| “ | "I want a family. I want to be safe. You know the worst thing I can think of, the very worst thing? Is for my children to be raised into this like I was." | ” |
Mary Winchester (née Campbell) was a retired hunter, the daughter of Samuel and Deanna Campbell, the wife of John Winchester, and the mother of Dean and Sam Winchester. She was killed by the demon Azazel exactly six months after Sam was born, which spurred John into becoming a hunter to kill Azazel in revenge and raising their sons as hunters as well.
Biography
Background
Mary was born in 1954 to supernatural hunter couple Samuel and Deanna, who had not planned for her birth but regarded her as a "blessing" regardless. The family lived in Lawrence, Kansas.
Mary hated hunting; she sought to have a normal life so that she could be safe and raise a family. This caused tension between her and her father. When she fell in love with John Winchester, Samuel did not approve of their relationship because he believed John to be a naive civilian. She did not tell John about the supernatural, which caused her some guilt.
1973
Unbeknownst to her, Mary met the future version of her firstborn son, Dean, in "In The Beginning". She noticed him following her and John on a date, and violently confronted him before he revealed that he was also a supernatural hunter. She then took him back to her house, where he had dinner with her family despite Samuel's distrust of him.
A reluctant Mary worked a case with her father and Dean. They learned that Charlie Whitshire had unwittingly made a deal with a demon in order to protect his father from abusing his mother. From Charlie's description, Dean realized that the demon in question was Azazel, who had killed Mary in the future. Dean made her promise not to leave her bed on November 2, 1983--the night she was supposed to die. However, when she learned that Azazel was targeting a friend of hers named Liddy Walsh, Mary and Samuel intervened, in the process inadvertently drawing Azazel's attention to Mary due to her skills and courage.
Azazel makes a deal with Mary after killing John.
Mary was terrified by the demon's interest in her. She spent time with John to try to clear her head. While he was in the middle of proposing to her, Samuel interrupted, possessed by Azazel. He killed John then revealed that he had also killed her parents, devastating Mary. He then pressured her into making a deal for John's resurrection and her having a normal life; in exchange, she granted permission for him to enter her house in ten years. Dean arrived too late to stop her, and was returned to his own time by the angel Castiel.
Mary later married John and retired from hunting. The couple lived together at 485 Robintree.
1978
Mary became pregnant with Dean.
In "The Song Remains the Same", Mary's future sons arrived to prevent Anna Milton from killing John, thus preventing the birth of her youngest child, Sam, and the onset of the Apocalypse. She was vehemently against their presence because the last time she'd seen Dean, her parents were murdered. She also didn't want them getting her involved with hunting again.
Mary fended Anna off to protect John and distract Anna while Sam banished the angel with a sigil. During this fight, Mary exposed her hunting background to John, and was forced to reveal the truth about herself to him. John was upset that she hadn't told her earlier as well as being angry at her parents for endangering her life by raising her like that.
Mary led the rest of the Winchesters to a house her family had owned and kept stocked with weapons and measures against the supernatural for years. Sam taught her how to use holy oil against angels.
While preparing to fight Anna, Mary demanded an explanation as to why an angel wanted to kill her from Dean, who eventually revealed that the truth about himself and Sam to her. She was stricken with guilt and horror at the thought of raising them as hunters, but Dean revealed that she had been killed by Azazel and John trained them as hunters instead while seeking vengeance. Dean suggested that she try to flee with Sam before the demon came for them, but Sam himself stated that she should just leave John. While shocked by her sons' words, Mary remained steadfast that she could not leave John.
Anna and fellow angel Uriel attacked after removing all the defenses the Winchesters had set up. Mary witnessed Sam's death at Anna's hands; however, when Anna turned to her, Michael possessed John, killed Anna, and sent Uriel back to Heaven. Michael also modified Mary's memories to remove her memory of meeting her sons as well as of the warning they gave her to ensure she would die as intended.
A family of her own
Mary gave birth to Dean on January 24, 1979.
A memory of Dean's from "Dark Side of the Moon" revealed that Mary and John's marriage was not as perfect as John later portrayed it as; at one point, they fought until John had to temporarily move out. She was upset by this, but a toddler Dean comforted her.
Mary gave birth to Sam on May 2, 1983.
Death
Mary's death at the hands of Azazel.
As seen in the teaser of "Pilot", Mary awoke on November 2, 1983 due to the sounds of Sam crying over the baby monitor. She entered his nursery to find Azazel leaning over the infant's crib. She mistook him for John and decided to let him soothe Sam so she could return to bed.
However, Mary noticed a light flickering in the hallway and a television still on downstairs. She discovered John asleep in the living room. Much to her horror, she realized that the person upstairs was an intruder and rushed back to Sam's nursery, interrupting Azazel as he fed her son his blood--this is what Mary had given him permission for in 1973 without realizing it.
Azazel used telekinesis to drag Mary up the wall and pin her to the ceiling, at which point he slit her stomach. She screamed briefly, alerting John, who ran into the nursery. She could not speak to warn him and stared helplessly at her husband and her youngest son before John noticed her blood dripping onto Sam and looked up; Azazel then set her aflame, burning her alive.
