Crowley

Where did Crowley come from?

From seventeenth-century Scotland. Before he was a demon he was Fergus Roderick MacLeod, a tailor and the son of the witch Rowena, who died at about sixty-three, went to Hell, and came out of it as a demon. He rose through the deal-making trade to become King of the Crossroads, and served for a time as Lilith's second-in-command, which put him close to the top of Hell while she was breaking the seals on Lucifer's Cage.

That background explains him better than any title. Crowley thinks like a dealer: everything is a contract, every enemy a possible partner, and his first loyalty is to his own survival. Mark Sheppard plays him as a well-dressed businessman among thugs, and the show marks him out in small ways too: his smoke is red where every other demon's is black, and he will not be seen in anything but a good suit.

How did a crossroads demon become King of Hell?

By betting against the Devil. Once Lucifer was free, Crowley worked out that he had no more use for demons than for people, went rogue in season 5 and helped the Winchesters gather what they needed to lock Lucifer away again. With the throne then empty he offered it to the Prince of Hell Ramiel, who wanted nothing to do with it and told him to take it himself, and Crowley did.

He ruled for years, running Hell like a business, and the show kept testing how long a dealer could hold a throne. Abaddon, a Knight of Hell, challenged him; Lucifer, out of the Cage again, took Hell from him and kept him prisoner; each time he clawed his way back. All told he held the throne, on and off, for about seven years.

Why does he keep working with the Winchesters?

Because they keep being the best bet. Crowley sides with the brothers when it suits him and sells them out when it does not: he partners with Castiel to raid Purgatory, schemes against everyone at the close of the Leviathan year, and later guides Dean through his time as a demon with something close to affection. The show also lets him change. At the end of season 8 Sam starts to cure him of being a demon, and the human blood he is given leaves him with feelings he cannot quite put away, which colours everything after.

Who are Rowena and Gavin?

His family, and the show's way of making a demon a son and a father. Rowena MacLeod, played by Ruth Connell, is his mother, an immensely powerful witch who is one of the main threats of season 10 and who, after her own death, ends up ruling Hell as its queen, the post her son once held. Gavin MacLeod is the son Fergus left behind in his human life, a son he once claimed to loathe. Crowley says he cares for neither of them, and the show spends several seasons proving him wrong. His protectiveness towards Gavin is one of the first signs that the cure left something human in him, and his on-and-off alliance with Rowena, who after his death tries to force his return and blames herself for failing him, is the nearest thing the series gives him to a family life.

How does Crowley's story end?

With a choice nobody expected of him. At the end of season 12, with Lucifer about to escape again, Crowley takes his own life with an angel blade to seal the Devil in another world. By then he had lost his taste for ruling Hell, and the sacrifice wins him a respect from Dean and Sam that his scheming never did. Season 12 was Mark Sheppard's last in the role, and even Rowena's later attempt to have him brought back is refused, so the death is final in a way the show's deaths often are not: a demon who began as a dealer in souls ends by giving up his own existence.