The Darkness (Supernatural)

"I was the beginning, and I will be the end. I will be all that there is."

- Amara aka The Darkness.

The Darkness, also called "Amara", is a villain appearing on the CW television series Supernatural, first debuting in the Season 10 finale "Brother's Keeper" and serving as the main antagonist of Season 11. She is arguably the unseen true main antagonist of Seasons 9 and 10.

When incarnated in human form, it is played by Emily Swallow (as a grown woman), Gracyn Shinyei (as a prepubescent girl), Yasmeene Ball (as a pre-teen), and Samantha Isler (as a teenager).

History
"Before there was light, before there was God and the Archangels, there wasn't nothing. There was the Darkness, a horribly destructive, amoral force that was beaten back by God and His Archangels in a terrible war. God locked the Darkness away where it could do no harm, and He created a mark that would serve as both lock and key, which He entrusted to His most valued lieutenant, Lucifer. But the mark began to assert its own will, revealed itself as a curse, and began to corrupt."

- Death about the Darkness.

The Darkness is God's older sister, an ancient, primordial force that existed before God Himself came into being. Sometime in the far past, God, along with His Archangels, battled His sister before locking her away using what would later become the Mark of Cain, which He then entrusted to Lucifer. However, Lucifer became corrupted by the mark as the Darkness began to assert her malign influence upon him, leading the Archangel to rebel against God's command to bow down to humans. After Lucifer was banished from Heaven, he later transferred the mark to Cain who, many centuries later, passed it to Dean Winchester.

The Darkness could only remain imprisoned if the Mark of Cain was passed to another person. Thus, the removal of the Mark of Cain from Dean, caused by a spell cast by Rowena at Sam Winchester's behest, had the unfortunate consequence of unleashing the Darkness upon Earth. Once freed, the Darkness grew to gigantic size and descended upon the Winchester brothers as they tried to flee in the Impala.

In the Season 11 premiere "Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire," Dean remembers encountering the Darkness in the form of a human woman. The Darkness tells Dean that they are bound to one another and will help one another, revealing she has the Mark of Cain, before Dean regains consciousness in a field, separated from Sam for a brief time.

Later, while driving, Dean and Sam come across a couple of men with black veins, and they find Deputy Jenna Nickerson, who's injured. They take Jenna to the hospital, where they meet Mike Schneider, a man who's contracted the Darkness from one of the infectees. Mike asks the Winchesters and Jenna to take his newborn daughter; after he succumbs to the disease, he confronts Dean and Jenna and asks for his daughter back. As he dies, Mike says the baby's name is "Amara." In the final scene, while Jenna is changing Amara's diapers, she notices the Mark of Cain on the infant.

Dean drops Jenna and Amara off at Jenna's grandmother's house. A few hours later, Amara displays telekinesis, which she uses to throw letter blocks onto the wall to spell out the words "Feed me." While her grandmother, believing Amara to be possessed by the Devil, calls a priest, Jenna calls Dean, who speeds back to the house. After Dean arrives, he's stunned to see that the priest that Jenna's grandmother called is Crowley. Dean and Crowley step outside for a tense discussion, and Crowley tells Dean that he senses something dark and ancient in Amara.

While Dean and Crowley are talking, Jenna goes to check on Amara, who proceeds to consume her soul. Moments later, after Jenna kills her grandmother before being killed by Crowley after she attacks Dean, Amara suddenly ages into prepubescence and flees while Dean and Crowley are fighting. By the episode's end, Amara is found by Crowley, who offers her a family to consume; she accepts his offer with a smile.

Crowley takes Amara in, assigning to her a demon nanny and educating her about everything that's happened since her imprisonment long ago. Amara accepts Crowley's hospitality, even regarding him as an uncle despite being much older than he is, and asks him about the universe that God created. She also shows a fear of God. Unknown to Crowley, however, Amara conspires with an adult reflection of herself in a mirror. She also feeds on a surplus of human souls provided by Crowley, but her hunger increases to the point where she consumes the souls of both her demon nannies and ages into a pre-teen. When a concerned Crowley tries to tell her to stop consuming souls, Amara becomes angry and demands to be fed.

