The love triangle between Elena, Stefan, and Damon was at the center of during its early seasons, and it all began when Damon started falling in love with his brother's girlfriend. At first, Damon was seemingly only enthralled by Elena because she was Katherine Pierce's doppelgänger (the woman he had been in love with for more than a century). One season 1 episode changed everything for the vampire, though. Of course, Elena had feelings for Stefan at the show's beginning, but everything became more complicated once she met Damon and truly got to know him.
The CW supernatural teen drama television series starred Nina Dobrev as Elena (and Katherine) and Ian Somerhalder as Damon, and their characters' relationship was one that many viewers were rooting for.
Compared to Stefan and Elena, Damon and Elena's romance was more akin to a slow burn that developed over the course of many seasons. Despite the long wait for them to finally be together, Damon's feelings for Elena formed early in .
season 1, episode 11, began with Damon saving Elena from a mysterious figure. Elena fainted, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in the car with Damon, who was taking her on a road trip to Georgia.
There, Damon sought advice from a witch named Bree about how to free Katherine from the tomb. However, Lee, Lexi's boyfriend, showed up and tried to kill Damon. Elena convinced him not to, and she and Damon returned to Mystic Falls relatively unharmed. Amongst the chaos, most agree that this is the episode when Damon began to fall in love with Elena.
As mentioned above, Damon's attraction towards Elena initially stemmed from her resemblance to Katherine, Elena's doppelgänger and the vampire who turned him and Stefan in 1864. However, starting in episode 11, Damon begins to separate the two women, and his feelings for Elena grow while his love for Katherine diminishes.
The first step to this slow development of in is when they get to know one another better during the road trip to Georgia in season 1, episode 11.
Damon was first drawn to Elena because she looked like Katherine. But once he spent time getting to know her as Elena and not as Katherine's doppelgänger, Damon began falling in love with Elena solely because of her and not because of the vampire who turned him.
It didn't take too long for him to develop feelings for Elena once he looked past the Katherine of it all. Plus, Elena's unwillingness to be afraid of Damon certainly helped his attraction towards her. She saw through his vampire facade, and ultimately, Elena reminded Damon of his humanity in .
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