Prue Halliwell

Prudence "Prue" Halliwell, more commonly known as Prue, (October 28th, 1970 - May 17th, 2001) was the firstborn child of Patty Halliwell, a witch, and Victor Bennett, a mortal. She is the older sister of Piper and Phoebe, and half-sister of Paige Matthews. Prue's birth power was telekinesis, which allowed her to move objects with her mind. On March 24th, 1975, she was visited by a future version of herself. In November 1975, after two of Prue's sisters had been born, their grandmother Penny bound their powers to keep a warlock named Nicholas from killing them and stealing their powers. The memory of having had powers was erased by their grandmother. Six months after her grandmother's death, they regained their powers, becoming the prophesied Charmed Ones - the most powerful witches of all time. As the oldest of four sisters, Prue was regarded as the most powerful and fearless, and occasionally named a "Super Witch". During her life, Prue had to balance her destiny of defeating the forces of evil in San Francisco with taking responsibility for her sisters and leading a normal life as a successful business woman. Though she was tragically killed by Shax, the personal assassin of the Source of All Evil, in her third year of being a witch, Prue's character and skills ensure that she will never be forgotten, and it is hinted that she watched her sisters from her afterlife, though she did it silently and unseen.

Childhood and Growing up


Prue was formerly a happy, naive, witty child who enjoyed playing and arguing with her younger sister, Piper, and had near perfect control over her birth power of telekinesis. She was also good friends with Andy Trudeau, who became her boyfriend in high school.(That 70's Episode). After her two youngest sisters, Phoebe and Paige, were born, however, Prue lost her powers (her Grams had been forced to bind the sisters' magic to protect them), and she eventually forgot about them completely. Sadly, Prue was destined to lose a lot more. She was the only one of the four sisters to see their mother's corpse, just after Patty died, and it was a memory that haunted her for the rest of her life. She formerly had a good relationship with her father, Victor, and loved him reading her stories. Continuous, heated disagreements between her father and grandmother, however, eventually resulted in him leaving the family. Not fully understanding the entire situation, Prue grew to believe that her father abandoned her and her sisters on purpose, and grew to hate him, even stating that he was dead to her - "he died the day he left Mom". These events resulted in Prue becoming a surrogate mother to her younger sisters, sacrificing her childhood to help her Grams raise them - a task that she, according her younger sisters, performed remarkably well: Piper stated that she and Phoebe had it easy because Prue was so responsible, and Phoebe herself confessed that Prue had been more like a mother to her than an older sister, to the extent that communication between them was actually difficult.

Prue never saw her father again, until she was in her late-20's, shortly after she and her sisters got back together (Thank You For Not Morphing). Though she was particularly hostile towards him initially, seeing him as nothing more than a threat to her and her sisters, Prue was eventually able to let go of the past, and came to understand the complications that led to her father leaving the family, and both of them managed to patch up their relationship.

During her high school years, Prue was a very popular A-list student, President of the Student Council and a cheerleader. At some point, she also became rebellious, but it did not stop her from learning how to be responsible and protective of her family. She longed to be a professional photographer when she was young, perhaps as a psychic echo of her past life in the 1920s as one of Penny's aunts. At seventeen, the boy she thought she was in love with attacked her, incurring the wrath of an indignant Grams, who, according to Piper, presumably used witchcraft to make the attacker disappear from reality. When she was twenty, she got into a car accident, and blamed herself for hurting Phoebe, who was hospitalized after the accident.

When they went to college, Piper and Prue moved into an apartment together in North Beach. Prue took up History, and was a serious student, but still became popular. Later on, when their grandmother Penny became ill, they moved back to the manor. Prue became engaged to her boss Roger and she asked Piper to be her maid of honor. About this time, Penny took a picture of the three of them together in front of the manor. Penny planned to use a potion to strip the sisters of their powers permanently, which was against Patty's wishes, but Penny died before she could do it. It was also revealed that, in the days of their early childhood, the sisters had a pet dog named Rasputin, but lost him. Years later, when Phoebe cast a Lost and Found spell, Rasputin came back, but they did not get to keep him.

Prue, being the oldest sister, saw herself as the maternal figure of the household when her mother died; she was conservative, cautious and disliked surprises, and it was often left to the middle sister Piper to mediate between Prue and Phoebe, whom Prue regarded as immature, irresponsible and unpredictable. Although they still had occasional disagreements, their relationship improved a considerable deal over time, enabling the three sisters to stand united in spite of their notable differences.

