Mary Winchester

Mary Sandra Winchester (née Campbell) (born December 5, 1954) is a retired hunter, the daughter of Samuel and Deanna Campbell, the wife of John Winchester, and the mother of Dean and Sam Winchester. She was killed by the demon Azazel exactly six months after Sam was born, which spurred John into becoming a hunter to kill Azazel in revenge and raising their sons as hunters as well. 33 years later, after Dean reunited God and the Darkness, she was resurrected by the latter as a thank-you gift for Dean.

Background
Mary was born December 5, 1954 to a supernatural hunter couple Samuel and Deanna, who had not planned for her birth but regarded her as a "blessing" regardless. The family lived in Lawrence, Kansas.

Mary hated hunting; she sought to have a normal life so that she could be safe and raise a family. This caused tension between her and her father. When she fell in love with John Winchester, Samuel did not approve of their relationship because he believed John to be a naive civilian. Though Mary loved John, she did not tell him about the supernatural.

1973
Unbeknownst to her, Mary met the future version of her firstborn son, Dean, in "In The Beginning". She noticed him following her and John on a date, and violently confronted him before he revealed that he was also a supernatural hunter. She then took him back to her house, where he had dinner with her family despite Samuel's distrust of him.

A reluctant Mary worked a case with her father and Dean. They learned that Charlie Whitshire had unwittingly made a deal with a demon in order to protect his father from abusing his mother. From Charlie's description, Dean realized that the demon in question was Azazel, who had killed Mary in the future. Dean made her promise not to leave her bed on November 2, 1983, the night she was supposed to die. However, when she learned that Azazel was targeting a friend of hers named Liddy Walsh, Mary and Samuel intervened, in the process inadvertently drawing Azazel's attention to Mary due to her skills and courage.

Mary was terrified by the demon's interest in her. She spent time with John to try to clear her head. While he was in the middle of proposing to her, her father Samuel, who was possessed by Azazel, interrupted. He killed John then revealed that he had also killed her parents, devastating Mary. He then pressured her into making a deal for John's resurrection and her having a normal life; in exchange, she granted permission for him to enter her house in ten years. Dean arrived too late to stop her, and was returned to his own time by the angel Castiel.

Mary later married John and retired from hunting. The couple lived together at 485 Robintree.

1978
Mary became pregnant with Dean.

In "The Song Remains the Same", Mary's future sons arrived to prevent Anna Milton from killing John, thus preventing the birth of her youngest child, Sam, and the onset of the Apocalypse. Mary was vehemently against their presence because the last time she'd seen Dean, her parents were murdered. She also didn't want them getting her involved with hunting again.

Mary fended Anna off to protect John and distract Anna while Sam banished the angel with a sigil. During this fight, Mary exposed her hunting background to John, and was forced to reveal the truth about herself to him. John was upset that she hadn't told him earlier as well as being angry at her parents for endangering her life by raising her like that.

Mary led the rest of the Winchesters to a house her family had owned and kept stocked with weapons and measures against the supernatural for years. Sam taught her how to use holy oil to trap angels.

While preparing to fight Anna, Mary demanded an explanation as to why an angel wanted to kill her from Dean, who eventually revealed that the truth about himself and Sam to her. She was stricken with guilt and horror at the thought of raising them as hunters, but Dean revealed that she had been killed by Azazel and John trained them as hunters instead while seeking vengeance. Dean suggested that she try to flee with Sam before the demon came for them, but Sam himself stated that she should just leave John. While shocked by her sons' words, Mary remained steadfast that she could not leave John because she was pregnant with Dean.

Anna and fellow angel Uriel attacked after removing all the defenses the Winchesters had set up against them. Mary witnessed Sam's death at Anna's hands; however, when Anna turned to her, Michael possessed John, killed Anna, and sent Uriel back to Heaven. Michael also modified Mary's memories to remove her memory of meeting her sons as well as of the warning they gave her to ensure she would die as intended.

A family of her own
Mary gave birth to Dean on January 24, 1979.

A memory of Dean's from "Dark Side of the Moon" revealed that Mary and John's marriage was not as perfect as John later portrayed it as; at one point, they fought until John had to temporarily move out. She was upset by this, but a toddler Dean comforted her.

In 1980, Mary resumed hunting briefly to "tie up some loose ends." While in Emerson, Manitoba, Canada, Mary killed a werewolf she had history with and saved the life of a young boy named Asa Fox. As a result of the encounter with Mary, Asa was inspired to become a hunter himself.

Mary gave birth to Sam on May 2, 1983.

Death
As seen in the teaser of "Pilot", Mary awoke on November 2, 1983 due to the sounds of Sam crying over the baby monitor. She entered his nursery to find Azazel leaning over the infant's crib. She mistook him for John and decided to let him soothe Sam so she could return to bed.

