot of sympathy from the fans, despite her earlier backlash.
Badass Decay: Mikael was considered The Dreaded as far as Klaus and the rest of the originals is concerned. Upon his first appearance it took alot of effort to bring him down and now it appears that Klaus could take him on in a fight with little trouble. Even Hayley fared better against him one on one when she was trapped in a spirit realm with him. Didn't help that he was unceremoniously killed off by Finn.
Sonja Sohn's portrayal of Esther. Some fans love her dangerous, deranged, fanatical take on the character, while others hate that she feels nothing like the previous portrayals.
Elijah's storyline in season 2 revealing his dark and forgotten past; either it derails the character, and eliminates any claim that he once had to moral superiority (not to mention the fridge logic of none of his siblings calling him out for his actions), or it adds new complexity to an already likable character, similar to the purpose of Stefan's storyline in season three of TVD.What is even worse is it seems the writers themselves seem to forget about this storyline and only mention it when its most convenient. For some it has begun to verge on Ass Pull or Filler.
Is Klaus really the character to sympathize or is he a Karma Houdini who never learns from his mistakes? The debate goes all the way back to when Klaus appeared in the Vampire Diaries. With one side who felt that he should be forgiven of his past deeds while others felt that his actions in the parent show made him irredeemable in their eyes regardless of whatever backstory The Originals throw at them to make Klaus sympathetic.
Cami. Is Rebekah lookalike. Her detractors claim she has a very bland personality and rarely contributes to anything, and being a hostage to manipulate the Mikaelsons on a frequent basis. She also gets a lot of hate from Klayley and Klaroline shippers, for obvious reasons. Her fans point out that, first and foremost, Leah Pipe can actually act. They also tend to like her Nice Girl personality and feel she serves as a good moral compass for the show, and very much enjoy her counseling scenes with Klaus. They also point out that, while she was misused, it doesn't mean that the character didn't have potential, and that Season 3 seems to be using her in a much more effective capacity.
Marcel in seasons three and four. Some see him as a hypocritical torturer who mistakenly believes that he has moral high ground over Klaus despite his own questionable actions (such as his treatment of the witches, for instance). Others argue that he has every right to act against the originals after everything they've put him through, and, in light of their numerous crimes, is very much justified in giving them the taste of their own medicine.
Genevieve. To many she is an impressively skillful and shrewd witch with a deeply tragic backstory, understandable motivations and a strong character arc who is forced into becoming an enemy one last time due to understandable pressure. But to some, she is a vengeful backstabber with a cowardly streak.
Creator's Pet: Hayley. Several writers on the show (particularly, Carina MacKenzie) have called Hayley their favorite character and admitted it influences their writing. In particular, season 2 tried to demonize the main character of the show to prop up Hayley as its new hero, she is never called out for any of her mistakes, and she gains more prominence every season despite massive fan backlash. Season 3 certainly hasn't helped in that regard. Her being able to take on vampires centuries older than her, her declaring herself a better parent than Klaus, only to immediately turn around and demand that someone look after Hope less than a day after getting her back, all topped off with the writers refusing to let the other characters even contemplate that Hayley is ever in the wrong, has soured opinions of her. Phoebe Tonkin was also cast without an audition and before the part was even fully written, further supporting this notion. Especially considering fans have manydifferentcriticisms of her acting. The showrunners accusing fans who criticize Hayley of being sexist with absolutely no basis (an argument that, given the show's cast is mostly female to begin with, is borderline nonsensical) has not helped their case, or the fact that they continue to force Hayley into more storylines each year despite her backlash.
Josh for being a well-portrayed gay character and Adorkable.
Father Kieran proved very popular with fans as well. Many were disappointed that he died instead of becoming a regular for Season Two.
Like on The Vampire Diaries, Kol is proving to be one of the most popular characters of this series. He even got his own online mini-series.
Yusef Gatewood's Finn was so loved by fans that he got promoted to main character status seven episodes into Season Two.
Dahlia. Being played by Claudia Black is a huge help, but many fans also love how complex of a character she is and enjoy seeing a real threat to the original family for once. A lot of fans had been hoping she might even last partially into Season 3.
Lucien may be heading here as of season 3.
Antoinette earned that status in season 5.
Fan-Disliked Explanation: Fans and even anti-fans of the Elijah/Hayley ship disagreed with Julie Plec's reasoning that they had to break up due to Elijah being "abusive". Hayley was attacked by a fractured piece of Ejijah's subconscious mind while she was trying to save him, so viewers are hard-pressed to agree with Plec's interpretation. Veiwers also feel this is Plec being a hypocrite because she was responsible for the actually abusive Elena/Damon ship and the Stockholm-infested Freya/Keelin relationship.
Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans prefer to ignore what happens after the first quarter of season 3, as Jack and Camille both die in the season, and their loss hurts the show in a lot of fans' eyes.
Harsher in Hindsight: Kol's plan to get back at Rebekah, really came back to bite him, since doing so inadvertently released an extremely witch who wants to steal his girlfriend's power and kill her.
In the short-lived vampire detective show Moonlight, Jason Dohring played the hero's sire and mentor. Here he's a human detective.
Jedidiah Goodacre first played an vampire named Henry on Supernatural who essentially that show's version of his Roman character on The Originals, although unlike Henry himself Roman wasn't a sociopath and expressed remorse for his actions and was allowed to live by whom he had wronged.
