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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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Hey, do you have a tag about the narrative structure of season 6? I've heard you mention that Edlund saved the season with The Man Who Would Be King, and I'm just curious how that worked. (Did they not know how the season was going to end up until Edlund wrote that episode? I have so many questions...) If you have a tag for it, I'd like to do a deep dive into season 6 😬

Oh gosh, hi! It seems tumblr is no longer giving me inbox notifications, so sorry for the delay (and sorry to everyone else below this in my inbox...)

I don’t know that they were undecided on how s6 would end until 6.20. That seems... a bit impractical if it were actually true. What I believe 6.20 does give us, through telling us what’s actually been happening all season long specifically from Cas’s pov and in his own heartbreaking words, was the ability for Cas to have redemption for what he’d done. I personally believe they’d intended for the actual plot to carry out like we saw in s6, but can you imagine if 6.20 was told from any other narrative pov?

It would’ve left Cas looking... distinctly bad...

Edlund revealed the story, the full scope of what Cas had been hiding all season long, but he HAD been hiding things all season long. All of that would’ve come out one way or another. Edlund merely chose HOW it was all revealed. Maybe he did make all the disparate plot crumbs come together, and maybe he did influence the ending of the season through the major revelations we got in 6.20, but I don’t think it really altered the outcome of events.

Revealing that information by showing us the long string of events and choices Cas had made going back to the events of 5.22, showing us what he was facing in Heaven and the conflict with Raphael, his desperation to not be the reason Dean broke his dying wish to Sam to get out of hunting, his ongoing conflicted feelings about the choices and compromises he’d made along the way, and reaching what he’d felt was a moment of crisis in laying out his entire dilemma to God, to the audience, and for himself... this didn’t change the plot of the season but made it possible for us to have SYMPATHY for his predicament. It made it possible for us to see his otherwise inexcusable acts from a different perspective that would eventually ALLOW us (and Dean) to truly forgive him.

It’s also been the foundation of Cas’s entire emotional and character arc since he returned in 7.17 questioning why he was brought back since he couldn’t “fix it.”

I don’t think Sera originally had any intention to bring Cas back after 7.02. She has said that she thought the Heaven storyline was done and wanted to branch out in new directions (lol... see how well that worked out for her...). It was Edlund with 6.20 that allowed them to eventually “save” him from that fate. It made Cas redeemable.

Did he know that when he wrote it? I have no idea. But I’m grateful to him for it, anyway.

I do have tags for s6. Most episodes are tagged by episode number (the way I tagged this post for 6.20, just swap out episode numbers and search for the correct episode tag on my blog). I always forget my bed edlund tag, which is actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund. A lot of s6 posts (but not all) get the tag “we don’t talk about season six.” You might find stuff there too. But episode tags are probably your best way to go on my blog. :)

#spn 6.20 #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #we don't talk about season six #Anonymous

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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I don't mean to 'dog pile' but your recent discussions on s9 has brought up one of my few real peevs on the show. I recognize that the show has declared that without his Grace, Cas is human. I don't like it, but I understand that to be the case. But it doesn't make any sense? In s6 Cas says to Crowley, "I'm an angel you ass, I don't have a soul." And yet without his Grace he apparently has one? I go with it because that's what the show has declared even if i don't think it makes sense. Oh well!

Disclaimer for everyone who is not li-izumi and is reading this feeling sort of vaguely confused… I got this message yesterday, and had a very limited time to reply before having to run out and Adult™, but I sent a bunch of links to past things I’d written, which can all be found in my tags:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels%20and%20souls/chrono

and

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on%20the%20nature%20of%20angel%20grace/chrono

there’s some overlap between those two tags, but almost everything i’ve ever written about the subject is in there… I say “almost” because tumblr refuses to organize tags out beyond, I believe, the 5th tag, so if I rambled in the tags and then stuck the grace tags on at the end, it won’t filter into these searches… sorry… I did, however, put all the contents I had in these tags as of December 2018 into this ao3 post, which might be easier to read through, or might be more difficult to read through, and doesn’t include anything I’ve written after 12/2018…

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019936

There’s also my tag for “Cas vs Humanity,” where I talk about all of this from another direction:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you%20learned%20it%20from%20the%20goats/chrono

And for further reference, this is regarding the long back and forth I had with zerbe yesterday, here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190817337615/i-was-rewatching-s9-and-i-reached-the-ep-where-cas

I was originally gonna reply to this privately, but I think I did a fair job summing up my core thoughts on this in just a few paragraphs, so I’m posting it here as a sort of tl;dr for everything linked above… :’D

OKAY, NOW ON TO THE ACTUAL REPLY!

***

I don’t know if everything from that post back and forth with zerbe answered your question or just gave you more… or if any of those links I through at you in the chatbubbles yesterday helped…

But one more thing, which I’m not sure was included in any of those linked posts or not, but is something I know I’ve talked about in the past, including as recently as 14.19 when Jack was turning humans into angels, is the commonalities between angelic grace and human souls.

My theory since s4, since we first met Anna, has been that there is a core to the being of an angel that encompasses their “personalities,” for lack of a better word, and their thoughts and memories… and that this kernel of being is the “identity” of an angel separate from the “power pack” of the grace that encompasses their “mojo.”

The fact that Anna still could hear angel radio and was eventually able to access her memories of having been an angel even though she’d cut out her grace and literally been born as a human, with a human soul, was all the proof I personally needed that despite everything else they are, angels do have a nascent or primordial seed of a human soul within themselves that they can literally choose to nurture or not. And Cas, by his choices, has been nurturing that part of himself since s4.

