Zankou is a powerful upper-level demon important directly and in the backplot behind the writing of many episodes on the seventh season of the television series Charmed beginning with "Witchness Protection" and ending in the season's finale episode: "Something Wicca This Way Goes". He is portrayed by actor Oded Fehr and portrayed as more powerful than any of the single Charmed Ones requiring their united "Power of Three" to oppose him successfully.
Zankou was a highly powerful demon, incarcerated by The Source, for inciting a failed coup against him and apposing the Source’s power. Zankou’s immense power and threat to the Demonic Hierarchy and the Source’s throne most surely would have given the Source and other loyal demons reason to imprison him.
Whilst he was incarcerated, Zankou’s power was still great enough that he still had knowledge of recent events. Such knowledge included; the presence of the Charmed Ones, the death of the Source, the threat from the The Avatars.[1], the Seer’s vision of Utopia and even the objections of a demon in his midst to his release.
In response to the then impending threat from the Avatar’s plan to create Utopia and destroying all demons, a group of demons in their desperate to seek a way to stop the Avatars released Zankou from his prison by a Demonic Priest or Wizard. Zankou immediately began organising the Underworld’s forces. He killed weaker demons, adding their powers to his own and took every opportunity he could to learn all he could of the Charmed Ones.
Zankou’s exceeding intelligence, understanding of Demonic and Human Psychology and his capacity to sense when an enemy was vulnerable made him an exceptional strategist (this is seen in the Episode “Ordinary Witches” >when Zankou attacked Piper and Phoebe whilst in the process of swapping powers so Piper could witness the Seer’s vision of the Avatar’s Utopia. Zankou’s attack resulted in Piper and Phoebe’s powers being sent into two near-by people.)
Zankou powers, after he was released from his incarceration, include the following;
• Power Absorption (Only if one kills the original owner of the power)
• Teleportation - Most Commonly “Flaming”
• Remote Teleportation - (Teleporting objects to other places without having to go with them)
• Sensing - including the movements of magical beings and their weaknesses
• Shapeshifting - stolen from a Demonic Shapeshifter after his release from Prison
In the wake of the Avatars creating a Utopian world, Zankou was forced into hiding. Zankou sought out and tried to convince Leo (now an Avatar) to see that the Avatar’s Utopian World was far from perfect. Zankou had either through his power of Prescience, or by chance either before or after his incarceration had discovered an ancient tomb detailing the events of the Avatar’s last attempt to create Utopia on Earth, but the tale revealed that Utopia could only be maintained by removing “creators of conflict” (human, demonic or otherwise) from existence. These ancients then battled the Avatars with a potion created to vanquish an avatar. Zankou eventually persuaded Leo to participate in a plan which would create an alliance between himself and the Charmed Ones in order to restore the world to its pre-Utopian state. His plan succeeded and with the help of the Charmed Ones made the Avatars restore the world to its former state including those the Avatars removed when they created conflict (but not Agent Brody because that had happened too far back for the Avatars to reverse). Now with the Avatar threat gone, he could turn his intension on domination of the Underworld and the destruction of the Charmed Ones.
Zankou for a while retreated to the Underworld, in order to strengthen his resolve and begin mobilising his already loyal followers to take control of the Underworld. Zankou’s plan included placing High-Level Demons above ground in key position in Society (such as Judges, CEOs of Major Companies and Politicians), but his plan was dependent on one highly ambitious manoeuvre; taking control of the Spiritual Nexus residing under the Halliwell Manor, a manoeuvre which called for the removal of the “Good” in the Manor, meaning Zankou had to find a way of removing the Sister’s influence on the manor if he was to succeed in absorbing the Shadow of the Nexus without it destroying himself and his demon followers (an example of this is when Zankou opened the Nexus after removing Phoebe and Paige, but instead of the Shadow entering him, it killed three of his demons. It was that point he realised the Piper was still somewhere in the house).
Zankou therefore abandoned the offensive approach on the Sister and began attacking them “not as witches, but as women”. He began by studying the Sister’s behaviour more and watched for signs of emotional weakness. He began integrating himself into their lives through the use of his Shapeshifting power. After some weeks, Zankou finally revealed his true intensions; by exploiting his knowledge of the Sister’s lives and attacking them on an emotional level (by bringing back to life innocents the sisters had lost with the help of an old friend who was a Demonic alchemist). Zankou weakened them emotionally and therefore made their Book of Shadows vulnerable as the Book's powers are tied to the Sister's emotions. It was only at this time he could get the book as he had made several attempts on the book but failed due to its protective powers. Zankou finally managed to steal the Book of Shadows as the Sister fought off the resurrected Innocents they failed to save.
Now with Book of Shadows in Zankou’s possession, the Sisters retreated to Magic School for safety. This gave Zankou the opportunity he was looking for and took control of the Manor. However, it was not long before the Charmed Ones and a number of magical beings made a raid on the Manor to remove Zankou. The raid even got as far as Phoebe being able to get the Book of Shadows to take it back, but as the Book was under Zankou’s influence it protected itself from her and resulted in Zankou being given the opportunity to steal Phoebe’s powers with a potion he found in the Book of Shadows .
Using his newly acquired power, Zankou foiled another plan made by the Sister to remove Zankou from the Manor and in the process stole Piper’s powers. Now with Piper’s powers, Zankou now was capable of breaching the magical defences of Magic School and decided to come after the Sisters. However the Sisters were not at Magic School, but had in fact Astral Projected their images into Magic School and were actually in the Manor, using the Power of Three to take back the Book and began to attempt to utilise the Nexus to remove Zankou. The Sisters open the Nexus and as they prepare to take in the Shadow so they can use their powers to vanquish Zankou, Zankou blasts the sisters and absorbs the Shadow. Now with the Shadow, Zankou was powerful enough to kill the Sisters, reorganise the Underworld from above ground (as stated by a demon to Cole Turner in the episode “The Importance of Being Phoebe”, where Cole attempts to absorb the Shadow so he can use it to spread evil and make Phoebe love him again).
Now with the Shadow, Zankou could have destroyed the Sisters, but before he had time to take any action, the Charmed Ones use a spell to Vanquish the “Suxen”, the host of the Shadow of the Nexus (Suxen is Nexus spelt backwards, whether this is intentional or not is unknown). The spell destroys the Nexus, and is stated to only be used as a final resort if evil has control of the Nexus. Zankou is destroyed along with the Shadow and the Sisters appear to be enveloped in a massive explosion, but the explosion was utilised by the Sisters to fake their own demise so they could begin their lives free of Demons and the Elders.
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