| “ | I'm done, Chuck. I've changed. I've adapted. I've become the better me. And you? You are still the same -- petulant, narcissistic. So... I'm leaving you here. | ” |
The Darkness, often called by her other name Amara, is a supremely powerful primordial entity who has existed since before the beginning of time, predating both God and Death, who were of similar age.[1] Sometime later, after her brother God came into being, he created the Archangels to fight a terrible war against her. Through the combined power of God and the Archangels, God sealed her away, not wanting to kill her, by using the Mark of Cain as both a lock and key.[2][3] God revealed that he chose not to kill her in her weakened state as she needed to exist with himself so reality wouldn't be destroyed.[4] Whilst the Archangels battled her and thus knew of her existence, she is so ancient and mysterious that the Demons and even the Angels, except for Metatron, didn't believe she existed or was locked away. However, Metatron knew about her and who she was, as he was God's scribe. Both Heaven and Hell thought it to be a "myth" or "scary bedtime story", told to keep others in line.[5]
When Rowena used a spell from the Book of the Damned in order to free Dean of the Mark (which he gained from Cain to kill Abaddon and had been bearing it since), the Darkness was unleashed once again.[2] While on Earth, The Darkness has taken the body of a female baby, Amara. Since regaining her power by consuming human souls, she matured and grew into a young woman in just a few months. As a young woman, she has also developed a romantic affection for Dean, and is possibly in love with him.
With Dean's help, the Darkness reconciled with her brother and departed the Earth with him, but not before leaving Dean a thank you present.
Over two years later, the Darkness returned to Earth and was visited by her brother. She sensed that he was wounded and losing strength, but she ultimately refused to help him, effectively leaving God trapped on Earth.
Personality
Edit
Amara
| “ | I spent millions of years crammed into that cage, alone and afraid, wishing - begging - for death, because of you! (...) I'd die a million times! Murder you a million more before going back there! Tell me, if you won't change, why should I?! | ” |
| — Amara
in We Happy Few | ||
| “ | Now, you might be a -- an all-powerful being... but I think you're human where it counts. | ” |
Due to her imprisonment, Amara had no knowledge or understanding of how God's universe worked. However, after feeding on various souls and studying important points in human history, she finally came to the conclusion that her brother had "screwed up" when he made the world, saying that Heaven, Hell, good, evil, and even people seemed unimportant. When she was first released, she intended to remake the world as she saw fit: a world where nobody had to suffer, and instead lived blissfully for eternity. However, she also wanted to destroy everything that her brother had created to make him suffer.
In her younger forms, she was very impatient and easily became upset if she wasn't given what she wanted immediately, due to Crowley giving her whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. As an adult, she said she deserved to have - and be - everything. As she was the beginning, so too would she be the end.
Both Lucifer and Amara alluded to their long-term plans, but with different connotations. Lucifer stated that, unlike God, whom he describes as "a master strategist," Amara is prone to tantrums and baldness of experience.
From the moment of her release, Amara became infatuated by Dean, as he'd been the one to release her (from her point of view). She said it was destiny that she had been released, and that they would one day become one. When they met for the first time since Amara "grew up" and became an adult, she kissed him passionately, saying it was "the future" and the inevitable result of their first meeting.
Amara heals her brother.
As God and his creation began to die, Amara really began to see beauty at all and admitted that along with the real reason for her actions: jealousy. Amara had been jealous of God for needing something else; something that was not her, but after he created life and made her consumed by rage. After releasing the jealousy and anger, Amara finally had what she really wanted all the time: her brother back what made her happy.
Despite her beliefs, Amara showed the ability to admit that she is wrong and to make amends as she did with God. It seemed she had built her vengeance so much that Amara never considered what would happen when she succeeded. After being confronted with the reality of what she did, she understood her mistake. She is also very grateful and resurrects Mary Winchester as a gift to Dean for helping her.
When God returns three years after the end of the war with Amara, he tells the Winchesters and Castiel that he and Amara have had a nice time reconnecting as a family. Amara has apparently developed a taste for playing keno now, showing that she has gained an enjoyment for at least some human things.
