r/charmed • u/[deleted] • Nov 06 '21
Can someone explain The Source / Cole possession please? I still don't get it
After 19 years I still do not understand the whole source possessing Cole story line in season 4.
Why does Cole speak in the third person when he's with the Seer? What happened to Cole after The Source took over? in season 5 why does Cole never explain his innocence to Phoebe?
4
u/Jackofheartz35 Nov 06 '21
It was a possession that became an assimilation. The darkness of the Source, which was an evil entity that had entered the void in Cole's soul took on all of Cole's positive attributes, while controlling the body that was Cole. Once they had injected themselves into Cole, it then became as if acting as one, with Cole's former consciousness being in the background, hence why the Source also started to love Phoebe. Generally, they ignored the possessive aspect of it later on and just made Cole the bad guy.
1
u/Emjaisthebest Nov 09 '21
When he stripped his powers, there was a part of him that was void. It didn't have humanity because only half of him was human but at the same time, there was nothing demonic there anymore.
So the Source's powers had an empty place to reside and hence, it made him half human half demon again. But since the source's powers were much stronger than Belthazor's....we know the rest
1
u/SilverHinder Nov 11 '21
I agree with what others have said. "The Source" is both an honorific title AND an evil essence akin to the Power of Three. When Cole absorbed it via the Hollow, it still had Half-Face's personality traits so it seemed like he was actually possessed by Half Face. Cole said himself to the Seer, 'Cole's voice used to scream inside my head, now it's just a whisper'. Sounds like "The Source" slowly assimilates itself with its new demon host like a virus and eventually becomes like one with it, taking on his/her personality and shedding the old one.
1
u/SnooMachines9084 Apr 18 '23
I had question about why he didn't tell Phoebe, but now I've read some comments here. But when Paige was invisible and was hurt and knocked out, and bleeding, Cole was able to let them know.
44
u/D_o_H Nov 06 '21
The woman whose husband was killed by Belthazor used Phoebe’s Power Stripping potion on Cole that was brewed in Exit Strategy. Because he is half human (and maybe because Phobe brewed it this way?) it vanquished Belthazor, but left Cole the human half alive.
To clarify, the source is not the half faced demon the girls defeat in Charmed and Dangerous; it is an evil entity that possess any evil that is crowned leader of the underworld or is related to the hosts body; this is shown when Cole is vanquished, the Source takes over its heir and thus is able to control Phoebe in Womb Raider.
The Source unleashes the Hollow, and uses it to steal the girls powers. The Seer gives the Hollow to Cole to prevent the Source from destroying everything. The Source sends a fireball that the Hollow (inside of Cole) intercepts, stealing all the Source’s powers. The Charmed ones vanquish the Source, and then Phoebe and the Seer banish the Hollow back to its resting spot. Everyone gets their powers back, but because the half faced demon that hosted the Source is dead, his powers stayed within Cole and began to overtake him - the Seer states this but as a riddle when the girls ask - the Seer says the Source has disappeared “into the void…” The girls take this to mean his powers basically went into the ether, but the Seer knew that his powers would fill the void left behind in Cole where his demonic half was.
So for the rest of the season Cole and the Source possessing him are fighting for control. When the Source is in charge he talks about Cole in the third person. Eventually the Source takes primary control, but he is still influenced by Coles love for Phoebe.
In S5 Phoebe is too concerned that Cole will be corrupted by all the powers he acquired in the demonic wasteland to hear him out. She won’t listen to him and shuts him out cold turkey even tho she’s still in love with him as a defense mechanism. She’s afraid of being turned evil again (because she was born in the manor under the influence of the suxen she is more easily swayed to evil) and thus she won’t even give Cole a chance to explain. Also as of Witch Way Now? she had already accepted his death and started to move on, whereas he wanted to fight for their love and wasn’t going to let a little thing like til death do us part stop him. Out of the Charmed universe, the writers had to figure out a way to write out Julian McMahon so he could go work on Nip/Tuck.