Nephilim

Castiel: Nephilim grow up. They grow into their power and then– Mirabel: Entire worlds die. – Castiel and Mirabel, 12.10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

History

Nephilim are the offspring of humans and angels. They are considered to be abominations and their creation is forbidden by the oldest laws of Heaven. The oldest known Nephilim in the lore was the Queen of Sheba, who visited King Solomon. He created a tracking spell for Nephilim to keep an eye on her.

At one point, there was only one, Jane, known to be on Earth. Jane was killed by Castiel after Metatron told him it was necessary, as one of the trials to close the Gates to Heaven required a Nephilim heart.

After Lucifer possesses President Jefferson Rooney and has sex with Kelly Kline, a presidential aide, he purposefully channels an immense amount of cosmic energy, resulting in the conception of another Nephilim, Jack. Due to the immense power used by Lucifer, the cosmic shock wave alerts all angels as well as the British Men of Letters of its creation.

Characteristics

The Nephilim appear human, but when they are provoked, they reveal glowing silver eyes. However, the Nephilim Jack Kline possessed golden eyes, possibly due to being born of an archangel as opposed to a regular angel. The gestation period for a Nephilim child is shorter than that of a normal human, around six months, and they appear to have the ability to be born fully matured into young adulthood if they so choose. When a Nephilim is born there are usually signs accompanying the birth such as storms, outbreaks of disease, plagues of locusts, massive power outages, and even tears in space and time. Due to being considered abominations of nature and Heaven, a Nephilim can cause dangerous reactions around objects considered holy, as shown when Kelly Kline set a Bible aflame just by placing her hand on it while pregnant with her son Jack.

Unlike angels, when a standard Nephilim is killed there is no explosion of light from their body; their silver eyes simply fade back to human.

According to the lore, it is said that as a Nephilim grows into its power, it will become more powerful than the angel that sired it.

Powers and abilities

For a complete list of Jack Kline's powers as a an archangel born Nephilim, see his page.

• Clairsentience – Nephilim can see the halos on angels.
• Enhanced durability – Nephilim can withstand attacks from angels and seraphs such as Metatron and Castiel, respectively. They can also shield themselves from magical attacks.
• Superhuman strength – A Nephilim's strength far exceeds that of normal angels, including seraphs such as Castiel.
• Teleportation – Nephlim, like angels, have wings and are capable of teleporting.

Weaknesses

• Angel blade – The Nephilim Jane was killed with an angel blade. Jack, due to being born of an archangel, is shown to be unharmed by the blades.
• Archangel blade – Was able to wound Jack, who had his grace removed.
• The Equalizer – A special hand gun created by God with the specific purpose of killing Jack Kline (as well as anything else).
• Extracting grace – The process can render a Nephilim human. When a Nephilim loses their grace, it may take anywhere between a month to a century to replenish, however their human component decelerates the process due to the grace of a Nephilim keeping its unnatural nature in balance.
• God – With a snap of his fingers, Chuck was able to smite Jack, killing him. The smiting was not instantaneous as past instances, however, possibly due to Jack's strength.
• Warding sigils – Certain powerful warding is capable of nullifying a Nephilim's powers.

Nephilims

• The Queen of Sheba: According to Sam Winchester, she was described as half-angel in the lore. After she visited King Solomon, he commissioned a tracking spell capable of locating Nephilim to keep an eye on her. The spell was later located by the at the time King of the Crossroads, Barthamus and offered to give it to the Winchesters to find Jack as opposed to giving it to Asmodeus, even giving them half the spell to verify its authenticity. He wanted the Winchesters to retrieve his bones from Luther Shrike in exchange for the other half of the spell, but after stealing them they decided not to relinquish them to Barthamus because they don't like him. Alice then burns his bones, killing Barthamus and incinerating the other half of the spell in the process, rendering the Winchester's half useless.

Castiel kills the Nephilim Jane.

• Jane: She was a Nephilim who was, according to Metatron, the only one in existence at the time (2013). She worked as a waitress at a restaurant called Eugenies in Ojai, California, and served Metatron and Castiel. When the two decided that Castiel will do the three trials to seal off Heaven, Metatron tells him that the waitress is a Nephilim and Castiel must kill her and cut out her heart to complete the first trial. The two angels follow Jane after she finishes work one night, but she reveals her knowledge of what they are and begs them not to kill her. As she is an innocent woman, Castiel hesitated but when she attacked him and Metatron, Castiel killed her with his angel blade, thus completing what he believed to be first the trial.

• Jack Kline: He is the Nephilim offspring of Kelly Kline and Lucifer. He was conceived when Lucifer inhabited the body of President Jefferson Rooney, with whom Kelly was having a relationship with. As Castiel cared for Kelly during the latter part of her pregnancy, Jack formed a bond with him and came to view him as his father after he was born. Following his birth, the Winchesters took him in to keep watch over him in case he was evil, and later to use him to access the Apocalypse World where their mother Mary was trapped along with Lucifer. However over time, the Winchesters came to accept him into their family, Jack reciprocated their familial ties, even stating that Lucifer is nothing to him and that Castiel and the Winchesters are his family. When Jack finally meets his father, Lucifer, a bond begins to form between the two, where Jack even mourns over his father's apparent death. However, once Jack learned that Lucifer killed one of his friends from Apocalypse World, and has not actually changed his ways, he rejects his father, prompting Lucifer to steal and consume a majority of Jack's grace and force Jack and Sam into a battle to the death for his enjoyment. While Sam is unwilling to kill him, Jack attempted suicide with the archangel blade, but stops after Dean arrived possessed by Apocalypse World's Michael and eventually kills Lucifer. After killing Michael using the power of his soul, Jack took the archangel's grace and regained his powers as a Nephilim. Donatello Redfield later states that he is probably the most powerful being in the universe. He is later killed by God when He is unable to convince Dean to kill Jack instead. However, Jack is resurrected by Billie / Death with a plan for Jack to become strong enough to kill God Himself. Initially resurrected in his soulless state Jack was in when he died, Jack's soul was subsequently restored by a visit to the Garden of Eden. After fusing his human soul with his Nephilim grace using Adam's Rib, Jack became a living power vacuum for celestial and life energy, absorbing energy from all plant life around him as well as the power released by Michael, Lucifer and Chuck. Jack uses this to steal Chuck's powers, making himself the new God, and coexisting in harmony with the Darkness.

Nephilim in Fandom

During the first two seasons of Supernatural, there was much fan speculation that Sam may have been a Nephilim.

• The Possibilities of Sam Winchester: Of Nephilim and the Role of Azazel/Azazyel by furor-scribiend

Nephilim in Lore

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Nephilim are said to be the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men." The coupling of angels and human women was said to produce giants.

The word "Nephilim," pronounced neh-feel-EEM, is Hebrew and plural. The word for a single offspring of an angel and human is "Naphil," pronounced nah-FEEL.

See also

• Cambion