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Don't be afraid. We're going to save the world.
— Lilith to a member of her entourage
in Lucifer Rising

Lilith was a powerful white-eyed demon and the first demon Lucifer created, as well as being the final seal of the 66 Seals that had to be broken for him to be freed from his cage. She was trapped in Hell until May 2007, when she escaped and effortlessly defeated multiple rival demons to take over the deceased Azazel's former position as leader of the army of demons that he had unleashed alongside her. Lilith led this army on Earth and commanded the rest of the forces of Hell in the War of the Seals against the Host of Heaven. She was responsible for the destruction of sixty-six seals guarding Lucifer's cage in 2008, ending with her allowing Sam Winchester to kill her and freeing Lucifer in 2009.[3][4][5] In the demonic hierarchy of Hell, she, as the original demon, ranked highest of all (beyond Alastair, The Knights of Hell, Cain, and the Princes of Hell), and was outranked only by Lucifer himself.

Although the Winchesters wanted to stop Lilith from raising Lucifer, their grudge with her ran far deeper than this due to the large part she played in Dean Winchester's death and his suffering in Hell, having not only ensured that he go there to break the first seal but even going so far as to sic a hellhound on a helpless Dean, killing him, to send him there and forcing an equally helpless Sam to watch it all happen in front of him.[6]

Years later, Lilith was resurrected from The Empty by God to retrieve The Equalizer from the Winchesters. She revealed herself to her foes, while letting them know God's endgame for them, telling the brothers that God's ending for them is for Sam and Dean to kill each other before she destroyed the gun and left them.[7] However, Lilith's resurrection proves to be brief as the archangel Michael smote her soon after.[8]

Biography[]

Background[]

Demon Sunday school story? God prefers humans to angels. Lucifer gets jealous. And then he gets creative, and he tempts and twists a human soul into the very first demon.

Lilith was originally one of the early humans.

God demanded that angels bow to humans and love them more than him, but the archangel Lucifer refused because he saw humans as unworthy, for which he was cast from Heaven. Trying to prove to God that he was right about humanity's flaws, Lucifer "twisted and tempted" Lilith's soul into a demon. Because of this wicked act, God had Lucifer imprisoned in a cage by Michael as punishment for this unforgivable offense. The Cage was closed with over 600 seals, 66 of which had to be broken for Lucifer to escape. As Lilith had been Lucifer's first demon, she was also made into the 66th seal; thus, if she died after 65 of the seals had been broken, her death would set Lucifer free. As the oldest demon, Lilith was created before even Cain and the other Knights of Hell. Shortly after her creation, Lucifer turned four more humans into demons. These four, Azazel, Ramiel, Asmodeus and Dagon became the Princes of Hell.[3][9][10][11]

Afterward, Lilith herself became trapped "neck-deep" in Hell, rendering her unable to leave Hell on her own power.[3] During her time down under, she began sending demons off to her to do her bidding. While she commanded absolute loyalty in hell, she had no control of demons topside. In order to control her army, she created a Crook, which would retrieve all of Hell's "lost creatures" and bring them back to Hell. The mere existence of the Crook compelled demons to obey.

Freedom and leadership[]

Devil's gate - AHBL2

Lilith among many other demons escape Hell through the Devil's Gate.

After Lucifer told Azazel that Lilith was essential to his release from the Cage due to her capability to break the seals, Azazel plotted to free her as part of his plan to free Lucifer.[3] He acquired the Colt and manipulated Jake Talley into using it to open a devil's gate in May 2007. Although Azazel's plan was successful and Lilith managed to escape Hell through the opened gateway before it was closed by hunters Bobby Singer and Ellen Harvelle, Azazel was killed by Dean Winchester.[4] Many demons fought ferociously to be the one to take over his position as the leader of Hell's army, while some chose to steer away from the plan of Azazel,[12] but in the end Lilith managed to claim leadership and effectively control the demonic army.[5]

Lilith gained the support of the King of the Crossroads, Crowley, and instated him as her right-hand man. It is suggested that they were also lovers.[13] Lilith's inner-circle of followers also included a demon named Merrick whom she made her lieutenant and a unnamed demon who acted as Lilith's "personal chef" by kidnapping and preparing human babies for Lilith to eat.[9][14] Additionally, Lilith often had large groups of demons with her to act as her personal servants, lookouts, bodyguards, and assassins.[3][6]

Lilith sought to break the 66 seals. Knowing that she had to die to break the last seal, she had Ruby go to Lucifer's true vessel, Sam Winchester, to protect him from threats and have him kill Lilith once 65 seals had been broken. Lilith did not divulge this information to any other demon and so all other demons believed that Ruby had become a traitor, not realizing that she was actually carrying out an undercover operation she had been assigned to by Lilith.[3] Lilith also recognized Sam's brother as Michael's true vessel, Dean, dubbed the "Righteous Man" who could break the first seal and enable the remaining intact seals to be broken. Lilith knew that to achieve this, his soul had to go to Hell and torture other souls, and so she worked towards this goal to bring on the breaking of the seals.[15] Lilith staked an indirect claim on his soul through her subordinate Crowley, who held Dean's contract as King of the Crossroads.[13] Crowley originally owned Dean's soul. The crossroads demon told Sam that the demon who held Dean's contract was a higher-ranking male demon whom she referred to as her "boss"; this could only mean Crowley, the King of the Crossroads.[16] Later on in Time Is On My Side, it is said that Lilith holds all contracts, including Dean's. This means that Lilith indirectly held the contracts because she had the King of the Crossroads as her subordinate but that she did not directly hold them, that ownership of the souls truly did transfer hands to Lilith at some point after Bedtime Stories, or simply that Lilith had lied to Bela and Ruby upheld this lie to trick the Winchesters into an ill-fated confrontation with Lilith in No Rest For The Wicked.