Powers & Abilities


As the first-born witch, Prue's powers were the strongest of all four sisters. She came into her power with a mixture of shock and anger at her sister Phoebe, whom she blamed for her introduction to the Craft. Out of the four sisters, Prue struggled with her destiny the most, especially when dealing with her mother's past and death. However, Prue did finally embrace her destiny, though it cost her all of her energy to do so. Being the oldest sister, she was naturally, fiercely protective of Piper and Phoebe, and was very much first among equals in their Charmed duties, where she would often sacrifice herself in order to protect her younger sisters.



Telekinesis
Prue originally had the power to move objects with her mind (telekinesis). Since anger was the trigger accessing her power, Phoebe intentionally pissed her off to make use her power and learn to accept her destiny better, by harping on her headache, mentioning her ex-fiancée Roger, and finally talking about how she felt about their father and Phoebe herself, this provocation caused her to move every medicinal supply in the section as though her power expressed her emotions in her place (Prue later used this same technique to help Phoebe tap into her powers when they switched them in Love Hurts) Her telekinesis was originally focused by squinting her eyes at her target; later, she learned to channel the ability through her hands, though she did this once in the first episode when she got angry at Roger: She held her hands in the air whilst she was walking away from him and closed them together as if strangling an imaginary neck, in response, Roger's tie tightened to the extent that he had to cut it off with scissors to stop it suffocating him. In the same episode, she demonstrated the ability to channel her telekinesis through speech, as seen when a jug of cream automatically slid its way towards her when she asked where it was. However, she was never seen to perform such a feat again.

After she learned to channel her powers through her hands, she was able to, sometimes, move objects that were not directly in her sight, as demonstrated in "Chick Flick" when she turned off a movie screen player in another room. She was able to deflect magical attacks, something she never did when she was still channeling the power through her eyes.

Astral Projection
As her powers developed, she later learned the skill of astral projection, the ability to project her mind from her body in a tangible state on the physical plane. In this state, Prue becomes unconscious while her mind projected into a concrete body. This power is triggered when she wants to be at two different places at the same times. Prue's astral-self is identical to herself except that she doesn't have her power of telekinesis. It is probably because all her telekinetic powers are fully employed in either keeping her two selves separate, or keeping her astral-projection self solid.

If Prue had lived, it is possible that she might have mastered the skill of still being able to use her telekinetic powers in astral form. In Just Harried, her astral-form started to manifest a will of its own, expressing the desires that she had been forcefully suppressing. Hence, it can be theorised that her astral projection powers might have evolved into Cloning, enabling her to be in two places at once without being either unconscious or powerless. It is also possible that her astral projection power would have evolved into Projection, the ability to manipulate time and reality by projecting thoughts or desires onto the physical plane; this ability was first shown in Season 8, by the witch Billie Jenkins who, like Prue, had the power of telekinesis.

Basic Powers of a Witch
Besides her telekinetic and astral projection powers, she also had the basic abilities of a regular witch, i.e. spellcasting, potion making, and scrying. She invented her first spell in the season 2 episode Murphy's Luck, when she cast a protection spell on a girl named Maggie Murphy, who had been cursed with bad luck by a Spirit Killer (a type of darklighter); she also authored the spell to free an Empath from its powers (Primrose Empath). Throughout her years as a witch, Prue learned the art of brewing potions. However, Prue wasn't as skilled as her two younger sisters, since they practiced these abilities more frequently than she did.

When Prue and her sisters were sent back in time to save their ancestor Melinda Warren from being raised evil they discovered that their powers didn't exist yet so they couldn't use magic. However Eva, a witch from a local coven taught the Charmed Ones how to tap into the magic of nature. Using these new abilities Prue was able to create a large protective circle which was able to keep out everything except bullets using only apples, laurel leaves, lavender and rosemary. Eventually they were able to return to their own time but took this knowledge with them.

Possible Power Advancement


In an alternate future, Prue became the owner of Buckland's centrals in Europe and Japan, while Piper had a little girl with Leo. Their powers were also far stronger, having been consistently advanced and horned for ten years; Prue's telekinesis was now so powerful that she could use it to project potent energy blasts capable of massive destruction, as seen when she unintentionally blasted the entire wall of an attic with just a wave of her hand.

