To find the origin of Valak, the most feared
demon in the Conjurverse lore to date, we must look to the legends passed down in one
small town in Romania. The tales tell of a Duke in the dark ages,
which puts us somewhere between 500 and 1000 CE. He built a great castle, which would later
be known as the Abbey of St. Carta. Hidden in the dungeons was a summoning ground,
carved with the serpentine symbol of a mythical being known as Valak. The people in the town feared the Duke, because
he wrote countless texts on witchcraft and rituals to call upon these evil forces of
hell. He would eventually use these spells to open
the gateway between our world and the underworld. By sacrificing five people as a part of his
spell, the Duke would allow Valak to come through, and walk amongst the living. But as Valak rose through the crevices, the
church, who had caught wind of the foul things happening there, stormed the castle and interrupted
the liturgy. They attempted to seal the gateway using liquid
from the holy grail, and while this appeared to cause the portal to close back up, this
seal would not last forever. To learn the secrets of Valak’s past, the
entity’s true purpose, what it represents for the story and the character’s future,
stick around to the end of this video. Welcome to Horror History. My name is Professor CZsWorld, and you better
pay attention this time you little piece of sh- In today’s lesson we’re going over what
I consider to be the main boss of the Conjuring franchise. Like it’s counterpart Malthus, from the
Annabelle spin-offs, Valak is based on a mythological deity from The Lesser Key of Solomon, a series
of grimoires on demonology. It’s divided into five books, one of which
is called Ars Goetia, a textbook guide to conjuring demons. In Annabelle, Ars Goetia was replaced with
this textbook called The Devil’s Welcome, but to learn about Valak, we need to turn
the clock back even further, and look into the pages of these mysterious texts found
in a tomb just outside the Abbey of St. Carta. When the ancient books are discovered, we
can see the outer cover of three of them. Two of them have piercing, yellow, serpentine
eyes, much like the eyes of Valak and anyone else the demon takes control of. This suggests that these books, unlike The
Devil’s Welcome, may specifically be about Valak. The snake eating its own tail symbol is commonly
associated with Valak in the movie, but I’ll come back to that shortly. In Ars Goetia, there are 72 demons said to
have been commanded by The Israeli King Solomon. They range from Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises,
Knights, Presidents, and Earls. Valak is considered a President of Hell. In the mythology, Valak looks a lot different
than it does in The Conjuring movies, but there are some references to the mythological
version that you may not have noticed in the movies. On one page of the book, there is a boy-like
form with a snake coming out of its mouth. This is likely a reference to how Valac is
depicted in The Lesser Key of Solomon, as an angelically winged boy riding on a two
headed dragon. In the movies, Valak is a shapeshifter, whose
form seems to change based on what makes its victims most uncomfortable. There’s also this image. Valak is commonly associated with a snake. Serpent symbols can be found throughout the
monastery and there are multiple occasions where the demon is introduced as Valak, the
defiler, the profane, the marquis of snakes. The bird is probably there to represent Malphas,
an Earl of Hell in mythology who you may know as the demon that is connected to the Annabelle
doll. I did an entire video on the history of Malthus
if you’re interested. That would leave the question of who these
other two horned demons are… perhaps other villains that we’ll meet in future Conjuring
movies. On another page, you’ll see a more familiar
sight, the Nun form of Valak, which seems to be it’s favorite form to use, but there
may be a reason that we see the Nun form so often. On the side, you’ll notice another picture
of a snake eating its own tail. This is known as an Ouroboros, a mark seen
in many ancient cultures as a symbol for the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We don’t exactly know what Valak’s endgame
is, but we know it has a strong desire to possess, as explained in The Conjuring 2. Perhaps by possessing someone and moving into
a new body, Valak feels a sense of new life, and the ouroboros is a sign of the tendency
to go from body to body, creating a cycle of new demonic possessions. The text written in the book isn't legible,
but Father Burke does read some of it aloud, and I am going to roll it. So roll it. FATHER BURKE : “...And out of the ground…
formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky. Whatever the man called a living creature,
that was its name. Valak.” This passage is part of the biblical text
of Genesis 2:19, so I looked up the meaning of that passage and found the following: “The act of naming something is meaningful
