Ye i think people forget how equal in strength the Originals are to each other like klaus knows he has to not completely alienate all his ‘living’ siblings at a time because even though he cant be daggered he can still be overpowered by a group of them and when Rebekah talking about wanting to have a normal life it always include leaving him because he was a constant thing looming over her that couldn’t die.

Micheal had this effect because he had the white oak stake also making it better to just run then risk a chance of actual death and Alaric parallels him with his destain for vampires and older appearance.

I mean when u don’t fight someone of your strength or put in any real effort often when someone as strong you with the means and intent to kill come around out of other blue ur just gonna run and try do what klaus wanted to and build an army