Dahlia

Dahlia was "one of the most powerful witches in history.

She was the older sister of Esther, the sister-in-law of Mikael, the maternal aunt of Freya, Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik Mikaelson, and also the great-aunt of Freya's deceased unborn son and Hope Mikaelson.

Described by Freya as the most powerful witch she has ever seen, Dahlia first gained her enhanced powers by linking her magic to the magic possessed by her then five-year-old niece Freya. Once Freya reached adulthood, Dahlia then cast a spell that allows them both to gain pseudo-immortality by leap-frogging through time; the women were put into a magically-induced sleep for nearly a century, only to awaken for one single year of life and aging with all of the magic they accrued over their hundred-year-long slumber, before they would once again return to their sleep after the year had passed.

Dahlia's understanding of magic after so many years of study is extensive enough that she was able to create her own form of Connective Magic in the 10th century. She also had the ability to sense the magic of other witches, especially those of the first-born children of her and her sister Esther's bloodline, as the first-born witches of their lineage possess devastating amounts of power. According to Freya, Dahlia aimed to be truly immortal without having to sleep for centuries, and she will not hesitate to come and claim the first-born Mikaelson witches to achieve this goal, even if it means destroying anyone who stands in her way.

Dahlia was a member of an unnamed Norwegian family of powerful witches and a relative to the Mikaelson Family via her sister, Esther and unnamed families.

Early History
Dahlia was born in Norway at some point in the 10th century. She was the first-born child of unnamed Witch parents and the oldest sister of Esther. They both belonged to a long and powerful bloodline of witches whose first-born children are well-known to possess even greater magical strength, and because of this, Dahlia and Esther were presumably taught the craft from a young age. Dahlia devoted herself to the mystical arts (unlike her sister Esther, who felt insecure in her abilities in comparison to her prodigious sister and as a result did not take her practice of witchcraft as seriously), and Dahlia grew to become a very skilled and powerful witch.

Sometime between the late 960s and the early 970s A.D., Viking warriors attacked Dahlia's village and killed everyone in it. Dahlia and Esther then hid behind a wheelbarrow, the two sisters promised each other that they would remain together no matter what happened, "always and forever". When a Viking found the sisters and attempted to attack Esther, Dahlia telekinetically shoved him away from her, which led the Vikings to take both girls prisoner rather than killing them like the rest of the villagers. The girls were taken to a nearby hovel, where Dahlia agreed to do the Dark Magic that the Vikings wanted from her to ensure that Esther wouldn't be harmed; instead, Dahlia took the abuse from the Vikings in Esther's place to protect her from the worst of the horrors of their situation.

One day, while toiling in the hovel while Esther picked herbs for her outdoors, Dahlia managed to stealthily infuse potent sage with serpent's blood to give herself and Esther the magical strength necessary to escape their captivity. However, when Esther returned and Dahlia explained her plan, Esther instead confessed that she no longer wanted to practice witchcraft because she had fallen in love with one of their Viking captors, Mikael, with whom she planned to marry and start a family. Dahlia was emotionally devastated by this revelation and begged Esther to stay with her, reminding her of their promise to stay together forever, but though Esther assured her they would always be sisters, she left despite Dahlia's pleas and married Mikael some time later. It was after this event that Dahlia, who was angry that she was living in subjugation under the Vikings and was betrayed by Esther, vowed that she would never be weak again, a vow that would ultimately shape who Dahlia became in adulthood.

In 972 A.D., after being married to Mikael for a year and still not succeeding in conceiving a child, Esther feared she was cursed to be barren and begged Dahlia for her assistance in casting a fertility spell. This angered Dahlia, who pointed out that if Esther hadn't abandoned her heritage as a witch in pursuit of marriage and motherhood with a Viking warrior, she would be able to help herself. However, in spite of her disappointment in her sister, Dahlia agreed to help Esther and admitted that she could never deny her baby sister. However, Dahlia warned her that such magic would require a great sacrifice. Desperate with nowhere else to turn, Esther blindly agreed to the terms; in exchange for casting the fertility spell on Esther, Dahlia would be given claim to Esther's first-born child, as well as every first-born child that followed for as long as Esther's bloodline should last. However, a millennia later, Esther would refer to Dahlia as someone who was willing to magically solve a person's problems for a steep price, suggesting that perhaps Dahlia's motives in helping Esther weren't as altruistic as she made them seem at the time.