in the book of Genesis. This act often implies rule over and responsibility
for that thing." This may explain why Lorraine is eventually
able to defeat Valak but we'll get there when we get there. Now you may be thinking, this Valak guy sounds
like kind of a bad dude, going around possessing people and crap, who would actually want to
summon Valak? If we go back to the mythological readings
of Ars Goetia, it describes the benefits of calling upon this malevolent force. He perfectly locates hidden treasure and finds
where serpents may be hiding, which he delivers into the hands of the Conjurer. Valak is void of any force or strength, but
has dominion over 30 legions of devils. If this holds true to the Conjuring version
of Valak, it explains why The Duke of St. Carta built this fortress and tried so hard
to summon Valak there, he was driven by the allure of power and riches. The book also associates a sigil, or a symbol
considered to have magical power, to each of the 72 demons. If you’ve seen Hereditary, you may recognize
the necklace as an example of this. They don’t lean too hard on this in The
Conjuring, but I did notice that the summoning ground inside the Abbey almost seems to resemble
the sigil of Valak. But upon closer inspection, the outer ring
is formed by a double-ouraboros. This image can also be seen in one of the
other books, next to a more traditional demonic form resembling a gargoyle. I’ve always assumed that this is Valak’s
true form, because it’s also seen labeled as Valak on another page, and it seems to
be the form used when Valak enters and eventually exits our world. That brings me back to the summoning ritual,
which, as I mentioned, was thwarted by the church. They took over the castle and converted it
into the abbey. The place was fully surrounded by crosses
to keep the evil contained, and nuns prayed there continuously, working in shifts so that
the place was constantly being blessed. Earlier I called Valak the main boss of The
Conjuring franchise, and this is why. Malthus, from the Annabelle movies, is considered
one of the most powerful supernatural entities, but in order to keep it contained, the Warrens
have a priest come twice a month to bless the room. To keep Valak contained, however, several
nuns have to work together 24/7, and even this is only enough to hold the demon off
for so long. One of them describes the bombs of war shaking
the Abbey and once again cracking open the gateway. I’m guessing that this was during World
War II, and Romania was subject to air raids during that war. Romania was hit with air raids in 1943 and
1944, less than a decade before the main events of The Nun, which takes place in 1952. But ever since those bombs dropped, an unidentified
nun began stalking the corridors of the abbey at night. But this nun was anything but holy. As perhaps the most powerful entity in the
world of The Conjuring, with the ability to take on any form, why does Valak so often
choose to become a simple nun? Why not a creepy clown, a mummy or Coraline’s
mom? The answer lies in its setting. “It’s something unholy. It takes on different forms to deceive us
and prey on our weaknesses.” Valak uses the Nun form to blend in with the
order, and eventually purge or corrupt each of them. This could be the reason that the nuns are
generally never supposed to leave the Abbey, so that they cannot be a vessel for Valak’s
escape. It was likely just after Valak was released, but before they realized Valak was among them and locked the place down, when
Sister Charlotte visited the Abbey. While she doesn’t personally encounter Valak,
she does have kind of a close call, since it seems to appear in the background of her
photo. One by one, Valak picks off each of the remaining
nuns until only two remain. They go into the dungeon area where the gateway
is, to try to retrieve a relic that they believe will save them, but when Valak quickly strikes
down the elder of the two, the lone survivor must give herself up so that the demonic presence
does not have a vessel to escape in. Not long after, a delivery guy named Maurice,
most people just call him Frenchie, discovers the remains and word gets around to the Vatican
that trouble is afoot in Romania. They send one of their best priests, Father
Burke, and an inexperienced novitiate, or nun-training, named Irene Palmer to investigate. Valak watches them as they arrive, and somehow,
the scene of the incident is still fresh. Valak continues to haunt the premises, but
the ghosts of the nuns that inhabited it still linger. So when Sister Irene and Father Burke speak
to the Reverend Mother, the highest ranking nun in the convent, I’m assuming that this
is actually Valak posing as the Reverend Mother, because the throne she’s sitting on has
an Ouroboros on it. She tells them that the nuns are about to
take a vow of silence for the evening, but they can stay over and speak to them in the
morning. This may be part of Valak’s plan to try
to eliminate Burke and possess Irene during the night. As Frenchie heads back to the town after escorting
