Lilith (Shadowhunters)

Lilith is a villain appearing in the Freeform dark fantasy/action series Shadowhunters.

A Greater Demon and the Queen of Edom, she is considered the Mother of Demons. She serves as the main antagonist of the show's third season.

She is played by Anna Hopkins.

Thousands of years ago, Lilith was Adam's first wife in the Garden of Eden until she was cast out and replaced by Eve. Cursed with infertility, she tricked Cain, Adam and Eve's firstborn son, into killing his brother Abel. She later became the Mother of Demons and gained an enemy in the Queen of the Seelie Court and her successor.

Sometime in the 1990s, Valentine Morgenstern came to Lilith and asked her for demon blood to be given to his unborn son Jonathan. When Jonathan was 11, he proved to be too powerful for his father to control, as Lilith had suspected, so he was sent to Edom, where Lilith took him in and loved him as though he was her own child.

Almost a decade after, after Jonathan was mortally wounded in battle against Jace Herondale, he used his blood to open a rift to Edom and called for Lilith. Several demons entered the earthly realm through the rift; one of them took Jonathan's body and brought him to an isolated cave, where the demons then coalesced into Lilith who reunited with her "son."

Seeking to restore Jonathan to life, Lilith set up the Church of Talto inside an abandoned New York cathedral where the energy from the ley lines was strong. Here, she set up a tomb with Jonathan directly underneath. She then made her way to a hospital where she looked at newborn babies and met Tim Dempsey, a nurse to whom she lamented her barrenness. Taking note of Tim's kindness, she chose him as her first disciple.

She had Jace possessed by The Owl, turning him into her loyal soldier so he would gather for her 33 chosen disciples for her ritual. However, Jace was only able to carry out Lilith's orders in his sleep because his love for Clary Fairchild was strong. In an attempt to stop this, Lilith sent him terrible dreams in which he killed Clary. Lilith instructed Jace/The Owl to infect her disciples, changing their cells and enslaving them to her will, driving them to kill their loved ones and thus corrupt their souls. She called her disciples to the Church of Talto after their kills and slit their throats over Jonathan's tomb, letting their demonically-altered blood flow into the center to nourish Jonathan and prepare him for his rebirth.

Lilith's plan hit a snag when her corruption of the ley line under the Church of Talto spread throughout the city, causing the warlocks' magic to malfunction. The Shadowhunters of the New York Institute, along with Magnus Bane, used the angelic energy from the Institute's power core to purge the demonic corruption. Jace also failed to bring back a disciple, Morgan Young, and removed the demon possessing her.

Having lost control over Jace because of his love for Clary, Lilith decided to deal with Clary directly. Posing as a friend of Ragnor Fell, she visited Magnus and asked him for a spell to make someone fall out of love, convincing him that it was for an ex-lover of hers. Magnus made her a potion that would make whoever drank it lose all feelings for someone specific, but told Lilith that it required a sliver of the person's soul. Lilith then summoned a demon to collect a sliver of Clary's soul, but it instead tracked Isabelle Lightwood. After the demon was slain, she personally sought out Clary and found her speaking to the angel Ithuriel. In her true demonic form, she killed Ithuriel and took a sliver of Clary's soul which she then used to complete Magnus's potion. Later, she gave the drink to Jace, making him completely loyal to her.

The next day, Lilith summoned Jace before her and ordered him to bring her final disciple. Sensing the real Jace struggling within The Owl, she informed him that, once he was finished serving her, she would unleash The Owl on his friends and family before finally releasing and then executing him. She then kissed him, strengthening him with demonic energy, before sending him on his way. The following evening, Lilith slit the throat of Ollie Wilson, her last disciple, letting her corrupted blood spill onto Jonathan's tomb. She then moved Jonathan to another room and instructed Jace to go to Alicante to retrieve flesh from Valentine Morgenstern's corpse.

Later, Lilith screamed in agony after two of her disciples were disintegrated by the Mark of Cain on Simon Lewis' forehead during a fight with Simon and Luke Garroway inside the Church of Talto. When Ollie then told her of Simon, Lilith deduced that he was a Daylighter and he received the Mark from the Seelie Queen. Fearful of Simon, she transported her suite and Jonathan to a different building.

After sending her disciples to find Jace who had failed to return, she stormed the Seelie Court, where she massacred dozens of Seelies before confronting the Seelie Queen, demanding she remove the Mark from Simon. When the Seelie Queen refused, Lilith prepared to kill her, but stayed her hand in exchange for Jace's whereabouts. She then teleported to Magnus's loft, tossing Isabelle and her brother Alec Lightwood aside and pinning Magnus against a wall, though she released Magnus because she didn't want to get involved in a war with Asmodeus. She subsequently left the loft with Jace.

Aiming to neutralize Simon as a threat, Lilith had The Owl kidnap Heidi McKenzie and bring the vampire to her. She then suggested that Heidi "help" Simon reveal his vampire nature to his family to keep him distracted. She also sent Jace to finish his original task of collecting a piece of Valentine's flesh as well as bringing Clary to her. When Jace returned with both, Lilith placed Valentine's rib on top of Jonathan's tomb, then taunted Clary by giving Jace a kiss to grant him energy before sending Clary off to be fitted properly for the ritual. Afterwards, she talked with Clary about her actions, losing her temper when Clary mocked the notion that demons were capable of love and snapping when Clary insulted Jonathan.

As Luke and his team infiltrated the building, Lilith deployed her disciples to hold off the attackers. She then felt a surge of familiar magic and roared with fury as Magnus used borrowed power from Asmodeus to free Jace from The Owl. Nonetheless, she forged on with the ritual to resurrect Jonathan, carving a demonic mark into Clary's shoulder to bind Clary to Jonathan.

Lilith was momentarily distracted when Clary, freed from her bounds by Simon, threatened to kill herself, and therefore Jonathan, only to then be struck by the Sun rune. She then realized too late that Simon was attacking Jonathan’s tomb and impulsively attacked him, only for her attack to be rebounded upon her seven-fold by the Mark of Cain. Rising to her feet, Lilith saw that Jonathan had come back to life and smiled right before she disintegrated, setting off a major explosion as she was banished back to Edom.

The Mark of Cain left Lilith considerably weakened, allowing her to be overthrown by Asmodeus, who then confined her to a room inside her palace with the magic he had taken from Magnus. When Jonathan returned to her, she doubted his loyalty to her. Jonathan told her that he’d help her fight Asmodeus and reclaim her throne, only to then attempt to stab her with his Seraph blade. Fortunately for Lilith, she was summoned away from Edom by Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Simon, and Cain in the middle of a Malachi Configuration that had been modified to torture her.

When Clary demanded to know how to remove the rune that bound her to Jonathan, Lilith told her about the angelic swords Morning Star and Glorious, the latter of which had since been destroyed. When Jonathan arrived not long after and began attacking the group, Lilith convinced Cain to protect her in Edom by promising to bring back his long-dead brother Abel. Once Cain released her and protected her from Simon, Lilith transported herself and Cain away.