Darach

A **Darach** is a dark Druid, or a Druid who has "gone down the wrong path," presumably valuing their own desires over that of maintaining the balance of nature as Druids are meant to do. The word "Darach" is said in the show to mean "dark oak" in Gaelic, as opposed to "Druid," which is said to translate to "wise oak."

## The Sacrifices

In almost all of the deaths in the Five Fold Knot ritual, each victim was killed by one of the three means: blow to the head, sliced throat or strangulation by garrote. (It should be noted that the entire "Healer" trio were killed via asphyxiation due to being hung by their wrists, and the final "Philosopher" sacrifice was killed solely by slitting their throat, not by blunt force trauma to the head or strangulation. Additionally, while all three potential "Guardian" sacrifices had been hit hard in the head, the Darach was ultimately going to kill them by crushing them to death in a cave-in of the Nemeton's root cellar.)

The victims, in groups of three, were chosen based on the following types:

* Virgins
* Warriors
* Healers
* Philosophers
* Guardians

The ritual was incomplete due to Jennifer Blake not being able to kill three Guardians. Each trio gave her different powers to help her finally defeat the entire Alpha Pack, including Deucalion.

* By sacrificing Warriors, she gained enhanced strength
* By sacrificing Healers, she was able to not only heal herself at an accelerated rate, but also heal others, such as Derek Hale and Deucalion himself.
* By sacrificing Philosophers, she gained enhanced intelligence, strategy, and an aptitude for using her powers.
* By sacrificing Virgins, she seemingly gained a heightened ability to seduce others in the name of achieving her goals (e.g. Derek Hale), and possibly made her Glamouring ability more powerful.
* Jennifer implied that the Guardians' sacrifice would give her a type of supernatural protection and/or some form of invulnerability.

## Significant Kills

### Virgins

* Heather
* Emily
* Unnamed lifeguard at Beacon Hills Swimming Pool

### Warriors

* Kyle
* Unnamed Music Teacher
* Adrian Harris

### Healers

* Dr. Hilyard
* ER Attending Physician
* Unnamed doctor

### Philosophers

* Deputy Tara Graeme
* Mr. Westover
* School Orchestra Pianist

### Guardians

* Sheriff Stilinski (attempted sacrifice, failed)
* Chris Argent (attempted sacrifice, failed)
* Melissa McCall (attempted sacrifice, failed)

## Powers and Abilities

The only known Darach, Jennifer Blake, possessed a wide number of powers, some of which she seemed to possess naturally, and others that she gained as a result of sacrificial rituals and connecting herself to the telluric currents running through Beacon Hills.
**Darach Powers**: As a Darach, otherwise known as a Dark Druid, Jennifer possessed several supernatural powers.

