Supernatural (TV series)/Tropes A-E

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A

  • Abusive Parents:
    • He might have meant well, but John Winchester was a neglectful bastard who messed up his sons incredibly badly. Even Dean, who began the series utterly devoted to John, eventually admitted that he was an "obsessed bastard."
    • Max Miller's father and uncle beat him up daily while his stepmother stood by and said nothing.
    • Bela's father sexually abused her.
    • Bobby's father beat him and his mother, at least until Bobby killed him
  • Accidental Kiss: Bobby excitedly lays one on Sheriff Mills after she discovers that Borax can hurt Leviathans.
  • Adorkable: The titular character in "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo" is very plainly this, almost excessively so.
  • Adult Fear: Episodes like "The Kids are Alright," "Home," and others deal with things that would scare the hell out of any parent with a young child.
  • Affably Evil: Casey in "Sin City," the old Pagan God couple in "A Very Supernatural Christmas," Lucifer, Patrick (the card-playing he-witch in "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester") and Crowley. Osiris often comes across as this in "Defending Your Life".
  • Aliens in Cardiff: Monsters and demons in Small Town America!
  • Almighty Janitor:
    • In "Tall Tales" the janitor turns out to be a Trickster, a demigod that can create things out of thin air in order to cause chaos and mess with people. Later it is discovered that he is actually the Archangel Gabriel.
    • In the episode "Dark Side of the Moon" the lone angel that God still speaks to is not Michael or any of the other archangels, but Joshua, Heavens' gardener.
  • All Urban Legends Are True
  • All Powerful Bystander: The Trickster, God, and Death.
  • All Webbed Up: The victims of the Arachne in "Unforgiven".
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Roadhouse is destroyed by demons in the Season 2 finale, and Bobby's house is destroyed by the Leviathans near the beginning of Season 7.
  • All Your Powers Combined: The only way to kill a Leviathan is to have the bone of a righteous mortal washed in the blood of a fallen angel, the king of hell, and a father of the fallen beasts on hand. That is basically the four main races of the series required to put down a leviathan.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: When the Winchesters have been taken captive by a dozen pagan gods from different pantheons, they are "rescued" when Lucifer arrives and kills them all.
  • Anal Probing:
    • In "Tall Tales," in which the Trickster forges lots of strange happenings in a college town, one of them involves a guy who has been abducted by "aliens." The victim's experience involved being repeatedly probed (a total of eight times according to the dialogue). This ordeal apparently paled in comparison to being forced to slow-dance with one of the aliens to "Lady in Red."
    • In "Clap Your Hands If you Believe" Dean is on his cell phone with Sam when what appears to be a UFO's search light starts chasing him. Figuring that Dean is having a close encounter of the third kind, Sam advises "Third kind already? You better run, man. I think the fourth kind is the butt thing."
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Season 2's "No Exit" had Dean, Sam and Jo trap H. H. Holmes (the United States' first recognized serial killer) spirit in a ring of salt, in the middle of an iron barred sewer, because they could not salt his bones since they were encased in tons of concrete. To make sure that his spirit never got out, they encased it in tons of concrete.
    • In Season 3's "Time Is On My Side", Dean and Sam face the immortal Dr. Benton. Unable to kill him, they bury him alive to be trapped underground forever.
  • And Your Little Dog, Too: People do this to Dean pretty often (in the form of "I'll kill your brother" or "Sam doesn't need legs), and it's always a bad idea.
  • Animal Wrongs Group: Surprisingly, the Devil and his followers. He actually wants to turn Earth into a massive nature preserve...but he also wants to murder most of humanity and zombify most of the survivors.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: Dean's car in season 6; also manequins and dolls in the same episode
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: the Four Horsemen.
  • Anti-Anti-Christ: Sam, Jesse.
  • The Antichrist: Jesse
  • Anti-Hero: Though the protagonists work for the greater good, they support themselves financially through gambling, hustling pool and credit card fraud.
  • Anyone Can Die: Whether they stay dead is another matter.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism:
    • The Hunters fight demons all the time, but refuse to believe in angels.
    • Despite there being hundreds of years of lore and mythology relating to dragons that pre-dates their inclusion in fantasy fiction and video games, both Sam and Dean believe that they can not exist because they only exist in fiction and video games.
  • Archangel Michael: Season 5 reveals that Dean is his intended vessel.
  • Archangel Gabriel: Season 5 reveals that he is the Trickster, and he went into what he calls "witness protection" and became Loki of Norse Mythology.
  • Archangel Lucifer: Season 5 reveals that Sam is his intended vessel.
  • Archangel Raphael: Season 5 reveals little of import about him, but he becomes a major Big Bad of season 6.
  • Asexuality: Angels generally don't care about sex or sexual orientation even a tiny bit. Now, hypocrisy is something else entirely.

Castiel: Tell your flock where your genitals have been before you speak for me.

  • Asshole Victim
    • All of the Trickster's victims are described as being "dicks."
    • The victims chosen in "Yellow Fever" were all described by Sam as being "dicks."
    • Subverted in "Defending Your Life". Dean initially dismisses Osiris' victims as this, only for Sam to point out they were all repentant for their crimes.
  • An Astral Projection, Not a Ghost: One of the hauntings dealt with some time in season 3 turns out to not be a spirit, but the projection of a girl in a coma.
  • The Atoner:
    • Sam in Season 5, in response to his behavior in Season 4.
    • Castiel in the seventh season episode "The Born-Again Identity" when he tries to fix what he has broken in Sam's head by absorping Sam's crazy into himself.
  • At the Crossroads: The show takes the ancient association of crossroads with witchcraft and communion with the dead and the Robert Johnson Deal with the Devil myth and makes crossroads the preferred locale for demon deals. There is an entire cabal of demons (Referred to as Crossroads Demons) who can be summoned at a crossroads and specialize in making deals with humans in exchange for their souls.
  • Author Avatar: The prophet Chuck writes his books under the name of Carver Edlund. Two of the show's writers are called Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund.
  • Author Appeal: Sera Gamble, one of the lead writers and executive producers on the show, is in fact a successful, award-winning writer of erotic fiction. Although she was not a writer on the show from the outset, Jared Padalecki has noted at conventions that she does seem to enjoy having Sam tortured. A lot.

