Cole Turner (Charmed)

Cole Turner is a fictional character on the WB television series Charmed, played by Julian McMahon for three seasons (3-5), and for a guest appearance in season 7.

Character's background

Early History

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Cole ironically dressed as an angel at the time he was the demon Belthazor.

Cole Turner was born in 1885 to Benjamin Coleridge Turner, a human member of the California State Assembly, and a demon mother named Elizabeth. Benjamin was murdered in 1888 by Elizabeth, who then took Cole from Earth and raised him in a demon dimension. Cole's demonic side grew up despising his human side for its "weakness", and he became a powerful demon with a reputation as a killer under the name Belthazor. In reality, his human half is an incredibly caring and good person, which makes the suppression of his humanity by his demonic half all the more horrible and evil, also later when Cole is possessed by the Source, his human half is repressed and corrupted.

Cole became a member of the Brotherhood of the Thorn, who served the Source of All Evil. He made a reputation for himself as an assassin who could kill any witch, an athame being his weapon of choice. Cole was hired by the Triad to get close to and kill the Charmed Ones. To do so, Cole returned to Earth in his human guise and was set up as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco.

Agent of the Triad

Cole first meets the Halliwells in the season premiere of Season 3, in which he investigates the attack on the sisters' friend Darryl Morris. Because the sisters witnessed the attack and foiled the assailant, Cole calls the sisters in as witnesses for the man's trial. We don't learn that Cole is a demon until the end of this episode, when Piper freezes the innocents in a courtroom and Cole is immune. He shimmers away and kills the demonic judge who has been assigning guardians to criminals. Within the next few months, Cole becomes very close to Phoebe and they begin dating. After his first few attempts to assassinate Phoebe and her sisters, he starts protecting them so that his assignment can continue. Eventually he stands up for the sisters and protects them, even though they do not know that Cole and Belthazor are the same person. Cole and Phoebe fall in love.

After much pressure by the Triad to finish the job, Belthazor finally employs the spirit of Rage, Andras, to assist him. Andras infects the sisters with rage, causing them to turn on each other, severing the Power of Three. Despite his victory, Cole cannot bring himself to kill Phoebe, and he is exposed as a traitor. Andras possesses Cole, and he is forced to try to destroy the sisters. The sisters manage to regain their powers just in time and successfully fend off Belthazor. Belthazor vanquishes Andras, but is wounded by the Charmed Ones, who are able to create a vanquishing potion from Belthazor's flesh. At this point, the Triad attempts to execute Cole for treason. Cole turns on them, supposedly killing them in the process before fleeing back to his apartment to recuperate.

When Phoebe goes to see Cole at his apartment, she finds that Cole is wounded and calls Leo to heal him. Leo tries to heal him but realizes that something is terribly wrong when he finds that he can't heal all of Cole (leading Leo to suspect that Cole is demonic, which Leo then warns Phoebe about).

When Prue and Piper, who are working with a demonic bounty hunter, break in to Cole's apartment, Cole grabs Phoebe and shimmers to the mausoleum, proclaiming his love for her, explaining that he was born half human (Cole) and half demon (Belthazor), and that she has awakened his humanity. She initially does not believe him, but when he is wounded by the bounty hunter, she decides to defend him. She battles the bounty hunter, but he gains the upper hand. As the bounty hunter is about to kill her from behind, Cole screams "No!" and kills the bounty hunter with an energy ball. He asks Phoebe, "Now do you believe me?" Phoebe fakes Cole's death, to keep him from being killed by other demons or her sisters, and tells him to run.

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Belthazor (played by Michael Bailey Smith) - Season 3

Demon Outlaw

Cole returns when Prue is put under a spell and married to a warlock. The goal of the marriage is to contaminate all the sisters, and the Book of Shadows, with evil. Cole claims that he is no longer going to be evil and that he can repress his demonic half in order to be with Phoebe. Phoebe goes to Cole for help in finding Prue, all the while telling him that she doesn't want anything else to do with him, because he is still a demon.

Phoebe and Cole once again grew close as he helps free her from a psychic link with a Native American who was cursed into a time loop. Cole returns and becomes the Charmed Ones' demonic ally, working alongside them and helping them just like Leo. He even witnesses Piper and Leo's marriage.