And when Cas had the “power pack” portion of his grace cut out by Metatron, he wasn’t left “soulless,” in comparison to every other example we have of a soulless person on the entire run of the series. He was perhaps even MORE overwhelmed by his own human feelings than at any other time in his history on the show. His personality, memories, his preferences and emotional engagement with life, and the essential core of his identity wasn’t extracted when his grace was. So what was left? The show seems to be actively begging us to consider this, especially when Metatron stated directly that he believed he’d left Cas with the equivalent of a human soul in 8.23.

Cas had no wings, no “mojo,” but he had his entire personality, all his memories, everything that comprised his fundamental identity… but no grace.

The show has contrasted this by demonstrating the other way an angel can inhabit and then leave a human vessel– as that glowing cloud of grace– that incorporates all these “personality traits” and memories, etc. into the grace cloud. So clearly, that portion of an angel’s grace is somehow not the same thing as the “mojo” portion.

That leaves us to question what exactly Cas was at that point, and because of all of his other actions and choices during that time, the only reasonable conclusion I could personally arrive at was that yes, that was the equivalent of a human soul.

I mentioned Jack converting human souls into angels in 14.19, because before when I’d mentioned my theory of grace as stated above, folks countered or dismissed my theory because it apparently didn’t work in the other direction, of the potential for a human soul to have this “mojo power pack” grafted on to it, to make a human into an angel. But this is exactly what Jack did, so I feel even more content with my personal theory about what angel grace actually is, and how it functions, and how at the very center of every angel is this kernel of potential to nurture their very own human soul.

OH! And after going back and writing the long intro into this post and considering how the heck to actually tag this thing, I feel it’s important to also mention that 6.20, where Cas delivered that “I don’t have a soul” line, was written by Ben Edlund, who also wrote 5.14, wherein under the influence of Famine, Cas developed a craving for burgers that, in episode, he deflected HARD and blamed his sudden craving for red meat on Jimmy, on his vessel… but I always ALWAYS have read the fact he turned away, broke eye contact with Dean when he made that statement, as a direct deflection, as him deliberately handwaving the fact that Cas himself was “becoming more and more human” during s5, culminating with the near-complete loss of his powers by the time he wakes up in the hospital in 5.21 and could no longer deny the fact that he’d lost his angelic powers.

And for those who require Authorial Intent as proof of things like this, that’s essentially what Edlund said he was attempting to prove with that line.

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159579521875/i-always-reserve-in-castiels-overall-makeup-the

“I always reserve in Castiel’s overall makeup the fact that there is an aspect of him that is purely flesh and purely human, which can function as it did in an episode before as a real Achilles’ heel, when he started to eat meat, because he just loved red meat. He couldn’t stop himself.”— Ben Edlund (May 6, 2011) in Supernatural’s “Cliffhanger Is Deeply Involved With Castiel’s Fate” (via justanotheridijiton)

I wrote in far more detail on that episode, and what it implied about Cas himself, right here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159772440305/514-same-cas-same-lizbob-was-laughing-at-me

I hope that covers it, but if not, please feel free to poke at it some more :’D

#spn 6.20 #spn 5.14 #spn 14.19 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #you learned it from the goats #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #li izumi

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mittensmorgul · 6 years

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7.09 is on and I am so happy. I love this stupid episode so much.

Like, everything about it from “This is nature sounds, the sounds of nature” to the wagon wheel bun on the TDK slammer.

I have nothing meta to say that I haven’t probably already said before, but I love this episode so much.

#spn 7.09 #okay that is all y'all can go back to your business now :P #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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It’s time for my daily Ben Edlund appreciation session:

4.08:

WES: Oh. Oh, wow, Hope, you didn't have to do that. HOPE: I wanted to. Well, no, I... I had to. Because I love you more than anything, lover.

and

WES: Um... Hope, uh, are you happy? HOPE: I love you more than anything.

and

DEAN: Come on. You're gonna sit there and tell me that your relationship with Hope is functional, that it's what you wished for? WES: I wished she would love me more than anything. SAM: Yeah, and, uh, how is that going? That seem healthy to you?

and

WES: You wished a man dead? HOPE: I love you more than anything. WES: Stop saying that. Stop it! HOPE: [Voice breaking] But I do. More than anything. More than me. More than life. Oh, Wes. Don't hate me.

But then we have 5.04:

Lucifer: You know why God cast me down? Because I loved him. More than anything.

SO! My conclusion is that Wes “played God” with Hope, he made her into what she’d become, imbued her with this “programming” to specifically love HIM more than anything.

Sorta like Chuck did with Lucifer. Now I can’t help but picture Chuck delivering Wes’s lines to Lucifer, while Lucifer spends an eternity “wishing a man dead” so nothing will come between them again... >.>

See why my Edlund tag is basically “Damn Ben Edlund?”

#actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #spn 4.08 #spn 5.04 #i love you more than anything and hooooooboy is that an unhealthy thing >.>#if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #lucifer (the one on spn)

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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Mandroids, Meta, and Subtext

Rewatching 2.12 (which is such a good episode on so many levels), and rambling on at @elizabethrobertajones about subtext and how it’s not some Seekrit Layer that isn’t inherently part of the text, and how we all read subtext whether we realize it or not... And somehow these two lines of thought sorta... merged together.

What follows is a loosely-cobbled-together and edited for continuity chunk of our conversation:

I'm thinking about a very old meta about reading the subtext, and how we all literally do it all the time (even in real life). We read between the lines to find meaning in everyday things ALL THE TIME. And how it's just how human brains work and not some obscure science you have to learn. There's this faulty assumption among people who read meta as if it's some obscure and mystical science that the average person doesn't do all that time. We're just like... better at explaining it, because practice.

I think some of the mystery about meta is that some folks don't trust what they believe they're seeing in the subtext, because it's been built up into some sort of secret code buried in the text, but it's just how storytelling works and always has. And meta is just us holding the curtains back and pointing it all out clearly. I wish people didn't think that only certain gifted people can pull back the curtains. We all do it, all the time, whether we realize it or not.