Liliths eyes

Lilith, possessing a young girl, identifies herself before destroying the sheriff's office.

Lilith issued orders for demons to kill both Winchesters.[5] Although she would have wanted Dean dead to begin breaking seals as early as possible, her motive behind calling for Sam's death as well is unknown. It was most likely a ploy to keep her true plans for Sam (and thus Ruby's cover) secret. Before Lilith took over, Sam was seen by demon-kind as a potential candidate for the new leader of the army and many demons wanted to kill him to stop him and take that position for themselves. Had Lilith ordered a cease-and-desist after becoming leader, or even just not call for the competition presented in Sam to be wiped out after defeating other demons for the spot, other demons would have questioned why she wanted Sam alive, potentially spread this question to Sam himself, and thus risk blowing her entire plan. After a demon contacted her with the news that her forces had trapped the Winchester at a police station in Monument, Colorado, but that the Winchesters had escaped after exorcising most of the demons, Lilith herself paid a visit to the station. She destroyed the building itself with blast of explosive white light,[5] but kept its living human occupants (which Ruby indicated was seven people) alive for an additional forty-five minutes to torture them all; this included skinning Nancy Fitzgerald alive while forcing everyone else to watch. Lilith killed FBI Agent Victor Henriksen last.[17] The incident was reported by the media as a massive explosion caused by a gas leak that had instantly killed everyone inside the police station at the time, including (ironically) Sam and Dean, who were believed to have been held in custody at the time. After learning of this, Ruby gave the Winchesters hexbags that would help keep Lilith and her minions from finding them.[5]

Lilith also aimed to deprive the Winchesters of the Colt so that they would no longer have their one sure-fire way to kill her and in the future Sam would be more open to Ruby's suggestion of using his powers to kill her. To this end, Lilith and Crowley contacted Bela Talbot. As Bela was a professional thief who had encountered the Winchesters before and earned a modicum of their trust, the demons wanted her to steal the Colt from the brothers for them. In return, they would release her from her contract. Bela accepted the deal, stole the Colt, and gave it to Crowley. Instead of upholding their end of the deal, however, Crowley changed the terms of the deal so that Bela was forced to also kill Sam if she wanted to get out of her original deal. Her attempt to kill him failed and it is implied that she was killed by a hellhound and her soul taken to Hell soon afterward.[13][18]

Breaking the first seal[]

Before her death, Bela told the Winchesters about her deal with Lilith. She also told them that Lilith had claimed to hold the contracts to all deals, including Dean's, in the hopes that they would use this information to kill Lilith.[18] As a result, the Winchesters and their friend Bobby began searching for Lilith. A year to the day of Lilith's release from Hell in May in 2007, they finally located her with a tracking spell, stole Ruby's demon-killing knife, and came to New Harmony, Indiana, planning to kill Lilith to break Dean's contract and save his life.[6]

Lillith

Lilith about to kill her vessel's grandfather.

After having to fight other demons to become their leader and prepare elaborate schemes for the upcoming war over the seals with the angels, Lilith had gone to New Harmony to take "shore leave" and have fun. She entertained herself by tormenting the Freemont family while possessing their young daughter, holding them hostage inside their own house, forcing them to cater to her every demand, and inflicting psychological torture, fear, and stress upon them without letting them act as if anything were out of the ordinary. If they did not play along, or went against her in any way, Lilith killed them. She killed her host's babysitter and the family pet for being "mean" to her, then killed her host's grandfather after he tried to go to a neighbor for help, not knowing that this neighbor, like the rest of the neighborhood, was possessed by one of Lilith's minions.[6]

I don't have to answer to puppy chow. Sic 'em, boy.
Lilith possessed Ruby's blonde vessel

Lilith possessed Ruby's blonde vessel for herself

Bobby set a trap to prevent Lilith's minions from going to her aid while the Winchesters infiltrated the Freemont home with Ruby. However, Lilith was already aware of the hunters' presence and secretly left the body of her Freemont host, found Ruby trapped in a Devil's trap and possessed her vessel. She later returned to Sam and Dean pretending to be Ruby and assisted them in finding her former host and almost killing it until Dean realized that it wasn't Lilith anymore. When time was running out, Sam begged "Ruby" if there was another way, but just like the actual Ruby, Lilith told Sam that his powers could have helped, but he doesn't have the time to perfect them like before, then the clock struck midnight.