B

  • Back from the Dead: Multiple characters return from the dead, sometimes repeatedly. Sam, Dean, Castiel and Bobby are the characters who return to life and the continue living (Although sometimes they die again later on).
  • Bad Dreams: The main characters get hit by these a few times.
    • In season four, Dean spends many nights tossing over his nightmares of hell. In season seven, Dean is once again having nightmares, this time about Castiel's death and Sam's hallucinations. Well, mostly about killing Sam's monster friend and keeping it a secret.
    • Sam had nightmares throughout Season 1. While some were visions, the ones where he watched his girlfriend die over and over again still affected him like this. In season seven, his hallucinations of Lucifer began as nightmares.
    • In one episode, Bobby's nightmares are used against him by a Monster of the Week, as are Dean's.
  • Background Halo: In a promo pic of Dean.
  • Bad Bad Acting: Sam and Dean playing Jared and Jensen playing Sam and Dean
  • Badass Boast:
    • The angels get a few of these.

Castiel: You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell, and I can throw you back in.
Zachariah: In Heaven I have six wings and four faces, one of which is a lion.
Lucifer: I will never lie to you; I will never trick you; but you will say yes to me.
Castiel: Maybe someday, but today, you're my little bitch.

    • Anna gets two in "On the Head of a Pin":

Castiel: We still have orders to kill you.
Anna: Somehow, I don't think you'll try.
And, later:
Uriel: There is no will! No wrath! No God.
Anna: stabbing him in the throat Maybe, maybe not. But there's still...me.

    • Demons get these too:

Crowley: I've sold sin to saints for centuries.

    • Sam, demanding (not asking for) Castiel's help, say's he'll force the incredibly powerful angel to help them

Castiel: Will you, boy? How?
Sam: I don't know. But I'll find a way. And I don't sleep.

    • Dean is absolutely no exception, as he claims so in two words.

Dean: (after throwing a pen into a gun) I'm amazing... (knocks mook out with a TV remote) I'm Batman.

  • Badass Longcoat:
    • Castiel as part of his regular outfit.
      • Although it looks decidedly less badass when worn over a mental patient's scrubs.
    • Dean in the episode "Frontierland."
    • Angel-hitman Virgil.
    • Both brothers get one in season 7's "Out With the Old".
  • Badass Family: The Winchesters, the Campbells and the Harvelles.
  • Badass Normal:
    • Dean does not have Sam's Psychic Powers to work with, but he holds his own pretty damn well against the Monster of the Week with a shotgun, some Latin, holy water and kick-ass fighting skills.
    • When Castiel's angelic abilities dwindle to nothing during his estrangement from Heaven in season 5, he switches to knives, guns, and the odd molotov cocktail to get the job done.
    • Sam too. He only really uses his powers during seasons 4 and some of 5.
  • Bad Guy Bar: Shows up in "The Magnificent Seven" and ends with a hunter chugging drain cleaner while his wife watches.
  • Ballistic Discount: A mind-controlled man pulls this off in one of Sam’s visions, finishing by shooting himself.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: In order to find clues about the Monster of the Week, the boys regularly pose as police, FBI, priests, Forestry Service rangers, Homeland Security agents, Center for Disease Control officers, Health Department inspectors, state police troopers - they even pulled out badges to convince a little girl that they were teddy bear doctors.
  • Because Destiny Says So: The whole reason Lucifer and Michael want to fight in season five.
  • Because I Said So: Dean still pulls this on Sam and Castiel once, and the Dad abused this trope their whole lives.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Samuel Colt and Elliot Ness were both hunters.
  • Being Good Sucks: Sam and Dean's job as hunters is dangerous, completely unremunerative and, aside from individual thanks from the people they save, the good they do is largely overlooked. The law is after them for a good portion of the series, both their parents and the great majority of their friends and allies have died in the fight, Dean's been sent to Hell and back for his efforts, Sam goes to hell, too, and when body is pulled out but not his soul, he spends a year and a half being a soulless Jerkass and is now haunted by hallucinations relating to his time in hell, and all without a roof over their heads. It is a wonder these guys can even get out of bed in the morning.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Ruby states that demons used to be humans, before their humanity was tortured out of them in hell. Dean himself gets tortured enough in Hell so that he finally breaks and starts torturing others and enjoying it because it isn't him.
    • It's also implied that Anna's Face Heel Turn is a result of her being tortured in Heaven.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Do not call Sam Winchester a freak. He will kick your ass.
    • DO NOT threaten Sam in front of Dean.
    • Do NOT insult Eve (the mother of monsters) in front of her children, especially the Alpha Vampire.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Sam Winchester - he's always got a kind word for someone shell-shocked from a brush with the supernatural, prefers to do research rather than pick locks and break faces, and will most certainly fuck you up if you even think about hurting his older brother.
    • Castiel may seem amusingly out of touch much of the time, but you really don't want to make him angry. Hell, not even Castiel's True Companions are safe from this. At a perceived betrayal, Cas beats Dean to within an inch of his life. Cas going off the rails is not a pretty sight.

Dean: "Word of advice--don't piss off the nerd angels."

  • Big Bad:
    • Azazel in Seasons 1 and 2, Lilith in Seasons 3 and 4. Late in Season 4, it turns out that Lucifer has been the true Big Bad all along and everything in the plot, going back to decades before it, was according to his plan.
    • In Season 6, after much competing between Crowley, Eve, Raphael and Castiel, the true Big Bad turns out to be Cas, who manipulates everyone else in order to become God.
    • And in the season 7 premiere, we learn that Cas accidentally released some ancient Eldritch Abominations called Leviathans, which take control of Cas's body and (seemingly) kill him, before mass possessing numerous humans. Right now, it seems safe to assume they (specifically, their seeming leader, Dick) are the new Big Bad.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: In "Bedtime Stories", a young man with a Wile E. Coyote tattoo gets hypnotised into being this.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • In "On the Head of a Pin," Anna saves Castiel just as he is about to be killed by Uriel.
    • Castiel pops in to save Sam and Dean in the Season 5 premiere. He plows through two angels and scares Zachariah away.
  • Big Entrance: Castiel's first scene. All the lights start flickering and bursting, the roof starts rattling, and the barn door breaks open, and Castiel casually strolls in amidst the howling wind and sparks.

Dean: (Panicked) Who are you?
Castiel: I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition.