Legacy
In lieu of her body, Mary's uncle put up a headstone to commemorate her in Greenville, Illinois, where he presumably lived. Sam and Dean never met her uncle. They visited her headstone in "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things".
After Mary's death, Azazel killed all of her remaining family, friends, and even acquaintances, such as her doctor, to hide his deal with her. Because her family and anyone associated with them died, Sam and Dean did not learn that their mother used to be a hunter until early in Season 4.
The memory of Mary and her death drove the remaining Winchester family to become hunters in order to track down and kill Azazel to avenge her. John continued to grieve for her even decades later, confessing in "Salvation" that he wanted her back. Dean's wish in "What Is And What Should Never Be" is for Mary to have never died, but he chooses to wake himself up from his dream when he realizes that a djinn has poisoned him in order to feed off of him until he dies. Dean avenged her at the end of the second season when he killed Azazel with the Colt. When undergoing demon blood detox in "When the Levee Breaks", a feverish Sam hallucinates her reassuring him that he is doing the right thing in drinking blood to kill Lilith.
Enemies of the Winchesters have been known to use the family's love and grief for Mary against them: besides the example of the djinn above, Zachariah used an illusion of Mary to make her sons suffer by manipulating their emotions in "Dark Side of the Moon", and in "Mommy Dearest" Eve assumed her shape to make a point about her love for her monstrous children.
For years after Mary's death, her ghost haunted the house she'd died in. Her death and Azazel's temporary presence drew a powerful, violent poltergeist to the house.
Mary's ghost sacrifices herself to save her sons.
Mary's last chronological appearance as herself was in the Season 1 episode "Home", in which Sam's premonition led her sons back to their childhood home to hunt the poltergeist terrorizing the family currently living in the home. When the poltergeist tried to kill Sam, her ghost manifested, first as a flaming humanoid figure that walked out of the closet of the room that used to be Sam's nursery. She apologized to him for allowing Azazel to feed him blood. She confronted the poltergeist, telling it to leave her house and let go of her son, before she sacrificed herself to banish the poltergeist from the house. What became of her soul afterward is unknown: the psychic Missouri Moseley believed that she ceased to exist and Ash later tells Sam and Dean that he had not found her in Heaven. However it has recently revealed that destroyed ghosts do in fact still move on somewhere and perhaps Mary and John simply do not want to be found.
Skills and Abilities
As a Human
Mary has been shown to have the general skills possessed by hunters. She was a very good observer, and immediately recognized when she and John were being followed by Dean. She has shown capabilities in hand-to-hand combat, even holding her own temporarily against an angel. She also appeared to be a fast learner, being able to create angel banishing sigils and setting them up on the same day she learned about the existence of angels and their weaknesses.
As a Spirit
Mary's Spirit lingered in their house in Kansas, where she cancelled out a particularly nasty poltergeist that not only proved difficult to purge, but also attempted to kill Sam. Her spirit appeared to be able to summon flames, reminiscent of her manner of death.
Relationships
- Mary and John: Mary and John's relationship.
- Mary and Dean: Mary and Dean's relationship.
- Mary and Sam: Mary and Sam's relationship.
Notes
- Her actress, Samantha Smith, shares her name with fellow Supernatural actress Samantha Ferris as well as with her character Mary's youngest son.
- She shared her year of birth with John.
- When she got sick, her mother used to make her tomato-rice soup. Mary later made the same soup for Dean when he would get sick.
- She was a fan of the Beatles. Her favorite song was "Hey Jude", which she sang instead of a lullaby.
- She and John initially hated one another, requiring a cupid to intervene and manipulate their emotions in order to breed them together and give birth to Michael and Lucifer's vessels.
- Her desire to lead a normal life was later inherited by Sam, who also fought with his father concerning the matter, though Mary's relationship with her father appeared more amicable. Mother and son also shared the same style of wielding and fighting using blades.
- The worst thing she could think of was her children to be forced to become hunters like she was. Ironically, it happened as a direct result of her death.
- She did not believe angels existed until "The Song Remains the Same"; afterward, although Michael had wiped her memory, she bought an angel figurine to place in Dean's nursery and told him "angels are watching over you" every night when she put him to sleep--these were in fact her last words to Dean.
- Dean's fondness for pie might stem from her; in one of his memories in "Dark Side of the Moon", she offered him pie.
Mary donning the Men of Letters Crest on her bracelet.
- It is evidenced that the Campbells family were among the few trusted hunters involved with the Men of Letters, as Mary wore their crest on her bracelet. Though she likely had no knowledge of them due to their extinction, but it is possible Deanna and Samuel were involved with them.
List of appearances
Season 1
Season 2
- "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" (gravestone seen)
- "What Is And What Should Never Be" (illusion)
- "All Hell Breaks Loose - Part 1"
Season 4
- "In The Beginning"
- "When the Levee Breaks" (as hallucination)
Season 5
- "The Song Remains the Same"
- "Dark Side of the Moon" (Illusion)
Season 6
- "Caged Heat" (photo)
- Mommy Dearest (Eve in disguise)
Season 8
- "Trial and Error" (photo)
- Man's Best Friend With Benefits (flashbacks only)
See also
Mary Winchester (Anime Series)
Supernatural animated Mary Winchester