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DamienThorn

Damien Thorn in The Omen (1976)

Damien Thorn is the central figure of The Omen franchise, which includes movies, books, and television. He is the adopted son of American diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife Kathy. When Robert's own newborn child dies during childbirth, he is persuaded to adopt Damien but keep the truth from his wife to spare her the trauma. He is told that Damien's biological mother also died during childbirth and thus the switch would be a blessing. Robert agrees and the Thorns raise Damien as their own.

The Omen[]

As a toddler, Damien displays a mischivious personality by hiding from his parents as they stroll along a riverbank. They are terrified when he appears to go missing near the rushing water. When he emerges from behind a tree he smiles, happy with himself and tickled at his parents' panic. In the 2006 remake, this scene is reimagined between Kathy and Damien as she pushes him on a lakeside swing. She is momentatrily distracted by her mobile phone and when she returns her attention to Damien, he is gone.

On Damien's fifth birthday, his nanny Holly spots a Rottweiler just beyond the activity of an elaborate outdoor celebration. She appears to be mesmerized by it. Shortly thereafter, she commits suicide by hanging herself from the roof of the family home in front of all. During the ensuing pandemonium, Damien spots the same dog but is unaffected by it and even smiles and waves to it.

OriginalDamienMeetsBaylock

Damien meets Mrs. Baylock.

Mrs. Baylock arrives and presents herself as the new governess. Damien appears cautious at first when he and Baylock are alone. But he smiles when she declares ominously, "Have no fear, little one, I am here to protect thee." True to her word, Baylock tries to prevent the Thorns from taking Damien to a church wedding, but she is unsuccessful.

As the family car approaches the cathedral Damien grows visibly anxious until he lashes out in a frenzy, clawing and scratching at Kathy. Later, Robert suggests having a doctor examine him but Kathy wants to forget the incident and dismisses his behavior as a mere fright; she declares that Damien has never been sick. Robert finds that unusual and reflects that Damien has never had the measles, mumps, or chicken pox, not even a cough or a cold.

At the zoo, a group of giraffes run away from Damien as he watches them. As Kathy and Damien drive through a baboon encloser the primates react wildly and attack the car. Later, Kathey confesses to Robert that she has developed fears but doesn't divulge what they are. She asks Robert to find her a psychiatrist. He obliges.

Later, a desperate Father Brennan convinces Thorn to meet with him one last time where he tells him that Damien is the son of the Devil, "It is by means of a human personality entirely in his possession that Satan will wage his last formidable offense." He tells Thorn that Kathy is pregnant but that Damien will kill the baby before it's born, then he will kill Kathy and ultimately Thorn himself, securing his inheritance. Thorn rebukes him.

Brennan insists that Damien must die and instructs Thorn to seek out an old man named Bugenhagen who will describe how to kill him. Thorn rejects this and dismisses the priest as insane. But Thorn is stunned to see Brennan's prophacy come true when Kathy later tells him she's pregnant. She tells him that her psychiatrist wants to meet with him to discuss abortion. As Thorn considers this, he is shocked learn that Father Brennan has died gruesomely.

Thorn meets with Kathy's doctor and is stricken to learn that she imagines Damien to be evil — and not her own. The doctor tells him that another child at this time would be disastrous but Thorn rejects the idea and races home. At the house Kathy is attending to some plants on a second floor balcony while down the hall Damien rides his tricycle in his bedroom, Mrs. Baylock looking on. As he works himself into a peddling frenzy, Baylock opens the door, letting him out, peddling down the hallway.

Kathy stands on a stool next to the balcony to adjust an overhanging plant. Damien, absorbed in his play, crashes into her. Kathy topples over the handrail but grabs the balusters, hanging from the balcony. Damien kneels to face her from the other side, watching her struggle to grip the spindles. He watches in silence as she finally falls to the floor below.

Robert travels to Rome to investigate Damien's origins the next day, leaving Damien in Mrs. Baylock's care in the meantime. While Damien is sleeping, Robert returns to London. Having worked out that Damien is the Antichrist but still being unsure, Robert finds Damien's 666 birthmark on his scalp. Just then, Mrs. Baylock attacks Robert, waking Damien up.

