| “ | She is far from innocent. | ” |
— Castiel to Sam Winchester about Anna Milton.
| ||
Anna Milton originally appeared as an amnesiac angel who had chosen to lose her grace and become a human. Due to her newly-reawakened ability to hear angels speaking in Season 4, she was being pursued by demons and angels alike. With the help of the Winchesters, she regained her grace and became a rogue angel, helping where she could in stopping the Apocalypse, but she was eventually captured by angels with the help of Castiel, and imprisoned in Heaven.
After the release of Lucifer, Anna attempted to kill Sam Winchester to prevent Lucifer from using him as a vessel, thus effectively stopping the Apocalypse. She was killed by the archangel Michael.
History
Member of the Heavenly Host
Created by God before the creation of humans, Anna was a fairly high-ranking angel: she commanded a garrison that included brothers Castiel and Uriel; it is implied that she was once close to Castiel. She never met God but initially followed what she believed to be his orders out of pure faith.
Anna was stationed on Earth for two thousand years while observing humans, waiting for orders, and longing to return home to Heaven. She came to believe that angels were emotionless and without any will of their own in comparison to humans.
Losing her Grace
Out of the desire to experience life as a human, Anna removed her grace in March 1985. The process was agonizing; she later compared it to "cutting out your kidney with a butter knife."
Anna and her grace fell separately to Earth as meteorites. She was born as a human child to Richard and Amy Milton in northwestern Ohio in December 1985. Meanwhile, Anna's grace landed in Kentucky in a barren field. Her fallen grace caused the field to flourish, even creating an oak tree that appeared centuries old within just six months.
When Anna was a toddler, she panicked in Rich's presence because he reminded her that her "real" father, God, might kill her for her disobedience. The Miltons took her to a child psychologist for therapy. As she grew up, she repressed her memories to the point that she genuinely believed she was a normal human.
Anna then grew and lived as a normal human would. She attended college as a journalism major.
Hunted
Anna started hearing angels talking in her head on September 18, 2008--the day Castiel resurrected Dean Winchester from Hell; the first message she heard was "Dean Winchester is saved." She heard the angels talk about hunters Dean and Sam Winchester constantly, causing her feel as though she already knew them: she learned that some believed that Dean could save them while some "didn't like" Sam at all.
Anna at the psychiatric ward.
Anna tried to warn people about the oncoming Apocalypse but got committed to the Connor Beverly Behavioral Medicine Center for schizophrenia. She drew pictures of the seals Lilith broke and scribbled messages pertaining to them in a sketchbook.
When demons learned about Anna's knowledge of the seals and her ability to hear angels, they began hunting her down in order to torture her for information. She fled from Connor Beverly in November in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" when a possessed nurse tried to capture her; instead she noticed the demon's true face and knocked it unconscious in order to flee. She sought refuge at the church Rich worked at as a deacon because she was too afraid to return to the Milton house.
Dean and Sam tracked Anna to the church after Ruby tipped them off about her. Anna asked them about her parents, unaware of that they had already been killed by demons. Before the brothers could tell her, Ruby arrived to warn them that Alastair was coming to take Anna. The brothers fended Alastair off while Ruby used the distraction to discretely take a frightened Anna from her hiding place and take her to safety at a remote cabin. Anna and Ruby reunited with Dean and Sam later. Anna learned about her parents when she asked if she could call them so they wouldn't worry about her, becoming quite distraught and questioning why this was all happening.
Anna sensed the approach of a threat so the Winchesters and Ruby hid her in another room and prepared to take on the unknown enemy. As it turned out, Anna was not referring to demons, rather to Castiel and Uriel, who had orders to kill her both to prevent demons from extracting information from her and as punishment for falling. However, she banished her brothers in a moment of panicked instinct in "Heaven and Hell" by slitting her wrists and using the blood to draw out and activate an Enochian Sigil.
Regaining her Grace
The four of them went to Bobby Singer's house so Anna could be protected in the demon-proofed panic room. Ruby also handed out hexbags to conceal their locations from angels. Dean called Pamela Barnes for help in figuring out more about Anna's past and why she could hear angels. Pamela put Anna into a hypnotic trance. Although Anna went through a mental breakdown that almost destroyed the room, the hypnosis worked; she finally remembered her origins and, still unwavering on her choice to fall and follow her own will, decided to regain her grace to save herself, the Winchesters and Ruby from both demons and other angels.
