| “ | I have tiptoed through all your little tulips. Your memories, your little feelings, yes. I know what you hate. I know who you love, and what you fear. There is nothing for you back there. | „ |
| ~ The Shadow invading Castiel's mind. |
I've been re-examining the Supernatural PEs lately and while doing so I realized that this horrible creature which is introduced very late in the series actually has a very good chance of qualifying.
What's the Work[]
Supernatural is a fantasy drama series that ran from 2005 to 2020, focusing on brothers Sam and Dean Winchester who are hunters, people who find and kill supernatural creatures that the public don't know about, and as the series goes on they become involved in fighting multiple world ending threats, from demons and angels all the way to Lucifer and God himself.
What is The Shadow? What's It Done?[]
The Shadow is a being of mysterious origin that rules over the Empty, the place that existed before God and Amara, before Death, before there was anything. The Shadow is the physical manifestation of the nothingness outside of what God created, and when God eventually made the different universes the Shadow still remained in the empty, as the empty served as the afterlife for beings without one, angels, demons, reapers, when they were killed instead of being sent to heaven, hell, or purgatory, they would instead be sent to the Empty, where the Shadow slept. Despite describing it as a peaceful sleep, the angels and demons sent there would be in a state of constant sorrow and despair, with their dreams being their regrets playing over and over forever, however, as long as they slept, so would the Shadow. For all of time nothing would disrupt this state, although beings such as God would revive the angel Castiel from the Empty on multiple occasions, although said deaths were usually complicated, such as him having been turned him before death or being dissolved by Leviathans rather than killed in the traditional sense that Angels usually are. After being killed by Lucifer with an angel blade, his closest friends Sam and Dean Winchester believed that he could not come back, especially considering God had abandoned them by that point. Around this time, Lucifer had sired a Nephilim named Jack, a half-human and half-archangel hybrid, whose power was so great and unstable it could potentially surpass that Lucifer. While overhearing Sam and Dean get into an argument related to Castiel's death, Jack calls out to Castiel, wherever he is in existence, which wakes him up in the empty.
Castiel waking up in the Empty also wakes up the Shadow, who appears before Castiel, looking exactly like him. The Shadow explains its true form causes lesser beings to go insane and rip out their own eyes, and as such it needs to take the appearance of someone else. The Shadow questions how Castiel woke up in the Empty, considering nothing had ever woken up before, and attempts to probe Castiel's mind for answers, but can't find anything that gives a direct explanation. It tells Castiel he would be happier asleep, but Castiel refuses, saying that if the Shadow wants to go back to sleep it will have to send him back to Earth, as it isn't capable of forcing him to sleep even within the Empty. Although enraged, the Shadow realizes this is the only solution and sends Castiel back to the mortal world, thus allowing it to sleep once again. Months later, after having his grace stolen, Jack's human body deteriorates and he dies, going to heaven. Outraged, the Shadow invades Heaven as it considers Jack to be its property, wanting to drag his soul to the empty. It initially chases Jack throughout Heaven in a form resembling black ooze, but eventually takes over the body of an angel named Duma. In its new body, it confronts Jack (and his deceased mother Kelly, who is also in Heaven), throwing Kelly to the side and seizing Jack with the intention of taking him to the Empty, telling him it will be worse than Hell, because at least in Hell there would be something. Castiel, who has come there to save Jack, decides to make a deal with the Shadow to have his soul be taken to the Empty now instead, citing the fact that Castiel is the one who woke the Shadow up and is who it really wants. The Shadow is delighted by this deal, and lets Jack go, saying that instead of taking Castiel now, it will wait until he lets himself be truly happy, and then it will take him, before leaving Heaven to rest in the Empty.
The Shadow isn't seen again until God begins his plans to destroy the entire multiverse. When Jack is killed by God, he awakens in the Empty where he meets with Billie (the current iteration of Death), and the Shadow. Later on, in an effort to restore Jack's missing soul so he can be powerful enough to defeat God, the Winchesters and Castiel need to seek out the Occultum, which can access the Garden of Eden. They find out that it was hidden by a demon named Ruby, who is long since dead and in the Empty. Castiel removes most of his angelic grace so that he can travel into the Empty temporarily, where he is confronted by the Shadow. The Shadow is now taking the form of Meg, a demon that Castiel had a romantic interest in, as a way of taunting him, and while it is angry at him for once again disrupting the order of the Empty, it allow Castiel to speak with Ruby as it wants the plan to defeat God to succeed. Sam later visits Billie's reading room, which contains the books that detail how every being in the universe will die. He encounters the Shadow there, who has been casually killing several reapers out of frustration. The Shadow explains to Sam that it was initially on Billie's side simply because it was promised that after God was defeated and everything was finished, it would be able to sleep again, but that Castiel's visit shook its trust in her. The Shadow explained that it was supposed to have ultimate power over the Empty, but that God had disrupted that, and Billie promised to fix said issue by having Jack kill God and Amara. Unable to go to Earth unless it was summoned, the Empty lets Sam takes God's death book under the promise that he fulfills the plan to kill God and thus let it sleep once again.
