Supernatural vs Charmed - Media Journal #8

 

The popular television series Supernatural and Charmed are both delving into the worlds of demons, angels, and all other supernatural occurrences while being juxtaposed to the ordinary lifestyle most humans lead. Charmed includes three witch sisters responsible for taking care of vanquishing and warding off evil while Supernatural includes two hunter brothers following the path of evil to destroy every evil creature they can. Although both tv shows have very different plot lines, the dynamics and most themes are very much the same. Dealing with evil while trying to lead somewhat normal lives, Prue, Phoebe and Piper, have very much of the same complicated sibling dynamic as Sam and Dean. While the differences are indeed significant, the similarities are rather shocking as well.

For starters, both sets of siblings lost their mothers at significantly young ages to evil creatures that both are trying to find and destroy. While the sisters of Charmed lost their mother to a lake creature, the Supernatural brothers lost their’s to a demon that murdered their mother, placing her on the ceiling, and then destroying her and the house in all encompassing fire. The eldest siblings, both Prue and Dean, witness their mother’s deaths and are thus responsible for their younger siblings in the future. Although the prime concept of Charmed is to have the “power of three”, Piper proves to be more like Sam than Phoebe; both Phoebe and Sam result in being similar with the stereotypical younger sibling tropes commonly associated in such situations, however, Sam and Piper have more in common in terms of the magical worlds they are involved in. For instance, both Piper and Sam struggle with accepting these creatures and magical responsibilities bestowed upon them and are thus more pushed into their roles. Finally, the biggest similarity is that it is in fact a “family business” type trait; although the sisters have a long lineage of witches dating back to the Salem witch trials and the boys do not, both sets of siblings feel responsible to follow the trade.

Nonetheless, there are a substantial amount of differences between Charmed and Supernatural. A noteworthy difference is that Charmed began airing in 1998 whereas Supernatural began in 2005; similarly, Charmed only has eight seasons and is thus over, unlike Supernatural which has eleven seasons and is still airing. However, the substantial difference between the two shows is the significant difference in plot. For example, Sam and Dean are brothers and that’s that; yet, on Charmed, Prue ends up being killed off, thus Paige is found, a younger sister that was put up for adoption because the mother had her out of an affair. Therefore, the sibling dynamic is yet again changed within the show Charmed, no longer being as similar to the concept of Supernatural.