Amara sneaks out of Crowley's base and explores the outside world, eventually arriving in Fall River, Massachusetts, where she encounters Len, a fan of Lizzie Borden, and consumes his soul. She then goes on a soul-sucking spree, resulting in a handful of ax murders that draw the attention of the Winchesters. After the actual perpetrator is killed by Len and the Winchesters leave town to track down Amara, Amara herself, unseen, watches the brothers, smiles, and thanks Dean.

In "Our Little World," Amara, now a teenager, is confronted by Crowley about sneaking out and consuming souls, and she grudgingly agrees to go on a diet of sorts and be patient. Later, Dean arrives to kill Amara, only for Crowley to telekinetically pin him to a pillar. When Crowley then prepares to kill Dean, Amara intervenes, pinning the King of Hell to the wall and torturing him into granting safe passage for Dean. She then ends her alliance with Crowley, who assents to her terms and leaves.

Amara then releases Dean and stands before him with the demon-killing knife in her hand. Dean finds himself unable to attack Amara, who goes on to explain that she's on Earth to settle "the oldest score" of all time. As this is happening, Castiel confronts and interrogates Metatron, who reveals that Amara is actually God's older sister, whom He had to lock away in order to create the universe. Dean and Sam try to attack Amara, who flings them away before departing and vanishing. In the final scene, Amara is seen walking among humans, admiring them.

Amara is now a growing woman. As searching for her brother God, she discovers protesters of a religious sect, who said that only the ones who will repent of their sins will be allowed to enter Heaven a tthe end of days. Amara, tired to hear peoples said fake about God, decides to reveal herself to everyone around, before killing them with lightnings. She go in a church, thinking that a priest could help her find his brother. The priest tells her that she just had to pray, she trie, but angry that it does not work and that peoples still thinking that God is good, Amara kill everyone in the church after eat their souls. Soon after, the Winchesters investigating on the carnage, Amara find Dean and talk with him after teleporting him and herself in a countryside. She explains to Dean that she is not the evil, that everyone think she is. Dean answer by saying she is trying to became the "new God", and then trying to stab her with a knife, but the knife broke himself in smithereens. Unfazed by the attack, Amara advise that he know it will be pointless. She then kiss Dean, saying that she knows he tried to resist but that she can be resisted. Three angels appears, asking her to submit, or alls angels in Heaven will uses their celestial blasts a the same time on her. She refused and kill the three angels by differents ways. As the angels are about to smite her from Heaven, she teleports Deans aways and prepared to face the powerful celestial blast.

In "Hell's Angel", Amara fully recovers from the celestial blast thanks to the powerful witch Rowena, who offers her help and to become her ally. She later tracks down Rowena to a place where the Winchesters are confronting Lucifer and trying to exorcise him from Castiel. Lucifer then attacks and tries to kill Amara with the but fails. She then telekinetically grabs her nephew and tell him that they need to talk and they teleport away. Lucifer then tries to make a alliance with his aunt saying that they both have a common enemy, God, which she agrees saying that he could be useful. Amara then tortures the archangel in order to draw God out.

