Esther Mikaelson

Esther Mikaelson was responsible for creating the Original vampires.

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.

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 helps Alaric Saltzman develop a dark, murderous, vampire hating alter-ego. She then turns 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 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 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.

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.

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

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 was a member of an unnamed Norwegian family of powerful witches, unnamed families.

Early Life
Esther was born in a witch family in the Kingdom of Norway some time during the 10th Century. Esther had an older sister named Dahlia. It's implied that Esther was close to her mother as she would later tell her son that her mother taught her about the starling bird's tune. She was once close to her sister but they had differing outlooks and different points of view which caused them to grow apart. Despite being born from a powerful witch bloodline, Esther was not interested in the practice of magic after meeting Mikael, who swore to protect her, unlike her sister, who devoted herself to the Black Arts.
 * The Middle Ages, 10th Century

Esther favored being a wife and a mother and at some time her village was slaughtered by Vikings, with Dahlia and herself being the only survivors due to their witch powers. During her captivity, she met and fell in love with a Viking warrior and wealthy Eastern European landowner named Mikael, whom she married. However, after almost a year of marriage, she was still unable to conceive a child. As she didn't practice magic, she came to her sister Dahlia for help. After Esther discussed her issue of being barren and unable to conceive, Dahlia agreed to help her sister by casting a fertility spell which would help her to conceive and get pregnant. Esther soon fell pregnant and gave birth to a daughter Freya, her firstborn child. She later had another child, a son named Finn. From this moment, she lived happily with Mikael and even fell pregnant with a third child.

However, during her third pregnancy, Mikael temporarily left for a voyage and Dahlia asked to have Freya taken away. Esther tried to stand up for herself against Dahlia but Dahlia told her that fate decided that Esther will not have children. But they changed it and now Esther had to pay; by giving all the firstborn who will come from her bloodline (grandchild, great-grandchild, etc). Esther swore to have her magic back, to gain immense power and to make Dahlia pay for what she had done. But her sister mocked her, threatened to take all of her children, including Finn and the unborn Elijah. Dahlia took Freya away  while Freya screamed for her mother. When Mikael came back, Esther told him that Freya had died from the Plague. They decided to leave their homeland to come to the New World. She gave birth to her third child Elijah but regardless, Esther was still devastated by Freya's "death". Mikael, still mourning his child's "death", became cold and estranged from his wife. At this time, Esther had met a young werewolf leader named Ansel and she fell in love with him. She began the construction of a Moonlight Ring for him. Soon, she fell pregnant with his son. However, she came back to Mikael, and forbade Ansel to be near his unborn child. She later gave birth to a son that Mikael named Niklaus and the birth helped to bring them together as a family once more. They would go on to have three other children: Kol, Rebekah and Henrik.

She later made a bird Necklace to make her son Niklaus weak and to prevent him from killing someone, which would trigger his werewolf gene. This became even more necessary when Mikael became abusive towards Klaus as he thought that his son was weak. And she became obsessed with the idea that Klaus always has to hold the necklace.

In the New World, Esther began to practice magic once more and became the best friend of the powerful witch Ayana (a descendant of Qetsiyah and an ancestor of the Bennett bloodline) who was also her mentor.

At some point, Niklaus and Henrik came to see the werewolves transformation during a full moon and Henrik was mauled by a werewolf from Ansel's pack. Klaus took his brother to Esther but it was too late and Henrik tragically died.

Later, Mikael asked Ayana for help so that they could make all of their children immortals but Ayana refused. As a result, Esther ended up performing The Immortality Spell herself by using the blood of Klaus and Elijah's lover, Tatia (a doppelgänger and descendant of Amara and a member of the Petrova bloodline) that would transform her family into the first known vampires.

However, the spell had complications and prices that came along with it. She had to make Daylight Jewelry for them and she had watched them feed and kill innocent humans all for the consumption of human blood. When Klaus finally killed his first human, he triggered his werewolf gene and later transformed, killing and slaughtering many people. Knowing from then that Klaus was not his biological son, Mikael forced Esther to suppress Klaus’ werewolf side, which she had done by using the blood of Tatia, whom Elijah accidentally killed.

She was then killed by Klaus who choked her to death and put the blame to Mikael. After she died, Esther's body was preserved and placed in a coffin by her witch friend, Ayana. Esther's spirit, however, was forced to watch her children wreak havoc on the world from the Other Side and feel the pain of every victim as nature's way of punishing her for her actions.

Powers and Abilities

 * Witch
 * Vampire

Esther was amongst the greatest and most powerful, dark witches in history, due to her various acts of great significance to the future, mostly negative.

