Now that Elena has transcended into a sleeping beauty, fans of "The Vampire Diaries" can expect to see a "darker Damon" when the series returns to The CW this fall.

Elena said goodbye to her longtime lover and loved ones during the Season 6 finale after Kai put a spell on her that will keep her in a coma-like state as long as Bonnie is alive. As a result, it is likely that she remain locked in a coffin for the next 60 to 70 years.

During the ATX Television Festival last weekend, TVD creators Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson opened up about the future of Damon Salvatore and how Elena's comatose will affect him.

Throughout the last six seasons, Plec says that Damon has transformed from a villain to an obsessive stalker, to a lover boy and then to a hero.

"The Season 1 version of Damon is the straight villain with what we learned was an obsession with a woman who just happened to look like our lead woman. And then over time that grew into a love story and it grew into a hero story and it grew into a redemption story. So, he went through all those chapters. He went through redemption. He went through hero -- at least partially, the root of him as a sassy, 'take no prisoners, do what you got to do to get it done,' anti-hero is still very much there," said Plec, according to CrossMap.

Because Elena will be M.I.A., "he now has more freedom to kind of be messy with his choices. I think you'll see a darker Damon with the sort of wisdom of his experience, but a freedom to act out as he may feel like he needs to," she explained, according to MTV.

Meanwhile, Williamson added that Season 7 will include a lot of new elements that will cause viewers to "feel completely unlike what we've seen before."

Executive producer Caroline Dries also teased that Enzo will have a bigger role next season.

"I'm really looking forward to how Enzo gets put in the middle of Lily's heretic world and the Damon/Mystic Falls/Caroline world in season seven," Dries told E! News. "He needs to figure out which side he's on and who he's loyal to. There's going to be some major fallout to that."

This teaser comes as good news since Enzo's role on the show took a noticeable backseat during Season 6, which, ironically, is when he was promoted to a series regular.