them, Valak uses a variety of scary forms to send him running, so that he’s unlikely
to want to come back for them. Including this thing. If we’re doing spin-offs on every character
that appears, we gotta do this guy. Burke is awoken by what appears to be a boy
he performed a failed exorcism on years ago. When he catches up to him, a snake slithers
out of the boy’s mouth and comes for Burke, knocking him back into an open casket which
becomes instantly buried by Valak’s magic. Next, Sister Irene is lured out of bed into
the chapel, where she sees the demon’s shadow circle around her until it gets to the mirror,
and appears in a corporeal form behind her, but only in the reflection, before it roars
at her and shatters the mirror. Valak appeared to them each in different forms,
because it represents that which they have yet to overcome. For Burke, he hasn’t stopped feeling guilty
about the child he was unable to save, so Valak appears as that child to prey on his
weakness. For Irene, it appears as the nun, because
she hasn’t made the commitment to take her vows yet. They are each confronted by a challenge they
have yet to overcome. Irene hears the bell ringing in the graveyard,
signifying that Burke had been buried alive, and was using his lifeline. You should learn from his example, and when
you do make sure you hit ALL notifications. The next morning, they come back to speak
with the nuns, not realizing that there are none remaining. Like, N-O-N-E none. I assume that Valak is the one to open the
gate for them, and probably also the one to close it that evening, locking Irene inside
for another night. As Father Burke studies the map, Valak, this
time posing as the Abbess, tells him he won’t find another way in. “It’s too late, Father. Sister Irene is lost.” This also plays into Burke’s fears, because
he doesn’t want Sister Irene to be the latest person he was unable to save. Valak grabs him using the same decrepit hands
that attacked him when he was trapped in the coffin, and they break off and crumble on
the floor. He also encounters a zombified version of
the boy that’s been haunting him, as demonic hands protrude from the walls. When he reaches him, he has Valak’s signature
yellow eyes and forked tongue, a trait commonly associated with the devil. Burke breaks free and runs for it, probably
narrowly avoiding being possessed, and when he looks back, the ancient evil has reverted
to it’s unnerving nun form. Meanwhile, Irene awakes from a nightmare and
discovers a door that’s labeled “Finit Hic Deo”, or “God Ends Here.” She too encounters Valak, who creates a turbulent
windstorm in the hallway and… you already know what’s coming. She gets air yeeted across the hall, but she’s
rescued by the ghost of Sister Oana and joins the others in a little midnight emergency
prayer sesh. This is probably a scene that took place at
some point in the 1940s just after Valak had begun coming after the lives of these nuns,
and we’re just seeing a slightly altered version of it that includes Sister Irene -- but
since I don’t know that 100%, I’m keeping it here in the chronology. I’m also not really clear on if the prayers
of the ghost nuns would actually help hold the seal at all, but we can at least say that
them encouraging Sister Irene to pray would have some effect, because Sister Irene is
real. It doesn’t come without cost though, because
Valak makes like that goth girl you dated in college and scratches a pentagram into
her back. Burke and Frenchie team up against a re-animated
version of Sister Victoria. Based on what we know from Ed and Lorraine’s
various lectures, this isn’t a possession, because the demon would need a soul in order
to possess someone, and that would defeat the purpose of Sister Victoria’s sacrifice. So what’s probably going on here is that
Valak is just moving around her body, the same way that Malthus moves around the Annabelle
doll. “It was moved around to give the impression
of possession.” Anyway, they catch up with Sister Irene, who
finally realizes the nuns she’s been talking to were only an apparition. “There’s no one left. We have our answer Father. As if there was any doubt before, this place
is no longer holy.” Valak next encounters them in the dungeon
area beyond the door with the Latin text translating to God Ends Here. This area represents Hell within the monastery,
so it is fitting that this should be where their final battle with Valak takes place. They split up to search for the gate… because,
you know, that’s the best plan in a horror movie. Sister Irene enters one of the rooms, and
Valak appears in the form of a… what’s the word for a group of nuns? A horde? A flock? OK, I looked it up, apparently it’s called a superfluity. Which was definitely not the word I was looking
for, but whatever. We’ll just call it a crowd of Nuns. Each of them has their faces covered, and
they’re able to overcome Irene and possess her. “You failed. Just as you failed everyone in your life. Tomorrow a village will be missing its idiot.” Irene’s apparent possession does not last