But the subtext isn't some obscure layer of the story that the casual viewer can't see, or that they DON'T see. They just don't spend much time or effort THINKING about it. They subconsciously react to it, allowing it to inform their feelings or reactions to what they're seeing on screen.

Take for example Ronald Resnick, and his Mandroids. He read the surface text aaaall wrong. And yet he was still mostly right, just wrong frame of reference. Just, monsters instead of mandroids, but every other detail... spot on. He was reading the wrong genre, because that was his personal leanings (the alien robot conspiracy stuff vs literal monsters). Wrong genre, Ron... but the rest of the story matches up. And all his problems arise because he started out from the wrong baseline assumption. If he'd gone in LOOKING for monsters instead of robots, he would've been 100% right.

Also, Sam read Ronald all wrong too, thinking he could keep him safe and out of trouble by crushing and utterly dismissing his theories... which only led to Ronald putting himself right in the middle of all the trouble. I love Dean's reactions through this whole episode, like, TOLD YOU SAMMY. All Ronald wanted was for someone to believe him.

That's all it took for Ron to trust Dean, Dean being 100% sincere that he believed him, validation that he'd read the subtext and come to the (mostly) right conclusions. And despite the horror of his whole situation, and finding out about shapeshifters, Ronald can't stop grinning, because DAMMIT HE WAS RIGHT.

I mean, it just depends on the genre, but EVERYBODY knows how to read subtext. It's how we form opinions and interpret clues while reading a murder mystery or watching a cop drama, and why we make guesses about who the culprit might be.

(sure some people are better at it... some are surprised when the real killer is revealed, while others are genre savvy enough to see through the red herrings)

(or they just put more focused thought into it as the story unfolded)

(and some people LIKE passively watching the story because it makes the surprise twist or the big reveal more satisfying to them if they haven’t already placed mental wagers on whodunit)

(or else someone's inherent bias led them to overlook a character as a potential suspect, or to focus on another character too hard as a suspect)

In order to correctly interpret all that subtext, you need to recognize when shows are going to be like, look at this harmless nerd, in the first 10 minutes, and then spend 20 chasing his shifty looking boss. But all of that comes from reading the subtext, whether the viewer groks that they're doing it or not. We're not doing anything particularly obscure here in writing meta about it all.

We're just trying to be objective, not going in with preconceived notions aside from an understanding of past canon, a good grip on the genre, some insight into the characters (which isn't obscure, again, but it's something WE think about far more than the average casual viewer).

In 2.12, poor Sam was so locked into his expectations, he failed to adapt when the situation changed. He just kept mocking Ronald, while Dean found a way to connect with him.

DEAN: (quietly) Look, I know this isn't going the way we wanted, SAM: (shouting) Understatement! DEAN: But if we invite the cops in right now, Ronald gets arrested, we get arrested, the shifter gets away, probably never find it again, okay? [RONALD is peering out the window, in plain view, and SAM gestures at him in exasperation.] DEAN: Ron! Out of the light! SAM: Seriously?! DEAN: Yeah, Ron's game plan was a bad plan, I mean, it was a bit of a crazy plan, but right now crazy's the only game in town, okay?

And in the middle of all this plot and character drama subtext, here comes poor old Henriksen, who's working from the wrong playbook ENTIRELY (and therefore can't even BEGIN to interpret what's really going on). He thinks he's dealing with a couple of crazed serial killers, because he has zero frame of reference to even think about "mandroids" let alone shapesifters or the supernatural. So he's come to the entirely wrong conclusions about the Winchesters (and even what genre they’re operating within :P).

Even the Winchesters get confused when the shapeshifter "plays dead" and nearly tricks them into killing an innocent woman... their little game of looking back and forth between the two identical bodies on the floor and trying to make sense of what they're seeing, nearly gets Dean killed...

And now a brief interlude for lizbob commentary that’s entirely on point (and personally amusing after discussing all of the above):

elizabethrobertajones I think this episode might be a wee bit meta :D

mittensmorgul EDLUND!!!

(/interlude)

All the while the Winchesters are distracted by this whole other thing going on outside the bank with Victor and the SWAT team, but they power their way through that by (as they often do) blending in with expectations (disguising themselves behind fake badges and bravado. ACTING!)

I don’t think Ben Edlund ever imagined I’d use this episode as a lesson in pointing out the text, the subtext, and why not every reading is equally valid OBJECTIVELY, while at the same time, multiple readings are possible but they are not inherently equivalent.

Victor Henriksen is the “casual viewer” in this metaphor, if that wasn’t clear. He thinks he has the facts, but he’s surprised over and over even when he thinks he’s got the Winchesters pinned down.

Ronald Resnick at least sees more of the big picture, more of the truth of what’s going on. Sure, he’s working from the wrong baseline assumption and has no idea how to implement what he believes he knows correctly. He doesn’t understand that when he discarded Dean’s silver blade down the trash bin that he’d essentially put their only weapon against the monster out of reach. He’d charged in with the mistaken belief that he was the only one who could even SEE there was a problem, let alone have a plan to stop it. All because Sam tried to convince him that his entire theory was wrong.

Sam and Dean understood it was a shapeshifter all along (based on Ronald’s evidence that he’d misinterpreted as mandroids), and in order to keep him safe and out of the way, Sam believed that dismissing Ron’s theories entirely and playing Authority Figure was the best way to go about this, while Dean was rather incredulous about this tactic:

DEAN: Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up. I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch that-- what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation? (Laughs) That's messed up. SAM: (sitting down to watch the tape) What are you, pissed at me or something? DEAN: Nah, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here. SAM: Mandroid? DEAN: Except for the Mandroid part. I liked him. He's not that different from you or me. People think we're crazy. SAM: Yeah, except he's not a hunter, Dean. He's just a guy who stumbled onto something real. If he were to go up against this thing he'd get torn apart. Better to stay in the dark, and stay alive.

