list all the bad dads and rank them on how bad of a dad they are. mwah
No legacies dads because I don’t want to think that hard. Ranking them got hard so I’m doing a fake typed out tier-ish list instead. They’re not in order in the tiers, I just listed them alphabetically to save time.
Atticus Shane (what if I released a two-thousand-year-old evil because I loved you and missed you and grieved for you, what if the love I held for you and your mother outweighed the world?)
Grayson Gilbert (worst thing he ever did was a little vampire torture while Elena was sentient enough to wander, which is bad, sure, but his last words to her were to tell her that he loved her. He’s a good dad!! I don’t care!!! I know people say he was a bad dad for not giving his kids vervain, but why would you assume that??? It was the early 2000s Elena could have just been a cheerleader with food issues who didn’t eat the breakfasts that her parents were lovingly adding vervain to. Jenna wouldn’t know to continue that tradition because they died before they could tell her to)
John Gilbert (people will call him a deadbeat but I disagree)
Jonas Martin (chat is it being a bad dad to risk the life of one of your children in a desperate bid to save the soul of the other? I do think he was probably largely a good father, but I could see him being a stifling one towards Greta and I think we are definitely seeing the worst version of him in season two. I do think Jonas probably could left his seventeen-year-old son in the care of a trusted adult while on his vengeance quest, but I also understand why he wouldn’t want to after losing Greta)
Mr. Flemming (canonically still visits his daughter’s grave with his wife every week. I need an AU where they meet Elena after the finale desperately. I need her to have that)
Sarah’s Adoptive Father (Everything she says indicates that her adoptive parents were lovely. I’m happy for her.)
Vicente Cruz (I think the flashbacks adequately establish him to be the kind of person who never wanted Rayna to follow in his footsteps but was aware enough to know that, by virtue of being her father, she likely would inherit his path. I can see why Rayna loved him enough to damn herself)
Vincent Griffith (I am a Vincent/Freya/Keelin truther, so I have to assume he is little Nik’s bonus parent. I’m sure he does a good job at it. At worst he’s a good uncle probably)
Zach Salvatore (I DON’T! WANT! TO! TALK ABOUT IT!!!!! In my heart a good father. Anyone who disagrees should unfollow me)
Mostly Medium or the "IDK I'm Unsure" Dads:
Aaron Whitmore III (not much to say since Aaron’s dad was murdered when he was six. This is a note to myself to find the time to pull up the episode where they show the newspaper clipping of their murder and see if it mentions if little Aaron was at the campsite when it happened)
Ansel (I know he didn’t really have a chance to be Klaus’s dad or whatever but his affair put his other children at risk and likely did result in most of them dying which is not great!! How I choose to write him on a character level depends on the needs for my particular story, so I don’t have a strong opinion on it tbh. I suppose it depends on if you think he knew how/if Klaus was being abused as a child or not. I’m willing to put him at a 5/10 because I think you could certainly make him worse or better with context.)
August Müller (I find it hard to rank the Müller/Sienna parents because I really did not enjoy season five and his character… I’d say he’s probably somewhere towards the bottom of middle road. I just cannot imagine him being a good person even on a personal level, but if you were to pull out canon evidence proving that he actually was a super cool dad I wouldn’t be like “ oh no that cannot be true” worst person in X’s life could be the best in Y’s life sort of thing)
Guerra Fathers (that would be Gabriel, Eduardo, and Bentio I think, but I’m sure there are more but those are the ones I remember from the family tree. They are literally non-entities! However, we know that they at least managed to at least keep their family alive and hidden despite everything and Francesca seems maladjusted for reasons entirely separate from daddy issues, so my vote is that they were probably normal or at least I don’t care much)
Hayley’s Bio Father (no reason to believe he was a bad one)
Johnathan Gilbert (I don’t think we know anything about his relationship with his kid, but he managed to pull two baddies (I’m jealous of him, it should have been me) and was involved with both of their murders—though Pearl didn’t stay that way for vampire-related reasons. I find myself deeply invested in wanting to know what his deal is)
Joseph Salvatore (there are technically other named Salvatore fathers but I don’t care about them that much. I think Joseph is probably an okayish one considering he was trying to protect himself, his family, and his community against his weird vampire great-something-uncles. I don’t really blame him for sending Damon to the scientific whump capital of Virginia, if I had to deal with some freak showing up like 🔵_🔵 and saying stuff like “thanks for taking care of my house <3” before killing your friends and family, all I’m saying is if I was in an abusive relationship with a distant relative all because his abusive dad probably assaulted a maid and got her pregnant and now I’m beholden to him and his freaky brother tbh I would do it too)
Mathias (a dad the same way Eva and Valerie are moms—they’re maybe in another life parents. Freya seemed to like him and thought he was worth the risk, but also Freya does not always have the best taste (Keelin withstanding) on account of being an evil woman in constant duress so. Who’s to say.)
Richard Xavier Dumas (well. I don’t think anything points to him being a bad dad. Now an evil no good bad almost grandfather-in-law to Hayley on account of murdering her parents? Sure.)