long, as Frenchie kicks down the door and encounters the possessed Irene, who air yeets
him into a pillar. We’ve seen a lot of air yeeting in this
franchise, and really just this era of horror in general, but that one looks kind of painful. However, Sister Irene still has the holy grail
hanging around her neck, and Frenchie is able to smear some of it onto Irene, which immediately
exorcises the demon. We’ve seen characters use incantations,
holy water, and crosses as part of the exorcism process, but this is by far the most effective
and powerful method. Obviously, there’s gonna be a very limited
supply though, so from a balance perspective, this doesn’t break the game in favor of
the good guys. Valak reverts back to Nun form and grabs hold
of Frenchie and after sending Irene flying out of the room, he becomes the next victim
of Valak’s possession. This is the only time we see Valak possess
someone on-screen, and it’s different from any of the possessions we’ve seen in other
Conjuring Universe movies. The other entities possess a person by basically
puking this black stuff into their mouth, I don’t really know how else to describe
it, but with Valak, we see a snake slither out of its mouth and into Frenchie’s. There’s also an image of this in one of
The Duke’s books. The reason I bring this up, is it connects
to the idea that I mentioned earlier, that the ouroboros is always associated with Valak
as a sign of the cycle of demonic possessions as the demon goes from person to person. All evidence points to these demons being
able to essentially split to themselves to be able to do multiple things at once. So while Valak was incubating inside of Frenchie’s
body, the Nun form could continue to terrorize Irene and Burke, by rising out of the water
that now covered the gateway and attempting to drown Irene. Burke tried to send the demonic entity back
to hell, but was overcome by its power; so it’s ultimately Irene who tricks Valak,
by pretending to offer the holy grail, perhaps the biggest bane that still threatened the
creature, and instead spitting its contents onto the unholy being, causing it to be torn
apart as the gateway to hell appears to close. The fact that she defeats it by spitting is
significant, because there had long been a superstition in the nearby village that they
should spit on the ground whenever the cursed Abbey is mentioned. Sister Irene’s victory also makes sense. Valak was still attacking her in its nun form,
probably not realizing that she had taken her vows shortly before. Irene was no longer afraid of this religious
commitment, so the appearance of the nun would no longer intimidate her, but this wouldn’t
be the last time Valak would utilize this appearance. The demon lies dormant inside of Frenchie’s
body, and uses it as a vessel to break free out of the circle of crosses that surrounded
the abbey. The evil was no longer contained to a singular
location. It would continue to incubate within him as
he eventually settled down and got married, at which point the symptoms of his possession
made themselves noticeable. In 1970, help was called in. Frenchie is diagnosed by a pair of paranormal
investigators named Ed and Lorraine Warren. Lorraine is most likely the sister, or at least a close relative of Sister Irene, given that Irene is from Bridgeport,
Connecticut, the same place that Lorraine was born. They also both have clairvoyant visions, and
that ability seems to be hereditary. Lorraine’s daughter exhibits the trait as
well. When Ed and Lorraine meet Frenchie, it’s
one of the worst possessions they’ve ever seen. He’s speaking in fluent Latin, despite having
a 3rd grade education and inverted crosses can be seen emanating from under his skin. The couple assisted on the exorcism, and since
Lorraine was a medium, it took a huge toll on her, so much that she locked herself away
for 8 days and never spoke about the experience for many years. It’s possible that Valak wanted revenge
on the family after Irene burned it so badly in Romania, and it wouldn’t be done with
them quite yet. We never find out if this exorcism was successful,
but we do know that the results were grim for Frenchie and his family. In 1976, Lorraine has a vision containing
Valak while investigating an unrelated case in Long Island, and the experience contributed
to making it one of the most haunting cases of her career. “Ed, this is as close to hell as I ever
want to get.” With Frenchie no longer around, Valak searched
for a new target. There were probably other possessions that
took place between Frenchie’s demise in 1970 and the happenings in Enfield, England
in 1977, but so far they’ve not been documented in any movie. The best targets for a demon are those who
are weak of faith, as we learn from Sister Charlotte in Annabelle Creation, and one thing
that can cause a person’s faith to weaken is distress in their family life. “The timing isn’t a coincidence, negative