Powers and Abilities

 * Immortality: According to Death, the Darkness predates everything, including God Himself. She is an ageless and invulnerable force that can never die, and was never truly alive to begin with.
 * Nigh-Omnipotence: While her full powers are unknown, she managed to battle against her brother, God, and His Archangels for an unknown amount of time, and Death was willing to make sure the Mark of Cain wasn't broken. Considering the force it took just to fight her back and imprison her, the Darkness is the most powerful evil force in the Supernatural universe.
 * Cosmic Awareness - Being older than God Himself, the Darkness knows many things, and is still learning about the Universe which God made while she was locked away. However, she was immediately able to speak the English language.
 * Omnipresence (formerly): according to her she was once all there was. She announced that she will one day re-establish that state.
 * 'Reality Warping - While she conversed with Dean, her smoke form was still expanding, causing immense winds. However, they were completely unaffected by them, indicating that she has tremendous control over the physical Universe. Her power was evident when she turned a water fountain into blood. She can even turn angels to dust with a wave of her hand.
 * Flight: The Darkness, while disembodied, can fly in a similar manner to demons and angels without a vessel.
 * Indestructibility - Being immortal, the Darkness is the only conscious thing that will exist forever.
 * Invulnerability: Considering her ability to stand against God and His Archangels, the Darkness can be assumed to have an immense resilience for physical and supernatural attacks that likely constitutes invincibility.
 * Weather Manipulation - As The Darkness expanded on Earth, it caused strong and powerful winds. The Darkness caused a deadly storm with her mind which caused lightning strikes that burned people to skeletons.
 * Apporting - She was able to teleport Dean out of his car without merely a word. Later, she apported him from a city to the country side.
 * Telekinesis - In the form of Amara, the Darkness displayed telekinesis. She also forced an angel to kill himself with his Angel Blade.
 * Corrupting Affect - The Darkness' presence is a corrupting force to whatever it comes in contact with. It corrupted the Mark of Cain to a curse that would make killing the host impossible, even for Death, an entity that was immensely strong and powerful in his own right. It also corrupted anyone with the Mark into a killer.[2] When released, those who came in contact with the pure form of the Darkness turned into a meaningless killer. Reaper Billie told Sam that he was "unclean" in the biblical sense from being infected by a rabid aside from his actions like his part in killing Death.
 * Empathy - The Darkness can feel and influence the emotions of humans and the human soul.
 * Super Strength - The Darkness was easily able to throw a grown man with enough force to kill him.
 * Smiting - Just by raising her hand, the Darkness was able to kill an angel with a similar effect to an Angel Blade.
 * Soul Consumption: The Darkness can suck the souls out of living beings to feed herself.

Weaknesses

 * High-Tier Entities: God, with the combined strength of the Archangels, was strong enough to bind the Darkness and seal her with a lock.
 * The Mark of Cain was the "lock" to the prison that held the Darkness back. As long as one person bore the Mark, the Darkness would remain sealed. With its removal, the Darkness was set free once more.

Quotes
"I like it here. With you. I haven't felt this peaceful in a long, long time."

- The Darkness to Dean Winchester. "We're bound, Dean. We'll always be bound. You helped me; I helped you. No matter where I am, who I am...we will always help each other."

- Amara to Dean Winchester "God did all of this after He locked me away. I didn't know it was so much."

- Young Amara, to her older self. "All for His own ego. And no matter what He made, that doesn't excuse what He did to us."

- Adult Amara's reply to her younger self. "Amara...you must stay fixed on our purpose. Even we cannot undo what's already done. But as you grow and become stronger, your true destiny will become clear to you. I am what you are becoming. And we are mightier than God."

- Adult Amara, to her younger self. "How when God created mankind, He really screwed it up. [...] Every time I take in a soul, I feel how much emptiness there is. [...] God made a world where people have to suffer, and then they die. [...] But frankly, why would they want to live in such a world?"

- Young Amara (about her brother God). "I'm hungry."

- Teenage Amara

"I said I'm hungry."

- Teenage Amara "Good, evil, Heaven, Hell, people... It all seems so unimportant."

- Amara "He was so threatened by me, fearful that I would make a more perfect creation than he, so he exiled me. Virtually erased me. Passed on stories that I was a threat."

- Amara (about her brother God).