Five years later, Dahlia returned to take the first-born child of Esther and her husband, Freya, after she sensed the magical potential in the child. When Esther began to resist giving up her eldest daughter, Dahlia threatened her by reminding Esther that if she did not deliver on her end of the bargain, that not only would she take Freya, but she would also take all of her children, including young Finn and baby Elijah, who was still in the womb at the time. Esther became furious and vowed that she would immerse herself in the Dark Arts again until she grew in power to the point that she could one day defeat her sister. However, Dahlia was not intimidated, and she reminded her that Esther could never match her power. Afterward, Esther did as Dahlia suggested and told her husband that their daughter died in the plague. In their grief, Esther, Mikael, and their sons Finn and Elijah set out on a journey to the New World in hopes of preventing the loss of more children to the disease.

With Freya in her possession, Dahlia planned to make the child the first of a long line of Mikaelson firstborns, believing that she would not only be able to use to create an all-powerful coven with her sister's descendants, but would also be granted an endless source of magical power from which Dahlia could channel to fuel her spells. After forging her own brand of connective magic, Dahlia cast a connectivity spell on herself and Freya, which both augmented the younger witch's power and allowed Dahlia to draw more strength from her. This gave Dahlia more power than ever, which she then immediately used to destroy an entire Viking village, whose chief had threatened to have her exiled for being a witch, with a wave of her hand.

Dahlia spent the next years raising Freya and training her in witchcraft, which led her to become a powerful witch in her own right. According to Freya's accounts later in life, Dahlia treated her like a slave and only seemed to value her for how much power she could give her; however, though Dahlia herself later admitted that she made a mistake in denying Freya the love of a parent, she still insists that she was only doing what needed to be done to both protect Freya from anyone who would use her for her magical gifts and to protect Freya from her own immense, wild magical power that came from her status as a first-born witch of Dahlia and Esther's bloodline. Eventually, Dahlia enacted her plan to make both herself and Freya essentially immortal by casting a spell which protect them from all conventional forms of harm and death and live for centuries; the spell would require that Dahlia and Freya sleep in a state of suspended animation for a full century, after which they would awaken for one single year of activity and aging with access to all of the power they had accrued during their long slumber, making them among the most powerful witches in history. However, Freya, tired of living as an indentured servant with no life or freedom of her own, pleaded to Dahlia to spare her from the spell, which she believed to be a curse; unfortunately for Freya, Dahlia cast the spell on them both anyway, and insisted that Freya would one day thank her for gifting her with eternal life.

When Dahlia learned that Esther had turned her husband and surviving children into vampires, preventing them from ever having children of their own whom Dahlia could claim as part of her bargain with Esther, she became furious at this loss of potential Mikaelson witches whom she believed she was owed. In response to this unexpected setback, she turned to Freya, the last living Mikaelson, to continue Esther's bloodline. Freya, who hated Dahlia for everything she had inflicted on her over the course of her life, swore she would never love or have children, as she knew they would be condemned to the same life of slavery that she was. However, after Dahlia and Freya awoke for their single year of life in the early 1400s, Freya fell in love with a man named Mathias despite her vow to remain alone. Dahlia encouraged this romance in hopes that Freya would bear her a child to add to their power, and eventually, Freya did indeed become pregnant with a son. Mathias, like Freya, wanted their child to be free more than anything else, and so he tried to help the three of them escape from Dahlia shortly before the child would be born. When Dahlia learned of this betrayal, she killed Mathias before Freya's eyes with a death hex. Grief-stricken, Freya drank the most potent of Dahlia's poisons, hoping to kill herself and her child and end the vicious cycle of misery in which she was trapped. However, the spell Dahlia cast that granted them pseudo-immortality also protected them from any form of harm, rendering Freya incapable of dying from any means, including by poison. Unfortunately for Freya, her unborn son was not afforded this protection, and he ultimately died from the poison she drank, a revelation which devastated Freya. Dahlia was furious with her for taking the life of the first-born she was owed, but she claimed that she would, eventually, come to forgive her.

