| “ | I also know that Markos and your traveler comrades are planning some big, flashy spell to undo some super-boring, ancient, witch curse. And where that sucks for us; it just happens to undo all witch magic, i.e. kill me and my sexy blonde frenemy here. | ” |
The Magic Purification Spell was a ritual used for the purpose of purging the world of magic safe the one practiced by the Travelers 2,000 years ago which they deemed 'pure'. It was performed by The Travelers using the combined blood of the last pair Doppelgängers, Stefan Salvatore and Elena Gilbert.
The spell was a plan conceived by Markos with the intention of breaking the curse cast upon them 2,000 years prior by a coven of witches. It began in the Town Square of Mystic Falls and its effects radiated outward from there until the spell was ultimately halted by the death of one of it's doppelgänger, Stefan, at Julian's hands. As a result, this series of events made Mystic Falls a magic-free zone, whereby any object or supernatural being created by magic were quickly depowered upon crossing its borders.
It was eventually reversed when Malachai Parker, a Siphoner, managed to absorb the power of the spell thereby unraveling the Magic Purification Spell and negating its effects on the supernatural community of the town.
History
After Qetsiyah and Silas created The Immortality Spell in approximately 100 B.C., which was then ingested by Silas and his lover Amara, other witch covens deemed the Travelers and their affinity for pushing the boundaries of magic far too dangerous to continue on as they were. In order to stop them from further disrupting the balance of Nature, a witch coven (believed to be the Gemini Coven) placed a curse upon the Travelers that cut them off from Nature to such an extent that attempting to draw upon Nature to fuel their magic or practicing magic in groups caused natural disasters to occur wherever they had settled as a people. According to legend, a prophecy was made that predicted the last pair of doppelgängers would help them bring their curse to an end, but in reality, the leader of the Travelers, Markos, cast a spell in the 5th century A.D. that would allow them to break their curse with the last pair of doppelgängers' blood by casting the Magic Purification Spell and undoing the Spirit Magic that created the curse in the first place.
Unfortunately for the Travelers, in order for them to break the curse in this manner, they needed to eliminate the rest of the doppelgängers and their progenitors, which was made impossible by several factors: first, the Travelers only had one of the two progenitors, Amara, in their possession; second, both Silas and Amara were truly immortal and invulnerable to any weapon, making them unkillable, and third, the only way to rid them of their immortality was to use the cure, which was hidden in the tomb where Silas was desiccated and hidden that could only be found with the help of a Bennett witch who practices Expression magic and a Brotherhood of the Five vampire hunter with a completed Hunter's Mark to lead them to the tomb. Because of these complications, the Travelers were unable to enact their plan to break their curse using the Magic Purification Spell until after Silas was awakened and freed from his tomb in 2011. From then on, the Travelers put their plan to break their curse into motion by sending out their own people with orders to kill Silas and Amara (by forcing them to ingest the cure beforehand), as well as Katherine Pierce and Tom Avery, whose continued existence left Stefan and Elena's blood worthless to them. Once the aforementioned four doppelgängers were killed, Elena and Stefan became the only remaining doppelgängers on earth, which activated Marko's spell on their respective lines and gave their combined blood the properties necessary to cast the Magic Purification Spell. The Travelers then began using Passenger spells on the Mystic Falls residents to possess their bodies in order to get around their restriction regarding performing magic in groups. Finally, the Travelers captured Elena and Stefan to steal a significant amount of their blood volume for their use the night before they planned to perform the spell.
Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series
Season Five
The Travelers chanting the spell.
In Promised Land, all the Travelers in Mystic Falls who had taken control over the citizens' bodies made their way to the Town Square, where they began chanting the incantation to the spell while each of them clutched vials of doppelgänger blood in their hands. Once the spell had begun, the Travelers crushed the vials of blood in their hands, which caused the magic-nullifying effects to spread throughout the town. Witches lost their ability to do magic, vampires' daylight rings began to malfunction, and as the spell became stronger, the magic that reanimated their bodies began to strip away, causing them to relive their deaths. After a long moment, the Travelers' vessels began to fall unconscious to the ground, one after another, only to then wake up in their original bodies that were being kept at the Salvatore Boarding House. The spell was moving on past the borders of Mystic Falls when Julian, a Traveler who was permanently trapped in Tyler Lockwood's hybrid body, killed Stefan by ripping his heart out, making the combined doppelgänger blood ineffective and causing the spell to stop in its tracks. However, the spell remained within Mystic Falls, and the borders of the town were readjusted to accommodate the anti-magic "force-field."
Season Six
The spell remained in Mystic Falls for the first half of the season, forcing Witches and Supernatural Hunters to forfeit their ability to use their powers while inside the town, and forcing the Vampires to move out of town to avoid death upon crossing the borders. It was also revealed in Welcome to Paradise, that another side effect of the spell over Mystic Falls was that anyone who had been compelled by a vampire would have the compulsion stripped away once they entered the town, returning any lost memories and giving them back their free will.
In Christmas Through Your Eyes, the Siphoner, Malachai Parker, used his ability to siphon magic to absorb the entirety of the Magic Purification Spell from the earth of Mystic Falls, giving him an immense amount of power to use to his own ends and effectively stripping the spell from the town, allowing the vampires and other supernatural beings to return home and negating all of the spell's effects.