However, this future didn't go as experienced, since Piper's first child was a boy, Prue quitted her job at Buckland's to become a professional photographer, and later she was tragically killed by the demon Shax. Had she lived, Prue's telekinesis would have continued to advance, her control over it would have expanded, and it is very likely she would have surpassed the mastery her Grams showed, being a Charmed One.

Premonition
After Piper cast a power switching spell, Prue gained Phoebe's power of premonition, and used it to track down an innocent named Daisy. After Daisy was saved, Prue and Phoebe switched their powers back. (Love Hurts) She developed a new respect for her younger sister after this incident, and never teased her about her having no vision of the future again, confessing that her ears "ring" rather painfully whenever she was experiencing a premonition, and that it "takes a lot of strength to see what you see".

Darklighter's Touch of Death
After casting the power switching spell herself, Prue gained a Darklighter's Touch of Death, however she used it to ultimately incinerate him; she commented that she never had to feel so much hate to activate that power. Before he was completely destroyed, Prue used the spell to switch back Phoebe's power. (Love Hurts)

Telepathy
Prue and Piper become telepathic after casting a spell 'To Hear Secret Thoughts'. Prue became convinced that her boyfriend, Jack, is a warlock after seeing him in two places and believing that he blinked, however, she found out that he just has a twin brother named Jeff. The spell eventually wore off after she discovered the truth. (They're Everywhere)

Empathy
When tricked into helping the demon assassin, Vinceres, who was posing as a vagrant, Prue accidentally acquired the power of empathy. Since she was not meant to be an Empath, she was almost destroyed by all the overwhelming emotions she could feel from others. However, with the help of Father Thomas, Prue was able to embrace her unwanted gift. In her battle with Vinceres, she was able to perform spectacular martial-arts feats that surpassed even those of Phoebe, who had more than two years of training by that time, by channeling all the emotions she could feel into her telekinetic powers. The battle ultimately concluded with Prue astral projecting into Vinceres' body, forcing him to feel all of the emotional baggage she'd been carrying. Vinceres was unable to handle it (since demons are unable to feel human emotion) and blew up, despite thought to be invincible. By vanquishing Vinceres with this power, Prue was freed from it, but commented she would actually miss that power boost. (Primrose Empath)

Warlock
When Prue was turned evil by unconsciously entering a marriage with a warlock named Zile, she was granted the traditional warlock power of blinking, and her telekinesis appeared to be stronger. This enhancement of power was removed after she and her sisters broke the bond that tied them to evil. (Bride and Gloom)

Romantic life


In high school, Prue dated Andy Trudeau. However, their relationship ended with their graduation, and he moved away. In college, she dated the captain of the football team (who later trains to be a demonized human), Tom Peters.

Something Wicca This Way Comes
 * Roger

In her twenties, Prue became engaged to Roger, who was her boss at the Museum of Natural History. However, Roger kept coming on to Phoebe secretly, then claimed that it was Phoebe who went after him. Though she believed Roger, Prue still broke off their engagement, and later quit her job to get away from him, since their relationship had deteriorated to the point where they cannot even work as colleagues, without being hostile or mean to each other.

Something Wicca This Way Comes - Deja Vu All Over Again
 * Andy Trudeau

Once Prue came into her powers, she invariably became involved in criminal cases involving murdered, missing, or otherwise harmed innocents. This led her to reunite with her childhood sweetheart, Andy Trudeau, who had become an Inspector with the San Francisco Police Department. Their feelings for each other rekindled, and they began dating once more. On their first date in years, they picked up just where they had left off (sleeping together), but they decided to slow it down afterwards. The relationship, however, was destined to be turbulent because of Prue's secret witchcraft, which caused a lot of difficulties. She was regularly late or a no show for dates and appointments with Andy, much to his frustration. Eventually, Prue cast a truth spell on Andy without his knowledge, whereby 24 hours later, he would remember nothing from the past day. She used this to tell him the truth about herself to see if he could accept it. The answer was unsure, but leaned to the negative, and she eventually called the relationship off, though it broke her heart, given that she truly loved him.

As their awkward encounters at crime scenes, victims and witnesses' homes increased, Andy's suspicions became aroused. It was revealed that he had considerable circumstantial evidence of the sisters' occult activities and their involvement in numerous cases. Eventually, Prue had no choice but to admit to her involvement and explain it. While Andy was skeptical, it was eventually proven to him that Prue was not working against him, and he eventually came to understand the true complexities of the relationship that went sour with Prue. However, once it looked like Andy and Prue might get a chance without the magical problem, Andy gave his life to save Prue and her sisters to ensure the good work they do continued.