Sam managed to determine find where Anna's grace had landed, but when the group arrived, Anna discovered that it was gone--it had already been taken by Uriel. She received a message from the angels, who threatened to cast Dean's soul back into Hell if she was not handed over to them. Believing that she deserved to be punished for disobeying as Lucifer had, she resigned herself to her fate.
Anna and Dean's "last night" together in the Impala
After having argued with Dean about whether or not humanity was better than being an angel, Anna revealed to him that she knew that he had tortured other souls in Hell. She tried to comfort him by telling him that it wasn't his fault and he should forgive himself. She then kissed him. After reminding him that it was her last night on Earth, she had sex with him in the backseat of the Impala.
Unbeknownst to Anna, Uriel invaded Dean's dreams after they fell asleep. When threatening to cast Dean into Hell didn't convince him to betray Anna, Uriel threatened to kill Sam. Dean reluctantly told Uriel their location to protect his brother at the same time a captured Ruby was tortured by Alastair into leading them to Anna; secretly, however, this was part of a larger plan concocted by Sam to lure the angels and demons into the same room to pit them against each other.
Castiel and Uriel confronted Anna and the Winchesters in a barn. Although Anna forgave Dean for "betraying" her, she did not forgive her brothers for their actions. Regardless, she ordered them to execute her quickly. The angels were stopped by Ruby bringing Alastair and two other demons to the barn. While Uriel was distracted by killing the demons, Anna noticed he had her grace. She managed to grab it, break the container it was in, and painfully reabsorb it. She ordered the Winchesters and Ruby to shut their eyes before her body was destroyed in a bright, white light that also destroyed Alastair's host body.
Afterward, Castiel and Uriel departed. While Sam believed Anna would be happier as an angel, Dean remembered her earlier conversations with him and knew she was not.
Renegade Angel
Although Anna's body was destroyed when she regained her grace, she managed to get it restored through "favors" owed to her by an unspecified entity. She used it as her vessel out of sentimentality.
Anna came to speak with Castiel in "On the Head of a Pin". He warned her that he still had orders to kill her for her disobedience, but she brushed it off. They discussed the orders he was following by making Dean torture Alastair to learn who killed seven angels from their garrison; Anna suspected that God was not the one giving the orders (and was later proven right) and begged her brother to stop Dean before the torture went too far. At her suggestion that Castiel become her ally, he pulled away from her and told her to leave, which she reluctantly did.
After Castiel learned that demons were not responsible for the deaths of his siblings, he summoned Anna for advice because he was having doubts and was considering disobedience. She sympathized with him, but got upset when she realized he still regarded her as "a walking blasphemy." He wanted her to give him orders to follow, not unlike when Anna was still his superior. She refused so that he could learn to exercise free will.
Uriel revealed that he had been killing the other angels and prepared to kill Castiel when the latter refused to join him in following Lucifer. Anna intervened by stabbing Uriel through the neck with a sword, killing him and saving Castiel. She and Castiel watched on together as Uriel died.
Castiel later had a change of heart that led to his being brought into Heaven for reconditioning. Dean and Sam tried to protect his depossessed vessel, Jimmy Novak, from demons, but Jimmy fled to reunite with his family. Anna teleported into the backseat of the Impala to inquire about Jimmy's whereabouts, nearly causing Dean to crash the car in shock at her sudden appearance. She deflected Dean's flirting and noted, troubled, that Sam seemed "different". When she learned that Castiel had wanted to tell Dean something important, she urged Dean and Sam to find Jimmy but feared that he was already dead.
Anna was horrified and angered when Castiel released Sam from Bobby's panic room during the demon blood detoxification in "When the Levee Breaks". She confronted Castiel, but was captured by two other angels and was taken to Heaven in the process.
Imprisonment
Anna was imprisoned in Heaven for the remainder of the fourth season and the majority of the fifth.
Anna was tortured extensively by other angels to punish her for disobedience and possibly to try to get her to rejoin them. She developed a grudge against Castiel for betraying her to the Heavenly Host.
By "The Song Remains the Same", Anna either escaped or was released from Heaven.