  • Big No:
    • In "All Hell Breaks Loose", Dean lets out one when he just finally found Sam and seen him get stabbed in the back. Helped by the fact that the viewers are probably feeling the same thing and his look of complete panic and devastation at the sight of his little brother getting knifed.
    • Played absolutely hilariously when a wishing well turns a girl's teddy bear into a life-sized, sentient being. A very depressed, alcoholic, somewhat perverted, plushy sentient being. Eventually, he (it?) decides to end it all and sticks a shotgun in its mouth, graphically blowing a cloud of fluff across the room. Which doesn't kill it, as apparently cotton batting doesn't double for brains. Despairing, the teddy raises its paws to heaven and implores "WHHHYYYYYYY?!"
    • Sam also lets one out at the end of the pilot episode when Jessica dies.
    • This is Gordon's reaction in "Fresh Blood" as he's being turned into a vampire.
    • Dean reacts this way in "Swan Song" when Sam!Lucifer telepathically snaps Bobby Singer's neck.
  • Black Comedy Rape: What happens to the frat boy in Tall Tales.
  • Blessed with Suck: Sam's visions of doom. As one of a group of psychic children, some of whom have powers such as Super Strength, Mind Control, Telekinesis and the ability to electrocute people with a touch, he gets uncontrollable, painful visions of violent deaths. As one of the other psychics put it: "Dude, [that] sucks."
  • Blind Seer: Silas in the Rising Son comics, and Pamela in the main series after having her eyes burned out by Castiel.
  • Blood From the Mouth: It would perhaps be easier to list episodes where this did not happen.
  • Blood Lust: Several creatures.
  • Blood Magic:
    • Human blood is used by demons to contact other demons, and can be used by Angels to communicate across dimensions.
    • Demon blood can be drunk by certain chosen humans in order to give them demonic powers and control over other demons.
    • Any blood can be used to create sigils to ward off and disperse angels, and specific quantities of virgin blood can be used to open doorways to purgatory.
  • Bloody Bowels of Hell: How Meg-in-Sam describes Hell in "Born Under a Bad Sign." This is later changed Crowley changes it into eternity of endlessly waiting in line as a Cool and Unusual Punishment
  • Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The show is fond of these:
    • Season 1 Finale: John and the boys have just been in a nasty car accident. We see them in the destroyed car, but don't know if they are alive or dead until the season 2 premiere.
    • Season 3 Finale: Dean is killed by hellhounds, and his soul is sent to Hell, leaving his future uncertain. Overlaps with Downer Ending.
    • Season 4 Finale: Castiel is facing off an archangel, said to be one of the most powerful entities in existence, and Sam and Dean are faced with Lucifer rising from his cage.
    • Season 6 Finale: Castiel gives the boys an ultimatum: bow down and swear their love to him, their new Lord God, or be destroyed.
    • Season 7 Finale: Castiel and Dean just killed Dick Roman, but are dragged along with his soul into the dimensional realm of Purgatory, where the soul of every monster that ever lived hunt for all eternity. Sam is left completely alone back on Earth, which is now the site of a turf war between the remaining leaderless Leviathans and Crowley's demons. Oh, and Kevin the prophet is now Crowley's prisoner.
  • Bound and Gagged: Sam for a few minutes in "Bloodlust" and Dean for about half of "Hunted." Sam has visions of being this when he is going though demon blood withdrawl.
  • Break the Game Breaker: Any time Castiel was killed or sent away by sigil; basically the whole of his depowering in five. In season 7, As soon as Castiel gets his memories and full angelic power back, he becomes insane since he takes Lucifer into his mind. When he recovers from *that*, he's a cloud-cuckoo-lander who would rather watch insects than fight...especially since he's still guilt-ridden from giving the Leviathans a free ride in the first place.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Krissy from "Adventures in Babysitting."
  • Break the Cutie: Poor Sam. Poor Castiel. And poor, poor Dean.
  • Breather Episode: Usually the signal for the next episode to crank the Angst! Up to Eleven.
  • Brick Joke: In The Devil You Know, Crowley angrily shouts that demons are rampaging around the Earth, causing death and destruction and also "ate [his] tailor!!" Six episodes later, in Weekend at Bobby's, it's revealed that Crowley was a tailor when he was human.
    • In The French Mistake, after getting thrown into the "Real World", the directors discuss salvaging the footage of the brothers being thrown through the window by freeze-framing right before the interference. At the end of the episode, when they're getting thrown back into their own universe, how do you think they film it?
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In the season five finale, Sam invokes this trope to stop the apocalypse. He invites Lucifer to possess him, then throws the both of them back into the Devil's Cage.
    • In the season seven finale, Dean and Castiel kill Dick Roman, but the backlash causes them to be sucked into Purgatory along with his soul.
  • Broken Angel: Castiel, more and more as Season 5 progresses, and to an extreme in the future timeline of episode 4 "The End".
  • Broken Hero: Both Sam and Dean qualify, though their optimism has been somewhat drained by circumstance.
    • Cas (from season five onwards) and Bobby definitely qualify too. Although Bobby is probably the most functional of the group, he's still alcoholic and pretty messed up about his wife's death.

C

  • Cain and Abel: Hinted from day one. Season 5 tells us that Dean is supposed to be the vessel for the Archangel Michael, while Sam is supposed to be the vessel for Lucifer, and the older is supposed to kill the younger.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Happens twice in the pilot episode for Sam. First, his Dad goes missing and Dean comes to get him. He refuses that after killing the Monster of the Week, but watching his girlfriend burn up on the ceiling like his mother finally forces him to take the call for good.
    • In fact, any time either boy starts thinking about getting out of the business, they're dragged back in by rather brutal means. The Call doesn't just know where you are, it will stalk you from Hell and back. Literally. As in, angels besieged Hell and dragged Dean out because they had work for him. They dragged the brothers back from Heaven, too.
    • In seasons four and five and most of three, The Call is in fact semi-omniscient beings, requiring them to travel under a couple different types of mystic shielding. It steps up from hex bags to ribcages engraved in Enochian so Heaven and Lucifer wouldn't turn up and explain with nasty graphic examples why You Can't Fight Fate.
    • The other Call instances are mostly equally engineered, although the menace that sends soulless Sam into Dean's neighborhood in season six, dragging Dean slowly back onto the road after over a year of retirement, was just a monster seeking revenge on them for an earlier kill.
  • Call Back:
    • In "Home", Sam hands the kid he just rescued to the kid's big sister and says "Take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don’t look back," echoing his father's words and actions to Dean in the pilot.
    • Dean slams Sam against a wall in "Pilot" for questioning the family mission; Sam slams Dean against a wall in "Salvation" for doing the exact same thing.
    • In "What Is and What Should Never Be" there's a ton, visual and verbal, to the pilot episode: Mary going down the stairs (replaced by Sam), Dean and Sam fighting in the dark after Dean breaks in, "Lookin' for a beer," etc.
    • After finally killing Azazel at the end of Season 2, Dean tosses the Colt in the Impala's trunk, says, "We've got work to do," and closes the trunk, which is what Sam says and does (though not with the Colt) at the beginning of Season 1 after Azazel kills Mary and Jessica. This gets yet another Call Back when Dean is resurrected in Season 4 and Castiel tells him that he was brought back "Because we have work for you."
    • Season finales "Devil's Trap" and "No Rest For The Wicked" both involve Sam helplessly pinned to a wall by that season's Big Bad as said demon murders Dean in front of him.
    • Compare the Season 3 and Season 5 finales:

