Now that The Vampire Diaries' Elena Gilbert is turning into a vampire, there's one question on everyone's mind: How long will it be before she has some hot, vampy sex?
The short answer: You may have to wait a while. "I'm not going to say she's not having loads of vampire sex off camera that we're not showing, but we have not yet shot a complete sexual act this season between Elena and anybody," executive producer Julie Plec tells TVGuide.com.
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In truth, sex is the last thing that Elena (Nina Dobrev) will be thinking when the show returns in October. As Elena told Stefan in the Season 2 episode "The Last Day," Elena never wanted the vampire life for herself and two seasons later, her feelings haven't changed. "This is a girl who really, truly valued her humanity and ... always wanted the choice of how to live her life," Plec says. And while Elena considers not completing the transition, "that moment is fleeting [because] she recognizes she has a responsibility to her brother to stick around," Plec says.
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As Elena goes through her transition, the opposing views about how one should feed and live their life will cause conflict between her two greatest allies — Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Stefan (Paul Wesley).
"Damon's point of view in all of this is that anything [Stefan's] trying to do to avoid Elena being a real vampire is just a delusional delay of the inevitable," Plec says. "While he can understand and appreciate that Stefan wants to protect her, [he feels he's] making a huge mistake because when all is said and done, [Damon thinks,] 'Name one vampire who went through the newbie phase and didn't take a life. Name me one vampire that didn't go off the rails, name me one vampire who didn't turn off their humanity for a while.' So that's where the conflict lies between Stefan and Damon. Stefan wants to protect her from that at all costs, and Damon is saying, 'It's going to happen' you may as well rip the Band-Aid off and let it bleed."
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Regardless of whose lifestyle Elena follows, there will be nothing easy about her road. "It wouldn't it feel right if it were easy," Plec says. "Elena has a lot of things working against her. There's the fact that her defining characteristic as a human being is her compassion for others which, as a vampire, is magnified and makes it very difficult to feed on a human being or an animal. Everything is heightened, so it's a whole new Elena that's magnified in catastrophic ways."
The Vampire Diaries returns on Thursday, Oct. 11 at 8/7c on The CW.
(Additional reporting by Natalie Abrams)