Rebekah and Cami at the bar in "Tangled Up In Blue".
A lot of people remarked on Rebekah and Hayley's great chemistry as soon as the former joined the series (probably helped by the actresses being very close friends).
Klaus daggering Elijah was still a pretty powerful scene. Topped off by Klaus's reasons as to why he daggered him.
Agnes for brainwashing Camille's brother to go on a killing spree and all of the witches except Sophie for slaughtering three innocent girls, including Sophie's niece, and trying to kill Davina as well.
It doesn't take a whole episode after Monique is resurrected before she kills Sophie, the very person who has spent the last 8 months of her life devoted to finding a way to save her. All Sophie did, she did for her and the other girls, but mostly for her. It paints her role in the story quite clearly.
Genevieve and the other witches except Davina for deciding that it's somehow a good idea to kill a newborn baby as a sacrifice and would have gone through with it if Team Klaus hadn't stopped them. It's at this point that the witches and the ancestors cement themselves as completely evil.
More Popular Spin-Off: How the viewers see this show, as it revolves around supernatural politics and power plays instead of shipping like the parent show, and people tend to find the Originals more likable than the Vampire Diaries cast.
The Other Darrin: Of the other three Harvest girls, only Monique is played by the same actress when she's resurrected.
The show attempted this with Hayley after her much reviled outing on The Vampire Diaries. And while it did successfully make her a Base-Breaking Character for Season 1, she was very much The Scrappy right after that for various reasons already listed on this page.
The show even managed to do this with The Originals, as they were Base Breaking Characters in the parent show. Now they're even eclipsing The Vampire Diaries in terms of popularity and likability. Pretty much anyone who was a scrappy or a base breaker on The Vampire Diaries tends to get rescued once they jump ship over to The Originals.
Once her backstory and motivation for returning to New Orleans (a.k.a. being in the show) were revealed, the audience even began warming up to Camille. The fact that she is currently being used as a compulsion spy/mind puppet by Klaus may have also helped.
Ever since his time in the VD, Finn was accused of being the most bland out of the other originals but ever since he got a new body his character progressed better than he ever did when he was in the Vampire Diaries.
Maisie Richardson-Sellers who played Eva Sinclair/Rebekah Mikaelson gained more attention after she joined the cast of Legends Of Tomorrow.
Riley Voelkel who plays Freya previosuly made waves as younger verison of Fiona Goode in American Horror Story Coven.
Ron the Death Eater: The fandom has a bad habit of demonizing anyone that stands up to the Originals, especially Klaus. This in spite of the fact that most of the time the Originals bring their misfortunes on themselves by being villain protagonists, or how they suffer Laser-Guided Karmabecause of their past evils in life. More or less anyone but the worst of the worst would be justified in antagonizing them, or at the very least refusing to ally with them, but good luck telling that to these fans.
The Scrappy: Sophie Deveraux is pretty hated too, primarily for her absolutely terrible actress who manages to overact (in terms of vocals and speech patterns) and underact (with her facial expressions and body language) at the exact same time, but killing Davina definitely made the hate even worse.
Monique's death in the Season One finale. Being killed by a thousand cuts is a pretty nasty way to go.
For those who dislike Hayley, Rebekah's rant against Hayley while under a spell. She called her out on everything, from her relationship with Elijah to the way she treats the Mikaelsons.
Ansel, Klaus's birth farther, is resurrected from the dead by Esther and reunited with his son.... only to be killed in the very next episode.
Mikael. Every other Mikaelson who came back in S2 received a great deal more depth, such as Esther getting a major storyline dedicated to her, or Finn and Kol receiving major subplots and having multi-season character arcs. Mikael.... gets a couple episodes, starts to team up with Klaus to stop Dahlia, suggesting that *maybe* he can begin to move past the hate.... and is then immediately killed by Klaus.
In a way Oliver. He was on his way to being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and had he continued to live it would have been possible that a redemption arc could have been in the cards.
Cassie after being released from Esther's control is immediately shipped off and killed soon after. What's more egregious is there is no interaction between her and Davina despite them having been friends before the Harvest.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Davina and Kol have a number of stories about them even though they've never met and Kol is dead. And funnily enough, they're paired together quite a bit in season 2 after Kol did come Back from the Dead.
Squick: While Marcel and Rebekah have chemistry, the fact that she helped raised Marcel since he was ten years old and then was about to have a very adult relationship with him when he reached adulthood makes it come off like this. It seems to border on incest between a favorite aunt and nephew. Then there's the fact that Esther has chosen Cami's body to put Rebekah's soul into if she accepts Esther's offer, despite the fact that two Mikaelson brothers — Klaus and Finn — and Marcel clearly have feelings for Cami. And now there's the revelation that the two witches Finn and Rebekah's souls possess were once married...
The Woobie: Vincent Griffith, who wakes up one day to discover it's nine months later, and during that time someone else was controlling his body and doing all kinds of terrible things. He's left with a bunch of enemies he doesn't deserve and utterly confused about how much guilt he should be feeling.
. Then we have her brief appearance in "Le Grand Guignol" where she is suddenly wearing a fashionable coat and scarf while looking like she just got back from the salon
