Supernatural: 10 Smartest Angels, Ranked By Intelligence

Angels have played diverse parts in Supernatural since their introduction in season 4. But while they may be ancient beings, they’re not always the smartest. This makes a certain amount of sense given that they were made to be obedient, and critical thinking might get in the way of that.

Still, some of the angels are extremely intelligent beyond simply having the stored knowledge of millennia. They can show cunning, creativity, and strategy. Some even show an aptitude for deception. Most of the more intelligent angels are unsurprisingly higher-ups, but not all of them are. Here are some of the smartest angels on the show and how they rank.

10 Anael

Anael is a latecomer to the Supernatural story. Not introduced until season 13, Anael didn’t get much respect from other angels in heaven. The fact that she was able to become disappointed with her role as Joshua’s assistant suggests a certain amount of critical thinking since she was able to question God’s behavior.

But her real show of intelligence is in her adaptability. She responds to being stuck on Earth after the fall by creating a business for herself using her healing powers. Unlike some of the other more intelligent angels, however, her intentions aren’t nefarious, just somewhat self-interested.

9 Castiel

Castiel’s intelligence is probably the easiest to notice simply because he’s been on the show for so long. He started out far too obedient, but he started to show his intelligence when helping Dean. It was Castiel who gave Dean the idea to use Chuck to draw an archangel into the room with Lilith and drive her out of town.

He later proved his ability to scheme in his dealings with Crowley for the souls of Purgatory. Castiel doesn’t always make the smartest decisions, but that’s more a result of his developing Winchester boldness than being stupid. He’s proven himself very clever.

8 Zachariah

Zachariah was very good at manipulating people. He was a jerk about it, but he was technically just doing his job. He demonstrated his intelligence by planting a cryptic message about where the Michael sword was hidden to trap Dean and Sam. It would’ve worked if Castiel hadn’t been resurrected by God himself and shown up to save the day.

He also used alternate universe manipulations twice to persuade Sam and Dean to accept their roles in the apocalypse. Showing Dean a possessed Sam breaking his brother’s neck was cruel, but Zachariah has to get the credit for hitting a nerve.

7 Uriel

Uriel had the sense to question his father, who later turned out to very much the bad guy. Of course, Uriel’s not a great guy himself given his penchant for calling humans “mud monkeys,” but he was right to question his father’s loyalty to his children. However, he had the advantage of starting higher up in the angelic hierarchy, giving him more information on celestial affairs than most others.

He was smart enough to pin the murder of fellow angels on demons and to do it discreetly enough that the other angels didn’t suspect him of supporting Lucifer. Yet he’s not the smartest angel, because he underestimated some of his subordinates, like Castiel.

6 Raphael

Raphael, like Uriel, had the privilege of starting out in heaven’s elite as one of the archangels. He knew that God was gone when the apocalypse started. But he also had the sense not to inform his inferiors that he was planning to help bring about the apocalypse to get it all over with; he knew they might become disobedient.

He was also smart enough to take advantage of the power vacuum left in heaven when Michael and Lucifer were trapped in the cage and tried to restart the apocalypse. His downfall, like Uriel’s, was to underestimate an inferior.

5 Michael

Like the other angels, Michael has the stored knowledge of eons. But as the eldest archangel, he’s also privy to information (and power) that no other angels possess, including how to trap God himself like Amara was trapped. Michael is also far more calculated than his brother Lucifer. His decisions never appear impulsive.

His calm and measured thinking is on display when Anna goes back in time to stop Sam from being born; he takes John as a vessel, but doesn’t punish Uriel for threatening his true vessel, and cleans up the mess very effectively. Still, his blind obedience to his father marks him as not the smartest angel on cloud nine.

4 Lucifer

The father of lies can’t be an idiot. True to his title, Lucifer was a master of manipulation. He slowly orchestrated his own release from hell and preparation of Sam Winchester as his vessel. He manipulated Nick into becoming his vessel. And he messed with Sam’s head innumerable times trying to make him feel like there was no way out of being the vessel.

He also claimed to have taught Gabriel most of his tricks. His creativity made him a bit smarter than Michael, who is more of a stick in the mud. However, Lucifer often made impetuous decisions that he only got away with because he was super powerful.

3 Naomi

Naomi has the distinction of literally being the head of the intel department in heaven. She showed great skill and ruthlessness in this respect, including her brainwashing of Castiel and behind-the-scenes mind control over him. She is an expert manipulator, though her manipulations are on behalf of heaven rather than herself.

She was much better at keeping a low profile than most of the other higher-ups, especially when it came to the Winchesters. They found Castiel’s escape from Purgatory suspicious but took a while to figure out how it happened.

2 Metatron

Metatron was a major schemer. He wasn’t just smart, he was the type that prides themselves on being the smartest person in the room. He read every book he could get his hands on just for the heck of it, and then used what he learned to craft a scheme to take over heaven.

He manipulated Castiel into casting all angels out of heaven and manipulated humans into treating him like their messiah while he put on a show of faux humility. The least smart thing he ever did was criticizing God’s manuscript, and he only did that because Chuck allegedly wanted him to.

1 Gabriel

Gabriel makes the top because of both his cunning and creativity. His manipulation of Sam Winchester early on was only a taste of what he was capable of. It was he who offered the plan with the horsemen’s rings to stick Lucifer back in the cage, and it was also he who managed to trick Lucifer into believing he was dead (and by Lucifer’s hand, no less).

It’s also implied that he outwitted Naomi, the head of divine intelligence; he spent millennia faking his identity as the god Loki, and the angels didn’t know where he was.

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