Re: Supernatural 4x22 "Lucifer Rising" season finale spoiler discussio
Okay, so I'm going to try to put everything in order.
1 - Azazel finds the Devil's gate that will allow Lucifer to escape. Via the nun ritual, Lucifer was able to tell him that Lilith was key to freeing him.
2 - Azazel begins his plan to find (or create) a "special child." He chooses specific families and forces the babies to ingest his own blood, giving them their special abilities. He also kills their mothers, so that they will live the hard life that will mould them to bis purposes.
3 - He does this because he knows that when he does free Lucifer, he will need a human host, just like any other demon, to be able to do much of anything. But being the biggest baddest demon there ever was, the host will need to be superpowerful to handle him, hence the demon-strengthening of his "special ones."
4 - After avoiding John Winchester and his like for years, Azazel finally brings his special ones together to fight it out, so that he can choose the one strongest to be Lucifer's host.
5 - At the same time, Azazel plots to open another Devil's Gate, one that will allow Lilith to escape, which is necessary as a larger part of the plan to release Lucifer. He unfortunately dies in the attempt, but Lilith is released.
6 - Lilith quickly establishes herself as the new head of the plan, and takes advantage of the fact that Dean already sold his soul to save Sam. She knows that Dean is righteous, and that if he can be turned by her old friend Alistair, he can be the first Seal.
7 - To that end, Lilith does everything she can make sure Dean goes to hell, and block Sam from doing anything to save him. This includes deals with both Ruby and Bela.
8 - Dean goes to hell, the Seals begin to fall, and Lilith sends Ruby to begin gradually seducing Sam into using his demon powers, with the intention of continuing his strengthening to be the host for Lucifer. Lilith is willing to sacrifice many other demons - including eventually herself - to this end.
9 - The angels are aware of this plan. They fall into four camps, exemplified by:
... i. Uriel - he wants Lucifer released, and is willing to kill other angels who are attempting to stop that, because he believes God was wrong to banish Lucifer in the first place.
... ii. Zachariah - he has the same plan as Uriel, but with different motives: he wants to release Lucifer because he believes that's the only way to finally get rid of him once and for all. He's willing to allow the deaths of countless humans to this end (which is different from Lilith how?).
... iii. Castiel - he believes he's helping to stop the demons, and that saving Dean from Hell is what's required to do that. He eventually begins to sympathise with humans, and that his commanders do not have their best interests at heart.
... iv. Anna - she already believed the angels were corrupt and was thrown out for trying to convince others of that.
10 - Ruby and Lilith are successful in executing Azazel's plan - Lilith sacrifices herself and Lucifer rises. So now all four demons - Azazel, Lilith, Alistair, Ruby - are dead, but their mission was a success - a host for Lucifer.
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Of course there are problems with this, especially in points 6 and 7. Lilith definitely seems to be trying to kill Sam in season 3, not just delay him - hence the suggestion that Ruby was actually in on the plan before Lilith was. And Dean sold his soul to same Sam before Lilith was released, which Azazel couldn't have been sure he would do (unless... was he?), so do Azazel's and Lilith's plan actually fit together as nicely as they seem to? And Lilith appeared to make the deal with Bela while she was still in Hell, unless that wasn't actually Lilith herself but just another Crossroads Demon.
Edited to add: a few other posts added while I was typing have helped to clarify things further. Thanks.