Who Does Ian Somerhalder 'Ship?

I bet you never thought of this Vampire Diaries fans — Ian Somerhalder doesn't ship Delena or Stelena. In fact, he thinks that Elena should steer clear of the pairing off with either of the Salvatore brothers. The actor had an interesting but pretty great response to a fan asking which relationship from TVD 's ongoing Damon-Elena-Stefan love triangle he thinks is endgame. And I can't help but agree — maybe Elena is actually better off on her own, romance-junkies.

I'm more than guilty of letting myself get caught up in the never-ending romantic drama of The Vampire Diaries. (My 'ship allegiance is constantly changing. I know, I'm the worst.) And on the series that's put so much emphasis on its love triangle throughout the past five seasons, it's really easy to overlook the fact that Elena's relationship with the Salvatore brothers is actually really f—ked up. Are you still drawing a blank here? Well, during his recent interview with E!, Ian Somerhalder brought some serious perspective as to why we're all totally making a mistake in 'shipping Elena with either of the criminally handsome brothers. And if we really care about "what's right for Elena" and "what will make Elena happy" we should 100 percent agree. Somerhalder said of where the love triangle is going:

Where they're going — I honestly don't know. They've been through a lot together and everyone keeps saying, 'Oh, she needs to be with Damon, she needs to be with Stefan.' Here's the thing, does anyone not recognize the fact that we've killed her entire family? We killed her, caused her to burn her house down, we've destroyed the town — I mean, these two guys have destroyed her life. And everyone for some reason wants them to be together.

Well, shit, he's really got a point. We actually didn't recognize that — well, at least I didn't. I obviously remember the brothers Salvatore doing terrible things over the course of the series, but I never actually realized that it's kind of screwed up for Elena to have feelings for either one of them at all. After all, Stefan essentially killed her parents and everyone's taken turns killing Jeremy from time to time. (Seriously, how many times has that guy died?) But Somerhalder didn't stop there with his reasons why Delena shouldn't be together. The actor continued:

Also, two, I will throw this out there — Damon is 173 years old, she's 18. That is the ultimate case of cradle-robbing. Date someone your own age, Damon.

This one doesn't make me feel as guilty, because Damon was technically 24 years old when Katherine turned him into a vampire. So really, even though he's been alive (or dead?) for 173 years, he's not actually that old. And now that Elena's a vampire as well, they're technically even and of the same species. Cradle-robbing is not cool — but technically, Delena isn't that immoral. Sorry, Ian.

Were you expecting him to selfishly say that Elena should be with Damon forever and ever? Think again, people. This is a whole new scenario that most of us haven't even thought of — could TVD end with Elena choosing neither of the Salvatore brothers and dissolving their toxic three-way for good?

Nah, Delena forever.

Image: The CW