Samuel "Sam" Wilder was the Whitelighter and lover of a witch named Patty Halliwell and is the biological father of the Charmed One, Paige Matthews.
History
Not much is known of his life as a mortal, but he did receive the New York's Teacher of the Year Award for 1872.
Whitelighter
After his death, Sam chose to become a Whitelighter at the behest of the Elders. One of his charges was Patty Halliwell. During the end of her marriage to her husband, Victor Bennett, Patty fell in love with Sam and he fathered her fourth child. Fearing repercussions if their relationship were to be discovered by the Elders, as relationships between Whitelighters and their charges were forbidden, Sam and Patty took their newborn daughter to a church and gave her up to a nun. They requested only that she be given to a good home and that her name starts with a "P", like the rest of the members of the Halliwell family. That daughter later on grew up to be the Charmed One, Paige Matthews.
Becoming Mortal
When the Water Demon began attacking innocents in the lake at Camp Skylark, Sam told Patty not to interfere because it was too strong. However, Patty didn't heed his warnings and went to try and vanquish the demon anyway. She sent him a warning in hopes of keeping him safe, but he refused to stay back and went to stop her instead. Patty was forced to freeze Sam when he came to the dock of the lake, but in the time it took her, the water demon attacked Patty and drowned her from the inside. Blaming himself for the death of his charge and lover, Sam "clipped his wings" and lived out his days at the camp, hoping to prevent the same fate from befalling Patty's three oldest daughters.
While living near the camp, Sam made a living out of doing odd jobs, watching the lake but never interfered with the drowning incidents, which continued after Patty's death, though not as often since the camp shut down in 1978.
Facing His Demons
When Patty's three oldest daughters, the Charmed Ones, started to investigate the Water Demon, Sam decided to use memory dust to wipe their minds of the situation, in order to protect them. However, the sisters broke the spell and returned to the lake after discovering who Sam really was and his relationship with their mother. Together, Prue, Piper, Phoebe, their Whitelighter Leo, and Sam were able to use Patty's plan of electrocuting the water demon to vanquish it.
Sam, however, was mortally wounded during the fight, but with the help of Prue, he succeeded in vanquishing the demon by sacrificing himself. Leo tried to heal Sam, but couldn't because he was not meant to. Sam was content to die and was reunited with Patty, whom he saw as a specter, returning to greet him and take him into the afterlife.
Reuniting With Paige
Following his death, the Elders made Sam a Whitelighter again. Just as before, however, he lost a charge, and subsequently abandoned his powers. He didn't "clip his wings", but nonetheless abandoned his duties, and ended up becoming a self-pitying, drunken bum. In a plot to get Sam back on his feet and back on their "radar", the Elders assigned his long-lost daughter, Paige, to him as her first charge. After discovering who she was, Sam attempted to leave before she discovered his true identity. However, Paige was then attacked by a Darklighter's arrow and Sam was the only one who could save her. Through his love of Paige, Sam gets over his self-pity, regains control over his powers, and heals Paige and Leo just in time. The two have an awkward but heartwarming conversation before Sam re-embraces his duties.
Three years later, Paige has once again given up on her biological father because they hadn't seen each other since their last encounter. Sam contacted his daughter when a charge of his who disappeared in the 1950s, J.D., somehow re-emerged not a day older and requiring help. He later admitted that he hadn't dropped by because he wasn't sure how to fit into Paige's heart as her father because he was never there for her. When the conflict was resolved, he promised to keep in touch more often so he can find a place in his daughter's heart.
Fighting Neena
Nearly two years later, Sam was called by Phoebe to try to heal Paige's dormant body while her soul lingered between life and death after facing Neena, the first witch. However, Sam was unsuccessful in his efforts but tried to comfort his son-in-law Henry Mitchell who was worried for Paige's life and was starting to get cold feet about being involved and having children in the dangerous life that being married to a witch brought. Sam later assisted in the battle against Neena along with the Warren witches and the Elders.
Powers and Abilities
- Active Powers
- Orbing: The ability to teleport a being with the use of orbs.
- Sensing: The ability to locate charges.
- Cloaking: The ability to hide yourself or others from magical detection. Limited to charges.
- Healing: The ability to heal physical wounds and different injuries.
- Hovering: The ability to rise a few feet in the air, with or without orbs.
- Glamouring: The ability to change one's appearance to look like another human being.
- Photokinesis: The ability to create and manipulate light and orbs.
- Thermokinesis: The ability to mentally control and manipulate heat.
- Other Powers
- Regeneration: The ability to instantly heal oneself after being injured.
- Reconstitution: The powerful ability to pull yourself back together again after being blown up.
- High Resistance: The power to be resistant to potentially lethal powers.
- Immortality: The ability to live a long lifespan and an arrested aging process.
- Omnilingualism: The ability to understand, speak, and read any language without training in it. Limited to the language of charges.
- Mediumship: The ability to see and commune with spirits of the dead.
Weaknesses
- Darklighter Poison: The origin of this poison is unknown, but it is the most common way to kill Whitelighters. The poison causes the victim to weaken and lose strength. The effects are slow, but no one has lasted for longer than one day. However, the healing power of another Whitelighter can heal the victim unless a fatal outcome has occurred.
- Emotional Imbalance: If a Whitelighter is emotionally distraught or loses faith in their cause, their powers will fail. Sam temporarily lost access to his powers when he lost faith in himself until he met Paige and came to forgive himself for abandoning her.
