Species[]
I'm of two minds about it, because part of me thinks we should judge immunity for one species by what affects another (sort of like how we judge angels and demons invulnerable against injuries that would kill humans), but part of me thinks it's not really immunity unless it should affect them but doesn't. I'm on the fence about it. What do you think, General?--NaiflidG (talk) 23:52, November 7, 2013 (UTC)
I think it should only be immunity, if its immune to something that affects its own species. Each type of creature has specific weaknesses, as such it resiting things that would kill humans, I think would count as invunerability, not immunity. Also is this page simply for immunties or resilence as well, its not very clear? General MGD 109 (talk) 23:55, November 7, 2013 (UTC)
All right, I'll fix the stuff that doesn't belong, then. As for your other question, I think resilience should be included since I consider it to be partial immunity. Besides, if a character is resilient to something, it's notable and we don't have any other page to note it on.--NaiflidG (talk) 00:03, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
I thought so, still thought it best to check, its your page you set the rules. I already removed some stuff before though, hope you don't mind. General MGD 109 (talk) 00:05, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Of course I don't, now I have less stuff to delete.--NaiflidG (talk) 00:12, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Devil's traps, holy water, and iron[]
I figured I might as well lay out these questions here, since they all relate to characters' immunity.
A.) Astaroth and Ruby: If the poker was iron, I don't see why Astaroth is said to be "at least resilient" to iron even though she held it without her hands instantly burning and smoking (which is how the non-immune demon minion reacted to holding an iron chain in "Death Takes a Holiday") when we have Samhain doing something similar and being said to be immune. But as I was writing that, it occurred to me that Ruby didn't start smoking and burning when she was hit with the poker, either; she was getting beat with it, but she wasn't reacting to it the same way the demon minion was with the iron chains. So, either Astaroth and Ruby were both immune to iron or the poker wasn't iron (can they be made of other materials?).
B.) Casey: I know, General, that was my first thought, too. I don't like the thought of her being able to use her powers in a devil's trap because that's supposed to be impossible, but she didn't say/chant anything when she was making all that happen, which indicated to me that she was doing it of her own power (whereas Meg clearly cast a spell because she chanted something). Is there an example of someone else casting a non-verbal spell just by concentrating? If there is, I'll happily remove Casey as immune.
C.) Holy Water: I don't see why Abaddon, Alastair, Crowley, and the Seven Deadly Sins are said to be resistant to holy water. It keeps being said that they recover faster than other demons do when hit with it, but I don't see it--if anything, Abaddon and Crowley took longer to recover from the holy water and go back to chasing the heroes than the devil-trapped demons Sam and Dean use holy water on. That's probably a writing thing to let Sam and Dean get away/do what they need to do without demons breathing down their necks, but still, Abaddon was stunned long enough for Dean and Tracy to have a conversation and Tracy to flee, Alastair got splashed in the face with holy water and freaked out, and Crowley (and Channing-demon) were stunned long enough for Sam, Dean, and Kevin to run out of the church, get in the car, and drive away. Admittedly, Crowley and Channing-demon's situation was different because they had a lot more holy water dumped on them than the other two, but I don't recall any other scene where Crowley had a smaller amount of holy water used on him, so we can't really say he's resistant, since the situation that would back that up never came up. I haven't seen the bar-fight scene in awhile so I can't give evidence against the Seven Deadly Sins, but I do remember them recoiling from holy water and not having any indication that they were more resistant to it than a standard demon would be.--NaiflidG (talk) 19:26, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
As we know Ruby isn't immune to Iron, I guess we can conclude that Poker wasn't made of Iron after all. I guess she isn't either, oh well.
As for Casey, I think so, several Witches have pulled off spells without using words, so I think we can conclude it was that, and remove a seemingly garing hole in the continuity.
Finally onto the holy water, It caused her to stagger, back but it wasn't really a conversation, it was about three sort sentances. Alstair took holy water being siringed into his blood stream and barely seemed affected, so I think its safe to say he is. As for Crowley, you have a point there, I'll have to think about it. For the seven, Bobby, Sam and Dean tossed a lot of Holy water at them, and they were still able to stand by the end. Plus we have examine the effects aswell as the time and the ammount, most demons find it almost crippling, often when tortured it only takes a sprinkle to cause them to break. So I would say, with the possible exception of Crowley, they all are more ressilent. I'll think about him. General MGD 109 (talk) 19:38, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Do we know that Ruby isn't immune to iron, though? This is the only instance I can think of where iron might have been used on her. Whether or not she and Astaroth are immune depends on whether or not the poker in "Malleus Maleficarum" was iron. From what I remember (and I'll go review that part to confirm), it looked like it was, and I've never heard of pokers being made of anything other than iron. As for Casey, I'll remove her; I'm glad we settled that, because it wasn't making much sense.