An unknown amount of time later, Freya finally managed to escape Dahlia's control, although according to her, she knows Dahlia will not stop until she finally tracks her down - when she described her situation to Elijah, Freya stated that her punishment for running away from Dahlia would be "profound".

Powers and Abilities
As one of the most powerful witches in history, Dahlia was powerful enough to be feared by Esther, her younger sister who bore the same title. In addition to Esther, Finn and Freya were both terrified of her due to the fact that the first-born witches born to every generation of their bloodline, including Dahlia, Freya, and Hope, possess what Dahlia described as "devastating" magical power.

While the full extent of Dahlia's power remains unknown, Freya explained to her brother that she herself was still running from Dahlia, her power was strong enough to defeat her the moment they reunited. This confirmed that Dahlia was much more powerful than Freya and that she was truly to be feared by the Mikaelson family. Freya also claimed that Esther paled in comparison to her sister, in part due to Dahlia's ability to sense magic in others, especially in witches of their bloodline. Dahlia appears to be very skilled in sensing magic. As shown when Freya tried to trick her into a killing field, Dahlia managed to sense the ingredients that the spell was composed of.

Dahlia was very talented in the Dark Arts and was able to use her magic to cast a fertility spell on Esther, although it came at the price of Esther's first-born child and the first-born child of Mikaelson witches to follow for as long as their line shall last. As revealed by Freya. Dahlia had been able to keep herself alive for over a thousand years by casting an enchantment on herself (and Freya) that would place her in a deep slumberfor a hundred years, only to wake for one year of life and then repeat the cycle. During the sleep, their magic would accrue over the decades until they finally awakened stronger than they had ever been. According to Dahlia, this enchantment was the next best thing to immortality a witch could have, as all other forms of immortality required the witch to be severed from their connection to magic.

Due to the spells she cast on herself and Freya, she was capable of incredible acts of power. She once wiped out an entire village of people with the wave of her hand, killing men, women, and children alike because she was threatened with death for practicing the craft. Dahlia was able to hold that much power even when her body was not yet indestructible. Dahlia was also responsible for creating Freya's Talisman, which allowed Freya to focus her own magic, and could also act as a limbo that prevented Finn's spirit from crossing over.

Through her Kenning spell, she had the ability to enter minds en masse, allowing herself to see through their eyes, and talk through their mouths. She used this to spy on her marks before making her move against them. She could even gift a fraction of her own power to her "acolytes" and command said army to do her bidding with ease. She was able to desiccate both Klaus and Mikael at once with little effort and without making physical contact with them and even teleport instantly, seemingly without the need of a spell.

Casting spells appeared to be of very little trouble for Dahlia, as she destroyed the enchanted blade that was created to kill her without so much as an incantation, and she only needed to blow on Josephine LaRue's hands to heal them of the curse that had plagued them for decades. Dahlia then killed Josephine by slitting her throat with a violin bow.

Dahlia displayed the power to use Kenning on corpses after she killed Josephine and subsequently reanimated her long enough to use Kenning to send a message to her nieces and nephews at the Mikaelson compound. She had also displayed the power to create plant life and accelerate its growth, as she conjured vines with black dahlia flowers that covered the entirety of the exterior of St. James Infirmary to make her arrival known to Hayley. She could also cause plant life to die, as she did with the bouquet Aiden bought to give to his boyfriend Josh. While at the Mikaelsons' safe house, she also disrupted the nearby cell phone towers to prevent anyone from calling for help.

She had shown herself to be proficient in snapping bones, breaking necks, and ripping/puncturing flesh with only simple hand gestures, and could easily use Telekinesis to rip a heart from a victim's chest. She even managed to kill Aiden in a manner that appeared as though he was killed by a werewolf or hybrid, complete with claw marks all over his body, to cause Klaus' family and allies to believe that he was the one who had killed him. She had also been shown to play her signature tune on various instruments, with and without magic, including music boxes, violins, and church bells.