But of course Ronald wasn’t going to stay in the dark. He’d seen too much, he was personally invested because the “mandroid” had hurt his friend Juan. He couldn’t let it go, and Sam’s dismissal of him-- instead of making him back off like Sam had hoped-- had only served to push him harder to find answers, to prove his theory and vindicate his friend. Sam failed to recognize Ron’s personal investment in all of this, much to Dean’s disbelief... Explaining the context to Ron DID eventually work, and it’s how Dean gained his trust, but it was already too late for Ron. His failure to understand the same signs Sam and Dean saw for what they really were eventually led to his own death. His lack of understanding of how things work (stay away from the windows, keep out of the light, etc.) got him shot by the feds staking out the building from outside.

(have I mentioned just how meta this episode is?)

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean DID understand the situation correctly, and had formulated a workable plan for resolving all of it in their usual idiom, but their earlier missteps with Ronald made those previous plans unworkable. They’re hampered at every turn (Ronald disposes of Dean’s silver knife, then they have to hobble Sam’s ability to help with the hunt by securing him in the vault with all the other people in the bank because Sam was still resisting working with Ronald. Unlike Dean, Sam didn’t want to even take the effort to win Ronald’s trust, didn’t want to adapt their plans to take out the shapeshifter to include Ronald and had dismissed even the possibility of Ron being able to understand the situation if presented with a few small pieces of truth, even when it was clear that they were far beyond the point of keeping Ronald out of it and safe...)

But explaining that one small detail he’d got wrong in his construction of his Mandroid theory would likely have been enough to convince Ronald to stay out of it from the start. Sam and Dean could’ve infiltrated the bank, killed the shifter, and been out without anyone being the wiser or the swat team having been brought in. (But that would’ve been a rather boring episode to watch, even without being able to apply this sort of meta-level thinking to it :P)

Just flat-out putting everything into the surface text and having the characters just say everything that’s otherwise conveyed through the subtext would’ve been the equivalent of that. IT MAKES FOR TERRIBLE AND BORING STORYTELLING. It’s not engaging at all, because there’s zero subtlety to it. So to the argument that if the subtext was really important to the story, why would they “hide” it in the subtext instead of being obvious about it... yeah. It would be boring as hell. The whole story would feel “flat” because it would require absolutely no mental interaction with the text at all, and in good, engaging storytelling, at least SOME active participation is required of the consumer.

This is how I see it, character by character:

Victor: entirely misinterprets the subtext because he thinks he’s in a cop drama when he’s actually in a horror genre show

Ron: reads the subtext, but has the wrong context and therefore isn’t able to come to the correct conclusions or formulate a viable plan

Sam: Knows exactly what the subtext is saying, but fails at reading Ron (as a character) and his motivations correctly, therefore inadvertently setting the entire plot in motion, but his mistaken assumptions about Ron lead to a lot of complications (culminating in Ron’s death by misadventure)

Dean: Gets the subtext entirely, understands that all Ron wanted was to be heard, understood, and validated. Shifting that ONE MISSING PIECE of information into place for the guy could’ve saved a heck of a lot of trauma (and an innocent guy’s life). Because of all the outside situations affecting and changing in real time around him, Dean adapts his plan but he’s still at the mercy of the narrative (the Victor Henriksen level of the story). He can’t just... override the blatant textual stuff. He’s got to work within that framework still, blend in, and sneak out the back door in disguise.

Me: Sits here wondering if this is still too obscure for people to understand.

BONUS MATERIAL:

2.13 is pretty much about the same thing... seeing one thing but expecting something else. It's a ghost, but even the ghost thinks its an angel, and the expectation of the people he "chose" was also ANGEL so that's what they chose to believe. The “angel” was always only just poor old Father Gregory who didn't understand how to move on. And the WISH for it to be a real angel was strong enough that Sam and the other "victims" couldn't (or didn't want to) see the truth. They’d been willing to commit murder in the name of their mistaken assumptions. At least Sam was willing to test Dean's theory, and not just blindly follow what he believed at the time were obvious "signs."

2.14... poor Dean is the one without proper context in this one, and he's like Exposition on How To Read Subtext as the story unfolds. Presented with problem: Sam is missing, then found covered in blood with no memories. Putting the clues together: because Dean is GOOD at reading the clues, and understanding what's "in character" for Sam, and correctly interpreting what's "not in character" as CLUES that help him eventually uncover the truth, instead of dismissing them without any other consideration because they don’t match up with his preexisting understanding.

As I’m editing this mess of metaphors, I’ve got one more to add. Looking at the story is like seeing the picture of the kid on a box of Cracker Jack. Seeing the subtext is like realizing that kid’s holding a box of Cracker Jack and wondering about the picture on THAT box... Even if you don’t realize you’ve noticed that little detail (I mean, it’s right there, and your brain sees it whether or not you choose to look at it more closely to see what it’s showing you), it doesn’t change the fact that the kid on the box is still holding that box with a picture of himself holding a box... You don’t have to acknowledge all of that, but it doesn’t change the fact it’s there, on purpose, and a part of the whole that’s just as valid as the physical box it’s printed on. To me, this post is the equivalent of me cosplaying the Cracker Jack box kid. Just bringing it all out one level further.

The entire key to reading the whole story is printed right there on the box. Sometimes it just requires a bit of turning the box over and thinking about what it’s implying to understand the whole picture.

#spn 2.12 #spn meta meta #spn 2.13 #spn 2.14 #revenge of the subtext #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #it's spirals all the way down #on the meta level of the individual episode and throughout the entire series as a whole tbh

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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7.09-- this is the point of s7 where I have to ask myself every two minutes why I love s7 so much, because everything is objectively terrible, but at the same time so objectively wonderful... (oh right this is Edlund. That explains everything.)

