Mary Worthington, also known as Bloody Mary, was a vengeful spirit.
History[]
Background[]
Bloody Mary, while still human, was known as Mary Worthington. She lived alone in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was a beautiful 19-year-old girl who had participated, won several beauty contests in her hometown, and aspired to be an actress.
However, on a March 29th, someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cutting her eyes out with a knife. In her final moments, she tried to write the name of her assailant but in vain. She only got around to write "T-R-E" which local authorities suspected was Trevor Sampson, a surgeon. He was, however, never apprehended.
After her death, her spirit lingered on and lived in the mirror in front of which she had died. She went along with the mirror everywhere and while haunting it, killed all those who kept gruesome secrets of unsolved deaths by gouging out their eyes when someone utters "Bloody Mary" three times in front of any mirror.
All those who suffer the wrath of Bloody Mary have their eyes taken. The victim's eyes first start to bleed and soon liquify, causing internal bleeding inside their until they die. However, it only happens if the victim is in front of a mirror.[1]
Season 1[]
In the episode Bloody Mary, Sam and Dean Winchester encounter her when she killed Steven Shoemaker and proceeded to kill others. Even though the brothers broke her mirror, she persisted. The brothers then proceeded to show her her own reflection and due to the number of murders she had committed, she was constrained to self-destroy.[1]
Season 14[]
After God decides to end things and releases spirits from Hell, Mary Worthington is one of the many freed, appearing in the mirror of two young girls playing dress up.
Season 15[]
Bloody Mary appearing to Rachel in the mirror
Mary Worthington attacks a young girl named Rachel, as she and her friend are trying on make-up, causing Rachel to bleed from her eyes and begin clawing at her face. When Rachel's friend tries to run for help, she is met by Mary standing in front of her bedroom door. When Castiel enters the home to evacuate the residents, he finds Rachel and her friend dead in the room, in a pool of blood. As he leaves the home, Mary appears in a mirror watching him exit.
The ghosts are trapped in the circle as Sam and the others manage to cross the line before they can attack
As Sam and Castiel are leading a mother and daughter to safety, the daughter becomes distracted by a pond, and as John Wayne Gacy and two other ghosts start attacking Sam and Castiel, Bloody Mary appears in the pond's reflection and jumps out to attack the mother and daughter, grabbing the mother's leg. As they break free of Mary's grasp, she pulls herself out of the pond, only for Sam to shoot her with rock salt. She soon joins with the other spirits and gives chase to the four, but is stopped when Sam and Castiel get the mother and daughter across the barrier Belphegor created to keep the ghosts inside Harlan, Kansas.
In Raising Hell, although not seen, Mary's soul was trapped in the Soul Catcher by Rowena MacLeod along with all of the other ghosts haunting Harlan.
In The Rupture, when Rowena tries to perform the Rafforza l'incantesimo, she has a flashback to Mary's attack in the street along with the actions of several other ghosts and announces that she can't strengthen the barrier as it is too weak and the ghosts are too strong.
Apperance[]
As a spirit, Mary was a very pale girl with long, disheveled black hair and dark eyes which cried blood, she wore a dirty brown nightgown.
Personality[]
Being a vengeful spirit, Mary was very unstable, ruthless and sadistic as she was determined to punish anyone who had killed a person and covered it up, however she was not exempt from her own powers as she recognized the guilt of all the murders she committed over the years after reflecting herself in the mirror, which led her to self-destruct.
Powers and Abilities[]
Like many other vengeful spirits, she was quite powerful. She also possessed some unique abilities that other vengeful spirits don't commonly have.
- Biokinesis - Mirroring the way she herself was killed, her victims' eyes would bleed and eventually liquify, causing an accumulated amount of blood within the brain to kill them. This power could be used against Mary by showing the ghost her own reflection while she was using it on a victim. However, instead of just bleeding from her eyes, her entire body would turn into blood.
- Possession - She possessed reflective surfaces and also could possess people's reflections, causing them to move on their own and accuse her victims of their guilt as they died.
- Teleportation - She could appear in any reflective surface near the mirror where she died and wherever anyone summoned her.
- Advanced Super Speed - Out of the mirror, she could move remarkably fast.