When a hellhound came Dean, Sam and Lilith ran into the kitchen and barricaded themselves in with salt. Lilith tried to trick Sam into giving her the knife. Right when Sam was about to do so, Dean suddenly noticed the difference in the demon's true face and realized that the demon with them was Lilith, not Ruby.

LilithWhiteLight

Lilith tries to kill Sam with white light

Lilith immediately dropped the charade and used telekinesis to overpower and immobilize them before they could attack her. Lilith then introduced herself to them before kissing Sam. When Sam, believing that she wanted to kill him as her rival for leadership of Hell, offered to let her have him if she would let Dean go, she turned down the deal and let the hellhound in to kill Dean, laughing. With Dean dead, Lilith cast her white light on Sam, but it appears to be completely ineffective on him. She fled her host body when Sam advanced on her with the knife.[6]

The eventual destruction of the first seal rendered all other potential seals susceptible to breaking, allowing Lilith and her forces to begin targeting seals at will.[15]

The War of the Seals[]

Lilith3

Lilith is distracted from killing Sam.

When angels learned that Lilith had sent Dean's soul to Hell to break the first seal, they rushed to Hell to save him, but arrived too late. Instead, they resurrected him and informed him of Lilith's plan to release Lucifer, looking to enlist him to stop Lilith and her demons from starting the Apocalypse. Secretly, however, higher-ranking angels were conspiring for Lilith to succeed in her mission, having arranged for the events leading up to it because they wanted to fulfill destiny by having Michael kill Lucifer.[3][15][17][19] Amongst these angels was Michael himself who worked with Lilith to bring on the Apocalypse as he believed that it would cause God to return which Michael desired.[8]

Lilith commanded the forces of Hell in battle against the Host of Heaven and hunters over the seals. In addition to breaking seals on her own, she also employed the strategy of informing select demons on what select seals were and sending them out to break them, not only creating greater difficulty and confusion for the Host as they tried to defend various seals from her forces but also ensuring that she alone knew what the seals were and which ones she planned to break. Thus, killing her was the only way to ensure that demons did not finish breaking the seals.[3][20][21]

Meanwhile, Ruby was preparing Sam to break the final seal by strengthening his demonic powers so that they would grow powerful enough to kill Lilith. However, Lilith began having second thoughts about her upcoming sacrifice; she took another vessel and eventually went to negotiate a deal with Sam, offering to stop breaking seals if Sam agreed to sacrifice himself and Dean as her "consolation prize." Sam pretended to go along with it to get close enough to her to kill her with the demon-killing knife. She overpowered him and seized the knife before he could stab her, but Dean barged in and brought in the prophet Chuck Shurley whose entrance into the room forced Lilith to leave as it started to summon Raphael to kill her and protect Chuck. For his part, Sam believed that she never actually intended to stop breaking seals and that she would have gone back on their deal had he agreed. Regardless of her intentions, Lilith renewed her attack on the seals, recommitting herself to her fate.[22]

Death[]

Lilith7

With Lilith dead, her blood begins to form Lucifer's cage.

Lilith arranged for the breaking of 65 seals. When she was the last seal that needed to be broken to free Lucifer, she traveled to St. Mary's Convent and began preparing for her demise with a group of her minions. Dean was eventually told the consequences of her death by the angel Castiel. Together, they sought Sam out to warn him not to kill Lilith, but were hindered by the archangels.[3]

When Sam and Ruby arrived to kill her, Lilith was overpowered by Sam and telekinetically pinned to the altar. However, she still survived his initial attempts to kill her, even with his greatly increased power from having drank more demon blood than ever before. At that moment, Dean arrived at the convent alone, having been sent by Castiel to try to stop Sam while Castiel himself tried to delay the archangels. Seeing Sam hesitate when he hears Dean call out to him, Lilith begins to laugh mockingly at him, drawing his attention back to her. She taunted him on how he had turned himself into a freakish monster for the sole purpose of killing her, yet is now hesitating to kill her, deeming it "adorable." The taunt baited him into using his full power on her and Lilith was soon killed by it, breaking the final seal. Her host's corpse fell limp to the floor and began bleeding from the mouth. This blood moved on its own to form a symbol on the convent floor, from which Lucifer rose from the Cage.[3]

Legacy[]

Even though Lilith was finally killed by Sam, her legacy endures long after her death. Lilith's death was the final seal that set Lucifer free. He was set loose to wreak havoc and cause death and disaster on Earth for months (along with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the help of most demons) due to Lilith's sacrifice.[23] The considerable amount of power that Sam had to effort in order to kill her almost turned him into a monster, during the following months he had to struggle with his demon blood addiction on multiple occasions.[24] Only many years later was Sam able to get rid of this by taking on the Trials of God, which purified his body of demon blood and freed him from his addiction.[25]

Killing Lilith when she had been the final seal is a huge source of guilt for Sam; he blames himself for raising Lucifer and causing the Apocalypse.[23] Although Dean believes that it was an understandable mistake,[26] he also holds Sam responsible for it, calling it one of his brother's greatest sins.[27] Crowley named Lilith as one of the great threats who fell as a result of underestimating the Winchesters.[28]

In Stuck in the Middle (With You), after the Winchesters attack the Prince of Hell Ramiel, Crowley explains Ramiel's history to them, including how Ramiel was one of the first generation of demons created by Lucifer following Lilith's transformation. In a flashback to after Lucifer's defeat, Crowley approaches Ramiel to take power in Hell as with Lucifer trapped again and Azazel and Lilith dead, he is next in line. However, Ramiel refuses and bestows power of Hell to Crowley.

