Elena Gilbert is the central character, the heroine and the protagonist of The Vampire Diaries novel series. Elena is the soulmate and former girlfriend of Stefan Salvatore , the current girlfriend and object of obsession of Damon Salvatore , the best friend of Bonnie McCullough and Meredith Sulez , the former best friend and recently-turned-rival of Caroline Forbes , the first love, childhood friend and ex-girlfriend of Matt Honeycutt , and the arch enemy of Klaus and Katherine von Swartzschild.
Elena was born in the small town of Fells Church, Virginia. Both of her parents had died in a tragic and fatal car accident when she was younger. Because of this, she and her four year old younger sister Margaret, were taken in and were raised by her Aunt Judith Gilbert, who is her father's sister.
Throughout the series, Elena is called the 'Golden Girl'. In the first book of the original series, The Awakening , Elena Gilbert is a high school Senior, who is very popular, extremely beautiful, admired by all the girls and the object of affection of many boys in the town of Fell's Church. Elena is cool, blonde and slender; the girl every boy wants and the girl every other girl wants to be. Always in control, no boy that she has ever seen or dated has ever stirred her innermost feelings, passions and desires.
Until she meets a handsome, foreign, mysterious Italian boy, Stefan Salvatore. Something completely unusual about the new mysterious guy Stefan makes her strongly desire him with deep, profound, intense and indescribable passion, an overwhelming passion and desire that Elena has never experienced before in her entire lifetime. Immediately, indescribably and deeply drawn to Stefan with a frightening and scary intensity, Elena knows that she must be with Stefan under any circumstances, even if it kills them both.
Stefan enrolls at her high school, Robert E. Lee High. In the beginning, he completely ignores her attempts to attract his attention due to the extremely intense, profound, and electrifying connection the both of them share with one another.