Charges
Over the course of the series, Sam has been shown to have two charges who were a witch and a future Whitelighter, respectively. An unknown third charge was mentioned in "Sam, I Am" as being lost.
- Patty Halliwell (lost)
- J.D. Williams (lost)
Notes and Trivia
- Sam's relationship with Patty foreshadowed the one of Piper Halliwell and Leo Wyatt.
- Sam and Victor Bennett were both present during the battle against Neena, which is the only known time they were in the same place at the same time. However, they were not seen interacting.
- Ironically, like Paige mentioned in "The Lost Picture Show", Sam only appears every three years. His first appearance was in season 2; he then came back in season 5, and again in season 8. His appearance in comic issue "Last Witch Effort" happened approximately two years after Season 8.
- Despite wanting to improve their relationship, Sam was not present at Paige and Henry's wedding (presumably due to behind-the-scenes reasons).
- Despite having broken one of the most sacred rules of the Whitelighters, Sam was never punished by the Elders, who even gave him back his wings after his second death.
- Sam's counterpart in the rebooted series is Dexter Vaughn, the biological father of Macy and Maggie. He raised Macy to be independent and logical. Dexter let Macy believe her mother died when she was two years old to keep her from finding the truth: her mother brought her back from the dead in infancy and had to avoid seeing her to keep her safe. He passed away sometime in 2016.
- A character named Sam Arnold also appears in the 2018 series, a possible homage to him.
Appearances
Sam Wilder appeared in a total of 3 episodes and 2 comic issues throughout the course of the series.
| Charmed, Season 2 | |||||
| #01 | "Witch Trial" | #09 | "Ms. Hellfire" | #17 | "How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans" |
| #02 | "Morality Bites" | #10 | "Heartbreak City" | #18 | "Chick Flick" |
| #03 | "The Painted World" | #11 | "Reckless Abandon" | #19 | "Ex Libris" |
| #04 | "The Devil's Music" | #12 | "Awakened" | #20 | "Astral Monkey" |
| #05 | "She's a Man, Baby, a Man!" | #13 | "Animal Pragmatism" | #21 | "Apocalypse, Not" |
| #06 | "That Old Black Magic" | #14 | "Pardon My Past" | #22 | "Be Careful What You Witch For" |
| #07 | "They're Everywhere" | #15 | "Give Me a Sign" | ||
| #08 | "P3 H2O" | #16 | "Murphy's Luck" | ||
| Charmed, Season 5 | |||||
| #01 | "A Witch's Tail, Part 1" | #09 | "Sam, I Am" | #17 | "Lucky Charmed" |
| #02 | "A Witch's Tail, Part 2" | #10 | "Y Tu Mummy Tambien" | #18 | "Cat House" |
| #03 | "Happily Ever After" | #11 | "The Importance of Being Phoebe" | #19 | "Nymphs Just Wanna Have Fun" |
| #04 | "Siren Song" | #12 | "Centennial Charmed" | #20 | "Sense and Sense Ability" |
| #05 | "Witches in Tights" | #13 | "House Call" | #21 | "Necromancing the Stone" |
| #06 | "The Eyes Have It" | #14 | "Sand Francisco Dreamin'" | #22 | "Oh My Goddess! Part 1" |
| #07 | "Sympathy for the Demon" | #15 | "The Day the Magic Died" | #23 | "Oh My Goddess! Part 2" |
| #08 | "A Witch in Time" | #16 | "Baby's First Demon" | ||
| Charmed, Season 8 | |||||
| #01 | "Still Charmed & Kicking" | #09 | "Hulkus Pocus" | #17 | "Generation Hex" |
| #02 | "Malice in Wonderland" | #10 | "Vaya Con Leos" | #18 | "The Torn Identity" |
| #03 | "Run, Piper, Run" | #11 | "Mr. & Mrs. Witch" | #19 | "The Jung and the Restless" |
| #04 | "Desperate Housewitches" | #12 | "Payback's a Witch" | #20 | "Gone with the Witches" |
| #05 | "Rewitched" | #13 | "Repo Manor" | #21 | "Kill Billie: Vol. 2" |
| #06 | "Kill Billie: Vol. 1" | #14 | "12 Angry Zen" | #22 | "Forever Charmed" |
| #07 | "The Lost Picture Show" | #15 | "The Last Temptation of Christy" | ||
| #08 | "Battle of the Hexes" | #16 | "Engaged and Confused" | ||
| Charmed, Season 9 | |||||
| #01 | "Charmed Lives" | #09 | "The All or Nothing" | #17 | "Family Shatters" |
| #02 | "No Rest for the Wicca" | #10 | "Three Little Wiccans" | #18 | "Four's Company" |
| #03 | "Innocents Lost" | #11 | "Last Witch Effort" | #19 | "Crossed, Triple-Crossed" |
| #04 | "Mortal Enemies" | #12 | "The Charmed Offensive" | #20 | "The Old Witcheroo" |
| #05 | "Unnatural Resources" | #13 | "Piper's Place" | #21 | "Reversal of Misfortune" |
| #06 | "Morality Bites Back" | #14 | "Cupid's Harrow" | #22 | "Prue Ya Gonna Call?" |
| #07 | "The Heir Up There" | #15 | "Where There's Smoke There's a Firestarter" | #23 | "The Darklight Zone" |
| #08 | "Oh, Henry" | #16 | "The Heavens Can Wait" | #24 | "The Power of 300" |
| #00 | "To the Warren Born" | ||||