Angels (Supernatural)

"Because they're dicks"

- Dean to his mother Mary about why an angel wants to kill her

Angels are a major species of antagonists in the show Supernatural. The angels are one of the oldest life forms in existence, above the soul, humans, and other supernatural creatures, but are younger than Leviathans due to the beasts being God's first creation.

History
The angels were made in this order - Michael, Lucifer, Raphael and Gabriel, and then the other regular angels - Seraphim next, then Cherubim, then normal Elohim angels. The angels were stationed as God's messengers, and no angel ever saw God, to the point where He became a myth.

In their true forms in Heaven, angels are as large as skyscrapers, with multiple animalistic heads, and can still speak, although their language, Enochian, is piercing and loud, where it can make people's brains bleed out from the sound of it.

Only the Archangels were allowed to see God, being the firstborn, and it was clear God had favourites among His own favourites - Lucifer was His favourite, and so Lucifer declared he should share God's power. When God refused, this turned to wanting all of God's power, to which Lucifer asked Michael to stand by him. Lucifer warred a massive war in Heaven where angels killed angels and fought bloodily until almost nothing was left.

So, God got Michael to throw Lucifer into Hell, but Lucifer escaped and corrupted Cain and turned him into a demon, along with Lilith, and God threw Lucifer deep into Hell's lowest Pit. God decided that Lucifer should never be freed, so He locked Hell with 600 seals, 66 needed to be broken to release the Devil.

Before the show
Angels began falling voluntarily to Earth, leaving Heaven because of its tragedies and wars. Angels were not tragic, though, and they instigated wars on Earth and fought with each other and humans. Around this time, Gabriel manifested on Earth because of the conflict Upstairs, and he announced the birth of Jesus - who in the show is possibly the human form of the angel Joshua, who is said to have been the only good angel.

Angels populated Earth throughout Jesus' time, serving him, until they were called back to Heaven by Michael at Jesus' death, and became a myth where even hunters didn't believe in them.

In the show
In the 1980s, the Archangels knew the vessels of Michael and Lucifer would be born, having manipulated the Winchester bloodline for centuries; so they made sure Sam and Dean were born by having John unite with Mary. The angels were seeking rogue angel Anna Milton who had defected to Earth, in the end they found her and Michael killed her.

Anna had been seeking to destroy Sam Winchester to prevent him becoming Lucifer's vessel and said she'd scatter his atoms across the cosmos. But Castiel said he'd kill her if she tried.

The first angel the brothers met was Gabriel, the Archangel, but they didn't know this, suspecting him to be a demi-god. Gabriel revealed his true identity when he survived numerous assassination attempts and cloned himself repeatedly. Gabriel then trapped Sam and Dean in a parallel universe and tortured them but redeemed himself when he returned them to their world, fought Lucifer, and was killed by him.

Season 4
In the 2000s, when Dean was in Hell, angels laid siege to it to get Dean and Castiel eventually dragged him out of Hell and left a handprint on Dean's arm. Castiel manifested soon on Earth, possessing a young man named Jimmy Novak, and his true form burned out a medium's eyes when she looked at him.

Castiel was shown to be cold because he abandoned Jimmy at his time of need and didn't help his family. He almost got them killed by demons, but then returned at the last minute when Jimmy was shot, healed him, and possessed him again.

The angels were preparing to free Lucifer from Hell as was their plan all along but they were pretending to their inferior angels that they wanted the Pit sealed. So they sent Uriel and Castiel to "protect" humanity, but Uriel kept threatening to throw Dean back into Hell and curse Sam for using his Satanic powers. Castiel also asked Dean what he remembered from Hell, as a threat.

Season 5
A powerful Seraph, Zachariah, appeared on Earth and was directly under Michael to make Dean say yes to Michael to consent to possession. So when Dean wouldn't say yes, Zachariah got violent and tortured the brothers by breaking Sam's legs and giving Dean cancer. Zachariah was under surveillance from Michael for failure, but when he gave Zachariah another chance, Zachariah blew it and Dean killed him when Zachariah summoned Michael.

Michael took the brothers' third brother, Adam, as his host, killing him effectively and wiping his mind. The comatose Adam (from seeing Michael's true form) was Michael's human host and Lucifer soon possessed Sam to "have a wrestling match in his mind." Adam and Sam, as Michael and Lucifer, soon met, and were about to fight, but then Sam got his consciousness back when beating Dean who gatecrashed the fight, and Sam threw himself and Michael and Lucifer into Hell.

Season 6
Castiel freed Sam from Hell and Death put a wall in Sam's mind when he got his soul back. However, Castiel became evil and a god-wannabe, and he smashed the wall, thus rendering Sam almost insane. Sam became tortured with hallucinations of Lucifer and he went mad.

Castiel absorbed the Leviathans and when the angels found out how he was going to kill Raphael who was taking over in Heaven and starting a new war, killing angels and making angels kill each other, Castiel killed all the angels who fought against him.

Castiel killed Raphael when he got the souls by blowing Raphael up. Then he returned to Heaven and killed Raphael's followers.

Season 8
"You're supposed to be their shepherds, not their killers."

- Castiel

The angel Metatron was found to have been on Earth ever since the First Angelic War and he was living amongst Native Americans. When the brothers met him they told him about all the events he was unaware of and then Metatron got them to do a ritual to supposedly seal Hell. However, it was a ritual to banish all angels from Heaven and to seal off Heaven.

An angel named Naomi appeared as Castiel's boss and she said she'd saved him from Purgatory. Metatron revealed how angry he was with her and so he killed her and banished all angels from Heaven for supposedly betraying him. However the angels rebelled against him in season 9 and he was imprisoned after many angelic conflicts and murders on Earth.