Effects
In order to break the Travelers' Curse, the group intended to use the Magic Purification Spell to nullify all forms of magic aside from the Travelers' preferred traditional magic, which they referred to as the only "pure" magic. This includes any objects enchanted with spirit magic, dark magic, etc, such as lapis lazuli daylight amulets, as well as vampires, whose bodies have been reanimated by dark magic, and The Anchor to the Other Side. However, the effects of the spell on magical objects and supernatural beings isn't instantaneous—instead, the magic is stripped away, layer by layer, over a relatively short period of time.
Weaknesses
- Doppelgängers: If one of the remaining doppelgängers die, the spell will stop unless the doppelgänger in question was resurrected and the spell rebooted by the Travelers. However, the effect on the lands in which the spell has already taken place shall remain in a "purified" state, and the magic-nullifying effects remain intact. This was demonstrated when Stefan died, which prevented the spell from expanding beyond Mystic Falls, but did not undo the effects within the town itself.
- Siphoners: A Siphoner, or a witch who does not possess their own magic but can absorb it from others, can siphon the power of the spell from the lands on which it has affected, removing the spell from it. This was evidenced when Kai, a Siphoner, was able to absorb the spell in Christmas Through Your Eyes, nullifying its effects and returning the town to the way it was prior to the casting of the spell.
Creatures and Objects affected by the Spell
- Vampires: Since all vampires are descendants of the Original Vampires, who were created using Dark Magic and an adapted version of Qetsiyah's immortality spell, the magic that reanimated their deceased bodies and imbued them with their supernatural abilities of enhanced speed, strength, healing, and compulsion will be stripped from them little by little until they are returned to their final state prior to being turned, ie: a corpse. This process will force the vampire to relive the way they died prior to transitioning into a vampire, such as a snapped neck, a slit throat, a gunshot or stab wound, tuberculosis, drowning, etc.
Tyler/Julian getting stripped of their Hybrid Powers in Home
- Hybrids: Similar to vampires, if hybrids are exposed to the spell, all their abilities will be stripped from them piece by piece until they are returned to the state in which they died prior to transitioning to a hybrid, causing them to relive their deaths.
- Original Vampires: Since the Original vampires were created by dark magic, they will have their abilities stripped away from them until they relive their mortal deaths once again.
- Witches: All witches who do not practice Traditional Magic will lose access to their abilities while within the bounds of the spell.
- Werewolves: Though no triggered werewolf has crossed into the boundaries of the spell to demonstrate what will happen to them, it can be speculated that a werewolf will be reverted to an untriggered werewolf, as demonstrated by Tyler Lockwood when he was thrown into the bounds of the Magic Purification Spell and was killed due to his hybrid nature; the spell stripped away his activated lycanthropy as well as his vampirism, allowing him to return to life as an untriggered werewolf when he was subsequently resurrected in Home.
- Immortals: (Debatable) It is unknown if the spell would do any true harm to immortals, as it was mentioned by Silas they never died to achieve their immortality in Death and the Maiden. However, as the spell requires doppelganger blood from the last pair, the spell cannot work with Silas and Amara still alive.
- Brotherhood of the Five: It was stated by in Home that when Jeremy crossed the Mystic Falls borders, he lost the abilities granted to him as a Supernatural Hunter, including enhanced strength, reflexes, and the urge to kill vampires.
- Enchanted Objects:
- Gilbert Ring: Since the Gilbert ring was presumably made with spirit magic, which was the preferred form of magic used by the creator, Emily Bennett, it can be assumed that the spell will lose its ability to resurrect humans who die at the hands of supernaturals while wearing it.
- Gilbert Compass: Presumably created with spirit magic, the compass will lose all of its powers.
Stefan is burned by the sun after the spell stripped his ring's protection.
- Daylight Amulets: When exposed to the spell, daylight rings lose their ability to protect vampires from the sun.
- Moonlight Amulets: Presumably created with spirit magic or Ancestral Magic, the rings will lose their ability to give werewolves access to the powers of their wolf form and prevent them from turning on a full moon.
- Indestructible White Oak Stake: The indestructible white oak stake could possibly lose its magical abilities due to it being a dark object.
- White Oak Ash Daggers: Created by witches, the daggers would presumably lose their ability to neutralize Original vampires.
- Dark Objects: Dark objects such as The Devil's Star might lose their functionality, as they were created using the Arabian form of dark magic known as Kemiya.
- Magic Hotspots: TBA
Trivia
- After this spell was cast by the Travelers, Mystic Falls became a magic-free zone, with the exception of the use of traditional magic. This spell was cast on May 1, 2012, and it continued to keep Mystic Falls free of the majority of magic until December 6, 2012, when Kai Parker remove the spell from the town by siphoning it.
- Because of its magic stripping effects, vampires and hybrids were forced to leave their homes in Mystic Falls to avoid dying from exposure to the spell.
- Though it was originally unknown if the spell caused witches who didn't practice traditional magic to lose their powers completely, it was later shown in Fade Into You that witches only lost access to their powers while within Mystic Falls' borders, and once they left, they gained access to their powers again.
- Though Silas stated that all spells have a loopholes, and Markos indicated that their goal of magical purification throughout the world was, in fact, a spell, the loopholes only seem to partially apply, as the magic purification effects were halted, but not nullified completely, upon Stefan's death. Also, the spell's effects continued to persist even during the short period of time that both Stefan and Elena were dead following the Mystic Falls Gang's sacrifice of the Travelers with the intention to use the mass deaths of the Travelers in order to resurrect their loved ones before the Other Side was destroyed.
- Traveler Magic has also been shown to be unaffected by the spell as Passengers remain whilst within the anti-magic zone.
- It is possible this due to the fact that the spell be cast using traveler magic
Gallery
See also
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