User blog comment:ImperiexSeed/The oldest being, archangel or leviathan?/@comment-190.92.7.204-20150612220839/@comment-5619706-20150614135942

"Crowley even said Cain was the deadliest demon alive"

That's the jey word, TwilightDespair5, alive. Lilith was already dead ;)

In all seriousness, though. Debating between Lilith and Cain is unfair for Lilith simply because Cain was written in later seasons. The writers have to always find a way to have a bigger and bigger threat as seasons pass (this means coming up with even more powerful powers than those shown before), and the current lore we have is almost far removed from the lore we had when Kripke ran the show.

Take note that when discussing Knights of Hell lore, they always avoid bringing into topic the white-eyed demons (themselves capable of overpowering/banishing angels), and Abaddon herself was very inconsistent with her powers and appeared weaker every after appearance in the show. Even their origins are completely inconsistent--first they were handpicked by Lucifer, then they were trained or created by Cain. Angels predated demons and the Knights of Hell has a sigil in the language that pre-dated Enochian (the language of angels).

Moreover, is Cain himself powerful? Or was it the mark that made him so? If another demon was to wield the mark, would they be as powerful as Cain? Remember Dean did overpower Abaddon when he had the mark--and Dean was still human then. We should also refrain from discounting the fact that Lilith was also personally turned by Lucifer, a trait that Cain also possessed.

My last problem with Lilith "being unable to kill" angels as a point against herself and for Cain, is that even humans and lower demons managed to kill angels in the show. It just depends on the plot armor characters have. It doesn't make much sense for a lesser white-eyed demon to mop the floor with angels twice and have his boss be incapable of doing so when power structure in hell pre-apocalypse has almost always been about raw demonic power and strength. Just like how Eve, an ancient creature capable of neutralizing angels could be killed easily by Dean.