Ranger Rick

Brandon the Obnoxious Waiter

Glampers (and after Sam went camping in the previous episode, presumably in the traditional non-glamping fashion, I love that they get all judgmental on the idea of glamping in this episode)

Dean being a genius, getting the electricity going in the house they’re squatting in (at least until Bobby goes and taunts the narrative about staying off the grid:

BOBBY: How many big mouths are out there, running card traces, like Chet, or hunting us down God knows what ways? No, now's not the time to be laying our bed rolls out on the grid. Not if we can help it. )\

Poor Ranger Rick, Dean liked that guy.

Meanwhile, Dean really is beginning to see the bigger picture here, knowing now how everything that leads up to the end of s11, God and the Darkness finally reunited, slowly working their way back to the start of everything ever and fixing all the problems ever...

DEAN: That's just great. This is stupid. Our quality of life is crap. We got Purgatory's least wanted everywhere, and we're on our third "The World's Screwed" issue in, what, three years? We've steered the bus away from the cliff twice already. SAM: Someone's got to do it. DEAN: What if the bus wants to go over the cliff? SAM: You think the world wants to end? DEAN: I think that if we didn't take its belt and all its pens away each year that, yeah, the whole enchilada woulda offed itself already. BOBBY: Stop trying to wrestle with the big picture, son. You're gonna hurt your head.

It just takes a few more loops through that cycle before they get to that point and the original narrative begins turning itself inside out in s12.

(pause to admire that they took a sandwich made of a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey and wrapped it up in tin foil shaped like a freaking swan... just throwing one more fake bird into the mix)

The absolute WORST thing here, though, is that Dean FINALLY gets his first reprieve under the effect of the TDK Slammer goo from all that guilt, the betrayal, the loss...

BOBBY: There's something wrong with you, Dean. DEAN: Are you kidding? I'm fine! I -- I actually feel great. The best I've felt in a couple months. Cas? Black goo? I don't even care anymore. And you know what's even better? I don't care that I don't care. I just want my damn slammer back.

All the drinking he’d been doing, all that he’d been trying to shove down what had happened to Cas-- how betrayed he still feels-- the alcohol and other distractions just weren’t enough to make him forget that he was still suffering over all of that. But suddenly it feels entirely unimportant to him under the influence of the TDK Slammer.

SAM: Good. So you don't worry about him? BOBBY: What do you mean? Before the Turducken? SAM: Yeah. Yeah, I kind of mean more like, uh... more like ever since my head broke... and we lost Cas. I mean, you ever feel like he's -- he's going through the same motions but he's not the same Dean, you know? BOBBY: How could he be? SAM: Right, yeah, but what if -- BOBBY: What if what, Sam? You know, you worry about him. All he does is worry about you. Who's left to live their own life here? The two of you -- aren't you full up just playing Snuffleupagus with the Devil all the live long?

And yeah, they finally hit the nail on the head.

But the best thing about s7 is that in the middle of all of this, there’s the inevitable completely unironic lines like “Dick is coming.” And a TV headline that reads “THE RISE OF DICK.”

And heck, they spend all season talking about how invincible, intelligent, and adaptable the Leviathans are, but they never seem to get their own dick joke...

Oh no, okay... let’s watch Dick take yet one more anchor away from the Winchesters...

#spn 7.09 #s12 hellatus rewatch #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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ugh. 7.02. Again, I typed out my thoughts to lizbob as I was trying to do other things, so this is kinda bare-bones. I am so far behind today I’ll never get caught up, so I’m just leaving myself notes on stuff I want to expand on later, time permitting... Needless to say, Damn Ben Edlund.

Bobby tells Dean (after the sure, you're fiiiine talk) that he'll be where he always is-- right here-- if Dean changes his mind and wants to talk about it. And they're both relieved about that.

BOBBY : Yeah, I’m – I’m worried too, but humor me for a second. How are you. DEAN : Who cares? Don’t you think our mailbox is a little full right now? I’m fine. BOBBY: Right. And weren’t you pissed at him when he said the same thing just a couple hours before he spilled his marbles all over the floor? DEAN : Yeah, well. [Pours himself a cup of coffee.] I’m not Sam, okay? I keep my marbles in a lead friggin' box. I’m fine. Really. BOBBY: Of course. Yeah. You just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and Purgatory’s most wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re – you're fine. DEAN : Good. BOBBY: Course, if at any time you want to decide that’s utter horse crap, well I’ll be where I always am. Right here. DEAN : What, you want to do couples’ yoga, or you want to get back to hunting the big bads? BOBBY: Shut up. Idjit.

elizabethrobertajones yeah, season 7 is the woooorst there's that little moment in 7x02 where they seem to have a sort of settled comfy life I hate it more than anything :P like, "last drinks at bobby's"

[I was prepared to go on and on about how this was Bobby and Dean feeling relieved that they still had not only each other to lean on, but also “right here,” i.e. Bobby’s house, a place of relatively safety and calm... and how in a season determined to strip everything good away from Dean it’s such horrible foreshadowing, taunting the narrative]

mittensmorgul Yeah, despite everything Bobby listed off there, he was like, at least it's still you and me, kid. We'll figure it out. D:

mittensmorgul [re: Jody] DOCTOR MONSTERFACE.

elizabethrobertajones this is how you get a spin off

mittensmorgul this, plus 5 more years of this, plus fandom yelling. :P

[...]

mittensmorgul I'm in the middle of two Edlund episodes, this one and 5.10 (answering a message about it) I'm overdosing on Edlund

elizabethrobertajones Ooooh dear

mittensmorgul Dean telling Sam how to tell the difference between reality and hallucination because Dean knows torture. It's actually a really terrifying slant on how much Dean really understands about torture... not just dishing it out or taking it, but understanding the psychology of it

elizabethrobertajones yeah... and how much he doesn't let on normally

mittensmorgul dammit, Dean steps away from Sam at Bobby's burnt out house, and calls Bobby... not worried, but like Bobby assured him he'd always be "right here" if Dean needed him, Dean proves he DOES need him with : "You cannot be in that crater back there. I can’t... If you’re gone, I swear, I am going to strap my Beautiful Mind brother into the car and I’m gonna drive us off the pier. You asked me how I was doing? Well, not good! Now you said you’d be here. Where are you?

