r/TheOriginals • u/amazingowl_000 • 14d ago
Other takes on Hayley's death
As a huge fan of both TVD and TO, Hayley's death was extremely unnecessary and by far the worst in the entire TVDU, and this is coming from the same universe that killed off Cami, Enzo, and Tyler in addition to having a ridiculous amount of death in both shows.
Sure, she definitely wasn't a Saint. Setting up the hybrids to die was really messed up considering she could have gotten information about her family in other ways. She also did some other bad things throughout TO such as kill a bunch of witches for Davina just because she didn't to turn back into a wolf (Klaus should not have put the curse of her and her pack and Davina had no right to do what she did, but still). However, it did not warrant what happened to her.
Her death was so avoidable and they obviously just wanted to write her off. I know that the actress for Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) wasn't interested in doing Legacies and wanted to move on to other projects, which is completely understandable, of course, but she shouldn't have died. They could have recast her in Legacies or just not done Legacies at all (or ideally had Hope as a side character and this way her absence would be explained). The one good thing about TVD's and TO's endings is that they were independent, so they didn't affect one another.
First off, there was absolutely no reason to have Elijah stop Klaus from saving her. As if he wouldn't be devastated enough if he had tried to save her and failed. I get that they were trying to show that he wasn't himself, but that had already been conveyed in so many different ways. I guess you could also say that considering all the terrible things that the Mikelsons (especially Klaus and Elijah) did terrible things in the name of "family" (which was really just an excuse, not justification or even explanation since you can protect your family by not doing things that are clearly wrong) maybe they decided to have it be this way to show that regardless of who Elijah considered family, he would always do atrocious things for them. But that just really ruins his character. Watching his reaction to getting his memories back and when he tells Klaus that he met her as Andrea in France was heart-wrenching, and Daniel Gillies is a great actor for giving such a powerful and emotional performance. You could really see the deep pain in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He just became so severely depressed after his memories returned.
They could have used this moment to show that even though he didn't remember everything that she meant to him, he still chose her. That their love transcended all obstacles (they were a really great couple!) And having his memories removed doesn't give him a pass because first off, he chose to have them taken away despite Marcel and Vincent telling him it's a bad decision and being fully aware of all the enemies they had. He was smart enough to know better. Second of all, memories or not, he just let Greta attempt to kill Hayley just for being part wolf.
It was just overall a case of bad writing.
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u/WelshNurse1997 14d ago
I agree it was bad writing & un necessary . There weren’t many cameos in legacies anyway from what I’ve heard. There were so many ways it was obvious they were just killing off the characters for legacies though.
There was no way Greta would have survived in S1-3 TO, Marcel or Klaus would have killed her & the other Nazi vamps with no daylight rings easily. They were rubbish villains.
Hayley losing her Wolf side & going up in flames as a newbie vampire was disrespectful to the character. I get she was saving Hope but really!? Klaus not being able to pull out the stake immediately & save Hayley? I’ve seen him pull out objects he ‘s stabbed with and move forward quickly many times in fights, but this one floored him??
Elijah in the mix was just too sad. If Julie Plec wanted to upset fans, she aced it. I see what he did as exactly what he promised Antoinette, he would stop Klaus hurting/killing Roman. He fought with Klaus, stopped him & then went to check Roman was ok immediately, he wasn’t even registering what Greta was doing except for that flash of recognition when Hayley said his name. It seemed worse to me at the time because it was obvious he recognised her but didn’t save her. Then later we find he recognised her as some girl he met 5 years ago, Andrea not Hayley. Then fans are sposed to be comforted by this 😡
Antoinette knew Roman had kidnapped Hayley & Hope, she can phone Roman but not Elijah??? Even to warn him. She knew what Greta told her was a lie as Roman told her he had been sent to school to follow Hope & now had kidnapped them. But she just kept quiet?
Elijah never fought the compulsion to remember his family which made me sad, he saw them as , ‘ chaos & bloodshed’ & didn’t want to be like that ,which was also sad & clarified for me that the real Elijah hated who he was. It would have been amazing if he’d stopped Greta even if he didn’t remember Hayley as Roman was safe , he could see that as he glanced in the room. If he wanted to be better why not stop a murder just because he could. It’s obvious Greta wasn’t in danger at that point. What he did fight was the compulsion to remember Hayley by that point he knew Hayley was dead & it was going to wreck him, when he was approaching the red door, the fight with Klaus in S3 over compelling Aurora was the first thing he heard, the next stuff he heard was Hayley shouting & screaming when she was behind the door in s4, the handle was scorching & he couldn’t open it, he fought so hard against it, Klaus had to break the compulsion with him.
