The Darkness

The Darkness is a primordial entity which has existed throughout eternity. After her brother God came into being, He created the Archangels to fight a terrible war against her. Not even the combined power of God and the Archangels could destroy it, so God succeeded only in sealing her away using the Mark of Cain as a lock and key. Whilst the Archangels battled her and thus knew of her existence, she was so ancient and mysterious that the Demons and even the Angels didn't believe she existed. Both Heaven and Hell thought it to be a "myth" or "scary bedtime story", told to keep others in line.

When Rowena used a spell from the Book of the Damned in order to free Dean Winchester of the Mark, the Darkness was unleashed once again. While on earth, The Darkness has taken the form of a woman, and spread a disease of darkness through human beings. She is somehow bonded, or one with the girl Amara.

History
According to Death, before there was the Earth, before there was any light, and before there was even God Himself, there was only the Darkness. Before Creation, The Darkness existed alongside her younger brother God. This being is credited as a powerful, amoral, horrible, destructive force that nearly obliterated anything in its path, causing nothing but chaos and destruction. Some time after God and Death came into being, God created the Leviathans, whom were the first beasts according to Death. However, as they proved to be too dangerous and destructive, God soon banished them away to Purgatory. He then created the Archangels, beings of supreme light. With His newly created Archangels, God battled against The Darkness in a terrible and chaotic war. Whilst even together they couldn't kill her, They managed to defeat the Darkness. God had tricked her and eventually sealed her away with a mark that would later be called the Mark of Cain. He then gave the Mark to Lucifer, His favorite angel and most valued Lieutenant, to guard and protect. The Mark however showed itself to be a curse; the dark effects of which corrupted Lucifer, leading to a chain of events that would see Lucifer cast out of Heaven. Lucifer then transferred the Mark on to Cain who then, thousands of years later, passed it on to Dean Winchester.

Season 10
The Mark of Cain on the arm of Dean Winchester was eventually removed with the Mark of Cain Removal spell by the witch Rowena. As Dean was the only living host of the mark remaining, the Darkness was unleashed once more. Immediately after she broke out of her prison, she rained down destruction and made a move to consume everything in her path.

Season 11
"We’re bound, Dean. We’ll always be bound. You helped me, I helped you. No matter where I am, who I am, we will always help each other."

- Amara

Shortly after breaking out of her prison, she spared Sam and Dean's life and thanked Dean for freeing her. She mentioned that she already helped him and Dean helped her, bound for eternity, she said they will always help each other. Michael or Lucifer recognized her release and both of them tried to warn the outside world. She temporarily assumed the form of an adult female human, but has since became one with a human baby, going by the name of Amara.



Following the Darkness' release, Sam began searching for a cure for the people infected by her. His search led him to find that Holy Fire cures her victims, but as Amara the Darkness began displaying telekinesis, causing Jenna to call Dean back. Her grandmother called an exorcist who was actually Crowley and Dean finds the Mark of Cain on Amara's chest, causing him to realize she is the Darkness. Amara had consumed Jenna's soul and shortly afterwards grew into a little girl. Amara left and later encountered Crowley who offered her people to feed off of. Crowley took Amara to his base on Earth where he assigned her a demonic 'nanny' and began educating her about what has happened since she was locked away. He was essentially spoiling her with literally whatever she asked for so as to assure her allegiance. Amara for the most part proved complacent and calm, asking Crowley many questions about the world God created while she was learning but expressed a slight fear of Him. She even came to call Crowley "Uncle Crowley" despite the fact that she was aeons older than him. All the while however she began to plot with a reflection of herself in a mirror behind Crowley's back. "Good, Evil, Heaven, Hell, People, it all seems so unimportant"

- Amara

Meanwhile Amara was was constantly hungry for souls to consume, which Crowley (at first) happily (and later reluctantly) facilitated by feeding her random demons in deceased vessels. Amara's appetite however only grew to greater levels and eventually resulted in her consuming both of her demonic nannies and her taking on an older form, much to the concern of Crowley. When Crowley tried to dissuade her from consuming more demonic souls, she became angry and demanded to be fed.

