“ | I had a job! God gave me a job! We all had a script. I worked hard. [...] And then what happens? You throw out the book. | ” |
Atropos is a Greek Goddess of fate and destiny and is in charge of the inevitability of death along with her sisters, the Fates. They implement how mortals are born, live and eventually die. She is one of the few deities to work with Heaven.
History[]
Background[]
Prior to the Apocalypse, the sisters followed God's design perfectly, with Atropos stating that God gave them their duty personally. When the Apocalypse approached, the sisters had arranged everything as it was supposed to be for the final battle. Things changed when Castiel, Sam and Dean Winchester averted the Apocalypse and threw everything into chaos. Atropos explained that her sisters were willing to continue as things were and went back to work, but Atropos had always been a perfectionist and went to Heaven expecting instructions. What she found there was the chaos of the Civil War and, with everyone ignoring her, she was forced back to work to which she stated she didn't make a fuss about. This was not to last when time was altered and history was rewritten.
Season 4[]
In the episode On The Head Of A Pin, Castiel mentions to his fellow angel Uriel that they are "Agents of Fate".
Season 6[]
In a desperate gambit, Castiel ordered Balthazar to go back in time to save the Titanic so that he may have more souls to aid him in battle against Raphael. This created a new timeline where nearly 50,000 new souls were created and both Ellen and Jo Harvelle were still alive. For Atropos, this was the last straw. While she had been willing to let alterations to a future event slide, altering a past event was unacceptable. Atropos began hunting down the descendants of the Titanic and killing them in order to clean up the "mess" Castiel and Balthazar had created.
Her actions eventually drew the attention of the brothers, who narrowly avoided being killed by her due to her ability to stop time and set up disasters. Castiel managed to save the brothers and, while lying about his involvement in the events, told the brothers that they are very high on Atropos' hit list since they stopped the Apocalypse and made her obsolete. He told them that once Atropos had a target, she wouldn't stop until that person was dead (so the brothers would have to kill her first).
The group set up a trap where Atropos prepared to drop kitchen appliances on the brothers only for Castiel to arrive and confront her. Castiel tried to talk her down but she angrily berated him for "Tempting Fate" by messing with the Titanic and that she was going to fix the mess no matter what. When Castiel told her that he would stop her, she reminded him that her sisters have been compliant but her death would galvanize them into action. While Atropos was quite powerful, she was intimidated by Castiel's threat but stated her sisters "are bigger in every sense of the word" and would kill Dean and Sam faster than Castiel could blink before finishing Atropos' work.
Castiel was forced to stop the sneaking Balthazar from killing her, as she was surprised and angry at the latter's attempt on her life. Castiel then accepted her compromise to restore the original timeline in exchange for sparing Sam and Dean.
Personality[]
Described by Castiel as being cruel, she was very dedicated to her job. She was well-organized and did not like to let details escape her hands. A perfectionist, she left her job well-done and did not leave any unfinished business. She was inflexible when it came to completing her agenda and got angry whenever changes were made.
She appears to have a good standing with her sisters, as she stated they would be angry should she be killed.
She could also be described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling when it came to her fated victims, as they should have died or never have been born. However, she did not kill innocent people unless they changed destiny by any unnatural method, such as Sam and Dean Winchester's aversion of the Apocalypse. She also appeared to be creative and practical when setting up a person's death, using their surroundings to kill them.
Despite her anger towards him, Atropos was intimidated by Castiel's threats to kill her when she voiced a desire to kill Sam and Dean.
Physical Appearance[]
Atropos looked like a young blonde woman, with blue eyes and glasses. Her hair was long and well-groomed. She usually wore a suit, a white dress shirt, and dress pants.
Powers and Abilities[]
Being a goddess of fate/destiny Atropos is one of the most powerful, feared as well as respected of all deities. She and her sisters are responsible of monitoring and manipulating fate under God’s supervision and orders. She is one of the few deities that is able to enter heaven and she is seemed to be respected and feared there by lower-tier angels due to her power and position as a goddess of fate. Even upper-tier angels like Seraphim seemed to fear her as well as Castiel backed down on his threats to her.
- Immortality - As a greek deity, Atropos is immortal.
- Invulnerability - As a goddess, she is immune to conventional weapons. She can only be harmed and killed by divine weaponry, such as the Fate-killing blade.
