Cole Turner
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 Julian McMahon as Cole Turner |
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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.
[edit] Character History
Cole was born in 1885 to California state assemblyman Benjamin Colerige Turner and a demon mother named Elizabeth. Benjamin was murdered by Elizabeth in 1888 and, after Cole's birth, his mother took him from Earth and raised him in a demon dimension. Cole 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.
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.
Cole first met the Halliwells in the season premier of Season 3, in which he investigates the attack on the sisters' friend Morris. Because the sisters had witnessed the attack and had foiled the assailant, Cole called 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 in which Piper freezes the entire courtroom and Cole is immune. He shimmers to and kills the demonic judge who was 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 started protecting them so that his assignment would continue. Eventually he stood up for the sisters and protected them, even though they did not know that Cole and Belthazor were the same person. Cole and Phoebe both fell in love.
During the time Belthazor was possessed by the demon of Rage, Andras, he was forced to try to destroy the sisters. Belthazor vanquished Andras, but was wounded by the Charmed Ones, who were able to create a vanquishing potion from Belthazor's flesh. At this point, the Triad attempted to kill Cole. Cole turned on them, killing them in the process before fleeing back to his apartment to recuperate.
When Phoebe went to see Cole at his apartment, she found that Cole was wounded and called Leo to heal him. Leo does try to heal him but realizes that something is terribly wrong when he finds that he can't heal all of him, only his human half. At this point, Phoebe discovered that Cole was Belthazor and that he refused to kill her because he loved her. When Prue and Piper, who were 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. Heartbroken, Phoebe fakes Cole's death to keep him from being killed by her sisters and tells him to run.
Cole does not return until Prue is put under a spell and married to a warlock in order to contaminate all the sisters, and the book of shadows, with evil. He claims that he is no longer going to be evil and that he can repress his demonic half in order to be with her. 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.
He helped protect the Charmed Ones from a warlock and dark priestess who planned to wed the warlock to Prue and turn the sisters evil.
Phoebe and Cole grew closer as he helped free her from a psychic link with an Indian who was cursed in a time loop. Cole returned and became the Charmed Ones' demonic ally, working alongside them. He even witnessed Piper and Leo's marriage.
While at Prue's funeral, Cole was attacked by two demon bounty hunters but he quickly killed them. Later on, he discovered that the Source had sent a Chameleon demon named Alastar to spy on the Charmed Ones. Once uncovered, Alastar was attacked by the sisters and fled. The Source killed Alastar and took his place as the sisters hunted him down. The Source then kidnapped Piper and took her to the underworld, where he used his mental powers to create a fantasy world where Piper was a mental patient, hoping to trick her into giving up her powers to him. Cole and Leo traveled to the underworld to track down Piper while Phoebe and Paige used a spell to project themselves into Piper's mind. As Piper was about ready to relinquish her powers, Cole attacked the Source repeatedly with energy balls as he stood immobile controlling Piper's mind. Cole eventually was able to wound the Source, but as he attempted to kill the Source his attack was blocked by the Source's Oracle, who died so the Source could escape.
Some time later, the sisters became aware of a demon who was killing witches. After Piper scried for the demon from slime they found, Phoebe and Cole attempted to track the demon down. They were attacked by a Scavenger demon, which was feeding on the remains left by the killer. It was at this time that Cole asked Phoebe to marry him in a spur of the moment. When Cole had to embrace his demon side in order to defeat another demon, a potion was used on him to strip him of his demon side, leaving him merely human.
Shortly after, Cole and Phoebe were possessed by the spirits of Frankie and Lulu, a criminal couple who found their way to the present through a time portal. They went on a crime spree, stealing a diamond ring and a wedding dress, all to the end of getting married. At the church, Cole was shot and Frankie's spirit escaped, only to be captured by a spirit named Clyde. It was at this time that Phoebe accepted Cole's marriage proposal.
Later, the Seer betrayed the Source by contacting Cole and giving him the Hollow to help defeat the Source. The Seer and Phoebe then used their combined abilities to put the Hollow back in its crypt and return Piper and Paige's stolen powers. Following the Source's death at the hands of the Charmed Ones, his spirit slowly began to take possession of Cole, infusing him with the Source's powers.
Cole started having nightmares of becoming the new Source. He tried to fight becoming the Source, but it kept him from revealing what happened to the sisters, as the Seer attempted to guide him on his new dark path. Phoebe had cast a spell to hear her heart's desire, which summoned her future and past selves to the present. Older Phoebe refused to tell Phoebe about the events of the future for fear of changing things for the worse. Learning a young and vulnerable Phoebe was in the present, the demon Kurzon attacked Young Phoebe, but Cole protected her. Kurzon attacked again, this time wounding Older Phoebe. He was vanquished by the Charmed Ones, but not before Older Phoebe told Phoebe to marry Cole. This returned the older and younger versions of Phoebe to their own time.
Now fully controlled by the Source, Cole orchestrated a number of events to spurn Phoebe to call off her wedding to the end of wedding Phoebe in a demonic ceremony (which was disguised as a private ceremony). Shortly after, Paige began to distrust Cole, and Cole hired a power broker to imbue Paige with a demonic power in order to distract her and her sisters so he could impregnate Phoebe with his evil spawn. Once alone with Paige in the manor, Cole played mind games with Paige, nearly driving her insane if not for her sisters' intervention. At the last moment Cole gained enough control from the source to save Paige by having other power brokers take the power out of her.
When a power struggle broke out between Cole and the Queen of the Vampires, the Vampire Queen sent a group of vampires to bite Paige and make her a vampire under her thrall. Although they were successful, Cole was able to kill the Vampire Queen before Paige was fully converted into a vampire.