It's later revealed that although the two have grown closer, Amara remains annoyed with her brother and his refusal to change and has been taking some time away from God. She states that while she has accepted them existing together, she no longer wants to be in the same place as him and sees her brother as the same petulant, narcissistic being he always was while she has changed and adapted into the "better me". However, Amara still retains something of a grudge against God as seen with her taking pleasure in the fact that she is trapping him in much the same way as he once did to her.[6]
CharacteristicsEdit
| “ | God was the Light. I am the Dark. | ” |
| — The Darkness
in O Brother, Where Art Thou? | ||
| “ | I am Being. She's Nothingness. | ” |
| “ | You have to understand this about the Darkness: she is relentless. A force beyond human comprehension. | ” |
The Darkness was the beginning of everything; prior to her nothing else existed.[7] While walking among God's creation, she took the form of an adult human woman, but her true form looks like a dark cloud that corrupts living beings when they come in contact with it.[5] Death described her as an ancient and horribly destructive amoral force while God, her younger brother, described her as "nothingness".[2][8]
She is one of the two fundamental components of reality itself, the other being her brother God. If one of them is destroyed, reality ceases to exist.[4][9]
It is also implied that she would never change her nature; God himself tried to convince her that their creations could end up to be greater than themselves, but Amara always dismissed him and destroyed any world he created. Amara said that she only wanted solitude, whereas God wanted a "fan club", and Lucifer said she wanted nothingness. Even after being imprisoned since the dawn of time, she continued to wreak havoc upon the world as soon as she was unleashed and intended to annihilate all of existence in order to recreate the world the way she wants.[7][8]
However, despite wreaking havoc, Amara did show that she could see the beauty in the world, and willingly healed her brother to prevent the universe from being destroyed.
AppearanceEdit
In her human form/vessel, Amara had dark brown hair and fair skin. Her outfit gradually changed from pink to dark pink to red and then finally to black as she grew older.
As an adult, she kept her hair long and loose and wore a black dress with a v-neck. She wore black shoes and had noticeably black nails. In terms of height, she was shorter than Dean and the same height as God's human form.
After departing the Earth to reconcile with God, Amara began wearing more casual attire with a ponytail. When preparing to leave Chuck, she dons a suit with a yellow blazer, sunglasses, and her hair long and loose as she previously had it.
AppearancesEdit
- Season 10
- Brother's Keeper (original form only)
- Season 11
- Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire
- Form and Void
- The Bad Seed
- Baby (mentioned only)
- Thin Lizzie
- Our Little World
- Plush (mentioned only)
- Just My Imagination (mentioned only)
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- The Devil in the Details
- Into the Mystic (mentioned only)
- Don't You Forget About Me (mentioned only)
- Love Hurts (form taken by a Qareen and mentioned)
- The Vessel (mentioned only)
- Beyond the Mat (mentioned only)
- Safe House (mentioned only)
- Red Meat (mentioned only)
- Hell's Angel
- The Chitters (mentioned only)
- Don't Call Me Shurley (mentioned only)
- All in the Family
- We Happy Few
- Alpha and Omega
- Season 12
- Keep Calm and Carry On (mentioned only)
- Rock Never Dies (mentioned only)
- Season 13
- The Rising Son (mentioned only)
- The Big Empty (mentioned only)
- Various & Sundry Villains (mentioned only)
- Good Intentions (mentioned only)
- Season 14
- Lebanon (mentioned only)
- Peace of Mind (mentioned only)
- Absence (mentioned only)
- Moriah (mentioned only)
- Season 15
- Raising Hell
- Atomic Monsters (mentioned only)
- Last Call (flashback only)
- Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven (mentioned and flashback only)
- Galaxy Brain (mentioned only)
- Destiny's Child (mentioned only)
- Unity
- Supernatural: The Men of Letters Bestiary: Winchester Family Edition (non-canon, mentioned only)
TriviaEdit
- Amara is the main antagonist of Season 11.
- Some religions have similar structure to what the Darkness is.
