Ruby
Ruby is a black-eyed demon who is integral to Lucifer's plan to escape from his cage and start the Apocalypse.
History
Around the time of the Black Plague in 1350, Ruby was a witch who sold her soul to the demon that would later possess Tammi. Ruby became a demon herself after prolonged torture in Hell.[2] She owns a special knife that can destroy demons, although it also kills their human host (or meatsuit). Following Azazel's death, Ruby proves instrumental in releasing Lucifer from his Cage by manipulating Sam Winchester.[1]
She initially presents herself as an ally to the Winchesters, helping them fight demons and witches, fixing the Colt and particularly by intimating to Sam that she can help break the deal Dean made with the crossroads demon with his life. She later reveals to Dean that she can't save him, but claims to want to help prepare Sam to fight the demons after Dean is dead, claiming she remembers what it is to be human and wants to fight on the side humanity. As Dean's deal is due and they try to kill Lilith, she sends Ruby back to Hell.
While Dean is in Hell, Ruby returns to Sam. Distraught with grief, he refuses to speak to her while she is possessing someone. She finds a woman in a hospital and possesses her as she is declared dead. At Sam's lowest point she seduces him.
I referenced Monster's Ball right in the script. We were asking ourselves, "Where's the lowest place Sam can go in a state of despair?" That's why calling it a love scene strikes me as hilarious. It's kind of like self-mutilating and calling it getting dressed for the prom.
Ruby convinces Sam that she can help him develop his powers so he can kill Lilith and avenge Dean's death. She gets him to practice with his powers, and also gets him drinking her blood in order to enhance his powers.
After Dean's return, Sam keeps his relationship with Ruby a secret - continuing to drink her blood and develop his powers so he can kill Lilith, who is breaking the 66 Seals that are keeping Lucifer captive. Driven by a desire to prove himself capable to both Dean and himself, Sam fails to realize Ruby is using him, and rejects Dean's advice not to trust her.
When Sam finally kills Lilith, Ruby reveals that Lilith's death is the final seal, the one which will free Lucifer. As Lucifer rises, Dean arrives and kills Ruby with her own knife while Sam holds her in place from behind.
Episodes
2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two
Ruby is later revealed to be among the hundred or more demons seen escaping Hell through the open Devil's Gate in this episode; like the other demons, she appears as demon smoke.
3.01 The Magnificent Seven
Ruby follows Sam and Bobby as they track down the Seven Deadly Sins. Sam senses somebody watching him, but she seemingly vanishes whenever he turns to see who it is. While Bobby, Dean, and Tamara are fighting off Sloth, Lust, and Wrath, the other demons (Pride, Gluttony, and Greed) target Sam. When Pride starts strangling Sam, Ruby steps in and attacks the demons with a knife, killing Gluttony and Greed on her own and killing Pride with Sam's help. Stunned, Sam asks who she is, but she only says that she's "the girl who just saved your ass." She tells Sam that she'll see him around and in the process reveals to Sam that she knows who he is. She walks away and has already disappeared by the time Sam goes to look for her.
3.02 The Kids Are Alright
Ruby drops in on Sam unexpectedly as he researches ways to save Dean's soul. She identifies herself as a fellow hunter and talks with Sam about his past and his destiny; this sets Sam on a path to research more about his mother, Mary Winchester. Disturbed to find out all of his mother's friends are dead, Sam demands to know exactly who Ruby is. Ruby reveals that she is a demon and claims that Sam fascinates her. Ruby tells Sam that she is in the pursuit of knowledge for her own ends and is "on his side." The episode ends with her offering Sam a deal - he works with her to find out more about his destiny and she helps him save Dean's soul from the crossroads demon.
3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock
Sam tells Dean about Ruby turning out to be a demon. Dean is angry that Sam didn't exorcise her as soon as he found out, but Sam defends his sparing her and admits that she offered to help him save Dean from his deal. Dean believes that Ruby is just lying to Sam and using his love for Dean against him, but Sam insists that they can use her to get information on the demons they are battling.
3.04 Sin City
Ruby comes to Bobby while he is working on the Colt. Bobby shoots her with it, but with no effect. Ruby offers to help Bobby make it work, and they succeed - Bobby brings the Colt to a hunt Dean and Sam are on and Sam kills two demons with it. Later, Ruby and Sam argue - Ruby threatens to take the Colt from Sam and give it to someone else who'll use it; Sam threatens Ruby with the Colt. They come to a truce again when Ruby reminds Sam that if he kills her, she can't help him save Dean's soul. She refers to herself as "the little fallen angel" on Sam's shoulder.