entities often feed off of emotional distress.” So Valak’s next target is the Hodgson family,
who recently lost their father when he ran away and had twins with a woman from down
the street. They most likely opened themselves up to the
poltergeist when the sisters Janet and Margaret used a spirit board to ask a vulnerable question. “Is Dad ever coming home?” As we know thanks to other Conjurverse entries,
reaching out to the spirit world to try to get information or talk to a loved one can
be dangerous, because doing so is essentially inviting an inhuman spirit into your life. The inhuman spirit may trick the victim, making
him or her think they are talking to the spirit of a person, when in fact, they’re talking
to a malevolent entity. So asking if their Dad is coming home told
Valak that this family is already struggling on an emotional level, and they would be the perfect
targets. But after nearly being defeated by Irene,
Valak wanted to operate in secrecy this time, so instead of haunting the family directly,
it took hold of the ghost of a man named Bill Wilkins, making it seem like Bill was the
one terrorizing the family. During the middle of the night, Janet is transported
downstairs in front of the chair that Bill Wilkins passed on. As taught by Ed Warren, the OG Horror History
teacher before Emo Abraham Lincoln took over, there are three stages of demonic activity. “Infestation, oppression and possession.” The Hodgsons began to experience the symptoms
of infestation. Janet was terrorized in her dreams, and Valak
forced her to sleepwalk, sleeptalk, and Sleep Hawk. Wait, no. Not Sleep Hawk. You can go back to sleep, Sleep Hawk. But Valak would do other stuff, like manifest
the image of Bill Wilkins to scare them, move around toys and objects to give the impression
that these items are possessed, intimidate them with voices in the night… “AAHHHHHH!!!!” ...and mess with the TV, or as they called it: MORTIS MEDIA: "The telly." This is also another example of Valak using
reflections to scare a victim, just like it did to Sister Irene in the chapel. At this point, the activity escalates to Stage
2: Oppression. This involves shaking beds, slamming doors,
bite marks, flying furniture and other very clear cut paranormal mayhem. The family flees the house in the middle of
the night, and brings in outside help. Police officers, reporters, videographers,
passers by and others all experience the phenomenon. It is around this time that a strange occurrence
goes down back in the US that could suggest that we may see Valak again in a future Conjuring
installment. While Valak was making the Hodgson family
more miserable in the United Kingdom, Lorraine was growing more paranoid over in the United States. Ed had seen Valak in a dream, which caused
him to create a painting of the creepy nun, and Lorraine would have a vision of her own. There’s also a scene where Judy is frozen
by the disturbing image of Valak, though it’s not entirely clear if this is all part of
Lorraine’s vision, or if they were both able to see Valak. I have the sense that Judy does see Valak
though, because the name appears multiple times in her artwork. Lorraine would also discover the demon’s
name in her own vision. “What do you want?” “I want my MTV!” As the Enfield Poltergeist gets more and more
attention in the media, Valak would hide behind the ghost of the old man, Bill Wilkins. From my understanding of the events, it essentially
used Bill as a shield, commandeering his voice and in some cases his appearance, and this
also made it so that Valak’s demonic energy would not be picked up on by a medium. Listen to the way that Janet would eventually
describe the phenomenon. “Does it feel like it’s coming from inside
you?” “No. It feels like it’s coming from behind me. Like I’m being used.” But Bill was not the only facade that the
inhuman spirit would use to its advantage. The Hodgson’s youngest son, Billy, has a
zoetrope toy that tells the nursery rhyme of The Crooked Man. Billy used to sing along with it in order
to work on improving his speech impediment, but he never quite overcame it. Valak tends to use the form of whatever it’s
subject has not overcome, so when Billy is alone, Valak appears to him as The Crooked
Man. What’s not entirely explained is if The
Crooked Man once existed as a separate entity, like Bill Wilkins, or if it was just Valak
taking the form it saw on the toy. I’m guessing the Crooked Man is a separate
entity though, based on this line from Ed. “The old man, the Crooked Man, they’re
just facades, trying to keep us from seeing the real evil in that house.” I don’t think Valak would risk exposing
itself when it had kept its own involvement a secret for so long. The demon would not want the church finding
out and sending people in to destroy it. You’ll notice that it never uses the nun
form until Lorraine shows up. The in-universe explanation is that Valak
used the nun to attack Lorraine’s faith, which was shaken by this encounter that scared
her so much all those years ago. Director James Wan explained the decision