[hellhounds are ripping Dean to shreds, killing him]
Sam: No!
Lilith: Yes! (tries to fry him)

      • and:

[Lucifer snaps Bobby's neck like a twig, killing him]
Dean: No!
Lucifer: Yes! (tries to beat him to death)

    • While trying to convince Sam to come with him, Dean admits that he doesn't want to do it alone. He mentions this again in season seven while on trial in "Defending Your Life".
  • Calling the Old Man Out: When Gabriel and Lucifer come face to face, this is the first thing Gabriel proceeds to do with his arrogant brother. "Lucifer, you're my brother, and I love you; but you are a great. Big. Bag o'dicks!" As Gabriel goes on, he insists that humans are not only better than Lucifer thinks, but deep down Lucifer is just jealous of 'Dad's' new creation. Lucifer does NOT take this well.
    • Bobby does this to his drunken, abusive father in "Death's Door", though technically it's an interactive memory of his long-dead father rather than the real thing.
    • Bobby also once did this on Dean and Sam's behalf, as seen in a memory in "Death's Door", where he gave John a piece of his mind for not treating them like children. This is probably what started the argument mentioned in Series 1 which ended in Bobby pointing a shotgun at John and threatening to shoot him.
  • Came Back Wrong:
    • In Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Angela, the zombie, came back violently insane.
    • Heavily implied/outright stated for Sam and Dean after Seasons Two and Three, respectively.
    • In season 6, Dean's suspicions that Sam is different since returning from Hell are confirmed by Castiel, who reveals that Sam has no soul. This is remedied by midseason.
  • Cartwright Curse: Poor Sam.
    • Lampshaded in "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!"
  • Cassandra Truth: Gordon was right all along about Sam. Subverted: while Sam definitely has darkness in him and accidentally started the Apocalypse, he sacrifices himself to save the world instead of siding with the demons or helping Lucifer take over the world.
  • Casting Gag: Possibly unintentional but in Season 6's "Clap Your Hands If You Believe", Robert Picardo guest stars as a lead guest character and interacts with Dean. Picardo also appeared on Smallville as Edward Teague, the father of Jason Teague... who was played by Jensen Ackles.
    • An episode in Season 3 briefly featured Mercedes McNab as a girl recently turned into a vampire, harking back to her most recognisable role as the vampire Harmony on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later Angel
  • Catapult Nightmare: Averted--surprisingly-- when Dean startles awake from dreams of his time in hell with nothing more than a slight twitch.
    • Played straight when Dean wakes up from a nightmare in 7.05 "Shut Up, Dr Phil".
  • Catch Phrase:
    • Bobby's "Idjit"[sic]. Judging by the episode "Weekend at Bobby's," he apparently tends to say "balls" often when frustrated when he is alone (and thus has no one to say "idjit" to).
    • "Son of a bitch!"
    • "Bitch!" - "Jerk!"
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: Implied in an episode, although when two male characters who are not having sex spend all their time together, it is to be expected.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The Horsemen's rings are needed to trap Lucifer in Hell again.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Hey, remember how throughout season five, the angels want Dean to be the vessel for Michael but he keeps rejecting them? Remember how the ability to be a vessel is a bloodline trait? Remember the Winchesters' half-brother Adam from a few seasons back who turned out to have been killed by a ghoul? Remember how the angels can bring people back from the dead?
    • Midway through Season Six we meet Bobby's friend Dr. Visyak, a professor with knowledge of the supernatural. In the penultimate episode of the season, we discover that she is an escapee from Purgatory, and is the only one who knows how to open a portal to it.
  • Chekhov's Skill: In "On the Head of a Pin", Alistair escapes from the devil's trap when Uriel manipulates a nearby water pipe. In "Abandon All Hope...," Cas pulls something similar on Meg to get out of the angel equivalent of said trap.
  • Chess with Death: Dean has one of these with Death: in exchange for bringing Sam's soul back to his body Dean has to do his job for a day. Dean ends up failing the test, but Death returns the soul anyway. Firstly because his real reason for the task was to show Dean what forces he was messing with by constantly resurrecting, and also because Sam and Dean's current investigation suited his purposes. He may have wanted a day off too.
  • The Chew Toy: With what they go through and the fact that they looked so darned pretty when being put through pain, both of them (but especially Dean) are walking a very fine line between this and pure-and-simple Woobification.
  • Christianity Is Catholic: Subverted in 99 Problems. The very Christian anti-demon militia in Blue Earth, Minnesota is Lutheran.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Sam has this whenever he's not otherwise occupied.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A season 5 episode introduced Jesse Turner, a young boy explicitly identified as the Anti Christ, resulting from a union between a demon and a human, which somehow imbued him with Reality Warper powers. Possibly realizing how little sense it made that this would result in the most powerful character depicted in the show up to that point (with the exception of God) and the Story-Breaker Power it entailed, the writers immediately sent the character off to nowhere.
  • Classical Movie Vampire: Beautifully (and hilariously) played with in "Monster Movie," this vampire turns out to be a lonely shapeshifter who admires the old Universal movie monsters.
  • Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Sam may have kicked the demon blood habit, but shanking demons for a living is doing nothing for his self-control.
  • Comatose Canary:
    • Dean at the beginning of Season 2.
    • The daughter in the Season 3 episode "Bedtime Stories," who somehow makes the people in her town re-enact the fairy tales read to her by her father.
    • Sam in season six. After getting his soul back from Death it is mentioned at the beginning of "Like a Virgin" that Sam has been "asleep" for almost ten days. Also at the beginning of the last episode of Season 6 "The Man Who Knew Too Much" as the mental wall keeping all of the hell memories at bay has been destroyed by Cass
  • Companion Cube: The Impala to Dean.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: At least two such characters show up:
    • Ron Reznick in "Nightshifter", who is convinced that the shapeshifter attacks he's been doing independent research on are caused by "mandroids".
    • In "Slash Fiction" paranoid whackjob Frank Devereaux doesn't put much stock in magic, but he's sure that "The government's been cloning people for years."
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Sometime off-screen third season, the Winchester brothers each got a possession-blocking protective tattoo. From that first appearance onward, the tattoos can be seen from time to time over the collar of their shirts, though attention is almost never drawn to them again.
    • The opening of "Clap Your Hands if you Believe", which was itself a Shout-Out to The X-Files, was put together from clips of previous episodes - including the slow-dancing alien from the first Trickster episode.
    • Dean's amulet, which at this point has been missing from the show for two full years, appears on Dean's neck in a flashback in the season 7 episode "Repo Man."
  • Cool Car: The Impala. So much so it even has its own Fan Nickname: The Metallicar.
  • The Coroner: A different one appears in many episodes (since they're moving all over the country working on cases) to explain to the Winchesters how the latest Victim of the Week met his or her gruesome end.
  • Corrupt the Cutie: Sam Winchester's entire life consists of a plot to do this to him. It sort of works, to the point where the Big Bad manipulates him into starting the Apocalypse thinking he was preventing it, but it doesn't stick.
  • The Corruption: At the end of season four, Castiel tells Dean that consuming enough demon blood to kill Lilith will permanently mutate Sam into a monster. Possibly, God cleaning it out of his system prevented this.
  • Cosmic Close Call:
    • The third episode in season 3, "Bad Day At Black Rock", features an Artifact of Doom in the form of a lucky rabbit's foot that grants its owner phenomenal luck... until they lose it (and "EVERYONE LOSES IT!"), at which point they suffer more and more until they eventually meet their demise. Near the end of the episode, the Winchester brothers end up going through this trope in their attempts to destroy it: as they're about to burn the foot, the waitress they had stolen it from arrives to steal it back, and threatens Dean by nailing Sam (who had previously owned the foot) in the shoulder. They only get away when Dean tosses the foot to her, causing the curse to pass to her as well, and she resigns herself to handing it over to be destroyed.
    • Happens to the brothers again when dealing with the goddess Atropos. Introduced in the sixth season episode "My Heart Will Go On", Atropos is one of the Fates in charge of arranging how mortals die, and can do so by freezing time and manipulating her surroundings. After Castiel interferes in and alters the past to save several thousand lives, Atropos begins hunting the survivors' descendants; when this draws the brothers' attention, she starts going after them as well, and they only manage Cosmic Close Calls with the help of Castiel.
  • Cosmopolitan Council: In Hammer of the Gods, the council composed of ten gods, including Odin, Mercury and Kali.
  • Council of Angels: Heaven is apparently somewhat of a bureaucracy, as God has gone AWOL. In season six Heaven has descended into full scale civil war as Michael, its former leader (After God), has been trapped in Hell with Lucifer.
  • Creator Provincialism: It is...interesting...how the vast majority of the important events of the apocalypse take place in the continental United States. Kali is actually rather upset over this fact, and laments that "Westerners" are trying to take away her rightful spot in her own Apocalypse.
    • Possibly Justified. The Apocalypse is taking place in America because that's where Sam and Dean are. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for Lucifer to be doing his thing in the Middle East or Europe or anywhere else when his intended vessel lives in America. Now, the fact that Sam and Dean are American in the first place is all on the writers, but they can hardly be blamed for that.
    • Fortunately Castiel is on hand to pop over to the Holy Land to fetch any necessary Plot Device that the boys have need of, thus sparing them the onerous burden of international travel. As long as you have the right roadies you don't have to put any more effort into obtaining Holy Oil from Jerusalem than J-Lo does to getting Perrier from across town.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Just like All Myths Are True, so do all gods exist. Though they are apparently not all equal given how easily Lucifer mows down a dozen of them in "Hammer of the Gods."
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: Teetering on the precipice of this trope. While pretty much all of the Apocalypse storyline contains heavy use of individual elements and characters from Christian eschatology, the actual usage of God, Lucifer, the angels and the demons, to say nothing of the complete and utter absence of Jesus, really ends up presenting a pseudo-Christian world where most of the Biblical characters are really Captain Ersatz versions of the ones from the source material and their link to the religion overall is essentially as a fantasy remake of the original with updated, modernized, characters cherry-picked for dramatic convenience.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: The Winchesters, especially, get their asses handed to them by the Big Bad all the time.
    • This happens several times with Alastair and Lilith, who pwn humans and angels alike to begin with, only for Sam to eventually kill them with his brain.
    • Anything attempting to take on an archangel ends up burned to dust with a simple touch, or exploded with a snap of the fingers. Lucifer slaughters pagan gods without breaking a sweat and then kills his brother - the archangel Gabriel - just as easily.
    • In the Season 6 finale the final battle between Castiel and Raphael ends up being like that. Amped up on purgatory souls, Castiel merely snaps his fingers and Raphael explodes into bloody goo.
  • Cut Apart: In "Folsom Prison Blues", Sam and Dean pull a jailbreak and go to the cemetery to destroy the remains of a nurse who is haunting the prison. The FBI is headed to the cemetery to recapture them. The camera cuts back and forth until it is revealed that the FBI was directed to the wrong cemetery.