- Mind Reading - Due to being in a mirror, which as the lore said could reveal the secrets of a person, she knew if a person was or at least thought they were responsible for a death.
Weaknesses[]
- Salt - As a ghost, she could not pass through salt lines.
- Lack of Reflections - As she appeared through mirrors, covering any reflective surfaces would keep her from affecting her victims.
- Mirrors - She was not immune to her own power when outside of mirrors. Seeing her own reflection caused it to come to life and confront her about her own killings as a ghost, resulting in her melting into a puddle of blood, permanently dispersing her.
Appearances[]
- Season 1
- Season 5
- The Real Ghostbusters (impersonation and mentioned)
- Season 14
- Season 15
- Back and to the Future
- The Rupture (flashback only)
- Supernatural: The Men of Letters Bestiary: Winchester Family Edition (non-canon, mentioned only)
Lore[]
Mary Worthington is based on Bloody Mary, an urban legend that says that anyone who chants the words Bloody Mary three times in front of a mirror will summon a vengeful spirit. This spirit has been reported to do a variety of things to the person who summons her, including killing the person, scratching their eyes out, driving them mad or pulling them into the mirror with the spirit – generally referred to as the spirit of a woman or even a witch. This is an old legend but in 1978, a folklorist named Janet Langlois published an essay on Bloody Mary, which led to the tale becoming a popular slumber party ritual done by girls as well as boys. No one knows the origins of the Bloody Mary legend; over the years, she has been rumored to be anything from a witch that was killed for practicing witchcraft to a modern-day woman killed in a car crash, depending on what part of the country you live in.
In folklore and children's street culture, Bloody Mary is a game in which a ghost of the same name (or sometimes other names, such as Mary Worth) is said to appear in a mirror when summoned. One of the more common ways participants attempt to make her appear is to stand before a mirror in the dark (most commonly in a bathroom) and repeat her name three times, though there are many variations. Some include chanting a hundred times, chanting at midnight, spinning around, rubbing one's eyes, running the water, or chanting her name thirteen times with a lit candle. Most of these are meant to disorient people. In some versions of the legend, the summoner must say, "Bloody Mary, I killed your son!" or "I killed your baby." In these variants, Bloody Mary is often believed to be the spirit of a mother (often a widow) who murdered her children, or a young mother whose baby was stolen from her, which made her go mad in grief and she eventually committed suicide. In stories where Mary is supposed to have been wrongly accused of killing her children, the querent might say "I believe in Mary Worth." This is similar to another game involving the summoning of the Bell Witch in a mirror at midnight. The game is often a test of courage, as it is said that if Bloody Mary is summoned, she would proceed to kill the summoner in an extremely violent way, such as ripping his or her face off, scratching his or her eyes out, driving the person insane or bringing the person into the mirror with her. Other variations say that the querent must not look directly at her, but at her image in the mirror; she will then reveal the asker's future, particularly concerning marriage and children.
Bloody Mary Worth is typically described as a child-murderer who lived in the locality where the legend has taken root years ago. There is often a specific local graveyard or tombstone that becomes attached to the legend.
On the other hand, various people have surmised that the lore about taunting Bloody Mary about her baby may relate her tenuously to folklore about Queen Mary I, known in history by the sobriquet "Bloody Mary". The queen's life was marked by a number of miscarriages or false pregnancies. Had Mary I successfully borne a child, this would have established a Roman Catholic succession and threatened the continuance of her religious persecutions after her death. Speculation exists that the miscarriages were deliberately induced. As a result, some retellings of the tale make Bloody Mary the queen driven to madness by the loss of her children. It is likely, however, that Queen Mary I provided only her nickname to the Bloody Mary of folklore. She is also confused in some tellings of the story with Mary Queen of Scots.
The appearance of a ghostly figure in the mirror could be explained quite easily for the more complex rituals, for example spinning around whilst summoning Bloody Mary in front of a mirror lit by candles. The combination of dizziness, rapid movement and flickering lighting could easily fool the eye into seeing someone, especially when the idea has already been implanted. The participant may think that they have seen a spirit, it is, however, most likely a trick of the eye brought upon by the combination of darkness and fear.