User:Banazir/The Colt (Supernatural)

The Colt is a fictional gun in The CW Television Network's Supernatural. The Colt, and thirteen bullets for it, were made by Samuel Colt for a paranormal hunter in 1835. John Winchester claims that anything that is hit by one of the thirteen bullets fired from The Colt will die, including creatures that are normally immune to bullets; it is unknown how the pistol kills incorporeal entities. Entities with mortality (i.e. humans) are shown to be more resilient, unless the shot itself is fatal (like a shot to the head). The bullets appear to be made of silver, and are each individually engraved with a number 1 through 13. The gun itself is a Colt Paterson revolver, albeit one that fires modern style cartridges as opposed to the "cap and ball" loading of the 1830s originals. Aside from Ruby's knife, the Colt is the only known weapon capable of killing demons by physical force.

On the gun is inscribed the phrase, "non timebo mala" which means "I will fear no evil" referencing Psalm 23:4.

Background
The Colt is introduced in the episode "Dead Man's Blood." In it, Dean and Sam investigate the death of Daniel Elkins, who had the Colt. In the course of their investigation, they run into their father, John, also on the trail of Elkins's killer. They do not find the gun, only the empty case. John intends to find the Colt and use it to kill The Demon that killed his wife, Mary. The Colt turns out to have been taken by a female vampire who then gives it to her lover Luther, the leader of the vampires who killed Elkins. After the brothers save their father from the vampires, The Colt is used to kill Luther, and reclaimed.

When the Demon learns that the Winchesters possess the gun, he sends his daughter, Meg Masters, to recover it. In Salvation, she threatens to start killing people close to the Winchesters unless they hand over the gun. John meets Meg to make an exchange, but gives her a fake gun. Trying to escape, he is captured by Meg and the Demon's son possessing an unknown male host. When Meg attempts to use John to barter for the Colt, the Winchester brothers manage to rescue John from her in "Devil's Trap." During their escape, the Demon's son almost kills Sam. Dean uses one of the remaining bullets to save Sam's life.

Sam and Dean take their father to a secluded cabin, where the boys discover that John has been possessed by the Demon. Sam shoots his father in the leg with the Colt to force the Demon out of his father. The three escape, but end up in the hospital after a demon rams a truck into the side of Dean's Chevrolet Impala. In the episode "In My Time of Dying", Dean has become comatose and is very close to death. John Winchester then makes a deal with the Demon, saying that he will give it the Colt and the last bullet as well as his own life in exchange for his son's life.

The Colt is not seen again and it is revealed that the The Demon has it in its possession in "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2". The Demon gives the gun to Jake telling him it is a key (which later is discovered to be the key which opens the Gates of Hell). Jake points the Colt at the Demon, but after being taunted by the Demon that he might miss and wind up killing himself and his family, Jake lowers the gun. Jake then goes to the cemetery and uses the Colt to open up a gateway to Hell. After getting Jake out of the way Dean takes The Colt and senses that The Demon is near by and points the Colt behind him, but The Demon is able to telekinetically take it away from him; the Demon is also able to knock Dean against a tombstone. The Demon then prepares to use the Colt on Dean, but John's spirit escapes from hell, wrestling the Demon and pulling it from his human host long enough to give Dean the chance to grab the Colt. Dean then manages to grab the Colt in time, and in a matter of seconds a bullet is fired from it, hitting the Demon's host body right in the heart. In a look of utter bewilderment and defeat, the Demon experiences a seizure-like fit which causes his host body to emit light from his eyes and mouth before falling to the ground with a mundane thump, finally dead.

Since all the bullets had been used, the Colt lost its special power. However, in the episode Sin City, Bobby and Dean take apart the Colt to try and fix it. Bobby is later seen practicing with the Colt when Ruby suddenly shows up and offers to help with the Colt since Bobby seems to have no luck fixing it whatsoever. Miraculously, Ruby and Bobby are both able to fix the Colt together. Bobby later gives the Colt to Sam and he uses it to save Dean from the two demons, who he kills ruthlessly and without hesistation.

In "Bedtime Stories", Sam summons the Crossroads demon and threatens to kill her with the Colt unless she releases Dean from his death sentence. The Crossroads demon refuses, claiming she's just a "saleswoman" and that her boss is unwilling to release Dean from his contract. Sam lowers the Colt, looks away from the Demon, takes a deep breath, then suddenly aims the Colt at the Demon's head and shoots her at point blank range. Sam then watches with detached emotion as the Crossroad demon dies in front of him.

In "Fresh Blood", the Winchester brothers learn that hunter Gordon Walker has been turned into a vampire, and Dean prepares to use the Colt to kill Gordon. Sam and Dean arrive at a warehouse to confront Gordon, but are soon separated from each other. When Dean is attacked by a girl he is trying to save (she had been turned into a vampire by Gordon), he shoots her with the Colt, killing her instantly.

In "Dream a little Dream of Me" the Colt is stolen from Sam and Dean by Bela when she shows up to "help". She then brings it to Lilith to barter her way out of her own debt that will be up in a short time. However, the deal does not go as planned, and the Colt falls into the possession of Lilith without Bela getting out of the deal, all according to a conversation between Bela and Dean in "Time Is On My Side."

In the episode "In the Beginning" it is revealed that the story of the colt was told as a bedtime story to the children of hunters. Dean, sent back to 1973, gets the Colt from Daniel Elkins to kill Azazel and prevent him from killing Mary Winchester 10 years later, but fails, and it is assumed that the Colt is returned to Daniel Elkins.

Development and Reception
The Colt has been identified by critics as a successful example of modern myth-making and a source of plot continuity. This intricate mythology is also cited as a mark of the show's high quality as genre fiction, despite marked ratings attrition in its first and second seasons. The story of the Colt, with its references to the weapon's origin in late 1835, during a flyover of Halley's Comet and the deaths of men at the Alamo, adds an aspect of historical fiction to the series. On the negative side, some critics have noted that the second season, particularly the cliffhanger finale, strongly emphasized this backstory, even to the exclusion of more important plot threads involving the central characters.

In a February, 2008 interview with Starpulse, series creator Eric Kripke indicated that he and other writers of the show had considered a spinoff series: "a prequel that relates the adventures of Samuel Colt and the band of hunters who roamed the Old West". He indicated that a show featuring the fictionalized story of the Colt's real-life creator would be a natural extension of the modern-day Western aspects of the show into the horror western subgenre. Some reviewers speculated that this series explore the origins of items such as the demon-killing Colt. In a September, 2008 video interview segment for the CW Network, however, Kripke said of the spinoff concept: "I don't think it's anything we're going to ever really seriously pursue... there is, in the Supernatural universe, reference to hunters in the Old West. Samuel Colt had his gun, and there were other hunters on horseback.  It's just a cool universe to think about, what it must have been like to be a Hunter in the mid-1800s in the Wild West... I don't actually have real plans to do that, and I don't think Warner Brothers is necessarily interested in a period Supernatural show; but you never know."

When asked by Starpulse whether the show would explain how the Colt's power was restored in Season 3, Kripke responded that he had no plans to delve into further detail: "In my opinion, I just buy that it was a magical object, and that Ruby is a centuries-old witch who had the knowledge to kick start it back to life, without getting into overly arcane and expository details."