Supernatural, The CW’s popular fantasy show, has a surprisingly small central cast despite running for 15 years. The primary cast is made up of two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, the angel Castiel, and, in later seasons, the Nephilim Jack. Of this small selection of characters, all are male. However, Supernatural features many supporting stars, and among these are some interesting and strong female characters.
From heroes to villains, reformed monsters, and double agents, the women in Supernatural are quite varied. While the show has received some criticism for its frequent poor treatment of female characters, plenty of them still have meaningful arcs and important roles. Some stand out above the others and have earned truly iconic status among Supernatural fans.
10 Magda Peterson is a Powerful One-Off Character
Magda Appears in Season 12, Episode 4, “American Nightmare”
Played By |
Paloma Kwiatkowski |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 12, Episode 4, “American Nightmare” |
Type |
Psychic |
Despite only appearing in one episode, Magda Peterson is one of Supernatural’s most interesting and sympathetic female characters. Born with psychic powers into a very religious family, Magda’s mother eventually locks her in the basement; she believes Magda’s powers prove that she is possessed by the devil. Sam and Dean become involved in her case when Magda accidentally kills a woman who she’d been psychically communicating with.
At her house, Sam is also forced into the basement and bonds with her over his own psychic abilities. Her character shows a return to some older themes of the show, like Sam’s own dubious monstrous nature, familial abuse, and the fact that some supposed monsters may not be evil. Though she is ultimately killed at the end of her episode, she tells a strong story of escaping abuse and not choosing revenge, as she did not kill her mother when she had the chance.
9 Eileen Leahy is Driven to Avenge her Family
Eileen Appears in Seasons 11, 12 and 15
Played By |
Shoshannah Stern |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 11, Episode 11, “Into the Mystic” |
Type |
Human Hunter |
Eileen is introduced in Season 11 of Supernatural as the Winchester brothers go on a hunt for a banshee at a retirement home, where they meet Eileen. She has been hunting down banshees since she was 16, trying to find and kill the one that killed her parents in Ireland. Her story reflects that of many other hunters, who often join the community to get revenge against a monster that killed their family members, including the Winchester brothers themselves. She even winds up having a romance plot with Sam.
Eileen was also made Deaf by the Banshee’s wail, which is a great piece of representation in the show. Her actress, Shoshannah Stern, is Deaf as well, highlighting the importance of having actors with disabilities play characters with disabilities. Supernatural shows Sam and Dean learning to sign and talking to her over a video call, both accommodating the fact that she’s Deaf without making it her only trait, still showing her as a competent hunter.
8 Anna Milton Helps Introduce Angels to Supernatural
Anna Appears in Seasons 4 and 5
Played By |
Julie McNiven |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 4, Episode 9, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” |
Type |
Fallen Angel |
Anna Milton is a fallen angel and one of the first angels introduced in Supernatural. She is an utterly unique case among angels in the show, as she does not lose her grace, her angelic essence, due to some outside force, but removes it herself so that she can be a human. Before Castiel became the central angel on the show who began to love and fight for humanity, Anna was.
Anna is very nuanced, as she both cares for the Winchesters (and even has a romantic entanglement with Dean), but also tries to prevent the brothers from ever being born; since Sam and Dean are to be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer while they cause the Apocalypse, she believes ensuring their non-existence will prevent it. She cares more about humanity as a whole than her personal connections, something very few Supernatural characters do.
7 Meg Masters is a Snarky Demon
Meg Appears in Seasons 1, 2 and 5-8
Played By |
Nicki Aycox, Rachel Miner |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 1, Episode 11, “Scarecrow” (Aycox) Season 5, Episode 1, “Sympathy for the Devil” (Miner) |
Type |
Demon |

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Meg is an early demon in Supernatural, and she introduces the audience to some of the rules of how demons function in the world. The demon possesses a young woman named Meg and eventually adopts her name as she takes over her life. This early version of Meg shows the horror of demon possession, both through the pain the woman she possesses experiences, and through being the first character to possess one of the leads, Sam.
The second incarnation of Meg eventually joins up with Sam, Dean, and Castiel to take down Crowley, and even begins to have a bit of a romance with Cas. Her arc shows the complicated nature of morality, and how, even though her goals are still mostly self-centered, sometimes bad people can do good things. She is also generally an entertaining and witty character to watch.
6 Ellen Harvelle is Integral to the Hunter World
Ellen Appears in Seasons 2, 5 and 6
Played By |
Samantha Ferris |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 2, Episode 2, “Everybody Loves a Clown” |
Type |
Human Hunter |
Ellen is a tough yet warm hunter who appears in the early seasons of Supernatural and, much like Bobby Singer, serves a supporting role to the whole hunting community. She runs a bar for hunters that also acts as a support network called The Roadhouse. She, her daughter, and a young man named Ash all helped support not just the Winchester brothers, but the whole community in having a safe place to go and to find cases.
Ellen helps to expand the world of Supernatural. Even though the show rarely shows many people at the bar, its existence makes the underground world of hunting feel bigger. It’s also interesting to see a female character who acts as a leader of the community. While she frequently helps Sam and Dean out, her life feels much larger than just her relationship with the main characters.
5 Ruby is a Driven Double Agent
Ruby Appears in Seasons 3 and 4
Played By |
Katie Cassidy, Genevieve Cortese |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 3, Episode 1, “The Magnificent Seven” (Cassidy) Season 4, Episode 1, “Lazarus Rising” (Cortese) |
Type |
Demon |
Ruby is another demon who, like Meg, appears to be on the Winchester brothers’ side, and especially sides with Sam. While Dean hates her outright, Sam is mostly wary of her. She states that she remembers how it feels to have been human, which reinforces the lore that demons were all once human. Especially since Dean is going through his arc of going to hell, this is an especially potent theme to hone in on.
Her second vessel teaches Sam how to use his psychic abilities in order to defeat demons without killing the vessels they’re in. However, he has to drink demon blood in order to do so, frequently Ruby’s. The two have intense romantic and sexual tension, with her actress Genevieve Cortese and Jared Padalecki even getting together in real life. However, it turns out she was using him to bring in the Apocalypse. Before she dies, she has a triumphant speech about being better than the other demons.
4 Rowena MacLeod is a Reformed Villain
Rowena Appears in Seasons 10-15
Played By |
Ruth Connell |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 10, Episode 3, “Soul Survivor” |
Type |
Witch |