I disagree. Most demons get splashed, scream, then seem to get themselves under control within a matter of seconds. Abaddon didn't recover faster than that:
From the transcript of "Devil May Care":
[DEAN flings holy water up at ABADDON, and she staggers backwards, smoke rising from her face. DEAN crawls up and hands TRACY his keys.]
DEAN: Listen, my car is three blocks over. Go get more bullets, more holy water, get everything.
TRACY: No, n-no, but what about you?
DEAN: Just go! Go! Now!
[TRACY runs off. Behind DEAN, ABADDON has recovered from the holy water attack.]
Compare to this from the transcript of "Time is on My Side":
[Close-up of a Demon strapped to a chair having holy water thrown on him. The Demon screams and thrashes from side to side.]
DEAN: You ready to talk?
DEMON: I don't know. I don't know anything!
If Abaddon was resistant, she wouldn't have been incapacitated for it for as long as she was; if the demon was able to respond to Dean's question and we assume him to have been not immune at all (a fair assumption, since it clearly hurt him a lot) and we assume Abaddon to be more resistant to holy water than that demon, she would've recovered faster and attacked Dean and Tracy while Dean was trying to convince Tracy to go get supplies. I think it's pretty plain that the holy water really hurt Abaddon and that she is not at all immune to it. Alastair did not take holy water injected in his blood and seem barely affected; he was screaming because it hurt. Just like how he screamed from Dean splashing him in the face with holy water. Why would Dean keep torturing him with something if it barely affected him? Look, Abaddon and Alastair are powerful demons; not having immunity to holy water doesn't make them weaker, it just makes the demons who do have immunity (i.e. Azazel) more impressive. As for the Seven Deadly Sins, I don't know because I'll have to review that part of the episode to form an opinion.--NaiflidG (talk) 20:52, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Your the one who suggested it wasn't made Iron, and yes Ruby clearly isn't, she wasn't able to enter Bobby's solid iron panic room, so she's clearly affected by Iron. Could we chalk it down to the expostor being to quick for it affect them in that way? The demons whose hands were burning with the Iron chains were holding them for a lot longer than Astaroth held the pooker or the time when it hit Ruby, so maybe its a delayed reaction?
Good point, well I guess I was wrong, oh yeah sorry I must have remebered it wrong for Alastair, but he still took a lot more than other demons and wasn't anywhere near close to breaking point, plus Ruby did point out Holy water was near useless against him in his first appearance. Still we can remove Abaddon and I guess Crowely, Alstair I think we should keep though. General MGD 109 (talk) 20:58, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
The minion was reacting to the chains the entire time he was holding them, so I'd say that even brief contact hurts demons. I'm still unsure about Ruby because (in addition to never having heard of non-iron pokers, though I suppose it's possible) Bobby's panic room had other stuff in it that she could've been vulnerable to--when describing it to Anna in "Heaven and Hell", Dean says that the panic room is made of "iron walls drenched in salt. Demons can't even touch the joint." Plus, I'm pretty sure there were devil's traps in there, which we know Ruby can get stuck in. Conceivably, Ruby could be immune to iron (which is not out of the question, since we already know that she's immune to hallowed ground) but vulnerable to salt and is definitely vulnerable to devil's traps. If we say that the poker was iron and thus Ruby was immune, she could still have been repelled by the salt and devil's traps. On the other hand, she later tells Sam that the entire panic room is engineered to bite her in the ass, so we can interpret "the whole thing" as meaning "including the iron." I don't know. Perhaps we can compromise by saying that Astaroth and Ruby may be immune to iron? Something else occurred to me while writing this--Crowley may be immune to iron, too, assuming that the chains Sam and Dean have been putting him are iron. So, now we have two demons definitely immune--Alastair and Samhain--and three demons possibly immune--Astaroth, Crowley, and Ruby.
I still don't think Alastair had any immunity to holy water. He reacted to getting splashed in the face with the same amount hunters usually use on demons the same way most demons react, so the amount didn't matter, the holy water itself did. He just refused to give up any information for much longer under extreme torture, whereas most demons wouldn't--that's not immunity, it's a matter of him having a very strong will and not wanting to give anything away to the enemy. That's Alastair's personality, not his power. I think Ruby just wanted Sam to incapacitate and exorcise Alastair with his powers immediately because she knew that Alastair was a powerful demon who could easily capture, torture, and/or kill Sam, Dean, and/or herself, plus she was personally terrified of him, so she didn't want to take any chances; she wanted Sam to go straight to the big guns and get rid of him right away before Alastair had the opportunity to attack them. She never said anything about whether or not holy water would affect him.--NaiflidG (talk) 21:42, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, still I think she probably did mean the Iron. I don't know, maybe the hit she took was to minor for the to be obvious damage, and it was just painful? As for Astaroth, how about we keep it as she is atleast ressilent if not immune to iron? As for Crowley, I don't know, the chains might be iron, but its entirely possible they could be made of something else, steel perhaphs? With him it might be a bit to much speculation.