Dahlia was able to take Klaus's consciousness into her own mind to convince him that they could be allies. She even managed to wake him from desiccation without even making contact with his physical body, and conjured a thunderstorm in a remote area of The Bayou all the way from Lafayette Cemetery to create a flood that would prevent Hayley, Hope, and Jackson from escaping, though, both feats were done by channeling an unknown herb soaked in blood.

Dahlia once again used her powers of mind control to gather innocents for Klaus to feed on. She easily dismissed the storm she conjured herself away with the wave of her hand. She flung Freya across the Abattoir with a simple gesture and subdued her with no need of an incantation. She then reactivated the Crescent Moon Curse on Hayley's pack, modifying the spell so that everyone affected by the unification ceremony of the werewolves will be affected.

Dahlia was able to link herself to Klaus, ensuring that she would no longer need to sleep for another century. However, Klaus took this as an opportunity to dagger himself so he could, in turn, neutralize his aunt. Unfortunately, hours later, Dahlia managed to melt the dagger while incapacitated and conjured a vast overgrowth of dahlia vines to procure a drop of Hope's blood, all the while severing the link she made with her nephew. Dahlia managed to render the White Oak Stake into ash so she could disperse it in the air and slowly kill Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah while almost managing to kill Freya, after channeling a waning moon, had it not been for Esther's timely intervention. Dahlia did not seem able to break free from the cursed shackles used to choke her by Esther, despite having the potential to break through it, thus allowing Klaus to stab her and Esther to death. This was most likely due to psychological hold Esther had over her, which weakened her enough to let this happen.

Dahlia is the only witch so far that has been able to make a form of pseudo-immortality which allowed her to retain her magical powers. Dahlia was also the only witch known to have forged a new brand of an established form of magic, connective magic, which augments a witch's power.

Her mystical attributes aside, Dahlia's greatest asset was her sharp intellect. Her penchant for strategies and forming contingencies way ahead of time, easily surpasses Elijah's, she came up with a plan, to make it look like Klaus had killed Aiden and frame him for this act, effectively dividing the family to the point that they were too scattered to create a comprehensive plan, and turning her nephew, Klaus against his maternal half-siblings and Hayley.

Her only intellectual equal was Klaus, who was barely able to outsmart her.

Weaknesses
Dahlia was susceptible to the forces of witchcraft. Like all creatures, Dahlia could be undone by powerful magic, however, according to Freya Mikaelson, it would require power equivalent to Dahlia's (or greater) to defeat her.

Shortly after her arrival in New Orleans, Freya gave her father a spell with the necessary ingredients to kill Dahlia. Apparently, the combination of sacred soil from her homeland (Norway), along with the ash from her oppressors (Vikings) and the blood of the one person she loves most (Esther) can be combined to create Dahlia's sole weakness and forged into a powerful weapon against her. However, it appears that this combination of ingredients only had the power to render her mortal, and could not kill her outright;  Freya's plan was to use them to create a "killing field" to strip away her pseudo-immortality and make it so that she could be killed by conventional means.

While linked to Klaus, she overcame her need to be forced to sleep for 100 years by drawing on the power of his immortal body. But that power came at the cost of sharing Klaus's fate. When Klaus daggered himself with the Golden White Oak Ash dagger, Dahlia was also incapacitated. Should Klaus be killed by having his heart stabbed by the White Oak Stake while Dahlia were still linked to Klaus, Dahlia would have also died.

It should be noted that when she was strangled with the cursed shackles by Esther, Dahlia did not fight back or break free from this hold. One can assume it was most likely due to the psychological hold Esther had over her sister and this delay is what ultimately allowed Klaus to kill her.

Esther Mikaelson

 * 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 her sister, Esther

Dahlia's relationship with her younger 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 though 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.

