The Originals · A Viewer's Companion
Every vampire on Earth descends from one Norse family — and all of them are in New Orleans, feuding. This chart untangles who is actually blood: absinthe-green borders are Mikaelson blood (the Original vampires and their parents), gold is the family they made or married, and violet is New Orleans itself — the witches and humans caught in the middle. Dashed rust lines mark kinship somebody tried to bury.
Spoiler-safe mode is on: death markers, secret-reveal labels and finale outcomes are hidden on this chart and in the notes below. Use the “Spoilers” button in the top bar to show everything again.
The Originals assumes you know a decade of vampire lore. You need exactly these:
Around the year 1001, after losing her youngest son to werewolves, the witch Esther turned her husband and children into the world's first vampires — the Originals. Every vampire who has ever existed descends from their blood. Kill an Original, and their entire bloodline dies with them.
Esther had an affair with the werewolf alpha Ansel — so when Klaus made his first kill, a wolf curse woke in his blood. He's the original hybrid: vampire and werewolf both. Mikael raised him, despised him, and hunted him across centuries. That wound drives everything Klaus does.
One night with the werewolf Hayley leaves Klaus — impossibly — a father. Hope carries witch, wolf and vampire blood at once: the first tribrid. Protecting her is the reason this family of ancient predators plants its flag in New Orleans and holds it.
In the 1820s Klaus took in an enslaved orphan boy and raised him as a son. When the family returns in the pilot, Marcel is running the French Quarter as its self-crowned king — and by Season 3 the witches remake him into something even an Original can't kill. Family feud, with fangs.
The siblings grew up believing their eldest sister died of plague. In truth Esther traded Freya to her sister, the witch Dahlia, as payment for a fertility bargain — and Freya resurfaces, very much alive, in Season 2. That's why a "new" Mikaelson appears mid-series.
New Orleans witches can drop a spirit into a living host. Esther comes back wearing strangers (Cassie, then Lenore), and Finn spends most of Season 2 inside the witch Vincent Griffith — which is why Vincent's actor is credited as "Finn" for a stretch. If a character seems possessed, they probably are.
A thousand-year-old family plus a full city of witches — keep these straight:
The three "other" brothers. Elijah = the suit, the noble one, Klaus's keeper. Finn = the eldest brother, ashamed of what the family is and happy to punish it. Kol = the grinning wild card who'd rather be a witch again.
Three women who all live in the compound. Freya = the witch — the long-lost eldest sibling. Hayley = the werewolf who is Hope's mother. Keelin = the werewolf ER doctor Freya loves. Only Hayley has a child with a Mikaelson.
The two young witches. Davina = the French Quarter harvest girl who falls for Kol — powerful, but no relation. Hope = the actual Mikaelson daughter. Davina is a witch of the city; Hope is family.
The two New Orleans power players who aren't blood. Marcel = the vampire king of the Quarter, Klaus's adopted son. Vincent = the human-side leader of the city's nine covens. One rules the vampires, the other speaks for the witches.
Similar names, opposite men. Mikael = the vampire-hunting father with the M name and the murderous grudge. Marcel = the adopted son. If someone's terrified, it's Mikael they mean.
The silver daggers. A dagger dipped in white oak ash puts an Original into a death-sleep until it's pulled out. Klaus has boxed most of his siblings at some point — it's the show's favorite way to bench a Mikaelson.
Original = one of Esther's first vampires; ordinary stakes can't kill them, white oak can. Hybrid = vampire + werewolf (Klaus, later Hayley). Tribrid = witch + wolf + vampire in one — only Hope.
The Mikaelsons debuted as the villains of The Vampire Diaries — this show is their spin-off, moved to New Orleans. That family tangle (doppelgängers included) has its own chart.
Chart covers all five seasons of The Originals (2013–2018), through the series finale — spoilers to there. Relationships shown are as the show states them; the family sprawls further on The Vampire Diaries, where the Mikaelsons first appeared. Portraits are stills from the Vampire Diaries wiki, cropped and served from this site. Henrik, seen only in childhood flashbacks, keeps a monogram.