- The terrible battle between God and the Darkness bares some similarities with the first day of creation in Genesis (God separated the darkness from the light).
- Erebus and Nyx/Nox in Greco-Roman Mythology, Erebus being the male primordial embodiment of darkness, and Nyx/Nox being the female primordial embodiment of night/darkness.
- The Darkness by far is most similar to Angra Mainyu, the brother of Ahura Mazda from Zoroastrianism. He is considered the opposite of Ahura Mazda and represents elemental darkness and evil.
- The name Amara occurs in many cultures and is ascribed a variety of meanings: "eternal" (German), "unfading" (Greek), "immortal" (Sanskrit) and "bitter" (Latin). In Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia, the word amara(h) means "anger" or "run amok". In Ethiopian legends, Amara is the name for paradise.
- The Darkness's release was felt by both Michael and Lucifer from within the Cage, marking the first time since their imprisonment that both archangels have attempted to communicate with the outside world.
- Since she was sealed by and bound to the Mark of Cain, she is the true source of The First Blade's power.
- The Darkness is the fifth entity that was sealed away and later unleashed, the first being a huge number of demons, the second being Lucifer himself, third being Death and the fourth being the Leviathans.
- Like previous major antagonists (Lucifer and Leviathans), The Darkness was sealed by God and released as either an unknown or unintended consequence by the series protagonists (Dean, Sam and Castiel) in their efforts to beat other antagonists or solve a major problem at the time, such as Lilith, Raphael, and The Mark of Cain.
- After Famine and Crocotta, The Darkness is the third being in the series to consume or absorb human souls and demons for nourishment. However, unlike them, her consumption of souls is also her effort to make individuals that she likes a part of her and assimilate their traits into herself, rather than simple nourishment.
- Her release set off alarms in Heaven and Hell that, according to angels and demons, hadn't gone off in "ever".
- Monsters also became aware of the Darkness' existence, and that it was coming. Some were building armies to make a stand and buy more time to survive.
- The Darkness shares a lot of similarities with the Great Darkness from Hellblazer/Constantine, which was a major inspiration for Kripke and Supernatural. They are named similarly and both existed before God created light and was released as a form of an engulfing blanket of thick smoke. The way in which Amara was finally "defeated" is also very similar to the way the Great Darkness was "defeated".
- The Darkness shares similarities with the First Evil from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as both existed before the Universe, both can't be killed, both will exist even after the Universe ends, and are both considered the first destructive force to exist.
- Being God's sister and only kin makes her his only direct relative, unlike all other beings in the series that are only indirectly related to him, due to being his creations.
- God and the Darkness are often described in polar terms. The Darkness has described God as the "light" and herself as the "dark". However, the difference between them is later described in more abstract terms. Whereas God is "being", the Darkness is "nothingness." Lucifer remarks that he does not believe that the Darkness can create, only destroy. This dichotomy alludes to Jean-Paul Sartre's work L'Être et le néant (lit.: "Being and Nothingness"). God later confirms this, adding that dire consequences would result if the balance was upset by one of their deaths.
- The Darkness is one of the few Supernatural main antagonists not to be killed or destroyed at the end of her story arc. She is also the only main antagonist to not be defeated.
- The Darkness is the third Big Bad to realign themselves with good during Season 11, the other two being Metatron and Rowena.
- God's relationship to Amara is similar to the Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang, or the belief of contradictory forces being complimentary and interdependent, balancing each other out (such as light and dark, or life and death). Their similarities are furthered in Alpha and Omega, as God and the Darkness are shown circling each other in their respective white and black smoke forms, seemingly referencing the symbol for Yin and Yang. This also supported by the fact Yang is supported as male or masculine and Yin being female or feminine.
- It is unknown what would happen if somebody used the Mark of Cain Removal Spell on her if she is already released from her prison.
- The Shadow claimed The Empty existed before The Darkness or God and that the latter has no power there. It is unknown at this time if The Shadow is also that old or what his relationship to Amara is.
- The only thing confirmed to predate the Darkness is The Empty.
- While they have never interacted, Jack is aware of his great aunt.