In The Rupture, the demon Belphegor reveals that Lilith owned a horn called Lilith's Crook with which she could call back all of the demons and souls into Hell as a means of controlling them if they ever got out of hand. Though Lilith never actually used it, it was enough for the demons to know that she had it and could use it. Following Lilith's death, the Crook remained sealed in Lilith's Chamber in Hell which was opened when God opened every door in Hell. Belphegor travels into Hell with Castiel to get the Crook and call back all of the Hell Ghosts and demons that escaped. However, they find the chamber being raided by the demon Malfayan who comments that Lilith won't be returning. Castiel kills Malfayan and discovers that Lilith sealed the Crook in a box that could only be opened by singing a prayer to Lucifer in Enochian, a language only she knew amongst the denizens of hell. Castiel is able to open the box, but Belphegor is revealed to have been planning to use the chance to become the new Ruler of Hell himself. When Castiel smites Belphegor, Lilith's Crook is destroyed as well.

Resurrection[]

Do you think I wanna be here? I died to free Lucifer from the cage. I had to die for what I wanted most. And then you two went and screwed it all up.
— Lilith to Dean
in Proverbs 17:3

In Proverbs 17:3, Lilith is resurrected from The Empty by God and possesses Ashley Monroe, one of three young women whose friends were killed by werewolves. Posing as Ashley, Lilith identifies Andy May as the werewolf she saw and pretends to bond with Dean before putting him to sleep and allowing herself to be captured by Andy and his brother Josh.

Lilith uses holy white light to knock Sam out

Lilith knocks Sam out using holy white light

After Andy kills his brother and then himself, Lilith's act is revealed when she slips and becomes impaled on deer antlers. Lilith explains how God brought her back and she is in search of The Equalizer, the gun God created to kill Jack. Lilith continually insists that the Winchesters only killed her the previous time as she let them do it and uses her white light to knock Sam out. Dean agrees to lead Lilith to the gun and she explains that she can't kill them because God won't let her. Lilith had sacrificed herself to release Lucifer from Hell to begin the Apocalypse and is angry that her sacrifice was in vain. Lilith, having heard God discuss his plans for the Winchesters end, reveals that God plans that they will go out one killing the other.

Lilith destroys the Equalizer

Lilith melts the Equalizer in the palm of her hand.

At the motel room, Dean admits that he lied and Lilith begins inflicting wounds on him, threatening to cause a death by a thousand cuts. Sam enters and shoots Lilith in the head with a devil's trap bullet, immobilizing her, but Lilith causes the ground to shake and pushes the bullet out of her head with telekinesis. Intercepting the Winchesters outside, Lilith correctly predicts that they have kept the gun in the Impala and retrieves it from the glove compartment. Sam promises that they will get the gun back, but Lilith causes it to melt and vanishes after promising to see them again.

In Last Call, Sam and a resurrected Eileen Leahy search for signs of God and Lilith with no luck. When Castiel arrives, he is shocked to find out that Lilith is back.

Lilith Ashes

Lilith is reduced to a pile of ash by Michael.

In Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven, Lilith approaches the recently-escaped Michael on God's behalf, but Michael is uninterested in what the demon has to say. Lilith reminds Michael that they worked together to release Lucifer and bring about the Apocalypse, while also revealing God came back on his own but Michael continues to refuse. Unwilling to let down God, Lilith insistently grabs Michael's hand. Fed up, Michael flashes his eyes and obliterates Lilith in a blast of white light, leaving behind only a pile of ashes where Lilith was sitting. Noticing that a diner full of customers has witnessed this, Michael erases all of their memories of the altercation with just a snap of his fingers.

Physical Appearance[]

Lilithpinned

Lilith in her final host.

Dean Winchester: Wait, wait, wait, wait, Lilith is a little girl.

Chuck: No, uh, this time she's a "comely dental hygienist from Bloomington, Indiana."

As a demon, Lilith manifested on Earth as a thick cloud of black smoke that possesses vessels whose eyes turned fully-white when Lilith chose to reveal her demonic nature. Her true form could not ordinarily be perceived by humans. When Dean glimpsed her true face in "No Rest for the Wicked", he was disturbed and described her face only as "awful". He could not immediately tell her apart from Ruby despite his temporary ability to see the faces of demons, which suggests that she and Ruby look similar enough to pass for one another (at least to humans).

Lilith preferred to possess blonde females. She primarily possessed young girls in Season 3: a brunette child and the blonde-haired Fremont child. Dean later hallucinated her as the latter in "Yellow Fever". When she possessed Ruby's host, she noted that she liked being "all grown-up and pretty". She possessed another beautiful adult woman throughout Season 4. She later possessed another young woman named Ashley Monroe, a blonde woman.

