Demons
Demons in the series are generally portrayed as cruel and sadistic, often taking pleasure in causing humans pain. They are also, as series creator Eric Kripke deems them, "erudite and sophisticated". While the "tyrant" Azazel commanded the demons and served as the primary antagonist for the first two seasons, demons as a whole became the villains of the third season. At times their culture has been compared to normal humans, with the third-season episode "Sin City" introducing their religious side. They believe in their own higher power—Lucifer. Though many demons came to lose faith, they followed the fallen angel upon his release from Hell in the fifth season.
Inspirations for these types of demons have come from numerous sources, such as the devil-on-your-shoulder concept used in the episode "Sin City". The writers often try to base the demons off of actual aspects of history, as is done in "Malleus Maleficarum" by having the demon Tammi turn a group of women into witches. An encyclopedia on demons is used for research, with Binsfield's Classification of Demons inspiring "The Magnificent Seven"'s storyline of seven demons being the physical embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins.
The writers originally intended for demons to not rely on human hosts, but rather exist "halfway between spirits and corporeal creatures". However, the demon featured in "Phantom Traveler" demonstrated the ability to possess people—this quality and its other characteristics were chosen without foresight solely to fit with the episode's storyline—and the writers opted to maintain it as an element of all demons. Kripke feels this added an interesting aspect to the storylines, as the viewers "never quite know who the bad guy is". Another source of debate for the writers stemmed from the demons' eye color, which is based on a demon's place in the hierarchy. The writers prefer to limit unique colors to only the "big, big, bad guys". Writer Sera Gamble noted, "If every time we had a demon that was powerful we gave them a different eye color, pretty soon it'd be like, 'The Chartreuse-Eyed Demon is coming for us!'" During production of the second season, Kripke viewed the horror film I Walked with a Zombie, and found one of the creatures having all-white eyes to be "really disturbing". The writers considered changing the eye color of regular demons to white, but eventually decided against it. However, Kripke later used the idea when Lilith and other high-level demons were introduced.
The appearance of demons' true forms have become more complex as the series has progressed. Originally depicted as small, thin streams of black smoke, they now appear as large, thick smoke clouds. When in large groups, the clouds have electricity pulsing throughout them. The visual effects department based the demons' shape off of that of a snake, giving it a "predatorial" and "intelligent" look. Visual effects supervisor Ivan Hayden finds demon smoke to be one of the hardest visual effects in the series.
As demons, the following characters come in varying forms due to their ability to enter the bodies of humans, either living or dead, and gain full control. Most often their eyes can appear black as a sign of possession, with some variations being red, yellow, or white. Demons are revealed to be human souls who have been corrupted by their time in Hell. Salting and burning the bones of the human body demons had while they were human can kill a demon. Other methods of killing include the Colt gun, Ruby's demon-killing knife, angel powers and an angel sword.
Read more about this topic: Characters Of Supernatural
Famous quotes containing the word demons:
“Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 9:1,2.
“Until you have a son of your own . . . you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to be.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)