Elena Gilbert was a central character on Legacies.
Set in vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore. Elena and her friends also often found themselves caught up in various villainous plots and the factional conflicts between opposing supernatural creatures - including werewolves, witches, hunters, and ghosts. Among others, the series also starred Steven R. McQueen as Elena's brother Jeremy Gilbert, Kat Graham as Bonnie Bennett, and Candice King as Caroline Forbes. Despite the large ensemble, Dobrev served as The Vampire Diaries' core - with the actress playing differing versions of Elena and several doppelgängers.
In 2015, it was announced that Dobrev would leave the show following The Vampire Diaries season 6 finale. Many leaped on the notion that her break-up with co-star Ian Somerhalder (who played Damon) fueled the decision. However, that turned out to be erroneous, with the pair remaining good friends until this day. In actual fact, Dobrev revealed in an Instagram post that she'd always viewed Elena's journey as being one comprised of six seasons. Across that time, as Dobrev also stated that she'd played "a human, a vampire, a doppelgänger, a crazy immortal, a doppelgänger pretending to be human, a human pretending to be a doppelgänger." Equally, her many characters had been "kidnapped, killed, resurrected, tortured, cursed, body-snatched, enjoyed two epic on-screen romances, and much more."
Playing a lead on a TV show is an exhausting endeavor under normal circumstances. Given the wealth of characters Dobrev played and how quickly paced the stories of The Vampire Diaries were, it was no doubt doubly so in this case. Elena alone had been put through so much of a ringer across the six seasons that there were few fresh directions to go. As such, despite her evident love and loyalty to the cast and crew, it's understandable that Dobrev would welcome a break and some new challenges. Following her departure from The Vampire Diaries, The Final Girls. Subsequently, her departure allowed more ing characters to come into the spotlight and experience fresh challenges of their own.
The Vampire Diaries season 7 and season 8 turned its focus on delving deeper into the complicated brotherly bond between Stefan and Damon, which often served as a source of conflict and emotional turmoil. Equally, the writers went on to make the relationship between Stefan and Caroline more central. Such turns served the show well, sustaining its ionate following for two more seasons. Dobrev would briefly return, however, reappearing in the Vampire Diaries series finale as both Elena and her evil doppelgänger Katherine. The actress's extended absence from The Vampire Diaries, while leaving somewhat of a void, did little to hinder bringing the character's story full circle.