After Robert knocks Mrs. Baylock out, he kidnaps Damien and takes him in his car to a church to kill him with the seven Daggers of Megiddo. However, at the last second before Robert can stab Damien, the police arrive and shoot and kill Robert. After the deaths of both his adopted parents, Damien is taken in by the U.S. President and attends Robert and Kathy's funeral in Washington D.C. with him and his wife.

Damien - Omen II[]

Under a week after Robert and Kathy's funeral, Damien is adopted by his adoptive uncle Richard, and his wife Ann. He is enrolled in Davidson Military Academy alongside his cousin Mark, with whom he develops a brotherly bond. Damien also gets along very well with Ann and Richard, but Aunt Marion despises him and views him as a bad influence on Mark.

When Damien is 12, the day after Marion dies of a heart attack, Sergeant Daniel Neff is hired as the new instructor for Mark and Damien's platoon at the military academy. After Neff interviews Damien, Damien finds cadet Teddy beating Mark up; causing Damien to subconsciously make Teddy see a nightmarish vision until Neff breaks his focus. To take their minds off of what Damien just did, Mark and Damien decide to play rugby in the academy field.

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Damien and Mark discuss Aunt Marion.

On Mark's birthday, at the party, Paul Buher, a businessman and friend of Richard, convinces Damien to take some of his friends to Buher's chemical plant. He also tells Damien that the time to become a man and accept his destiny is coming, without telling Damien what his destiny is. The next day, Damien plays an ice hockey game with Mark and Richard on the frozen lake outside the Thorn residence, but Richard's friend, Bill Atherton, is killed when he falls through the ice.

A day later, Neff takes Damien from his history class during a lesson, and warns him not to draw attention to himself. He also gives Damien a Holy Bible and instructs him to read chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation to discover who he is. Damien then goes up to his and Mark's room, and discovers from the Book of Revelation that the Antichrist bears a birthmark in the shape of three sixes.

Omen2WhyMe

Damien, distraught at discovering his destiny.

When Damien finds the 666 birthmark on his scalp, he realizes that he is the Son of Satan and runs from the academy, through the woods to the lake beside the Thorn residence; horrified and distraught at his destiny as the Antichrist. One day, Damien takes several other students from the academy, including Mark, on a trip to Buher's chemical plant. There, Damien notices that the employee David Pasarian is aware of the deaths of those who refused to sell land to Buher for the latter's agriculture project.

By this point, Damien has apparently begun to accept his destiny as the Antichrist. When the machinery keeping the chemicals contained breaks down, it releases toxic fumes which kill Pasarian and leave the rest of Damien's class ill while Damien is unaffected.

Omen2Damien

Damien watches Richard leave for New York.

Though Damien is unaffected by the chemicals, he is taken to hospital anyway as a precaution, where he stays with Mark for the night. Two or more days later, Damien follows Mark into the woods outside the Thorn residence. Mark tries to avoid Damien, and confronts him about his unholy origins and abilities as the Antichrist.

Damien admits first reluctantly and then proudly to being the Son of Satan, and asks Mark to join him. When Mark refuses, Damien kills Mark by using his powers to introduce an aneurysm into his brain. After Mark's funeral, Richard flies to New York to pick up Charles.

While Richard is away, Damien is awarded the Officer's Saber at the academy. After the celebration that night, when Richard returns, Damien is taken by Murray to the Thorn Museum, where Richard finds the Daggers of Megiddo and Ann stabs him with them to protect Damien.

TeenageDamien

Damien at Thorn Museum before killing Ann.

In order to ensure that he is heir to Thorn Industries, Damien then uses his powers to blow up the museum boiler, killing Ann and destroying the museum. He then leaves to begin his reign on earth.

The Final Conflict[]

At some point in his life, Damien majored at Yale and then went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. There, he captained the Oxford Eight to victory and won the Westchester Cup at polo in the same year. In 1971, Damien took over Thorn Industries and turned it into the world's largest multinational corporation over the following seven years. He also became the secret leader of a large Satanist cult called the Disciples of the Watch.

In March, when Damien is 32, he decides to try and become the new US Ambassador to Great Britain, and thus sends his Hellhound to kill the current ambassador so Damien can take his place.

DamienSensesChrist

Damien senses the Second Coming of Christ.

Afterwards, Damien meets the President at the White House, who wants him to be the new Ambassador. Damien agrees on the condition that he also be made president of the UN Youth Council.