Some time later and unbeknownst to Crowley, Amara left Hell to explore the Earth and observe the humans. Her travels eventually brought her to Fall River, Massachusetts where she came across the Lizzie Borden Hotel and Museum as well as the Lizzie Borden super-fan Len. After chatting with him briefly, Amara then devoured Len's soul, which subsequently extinguished his passion for Borden altogether and robbed him of his conscience. Amara then continued a spree of soul-devouring both in the hotel and in the surrounding area, resulting in a short series of grusome axe murders by one of her victims which were intially believed the work of the ghost of Lizzie herself by the Winchesters, who had come to Fall River to investigate. The streak ended when Len saved the brothers by axing the real killer in the back while she had Sam at gunpoint and the Winchesters left Fall River to pursue Amara, but as they drove away, Amara emerged from out of a treeline, smiled and simply said "Thank you Dean", evoking her earlier promise that Dean would always help her in the end.

Crowley became increasingly worried by Amara's voracious appetite as she continued to consume demons faster than they could be produced. Tired of her sneaking out to snack on human souls, Crowley subdued her in a display of power to curb her rebelliousness and worked out a shaky agreement with her to diet and be patient. Amara reluctantly agreed. While on her new regime, the Winchester brothers tracked her and Crowley to an abandoned insane asylum and busted in intent upon killing Amara. While Sam held Crowley's demons at bay, Dean marched into Amara's room with the demon-knife and went to attack her but was stopped and pinned to a pillar by Crowley. Set on finally killing Dean and Sam once and for all, Crowley was ironically thwarted by Amara, who betrayed him by pinning him against a wall and torturing him into guarenteeing safe passage out for Dean. Amara then declared her alliance with Crowley over. Crowley had no choice but to comply and then fled. Amara released Dean and stood before him with knife in hand but try as he might, Dean could not raise a hand against her, in keeping with her vow that neither would ever hurt the other. Dean demanded to know her intentions, to which Amara simply replied that she was out to settle a score, the oldest score of all time. The Winchesters in vain tried to attack her simultaneously but Amara telekinetically flung them away and marched out of the asylum before vanishing. Later on, she was seen walking down a busy street admiring the human beings.

Personality
Due to her long imprisonment, The Darkness has yet to learn many things about God's creations. She expressed confusion regarding the question why He created a world in which people suffer and die. She even believes that her brother "screwed up" by creating this world while claiming that He tricked and imprisoned her for the sake of His own ego. She said that she wants to settle an old score - the oldest score, showing that she is still very upset about her younger brother. The Darkness is also shown to be impatient and easily angered when she is not given what she desires immediately, in keeping with her (then) current form of a spoiled young girl. However, she is also able to recognize human emotions and can influence them in a positive manner, some of the humans who lost their souls to her described her as a goddess afterwards and felt generally better.

Powers & Abilities
Being imprisoned and bound for billions of years has weakened the Darkness almost completely, but she is slowly healing and gaining back her powers by absorbing human and demon souls.
 * Immortality - The Darkness is in fact amortal, the precursor to Immortality, and predates everything, including both God Himself and even Death itself. It even claimed that she didn't know who Death was, and that Death didn't know her. It is an ageless and invulnerable force which cannot die because, essentially, it was never alive to begin with.
 * Nigh-Omnipotence - Castiel describes the darkness' power level as near infinite, she describes herself as mightier than God, in fact she is so unimaginably strong that even He couldn't defeat her without the archangels. Only the combined power of Him and His archangels were enough to eventually seal her away by tricking her first. Even Death was willing to make sure the Mark of Cain, the lock on the Darkness, wasn't broken. Considering the force it took just to fight it back and imprison it, the Darkness is the most powerful evil force in the Supernatural universe. She seems to have a distributed consciousness or at least some kind of local Omnipresence, while a part of her talked to Dean, the smoke form part of her was still expanding around them.
 * Cosmic Awareness - Being older than God Himself, the Darkness knows many things, and is still learning about the Universe which God made while she was locked away. However, she was immediately able to speak the English language.
 * Reality Warping - While she conversed with Dean, her smoke form was still expanding, causing immense winds. However, they were completely unaffected by them, indicating that she has tremendous control over the physical Universe.
 * Flight - The Darkness, while disembodied, can fly in a similar manner to demons and angels without a vessel.
 * Indestructibility - Being amortal, the Darkness is the only conscious thing that will exist forever.
 * Invulnerability - Considering its ability to stand against God and His archangels, the Darkness can be assumed to have an immense resilience to physical and supernatural attacks that likely constitutes invincibility.
 * Weather Manipulation - As The Darkness expanded on Earth, it caused strong and powerful winds.
 * Apporting - She was able to teleport Dean out of his car without merely a word.
 * Telekinesis - In the form of Amara, the Darkness displayed telekinesis.
 * Soul Consumption - In the form of Amara, the Darkness was able to eat Deputy Jenna Nickerson's soul which made her to grow into a little girl and later a preteen girl.
 * Corrupting Affect - The Darkness seems to be a corrupting force to whatever it comes in contact with. It corrupted the Mark of Cain to a curse that would make killing the host impossible, even for Death, an entity that was immensely strong and powerful in his own right. It also corrupted anyone with the Mark into a killer. When released, those who came in contact with the initial release of the Darkness turned into a meaningless killer. Reaper Billie told Sam that he was "unclean" in the biblical sense from being infected by a rabid aside from his actions like his part in killing Death.
 * Empathy - The Darkness can feel and influence the emotions of humans and the human soul.

