Triad (Charmed)

The Triad is a fictional group of powerful demons on the television series Charmed. They ranked very high in the hierarchy of evil during the series. They exist in the spiritual realm as eternal evil spirits, and they are referred to by upper-level demons as evil incarnate whenever they can find a host of three demons.

First appearance

The Triad first appear in Season 3,^{[episodes 2]} and are played by Amir Aboulela, Rick Overton and Shaun Toub. At this time, they work for The Source. The Triad demon-hosts in Season 3 are males, and have black eyes. They wear long dark red-like robes, with an upside down pentagram behind it. Each of them possesses multiple powers (including fireballs, teleportation, summoning demons, manifesting objects, etc.). When they become aware of the existence of the Charmed Ones, they begin sending demons after them. They were the nemesis of the Charmed Ones for the first three years of the series, while they were still being commanded by the Source. When all of their previous demons fail, they order upper-level demon Belthazor, to go after the Charmed Ones, Belthazor comes very close, but falls in love with Phoebe, which leads to him killing the Triad by throwing an athame into one, snapping another's neck and using an energy ball on the third.^{[episodes 3]}

Second coming

The Triad reappear in Season 8, composed of three new upper-level demons as their new hosts: Asmodeus, Baliel and Candor. They have been rulers of the Underworld since the Charmed Ones vanquished Zankou. This time, they wear long black robes with an upside-down pentagram on the front. They are revealed to be the ones responsible for witch/firestarter Christy Jenkins's kidnapping fifteen years earlier. The kidnapping occurred even before their discovery of the Charmed Ones' existence at the start of the series.^{[episodes 4]} They hired demons to guard Christy and keep her hidden. They also turned her evil by severely warping her sense of good and evil. Those demons later get vanquished by Christy and by The Triad.^{[episodes 4]}

A demon named Xar, a former member of The Triad, orders a demon to tell the Charmed Ones that The Triad is back, thus exposing them. Xar tricks the Halliwell sisters into going after The Triad, because he doesn't want them to take over the Underworld. The Triad become aware of this, and kill Xar. The Charmed Ones go after them using an insidious plan because they alone don't have the power to vanquish them. Knowing that The Triad probably has the same weakness that they do, where their power is in the group and killing one weakens the other, they attack with the purpose of taking out one for sure. It works: Asmodeus is hit by a fireball from Baliel as a result of a move by Piper and Paige and Baliel is vanquished by Piper's molecular combustion power, although it takes three hits to do it. Afterward, there is only one member alive, Candor, who escaped without getting vanquished as he ran when he saw Piper and Paige vanquished the other two. Candor later appears, when he freezes the Charmed Ones and Billie, but not Christy, as he tells her that they taught her everything she knows, and now that The Triad is weakened, she must go forward alone, to reunite with the Ultimate Power, her sister Billie. Candor then leaves, and unfreezes the others.

Later on, Candor is killed by Christy, for being responsible for the death of Christy's parents ramming her arm through his chest.^{[episodes 5]}

It is later discovered that The Triad cannot be destroyed as easily as previously thought. Their physical bodies can be vanquished but they continue to exist in spirit form until they are strong enough to constitute new bodies for themselves. Therefore, The Triad still exist and continued to progress their plan to kill the Charmed Ones, with Dumain, an upper-level demon and childhood "imaginary friend" of Christy's who serves them. It is later revealed that letting Christy be rescued was Dumain's idea all along. He hoped that Christy would turn Billie against the Charmed Ones, resulting in a battle that would kill all five witches and allow the Triad to return. The Triad liked this idea so much that they promised to make Dumain one of them should the plan succeed. Christy does briefly turn Billie against the Charmed Ones by making her younger sister think the Halliwells are on the verge of being corrupted by their power.

