Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

"If you save Prue, you will release the fourth horseman and bring about the end of the world."

- Leo to Piper and Phoebe.

In the hierarchy of supernatural evil, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are a powerful breed above demons. They are empowered by the Source of All Evil and charged with the destruction of the mortal world. Ferocious, they are impossible to vanquish, and each horseman has his own, violent, specialty and abilities but all display the abilities of immortality, immunity to witches' powers, conjuring horses and a form of fading.



Although impossible to vanquish, the Source is the only one who can. Each time a group of Horsemen fail to bring about the Apocalypse, they are killed, and four more are anointed. Each of the times where the world has been on the brink of the Apocalypse, like the times of Hitler or the Cuban missile crisis, it has been due to a team of horsemen almost succeeding, but then failed and been destroyed and replaced by a new team.

The Omega Tattoo
Each of the Four Horsemen have the Omega symbol tattooed on their necks. This is the last letter of the Hellenic Alphabet, symbolically meaning "The End." An evil being with this tattoo is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Mixed Spells
When the sisters were searching Strife in the Book of Shadows, they guessed that he was the Demon of Anarchy. When Strife, Famine, Death, Phoebe, and Piper stood in a pentagram with Prue and War in the middle, Piper and Phoebe casted the spell to vanquish the Demon of Anarchy and Strife cast a spell to vanquish witches (in an old, dead language). The combination of those spells caused a portal to open to The Netherworld Between Good and Evil and sucked Prue and War in.

Saving Prue and War
Because they need each other, Piper, Phoebe, and the three remaining Horsemen have to work with each other to free Prue and War. Piper and Phoebe, who didn't know who they are and how dangerous they can be at the time, agreed to work with them.

Vanquish


Only a few minutes before the deadline of the Horsemen, Piper, Phoebe, and the Horsemen come together to save Prue and War. Upon shaking hands, Phoebe gets a premonition seeing the world's fate if they bring War out of the plane he's trapped in. Phoebe hesitates and doesn't cast the spell, causing the Horsemen to get very frustrated.

Suddenly the portal opens. The Horsemen figured this is because of the Source of all Evil. Phoebe and Piper quickly cast the spell and bring Prue back from the plane she was trapped in with War. As the sisters look back, they see all four Horsemen getting vanquished.

The Horsemen were vanquished by the Source of All Evil. Although they are still unknown, four other demons have been chosen as the new Horsemen. After the death of the Source, there was probably no more Horseman anointed since the Source was the one who empowered them. It is not stated what would have happened after The Source himself and his baby got vanquished.

The Four Horsemen in Lore
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the last book of the New Testament of the Bible, called the Book of Revelation, at the beginning of Chapter 6. The chapter tells of a scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals, and when Jesus Christ opens the first four of the seven seals, four beings are summoned forth. They ride on white, red, black, and pale horses and, although some interpretations differ, the four riders are commonly seen as symbolizing Conquest, War, Famine and Death, respectively. The show substitutes Strife for the biblical horseman Conquest. In popular cuture Conquest is often replaced with Pestilence.