Weaknesses
The Darkness is beyond destruction as it is amortal, not technically even alive; however it has weaknesses, and is possible to seal away.
 * High-Tier Entities - The combined strength of God and the archangels was strong enough to bind the Darkness, and seal it with a lock.
 * The Mark of Cain - The Mark of Cain was the "lock" to the prison that held the Darkness back. As long as one person bore the Mark, the Darkness would remain sealed. With its removal, the Darkness was set free once more.

Appearances

 * Season 10
 * Brother's Keeper


 * Season 11
 * Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire
 * Form and Void
 * The Bad Seed
 * Baby (mentioned)
 * Thin Lizzie
 * Our Little World

Trivia

 * The Darkness is similar to many terms and entities found in many creation myths.
 * Chaos/Nun in Greek/Egyptian mythology, which predated everything and created or from which the gods came from.
 * Erebus in Greco-Roman Mythology, who is the primordial embodiment of darkness.
 * Ginnungagap from the Norse Creation Myth, was a primordial void.
 * The terrible battle between God and the Darkness seems to fit with the first day of creation in Genesis. "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness." It is possible that the "light" he created was the archangels, and him he separating the "light" and "dark" was Him locking away the Darkness.
 * The name Amara occurs in many cultures and is ascribed a variety of meanings: "eternal" (German), "unfading" (Greek), "immortal" (Sanskrit) and "bitter" (Latin). In Bahasa Indonesia the word amara(h) means "anger" or "run amok". In Ethiopian legends, Amara is the name for paradise.
 * The Darkness's release was felt by both Michael and Lucifer from within the Cage, marking the first time since their imprisonment that both archangels have attempted to communicate with the outside world.
 * It is the true source of where Knights of Hell come from, channeled though The Mark of Cain.
 * The Darkness is the fourth entity either that was sealed away to be unleashed, the first being a huge number a demons, the second being Lucifer himself, and the third being the Leviathans.
 * The Darkness predates the Universe.
 * The Darkness is older than God Himself, as stated by Death. This makes The Darkness the oldest being to ever exist in the series.
 * Releasing The Darkness is overall easier than freeing Lucifer, but the spell to release the Mark was not even known of until recently, previously making removing the Mark impossible. In contrast, it was known Lucifer could be freed, but very hard to do, where as the Darkness was believed to be eternally bound. However once the spell was revealed it was relatively easy to release.
 * It's release set off alarms in Heaven and Hell (and likely Purgatory) that, according to angels and demons, hadn't gone off in 'Ever'.
 * As of Baby, Monsters are now becoming aware of the Darkness' existence, and that it is coming. Some are now building armies to make a stand and buy more time to survive. Now Humans, Angels, Demons, and Monsters know of the Darkness' release and are very scared of it.
 * The Darkness shares many similarities to The First Evil from Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. Both existed long before the universe. Both are not truly living entities but forces that can never die, and both are the source and root of all evil in existence. Both are capable of appearing as visions or illusions to others in different forms.
 * The Darkness also shares a lot of similarities with the Great Darkness from Hellblazer/Constantine, which was a major inspiration for Kripke and Supernatural. They are named similarly and both existed before God created light and was released as a form of engulfing blanket of thick smoke.
 * The Darkness has since been revealed to be God's older sister, whom He was forced to betray in order to bring about Creation and the Universe.