Hey there people’s. I’ve seen some disagreement over which of our favorite Mikaelsons would win in an outright fight. I thought I’d throw my thoughts and theories into the pile.

To start off, a fully awakened Hope stomps Marcel out, there is no question of that. However, let’s look at Marcel vs Hope without Hope casting spells. Hope still wins as I do believe she is stronger than Marcel. I say this as Hope is a normal witch. What do I mean by this? I’m saying I think Hope’s witch magic feeds into vampirism and vice versa, just like it does with Hybrids. I say this because we know Vampirism will literally amp everything and put magic in you that grows. Hope already had massive amounts of power in her to begin with. Her vampirism would likely exponentially multiply that.

Marcel would certainly put up a fight, in fact I believe he’s strong enough and smart enough to make Hope try. However, all Hope’s sides feeding into each other would be too much even without Hope using spells. Adding to that, Hope is no slouch in strategy and combat experience, still Marcel could do some real damage if she’s cocky.

That’s my theory portion, now I want to discuss somethings we are shown and told in narrative.

Marcel’s poison; It’s effects on Hope are unknown, but death is not an option. At best she may be left like Elijah after a run through with Klaus venom. At worst it makes Hope high, or she might just Mikael the shit out of the venom. I say this because it is stated that red oak is the only thing that will kill her, not even god magic on its own can kill her.

Next is how we see the family confront Hope in the fourth season. They made her come via astral projection as they didn’t want to risk Hope’s get back, at least to my interpretation. This tells me they are aware that Marcel can’t beat Hope or at least aren’t willing to risk finding out. Freya could have lit one of those magic cancelling candles, but even with that option they didn’t use it. Maybe they knew they couldn’t win or wouldn’t risk it. At this time I also acknowledge that maybe they used this plan to get a gotcha moment on her considering how Vincent set up the spell.