Robert Williams (I know Stefan was sorry for murdering Dorian’s dad but he probably could stand to be even more sorry for it because like omfggggg you actually are not more important than this guy’s entire family)
Rudy Hopkins (I think he probably should have gotten a job that required less travel so he could be there for Bonnie. It maybe makes sense for him to trust Jenna and Sheila to help supplement her care, but once they both died he should have changed careers. If he is the type of specialized pharmaceutical rep who spend 75-80% of their time traveling then he would be making bank and could absolutely afford to figure it out. I am still of the opinion that making him an oil rig worker would make more sense—it is a demanding and laborious job that requires you spend half of your life away from your family and while you are making a lot of money, it’s dangerous and it’s not as profitable as a pharma job, so it’s much harder to leave the industry. Most of the people I know who work in the field have a hard time even making it all the way back home because the two weeks of non-stop grueling physical labor take so much out of you that they usually crash before they can make the trip. Additionally traveling all the way home, sometimes across several states, cuts into the profit they make because most companies don’t pay for your trip home while most pharma jobs would if he’s a traveling rep, so. :/ I just feel like there isn’t a good enough reason for him to not be home more, so it reads like a deficiency in his character, which means despite him seeming like a nice father when we do see them interact, I cannot rank him as a mostly good dad… he is firmly mostly medium to me)
Alaric Saltzman (I don’t want to talk about it)
Benjamin Lockwood (canonically owned slaves. so. yeah. George seems pretty weird if I’m being honest, so I can’t imagine Benjamine was a particularly amazing one but his son also has that “I have never been told no” swagger so *I wave my hands* I’m putting him in mostly bad because of the slaves, would be in hellfire level as a person but this is about fatherhood or whatever)
Camille’s Father (didn’t bother to go to Sean, Camille, or Kieran’s funerals. What the heck is his problem???)
Count de Martel (no way does a good dad produce children as maladjusted as Aurora and Tristan, I know he’s a bad dad I just can’t prove it)
Gia’s Stepdad (she says he’s a jerk!!! I’m inclined to believe her!!!)
Inadu’s Father (is he a normal deadbeat or was he just not invited to the “lets all get together and murder Inadu” party??? If he was part of the party and I just didn’t notice him then please assume I’d like him moved down to the hellfire level, that’s my girl and I don’t care about her crimes)
Katherine’s father (bad no-good guy! I am generally against blaming people’s behavior on other characters unless you do it do a dad so: *clears my throat so I sound like Damon* I wouldn't have even been in town to turn Vicki into a murderous vampire if I wasn't trying to get Katherine out of a tomb she wasn't in *I clear my throat again and continue in his voice* really if you think about it, this is all her dad’s fault)
Klaus (terrible no good bad horrible dad to marcel. Medium okay goodish dad to Hope most of the time. Weird daddy figure to Lucien (who wants to sleep with him) and Tyler (whom Klaus desperately wants to put in his basement and poke with sharp sticks) so. Like. 5/10? 4? Idk I feel like he could be much better at this whole thing. He would be in the medium section if it weren’t the aforementioned crimes against our shared son, Marcellus Gerard)
Pastor Young (tfw your father loses his mind and commits murder-suicide with twelve of the most prominent people in town that you’ve known since you were a baby and you’re all alone now and he knew about vampires and didn’t tell you so you accidentally get taken advantage of by some group of vampire misfit toys. Like. Genuinely. What the hell. Leave her alone. I consider him a mildly bad dad because of the losing his mind and murdering a bunch of people thing is bad, but he could have taken April with him but chose not to… and Silas is pretty good at making people lose their minds so. Extenuating circumstances, however, I’m sure this turbo sucked for April)
Peter Maxwell (my #1 opp)
Richard Lockwood (*Klaus-and-his-pseudo-sons conspiracy theorist voice* no babe you don’t get it, it’s about father-sons. It’s about Klaus and Mikael—Lucien as an outsider within his own Always and Forever, Marcel and his connection to bastardhood and kinghood and the cycle and how it do be cycling, and Tyler with his abusive father and mother who loves him but chooses to stay—)
Tripp’s Father (apparently he was such a bad dad that Tripp took his mom’s maiden name)
Bill Forbes (tfw your irl gay dad puts you through metaphorical gay torture-basement conversion camp because vampirism has made you metaphorically gay and he is metaphorically a violent homophobe)
Giuseppe Salvatore (the worst people you know think that Lily is a worse parent than him. They can’t stand to see a milf succeed. They are weak willed and will not see the gates of heaven if I have anything to say about it. I also don’t like the actor they picked for him in the later seasons recast. But, yeah, terms of being a dad like omfgggggg he is not good)
Hayley’s Adoptive Father (made the list for the same reason his wife made the bad moms list. Who the hell lets a 13-year-old get so drunk on a boat that she accidentally kills someone and then presumably covers it up—Hayley doesn’t seem to have a criminal record—and then kicks her out when she becomes a wolf once a month???? If you have enough money to have a boat and cover up your adopted kid’s murder then buy a wolf-proof kennel from a wildlife sanctuary oh my god)
Joshua Parker (I find him interesting on a personal level but he did impregnate his wife over and over until he had human sacrifices that he liked more than the last two for the death cult he runs)
Mikael (I would probably be more interested in him on a personal level if people weren’t so annoying about his wife (someone free my goat, she did almost everything they claim she did but I subscribe to the “it’s not a crime if you’re a milf” school of philosophy) but lmfao yeah he’s a turbo bad dad)
Papa Tunde (on one hand I do think his rage towards Klaus for murdering his sons and presenting their heads to him is completely valid, but on the other I do think the validity of that rage is perhaps undercut by turning said sons into vectors of some of the most dangerous and powerful sacrificial magic we see in the series. My advice would be to not do that)
The Governor (no offense to everyone who thinks Mikael is the worst dad, but they’re all wrong. It’s this guy)
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