Hope Is Officially a Tribrid — but Can Someone Explain How?

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers through Season 4, Episode 3 of Legacies.

Well, Legacies fans have been waiting for this day for a long time — Tribrid Hope has arrived! It's all been leading up to this. Can Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) defeat Malivore once and for all? Only time will tell, but in the meantime, let's back up a little since Hope just became a Tribrid.

Being a Tribrid means that Hope now has vampire, werewolf, and witch powers all activated at the same time. Her father, Klaus (Joseph Morgan), was the Original Hybrid, meaning he was both a vampire and a werewolf. But he also had untapped magical abilities courtesy of his own mother. He passed down all of this to his daughter, who also got her werewolf background from her mother, Hayley (Pheobe Tonkin).

But if Klaus had vampire, werewolf, and witch powers, why wasn't he a Tribrid? Because, as The Vampire Diaries often is, it's more complicated than that. Let's unpack why Hope is a witch and vampire, while Klaus had to lose his witch abilities in his transition to become a vampire.

Here's the real answer: Legacies hasn't done a great job explaining the reason why Hope could keep her witch side when her father couldn't. According to supernatural law, as explained and demonstrated in The Vampire Diaries, witches are considered servants of Nature. Meanwhile, vampires are considered abominations to Nature. So, should a witch die with vampire blood in their system, they will lose their connection to their magic upon waking as a vampire.

Of course, as is usually the case in this franchise, there are exceptions to the rule. The one we saw in The Vampire Diaries was the Gemini Coven of siphoners. Siphoners don't possess magic themselves, but they can "siphon" it off of other beings or objects that are magical. Because they aren't born with magic and therefore not servants of Nature, they can keep their abilities in death, allowing for a witch-vampire hybrid. Hence why Kai Parker (Chris Wood) was able to be both in the Vampire Diaries universe.

But because he was born with witch abilities, Klaus lost his witch side when he was turned into a vampire. So, why was Hope excused from that and able to become a Tribrid? For starters, how Hope was conceived alone is confusing. Technically, vamps can't have kids. Hope was conceived through Klaus's werewolf side, which means that she was special before she was even born.

Add to the fact that there's a "firstborn curse" in Klaus's mother's family, making every firstborn an extremely powerful witch, and you have the makings for a very unique witch in Hope. But is that curse strong enough to allow a witch-vampire hybrid who isn't a siphoner? Apparently not or Klaus would still have witch powers.

We don't have a full answer as to why Hope is able to be a non-siphoner witch-vampire hybrid, but the general consensus seems to be that Nature is a very fickle (and powerful) thing. Nature governs the universe and decides what can and cannot exist. And most Legacies fans chalk Hope's witch abilities up to the fact that Malivore can only be killed by all three of the beings that created him: a werewolf, a vampire, and a witch. And someone needs to defeat Malivore.

Nature, the all-knowing force, may have allowed Hope to exist because it knew that she was not Klaus. Klaus is a major antagonist throughout The Vampire Diaries, and though he's viewed more favorably by fans after his time on The Originals, he has always been capable of great evil. A Tribrid Klaus may never have found Hayley, never have become a loving father, and may have even found an ally in Malivore, rather than an enemy.

As explained by Freya (Riley Voelkel), Klaus's elder sister, in Season 4, Episode 3 of Legacies, to Hope, "You are equal parts your father and mother, and she would never disappear without a fight. Ever since you were little, people were terrified of what you could become because they were afraid that you might turn out like your dad."

"But you know what I think?" she continued. "I loved Niklaus. He was complicated and flawed and loyal, and he would have let the world burn just to save the people he loved. But you, you’re willing to let go of someone you love to save innocent people that you’ll never even meet. So I think you’re already better than all of us, and that your father and mother would say the same.”

So although technically Klaus may have had the right parts to make a Tribrid, we often forget that Hope is her mother's daughter too. Perhaps Nature believed that Hayley and Klaus created the right balance to finally defeat Malivore.

To see how Tribrid Hope fares, watch Legacies, Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST on the CW.