The plan to kill God ultimately doesn't succeed as Jack, who was supposed to be turned into a metaphysical bomb so powerful that it could kill even God and Amara. When God absorbs Amara and escapes before Jack can kill him, Billie sends Jack into the Empty, as the Shadow is the only being in existence that could possibly survive the explosion. While the Shadow does survive this, it is enraged at Jack's detonation as he quote "made it loud" implying the bomb woke up the beings all sleeping in the Empty. It starts to attack him, but Billie takes Jack's soul back to Earth now that the bomb has been expelled from his body, reviving him, and further enraging the Shadow. After it becomes clear that God is probably going to win, Billie decides to change the plan and take Jack away with her, but Dean is enraged by this and attacks her using her own scythe, knicking her in the shoulder. This wound will eventually kill her, so she begins pursuing the Winchester brothers throughout their bunker to kill them, cornering Dean and Castiel. In a last effort to save Dean, Castiel tells Dean that he loves him, bringing him true joy, and thus initiating his deal with the Shadow, allowing it to be summoned to Earth. The Shadow creates a portal onto Earth, dragging both Castiel and Billie into the Empty. After this, Jack eventually defeats God and absorbs Amara, becoming the new God and overseer of the universe, and is stated to have revived Castiel one last time. It is unknown what happened to the Shadow after this, as no mention of its response to Castiel being revived from the Empty is made.
Mitigating Factors[]
So there are many moments where it does seem to act friendly, but the Shadow screams faux affably evil in almost every appearance it has. It tries to be polite to Castiel only to begin torturing him, it gives a smile to Jack but later tries to strangle him and it's stated that the Shadow only wanted Jack and Billie's help in order to stop God from messing with the order of the empty. It makes a deal with Castiel in order to let Jack go, but only because it wants to make Castiel suffer for having been the one to originally wake it up. I also disagree with the idea that it taking Meg's form is out of any kind of respect for her, it clearly did it in order to taunt Castiel because he and Meg were shown to be romantically into one another, and the Shadow states that it needs to have a human form when communicating with others since it's true form will make less powerful beings go crazy and tear out their own eyes. So any pleasantries it seems to have are clearly subverted as faux affable moments.
And don't think for a second that we are supposed to feel bad for it because it's not able to sleep, keep in mind that after letting Castiel go back to Earth, it was able to sleep. It left the Empty on purpose in order to invade Heaven and claims Jack's soul, just because it wanted to take him to the Empty as it viewed him as its property. If sleep is all it cared about, it would have just left Jack alone and not bothered trying to imprison him. It's claims that Castiel leaving the Empty are "upsetting the natural order" are never substantiated, especially since he dies and comes back to life several times without any major consequences, meaning that the Shadow simply wants all angels and demons to stay there with it, believing they belong to it. The Shadow truly is nothing more than a narcissistic cosmic horror that will stop and nothing to claim the souls of all beings it views as belonging to it, there's no reason for us to ever support what it's doing or feel sympathy for its condition.
Heinous Standards[]
Supernatural has some pretty hefty heinous standards, but the Shadow has a couple of things going for it. In season 15 we learn from Ruby when Castiel visits her in the empty that the angels and demons in the empty are not sleeping peacefully at all, in fact they are in constant agony being trapped there for eternity. This is something that the Shadow themselves admit is true when they are about to take Jack's soul in heaven, saying that the Empty is worse than hell, because at least Hell is something. This means that every single angel and demon that has ever died on the show or before the events of the show, has been suffering in an And I Must Scream fate for all of eternity thanks to this thing. And it has every ability to let them go, as seen when it sends Castiel back to Earth, so it knows what it is doing and chooses to continue torturing the souls of countless angels and demons forever. This already puts it squarely ahead of most villains in the series, but hold on, didn't God destroy every universe in the multiverse except the main one? Well yes he did, but only himself and Amara and maybe the original Death would be capable of such a feat. The Shadow can't go to Earth unless it's summoned and it never displays the same level of omnipotence as God or Amara, the only thing about it that's stronger than them is the fact that it's shown to be completely unkillable, but in terms of abilities and raw magic power, it's not ever shown to be capable of anything on the same level as God or Amara. While it's stated that God has warded Earth from it, there's still no evidence that the Shadow could achieve the same level of universal destruction as God and Amara, especially since Billie explicitly states that they are more powerful, meaning it simply doesn't have the same resources that God does and can't be compared to him. So with that in mind, imprisoning every angel and demon in a And I Must Scream fate forever is certainly bad enough to stand out, especially since those kinds of fates are actually incredibly rare in this series, most of the villains simply kill their victims.
Final Verdict[]
Overall yes, the fact that literally every demon or angel to ever exist has been trapped in an And I Must Scream fate by this thing who views them all as its property, alongside having less power than God and Amara, makes it a solid qualifier.