D

  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Crowley. He correctly deduces Lucifer’s inherent hatred of Demons, while his Demonic compatriots are all blind to this. In season 6 he takes the Winchesters very seriously as a threat and takes appropriate steps to foil them (including faking his own death), even pointing out all the Big Bads who were killed or defeated by failing to do just that.

Am I the only game piece on the board who doesn't underestimate those denim-wrapped nightmares?!

    • In "Season Seven, Time For a Wedding!", Becky doses Sam with love potion, and then conceals it from Dean with the knowledge she learned from reading the Supernatural novels. She instantly realizes the guy who's been giving her the love potion is a Crossroads Demon when he flashes his demon eyes at her, and is reluctant to accept this offered Deal with the Devil. And the devil in question has been taking advantage of loopholes in the deal.
    • "The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo", Charlie, learns about Leviathans, and reasonably assumes the person she got the info from is nuts. Then she accidentally learns they're real, and promptly tries to pack up and vanish. When the Winchesters show up, she reasonably assumes they're Leviathans, until they prove otherwise. For the duration of the episode, she tries to stick to her skill set instead of getting in fights, and leaves as soon as the episode is over. She gets Put on a Bus by herself.
  • Danger Takes a Backseat: Lampshaded in "The French Mistake".

Misha Collins: (Typing into his phone) Ever. Get. The. Feeling. That. There's. Someone. In. The. Back. Seat? Frowny-face.