Damien also meets Kate Reynolds at the Youth Council's party and spends Sunday with her and her son Peter. Kate and Damien begin to become romantically involved, but Damien also becomes worried that the Second Coming of Christ is approaching when he passes by a preaching about it. Damien is also interviewed by Kate on her show that night, but during the interview, Brother Benito tries to assassinate Damien with one of the Daggers of Megiddo.

However, Benito is killed in an accident (apparently caused by Satan to protect Damien) and Damien takes his dagger. Damien then returns home with his disciple and right-hand man Dean for the night and decides that in order to stop anyone from being able to kill Damien, they need to find and collect the other six Daggers.

Damien visits his home's statue of Jesus Christ, and vows to destroy Christ as vengeance for Satan's exile from Heaven. Later, earlier in the morning, when a second Star of Bethlehem forms, Damien senses it and that it is a sign of the Second Coming of Christ.

DamienPreaching

Damien orders his disciples to massacre hundreds of children to destroy Christ.

The next day, when Damien realizes that the remaining six priests from Subiaco have arrived and are hunting him, he spends the next day following one of them, Brother Matteus, through the countryside of England to an old ruin.

At the ruin, Matteus tries to lure Damien into an ambush by Paulo and Martin, but Damien causes Paulo and Martin to see Matteus as him and stab him instead, then seals them in a space under a grate to die. Damien then takes their Daggers, but believes that he is still not safe from Christ.

While he is participating in a fox hunt, Damien is hunted by Brothers Simeon and Antonio, who lure him away from the other hunters onto a bridge. But before Simeon or Antonio can kill Damien, Damien causes Antonio's horse to throw him off itself and into the river. Damien then causes the hounds being used in the hunt to tear Simeon apart, and takes Simeon and Antonio's Daggers.

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Damien orders Simeon's death.

That night, Damien visits the Disciples of the Watch in a quarry. Believing that Christ has returned to earth via reincarnation, and will therefore be a vulnerable newborn baby, Damien orders the Disciples to hunt down and kill every baby in Britain born between midnight and 6 AM on March 24 (the night the second Star of Bethlehem formed). Damien also recruits Peter as a disciple and convinces him to spy on Father De Carlo, who has the last Dagger of Megiddo.

Damien also becomes closer to Kate, and invites her to his house. After saving her from drowning in the river outside the house, Kate and Damien sleep together and make love, including an act of sodomy. The next morning, after Kate wakes up, she finds Damien's 666 birthmark under his hair and realizes that he is the Antichrist.

At work that day, Damien is informed by Peter that De Carlo visited Dean's house the previous day and warned his wife about the peril their son was in. He confronts Dean about this and his son being one of the children born on the morning of March 24, and when Dean refuses to kill his own son, Damien sends his Hellhound to make Dean's wife do it. That night, Damien prepares to fully recruit Peter as a disciple, but Kate interrupts the ceremony. Damien agrees not to recruit Peter if Kate takes him to the Christ child.

Kate agrees and takes Peter and Damien to an old ruin. There, De Carlo tries to stab Damien with the remaining Dagger, but Damien uses Peter as a human shield and flees in search of Christ. While Damien is looking for Christ, Kate ambushes Damien for her son's death, stabbing him with De Carlo's Dagger of Megiddo. Mortally wounded and dying, Damien staggers to the ruin's altar, where Jesus Christ appears to him in the sky. Damien's last words to Christ are "Nazarene... you have won... nothing!" before dying on the altar of his wound.

Omen IV: Armageddon 2000[]

It is indicated that Damien's son, Damien Thorn II, is actually Damien himself reincarnated, with the Daggers of Megiddo having failed to destroy Damien's soul with his body as they weren't used on him in the proper ritual.

Omen IV: The Awakening[]

Delia York, Damien's biological daughter, hinted at one point that she is in contact with Damien's deceased spirit; and that Damien's spirit is the one who taught her that the inverted cross is the symbol of the Antichrist. It is hinted that Damien himself was ressurected and indwelt by Satan according to the prophesy (due to all the accidents occurring around his children and disasters falling upon those who would impede them) Furthermore, some thought Damien was reincarnated in his son; despite all these theories, Damien's return was only hinted by the sudden, tremendous decline in Christianity and no one mentioning his death except for the doctor who extracted Alexander from Delia revealing to her adoptive mother that Damien was behind everything and his disciples waited for his children to come of age and bring about the end of days.

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