I'm still not convinced with Alastair, it didn't seem to hurt him the same way it hurt others, he found if painful, but he took quite a lot of holy water, most demons break from the pain quite quickly, strong will and masocism aside, I still think it seems he seems more resillent than normal demons. You do have a point about Ruby though. General MGD 109 (talk) 21:47, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
You're right about Crowley. I thought there was an episode where the shackles were explicitly said to be iron, but I can't remember when, so we can't add it. I still say that we should add that Astaroth and Ruby may have been immune to iron. Even if the hit was brief, you'd think Ruby would have react by sizzling or smoking or something, since, again, demons react immediately to contact with iron and holy water by the affected area literally smoking as if they were on fire. It stands to reason that if Ruby was hit even briefly by something iron and she wasn't immune, the same thing would happen immediately. It doesn't, so there's only two possible logical conclusions: she's immune and so is Astaroth (not resilient, because neither showed any reaction to the material if it was iron), or the poker was not iron and we don't know if either of them were immune. It's likely the poker used was iron because pokers usually are (in fact, most fireplace tools are, so it's a safe assumption to make), which would in turn mean that Ruby and Astaroth are immune. Since we don't know for sure, I suggest that we just note it as a possibility. (Something along the lines of, "Astaroth may have been immune to iron. She held a fireplace poker and used it to attack another demon without burning her hands. However, it is also possible that the poker she held was not made of iron." And "Ruby may have been immune to iron. Although at one point Astaroth used a fireplace poker to beat her, Ruby did not react to it as if it burned her. However, it is also possible that the poker Astaroth used was not made of iron.") Alastair, Lilith, and Lucifer are all noted as possibly having powers that they never demonstrated on-screen; why should we not note powers that may indeed have been demonstrated on-screen?
Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about Alastair. I do have a question, though: why do people keep saying he's masochistic? He clearly wasn't enjoying it when Dean was torturing him and he really, really clearly didn't like Sam torturing him. He looked completely agonized without a shred of enjoyment whenever they were working him over. He was making fun of Dean most of the time, sure, but I saw that as him enjoying screwing with Dean and also getting some payback on him, not because he was in a joke-y mode from getting tortured.
As for our other disagreements: I'm defining "limited immunity" as "any degree of immunity that isn't total." So, Abaddon and Alastair would both have limited immunity from the demon-killing knife because they are immune to being killed by it but stabbing them with it still hurts them. Alastair seemed to be more immune to it than Abaddon (which is something that can be noted on his page) but he is still labelled as having only limited immunity because it does still affect him. I think we should keep it as Abaddon being completely immune to exorcism rites, because so far, there has been nothing in canon to support that some other exorcism rite would work on her. If they use an exorcism rite that does work or if they imply that one's out there (say, if they say that she was exorcised so-and-so years ago, like Samhain), we can change it to limited immunity. I think we should remove Samhain's resilience to the demon-killing knife because he reacted to his cut the same way that Anna reacted to getting cut with an angel blade (they even both got cut on the hand, even) and she clearly wasn't immune or resilient to angel blades, so Samhain would not be immune or resilient to the demon-killing knife.--NaiflidG (talk) 22:59, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I can agree to the inclusion of said line, towards Astaroth and Ruby. As for Alastair, well its the way he acts during it, what Sam did to him was clearly beyond what he could cope, but after he stopped screaming each time, he acted like he considered the experiance funny. Okay I will except that definition of limited immunity, and I agree to saying Abaddon's immune Exorcims. Samhain however I won't agree to, your comparison of an angel blade and the demon killing knife is off as they different weapons, Samhain clearly found the pain from the knife bearable, other demons when cut with the knife (my bloody valentine) find the experiance agonising and truely damaging. General MGD 109 (talk) 23:15, November 8, 2013 (UTC)
Immunity and Invulnerbility[]
After glancing at both the immunity and invulnerbility pages, do we really need both of them? I looked at alot of the descriptions, and there really the same. Should we just merge the two?
Thetwindler (talk) 18:45, November 12, 2018 (UTC)
- After looking at the "immunity" and "invulnerability" sections of many character pages, I noticed the same thing. Editors here (me included) don't seem to know the difference between both terms, and so, in the end, the use of both words on the same entry becomes ultimately redundant. I think we should make it official that both concepts are interchangeable, fuse the content of the two entries and make one redirect to the other, and not use both words on the same page.SonOfEve (talk) 06:00, December 9, 2019 (UTC)