That is proof of the assumption earlier, that moment of understanding and comfort in Bobby and Dean’s conversation I quoted above. They’d essentially grounded themselves in what they still had left, a reminder that all was not lost, they still had something (stone one, as Dean later tells Sam when he talks him out of his hallucination with the press to the wound on Sam’s hand). But then it looks as if even “stone one” is gone by the end of the episode.

s7 is just so painful like this...

#actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #spn 7.02 #s12 hellatus rewatch #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...#and that's largely what makes him such a good lie detector... even without adding in the whole torture thing #find the thing mittens #i intend to write something more about Dean and the psychology of torture and how it's tied to his ability to read people #and as a powerfully empathetic person how getting up off the rack and picking up the knife WAS a form of torture #probably the MOST effective form of torture for dean because of this

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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*sighs* I’m watching 2.05, and being smacked in the face by just how much Dabb has pulled from Ben Edlund’s episodes in the major themes of s12.

Right from the cold open, we watch as Dr. Jenkins receives a “call” with specific instructions that somehow overpower his free will. It doesn’t change his personality or beliefs or turn him into some sort of zombie, but he nevertheless carries out a series of actions that lead directly to his death, despite Sam attempting to interfere with his vision of those events and stop them from coming true. But while Sam believes that Dr. Jenkins has been “saved,” and is therefore now SAFE, he receives another call telling him to walk in front of a bus. There was nothing Sam could do to stop the bus...

SAM: I kept him out of the gun store. I thought he was okay. I thought he was past it, at least... I should have stayed with him.

And... that sounds eerily similar-- at least thematically-- to the last 10 minutes or so of 12.23 and what happened with Cas, no?

Cas metaphorically walked out in front of the bus.

Also in 2.05, mentioned here for no particular reason, as they leave the Roadhouse, Dean sings “Can’t Fight This Feeling” to Sam’s eternal horror. :P

Later in the episode, the same thing happens to Dean. HE WILLINGLY HANDS THE KEYS TO BABY OVER TO ANDY WITHOUT QUESTION. JUST BECAUSE HE ASKED FOR THEM. How much meta has been written over the years about Baby as a symbol for the state of Dean’s soul? Yet he offers ZERO resistance to Andy’s request, because Andy had this power to get what he wanted from people.

Dean was lucky that Andy had no intention of KEEPING Baby, he just wanted to take her for a joyride. But in 12.19, Jack seemed to have no compunction about “keeping” Cas for his own purposes, regardless of what Cas may have chosen or wanted for himself.

Mind control, man. He full-on Obi Wan’ed me.

Plus the entire undercurrent about the s2 Special Children arc was Sam’s ongoing fear that he might not always be able to control his powers, that he might really “go darkside.” Through no fault of his own, he was terrified that he’d be manipulated into using his powers for horrible purposes, that maybe just having these powers in the first place would eventually make him evil.

And then it turns out in 2.05 that Andy has an “evil twin” with the same powers to influence people’s minds, but something about who he is as a person-- a very different person to his twin who was content with his life-- meant he had no reservations about using his powers to kill people, to harm people, just for his own twisted ends.

Without going on about the duality, the nature of free will vs succumbing to someone else’s will, and where the line between “choosing” to do something and being pushed into it because all your other options have been taken away really lies.

*Fell On Black Days plays us out into 2.06*

#spn 2.05 #spn 12.19 #spn 12.23 #actual quote i just used elsewhere: damn ben edlund #this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)#seriously i can see dabb's heart eyes for edlund all over s12 #s12 hellatus rewatch #dabb vs cars

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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5.14:

Same, Cas. Same.

Lizbob was laughing at me earlier because I’m in the middle of this seemingly long stretch of episodes that involve Major Fandom Disagreements. And this is one of them. Because of this ^^

Under a cut because JIMINY CHRISTMAS THIS ONE GOT LONG...

(read more excised due to tumblr being shifty)

I will preface this episode review post with this disclaimer: CASTIEL’S LOVE OF CHEESEBURGERS IN THIS EPISODE IS NOT “PROOF” THAT JIMMY’S SOUL WAS STILL IN CASTIEL’S VESSEL AFTER 4.22.

Because everything else about s5 DISPROVES that Jimmy’s soul was still in there. I mean, if you believe that Cas being blown up by Lucifer in 5.22 was what “killed” Jimmy and sent his soul to Heaven, then why wouldn’t Cas being killed IN THE EXACT SAME FASHION by Raphael in 4.22 have done the same? You can’t have it both ways. Either being torn apart on a molecular level by an archangel kills a vessel or it doesn’t. If it does, Jimmy died in 4.22. If it doesn’t, then HE SHOULD STILL BE IN THERE, BUT CAS SAID DEFINITIVELY THAT HE’S BEEN IN HEAVEN FOR YEARS.

Since 4.22.

But, you might say BUT THEN WHY WOULD CAS HAVE BLAMED HIS HUNGER FOR RED MEAT ON HIS VESSEL? NAME CHECKING JIMMY SPECIFICALLY?!

Uh, angels aren’t incapable of lying, or deflecting the truth. And EVERYTHING about Cas’s body language in that scene screams prevarication.

Castiel: It's my vessel -- Jimmy. His, uh, appetite for red meat has been touched by Famine's effect.