Trivia
◾The Darkness also shares a lot of similarities with the Great Darkness from Hellblazer/Constantine, which was a major inspiration for TV writer/producer Eric 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 Darkness is similar to many terms and entities found in many creation myths.
 * Chaos/Nun in Greek/Egyptian mythology, which predated everything and created or was from the gods or the gods themselves once came from it.
 * From the quote in the Bible's Book of Genesis "And God said let there be 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.
 * Ginnungagap from the Norse Creation Myth, was a primordial void.
 * The terrible battle between God and the Darkness seems to fit with the first day of creation in Genesis. "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness." It is possible that the "light" he created was the archangels, and him he separating the "light" and "dark" was Him locking away the Darkness.
 * The Darkness, in the idea of it being the embodiment of what came before creation, is similar to DC Comics' Great Evil Beast, created by Alan Moore in the pages of Swamp Thing.
 * 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 amarah means anger. 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.
 * She is the true source of where Knights of Hell come from, channeled through The Mark of Cain itself.
 * Since she was sealed by and bound to the Mark of Cain, she is likely the true source of power of The First Blade.
 * The Darkness is the fourth entity either that was sealed away to be unleashed, the first being a huge number of demons, the second being Lucifer himself, and the third being the Leviathans.
 * Like previous major antagonists (Lucifer and the Leviathans), The Darkness was sealed by God and released as either unknown or unintended consequences 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.
 * The Darkness predates the Universe.
 * The Darkness is older than God Himself, as stated by Death. This makes The Darkness the oldest being to ever exist in the Supernatural universe.
 * She is the first non-corporeal being to manifest herself in a human form that she eventually gains before possessing a host or her birth as Amara.
 * After Crocotta, Shtriga and Famine, The Darkness is the third being in the series to consume or absorb human souls and demons for nourishment. However; unlike them, it seems 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.
 * The Darkness/Amara always puts her hands around the necks or the faces of her victims before consuming their souls. This implies she requires physical contact with her targets in order to initiate the process to extract souls.
 * The Darkness is very similar to King Sombra from the 'My Little Pony series:
 * The Darkness and King Sombra ruled the world millenia ago and used dark magic to enforce it.
 * Both were imprisoned by the protagonists of the series.
 * Both have command over the power of darkness.
 * Both appear as black smoke when disembodied.
 * Both inspire so much fear in their respective worlds that many protagonists believe it to be a "scary bedtime story".
 * They are also the most feared and powerful antagonists in their respective universes.
 * Both names mean "Darkness" - Sombra is Latin for darkness.
 * Releasing The Darkness is overall easier than freeing Lucifer, but the spell to release the Mark was not even known up until recently, previously making removing the Mark impossible. In contrast, it was known Lucifer could be freed, but very hard to do, whereas the Darkness was believed to be eternally bound. However once the spell was revealed it was relatively easy to release.
 * Its release set off alarms in Heaven and Hell (and likely Purgatory) that, according to angels and demons, hadn't gone off in 'Ever'.
 * As of "Baby", monsters are now becoming aware of the Darkness' existence, and that it is coming. Some are now building armies to make a stand and buy more time to survive. Now humans, angels, demons, monsters, and even witches know of the Darkness' release and are very scared of it. It is also possible that Pagans and ghosts have also become aware of its existence.
 * The Darkness has since been revealed to be God's older sister, whom He was forced to betray in order to bring about Creation and the Universe.
 * There are similarities between The Darkness and Lucifer's characters:
 * They both are God's close relatives.
 * Lucifer - God's son
 * The Darkness - God's sister
 * They both have been sealed by God
 * Lucifer by the Cage.
 * The Darkness by the Mark.
 * They both feel betrayed by God.
 * Lucifer - jealous and angry that humanity replaced him as God's most loved creation.
 * The Darkness - angry that her brother tricked and locked her away and created religion as a propaganda to portray her as a villain.
 * They both (and Michael) believe they are bound to the Winchester brothers by fate. Lucifer and Michael believe it is Sam and Dean Winchester's destiny to be their vessels.
 * The Darkness feels it is destiny that Dean released her and they will become one.
 * Being God's sister and only kin makes her his only direct relative, unlike every other beings in the series that are only indirectly related to him due to being his creations.
 * Despite being God's sister and equal if not superior to him in raw power, she is not capable of finding him anymore than angels or anyone else.