However, Mary noticed a light flickering in the hallway and a television still on downstairs. She discovered John asleep in the living room. Much to her horror, she realized that the person upstairs was an intruder and rushed back to Sam's nursery, interrupting Azazel as he fed her son his blood--this is what Mary had given him permission for in 1973 without realizing it.



Azazel used telekinesis to drag Mary up the wall and pin her to the ceiling, at which point he slit her stomach. She screamed briefly, alerting John, who ran into the nursery. She could not speak to warn him and stared helplessly at her husband and her youngest son before John noticed her blood dripping onto Sam and looked up; Azazel then set her aflame, burning her alive.

Legacy
In lieu of her body, Mary's uncle put up a headstone to commemorate her in Greenville, Illinois, where he presumably lived. Sam and Dean never met her uncle. They visited her headstone in "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things".

After Mary's death, Azazel killed all of her remaining family, friends, and even acquaintances, such as her doctor, to hide his deal with her. Because her family and anyone associated with them died, Sam and Dean did not learn that their mother used to be a hunter until early in Season 4.

The memory of Mary and her death drove the remaining Winchester family to become hunters in order to track down and kill Azazel to avenge her. John continued to grieve for her even decades later, confessing in "Salvation" that he wanted her back. Dean's wish in "What Is And What Should Never Be" is for Mary to have never died, but he chooses to wake himself up from his dream when he realizes that a djinn has poisoned him in order to feed off of him until he dies. Dean avenged her at the end of the second season when he killed Azazel with the Colt. When undergoing demon blood detox in "When the Levee Breaks", a feverish Sam hallucinates her reassuring him that he is doing the right thing in drinking blood to kill Lilith.

Enemies of the Winchesters have been known to use the family's love and grief for Mary against them: besides the example of the djinn above, Zachariah used an illusion of Mary to make her sons suffer by manipulating their emotions in "Dark Side of the Moon", and in "Mommy Dearest" Eve assumed her shape to make a point about her love for her monstrous children.

For years after Mary's death, her ghost haunted the house she'd died in. Her death and Azazel's temporary presence drew a powerful, violent poltergeist to the house.

Mary's last chronological appearance as herself was in the Season 1 episode "Home", in which Sam's premonition led her sons back to their childhood home to hunt the poltergeist terrorizing the family currently living in the home. When the poltergeist tried to kill Sam, her ghost manifested, first as a flaming humanoid figure that walked out of the closet of the room that used to be Sam's nursery. She apologized to him for allowing Azazel to feed him blood. She confronted the poltergeist, telling it to leave her house and let go of her son, before she sacrificed herself to banish the poltergeist from the house. What became of her soul afterward is unknown: the psychic Missouri Moseley believed that she ceased to exist and Ash later tells Sam and Dean that he had not found her in Heaven. However it has been revealed that destroyed ghosts do in fact still move on to their destined resting places and perhaps Mary and John simply do not want to be found.

Resurrection
In Alpha and Omega, Sam and Dean visit Mary's grave before Dean goes to sacrifice himself to destroy the Darkness. After Dean helps the Darkness reconcile with God, the Darkness tells him that he gave her what she truly wanted so she will do the same for him. Shortly afterwards, Dean finds a resurrected and confused Mary in a nearby park.

In Keep Calm and Carry On, Dean is shocked by Mary's resurrection. Mary, not remembering her death or anything that came after it, is confused by Dean's presence and claim that he is her son. Dean tells Mary that he's not four anymore since she has been dead. Mary suddenly remembers her death at the hands of Azazel and lets up Dean who tells her that she has been dead for 33 years. Dean convinces Mary of his identity by reciting her family history and her history with John. Convinced, Mary hugs Dean and they sit on a bench in the park and Dean fills her in on all that she's missed over the last 33 years. Mary is stunned by the news that she met Dean through time travel twice and was resurrected by God's sister and met Dean while she was a ghost which she is unable to remember either.

After catching Mary up, Dean takes her to the Men of Letters bunker to meet Sam. Mary is shocked to find out that the Men of Letters are real as she'd only known them as a hunter's myth. Noticing blood on the ground, Dean hands Mary a gun and tells her to stay behind as he searches the bunker. Instead, Mary explores and hides when she hears someone enter. Emerging from hiding, Mary threatens Castiel at gunpoint until Dean defuses the situation. Dean explains to a shocked Castiel who Mary is and to the shocked Mary that Castiel is in fact an angel. After Castiel explains what happened before Lady Toni Bevell banished him, Dean searches through traffic cameras on the Winchester's laptop for the kidnapper's car. Mary is confused by the size of the computer before Dean locates the vehicle. Joining Dean and Castiel in the hunt for Sam, Mary goes with them to the bunker's garage where she recognizes the Impala as John's car and comments on how beautiful the car still is, treating the car in a similar manner to how Dean does.