Personality[]

Sam: "What do you want?"
Lilith: "For it to go back to the way it was. Before I had angels to deal with twenty-four/seven. The good old days, when it was all baby blood, all the time."
Lilith: "Are you really so arrogant that you would put your life before the lives of six billion innocent people? Maybe it's all that demon blood pumping through your pipes. Man after my own heart."
Lilith-4x18-demons-of-supernatural-9415715-1280-720

Lilith is about to manipulate Sam.

When possessing little girls, Lilith often feigned a childish, sweet disposition to hide how truly evil she was. As part of this act, she treated even her victims with friendliness. If provoked, however, she dropped this attitude and became so cold she appeared almost emotionless. She switched between these two behaviors very quickly to unsettle those who witnessed it. She played on the expectations people had associated with her vessels' appearances, acting innocent and playful in the hosts of innocent children[6] and behaving in an alluring and seductive manner while in adult women's hosts.[22] She has also been shown to be quite sexually inclined as shown in season 4 when she wanted to sleep with Sam when they almost made a deal, and again in season 15 when she was open to sleeping with Dean, indicating she has had a lot of sex in her life both as a human and a demon. She has proven to be a capable actress, as she was able to successfully impersonate Ruby for a short time before Dean caught on to the swap by noticing the difference in the two demons' "faces"; she later impersonated Ashley Monroe following her resurrection and congratulated herself on doing "so well".[6][7] She was also intelligent and cruel enough to choose to summon Witnesses whom hunters had tried and failed to save, correctly predicting that the ghost's anger and the hunters' guilt would likely make it more difficult for them to fight back, expecting that this would result in the hunters' deaths; Castiel described this as Lilith's sense of humor.[29]

Even by demon standards, Lilith was exceptionally monstrous and sadistic, finding it fun and relaxing to inflict suffering onto others. Lilith reveled in chaos and misery and enjoyed inflicting pain and destruction merely for the sake of it. Unlike many demons, Lilith delighted in tormenting humans past their breaking point, not as part of any mission or objective, but as her twisted form of entertainment and her idea of taking a break from work. She also adored emotional and psychological torture as well as physical as she relished in Sam's anguish by laughing as he had to watch as his brother slaughtered. She tortured seven people to death by flaying them alive while forcing those still alive to watch, saving Victor Henriksen for last because he shared Dean's desire to save people.[18][29] She also toyed with the family of a girl she was possessing by terrorizing them and ruthlessly killing anyone who irritated her, causing them to become desperate enough to escape her wrath that they were willing to betray one another and even kill the girl.[6] She also frequently fed on new born infants and had her "personal chef" provide her with regular supplies. Lilith seemed to be very popular among demons as Ruby described her as "a real pied piper" and she possessed her own personal entourage of demons. All of Lilith's subordinates seemed to either fear or revere her. At least two demons refused to give up any information on her to Sam and Dean even under torture because they feared how she'd punish them, believing that any torture Sam or Dean could devise would be "a flea bite" compared to Lilith's methods.[3] Ruby also claimed that if Sam and Dean had faced her then she would "peel the meat from their pretty pretty faces."[6] Lilith detested angels and found dealing with them irritating; Alastair claimed she'd kill "a hundred, a thousand" of them if she could.

Lilith was an exceptional strategist who outplayed angel "grunts" in the battle over the 66 Seals by being unpredictable in her tactics. At one point, she proved capable of breaking three seals in one day. She masterminded the actions of her underlings without revealing her hand in their actions. Lilith knew how to play with people's emotions in order to manipulate and play mind-games with them. She frequently used this to outwit her opponents and made them second-guess their moves as she went along. Furthermore, when trying to obtain the Equalizer from Sam and Dean, Lilith was intelligent enough to quickly deduce its location, simply by observing the brother's actions.

It was implied in Season 4 that, contrary to the likes of Azazel and Ruby, Lilith lacked any religious devotion to Lucifer. In The Monster at the End of This Book, it is revealed that she has second thoughts about provoking The Apocalypse, as so doing would cost her life, and prefers, instead, to get back to how things were in times before, when she didn't have to battle angels all day.

However, as it was revealed after Lilith's death that she had been playing Sam all along (using Ruby, among other things), it is possible that she was feigning her reluctance to die for Lucifer's cause in order to encourage Sam to kill her. This is supported by the fact that, when Sam arrives on the site of Lucifer's release to end her, not knowing that Lilith's death is the final seal, she goads him into killing her when he begins to show signs of doubt. In Proverbs 17:3, a revived Lilith tells Dean, in effect, that setting Lucifer free was what she "wanted the most."