While at Prue's funeral, Cole is attacked by two demon bounty hunters, but quickly kills them. Later on, he discovers that the Source has sent a Chameleon demon named Alastar to spy on the Charmed Ones. Once uncovered, Alastar is attacked by the sisters and flees. The Source kills Alastar and takes his place as the sisters hunt him down. The Source then kidnaps Piper and takes her to the Underworld, where he uses his mental powers to create a fantasy world wherein Piper is a mental patient, hoping to trick her into giving up her powers to him. Cole and Leo travel to the Underworld to track down Piper while Phoebe and Paige use a spell to project themselves into Piper's mind. As Piper is nearly ready to relinquish her powers, Cole attacks the Source repeatedly with energy balls as he stands immobile, controlling Piper's mind. Cole is eventually able to wound the Source, but as he attempts to kill the Source his attack is blocked by the Source's Oracle, who dies so the Source can escape.

Some time later, the sisters become aware of a demon who is killing witches. After Piper scries for the demon from slime they find, Phoebe and Cole attempt to track the demon down. They are attacked by a Scavenger demon, which is feeding on the remains left by the killer. It is at this time that Cole asks Phoebe to marry him in a spur of the moment. When Cole has to embrace his demon side in order to defeat another demon, a potion is used on him to vanquish his demonic half, leaving only his human half alive.

Cole becomes Human

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Cole Turner

Shortly after Cole becomes human, Cole and Phoebe are possessed by the spirits of Frankie and Lulu, a criminal couple who find their way to the present through a time portal. They go on a crime spree, stealing a diamond ring and a wedding dress, all so they can get married. At the church, Cole is shot and Frankie's spirit escapes, only to be captured by a spirit named Clyde and sent back in time through the time portal. Then Phoebe accepts Cole's marriage proposal. When Phoebe and Cole first break up, in the episode 'Look Who's Barking', Phoebe enters some information about Cole in the book of Shadows: 'Cole Turner likes walks in the park and jazz music. He likes fine wine, artichockes and salsa dancing. He is also ticklish. He is most ticklish around the waist'. Later, the Seer betrays the Source by contacting Cole and giving him the Hollow to help defeat the Source. She convinces him to do this by insisting it is the only way to save Phoebe's life. When The Source throws a fireball at Phoebe, Cole dives in front of it and absorbs the Source's power. The sisters vanquish him in his powerless state, then the Seer and Phoebe say the spell together to put the Hollow back in its crypt and Piper and Paige's stolen powers were restored. When the Seer says the Source's power went "into the void", she was referring to the "void" where Cole's demon half used to be. Cole had permanently absorbed the Source and the Source's power, which was the Seer's intention.

Cole as the Source

Cole begins having nightmares of becoming the new Source. He tries to fight becoming the Source, but the Source keeps him from revealing what happened to the sisters, as the Seer attempts to guide him on his new dark path. However, Phoebe senses something is wrong with Cole, so she casts a spell to hear her heart's desire to help her decide if she should marry Cole, which summons her future and past selves to the present. Older Phoebe refuses to tell Phoebe about the events of the future for fear of changing things for the worse. Younger Phoebe reminded Present Phoebe of her favorite fairy tale, Cinderella, and her dreams of finding her prince. Older Phoebe admits to Cole privately she never married him; Older Phoebe then sacrifices herself to save Cole from a demon attack. The spell reversed itself, and Phoebe decided to go through with the wedding.

Now fully controlled by the Source, Cole orchestrates a number of events to spur Phoebe to call off her wedding, in order to marry Phoebe in a demonic ceremony (which is disguised as a private ceremony). Shortly after, Paige begins to distrust Cole. Cole hires a power broker to imbue Paige with a demonic power in order to distract her and her sisters so he can impregnate Phoebe with his evil spawn. Once alone with Paige in the manor, Cole plays mind games with her, nearly driving her insane, save for her sisters' intervention. At the last moment Cole gains enough control from The Source to save Paige by having other power brokers take the power out of her.

When a power struggle breaks out between Cole and the exiled Vampires, the Vampire Queen sends a group of vampires to bite Paige and make her a vampire under her thrall. Although they are successful, Cole is able to kill the Vampire Queen before Paige is fully converted into a vampire.

Phoebe indeed becomes pregnant (she doesn't know that her child is a child of the Source, and contains nothing of either Cole or herself) and she begins throwing fire and teleporting because of her baby's demonic influence. When Cole tries to convince Phoebe she is not turning evil, she finally gets a premonition revealing Cole is a demon, and she immediately leaves him.

Cole's love is now strongly affecting the Source, and Cole refuses to be confirmed as the Source; The Seer then goes to try to convince Phoebe to go back to Cole. When Cole is attacked by an evil wizard who schemes to seize the Source's powers, Cole offers to give up his position as the Source, and to transfer the Source voluntarily into the Wizard, as a final attempt to rid himself of evil power and win Phoebe back.