Tracking the kidnapper's vehicle to the airport, the three question a man there about the kidnappers and Mary is surprised by Castiel acting violent when he's an angel. The man gives up the tail number of Toni's plane and Mary sits in a café and watches the changed world as Dean searches for information on the plane. When Castiel joins her, Mary tells him about how strange everything is to her, from the fact that she was resurrected at all to the world around her. Dean rejoins them and explains that the plane has a diplomatic registry, meaning that they can't access the flight plan. After Castiel spots a nearby veterinary clinic, the three realize Sam could've been treated there and kidnap the doctor for answers. After the man admits he treated Sam's leg wound for $100,000 but clearly holds something back, Mary orders Castiel to beat the answers out of him. The doctor finally tells them that he has Toni's phone number as she called to ask about the sedative he used on Sam and Mary watches with Castiel as Dean calls Toni.

Having failed to get anything from the phone call, the three make their way back to the bunker when the Impala is rammed by Ms. Watt in an SUV, knocking Mary unconscious. Castiel is able to determine that Mary is not seriously hurt before he and Dean are forced to fight Ms. Watt who has the upper hand due to a set of enchanted brass knuckles. As Ms. Watt prepares to kill Dean with his own gun, Mary regains consciousness and stabs Ms. Watt through the back with Castiel's dropped angel blade, killing her and saving Dean. As Dean and Castiel push Ms. Watt's SUV off the road, Mary sits inside the Impala door and stares at her hands before Dean tells her that they have a lead from Ms. Watt's cellphone. Mary tells him that she's not alright as she never wanted her children to become hunters, but Dean tells her that he and Sam have done a lot of good and the world is a better place with them in it as hunters. The three then set out for Aldrich, Missouri where Ms. Watt's cellphone points to Sam being.

As a Human
Mary has been shown to have the general skills possessed by hunters. She was a very good observer, and immediately recognized when she and John were being followed by Dean. She has shown capabilities in hand-to-hand combat, even holding her own temporarily against an angel. She also appeared to be a fast learner, being able to create angel banishing sigils and setting them up on the same day she learned about the existence of angels and their weaknesses. When asked by Dean about her being good at hunting, she tells him that she is "very good" at it but didn't enjoy it. After her resurrection, Mary is shown to be a skilled fighter and extremely good at noticing little clues such as the fact that Lucas Kellinger, while leaving a frostbite handprint on her arm similar to other victims of a malevolent spirit, meant her no harm and was instead scared and trying to warn her. However, some of Mary's skills are behind the times as she lacks the ability to use a computer or a modern day cell phone and expects to have to physically go door to door and search through archives for information. While possessed by the ghost of Hugo Moriarty, Mary displayed a strong enough will to briefly overpower the possession, similar to what her husband and son have been able to do in the past. However, Mary could only hold the spirit back for a couple of minutes and quickly lost control.

As a Spirit
Mary's Spirit lingered in their house in Kansas, where she cancelled out a particularly nasty poltergeist that not only proved difficult to purge, but also attempted to kill Sam. Her spirit appeared to be able to summon flames, reminiscent of her manner of death.

Appearance
Mary has blonde hair, often kept in slight curls and undone. In her youth, she wore short-sleeved shirts topped with a jacket, and jeans. During most of her adult appearances, Mary is shown wearing her white nightgown, the dress she died in. In The Foundry, after her resurrection, Mary cuts her hair short for hunting so that monsters can't use it against her.

Relationships

 * Mary and John: Mary and John were married.
 * Mary and Dean: Dean is Mary's first-born son.
 * Mary and Sam: Sam is Mary's second son.

Appearances

 * Season 1
 * Pilot
 * Home
 * Season 2
 * Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (gravestone seen)
 * What Is And What Should Never Be (illusion)
 * All Hell Breaks Loose - Part 1
 * Season 4
 * In The Beginning
 * When the Levee Breaks (as hallucination)
 * Season 5
 * The Song Remains the Same
 * Dark Side of the Moon (Illusion)
 * Season 6
 * Caged Heat (photo)
 * Mommy Dearest (Eve in disguise)
 * Season 8
 * Trial and Error (photo)
 * Man's Best Friend With Benefits (flashbacks only)
 * Season 10
 * The Prisoner (photo)
 * Season 11
 * We Happy Few  (photo)
 * Alpha and Omega


 * Season 12
 * Keep Calm and Carry On
 * Mamma Mia
 * The Foundry