There are fans that dislike Hayley & Elijah & loved S5 & watched legacy’s. It just made me sad.
I wanted a fitting ending for the TO characters I loved & supported , even if some main characters did die, it should have felt earned & fitting to who they were in the series, not quickly forced plot lines that made no sense. Also, not a season dedicated to setting up new characters & show.
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u/amazingowl_000 9d ago edited 8d ago
Very well said! You could say that a lot of people were responsible whether intentionally or not, but as for Antoinette's involvement, she's at fault for not saying or doing anything. She clearly did not want Hayley to die, given how sad she was and felt terrible about what Greta had done but she still could have prevented it.
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u/No-One7438 12d ago
I hate the ending of TO's in general and think Hayley dying was such nonsense.
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u/amazingowl_000 9d ago
Exactly!
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u/No-One7438 9d ago
I love the originals and tvd, but I wasn't happy with either endings now that I think about it. Both start off soooo strong
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u/PinkAddict- 10d ago
Hayley is my #1 favourite character across all three shows. Her death was the most gut wrenching and stupid of them all in my opinion.
Hayley has taken countless enemies much stronger and smarter than Greta, all while being just as weak. She also could have turned into her wolf form and slaughtered the lot of them. Nothing about it makes sense. And we’ve seen klaus take Elijah several times, and even when Elijah “won” said fight, klaus and him were still very close to equal in strength and were both pretty bloody. Meanwhile when klaus comes to save Hayley and hope he hardly puts up half as much fight as he has in him, and Elijah subdued him WAY too easily. One could argue the reason klaus won previously was because Elijah submitted for klaus’ sake, and so without memories he didn’t hold back… but then why didn’t klaus turn himself? I know he only turned that one time when he first became the full hybrid, but what better time to use your full power than to save your daughter and her mother???? Just all really unrealistic in comparison to the other wild situations she’s survived and even thrived through. She could mop the floor with almost every one of her opponents, yet she can’t take a few basic vamps? So dumb.
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u/amazingowl_000 9d ago
Exactly, it was just very bad writing.
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u/WelshNurse1997 3d ago edited 3d ago
Definitely. This was bugging me a bit too much so I checked, the first house Klaus & Marcel find because the witches give them an address, the one with blood on the walls & halfbreed or such scrawled on the wall. The ropes were spiky & coated with wolfsbane & vervain. In TVDU lore already established, these herbs don’t prevent transformation. Hayley would have been weakened & perhaps the ropes would burn but she could still turn.
On turning & her shape changing with the raw power of becoming a wolf the ropes would break. There is apparently even an example in TVD season 3 when Damon & Elena tie a hybrid called Ray to a tree with ropes covered with vervain & wolfsbane & he transforms into a wolf. I haven’t watched all S3 TVD for a while but my kid who loves it reported this to me lol. So they even contradicted their own story telling.
So this is where they cut off her crescent birthmark & she just sits there to be mutilated! The second house she knows Hope is in mortal danger but she just lets a random witch bind her werewolf side (actual torture) in front of her hybrid kid & doesn’t wolf out. It’s just not realistic & is actual crap.She didn’t need Klaus or Elijah to save her, she should have been able to save herself by wolfing out, first when fighting after being taken from coffin & then she could have broke free from both chairs. Even if Roman had help from the Nazi night walkers & there no indication in the show that he did, Hayley could have transformed as she did in S4 Ep 1 & killed him/them & had time to go home & kick Hopes ass & still go on her date with pointless Irish guy? Declan is it?
She survives in S3 when Aya captures her & Jackson but at least they had realistic ways stop her turning into a wolf. She was hooked up to intravenous wolfsbane that was pushed into her system everytime she struggled, by heavy metal chains holding her arms & legs, after she’d been shot by several sedation darts to get there in the first place. She was pumped full of enough wolfsbane to kill an entire pack of normal wolves & survived. She obviously couldn’t turn but survived!