Dude’s shifty as FUCK okay? He doesn’t want to admit how “human” he was becoming, cut off from Heaven. He spent all of s5 in a slow slide from grace. He couldn’t heal Bobby in 5.02, he couldn’t hunt Raphael alone in 5.03, he couldn’t smite Meg in 5.10, in 5.13 booping Sam and Dean back in 1978 nearly kills him, in 5.16 he’s reduced to trying to communicate with Dean in heaven via radio and a tv, and after 5.18 he’s rendered utterly human AND BRAIN DEAD FOR A TIME. I mean, he’s forced to use a GUN in 5.21 and a holy oil molitov in 5.22 because he’s just got no juice left. None. BUT IF HE’S NOT AN ANGEL THEN WHAT THE HELL IS HE?! He is terrified, that’s what. And this is his version of Denial.

He can’t even look at Dean when he says it. He’s been staring at Dean wide eyed up to this point, but when Dean questions it, he looks down at the burger, hesitates, and then blames his vessel as he BODILY TURNS AWAY FROM DEAN because he is so far in denial...

Okay, for those who don’t believe that and will only take Word Of God (aka authorial intent) as proof? BEN EDLUND SAID THE SAME DAMN THING:

I.e., THAT WAS ALL CAS. In his very own human body, with his very own human desires and feelings and tastes and vulnerabilities.

Castiel: I've developed a taste for ground beef. Dean: Well, have you even tried to stop it? Castiel: I'm an angel. I can stop anytime I want.

BUT HE VERY CLEARLY COULD NOT STOP. So what does that mean about the rest of his argument there-- that because he was an ANGEL he could stop whenever he wanted.

(insert “he’s no angel” tag here)

Okay, now that we have that all squared away, on with the fun!

*pushes play*

*regrets pushing play while watching a couple literally eat each other to death*

It’s Valentine’s day, and Dean and Sam have no real leads on the case, but Sam expects Dean to go out to celebrate Unattached Drifter Christmas. But Dean’s “not feeling it.”

SAM That's when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong. DEAN Remarkably patronizing concern duly noted. Nothing's wrong. We gonna work or what?

Dean doesn’t acknowledge that anything is wrong, because he feels... fine. I mean, he’s not troubled about anything. He’s not feeling the need to Perform anything.

Like in 12.18 we’ve been talking about how Dean uses sex as a coping mechanism. How he’s used alcohol, fighting, hunting even, not to mention LITERAL medications to self-medicate. Those are his go-to self-soothing things.

So if Famine blows into town and magnifies everyone’s desires, makes them “rabid” for the things they want-- like the cupid’s couple who were so starved for physical affection they tried to consume one another, like the second couple in the office who wanted to be Everything And All to each other without anything ever coming between them and ended up in a suicide pact so nothing would ever come between them again--

(JIM I don't know, baby. Seems like whatever we do, something in life is always gonna keep us apart-- Work, family, sleep .JANICE Now prison, maybe...JIM Maybe. But I think I have an idea...How we can stay together...forever...)

Like Cas giving in to his VERY HUMAN HUNGER for cheeseburgers (I miss you PB&J), and Sam giving in to his lust for demon blood... DEAN WAS NOT UNAFFECTED BY FAMINE.

It’s what Dean was literally starving for-- to be whole, to not NEED any of his coping mechanisms, to be able to drop the performance and just BE himself. Of course Famine would see it this way:

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex. DEAN Oh, you're so full of crap. FAMINE Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me! I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already...dead.

The smirking and joking? That’s Performing Dean. The “empty” bit isn’t Dean being “dead inside,” but the part of Dean that can reject the performance, that doesn’t NEED to be “filled,” because it’s already at peace with itself.

I am sort of skipping around here a bit... back to the morgue. Dean is amused by the coroner dude. So am I. That doesn’t bode well for the dude. The life expectancy of side characters who Dean finds amusing (like the guy Dean likes because he says “okey dokey”) usually drops to around zero.

Ew, Dean.

But the heart is the key, Sam recognizes the Enochian letter on it, so Dean calls Cas.

I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t usually infuse these things with a lot of pics and gifs, but I like this episode. (ง’̀-‘́)ง

I think part of it lies in this significant thing that has also been a theme during s12 (and even during s11):

The DIFFERENCE between Sam’s reaction and Dean’s reaction to Cas.

When Cas asserts that a cupid has gone rogue and they have to stop him before he kills again... I mean, someone please offer me a non-desitel-related explanation for this difference, because I can’t find one anywhere.

(I am not actually soliciting non-destiel readings of this scene. I truly do not care about non-destiel readings of this scene. I’m just being hyperbolic)

But aside from the fact that everyone is in agreement about the cupid’s “handshake” technique

what do we really learn from meeting this particular cupid?

DEAN Why does heaven care if Harry meets Sally? CUPID Oh, mostly they don't. You know, certain bloodlines, certain destinies. Oh, like yours. SAM What? CUPID Yeah, the union of John and Mary Winchester--Very big deal upstairs, top priority arrangement. Mm. DEAN Are you saying that you fixed-up our parents? CUPID Well, not me, but... Yeah. Well, it wasn't easy, either. Ooh, they couldn't stand each other at first. But when we were done with them--Perfect couple. DEAN Perfect? CUPID Yeah. DEAN They're dead! CUPID I'm sorry, but... the orders were very clear. You and Sam needed to be born. Your parents were just, uh...meant to be. (sings) A match made in heaven- heaven! (Dean punches Cupid)

So heaven wanted John and Mary to get together. After 5.13 and what Michael told Dean about his “destiny,” this just adds another horrifying layer to all of that. Because “Destiny” was being rigged by heaven. Angels literally were the “agents of fate,” pulling every cosmic string to get all the pieces to line up exactly to bring on the apocalypse.

HORRIFYING.