To ensure that the Jenkinses have enough power to kill the Charmed Ones since it's only two against three, the Triad instructs Dumain to have the Jenkinses summon The Hollow. However, Nomed, a young demon who had once worked with the Triad, got wind of this and warned the Charmed Ones, who took in the Hollow at the same time as the Jenkinses. The Charmed Ones then used Hollow-enhanced electrokinesis to destroy the Triad. The battle Dumain hoped for then took place at the manor. As it turned out, the Halliwells and the Jenkinses were evenly matched. The power shoots out in all directions, killing Phoebe, Paige and Christy.^{[episodes 6]}

Billie went back to Magic School to warn Dumain, who told her she could use her projection power to change the past. However, when Dumain tried to get her to go to the Triad rather than her sister, Billie realized she'd been tricked; she'd been led to believe the Triad was already dead. She projected herself to the past to warn Christy that the Triad was manipulating them, but Christy wouldn't listen and went back to Magic School. She and Dumain then went back in the past to warn the Triad of their death, but as he was warning them, Billie projected herself and the Charmed Ones into the past as well. The Charmed Ones vanquished the Triad once and for all with potions, and Piper proceeded to vanquish future and past Dumain with her molecular combustion power. An enraged Christy then launched a giant fireball at Billie and the Charmed Ones, but Billie telekinetically deflected it back at Christy and vanquished her.^{[episodes 7]}

Trivia

• As the Triad exist in the spiritual realm, their physical bodies can be vanquished but they continue to exist as spirits until they are strong enough to find new hosts for themselves. This means that the Triad (from Season 8) is the same Triad that appeared in Season 3. After Cole vanquished them,^{[episodes 3]} their essence continued to exist as spirits until they composed new bodies for themselves, therefore resulting in their return in Season 8. It is for the same reason that there are "former members" of the Triad.
• Leland Crooke who plays a Triad member previously played Archduke Sebassis on the TV series Angel, who was also part of a demonic council of enormous power called the Circle of the Black Thorn, also in its final season.
• The Triad's main weakness is that like the Charmed Ones, their power is in their collective. Vanquish one and the other two are weakened. Even the Triad admit this. They are apparently so powerful Power of Three spells may not work on them as the Charmed Ones never tried one and Piper doubted her molecular combustion power would either, which makes sense as extremely powerful demons are shown to be immune to that. However, they are not immune to Piper's freezes in season 8, but she may have grown powerful enough at that time to temporarily freeze them and they did seem to be breaking free slightly before she unfroze them herself. They were so powerful in physical form that it was speculated that the only reason that Cole could vanquish them the first time is because of his being an extremely powerful demon, possibly as powerful as they were although this is speculation and he likely only eliminated them as he caught them by surprise and vanquished one, weakening the others. Eliminating one noticeably weakens them as the Triad was mostly immune to the Charmed Ones powers before Asmodeus' vanquish, but afterward were vulnerable, although noticeably still powerful as although Baliel was vulnerable to Piper's molecular combustion, it noticeably took three hits to vanquish him, a first for that power.
• The Triad's spirit form seems to be that of their most recent hosts as they appeared as the hosts they were vanquished in when in spirit form in season 8.

Episode footnotes

References

Charmed Awards and nominations Series Episodes Season 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Comics Season 9 10 Characters Main Prue Halliwell Piper Halliwell Phoebe Halliwell Paige Matthews Supporting Andy Trudeau Darryl Morris Leo Wyatt Cole Turner Chris Halliwell Billie Jenkins Recurring Melinda Warren Penny Halliwell Patty Halliwell Coop Guests Season 1 2 3 4 5 Major villains Rex Buckland Hannah Webster Barbas The Triad Belthazor Shax The Source The Seer Gideon The Avatars Zankou Christy Jenkins Magical beings Darklighters The Hollow Whitelighters Episodes "Something Wicca This Way Comes" "All Hell Breaks Loose" "Charmed Again" "Charmed and Dangerous" "Forever Charmed" Other media Academia Board games Merchandise Novels Video game Music "How Soon Is Now?" The Soundtrack The Book of Shadows The Final Chapter Related articles Power of Three Book of Shadows Nexus Locations Category:Charmed (TV series)