Everything below is just my headcanon about Aro and Sulpicia’s possible backstories
Aro
Of all the Volturi, Aro is the one we actually know a bit about, but to me he still feels vague like something specific is missing. He’s not the kind of character who needs a tragic, tear-soaked backstory. The fact that he does what he does from cold calculation, not from some wounded past, makes him even creepier and more dangerous. So here’s my headcanon for his life before he became a vampire.
Aro was born into a big family of merchants, the second eldest son. Nobody expected him to join the military or become a hero; everyone assumed he’d take up the family trade. He didn’t resist that. If anything, he wanted to push the family business to a whole new level and he had the talent to do it.
He was driven by a deep desire to be more than just a small-town trader. He understood that the family business was a real avenue to achieve bigger ambitions.
From a young age he knew one thing clearly: he didn’t want to take orders, but he could and wanted to command. That distinction shaped him. He became an excellent businessman. He knew what people wanted, when to take risks, when to wait. He could manipulate people so skillfully they thought their choices were their own, never noticing his hand. He never looked threatening; he came off as charming, reliable, the kind of businessman you’d trust without questioning his motives.
But he forgot something obvious: human life is wildly unpredictable, and planning for years ahead can be fragile. During one caravan trip escorting the family goods, they were attacked by vampires. Aro was turned almost by chance, he wasn’t meant to be immortal, but fate dragged him into it. The first year as a vampire was apathy, loneliness, disappointment. He felt like his dreams and ambitions had been crushed.
Then he met Marcus, who became his guide into the chaotic vampire world. They formed a genuinely honest friendship because for Aro this new world didn’t fit into ordinary human categories. He soaked up everything Marcus told him, and realized vampirism was a second chance to pursue the ambitions that hadn’t died with his humanity. Marcus became more than a friend - he was Aro’s conscience. With Marcus he could talk about ideas of a “fair” world, share doubts. But for people like Aro, conscience is never decisive. Vampirism was his second chance, and he wouldn’t waste it on pity or passivity.
Aro didn’t crave heroic glory. He wanted recognition in a form that made the world respect him not just for power, but for the “logic” and necessity of his existence. He believed chaos was an opportunity more than a threat, and power was not only violence but constructive order and he saw himself as the only rightful architect of that order.
Sulpicia
She’s a lot trickier, because canon barely gives us anything to work with. What little we do get doesn’t really form a clear picture of her as a character. Canon says that when Aro started looking for a wife, he had specific criteria in mind. What those criteria were, though? No one knows. Was he only interested in someone with minimal ties to human society, or was there more to it? Canon doesn’t answer that. Personally, I like to think there was more (and no, not a gift), so I tried to sketch out what Sulpicia might be like. This is just my headcanon, nothing more.
Sulpicia is intelligent, self-aware, emotionally cold, and forced to grow up far too early. From a very young age, she understands that no one really needs her, and no one was waiting for her.
She was born during the late Roman Empire into a wealthy aristocratic family. Her parents raised her with the expectation that she would marry someone exceptional, someone worthy of her status. But that never happens - her parents die when she’s eleven.
After that, she’s taken in by distant relatives who aren’t exactly happy to have an extra mouth to feed. They take her in, but she never truly belongs there. She’s not mistreated in an obvious way she’s not turned into a servant like Cinderella but she constantly feels like she shouldn’t be there at all.
Her relatives focus on their own daughters, while Sulpicia fades into the background. And this is despite the fact that, when her parents were alive, she had the best of everything. That’s the environment she grows up in. She understands that eventually she’ll be married off as an afterthought, just to get rid of her.
And that’s when Aro appears. He’s looking for someone whose disappearance wouldn’t really matter. Sulpicia is perfect: good family, but completely unnecessary to it.
He courts her in a very polished, calculated way at first, but quickly realizes it doesn’t have much effect. She doesn’t believe his pretty words, doesn’t lose her head over him, doesn’t fall in love at first sight. At some point, she tells him outright that she’s not impressed. That she stopped expecting anything from life a long time ago. And that’s what actually catches his attention.
From that moment on, the pretense drops. Aro gets straight to the point. He tells her plainly that he doesn’t want her out of love he needs a woman who will stand by him and support him and Sulpicia agrees.
She knows perfectly well she’s not being chosen out of love, but in her situation, Aro is the best and maybe the only option. And honestly, the idea of standing beside someone who plans to rule immortals sounds a lot better than being married off to some decaying old nobleman. From the very beginning, she sees exactly who Aro is. She has no illusions about him.
As for their relationship, I don’t think love between them is impossible. It wouldn’t be soft or healthy more like something deeply wrong, maybe even a little disturbing but that doesn’t make it less interesting. Yes, it starts as a calculated marriage. But that doesn’t mean it can’t turn into something more over time. Even if there’s no love at first, there’s definitely interest.
And Aro was, without a doubt, impressed by her.