However, during the transfer ceremony, the Seer makes Phoebe believe that the wizard is in fact killing Cole. With the Seer's coaching, Phoebe uses her baby's powers and kills the wizard before the power transfer can be complete, nullifying Cole's final effort to become good again. Phoebe then joins Cole as his Queen, and the couple become the new rulers of the Underworld. After some mishaps; namely her killing off many upper-level demons, saving innocents and being tricked by the seer, Phoebe begins to doubt her role as the Queen of the Underworld. With Phoebe's loyalties torn between Cole and her sisters, Paige and Piper attack Cole, banking on Phoebe choosing the right side. Phoebe is forced to side with her sisters and vanquishes Cole and the Source's power with him.

After being vanquished, Cole and the Source finally end up as separate beings in the astral plane of the demonic wasteland (where demons usually go after being vanquished). The powers of the Source, however, were inherently duplicated/embodied in the demonic child and heir of the Source. With Cole gone, the Seer was free to steal the demon spawn from Phoebe's womb and seize power as the new Source, which was her plan since the previous incarnation of the Source summoned the Hollow. Subsequently, the Seer was overwhelmed by the Source's power, just as Phoebe was, and the sisters turned that to their advantage, causing the Seer to explode and vanquish the entire demonic court.

As Cole was born a half-human (Cole)/ half-demon (the now vanquished Belthazor) being, Cole has a human soul, whereas pure blood demons have no souls. This is "rather unique to the cosmos," as Cole puts it. Cole has no inherent demonic powers in the demonic wasteland, as he was fully human when he was possessed by the Source (after the Source's previous body was vanquished).

Cole's Return

Cole tries to get Phoebe to help bring him back to life, using a resurrection spell in the Grimoire, but Phoebe refuses to use dark magic ever again and asks him to move on. Cole, now without hope, initially decides to meet his fate, but in the last minute learns how to absorb the remnant energies of vanquished demons, and defend himself against the serpent-like beast of the demonic wasteland.

Cole quickly gains massive demonic powers and seeks redemption again. He comes back briefly to save Phoebe from a bullet, by switching her position with that of the witch hunter, who had just fired a bullet at Phoebe's heart. He tells her that he isn't giving up on them.

However, Phoebe and her sisters aren't about to accept him any more. He comes back just as Phoebe is about to get a divorce, and she tells him it is over.

Later, Cole talks to Darryl who convinces him that if he loves Phoebe, he should go away, and he finally agrees. However, Paige intervenes thinking Cole might be able to save Phoebe, who was heartbroken and wanted to become a mermaid because in the charmed universe they do not feel emotions. He disagrees with Paige but she casts a spell to show him how much Phoebe loves him. He goes to save her, and helps her turn back from a mermaid. Although she says that she still loves him, Phoebe explains that their relationship is too hopeless to fight for any more.

He tries to prove that he is still good so that Phoebe will take him back. He saves a future Whitelighter from a fire and is hailed as a hero, by all but Phoebe. Again and again he does good deeds only to be rejected each time by Phoebe, on the grounds that his powers and his nature are evil and that it would only be a matter of time before that nature betrayed her, and by proxy, his goals. Her fears are justified when he is seduced, kissed and momentarily killed by a siren, but he then revives. Phoebe had arrived at the scene and was about to vanquish the siren when Cole, overcome by the very evil she warned him about, destroys the vanquishing potion. He kisses the siren, and turns against Phoebe, strangling her to near death.

After being alone for many months, Cole gradually goes insane, due to the countless demonic powers he has taken into himself from the demonic wasteland and his despair over Phoebe's continued rejection of his love, no matter what good deeds he does. When he concludes he can not be good and he will not be evil, he decides to end his life. He believes that the Power of Three is what is necessary to kill him again. He provokes the sisters into attacking him (death by cop), but their best shot proved unable to kill him, much to his chagrin.

Cole is now unvanquishable by any power, including the Power of Three's. However this does not stop him from trying to kill himself several times, even trying to behead himself, only stopped momentarily by Piper freezing the blade that was about to sever his head from his body. Whether this would have done anything is unknown.

Having gone completely mad, Cole's obsession for Phoebe consumes him. He vows to get Phoebe back, no matter what it takes. He even teams up with demons to help him in his schemes, but with every mad attempt, he fails. Which includes trying to take the Nexus from the Charmed Ones to turn Phoebe evil again (which failed).