Cole was attacked by an evil wizard who had schemed to seize the Source's powers all along. Cole offered him to give up his position as the Source voluntarily, as a final attempt to rid himself of its evil influence. However, guided by the Seer, Phoebe used her baby's powers and killed the wizard before the power transfer could complete, nullifying Cole's final effort to become good again. Phoebe then joined Cole as his queen, and the couple became the new rulers of the Underworld. With Phoebe's loyalties torn between Cole and her sisters, Phoebe eventually chose her sisters and vanquished Cole and the Source's spirit with him.
After his death, Cole ended up in the demonic wasteland where demons usually go after being vanquished. His powers as the Source were taken from him and embodied in his child and eventually the Seer.
Although he tried to get Phoebe to help bring him back to life, Phoebe refused and asked him to move on. Cole, now without hope, initially decided to meet his fate, but in the last minute learnt how to absorb the remnant energies of vanquished demons. Cole quickly gained demonic powers and sought redemption again. He came back breifly to save Phoebe from a bullet, by switching her postion with that of the witch hunter. He told her that he wasn't giving up on them. However, Phoebe and her sisters weren't about to accept him as their friend anymore. He came back just as Phoebe was about to get a divorce, and she told him it was over. Later he talks to Darryl who convinces him that if he loves Phoebe he will go away, and he finally agrees. However Paige intervenes thinking Cole might be able to save Phoebe from being a mermaid. He disagrees but Paige casts a spell to show him how much Phoebe loves him. So he goes to save her, and helps her turn back from a mermaid. But she says that even though she still loves him, that its still over.
For a while he tries to prove that he is still good so that Phoebe will take him abck. He saves a future white lighter from a fire, and is hailed as a hero, by all but Phoebe. Again and again he does good deeds and is regected again and again by Phoebe.
Alone for many months, Cole had gone insane, due to the amount of powers he took in and Phoebe's continued rejection. And he decided he wanted to end his life, since he couldn't be good and he wouldn't be evil. However, he learned that he had became invincible. Cole was unvanquishable. At many attempts, Cole tried to kill himself, even trying to behead himself, but the Charmed Ones stopped him. Cole then decided to team up with demons to help him bring Phoebe back to him, and with every attempt, he lost.
Cole had joined Alpha and became an avatar, a powerful being that was neither good or evil, and corrupted reality so that Paige was never found. However, Paige had caught a cold, and every time she sneezed, she orbed into a void, outside of space and time where beings like the Avatars live. So, Paige sneezed at the exact moment Cole changed time. Paige discovered his evil intentions and, with the help of Piper and Phoebe, vanquished him once and for all, or so it seemed at the time. He was vanquished in the alternate reality where he returned to being Belthazor instead of crossing over as an avatar, thus it made him vulnerable to being vanquished. It was his 118th birthday on the day he was killed.
Instead of going back to the Wasteland, this time Cole ended up in the "void between life and death". It was here that Piper bumped into him after being attacked by a Thorn Demon and was hovering on the brink of death. Cole explained that he was there to help Piper get Leo back (Leo had been taken away by the Elders to be punished for his joining the Avatars). Although Piper was wary of him at first, she soon realized that Cole was right and took his advice. In the end, Piper and Leo were reunited. Cole also said that he wanted Phoebe not to give up on love and wanted her to move on. It was revealed that Cole had been 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 asked if he were a Demon, ghost, poltergeist, or spirit, Cole said he was none of those things, but did not specify further. His ability to influence the Thorn Demons, communicate with Drake, appear in Magic School and teleport at will imply that he may well be alive.
But as The Charmed Ones are retired, and preparing the next generations, there has been no signs of Cole. An optimistic look at his last episode could suggest that he has finally found at least some inner peace and redemption.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
As Belthazor, Cole was a demonic soldier of fortune. He was an upper level demon and required a potion made of his own flesh to vanquish him. He could shimmer (teleport), throw energy balls, and he possessed super strength.
Cole eventually became The Source of All Evil, and theoretically possessed most or likely all of the powers of the The Source of All Evil, including teleportation, fireballs, force fields, lightning bolts, pyrokinesis, shapeshifting, telekinesis, summoning, mind control, and possession.
During his time in the Demonic Wasteland, Cole learned that the serpent of the Wasteland feeds on the powers of vanquished demons. In taking the powers before the serpent was able to, he eventually defeated the serpent, or at least destroyed parts of it, making him able to obtain however many powers were available. Since Cole returned from the Wasteland within 72 hours of Phoebe travelling to the Wasteland, and the fact that 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 teleporting, telekinesis, energy ball throwing, invincibility, 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 containing, the ability to create illusions, time control, the ability to remove people from existence, resurrection, and teleportation. However, when he changes reality to be with Phoebe, he loses his Avatar powers, and reverts to the form of Belthazor.
| Charmed |
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| Main: Season summaries | Episode guide | Broadcasters and DVD releases | Terms | Trivia |
| Locations and Artifacts: San Francisco Bay Area | Magic School | The Nexus | Book of Shadows |
| Good beings: Charmed Ones | Close friends | Family and friends | Whitelighters | Elders |
| Neutral: Avatars | The Hollow | Firestarters |
Categories: Charmed characters | Fictional demons | Fictional assassins | Fictional characters with telekinesis | Fictional immortals | Fictional characters with the power to warp reality | Fictional characters with the power to manipulate fire | Fictional characters with the power to teleport | Fictional characters with the power to manipulate electricity | Fictional characters with the power to shapeshift | Suicidal fictional characters | Fictional characters with the power to manipulate time