Mission to Stop the Apocalypse
To stop Lucifer from using his true vessel, Anna planned to kill Sam and then scatter his cells across the universe in order to prevent Lucifer from resurrecting him.
Anna was unable to simply teleport to the Winchesters due to Enochian sigils Castiel had carved into their ribcages, forcing her to invade Dean's dreams and give him an address to meet her at to lure him and Sam to a warehouse. At the warehouse, she was instead confronted by Castiel, who had convinced the Winchesters to stay behind because he did not trust her. Anna was at first elusive of her plans. Once Castiel unsheathed his angel blade, she soon confessed her plans to kill Sam to prevent the Apocalypse. Castiel refused to let her kill Sam and threatened to kill her if she tried, regardless of their history.
With Castiel guarding the brothers in the present, Anna decided to prevent the Apocalypse from occurring altogether. She went back in time to 1978 to kill John and Mary Winchester before Dean and Sam could be born to break the first and final seals. She killed John's boss, Mr. Woodson, at the garage John worked at. She then called John up while posing as Mr. Woodson and lured him to the garage to kill him. However, Castiel had brought Dean and Sam back in time to stop her. Dean and Mary held Anna off long enough for Sam to banish her.
Anna realized she was outnumbered and summoned the Uriel of 1978 for backup. He recognized that she was not the Anna of 1978, but to enlist his aid in her mission, she claimed that she was still his superior, that the Winchesters killed him in the future, and that she was giving him the opportunity to kill them first.
Anna and Uriel destroyed the Enochian sigils, made the holy oil vanish, and broke the windows and lights in the house that the Winchesters were hiding in. They attacked the family, with Anna fighting and eventually killing Sam by stabbing him in the stomach with a fixture she ripped from a wall. She apologized to a shocked Mary before trying to kill her as well.
Anna's death
Death
After Anna had thrown John through the wall and into the backyard, he gave his consent to Michael for possession in exchange for Mary's safety. Michael approached Anna, laid his hand on her shoulder, and reduced her to ashes by setting her ablaze from within.
Appearance
Anna's human body was that of a young woman with pale skin, long red hair, and hazel eyes who was 5'6". She wore a pair of white and blue scrubs at Connor Beverly Behavioral Medicine Center; once she escaped the mental institution, she began wearing a frilly button-down white shirt and jeans with a green jacket, the last of which she later swapped out in favor of a navy coat that went down to mid-thigh.
Personality
Anna was dissatisfied with her existence as an angel. She disliked the strict rules governing her, and also admitted to not understanding God. While at first she longed to return to Heaven during her station on Earth, she eventually risked the wrath of her family by falling for the sake of happiness. She resented her siblings for their unwillingness to be more open to feeling and free will, but also felt lonely and wished for them to join her.
Unlike many other angels, Anna viewed humans as superior to her own kind; she especially valued their capacity for emotions. Her attachment to humanity was one of her strongest traits: she tore out her own grace to experience life as a human, she confessed to Dean that she would have preferred not to turn back into an angel, and she betrayed Sam and Dean in the hopes of stopping the Apocalypse which would result to saving billions of lives.
Anna was earnest, well-mannered, and trusting: she believed Ruby, a demon, to be good after she saved Anna's life, and repeatedly went to Castiel despite the fact that he had orders to kill her because she didn't believe he would even try. She offered a guilt-ridden Dean compassion and forgiveness for his actions in Hell and for seemingly betraying her in "Heaven and Hell". She was a religious person who apparently attended her human father's church. Although she initially feared retribution from Heaven (particularly God) for her disobedience to such a degree that she had to go to a psychiatrist as a child, she eventually became happy and well-adjusted with many friends and a promising future once she repressed her true identity.
After Anna started to hear angels, she became timid. She was relieved to learn she wasn't insane. The circumstances surrounding her distressed her, especially as she didn't understand what was going on or why it was happening to her.
Anna became more authoritative and reserved upon regaining her memories and moreso when she regained her grace. Once she made a choice, she followed through with it, which she described to Castiel as "confusing" and "terrifying." She preferred having the element of suprise, which helped her defeat Uriel. She was willing to commit extreme actions for the greater good, such as killing her own brother to save another, at the same time preventing that brother from serving Lucifer, and slaughtering the Winchester family to undo the Apocalypse.