  • Dark and Troubled Past / Dysfunction Junction: if you haven't realised already that this show 'is this trope incarnate, then you obviously have not seen the first episode. Or any episode. Or were severely inebriated or high while watching... Or some combination of the above.
    • Even Bobby (previously the Only Sane Man... okay, still the Only Sane Man but for this show that doesn't say much for his comparative sanity) has massive problems.
  • Dark Messiah: in Season 4, Sam heads this way, fully expecting/intending to die killing Lilith and willing to shoot a few dogs to do so. In his arrogance, he doesn't realize he's played right into Lilith's hands until it's too late.
  • The Dark Side: After spending three seasons trying to avoid "going dark side", a demon blood-addicted Sam skids down the slippery slope after attacking and attempting to choke Dean following a failed intervention in which Dean called him a monster. Sam kills Lilith, therefore (inadvertently) starting the Apocalypse by freeing Lucifer.
  • The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: By the end of the fourth season, Sam pretty much runs out of legitimate excuses for his dark side-skirting behavior. He cops to this in early Season 5.
  • Darker and Edgier: Season 1 is more or less a show about two brothers trained to fight the supernatural, looking for their lost father. Then It Got Worse.
  • Dead Baby Comedy: Crowley's "muffin" in "Slash Fiction."
  • Dead Ex Machina: John Winchester in the second half of "All Hell Breaks Loose."
  • Dead Little Sister:
    • Gordon's sister. Subverted since he killed her himself after she became a vampire.
    • Played straight in Sam and Dean's case. Sam's death is the final straw for Dean and he makes a desperate and suicidal Deal with the Devil to bring him Back from the Dead.
    • The real Meg's sister who committed suicide.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Both of the brothers. Especially Dean.
  • Dean Ex Machina: Dean always seems to pop up and save the day whenever Sam (or anyone really) is in trouble.
  • Deal with the Devil:
    • In several episodes, including "In My Time of Dying", "Crossroad Blues", "All Hell Breaks Loose Part II", and a major plot point in Season 3.
    • Recurs in season 5 with Bobby.
    • Crowley as well. Turns out he sold his soul while human for a "few more inches below the belt".
  • Death By Pragmatism: Subverted by Ruby.
  • Death Faked for You: Dean and Sam after their run-ins with multiple law enforcement personnel. Most notably in Season Four and in season seven episode Slash Fiction.
  • Death Is Cheap: Actually averted. The writers are well-aware that all their viewers know they'll never kill off Sam and Dean for real, but they still manage to make the death scenes extremely poignant and moving.
  • Death Is Dramatic:
    • Averted in "Mystery Spot", as none of Dean's onscreen deaths are dramatic/demonic-related. Especially his final death, where he gets shot by a mugger. No going out in a blaze of glory, it could have been easily prevented and nothing heroic about it whatsoever.
    • Played straight with many other deaths, most notably those of Jo and Ellen and Bobby Singer.
  • Death Montage: Courtesy of the Groundhog Day Loop episode.
  • Death Seeker: The brothers live here.
    • Dean's earliest brush is season one episode "Faith" when he learns that a faith healer saving him caused the death of a young man. After his Dad dies for him, he becomes tired of this life, selling his soul to get Sam back when he dies. By season five, Dean's even more tired of the life, even willing to be possessed by Michael to stop Lucifer.
    • In Season One, Sam was willing to die killing YED, and in season two, he wanted to be killed before his destiny could change him. Sam's entire season four arc was suicidal, as was season five, which ended with Sam jumping into Hell's solitary confinement to take Lucifer with him.
  • Debate and Switch: Frequently, usually in the form of whether to let someone who is doing bad things against their will (e.g., a werewolf) go, or kill them. The person usually dies or makes some sort of Heroic Sacrifice by episode's end.
  • Demonic Possession:
    • While demonic possession features heavily, particularly in later seasons, only one of the brothers has ever been possessed, and that was only once. This is explained through the use of protective charms and, later, through magical protective tattoos.

Henrickson: Smart. How long have you had those [tattoos of magical possession protection]?
Sam: Not long enough.

Castiel: This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here.
Dean: Dude, you full-on rebelled against Heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks.

  • Depending on the Writer:
    • Sam's bitchiness and self-absorption, along with Dean's ditziness, go up and down like a bloody yo-yo.
    • An in-universe example during the first half of "Tall Tales."
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells
  • Depth of Field:
    • This show seems to LOVE placing having Dean and Castiel in the background/foreground of one another's scenes. Seriously, they [dead link] do [dead link] it all [dead link] the [dead link] freaking time. Some fans find this very useful for making LJ icons and so forth.
    • The shallow depth of field in most close shots is starting to work against them with the advent of HD - seeing Dean's stubble or Bobby's whiskers slip in and out of focus through the course of a scene as the cameraman fails to hold it just right is a common occurrence.
  • Despair Event Horizon:
    • Dean crosses this in "On the Head of a Pin", and it takes angelic intervention to snap him out of it.
    • Bobby, Dean and Castiel all crash through this over the course of two consecutive episodes in Season 5. Sam probably crossed over at the end of Season 3.
    • Dean appears to have crossed it again in Season 7, to the point that he seems resigned to being blown up by Jo in Defending Your Life.
  • Devil but No God: Basically assumed true until Season 4, where angels of the Lord started showing up. God is confirmed to exist in Season 5, but he refuses to do anything.
  • Did Godzilla Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Demons, angels, archangels, the horsemen, God... The entire purpose of Team Free Will was to stop this happening between Michael and Lucifer. Because this would unfortunately have the tiny little side-effect of destroying nearly all life on Earth.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Dean attempts to steal Death's ring from him. Death sits him down, offers him pizza and then tells him how annoyed he is that although he is infinite, eternal, and will eventually reap the entire universe, he is stuck being tagged to one tiny little planet with one puny little being (a.k.a Lucifer). ... upon hearing this Dean has a little trouble swallowing his pizza. Death does this a second and a third time when the Winchesters (mostly Dean) encounter him, as he has quite a fondness for fast food.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
    • Winchesters! Stop pissing off insanely powerful creatures who already do not like you!
    • "Castiel. Did you just Molotov my brother...with holy fire?" "Uhh...no."
  • Did You Just Index Cthulhu: The Winchesters are fighting Eldritch Abominations every other day of the week, what do you think?
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Sam and Dean actually manage this once or twice. Although as often as not their attempts will end up in Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu.
  • Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?:
    • Lucifer manages to trap Death into his servitude. Death, who is very annoyed that he's being leashed by a petulant child with daddy issues (...yes, that is how Death perceives the Devil), proves that it's not a good idea to piss off an eternal and infinite force of nature by actually helping them imprison him again.
    • The Winchesters attempt it themselves in season 7's first episode in a last-ditch effort to stop the newly godlike Castiel. Death warns them that it won't end well for them, but he doesn't follow through on his threat after Castiel unbinds his restraints because the "mutated angel" is a bigger concern for him.
  • Diner Brawl: Happens frequently.
  • Dirty Business: The first season finale has the first instance of the Winchesters being able to kill a demon - if they're willing to ice the innocent, possessed human too.

Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg - I didn't hesitate, I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it scares me sometimes.