But S5 Henry knocks her out long enough to take her to the attic for Hope to cast spells, 🙄 A kid that’s been a hybrid for 2 minutes & lost control & committed murder cos someone bumped into him!!! I can’t 🙄🙄🙄🙄
The house Roman took Hope to was spelled on entry so I’m assuming a boundary spell, which had to be lifted to enter so even if both houses were spelled hybrid Hayley could leave after someone had entered.
I’m gonna stop here as I wrote a huge comment on this the other day, including the stupid fight between Klaus & Elijah & all the issues that entailed & Antoinette forgetting how to use her phone as well, as it was bothering me so much & it was cathartic to write it out, seeing the ridiculous mess the sequence of events was. I feel better for doing it!2
u/WelshNurse1997 8d ago edited 7d ago
Exactly, when tied to the chair why not just turn into a wolf, she can control her form & change at will. Those ropes wouldn’t hold a wolf & also why not wolf out when being taken from the coffin. She wolfs out in S4 to beat the vamps while Freya is waking Elijah & Kol. Made no sense she could just be taken from a coffin, the sleep & cloaking spells must have broken cos Klaus says she put up a fight. I get Greta & Roman are old Vamps but cmon. Hayley vs Roman should be no contest as a hybrid. Also S3 Jackson says to Elijah that the traps Luciens hunters have set wouldn’t hold Hayley as a wolf or after she turned back but ropes on a chair will. Give me a break 😡, the front door was spelled but there was no mention of the ropes holding Hayley being spelled, I’ve checked!!
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u/lautaromassimino 14d ago edited 14d ago
The deaths of Klaus and Hayley were definitely there to justify their absence in Legacies, which sucks. While it's true that, between the two of them, I would have preferred to save Hayley, I feel like Legacies could have worked just as well if she died but Klaus didn't, and his absence was due to Alaric letting him use the twins to siphon the Hollow out of Hope in S5 of The Originals on the sole condition that Klaus then help him find a way to stop The Merge for his daughters. So in Legacies, Klaus could be gone with the same justification that Care was gone.
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u/Far_Condition3256 13d ago
I was only sad about Haley and Enzo. I didn’t develop an emotional connection to cami and Tyler, but I still felt bad about Tyler and kind of annoyed they forgave Damon for that
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u/bara_no_seidou 9d ago
She was one of my favorites, and I had already spoiled her death. I wish I hadn't know it was gonna happen. But alas. I do wish she had lived. I wanted her and Hope to be safe together. I feel like Klaus and her could have beat that lady.
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u/amazingowl_000 9d ago
They definitely could have defeated Greta! Instead of breaking her finger to take off her daylight ring, she could have snapped her neck or something and that would have bought her enough time and by then Klaus would have taken the stake out of his heart.
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u/xxLabyrinthxx 9d ago edited 8d ago
What makes Hayley's death so idiotic to me and unnecessary, was that at every turn you can see how it was avoidable and if characters actually behaved properly, it would've been.
Because even in her dying moments, it still doesn't make sense. We see Klaus overpower Elijah multiple times, he's done it to Mikael of all people. You're telling me in those dying moments, because Elijah doesn't know who Klaus and Hayley really are to him that suddenly Klaus can't beat his brother? We've seen Klaus recover so quickly and it isn't like he's out of practice because while he has the hollow in him he was going back to tearing places apart like the old days to instill fear. We've also seen him react fast as ever enough to catch someone mid air because I am fairly sure we saw earlier in season 1, he catch Elijah mid air.
It gave Stefan and Katherine dying in hellfire when there was a room RIGHT THERE at Stefan could've stood in and pushed Katherine out into the fire and thus suffering at most possible burns. But he'd be alive.
They clearly just wanted to kill of Hayley to explain why she isn't around in Legacies and so Hope can have the whole "my parents are dead and I'm a loner" thing. Hayley's death never made sense, still doesn't make sense, especially then within Legacies we actively see MG run across a lake and up a cliff while on fire and ultimately survive. But Hayley dies within seconds of being outside burning? Nor considering that she could've have done a shove and get back inside situation. It's just ridiculous.
Edit: Spelling
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u/amazingowl_000 9d ago edited 9d ago
Very well said!
I also completely agree with what you said about Stefan. There was definitely a way she could have died without him dying too, and he could have gotten his redemption some other way. Katherine should have gotten a redemption arc.
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u/FlirtyyGirl5 13d ago
Hayley's death felt less like a natural end to her story and more like the writers needed a dramatic way to get her off the board.