Freya Mikaelson

 * Main article: Freya and Dahlia


 * "Dahlia is my cross to bear. She has no grudge against anyone but me. "
 * —Freya to Finn about Dahlia

Dahlia took Freya from Esther due to a pact she made with Esther that gave her claim over Esther's first born child. When Freya came of age, Dahlia cast her a spell on her that would put her in a deep sleep for a hundred years and she would waken for one year of life. Dahlia told Freya that this would allow them both to remain young and beautiful (since witches cannot be truly immortal), but in time Freya learned that Dahlia's stories were also paired with lies. At some point, Freya fled from Dahlia and has been running from Dahlia ever since, fearing that Dahlia would find her and kill her for her "betrayal" (at least what Dahlia would consider to be a betrayal). Freya mentioned that the punishment of Dahlia would be repaid.

Niklaus Mikaelson

 * Main article: Klaus and Dahlia

Klaus and Dahlia were at first enemies when he and Mikael went up against her. She beat them both with ease and tells them all she wants is the child, then she'll let them live. After Klaus is stabbed with the golden dagger meant for him, Dahlia gets the dagger out with magic after Klaus tells her he'll help her get Hope in exchange for having a part in her life and getting vengeance on who wronged him. Klaus later tells her he wants to bound himself to her instead of Hope since he's immortal already and she can link herself to Hope after she gets what she needs.

Mikael
Like her nephew Klaus, Dahlia had a negative relationship with Mikael, as he was one of the vikings who killed every person in her village, as well as the fact that his fellow vikings, abused her witchcraft. Even after Mikael married her sister, Esther, her relationship with Mikael did not change at all; in fact, it worsened as Mikael took Esther away from her. This lead her to have a strong distaste for Mikael, so much so that she wanted to see him suffer. Six years later, after Mikael's marriage to Esther, Dahlia took his firstborn child and forced Esther to lie to him, that Freya died from the plague, although she took Freya mainly because Freya is a first-born from a Norwegian family of powerful witches, like herself. When they met again in the present century, Dahlia took time to torture Mikael and relished in the pain she caused him, both physically and emotionally as she was the one who had taken Freya from him.

Although Dahlia was shown to be a confident and prodigious witch, it was hinted that she did fear Mikael, as she forbade Esther from telling him the truth of what happened to Freya and insisted that Esther lie and tell him Freya died from the plague. This seemed to suggest that Dahlia believed, or at least used to believe, that Mikael posed a threat to her and her plans, despite the immense magical power at her disposal.

Name

 * Dahlia is a feminine name of Nordic origin (da(h)-lia). The name means "valley". It stems from the flower named for 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.[2]

Trivia

 * Dahlia's signature of magic is represented as the Woodland Merinda Dahlia just as her sister's is the European Starling.
 * Both symbols were prominently used to pinpoint Hope's location by the respective witches.
 * Dahlia was known for whistling, humming, and playing her own musical tune on various instruments. It was shown in flashbacks that this had been a practice of Dahlia's since childhood, and was used as a way to calm down Esther during times of stress and anxiety.


 * Dahlia had similarities with Qetsiyah:
 * Both have been listed as the most powerful witches in history or of all time, respectively.
 * Both were responsible for extending someone's lifespan to unnatural lengths.
 * Dahlia was very similar to Silas:


 * Both of them had lived for many centuries; Silas over 2,000 years and Dahlia over 1,000 years.
 * Both of them gave immortality to someone else; Silas stole the elixir of immortality and shared it with Amara while Dahlia cast a century-long slumber spell on Freya and herself.
 * Both of them were feared by members of Mikaelson Family; Silas by Kol and Klaus and Dahlia by Esther, Freya and Finn).
 * As Dahlia was still able to practice magic, it is presumed that she still aged during her year of life, and was still capable of dying a natural death of old age, albeit many, many centuries in the future; this however is never directly stated. In general, Nature will not stand for an imbalance of power and will restore the balance by removing a new immortal's connection to magic.
 * It is also possible that she retained eternal youth, since she seemed to have willingly added the century of sleep as a loophole to maintain her magic along with her pseudo-immortality, as she was only active for one year every century rather than roaming the earth for eternity like most immortal beings.
 * Dahlia was very skilled at the violin. Josephine LaRue, a prolific violinist and violin-enthusiast referred to her technique as "exquisite."
 * She was the only person able to defeat four Mikaelson's at the same time (Mikael, Freya, Elijah, and Klaus).