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Rowena is introduced as a powerful, ruthless, and manipulative Scottish witch in Supernatural. She is the demon Crowley’s mother, and has a tumultuous relationship with him, claiming to love him and wanting to rebuild their relationship, only to use him for her own means. She is defiant of all established power structures, refusing to confine to the laws of the Grand Coven that all witches are meant to abide by.
However, upon being betrayed by Lucifer and seeing through the character of Chuck (or God) that power isn’t happiness, she turns over a new leaf to become an ally to the Winchesters in one of Supernatural’s more interesting arcs. She reveals, too, some of her more vulnerable side, like the fact that she does care for Crowley, Sam, and even Jack, but she fears love as a vulnerability. She is an interesting case of a truly reformed villain, but she still keeps her wonderful fashion sense and dramatic personality she had when evil.
3 Claire Novak is a Tough as Nails Teen
Claire Appears in Season 4, then 10-13
Played By |
Sydney Imbeau, Kathryn Newton |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 4, Episode 20, “The Rapture” (Imbeau) Season 10, Episode 9, “The Things We Left Behind” (Newton) |
Type |
Human Hunter |

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Claire is the daughter of Jimmy Novak, the man who Castiel takes as his vessel in Season 4 in order to communicate with Dean. Claire is left abandoned, her father possessed and her mother leaving Claire out of grief. Claire moves in and out of group homes, a flawed teenage girl who never stays in one place long due to her anger and rebellious personality. She finally meets up with Cas again when he finds himself feeling guilty over her life circumstances.
She shows the ways that even the protagonists of the show mess up pretty badly. Her life was ruined due to Castiel, and though she ultimately forgives him, she shows how even the characters with the best intentions can hurt people. She also finds herself, making her own life as a hunter and finding a new family in the Wayward Sisters, a group that almost spun off made up of two middle-aged hunter-women and the various young, superpowered women they take in.
2 Charlie Bradbury is a Nerdy Fan Favorite
Charlie Appears in Seasons 7-10 and 13-15
Played By |
Felicia Day |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 7, Episode 20, “The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo” |
Type |
Human Hunter |
Charlie is a LARPing computer nerd who initially works for Dick Roman, the villain of Supernatural season 7. She allies with the Winchester brothers and quickly becomes something of a sister to them. Though she is not the most physically strong, she becomes a hunter in her own right, taking on her own cases from time to time and helping out the brothers with her hacking skills. She even takes an adventure in the Land of Oz and is slightly implied to have a relationship with Dorothy.
While she is murdered in season 10, she comes back later as an alternate-universe version of herself and continues hunting and being friends with the Winchesters. She is a huge fan favorite character since a lot of the audience can see themselves in her. As a nerdy woman, she represented a lot more of the members of the largely female fandom of the fantasy show than the two leads, so seeing her be a hunter let fans imagine themselves in the world of Supernatural.
1 Mary Winchester Became More than an Idea
Mary Winchester Appears in Seasons 1 and 2, 4-6, and 11-14
Played By |
Samantha Smith |
---|---|
First Appearance |
Season 1, Episode 1, “Pilot” |
Type |
Human Hunter |

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Mary Winchester’s storyline is one of Supernatural’s most interesting. From the start, her character is one of the reasons people criticize the show as sexist; in the very first scene of the first episode, she dies in Sam’s bedroom and exemplifies the trope of fridging. She is often hailed in these first seasons as more of a concept than a person, though even by Season 2 audiences learn that she had been a hunter long before John Winchester had.
However, in Season 11 she is brought back to life at the same age she died, which is around the ages of her sons now. Dean, who remembers growing up with her, looks to her for support as a mother, but she feels overwhelmed; she doesn’t know this man who used to be her son, and while she tries to support him, she is also going through a very difficult and confusing time. She is allowed to be flawed, complicated, and more than the holy Madonna figure she’d been depicted as in early seasons.