    • In seasons four and five, every time Sam drinks demon blood to fuel his powers he looks at it this way.
  • Disabled Snarker:
    • Pamela, after she loses her vision (although she was plenty snarky before that, as well).
    • In Season 5, Bobby.
  • Disappeared Dad: For a while, at least.
  • Disc One Final Boss:
    • In Season Six, Crowley appears to be this to Eve, the Mother of All. Except, in actuality, she was the this to him.
    • In the season finale, it turns out that they were both this to Castiel, of all people.
  • Disney Death: The Season 5 finale, BIG TIME. First, Castiel and Bobby die abruptly and shockingly. And then Sam, one of the two main characters, apparently dies too - in what appears to be a chilling Kill'Em All ending. By the end of the episode, however, God brings Castiel back, Castiel resurrects Bobby and then, right before the credits, we see Sam is back too.
  • Disposable Woman: There are already two by the first episode. In fact, one wonders if there were any women on the writing team. Well, except for all the Fetish Fuel. (Although, to be fair, those two women were not forgotten. The men who loved them basically declared war on the forces of hell over them. Also, really, anyone who's not actually Sam or Dean dies, regardless of sex.)
  • Distracted by the Sexy: "Don't objectify me!" cries Dean to a Bela, after she proposes they have angry sex.
  • Damsel in Distress / Dude in Distress: So they might be big, tough men, but they've got nabbed enough times for this trope to apply. Sam is more often the one in peril, but when Dean is captured, he is usually captured for longer (for instance, in "Hunted"). Notable instances are when Sam is taken in "The Benders" (and then it was subverted by him getting out and Dean winding up being captured instead), in "Bloodlust" (although the vampires just wanted to talk with him and they release him afterwards), in "Home", "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1", "Long Distance Caller", "Time Is On My Side", and "Ghostfacers." Dean is captured in "Hunted", "Wendigo", "What Is And What Should Never Be", "Monster Movie", and "Scarecrow." Both are captured in "Skin" (Dean gets them out), "A Very Supernatural Christmas" (they somehow managed to get out off-screen) and "Shadow" (Sam gets them out, though Dean was pretty close). To list all the times one has been helpless/at the mercy of the MOTW so that the other can save him would be far too long especially in the case of Sam, Season 1 (and Dean managed to catch up in Seasons 2 and 3) -- it's more than half the episodes. Not to mention that every episode there is at least one person (usually female) who needs to be rescued.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • The Monster of the Week in "Something Wicked" was played like a pedophile.
    • The male vampire in Fresh Blood is portrayed like a date-rape sexual predator.
  • The Dog Is an Alien: There are Skinwalkers who can take the form of a dog. One of them becomes attached to the family he lives with.
  • Doppelganger: Shows up in "Skin" and in "Nightshifter." And "The End", to an extent.
  • Do Not Pass Go: Said verbatim by the demon Alistair during Dean's Cold-Blooded Torture of him.

Alistar: Go directly to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

  • Downer Ending:
    • "Metamorphosis" ends with the boys both on a whole new level of fucked-up and their relationship at an all-time low, "Time Is On My Side", "Red Sky At Morning", "Jus in Bello" (demons kill nearly everyone), "Crossroad Blues", "What Is and What Should Never Be" (the bit where Dean decides to get back to reality is more of a weak and mewling 'yay' moment and Sam can't even convince him that what they do is worth it), "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part I" (Sam dies, but he recovers), "Heart" (Sam kills Madison, see Wangst), "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" (Dean's crying over John's death and there's nothing Sam can say to make it alright), "Everybody Loves A Clown" (Dean shows how violently not okay he is by smashing his beloved car seventeen times), "In My Time of Dying" (John sells his soul to save Dean), and...this is too depressing. There are a lot of downer endings for this show. A lot.
    • The third season finale sets a whole new record by ending with Dean dead and in Hell, all of Sam's determination to save him over the course of the whole season thwarted. The season ends with Dean being torn apart by meat-hooks and desperately screaming for his brother over the credits. And no one knew if there would be another season because of the writers' strike.
    • "Heaven and Hell"
    • "Jump the Shark": Not only has Adam, the kid the brothers were trying to save, been dead all along, he actually was their brother. When Sam suggests calling in a favor from Castiel to bring him back, Dean replies it's better to leave him where he is because the world is going down the pooper pretty soon anyway.
    • The penultimate episode of Season 4, "When the Levee Breaks", laid a damn good claim to the record (Dean and Sam have a seemingly irrevocable parting of the ways), until "Lucifer Rising" managed to one-up it: God is M.I.A., the senior angels want the Apocalypse so they can beat the demons and care not about the collateral damage, Ruby is evil and has been manipulating Sam all along, and Lilith is the final seal and killing her will free Lucifer...which Sam learns about ten seconds after killing her. *gulp*
    • Abandon All Hope: Jo and Ellen die heroically to save Dean and Sam and give them a chance to kill Lucifer, which doesn't end up working. Oh, and Lucifer successfully raises Death, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
    • "Dark Side of The Moon": Well, if the episode starts with our heroes getting shot in the chest with a shotgun, it's a pretty good indicator of how the story's gonna go. Let's see, Dean is resentful of the fact that Sam's version of Heaven is completely made up of times that he was away from his family, Zachariah is personally out for vengeance upon Sam and Dean for moderately petty reasons, Joshua informs them that God knows, he just doesn't give a damn, Castiel, Dean and Sam basically give up their faith... But hey, at least we got some laughs out of Ash, right?
    • In season six episode "You Can't Handle the Truth": Sam's been acting weird all season not because he's a doppleganger or still possessed by Lucifer, but because he's emotionally dead. The episode ends with Dean beating him unconscious and not stopping. The next episode reveals that this is because Sam has no soul anymore.
    • "The Man Who Would Be King": With Castiel subsequently "betraying" the Winchesters and Dean begging Castiel to reconsider. To finish off your already distraught heart, they end with Castiel pleading with god to tell him if he's "traveling the wrong path" only to get no answer from god.
    • "The Man Who Knew Too Much" where Castiel's betrayal of the Winchesters is further cemented with him absorbing the souls of Purgatory and commanding the Winchesters and Bobby to bow down before him or face the consequences
    • In season seven's "Hello, Cruel World": The fates of Castiel and Bobby don't look so good, the Leviathans appear to be nigh invincible, Sam's hallucinations take a turn for the worse, and the episode ends with Sam and Dean being rushed to the very hospital that the monsters have taken over, unable to defend themselves. In addition, the brother's last safe haven, Bobby's house, has been torched.
    • "Death's Door": Bobby is dead and has yet to make the choice of whether or not to move on, Dean and Sam are totally and completely alone but for each other, they have no Cas, no Impala, and now Bobby is gone. And the Leviathans are running around, still thinking the Winchesters cannot stop them, and the only clue they have to stopping them is a group of numbers, 454895, that link to the Leviathan's plan that Bobby caught a glimpse of and was very scared by it. Dean and Sam have faced hardship but this is the harshest situation they've ever been in.
  • Dramatic Irony: After finding out what Castiel has done, Dean tells him he should have come to them. As revealed in the flashback in "The Man Who Would Be King", Castiel wanted to, but didn't because Dean was so happy living with Lisa and Ben and he didn't want to ruin that. But it was ruined anyway, thanks to him bringing Sam back to life (but without his soul).
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Sam, for the first two seasons.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • Arguably, Dean in "All Hell Breaks Loose."
    • Dean in "What Is And Never Should Be." Sort of. Damn alternate universes make these things confusing.
    • Another two for Dean would be "Croatoan" where he stays with his possibly psychotic-due-to-being-infected brother and "Faith" where he accepts his pending death and doesn't even run away when the reaper is after him. My God, that kid is screwed up.
    • Sam in "Salvation" and, in an I Cannot Self-Terminate moment, "Playthings."
    • Another for Sam would be the angst-filled, additional I Cannot Self-Terminate in "When the Levee Breaks." In the finale of Season Four, Sam doesn't believe he will--or want to--survive either.
    • Almost happens to Dean in "Point of No Return", also arguably Castiel.
    • Sam at the end of season five (with Dean and Bobby's reluctant approval!) in "Swan Song" (unless deliberately planning on jumping into Hell is seen as anything other than suicide).
    • Dean slips into suicidal Death Seeker mode quite often given the opportunity. He will sacrifice himself in a heart-beat to save someone and his complete lack of self-worth adds some very disturbing implications to his actions.
    • In Season 7, this seems to be where Sam's hallucinations are trying to push him - in Hello, Cruel World Lucifer suggests it three times.
    • Dean seems to have backslid into this again in the Season 7 episode Defending Your Life, where he is way too calm at the prospect of Jo killing him by gas explosion
    • Let's not forget the Suicide Bear in "Wishful thinking".
  • Drowning My Sorrows:
    • The standard Winchester coping mechanism. Especially Dean. This seems to be a common thing among hunters in general.
    • Castiel engages in this in "99 Problems", though it's tough for him due to his angelic constitution:

Castiel: I found a liquor store.
Sam: ...and?
Castiel: And I drank it!
Later, Dean asks where he's been and he replies, "On a bender."

  • Drunk on the Dark Side: At the end of season six and the beginning of season seven, this has happened to Castiel after he absorbed all the souls in Purgatory to gain the power to prevent Archangel Raphael from restarting the Apocalypse. After proclaiming himself a new god, he threatens his friends' lives, goes out for some Disproportionate Revenge, and then accidentally releases unkillable monsters on the world.
  • The Dutiful Son:
    • Dean, oh so very much. Except, for the most part (it was revealed in "Skin" that he does feel resentful of Sam getting to leave), he's a dutiful brother as well.
    • The Archangel Michael, who is even more this than Dean.

E

  • Eldritch Abomination: True form Angels. Physically, they (to each other) meet the descriptions of them in religious literature. People look at an angel in his true form have their EYES BURNED OUT. They inhabit human vessels to be able to interact with other humans safely however. It's notable that they're one of the few if not only creatures fitting the definition of an Eldritch Abomination in this series, as the other adversaries are almost all Humanoid Abominations.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Sam inadvertently started this trying to stop it.
  • Enemy Mine: The brothers team up with Crowley to stop Lucifer, who plans to wipe out humans and demons alike.
    • Ironically, in a Season 6 episode, they would then team up with Lucifer-loyalist Meg against Crowley.
    • Don't forget later in season 7, where Crowley promises to keep his people off the boy's backs while thy squash the Leviathans.
  • Enfante Terrible: Lilith
  • Epiphany Therapy: Averted. Five minute self-esteem boosts/pep talks seem to have no effect in the Supernatural!Verse.
  • Eternal Love: Don and Maggie Stark, powerful witches who have been together for centuries, feature in a season seven episode. They've been fighting, and ordinary people get caught in the crossfire.
  • Evil Albino: Anderson in the Rising Son comics, who has a similar (very negative) opinion of Sam as Gordon in the main series (despite the fact that the comics take place several years before Sam's powers surface).
  • Evil Elevator: In 4.17 "It's a Terrible Life", a security guard gets killed by a malfunctioning elevator in a haunted office building.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: Demonic and ghostly activity often causes a sudden localized drop in temperature. Lucifer shows this trope by freezing a window with his breath, and states "Sorry if it's a bit chilly. Most people think I burn hot. It's actually quite the opposite."
  • Evil Is Sexy: The tagline of the show is "Scary just got Sexy!" .
  • Evil Mentor:
    • Ruby
    • Alistair, for Dean.
    • In season 5, Zachariah for Adam.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Season Six ends up using this trope by the end: In order to stop Raphael from restarting the Apocalypse, Castiel allies with Crowley to gain control of Purgatory and all its souls. But this causes Cas to eventually jump off the slippery slope and decide to become the new God, so he cuts Crowley out of the deal. Which causes Crowley to, in turn, ally with Raphael against him.
  • Expy:
    • Series One is full of bits which are lifted from The Ring. Examples include the boy scrawling a black circle endlessly until it's a pitch black well in 01X03, the water flowing down the stairs when the mother killed the children by drowning in 01x01, the girl crawling out of the mirror - complete with jittery effect - in 01x05. The writers must really have loved that film. 01x04 also has the bath-tub water going black, just like The Grudge.
    • Frontierland borrows a lot from Back to the Future, Part III. Dean goes by Clint Eastwood. They get costumes which the locals make fun of. Sam gets a package from Samuel Colt over a hundred years later, and the guy who delivers it says everyone at the post office has been wondering if Sam would actually be there to receive it, etc.
    • The angel Balthazar is an Expy of Gabriel who was killed in season 5. Prior to season 6 the producers confirmed that he would return in one way or another, they just didn't know in what way yet. This is how.
    • The demon Crowley is an Expy of, er, the demon Crowley, from Good Omens, himself named after occultist Aleister Crowley. Fanfiction writers have been known to make use of this.
    • The Colt is an Expy of the Ace of Winchesters, an all-killing gun from Hellblazer.
  • Eye Scream:
    • A Season 3 episode involved an immortal parts-stealing doctor, a mellon baller, and Jared Padalecki's pretty, pretty face.
    • Most humans who look at the true form of an angel will have their eyes burned out. This also happens to the host when angels exorcise demons.
    • In "Bloody Mary," the title ghost, in the coroners words, "essentially liquefied" her victim's eyeballs.
    • In "Nightmare", the kid is shown killing his mom by telepathically plunging a knife into her eye.
    • In "The Benders," little pint-sized Missy Bender was told to keep watch on Dean. Which she did by holding the point of a knife about half an inch from Dean's eyeball.
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