In her first life, Esther was an accomplished witch, being known as the creator of the moonlight rings by combining various spells into one (for her werewolf lover). Esther's most notable spell was turning her Husband and Children into the world's first original vampires. She drew on multiple sources of power, such as the sun and the white oak tree for power and immortality. Despite being warned against doing so, by her friend and mentor, Ayana, she tapped into dark magic and performed the spell, giving a rise to a predatory species that spread throughout the world like a plague. Shortly thereafter, with her infidelity exposed with Klaus' first kill, Nature would not allow such a powerful creature to exist, thus she bound him with the hybrid curse, locking away his werewolf side. After the creation of vampires, she also created the daylight rings, used as protection against the sun. Eventually though Klaus ended her life.

During her time as a spirit in the afterlife, she still possessed great power, though only usable as long as her talisman in the living world remained intact. She managed to perform a spell from the other side to give Vicki a foothold in the world of the living, making her a corporeal ghost, though her magic was blocked by Bonnie who sent Vicki away.Esther then used Bonnie to wedge open a doorway between worlds, allowing various ghosts with unfinished business to return. Bonnie managed to undo this spell, with her Grams help by destroying Esther's only link to the living, her talisman, though it fixed itself immediately, much to Bonnie's surprise.

1,000 years after her death, Esther managed to resurrect herself in her preserved body, by channeling the entire Bennett witch Bloodline, including Qetsiyah, both living and dead. In her original body, she continued to demonstrate various feats of power and skill. She was able to link the original vampires with wine laced with Elena's Doppelgänger blood ( though the spell was reversed by Bonnie, who was forced by Klaus.) Esther planned on reversing her centuries-old curse thereby effectively curing all of her children, in the end, to kill them as humans, though due to Abby becoming a vampire, she lost her connection to the Bennett's Bloodline and unable to finish the spell. Do to her lost connection, she claimed that the spell that preserved her body and weakened and was dying. This was later shown to be a ploy in order to get close to Rebekah, whom she possessed Rebekah though she quickly returned to her body afterward once she obtained the white oak stake. Her skill allowed her to jump back into her own body. Even without channeling the Bennett bloodline, though using her own death spot, she was shown to have superior control over telekinesis and able to cloak and fight against a locator spell all the while to create the indestructible white oak by binding the protective magic, from Emily's protection spell on the Gilbert ring, to the stake. Prior to her second death, she channeled dark magic and the Doppelgänger once again in order to turn Alaric into an Enhanced Original Vampire, making him stronger and faster than her children, though she bound him to Elena, therefore, she was his only weakness. He too would turn against her and ended her second life.

Given her power, she was consecrated as a New Orleans witch, allowing Sophie to complete the Harvest ritual, which renews the power of hundreds of witches by reconnecting them to their dead ancestors. Even in spirit, she became leader of the New Orleans Ancestral Witches. Esther was also capable of bending the entire ancestral plane to her will, consequently controlling the New Orleans coven as a whole. Her control was so great, that she managed to force Genevive and the Quarter witches to kill Hope, in fear that Dahlia would come. Given a second attempt, she was able to perform another rare feat of self-resurrection, though this was more in the form of possession when instead of the last Harvest girl being resurrected, only her body was, though it was inhabited by Esther's spirit. Utilizing ancestral magic and knowledge of the other side, she was even able to pull and performed the same spell with her sons, Finn and Kol, by invoking their souls into the bodies of witches, Vincent and Kaleb, respectively. She ultimately 'purified' them by placing them into witch bodies, giving them back their magic.

According to Elijah, she was also a master of possession, with evidence provided by her possession of; Rebekah, Cassie, and the latest, Lenore. She was able to not only overwhelm the consciousness of each of the other women but able to leave them unharmed. Even in the bodies of other witches and not her original, she still displayed great power with pain infliction and telekinesis spells in order to harm original vampires, She would even use this skill in order to gain the upper hand over Kol. According to Klaus, Esther was also highly proficient in the art of producing magical talismans, evident by the indestructible White Oak Stake, an amulet that purposefully weakens werewolves, whom she had given to a young Klaus so that he would not trigger his Werewolf gene, and the creation of Daylight Rings. During her third life, she created a better moonlight ring for Werewolves for them to harness the full strength of their curse, an adapted version of Genevieve's crude spell. When the other side began to collapse she was able to resurrect her Werewolf lover, with no known balance.Other unusual feat, only she or various few other witches have been shown to be capable of controlling animals, specifically Starlings, creating minor Earth shakes with a wave of her hand, create a boundary with ashes within a matter of seconds with no incantation, Astral projection (while maintaining a conscious form), spells to invade the mind to sooth, block or to restore memories and (like her older sister and Bonnie) to control and disrupt electromagnetic signals of phones. She was also one of the first witches shown to utilize runes, as such when she sent Kol a message by marking his skin with a warning.