After Andy's death, Prue did date a few people, though none were extremely memorable other than Jack Sheridan or the mortal crime boss Bane Jessup.

When Bad Warlocks Turn Good
 * Brendan Rowe

Sometime after Prue broke up with Andy, she helped a half-blood warlock named Brendan Rowe and so fell in love with him before he gave himself into God and became a priest, and their relationship didn't go any further than a kiss.

That Old Black Magic - Awakened
 * Jack Sheridan

They met during a TV Auction where Jack snatched away Prue's auction. He later developed an interest in Prue and transferred to Buckland's to get closer to her. Although she initially hated him, she began to warm up and they became good friends, and eventually started a short relationship before she discovered that he wasn't right for her and ended their relationship the same day she quit her job.

Ms. Hellfire & Give Me A Sign
 * Bane Jessup

When Prue went undercover as the assassin Ms. Hellfire to find out who was behind an assassination attempt on her and her sisters, she met Bane Jessup, a suave crime boss. Eventually, she discovered that the demon Barbas had hired Bane to kill the sisters along with 11 other witches. Bane then hired Ms. Hellfire to complete the job. Prue started falling in love with Bane, but had to have him arrested for conspiracy to commit murder once the entire plot was discovered and Barbas was destroyed. Bane Jessup later appeared again trying to get Prue to help him fight off the demon Litvack, who wanted Bane dead. The two never saw each other again after this.

In season 3, she never had any real love interest, but rather shown romantic attractions to a few people, and dated some of them, Sean, Micah/Mitch, T.J. & Justin Harper.
 * Short-lived Relationships

Bride and Gloom
 * Zile

Sometime later she was kidnapped by a warlock named Zile. Prue was unconsciously married to him by the dark priestess, Dantalian. Because of this bond, Prue became temporarily evil and turned against her sisters. When Zile was vanquished by Piper, the evil hold on her was released.

Museum of Natural History

 * Something Wicca This Way Comes

When the show first started, Prue worked at the Museum of Natural History in San Francisco, which she had worked at since college, where she met Roger, who was her boss and later became her fiancé. After breaking up with Roger, she came into her powers and quit her job at the museum.

Buckland's Auction House

 * I've Got You Under My Skin - Awakened

One week later, she received a call from Bucklands Auction House to interview for an ancient artifacts expert's job. Prue noted that her areas of expertise are dated from Mingh dynasty to a Mark McGwire rookie baseball card. However, the auction house was infiltrated by two demons named Rex Buckland and Hannah Webster, who were plotting to kill the Charmed Ones; after vanquishing them, Prue continued to work there. It was at the auction house that she first discovered the use of her astral projection powers.

415 Magazine

 * Murphy's Luck - All Hell Breaks Loose

After a year and a half at the auction house, she quit and used her subsequent free time to figure what she really wanted to do. Prue soon fulfilled her childhood dream when she was hired by 415 Magazine, where she became one of their top photographers before she died.

Charmed life
Prue had magical troubles, even with non-magical beings. She was kidnapped by former gangster Bane Jessup, to help him fend off against the Ordo Malorum.

On another occasion, Prue started having recurring dreams of a dangerous man named T.J. that hung out in a nearby bar, without knowing that her astral form was being used by her repressed emotions to get away from her responsibilities. After a murder outside the bar was blamed on Prue, the police started to look for her. At Piper and Leo's wedding, T.J. crashed the ceremony on a motorcycle to rescue her, just before the police came. Phoebe eventually talked astral Prue into getting herself together and Darryl, Leo and Cole found the real killer.

Appearance
Since the beginning of the series, the only major change in Prue's appearance was the length of her black hair. In the beginning of Season 1, it was neck-length and slightly longer than Phoebe's. By the end of Season 3, her hair was almost elbow-length and went from black to dark brown. Her clothing style changes from classy professional clothing to more casual clothing over the three season.

From season 2 onward, Prue showed a decided preference for revealing clothes, often wearing crop tops or tube tops.

Prue's magical transformations
Throughout the course of the series, Prue has been turned into....