Powers and Abilities
Anna was implied to have been a powerful angel when at full strength due to her having once been the superior of Castiel and Uriel, who were both formidable in their own right.
After removing her grace, Anna became essentially human. It seems as though her remaining power only reactivated once Castiel manifested on Earth to save Dean from Hell in "Lazarus Rising" as she is not mentioned as having shown any powers (such as the ability to hear angels) before that time. However, she could not fully control her abilities and tapped into her suppressed potential only under highly stressful situations.
- Enhanced Strength - It took four men to restrain her.
- Telekinesis - She threw a dresser with her mind with enough force to knock out a possessed human.
- Telepathy - She could hear other angels' conversations in her mind.
- Supernatural Perception - She saw the true forms of a demonically possessed nurse and Ruby. She also sensed Castiel and Uriel's approach towards the end of "I Know What You Did Last Summer", though she did not recognize or identify them.
- Magical knowledge - Although at that time she did not know what it is was, she knew how to create a sigil out of her blood that could temporarily banish angels.
After reclaiming her grace, Anna regained the rest of her angelic abilities.
- Angelic Possession - Her original human body was destroyed by the restoration of her grace. She had it recreated and used it as her human vessel.
- Invulnerability - When Mary Winchester stabbed her with a crowbar, Anna seemed mostly unfazed, only spitting up a small amount of blood and pulling the crowbar out of her chest.
- Superhuman Strength - After reganing her grace, Anna's inhuman strength incressed to superhuman level and she became much stronger. She proved this in later episodes.
- Invisibility - She did not demonstrate this power on-screen but mentioned that she used to watch over humans invisibly during her station on Earth.
- Teleportation - Like all angels, Anna can teleport. She can also do so silently if she wishes, as shown when she appeared behind Uriel and caught him by surprise.
- Chronokinesis - She traveled back to 1978, although the effort it took to go back in time weakened her to the point that she spat out blood and fell unconscious as soon as she succeeded; she also briefly suffered a bout of dizziness while fighting Mary.
- Dream Walking - She contacted Dean while he was asleep.
- Voice Mimicry - She altered her voice to sound like John's (male) boss over the phone.
- Holy Light - This was shown during the restoration of her grace. Anna exploded in a blinding blue light that vanquished the demons in the vicinity.
Relationships
- God (creator/father)
- Richard Milton (human father, deceased)
- Amy Milton (human mother, deceased)
- All angels (siblings/fellow soldiers)
Name
Ironically, Anna's first name means "grace". In fandom, her name before she fell is often changed to a variation of "Anael", the angel of romantic love traditionally associated with air, health, and life.
The writers of Supernatural may have also named Anna for Anahita (linked to the earth and harvest), Anauel (of wealth), Ananchel (of grace, believed to put people in a state of religious ecstasy to better praise God), the fallen angel Ananiel (mentioned in the Book of Enoch as a Watcher), or even Haniel (an archangel in Jewish lore who inspires harmony in love).
Anna's surname alludes to the famous poet John Milton, whose epic work Paradise Lost influences Supernatural, particularly in later seasons concerning angels and Lucifer.
Notes
- Her character was intended to replace Castiel, who was supposed to be killed by Alastair in "On The Head Of A Pin", as Dean's angelic guide. Due to Castiel's immediate popularity with critics and fans alike, much of Anna's role was given to him instead.
- She shared some traits with legendary female warrior Joan of Arc, as both believed they could hear angels speaking, participated in battles as commanders and warriors, and were burned alive.
- She suppressed her memory of having been an angel after she fell and had to regain it through hypnosis. Interestingly, Castiel also loses his memories of being an angel in Season 7 and regains them in "The Born-Again Identity".
- It was Anna who first introduced the angel-banishing sigil to Dean and Sam, in "Heaven and Hell". They used this same sigil against her in "The Song Remains the Same".
- Whether she was carrying out orders from Heaven or acting of her own accord in "The Song Remains the Same" remains unconfirmed.
List of appearances
Season 4
- "I Know What You Did Last Summer"
- "Heaven and Hell"
- "On The Head Of A Pin"
- "The Rapture" (cameo)
- "When the Levee Breaks" (cameo)