List of Charmed Characters - Alphabetical Character Biographical Listings - Triad, Demonic

Triad, Demonic

The Triad is a shadowy power pulling strings behind the scenes of demonkind in the planes of the underworld that gradually became better and better known to the Charmed Ones in the second and third season as they pieced together different clues.

It was discovered through a bounty-hunter demon that the Soldier of Fortune had in reality, been employed by the triad to deal with the Charmed Ones. Working as Cole Turner, Belthazor eventually learned enough that he felt he might succeed, but was spontaneously seduced by Phoebe Halliwell, inaugurating their celebrated love affair and in turn, when threatened by the Triad, Belthazor took them out instead as he gradually moved to the side of good—and later spun a story that he'd discovered they were plotting against The Source.

The Second Triad (or The Triad II)

The second Triad returns reconstituted from forward planning individuals who'd been following demonic prophecies for over fifteen years to stalk the Charmed Ones late in the last season of the series, as the force behind the demons trying to oppose the Power of Three with two powerful witch sisters constituting a "Power of Two", wherein, one is a rare and powerful Firestarter witch raised by demons from early childhood, Christy Jenkins and her sister Billie, who is said to be the Ultimate power as she possesses not only telekinesis but the rare power of Projection, who has been mentored by the Charmed Ones.

Two of the three "Second Triad" members plotting against the Charmed Ones in season eight in the story arch leading up to the episode, "Engaged and Confused" fall afoul of an old Piper-Prue trick, when their plotting disturbs the wedding of Paige and Henry. Unable to vanquish such powerful upper-level demons directly (and getting an idea of how to do it from Cole's vanquish of the original Triad), the Paige-Piper team first freezes them during an attack, then translocates them in front of their own magical attack with no time to defend themselves—neatly and creatively causing the upper level demons to vanquish themselves. One is vanquished by the other's fireball which weakens the rest of the Triad (they have the same weakness as the Charmed Ones: their power is in their collective, take out one and the other two weaken) and Piper is able to vanquish a second with three molecular combustion blasts. The third gets away for the time, but is vanquished later by Christy Jenkins. The Triad returns later in spirit form and is revealed to be the original Triad reborn by a low-level demon named Nomed. According to him the Triad gets vanquished, but always come back, first in spirit form and then in physical form. The only way to kill them completely is to destroy their spirit form. The Charmed Ones destroy their spirit forms first with power from The Hollow and then with vanquishing potions once they travel back in time, vanquishing them for good.