* + **Telekinesis**: Jennifer demonstrated the ability to move objects solely with her mind during a battle with Kali, Ethan, and Aiden when she gestured with her hands and made and entire wall's worth of broken window glass rise in the air. She had perfect control over all of these shards of glass, and was able to make each individual piece spin in the air before pointing them directly at Kali. She ultimately used this ability to forcefully shove the pieces toward Kali like bullets, where they embedded in her body from head to toe and killed her. She was also able to use her telekinesis to remotely cut a piano wire during the high school recital in order to kill the pianist as her third philosopher sacrifice; this use of her power was so precise that she was able to do it while in another room and without seeing the piano and the pianist.
	+ **Mountain Ash Mastery**: Like all Druids, Jennifer had the ability to create mountain ash barriers simply by throwing the ashes into the air and willing them into the shape she wanted. A notable example of her using this power was in her battle against Deucalion and Scott McCall the night of the lunar eclipse, when she threw a handful of mountain ash from inside her pocket into the air, creating a perfect and unbroken circle around herself to prevent any Werewolf from coming near her. This may be connected to her telekinetic power.
	+ **Zoopathy**: Jennifer demonstrated the power to control or influence animals, as evidenced by the fact that she managed to force hundreds of crows to commit suicide by flying into windows on at least two separate occasions, one of which was before or at the very moment she became a Darach. She also seemed to be able to control insects to an extent, such as the moths she made fly into Dr. Hilyard's car and coat the exterior windows of the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic and the scarabs she made appear on the tent where Emily and Caitlin were camping out in the woods.
	+ **Astral Projection**: Jennifer was shown to be able to project her spirit to anywhere, which she demonstrated when she appeared in the flames of a gasoline-based explosion at the Glen Capri Motel just after attempting to kill Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin and Allison Argent, and again when she appeared in Dr. Hilyard's car to cause her to nearly crash his car.
* **Mass Crow Sacrifice Powers**: After performing at least two mass animal sacrifices in which she willed hundreds of crows to commit suicide by flying through glass windows, Jennifer gained additional powers.
	+ **Illusion Casting**: Jennifer possessed the ability to cast illusions in the minds of those she intended to sacrifice, which she typically used in order to terrify her victims, thus making them easier to kill. She demonstrated this power on several occasions, such as when she made Heather believe that the wine bottles in her basement were being shot at her and shattering on the floor, bloodying her feet in the process; when she made Emily believe that a horde of beetles were crawling over her before she was seemingly consumed by them; and when she made Tara Graeme believe that she was seeing her own dead body under the shower in the boy's locker room at the high school. Jennifer could also use this power to induce auditory hallucinations, such as when she made the band teacher, Adrian Harris, and Lydia Martin hear what became known as the "Darach chanting" song.
		- **Glamouring**: Jennifer possessed the ability to use her illusion casting ability to put a glamour over herself so that others would see her as a beautiful and unblemished young woman rather than a scarred and mutilated victim of a Werewolf. She had perfect control over this power, and was able to switch back and forth between her true appearance and her glamoured appearance at will.
* **Five-Fold Knot Sacrifice Powers**: After sacrificing three humans for each category of virgins, warriors, healers, and philosophers, Jennifer was given powers that related to each of the categories.
	+ **Virgin Powers**: After sacrificing Heather, Emily, and a lifeguard wearing a promise ring, Jennifer gained powers associated with virgins. Though these powers were not explained in detail, it was implied by Jennifer than these sacrifices augmented her glamouring ability, and possibly even aided her in her seduction of Derek Hale.
	+ **Warrior Powers**: After sacrificing Kyle, the band instructor, and Adrian Harris, Jennifer gained powers associated with warriors. This power manifested as super strength that was equal or greater to that of an average Alpha Werewolf, allowing her to crush a Sheriff's badge in the palm of her hand, break Scott McCall's sternum with a single palm-thrust to his chest, forcefully shove Kali down a long hospital corridor, and snap Ethan and Aiden's merged Alpha form's neck over her shoulder.
	+ **Healer Powers**: After sacrificing three doctors at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, Jennifer gained the ability to mystically heal her own wounds at a rapid rate, as well as healing the wounds of others. She used these powers to heal all of the wounds Derek sustained in his battle against the Alpha Pack, to restore Deucalion's eyesight so he could see the damage Kali did to her face, and to heal her own thigh after she was shot by Sheriff Stilinski, all of which occurred in the span of several moments. However, this ability appeared to have its limits, as she was unable to heal her slashed throat without assistance from the Nemeton, which is what gave Peter Hale the opportunity to kill her. Using this power to heal serious wounds, such as Deucalion's blindness, also weakened her significantly, which caused her to be unable to use any of her powers or abilities for at least several minutes.
	+ **Philosopher Powers**: After killing Tara Graeme, Mr. Westover, and a recital pianist, Jennifer gained the powers associated with philosophers. Like her virgin powers, the powers gained from philosophers were only vaguely defined, but Jennifer implied that she gained supernaturally-enhanced knowledge and strategy for use in battles. She even stated that she should have started with philosophers instead of virgins so she could have used the strategy skills to better enact her sacrifices to avoid getting caught for a longer period of time.
	+ **Telluric Current Connection**: Because Jennifer performed all of her abductions and subsequent sacrifices on the telluric currents of Beacon Hills, she became so in-sync with them that she was even able to tap into their power. She used this connection to perform terrakinetic and atmokinetic feats, such as creating intense thunderstorms that knocked out power to the town and earthquakes that caused the Nemeton's root cellar to collapse. She was able to use her atmokinetic powers to create a gust of wind to blow a lit flare into a puddle of gasoline in an attempt to kill Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin and Allison Argent.

## Weaknesses

* **Mistletoe**: Mistletoe can reveal a Darach's true form when they are using a glamour.

## Trivia

* While the etymologies of "Darach" and "Druid" respectively are discussed in the show, they are not actually accurate. The word “Druid” actually derives from the Old Irish word “druí,” meaning “wizard.” “Darach,” meanwhile, is traditionally an Irish name meaning “of oak” (or "oak-ness"). In fact, the old Irish word for “oak” is itself *dair* with the genitive form *darach.* The error may arise from confusing *darach* with the Old Irish prefix "*droch-*", which *does* translate to "dark, bad."
	+ A more accurate (albeit equally slapdash) transliteration of "dark Druid" could be "drochdruí"/"drochdruíd" (nominative and accusative case, respectively); this would, however, still translate only to "dark/evil wizard." For the definition of "dark oak" to etymologically track, "Darach" would have to be "Drochdarach"; in turn, Druids as "wise oaks" would have to be named something like "Fáthdarach" instead.

## References

1. ↑ Unleashed
2. ↑ Dictionary.com: Druid. Relevant section of page reads: "Origin of Druid: 1555–65; <Latin *druidae* [...] compare Old Irish *druí* (nominative), *druid* (dative, accusative) [meaning] wizard." Accessed 2023/04/10.
3. ↑ BehindtheName.com: Darach. "Means *of oak* in Irish, from the genitive case of *dair*." Accessed 2023/04/10.
4. ↑ *Foclóir Nua Béarla – Gaeilge (Foclóir New English - Old Irish) Dictionary.* dair (1) [*genitive* darach]. Teanglann.ie/en/fgb. Accessed 2023/04/10.
5. ↑ *Foclóir Nua Béarla – Gaeilge (Foclóir New English - Old Irish) Dictionary.* droch-, *prefix*. Teanglann.ie/en/fgb. Accessed 2023/04/10.
6. ↑ *Foclóir Nua Béarla – Gaeilge (Foclóir New English - Old Irish) Dictionary.* fáth-, *prefix*. Teanglann.ie/en/fgb. Accessed 2023/04/10.

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