Cole as an Avatar

Cole joins Alpha and becomes an Avatar, a powerful being that is neither good nor evil. Cole believes Paige was the reason Phoebe gave up on him, so he corrupts reality so that Paige was killed before Piper and Phoebe ever realized she existed. Alpha warns Cole that his spell is foolish and he is vulnerable in this reality, but Cole is determined to see the results. In this new reality, the Power of Three was never restored, Belthazor was never vanquished, and Cole is married to Phoebe, living in the manor with other demons. At first, Cole is content, but he realizes Phoebe has stopped loving him in this reality too. She only married Cole to protect Piper and now cheats on Cole left, right and center. When Cole asks her how they could be so much in love and still turn out this way, Phoebe replies, "Maybe it just wasn't meant to be." While this is all happening, Paige catches a cold, and every time she sneezes, she orbs into a void, outside of space and time where beings like the Avatars live. At the exact moment that Cole changes reality, Paige sneezes and thus survives the change. When Paige realizes what's going on, she tracks down this reality's Piper and Phoebe and convinces them who she is and what Cole has done. They make the original vanquishing potion for Belthazor, which falls into Phoebe's hands. Cole is convinced she would never throw it, but Phoebe does, proving that though she loved him, she wanted him out of her life for good. When Cole dies, the spell reverses, and everything goes back to normal. Cole is vanquished once and for all, or so it seems at the time. He was killed on his 117th birthday, though at the time he wanted the other demons to pretend that he was only 100 years old. To that end, the Seer even vanquishes the demon friend who said he was 117.

Cole's Afterlife

Instead of going back to the Wasteland, this time Cole ends up in the "void between life and death". It is here that Piper bumps into him years later, after being attacked by a Thorn Demon and is hovering on the brink of death. Cole explains that he is there to help Piper get Leo back after he is sent away with his memory erased to find his way to his destiny. Although Piper is wary of him at first, she soon realizes that Cole is right and takes his advice. In the end, Piper and Leo are reunited.

Cole also says that he wants Phoebe not to give up on love and wants her to move on. It is revealed that Cole was the one who arranged for Drake to become human and meet Phoebe, and arranged Piper's attack from the Thorn Demons. How Cole managed to accomplish this remains a mystery. Nor is it clear just what kind of being Cole is now. When Piper asks if he is a Demon, ghost, poltergeist, or spirit, Cole said he is none of those things, but did not specify further. He did, however, say that he is trapped in this realm for all eternity for the evil he has committed. He is last seen thanking Drake for helping Phoebe, and Drake expressing remorse about being unable to help Cole too. Cole replies that he has accepted his fate, and didn't want his fate to be Phoebe's. Drake then dies, his last words being "Goodbye, my friend." and rising up towards heaven. Cole then smiles and fades away forever. It is unknown whether Cole is dead or not but with his abilities and influence over the magical universe, Cole may very well be alive but watching over in secret.

Powers and Abilities

As Belthazor, Cole is a demonic soldier of fortune. He is an upper level demon which means that it requires a potion made from a piece of his own flesh to vanquish him. He can shimmer, throw energy balls, has the power of telekinesis and possesses super strength and endurance.

Cole eventually becomes The Source of All Evil. Theoretically, he possesses most or likely all of the powers of The Source, including teleportation, fireballs, force fields, lightning bolts, pyrokinesis, shape-shifting, telekinesis, summoning, mind control, and possession.

During his time in the Demonic Wasteland, Cole learns that the serpent of the Wasteland feeds on the powers of vanquished demons. In taking the powers before the serpent is able to, he eventually defeats the serpent, or at least destroys parts of it, making him able to obtain whatever powers are available. Since Cole returns from the Wasteland within 72 hours of Phoebe travelling there, we only see about ten different powers used on screen. The actual number of powers may be as few as ten or well in to the hundreds or thousands, however, the exact number or type of powers is impossible to determine. Cole is seen on screen using teleportation, telekinesis, throwing energy balls, conjuring, lightning bolts, and molecular manipulation. He also has invincibility, the ability to grant it to other demons for a time, and some time control. We can assume that his time-related powers are not vast, as he must go to the Avatars in order to change reality.

As an Avatar, Cole possessed ability to change reality. Given the nature of Avatar powers, however, we can conclude that Cole's powers were virtually unlimited, and included, but were not limited to, energy waves, lightning bolts, power binding, time control, the ability to create illusions, to remove people from existence, resurrection, and teleportation.

However, when he changes reality, including his own physical history, to be with Phoebe, he loses his Avatar powers in addition to his powers from the demonic Wasteland. Cole ceases to be physically immortal, and reverts to having only the demonic powers of Belthazor. Other demons in the alternate reality are unaware of this, but a reference is made to the Seer about possibly reporting him to the Source, for his "slightly off" behaviour. Cole is therefore rendered vulnerable in the alternate reality to anything that would have harmed or killed Belthazor, which the leader of the Avatars warns him about, in an attempt to get Cole to reverse his reality changing spell.