3.05 Bedtime Stories
When Sam threatens the crossroads demon with the Colt, the crossroads demon realizes that Ruby must have fixed it and comments disparagingly on the problems Ruby is causing her.
3.09 Malleus Maleficarum
Ruby warns Sam and Dean away from the town where they are investigating a coven of witches. She tells them a demon is present that will come after Sam. Dean tries to shoot her with the Colt, but Sam intervenes. When Dean is attacked by a force that causes him to bled internally, Ruby saves him with a witch's potion. When Tammi is about to kill Sam and Dean, Ruby appears and at first acts as if she is on Tammi's side, but then tries to kill Tammi with her knife. Tammi reveals Ruby was once a witch who sold her soul to her. After Dean manages to kill Tammi with Ruby's knife, she tells him all demons were originally human, but during their time in hell they lose all trace of their humanity, but she has retained some of hers and wants to help humans. Ruby reveals to Dean that she can't save him from hell, but that she needs his help to prepare Sam to fight the demons after he is gone.
3.12 Jus in Bello
While the boys are under siege from demons while in a police station, Ruby shows up, able to get in through a salt line damaged unwittingly by the deputy. She tells them that demons are from Lilith, Sam's demonic rival from "the west," and tries to convince Sam that the solution is a spell she knows that will "vaporize" all demons within radius - including herself. However the spell requires the sacrifice of a virgin. Nancy volunteers but Dean is vehemently against the plan, instead he convinces Sam that they need to just open the doors and fight off the hoard themselves. Exasperated, Ruby leaves. After the boys have escaped, seemingly victorious over the demons, Ruby turns up at their motel room and tells them to turn on the television, where they find out that everyone left in the police station was killed by Lilith.
3.16 No Rest for the Wicked
In an last attempt to save Dean from his deal, Sam summons Ruby. She tells him that he contains the power necessary to defeat Lilith, but Dean intervenes and in the ensuing struggle traps her beneath a devil's trap and steals Ruby's knife. Ruby escapes and tracks the boys to the house where Lilith is tormenting a family. On entering the house they find the little girl Lilith was possessing is human again. Sam turns to Ruby for help again, but she says it is too late to save Dean. As the hellhounds come for Dean, the boys barricade themselves in a room. Dean, who is able to see the true face of demons, realizes that the body possessed by Ruby now contains Lilith. Lilith says she has sent Ruby "far, far away." After Lilith leaves Ruby's host body, the latter falls to the floor beside Dean, lifeless.
4.01 Lazarus Rising
Ruby has returned and possessed another body to walk among humans. Since Dean's death, she apparently has taught Sam to use his powers, among them the power to exorcise demons by forcing them out of their host bodies with the sheer power of his will.
4.02 Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester
Ruby has found out that Dean was saved by an angel. She tells Sam she is going to take off for while because she is scared that angels will smite her, even if she is being helpful to him.
4.03 In the Beginning
Ruby appears briefly at the beginning of the episode when she drives up to Sam and Dean's motel room at night and lets Sam into her car for a secret rendezvous while Dean is asleep. She asks if he is ready, which he confirms.
4.04 Metamorphosis
Dean finds Sam with Ruby, and witnesses him exorcising a demon. Ruby attacks Dean, but Sam warns her off, and she leaves to take the now unpossessed human to a hospital.
4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer
In flashbacks set after 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked but before 4.01 Lazarus Rising, Ruby, now possessing a secretary, is shown meeting Sam again for the first time since Dean's death. She and another demon overpower him when he walks into his motel room, drunk. She reclaims her knife from Sam and tells him that she had been in a particularly "nasty" part of Hell before Lilith released her on the condition that she find and kill Sam. Ruby goes back on her deal by killing the demon with her instead. Frustrated by Sam's unresponsive behavior, she describes how she has been tortured by an angry Lilith for helping him and all the risks and sacrifices she has made just to get back to him. However, he is unmoved; once she admits she can't save Dean's soul from Hell, he orders her to get out of the woman she is possessing and leave him alone. She depossesses the secretary, but then possesses a coma patient—a Jane Doe whose soul has already left her body and crossed-over—who has just been taken off life-support and returns to Sam in this more acceptable meatsuit.