- Super Strength - As a goddess, Atropos possesses super strength on a higher level than the strongest humans or low-tier angels. However, she was fearful of an enhanced Seraphim, and threatened him with her more powerful older sisters.
- Teleportation - Atropos is able to disappear and reappear in a completely different place in the blink of an eye. She is one of the few non-angelic beings to be able to go to and from Heaven at will.
- Chronokinesis - Atropos is able to freeze and control time to move objects that create chain-reaction effects. These chain reactions result in her targets' deaths.
- Foreseeing and Chain-reaction Effect - Atropos is able to see the immediate future to create chain-reaction effects through the surrounding of her victims, ending in certain death.
- Supernatural Perception - Atropos can see and sense things that are naturally invisible.
- Supreme Knowledge - Being thousands of years old, as well as a goddess, Atropos possesses vast knowledge about the world and its inner-workings.
- Immunity to Timeline Alteration - Unlike humans, but like angels, Atropos is both aware and unaffected by the alteration of timelines.
- Fate Manipulation - As a Goddess Of Fate, it is understood she possesses great power over this area as she was able to conjure anything necessary and manipulating reality so it can lead to the person's Death.
Weaknesses[]
- Fate-killing blade - She can be killed by a knife/sword of some sort, similar in appearance to an Angel's sword.
Equipment[]
- Destiny's Book - Atropos carries a book that documents human fate, with a bookmark comprised of golden life threads.
Appearances[]
- Season 4
- On The Head Of A Pin (mentioned only)
- Season 5
- Changing Channels (referenced only)
- Swan Song (referenced only)
- Season 6
- Appointment In Samarra (referenced only)
- My Heart Will Go On
Trivia[]
- Fate was one of the few antagonists who is not killed or even defeated at the end of the episode.
- According to Fate, she has two other sisters who were "bigger and stronger in every sense of the word".
- When she finished a job, she left strings of pure gold on the floor.
- Despite being a figure from the Greek Pantheon, she seemed to be an agent of Heaven, working in accordance with God's plan and the Apocalypse. The latter fact disproves any possible allegiance to the Pagans, as they wished to stop it.
- Along with her sisters, Anubis and Oblivion, she is one of the few pagan deities to be working with Heaven to maintain The Natural Order.
- If Balthazar had successfully killed Atropos, he would've somewhat dismantled half of the Natural Order.
- It seems that Atropos and her sisters are the only deities who have seen God and spoken to him.
- It is implied that Fortuna also met him, as she recognized his description.
- It is likely that she and her sisters, as well as Fortuna, did not forget their origins as God's creations, as they received their tasks over destiny personally from him.
Lore[]
Atropos or Aisa (Greek: Άτροπος, "without turn"), in Greek mythology, was one of the three Moirae, goddesses of fate and destiny. Her Roman equivalent was Morta.
Atropos or Aisa was the oldest of the Three Fates, and known as the "inflexible" or "inevitable". It was Atropos who chose the mechanism of death and ended the life of each mortal by cutting their thread with her "abhorred shears." She worked along with her two sisters, Clotho, who spun the thread, and Lachesis, who measured the length. Her origin, along with the two other Fates, is uncertain, although some called them the daughters of the night. It is clear, however, that at a certain period they ceased to be only concerned with death and also became those powers who decided what would happen to individuals. Although Zeus was the chief Greek god and their father, he was still subject to the decisions of the Fates, and thus the executor of destiny, rather than its source. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Atropos and her sisters (Clotho and Lachesis) were the daughters of Nyx (Night), though later in the same work, they are said to have been born of Zeus and Themis.
- In Greek mythology, Atropos was the oldest and the most feared sister of the Fates since she was the one who cut the threads for mortals.
- Her and her sisters power was such that not even Zeus could change a decree made by them.
- The Moirae were supposed to appear three nights before a child's birth to determine the course of its life.
- Brides in Athens offered them locks of hair and women swore by them.
- The Moirae were usually described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling, and depicted as old crones or hags.
- In Greek mythology (as Atropos or Aisa), in Roman mythology (as Morta), and in Norse mythology (as Skuld), the youngest of the trinity is typically distinguished from her older sisters. As mentioned above, Atropos enjoyed a particularly fearsome reputation in Greece, as she continued to in Rome, where Morta was worshiped as a death goddess in her own right. Similarly, Skuld is named among the Valkyries, and also shares her name with one of Norse mythology's more prominent witches.
See Also[]
- The Fates