Lilith might be capable of fear. When she tried to obliterate Sam with her powers and he proved immune to them, she looked surprised and fled rather than engage the vengeful younger Winchester. However, since it is strongly hinted at that, through Ruby since season 3, Lilith had been secretly grooming Sam to pursue his psychic/demonic powers, another way to look at this moment is that Lilith was feigning both her fear of Sam and his immunity to her powers, in order to set him on the path she had planned for him. While Sam has been proven capable of lording over demons when feeding on demon blood, he had not yet started doing so when this confrontation happened and, therefore, it is doubtful that he was truly immune to Lilith's powers. When she blasted him with her white light in Season 15, he appeared to have no immunity against her.

It is less doubtful, however, that, despite her disdain for angels and not showing any real fear towards them, she is truly scared of archangels. As when Dean brought Chuck Shurley into the same room as her (and a pinned Sam) and informed her of Raphael's descent in order to protect Chuck, she almost immediately fled, realizing that she would not stand a chance against a primordial entity. After her resurrection by God, Lilith was frightened enough to work for him and follow God's orders. When trying to fetch Michael for God, Lilith was more afraid of God than the increasingly-angry archangel before her and insistently stated that she needed to take Michael to God and could not fail him. This led to her second extermination as Lilith's refusal to give up irritated Michael into obliterating her.

Powers and Abilities[]

Judging by the size of the blast... smart money's on Lilith.
You killed me because I let you. Now I'm feeling... less generous.
— Lilith (to Sam)
in Proverbs 17:3
Liliths powers

Lilith obliterates the police station.

As "Lucifer's first," Lilith was the oldest demon, and the most powerful, to appear in the series, with only the likes of Cain and the Princes of Hell being on close to her in strength. She out-ranked even fellow white-eyed demons and Azazel in the hierarchy of Hell, with only Lucifer himself as her superior. She commanded great respect from other demons, including Alastair, as well as being feared by most of them. Astaroth described Lilith as the demons' "messiah" and saw her as "a real leader" (compared to Sam). According to Bela, Lilith held the contracts to all crossroads deals when she was in power.[18][30] She could also make her own deals, but claimed to be unique from other deal-making demons in that sealing the deal with her required sex rather than a kiss. She seemed unafraid of normal angels and regularly won battles against them for the seals, but Lilith did fear the power of archangels and fled from their presence. She was described as having the capability to break most of the numerous seals, which required various rituals and spells, to open Lucifer's cage. She was powerful enough to make her Crook, capable of absorbing souls and forcing demons back to hell if they disobey her. After her resurrection, she revealed that she allowed Sam to kill her. Without that limitation during her return, she was able to display more powers and invulnerabilities.