Ruby tells Sam that she heard Lilith planning something "apocalyptic-big" in Hell and offers to teach him everything she knows—including how to use his powers—so that he can take revenge on Lilith, but only if he promises to be both patient and sober; he readily accepts. He is unsuccessful at first in exorcising demons, and becomes even more despairing. Ruby tells him that she remembers how it feels to lose a loved one and that the pain of losing Dean will get better with time, then seduces him. Soon afterward, Sam finds omens that he believes will lead him to Lilith. Ruby tries to stop him, warning him that Lilith will kill him instead of the other way around and telling him that this isn't what Dean would want, but he threatens to kill her own knife to stop her from interfering anymore. Sam walks into a trap and is attacked by two of Lilith's minions. Luckily, Ruby has followed him there and she rescues him by killing one demon with her knife. She is overpowered by the second demon, who taunts her about the torments she will go through once she's taken back to Hell. Much to Ruby's surprise, Sam saves her by successfully using his powers for the first time in exorcising the second demon.
In the present, Ruby informs Sam and Dean that a woman called Anna Milton is being pursued by demons. Once they find her, she returns to tell them that they have to go immediately because a powerful demon (Alastair) has followed them, but her arguing with Dean delays them until it is too late to flee. She tells Sam to use his powers to exorcise Alastair right away before he kills them all, and is horrified when they have no effect. While Dean fights Alastair, Ruby takes Anna and the two of them vanish, causing Dean to suspect that she used them to find Anna and then kidnap her for nefarious purposes. Sam doesn't believe it and Dean asks him why he trusts her, leading Sam to explain how she helped him while Dean was in Hell. After he finishes, Ruby turns up in person, possessing a maid at the motel where Sam and Dean are, to convey the address Anna is as well as a warning that demons are closing in on them. She then leaves and rejoins Anna, possessing the Jane Doe once more. Ruby receives a hesitant thank-you from Dean for keeping Sam safe while he was dead, with ill grace. Believing that more demons are on their way for Anna, Ruby is annoyed when she realizes that Sam and Dean lost her knife to Alastair. She is shocked and frightened when they are confronted by Castiel and Uriel instead.
4.10 Heaven and Hell
After Anna repels Uriel and Castiel; Sam, Dean, Ruby and Anna take refuge at Bobby's place. Pamela Barnes arrives and helps Anna remember that she was an angel who chose to be human. They travel to Kentucky searching for Anna's grace, only to find it gone. Anna then receives a message that unless Dean hands her over to the angels, they will send Dean back to Hell.
Ruby goes to a crossroads and reveals herself to Alastair. She offers to give up Anna, if Alastair will let her and the Winchesters go. He captures and tortures her with her own knife. She won't reveal Anna's location verbally, but she will take him there.
Ruby takes Alastair to where Anna and the boys are and the demons and angels attack each other. Anna get's her grace back from Uriel. During the process, Alastair disappears. Uriel and Castiel leave, and we find out that Ruby was part of Sam's plan to bring the demons and angels together to get them to fight each other.
4.12 Criss Angel Is a Douchebag
Ruby accuses Sam of wasting time - thirty-four of the seals have been broken. Sam says that he doesn't know where the seals are or how to stop them from being broken. Ruby counters that he needs to go after the source of the problem - Lilith. Sam refuses and Ruby leaves. Later, Sam has a conversation with Dean in which Dean says he doesn't see that he and Sam could have a happy future. This leads Sam to rejoining Ruby and the hunt for Lilith.
4.14 Sex and Violence
Ruby does not appear physically, but Dean redials the last number on Sam's phone and her voice is heard first greeting Sam, then asking if he's there when "Sam" doesn't answer her. Dean hangs up without saying anything. Earlier in the episode, Sam was discussing a lack of demonic omens with Ruby on the phone, ending with both promising to keep looking and Sam telling her would be calling her soon.
4.16 On the Head of a Pin
Sam and Dean are heading to meet Ruby, who has some leads on Lilith, when Castiel and Uriel kidnap Dean so he can interrogate Alastair. When Ruby arrives, she uses a spell to help locate where Dean is being held. Sam then tells her that "its been weeks" and he "needs to be strong." Ruby draws a knife across her arm and Sam sucks her blood - the source of his growing powers and abilities.
4.20 The Rapture
Sam calls Ruby, desperate for more demon blood but she doesn't answer his calls.
4.21 When the Levee Breaks
After Sam escapes from Bobby's panic room and meets up with Ruby. After letting him feed on her, Ruby tells Sam there are only two or three seals left to be broken. She says only "Lucifer's first" can break the final seal - and that is Lilith. This renews Sam's desire to kill Lilith. She says she has a lead on a demon close to Lilith who is nearby. As they prepare to leave, Dean arrives and tries to kill Ruby, but Sam stops him. Ruby leaves as the brothers start to argue.