further in an Instagram post. “During editing, I deemed this beautifully
designed/sculpted horned demon too out of left-field for the film. It needed to be more grounded and personal
— something that would take Lorraine’s faith and try to test/corrupt it. I remember the real-life Lorraine Warren talking
about her love and reverence for her nun friends, and a lightbulb went off — thus… the Demon
Nun was born. So we went back and replaced all the Horned
Demon (scenes) with the Nun during additional photography.” Many of the Hodgson’s neighbors donated
crosses that were hung up all around Janet and Margaret’s room, in hopes this could
weaken the evil and prevent objects from moving around, but unlike the circle of crosses at
the abbey in Romania, this is not enough to contain Valak. The case would eventually gain enough notoriety
that the church decides to send Ed and Lorraine across the sea to see what’s up. When they arrive, Valak remembers them, and
hopes to get Bill to scare them away. “It said it wants to hurt you.” “When did it say that?” “Right now.” On December 21st, 1977, they perform a test
to see if the spirit haunting the house was speaking through Janet, or if she was just
making the noises on her own. They’re unable to determine that it was
all Janet, but Lorraine is still skeptical because she doesn’t sense any presence in
the house. That night, Janet is transported in her sleep
to the first floor ceiling where she sees old man Bill sitting on his chair. He gets up and goes upstairs, then she’s
pulled upwards into her room, the room where most of the paranormal instances had taken
place. Valak’s presence causes all of the crosses
in the room to invert, and Janet encounters old man Bill, who has the yellow glowing eyes
of the demon. Ed and Lorraine get into the room in time
to rescue Janet from being suffocated at the foot of the window curtain. A day later, on the 22nd, Ed helps fix a floor
in the basement of the house, where Valak rises again. It first looks as if it’s going to attack
Ed, and I surmise this is in order to lure Mrs. Hodgson into the flooded area, where
it can then attack and bite her in the arm. This attack strategy isn’t random. Valak wants to freak out the family and isolate
them by making it look like they’re just making the whole thing up. When Ed finds the retainer with teeth, or
as they called them in the UK, Teef, that line up with the bite mark on Peggy’s arm,
he’s going to question if it was placed there by a supernatural entity, or if it was
planted there by Peggy herself to sell the story. That is the reason Valak has everyone turn
away while Janet is making the demonic voices and the reason that the only convincing proof
of a demonic infestation happens while nobody from outside the household is present. This leads into the next part of Valak’s
plan. The house is readied up with video recording
equipment, hoping to catch some of the supernatural happenings on tape. But Valak plays it smart. It knows that it’s managed to trick Lorraine
up to this point by hiding behind the ghost of Bill Wilkins undetected, but if proof of
the poltergeist is captured, Ed and Lorraine will take it back to the church, they’ll
send in a bunch of their people, just as they did at the Abbey of St. Carta. So instead, the demon devises a plan to put
a stop to the investigation. It tells Janet she has to fake a paranormal
incident in front of the cameras, threatening to kill her family if she doesn’t comply. So she does just that, sticking knives into
the table, throwing and destroying furniture, and smashing all the dishes in the kitchen. The audio guy picks up a strange sound, which
they trace to Janet, who mangled in an electrical closet, where she speaks Bill’s voice, saying
more nonsensical phrases. The whole incident was recorded by a paranormal
sceptic, the psychologist named Anita Gregory, who was happy to have found “proof” that the
Hodgsons were faking the haunting. Once the tape gets out, the public gains the
impression that everything was a hoax, and all the investigators and reporters clear
out, once again giving the family, and more importantly, Valak, their privacy back. Luckily for the Hodgsons, Ed figures out that
Bill Wilkins was trying to covertly send a message by overlapping the two audio recordings. “Help, me, it, won’t, let, me, go!” Upon hearing this, Lorraine has another vision,
where she speaks to the real Bill Wilkins and gains an understanding of the true nature
of Valak’s presence for the first time. Lorraine has another vision, or perhaps this one
is more of an astral projection of her in the Green Street house, where she speaks to
the real Bill Wilkins, uncorrupted by the evil manipulation of Valak for the first time. He tells her that ‘he came here to see his
family, but he can’t go because “it wants her so badly”.’ Breaking this down, Bill is saying he entered
the world of the spirits instead of moving on to heaven, because he thought he would
be able to see his deceased family members. But he discovered they were not there, and