  • Photokinesis - By raising her hand, Lilith could generate a blast of white light from the palm that apparently destroyed anything she wanted it to. For example, she blew apart an entire police station without killing the people inside, and later performed the reverse by concentrating it solely on Sam so that it did not affect the house she was in at the time. Along with Samhain, she was one of the only two demons known to have this ability.[5][6] After her resurrection, Lilith again displayed this power, though she used it as more of a concussive blast which was capable of throwing and knocking Sam unconscious.[7]
  • Telekinesis - Lilith broke a grown man's neck with a click of her fingers without touching it, and later used telekinesis to fling Sam and Dean across the room, holding Sam immobilized to a wall at the same time she did the same to Dean to a table.[6] After her resurrection, Lilith was able to immobilize Sam and Dean in mid-step with no apparent effort and push a devil's trap bullet out of her forehead.[7]
  • Possession - Lilith took over the bodies of human beings against their will. Unlike most other demons, who usually enter and exit humans' bodies in a rush of black smoke as the humans scream, Lilith apparently could also do this without humans noticing, as the Freemont girl's mother did not realize that her daughter was no longer possessed (though its possible she left when she wasn't looking) and Lilith's host did not wake up after Lilith departed.[6]
  • Exorcism (possibly) - Lilith claimed to have expelled Ruby from her vessel in shortly before Dean's deal ended.[6] Weeks later, Ruby claimed that she had been imprisoned in Hell by Lilith, and that Lilith had eventually released her once Ruby promised to find and kill Sam for her. As Ruby had been working undercover for Lilith all along, it is unknown whether or not they were telling the truth.[31]
  • Invulnerability - Lilith could not be harmed or killed by conventional means.
  • Flight - In her disembodied smoke state, Lilith could fly.[22]
  • Spell-casting - Lilith was named by Castiel as the one who raised the Witnesses. She was able to select specific ghosts to summon and compel to attack the hunters she chose.[17]
  • Thermokinesis - Lilith could emit extreme heat through her host's body. She was able to burn through a Devil's Trap by merely touching it.[22] Using this, she was able to melt the Equalizer.[7]
  • Teleportation - Lilith could instantaneously appear and disappear at will. She appeared suddenly behind Sam inside the brothers' motel room after knocking on the door and waiting for him to answer it. She also surprised a guard at St. Mary's Convent by showing up out of nowhere from behind him.[3][22] She displayed this ability again after Chuck resurrected her from the Empty.
  • Immunity - Lilith could enter hallowed ground and Ruby claimed that she was not vulnerable to holy water. Lilith proved to be the most resilient to Sam's demonic powers of all the demons he used them on, even with him at the peak of his power and her powers useless against him. After he had grown strong enough to incapacitate and kill Alastair with them, his powers merely stirred Lilith's hair.[22] Sam trained for a year by honing his powers on lesser demons and drinking demon blood in order to kill Lilith. When he finally succeeded in Lucifer Rising, it required all the blood of one demon, more blood from another, immense effort from him, and Lilith intentionally provoking him to anger, nearly transforming him into a monster in the process. The effort of killing Lilith also exhausted Sam's powers completely.[3] Following her resurrection, Lilith displayed a limited immunity to devil's trap bullets as she retained her telekinetic and terrakinetic abilities even though she was immobilized by the bullet, and was capable of removing it with telekinesis. It is unclear whether or not the Demon-Killing Knife was able to kill Lilith but she backed away from Sam when he threatened her with it after Dean was dragged to Hell by hellhounds. After her resurrection, Lilith showed no real fear of the knife and Sam did not use it to kill her while she was trapped.
  • Super strength - As the first demon, Lilith was stronger than humans, most if not all other demons and regular angels. Even while possessing the body of a little girl, she slaughtered grown men with her bare hands.[6] When Lilith got involved in a physical struggle with Sam, she quickly overpowered him, despite his having the advantage of position and weight.[22]
  • Super stamina - As a demon, Lilith didn't require food, sleep, water or air to sustain herself.
  • Immortality - Lilith was the first and eldest demon, predating even the Princes of Hell and Knights of Hell. Lilith was tens of thousands of years old, and had the potential to live indefinitely had she not been killed.[3]
  • Torture - After Lilith destroyed the police station she kept every occupant alive for another 45 minutes to torture them, she skinned Nancy Fitzgerald, while Nancy was still alive and forced everybody to watch.[5] In No Rest for the Wicked Lilith tormented the Freemont family holding them hostage in their house, forcing them to fulfill every demand she had, and inflicting psychological torture, fear, and stress, without even letting them live in the usual way they normally do, while she possessed their daughter. Two demons under torture stated that the torture which the Winchesters could devise would be a fly bite in comparison to Lilith's methods and feared what Lilith could do, when the Winchesters tried to get information. Ruby stated that if Sam and Dean had faced Lilith she would "peel the meat from their pretty pretty faces."[3] Lilith has also demonstrated familiarity with ancient methods of torture on Earth such as Lingchi.
  • Localization - Lilith could localize humans and sense their presence if they were not protected by hex bags.[22]
  • Sedation - Lilith was able to cause Dean to fall asleep.[7]
  • Biokinesis - With just flicks of her finger, Lilith was able to cause cuts to appear on Dean's body.[7]
  • Terrakinesis - When removing the devil's trap bullet from her forehead, Lilith caused the ground to shake.[7]
  • Regeneration - Lilith was able to heal her vessel from the injuries she suffered when impaled on deer antlers. She also healed the bullet wound in her head after removing the devil's trap bullet.[7]

Weaknesses[]

Lilith-kill-TTL

Lilith is killed by Sam's powers.

As one of the most powerful demons to appear, Lilith was immune to most of the standard demonic weaknesses. So much so that Sam believed only his powers were strong enough to kill her. Despite this, Lilith possessed a few weaknesses.

Harming, Misleading or Trapping[]

  • Demon-Killing Knife (possibly) - Lilith seemed to be very afraid to face Ruby's knife during the previous seasons, fleeing when Sam threatened her with it after Dean was killed by a hellhound. However, after she was resurrected by God, she showed no real fear of the Knife, but still chose to prevent Sam from attacking her with it. It is unknown if the knife would have hurt her if she hadn't blocked the attack.
  • Devil's trap - Lilith could be trapped by a devil's trap.[22]
  • Hex Bag - Lilith couldn't locate someone if they were concealed by hex bags.[22]
  • Devil's Gate - Before the gate was opened, Lilith was trapped in Hell and was unable to leave.
  • Angel Blades - When seeing Dean armed with it, Lilith implied that the blade could harm her.
  • Devil's trap bullets - Capable of trapping her momentarily. However, she was capable of forcefully ejecting the bullet afterwards.[7]

Banishing and Killing[]

  • Archangels
    15x8 Michael kills Lilith

    Lilith is obliterated by Michael.

    - Raphael could smite Lilith, with his mere presence frightening her into leaving.[22] After Lilith wouldn't leave him alone, Michael obliterated Lilith in a blast of white light simply by flashing his eyes leaving behind only a pile of ashes.[8]
  • Special Children - Lilith could be killed by a special child such as Sam after drinking all of the blood of one demon and more from another. However, Lilith later revealed that Sam was only able to kill her because she let him do it.
  • The Colt - Lilith could be killed by this gun.
  • Primordial Entities - Lilith voiced fear of God, after stating he instructed her to retrieve The Equalizer while not harming Sam and Dean per his order. She was also willing to risk provoking Michael, the most powerful archangel, due to fearing God's reaction on her failing to fulfill his instructions more than she feared Michael's reaction on her provoking him.

Death[]

Killed By[]

In order to break the final seal and release Lucifer, Lilith taunted Sam into killing her with his psychic powers, charged with all the blood of one demon and more from another. Lilith later reveals that Sam only killed her because she let him do that. She was later resurrected in season 15 by God.