4.22 Lucifer Rising
Ruby helps Sam capture the demon possessing Cindy McClellan, who reveals where Lilith will be. Ruby watches as Sam kills Lilith's minions and then confronts Lilith herself. When Dean arrives, Ruby smiles smugly at him and telekinetically locks him out. When Dean starts to get through to Sam with his yells, Ruby screams at Sam to kill Lilith, which he eventually does.
Ruby is at first stunned that Sam actually managed to kill Lilith, then grows jubilant because—as she reveals to an appalled Sam—Lilith's death was the last seal and they have just set Lucifer free. She explains that she has secretly been working for Lilith all along to free Lucifer (something only Lilith herself knew), and basks in her success after all that she has gone through in bringing this about, declaring herself the best, most loyal demon. Her exuberance fades when Sam tries to kill her for her treachery with his powers. Sam accuses her of "poisoning" him with demon blood, but she tells Sam that the choices he has made all year have been all him; she only laid out the possibilities and he chose the "right" way each time. She tries to convince Sam that Lucifer's freedom is a good thing and they will be rewarded. She also starts to tell Sam why he was the only one who could bring this about but is interrupted when Dean finally breaks in and charges towards her. Ruby turns to confront him, taunting him that it's too late, only to get caught off-guard when Sam grabs her from behind and holds her in place as Dean stabs her with her own knife, killing her.
5.01 Sympathy for the Devil
Sam reveals that Ruby had taught him how to make hex bags, which he and Dean use to hide themselves from angels and demons. He apologizes to Bobby for not listening to him and Dean about Ruby. When Meg appears in her new meatsuit, Dean initially assumes that she is Ruby returned before Meg encourages him to think further back. At the end of the episode, the rift Ruby caused between the brothers continues when Dean admits that, because of how Sam betrayed him in favor of Ruby, he doesn't feel that he can trust Sam anymore.
5.05 Fallen Idols
Sam reveals that one of the reasons he worked with Ruby was to get away from Dean because it made him feel strong and independent.
5.08 Changing Channels
When Gabriel places Sam and Dean in the Japanese game show, the question the show's host asks Sam is for the name of the demon he chose over his own brother. Sam doesn't understand the question because he doesn't speak Japanese and after he fails to answer in time, the host reveals that the answer was Ruby.
5.11 Sam, Interrupted
At the end of the episode, Sam admits that he used to blame Ruby for making him feel angry at everyone all the time, but now acknowledges that it's something wrong with him rather than something that she did to him.
5.18 Point of No Return
Dean references Ruby when telling Sam that he thinks Sam will give in to Lucifer, saying that it might be demon blood or "some other demon chick" that will corrupt Sam in the end.
5.20 The Devil You Know
Angry that Dean is willing to work with Crowley, Sam brings Ruby up and compares how he had trusted her to how he had trusted Brady. Right before Sam kills him, Brady taunts Sam about how he had always been so easily manipulated by demons like Ruby and suggests that it is because he is just like them, which Sam seems to dismiss.
6.15 The French Mistake
Sam and Dean initially mistake Genevieve Padalecki for Ruby before realizing that she is the actress who played Ruby in Season 4. When Dean first realizes that Sam's actor is married to Genevieve, he is upset with Sam for marrying "fake Ruby" and Sam gets flustered.
8.06 Southern Comfort
When Dean is under the influence of a spectre, he mentions several of Sam's bad choices over the years, such as working with Ruby and drinking her blood.
8.12 As Time Goes By
After her knife fails to kill Abaddon, Henry tells Sam and Dean that they would need an "ancient demon-killing knife of the Kurds" to kill a demon and asks where they got one when Dean shows him the knife. Dean tells him that it was from a demon, but doesn't elaborate on the Winchester history with Ruby.
8.23 Sacrifice
When Sam is trying to figure out what sins to confess to purify his blood, Dean mentions working with Ruby among his list.
Trivia
- Casting Side for Ruby from June, 2007. This is an early draft of the final scene from 3.04 Sin City between Ruby and Sam which was used to cast the role of Ruby.
- When Genevieve Cortese auditioned for the role of Ruby, the sides suggested it was to be waitress who would be a love interest for Sam. At Comic Con 2009, Kripke admitted he did this to stir up fans.
See also
Ruby in Fandom
- Sam/Ruby
- Rubella
- New Ruby
- Geneveive Cortese community on LJ
- LJ community for Ruby
- LJ community for pairing Sam/Ruby
- LJ community for pairing Dean/Ruby
- Better the Devil You Know: Illustrated Meta on Ruby Through Season's 3 and 4
- witchesarewhores- Ruby RP Tumblr Blog
- Ruby RP Facebook
- Ruby RP Website
- Ruby RP Google Profile
- Ruby RP Quizilla Profile