wanted to go on, but Valak would not let go of him, because Valak wanted to use him as
a piece of its plan to possess Janet’s soul. When Lorraine asks how to stop it, Bill leaves
her with a riddle. I am given and I am taken. I was there at your first breath,
But you didn't ask for me. But I will follow you till your death. Before she can figure it out, Valak appears
and essentially breaks up the mental connection, and this is the first time Lorraine has been
able to sense the inhuman spirit that her family member had gone up against decades
before. The answer to Bill’s riddle is: a name. A name is given at birth, a name taken by
people throughout your life to identify you. You don’t ask for a name, but it follows
you to your death. The one part of the riddle that would have
been misleading for me is the line: “I was there at your first breath.” Because that’s not always the case, I think
a lot of couples name their baby after it is born. Maybe Bill should have said, “I was there
at your first birthday party” or something. So Lorraine's realization that she needs a name to have dominion over Valak goes back to the Genesis passage that I mentioned earlier. It is man's ability to name something that gives man power over that thing. Anyway, as Ed and Lorraine rush back to the
house, Valak is now on a full-on reign of terror. Stage 2 of demonic activity is oppression,
and judging how this stage is getting worse and worse for the family, I can only assume
that Valak is getting very close to Stage 3: Possession. It seems like it was even already starting
to possess Janet for short periods of time, if that’s a possibility. When the Warrens arrive, Peggy is locked out
of the house in a full state of panic. Ed tries to break in through the front window,
the demon hurls the couch across the room to block his entry. So he goes around back to go through the laundry
room and break in from under the floorboards, but once inside, Valak locks the door, effectively
separating him from Lorraine. The entity messes with the pipes and scalds
Ed’s face with piping hot water, partially blinding him, but he’s able to hobble his
way to the upstairs bedroom where Janet is about to walk out of the open window and impale
herself on the spikey tree stump that waits below. I’m not entirely sure why Valak would do
this, since we’ve kind of established that when someone dies, a demon can no longer possess
them. And it’s pretty clear that Valak’s main
goal IS to possess her. But as I have in the other videos, I’ll
attempt to justify why Valak might have behaved like this. In Annabelle, we saw in the book, The Devil’s
Welcome, that Valak and Malthus, are just two of the
many demons detailed that all answer to Belial, who is basically the leader of all demons. We can even see Valak’s symbol, the Ouroboros,
appear way back in that movie. We’ve also seen in both Annabelle and The
Nun that summoning these demons from Hell usually involves making a human sacrifice
along with some kind of spell. Maybe this was all part of Valak’s plan
to summon another demonic presence, possibly Belial. Ed catches her before this can happen, but
this leaves him at risk to fall out of the window himself. Lorraine comes in and finds Valak standing
in the corner as Ed tries to reel in Janet. She runs to save Ed, but Valak’s scream
easily sends her flying backwards into the wall, however, she uses the demon’s name
to gain dominion over it. “You are Valak. The defiler. The profane. The marquis of snakes.” Upon saying this, Valak appears to crumble,
and when Lorraine condemns it back to hell, it breaks down even further, revealing it’s
true form to her for the first and only time, before shrinking down into a void and disappearing. This would be the last confirmed interaction
that the Warrens have with Valak, however that may not mean the character is gone for
good. As I mentioned, Valak takes on more than one
persona during the 1977 Enfield poltergeist saga, one of these facades was the manifestation
of a nursery rhyme called The Crooked Man. After many of the Warrens’ cases, they bring
home a trinket and put it in their room of cursed objects. Ed describes these objects as being bearers
of evil spirits, almost like keeping a genie in a bottle. For the Enfield case, they bring home Johnny’s
Crooked Man zoetrope. If Valak went back to hell, then then I’m
guessing The Crooked Man is the one trapped inside this toy. That seems to leave things open for another
evil do-er to stumble upon the evocation books left behind by the Duke of St. Carta and summon
Valak to once again cross the threshold and terrorize our world. Regardless of what the future holds, I’ll
be sure to cover it here. If you want to explore the complete histories
of the other entities found in the Conjuring universe go ahead and check out that playlist
on the left and remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, RING the deathbell
for ALL notifications and I’ll see you in the next one. Assuming we both survive.
