Nobody stays dead for long on The CW’s Vampire Diaries. After all, it’s hard to get rid of characters when all of them—except maybe one or two—are supernatural monsters. There are only so many ways to kill a vampire, and trotting out the same magic white oak stakes or whatever gets boring. Plus, The Vampire Diaries knows what its fans want—sexy vampires making out with each other while sexy werewolves get jealous and then go have sexy revenge make outs—but it also likes to keep people on their toes by constantly killing characters off and then having them come back as ghosts three episodes later.
Unfortunately, Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev has announced that she will be leaving the show at the end of this season, and it doesn’t sound like her character—Elena Gilbert—will be coming back as a ghost any time soon. In a lengthy Instagram post, Dobrev says that she always “wanted Elena’s story to be a six-season adventure,” and then she lists all of the ridiculous stuff that happened to her during those six seasons. We won’t bother quoting that part, because Vampire Diaries fans can attest that it’s an absurd series of events, but it’s a funny way to reflect on her time with the show.
Elena is the central character of The Vampire Diaries, but she’s not the first prominent person to leave. Steven R. McQueen (who played Elena’s brother) also left earlier this year, and Michael Trevino (who plays boring werewolf Tyler) might be leaving soon as well. That still leaves a lot of key Vampire Diaries people to stick around and make out with each other, but it’ll be interesting to see how the show handles Dobrev’s exit. And, as we said, she’ll still finish out its sixth season, which means there’s time for even more crazy things to happen to her.