The CW's Supernatural began life dealing mostly with monsters. Over the course of the first few seasons, Sam and Dean Winchester worked their way up the hunting food chain from run-of-the-mill beasts to bona fide demons, and eventually to a Prince of Hell who wanted to release Lucifer himself. Lucifer, aka Satan, the Adversary, the Father of Lies, or the Devil, made his first appearance at the very end of the fourth season, and was primarily portrayed by Mark Pellegrino from then on.
As you might expect, Lucifer has been a prominent antagonist in the series ever since, one of the most powerful enemies the Winchesters have (and they have quite a few). A s the tone of the show grew and changed over the course of the 14 seasons, fans saw Lucifer go from the baddest baddie in the game to merely another power player. Anytime a character's role in a series shifts, there is a chance their actions or motivations might not make sense, whether it's thanks to newly modified world-building contradicting earlier seasons or just lazy writing.
This list counts down all the ways Lucifer doesn't make sense as a character. The Devil has had all kinds of trials and tribulations during his time on the show, from his initial fight to destroy humanity to siring a child to fighting his brother from another dimension. There were bound to be inconsistencies, though that none of these entries mean that he's a badly written or badly acted character.
Here are 20 Things About Lucifer That Make No Sense.
He didn’t destroy Castiel’s vessel when he inhabited it
Supernatural is usually pretty good about not contradicting itself, but with so many episodes and so many superpowered entities, some areas were bound to be sketchier than others. One of these areas is the vessels for angels, the rules for which are about as constant as the weather.
Vessels supposedly burn out quickly, and this problem affects Lucifer several times in the series. Lucifer deals with his vessels Nick, Vince, and several others decaying thanks to his power, but the one exception to this is Castiel's vessel, Jimmy Novak. "Casifer" seems to suffer no ill effects, despite the fact that Lucifer has caused very other vessel he's ever possessed to decay and this one isn't even "perfect" for him.
Crowley magically makes Nick a permanent vessel
In general, angels and demons on Supernatural jump from host to host, necessitating the use of multiple actors to portray the same character. What happens when the writers and fans fall in love with one specific actor playing the character? Basically, that's what happened with Lucifer and Mark Pellegrino.
Instead of Lucifer simply moving to a new human vessel (an experiment that the writers tried with Vince Vincente, with mixed results), Supernatural had Crowley come up with an extremely convenient method for turning a temporary vessel into a permanent one. He used this on Nick, and suddenly Mark Pellegrino was in no danger of leaving the show. We're not complaining that this happened, but it breaks more than a few of the show's established rules.
Why didn't the archangel blade destroy Nick, too?
Supernatural's lucky 13th season found its climax in a pitched battle between two archangels: Michael (possessing Dean Winchester) and Lucifer (still possessing Nick, but supercharged with his son Jack's angelic Grace). The fight ended in a victory for Michael, as Dean stabbed Lucifer with an archangel blade.
Where a normal angel blade would have destroyed both the angel and the vessel, the archangel blade apparently works by a different set of rules. Michael's archangel blade only destroyed Lucifer, leaving Nick alive. The reasoning behind this was never really explained-- the blade clearly ed through Nick, so how did it not harm him? If the blade was "designed" to only destroy angels, why don't normal angel blades do the same thing?
He somehow changed Nick’s personality
When Lucifer was finally destroyed at the hands of Michael and Dean Winchester, it caused a number of unforeseen consequences. One of the big ones was Nick, Lucifer's vessel, being freed from Lucifer's control after the archangel blade eliminated Lucifer.
This seemed great until it became apparent that Nick's personality had changed. Nick's psyche was somehow scarred from hosting Lucifer, and he has become much more violent and prone to anger. The problem here is other vessels haven't really had this problem-- this mechanic of an angel affecting their host's minds even after leaving seems to have sprung out of thin air just so the Supernatural writers could give Nick a character arc.
VINCE VINCENTE
Any show that runs for a long time has to find ways to shake up the formula, and these attempts have hurt Supernatural more than they've helped it. One such example was Vince Vincente, an aging rocker that Lucifer chose to be his new vessel in Supernatural's 12th season.
There wasn't a ton of explanation why Lucifer would choose an over-the-hill rock star to be his new vessel, other than the writers clearly thought it would be fun to incorporate the classic themes of rock and roll's demonic influences into the show. Vince was an experiment that didn't really pan out, as fans never connected with the new direction or actor Rick Springfield as Lucifer. This was an angle nobody really wanted for Lucifer, and it never worked in the world of the show.
HE ISN'T GOD'S GREATEST ENEMY
Going by the Christian belief system, one would tend to think that God's greatest enemy is the Devil, Lucifer. Usually referred to as Satan, the Christian Devil is known as The Adversary or the Father of Lies. He is responsible for all of mankind's wickedness, and commands forces nearly as strong as God's.
Lucifer in Supernatural is substantially weaker than the biblical Satan. Lucifer isn't even the most powerful archangel on the show, and he certainly can't claim to be God's nemesis. There are cosmic forces much stronger than Lucifer, and God seems much more perturbed by the rise of His big sister Amara than his estranged son, Lucifer. The Archangel Michael might consider Lucifer his greatest enemy, but God mostly ignores him.
He doesn’t actually care about demons
Lucifer wasn't imprisoned for questioning God's new creation, humanity; that merely got him cast out of heaven. It was only afterward that Lucifer committed his greatest crime: twisting a human soul and creating the first demon, Lilith. In some way, this makes every demon a kind of descendant of Lucifer. So you'd think he'd treat them better.
Demons are Lucifer's most widespread creation; his greatest impact on the world. But time and time again, Lucifer is shown to not really care whether his demons survive. Lucifer treats demons just as callously as he treats humans, never thinking of them as his kin, despite many demons seeing him as their true leader.
His family drama
One thing you'll constantly hear from Lucifer on Supernatural is that he was cast out of heaven because he essentially loved his family too much. He chose to forsake humanity in favor of his father, God, and his angelic brothers, so why isn't Lucifer a better person to his own family?
By his own ission, Lucifer should care more about his family than anything else in the universe. Except he threw a cosmic temper tantrum when his father wouldn't let him destroy humanity, he fought and tried to destroy two of his archangel brothers, and he spends most of his time interacting with his son Jack attempting to manipulate the young Nephilim. Lucifer supposedly did his evil deeds in the name of family, but he's a terrible family member.
He mistreats other angels
In the world of Supernatural, Lucifer was initially kicked out of heaven because he objected to God's latest creation: human beings. He argued that they were violent, deceitful, and clearly beneath him and his angelic brethren. If Lucifer thinks so highly of angels, why is he so comfortable with hurting them?
Over the course of the series, Lucifer destroys many angels. Even if you get past his disagreements with his archangel brothers and God, Lucifer preys upon the lesser angels. It's clear that Lucifer only values those who serve and praise him, but at this point he should probably stop talking about how he thinks angels are better than humans, because he doesn't treat them any better.
The extremely convenient ritual
During season 12, Lucifer gets a new vessel named Vince Vincente. Unfortunately, the new body starts decaying much faster than his old one, and so he goes to the witch Rowena to magically heal it. She betrays Lucifer, speeds up his aging, and sends him to the bottom of the ocean. He is then immediately brought back by a group of young Satanists who perform a ritual with one of his feathers.
This whole sequence was fairly confusing-- why did the writers want Lucifer to get banished one episode, only to bring him back almost immediately? Why did the satanists choose that moment-- just when it was convenient for Lucifer-- to summon the Devil? If using one of his feathers could heal his vessel, why didn't Lucifer just seek it out instead of going to Rowena? None of these questions are answered.