However, Esther was not always the great and powerful witch as known to the supernatural community. Instead, it was recently revealed that what led Esther to improve her power and tapping into dark magic again was the loss of her first-born child, her daughter Freya whom she had to give to her elder sister Dahlia, a much more powerful witch at the time as a part of their bargain. On that day, Esther angrily promised her sister that she will rise in the black arts and become a powerful witch in order to avenge her daughter, despite her achievements, Esther's powers and abilities are still inferior to that of her older sister Dahlia.

For a time, Esther had been turned (indirectly) by Rebekah into a vampire. Esther possessed all the standard powers and abilities of a non-Original vampire.

Weaknesses
Esther had the typical weaknesses of a witch.
 * Human/Witch
 * Vampire

However, while she was possessing Lenore and became a vampire she had the typical weaknesses of an non-Original vampire.

Dahlia

 * Main article: Esther and Dahlia


 * "Your power is nothing against mine, foolish girl! You knew the bargain you made. And should you defy me, then I will take all your children; including little Finn...even unborn Elijah."
 * —Dahlia to Esther

Esther's relationship with her elder sister is a seemingly  complicated one. Dahlia seemed to be disappointed and angered that Esther chose to devote her life to being a wife and mother instead of devoting life to witchcraft. In spite of that, she seemed to care about her sister when Esther begged Dahlia to use her magic to help her get pregnant and agreed to help her. However, Dahlia tricked Esther and took her oldest daughter and even went so far as to threaten taking all of her children if she did not cooperate.

Dahlia did not, however, kill Freya after taking her. Instead, the powerful witch groomed Freya and taught her niece to control her vast powers, eventually teaching her a spell that would allow Freya to preserve her life through a hundred years of hibernation and upon awakening only to a year of natural age and repeating the process after that. After learning more, Freya escaped Dahlia after discovering that "her truths were paired with lies" by unknown means and has been running from the older, more powerful witch ever since.

Esther correctly fears that her older sister could return and if her payment isn't given, she would destroy the entire Mikaelson Family.

Name

 * Esther is a female Persian name (استر) which means "star" or a Hebrew form of the Persian goddess Ishtar. In the Old Testament, Esther is the name of the Jewish queen of King Ahasuerus of Persia who saved her people from the wicked plans of Haman.[2]

Trivia

 * Rebekah says that Esther is the Original Witch but she's not the first witch.
 * Her name is a title. The "Original Witch" stands for the Witch of the Original Family of Vampires, not the first witch ever. Her husband Mikael, and son Niklaus have titles, the Original Vampire Hunter and Original Hybrid, respectively.
 * Esther's signature of magic is represented as the European Starling just as her sister, Dahlia's, is the Woodland Merinda Dahlia.
 * Both symbols were prominently used to pinpoint Hope's location by their respective witches.
 * Esther has died four times in the series and all her deaths were violent.
 * Esther created the spells for both the Moonlight and Daylight rings. The Moonlight ring came first as she created it for Klaus' biological father.
 * She appears to have the closest relationship with Finn, however, she deemed Klaus to be her most special child.
 * According to her daughter she was the most powerful Witch in history.
 * Both her second death and second resurrection occurred in a cemetery.
 * Kol accurately states that Esther was a genius witch, and an overprotective matriarch.
 * Esther is said to be a master in the skill of possession, a skill she has shown on a number of occasions; possessing Rebekah, Cassie, and, lastly, Lenore.
 * Esther was also skilled at protective magics, as she created spells to protect her lover from the werewolf curse, her children from sunlight, and even transferred and bound the protected magics within Emily's spelled Gilbert ring to create the indestructible white oak stake.
 * Esther was so gifted with her spellcraft that it took an entire coven of witches ages to reverse engineer the vampire creation spell in order for Lucien to become the Beast. Davina, working alone, periodically over the course of a year or two was able to reverse engineer and create a sire-line unlinking spell.
 * Esther is the second parent in the Originals to be turned into a vampire by their own child. In her case, it was her daughter, Rebekah.
 * The first was Hayley Marshall by her daughter Hope Mikaelson.
 * The nature of which she was turned while in Lenore's body draws parallels with how she initially turned her children. She was tricked into drinking wine laced with blood and stabbed.
 * All of her children have some sort of disdain to her; except Henrik who is dead.
 * Elijah, Klaus, Kol, and Rebekah all hate her for trying to kill them.
 * Finn thinks she's a hypocrite for becoming a vampire.
 * Freya hates her for sending her away as a child.