After Michael escapes from Lucifer's Cage and returns to Earth, God sends Lilith to bring the archangel to him, but Michael is uninterested. When Lilith persists, Michael obliterates Lilith in a blast of white light with just a flash of his eyes, leaving behind only a pile of ashes.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • Lilith is the main antagonist of Season 3 and Season 4. She is also a secondary antagonist in Season 15.
  • Originally, the writers did not plan for a new demon to replace Azazel as a demon commanding other demons for an overall plan, instead wanting demons to be chaotic and having their own individual groups and goals. However, with the demon plot becoming unclear and unfocused, they decided to go against their initial decision and create a new demonic leader so that the demons would have an overall plan. They did not have the new leader planned out right away, giving the character the nickname "Zarqawi" in the writers' room as a reference to the real-life terrorist (the demon war in Season 3 first being planned as a reflection on real-life terrorism and war) and planning for the character to be male. However, Sera Gamble insisted that the new leader be female and suggested the mythological Lilith. The writers then debated whether Lilith should be presented in the form of a woman or a little girl. Although they initially settled on the latter for Season 3 because they found it creepier, they had her possess adults in her later appearances because depicting Sam killing a little girl would be unacceptable.[32][33]
  • Lilith is the third demon of real-world lore to appear in the show: the first was Azazel and the second was Astaroth. Lilith is commonly portrayed as either a seducer of men or the destroyer of children. The character of Lilith in Supernatural is meant to represent both aspects of that mythology.[34] Lilith is said to be the first wife of Adam. Unlike Eve, Lilith was born at the same time, and from the same dirt as Adam. Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him. She later eloped with the archangel Samael and Lilith's sexualized interactions with Sam is a nod to Lilith's marriage to the fallen angel.
    • Furthermore in Supernatural The Official Companion Season 3, Eric Kripke confirms Lilith's origins were inspired from real life lore. "She is generally esteemed as one of the first demons, certainly the first female demon, so were kind of holding to that; we keep in our heads that that's really what she is, that she very well might have been Adam's first wife and was banished to become a demon. She is older and more powerful than Yellow-Eyes."
  • Lilith was the first white-eyed demon introduced, sharing her eye color with Alastair. She was also the first female Big Bad.
  • Lilith was the second character to be the Big Bad for two seasons; the first was Azazel and the third was Crowley.
  • Dean hallucinated Lilith when he was infected with a fear-increasing ghost sickness. In this hallucination, she taunted him about him dying and going back to Hell, and what he had done there. The hallucination was so intense that Dean began to have a heart attack and nearly died from it as a result.[35]
  • Lilith fed on human infants and even had a special "chef" who kidnapped babies from hospitals for Lilith to eat.[9] This is a reference to the real-life mythology surrounding Lilith, who is said to kill newborns unless they are protected with appropriate talismans and the like.
  • Unlike other demons, Lilith emitted a white-yellow glow during her death, as opposed to the usual red-orange glow.
  • Lilith was the third recurring villain whom Sam killed. She was also the first Big Bad he defeated and the only one that he actually killed.
  • Becky Rosen speculated that Lilith had had sexual relationship with Crowley in addition to him being her top servant.[13]
  • Lilith has some of the fewest appearances of the main villains, only appearing twice in each of her seasons.
  • Lilith is one of two Big Bads to have successfully completed her overall goal and be triumphant over the Winchesters, the other being the Darkness. However, the demon had to die in order to achieve this.
  • The demon Astaroth describes Lilith as the demons "Messiah" in Malleus Maleficarum. This is appropriate as Lilith seems to be represented as a demonic equivalent to Jesus in Christianity. While Jesus is the first born of God, Lilith is presented as the first created by Lucifer. While Jesus was created by God as humanity's salvation, Lilith was created by Lucifer as humanity's condemnation. According to Revelation, Christ is the one who will break the seven seals, while in Supernatural Lilith is the one who arranges for the 66 seals to be broken. Also, like Christ, Lilith sacrifices herself with the intention of "saving" her kind by letting Sam Winchester kill her, in a manner that resembles crucifixion.
  • Lilith is the first demon to be resurrected.
    • However, Dean demanded that Chuck resurrect Crowley in Lost & Found.
  • Lilith is the third being ever to escape The Empty. The first was Castiel and then Lucifer.
  • She was the second character to be killed by Michael.
  • Lilith is one of the few demons that is fluent in Enochian. This is shown by the fact that she enchanted the box containing her Crook to only open if the Enochian inscription on the box was sung. Belphegor states this is likely because she was the only one in Hell who could read it (and most angels would not think to sing the inscription). Crowley (formerly Lilith's right hand) is the only other demon who has displayed the ability to read and understand Enochian.
  • Lilith is the first demon ever created and the last old and powerful demon to be annihilated.
  • Alongside Lucifer, Lilith is one of two enemies resurrected by God in Season 15 in order to do his bidding against the Winchesters. They are both killed by Michael.

See also[]

References[]

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