Season 1

 * A mortal
 * A spirit
 * A Darklighter, after casting a spell to Switch powers with Alec

Season 2

 * A man with the alias "Manny Hanks "
 * A future version of herself
 * A reverted teenager

Season 3

 * Empath
 * A warlock
 * A dog

Prue As A Dog
In the Season 3 episode, Look Who's Barking, Prue is turned into a Siberian Husky dog (see familiar). She is turned into a dog by the spell to find a Banshee. When Prue is a dog she is ran over by a "Cute Guy". When she is turned back to a witch, she dates this man, however, the relationship did not go anywhere as Prue died in the next episode.

Death Count
During the run of the series and her life as a Charmed One, Prue died 3 times. Although she has died the fewest times, she never recovered the third time.

Prue's death


Prue's death was the eventual consequence, in the show's third season finale All Hell Breaks Loose", of a series of events that involved magic becoming exposed, time being turned back, and the sisters being tricked by the Source of All Evil.

Her coming death was foreshadowed a few episodes before, in the episode Death Takes a Halliwell, where Prue meets the Angel of Death and has several conversations with him about the meaning and necessity of Death, that she hasn't been able to accept since her mother passed. The angel also assures her that he is "not coming for her.....yet, anyway." After a battle with the demon Shax next to the Manor the girls were caught on tape by a television crew filming in the street, magic, and both the world of witches and demons was exposed to the general public. Exposure was something which both good and evil avoided at all costs. Reporters and civilians started camping out in front of the manor and things started getting out of control.

After Piper was shot by a crazed witch-wannabe, a desperate Prue used her powers for the first (and last) time on innocents to get them out of the way of the car in order to get Piper to the hospital. It was there she was ordered to be shot by special forces.

As Piper was already dead there was no other choice for Leo, Phoebe and Cole than to try make a deal with the Source of All Evil, which was attempted by Cole. The Source agreed to authorize the demon Tempus to turn back time on Earth. However, The Source's ultimate goal was to detain Cole after the deal was struck so Phoebe could be killed. Time was rewound by Tempus but only on the surface with the Underworld being unaffected. This meant that Phoebe was removed from the surface timeline. With no Phoebe to find the spell when Prue, Piper and Grifiths returned home, Shax was able to storm in and attack all three. Leo then arrived too late to heal everyone and had to choose between the innocent, his sister-in-law and his wife. He chose Piper.

Prue and Griffith's deaths weren't revealed until the start of season 4; the devastation left in Shax's wake being a cliffhanger ending for season 3, with Shax's tornado closing the manor doors instead of Prue.

Afterlife


After Prue's death, she did not appear again to the sisters. According to Penny in the episode following Prue's death, Prue was still adjusting to being in the afterlife. Also, if Piper was able to see her like she intended, that would not let her move on and accept Prue's death, and that is why she has not been seen since. Strangely, Grams had only been dead for around three years when Piper summoned her, yet in the entire remainder of the series run from Prue's death onward (four years) she has never been summoned.

Prue has been in some of the later seasons but her face was never shown. In a season five episode (Cat House), Piper casts a spell to let herself and Leo literally see their pasts while they're talking about their memories in marriage counseling. Prue was shown twice in those flashbacks, once was a flashback of Piper and Leo's wedding, where the back of her head was shown as she rode off on a motorcycle and a flashback in which she was turned into a dog to help catch the Banshee.

In part two of "Charmed Again", Phoebe and Piper went through the Book of Shadows for a way to find Paige. After some searching, Phoebe apparently gives up, saying "This is useless". She then coughed and winked at Piper, hinting her to follow suit as an attempt to get Grams to help them find that spell, as she had done so in the past. It worked, and Phoebe says "Thanks Grams." Piper then says "How do you know it wasn't from somebody else?", hinting that it could have been Prue who showed them the correct page.

In the season seven finale Something Wicca This Way Goes, the sisters cast a spell that allows them to utilize Prue's astral projection power. This is indicated by Piper saying "Thank you, Prue," after the spell's effect is over. Also, continuing the tradition of Charmed finales, season seven closes the manor door with a chime sound associated with Prue's telekinesis, implying that it might have been Prue doing so from the afterlife. Prue closed the door with her power in the finale of seasons one and two. In the season five finale, Piper's son Chris closes the door, showing he has Prue's power of telekinesis. Likewise, in the series finale, Piper's granddaughter, named Prudence (confirmed in Charmed Magazine) as a final nod to her great-aunt Prue, also uses it to close the door.

Power Loss Counts
Throughout the series and her life as a Charmed One, Prue had lost her powers 7 times.