User blog:NaiflidG/Speculation on the origins of the demonic white light

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I had been working on a series of blogs I had planned to post over the summer that would try to dig into areas the show glossed over (unfortunately, I don't think I'll be posting any of them, partially because they got way too long, and partially because recent seasons of Supernatural have dried up a lot of my old enthusiasm for the show). One of those areas was going to be the various demons's plans and motivations over the seasons, and what may have been going on behind the scenes with each of them, like why Lilith acted the way she did towards Sam. When analyzing her attack on Sam at the end of "No Rest for the Wicked", I realized that the white light was the first power she used on him to fail, and that afterwards all of her powers seemed to be nullified when she tried to use them against Sam. If you'll recall, this was the first time that a demon's powers actually failed to work on someone, and all this happened while lesser demons were successful in using lesser powers on Sam before and after this incident. At first, I assumed that Lilith had been conning Sam into thinking her powers didn't work on him, to strengthen Ruby's case that Sam and Sam alone could kill her. Makes sense. Only problem is that Samhain also used the white light on Sam, and this also failed to work on him, and Samhain had no reason to fake it. That suggested something a little more complicated.

Bear with me here, because we're about to get into wild speculation. Some of you might remember a post on a talk page I made (don't remember which one, sorry) that speculated that demons (as a whole) are so much more powerful than ghosts (as a whole) because of Lucifer's own archangel powers having been partially "inherited" by the demons he made (e.g. Lilith, Cain) and this power seeping in through multiple "generations" of demons. I think that I might have even made the post to explain why some demons have certain angelic powers such as the white light that they should, by all rights, not have. Let me take that piece of speculation one step further to say that Lucifer is linked to his demonic children in the same way that Eve was to her monstorous ones. As the maker of their species, Lucifer is the one from whom demons draw their higher-class powers. This may be supported by how the cambion Jesse Turner grew exponentially powerful just from being on the same plane of existence as the demons's god Lucifer. That suggests a certain connection between Jesse and Lucifer that could extend to all demonic entities, albeit to a lesser degree among the most recent "generation" of demons (who are more removed from Lucifer than the originals who had been made by him directly). Lilith, having been made directly by Lucifer and indeed the first of his "children" (effectively making her the "Alpha Demon" if there were such a thing), would thus possess a stronger connection to him from which she would draw more power than many other (if not all other) demons, even enabling her to wield the angels's signature white light ability. This stronger connection also works the other way, making Lucifer as connected to Lilith and her powers as she is to him and his.

The explanation I came up for "No Rest for the Wicked" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" is that the white light failed on Sam because it was a wholly angelic power drawn from Lucifer himself, and it would not work on Sam because Lucifer would not harm his destined savior and true vessel. Lucifer became aware of what Lilith and Samhain were trying to use his power for--specifically, on whom--and deactivated their powers to shield his vessel from the threat his demons posed. It is possible that this happening proved to Lilith that Sam was Lucifer's true vessel, resulting in her drastically toning down her assassination attempts from then on. Were Lilith and Samhain capable of using any of their other powers on Sam? I don't think so. Lilith appeared to be trying to fling Sam back telekinetically after the white light failed, and that also failed; Samhain was forced to fight back against Sam in hand-to-hand ocmbat instead of even attempting anything else on him. I take that to mean that once they tried to use Lucifer's power on Sam, Lucifer went so far as to turn off the powers they possessed that were not directly linked to him and thus protected Sam against all the powers they had.

Does this make sense to anyone else? I think it does, but I may need to spend more time thinking about it to sketch out the details on this connection to Lucifer, how aware he is of his demons's actions, and how much control he has over their powers.