John and Mary couldn’t stand each other at first, until the event Dean described in 12.01 about how John and Mary started dating?

Dean: Dad told me. March 23, 1972 you walked out of a movie theater, Slaughterhouse-Five, you loved it. And you bumped into a big marine and knocked him on his ass. You were embarrassed and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So you went to, uh, Maroni's, and you talked and he was cute, and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number you gave it to him even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that you met-

So they couldn’t stand each other BEFORE this intervention by the cupid, who probably shoved the two of them into each other right there...

Like the instant change of heart that came over the two dudes in the bar in 8.23 after the cupid touched them. EVEN DEAN NOTICED THE CHANGE IN THEM.

Okay, back to the show, slightly out of order again, because I keep pausing it to go on mental tangents... I’m not constrained by the time limits of the TNT loop. Hooray for Blu-Rays. :P

*Dean absolutely COVERS his burger in ketchup, just like he does in 12.18, but here in 5.14 he doesn’t have an appetite for it. He’s not trying to “fill the void” inside himself. Instead, Cas takes his burger... like Dean eventually does to Cas’s burger in 10.09... but Cas doesn’t even get a bite before he spots the cupid and chases him down*

*the cupid hugs the crap out of Dean, then Cas, then Sam, then Cas makes him cry, then Dean punches him, and Cas tells Dean he hurt the cupid’s feelings... :P*

*have I mentioned how much I love this episode?*

SAM You just punched a Cupid! DEAN I punched a dick! SAM Um...Are we gonna talk about what's been up with you lately or not? DEAN Or not.

(something finally required Dean “self-medicating”, finally shattered the relative Calm he’d achieved so far this episode, and he lashed out)

*blah blah blah Famine blah blah I already covered the rest of this in the first section of this post...*

Sam doesn’t hunger for the blood itself, but for the power it gives him.

Just like Dean doesn’t hunger for food or sex or alcohol or violence. They’re just tools to help him manage. They are a performance.

I mentioned this in another review recently... maybe even the one for 12.10, but this is the EXACT scene Sam lampshaded for us outside the diner. In 5.14:

DEAN Demons. You want to go over the plan again? Hey, happy meal. The plan? CASTIEL I take the knife, I go in, I cut off the ring hand of Famine, and I meet you back here in the parking lot. DEAN Well, that sounds foolproof. (Castiel disappears) This is taking too long. (Dean gets out of the car)

Dean gave Cas like TEN WHOLE SECONDS before he decided it was taking too long. And he was right to be worried. Cas was completely overcome by Famine.

And in 12.10, after Cas goes into the diner alone, Dean is pacing grumpily for maybe a minute or two before Sam mutters under his breath:

SAM: And you're gonna storm in right... now.

Sam knows.

But Famine here gives Sam and Dean VERY SIMILAR ASSESSMENTS of themselves, yet puts Sam’s situation in a “positive” light and Dean’s in a “negative” light... because he is bound to Lucifer. He’s “fattening Sam up” for Lucifer. He doesn’t care one jot about Dean. What for Dean was a vast void of emptiness that he’d never be able to fill (dead inside!) for Sam is a blessing for the exact same reason. Context matters...

FAMINE Stop! No one lays a finger on this sweet little boy. Sam, I see you got the snack I sent you. SAM You sent? FAMINE Don't worry. You're not like everyone else. You'll never die from drinking too much. You're the exception that proves the rule. Just the way...Satan wanted you to be. So... (Famine lifts his hands and gestures at the demons guarding him)...cut their throats. Have at them!

Sam gets ONE GLORIOUS VICTORY here, but it came at the price of him giving in to his hunger for power:

FAMINE I'm a Horseman, Sam. Your power doesn't work on me. SAM You're right. But it will work on them. (Sam uses his power to rip out all the souls Famine consumed)

So he has to be locked in detox again. At the very end, we finally see a crack in Dean--

CASTIEL That's not him in there. Not really. DEAN I know. CASTIEL Dean, Sam just has to get it out of his system. Then he'll be-- DEAN Listen, I just, uh...I just need to get some air. [Dean goes outside and looks up at the sky] DEAN Please...I can't...I need some help. Please?

Praying to God for help, Dean? When you had an angel by your side a moment ago who was more than willing to help? Right, Famine’s influence is gone. Your Calm Center is gone too. You can’t let yourself feel okay with Cas anymore. Not to mention a part of his “peacefulness” throughout the episode was due to Sam being “okay.” And he’s so not okay right now...

What is Dean’s hunger? Not to be hungry for anything. To have Cas by his side (though maybe not on a burger binge), to have Sam happy and healthy and whole-- and wholly human. To know they’re all working together. To trust them both completely and have them trust him in return.

ETA: Because Heck while rereading this I forgot: It’s been said plenty of times before, but this is also a huge part of why Sam controls everything he eats. BECAUSE HE NEEDS THAT CONTROL. It’s self-medicating the same way Dean’s self-medicating with what HE can control for himself.

I think a lot of both Sam’s performance of “normality” and Dean’s Performing Dean persona are coping mechanisms, and are rooted in the very same need to have any sort of control over their lives.

#spn 5.14 #s12 meta rewatch #are you an angel or a man castiel? (hint: he's no angel)#you learned it from the goats #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #performing dean #castiel winchester #angels and vessels #angels and souls #spn 5.13 #spn 12.01 #spn 12.18 #spn 10.09 #spn 12.10

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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6.15: I’ve probably mentioned a couple of times that I enjoy this episode...

(if y’all were unaware that I enjoy this episode, the fact I’ve written 142k of fic based on the concept probably covers it)

(yes I usually pick a quote from the episode as a title line for these, but HOW DO YOU PICK JUST ONE QUOTE FROM THIS EPISODE?!)

I was lamenting this fact at Lizbob that it feels like there’s so much in this episode, but I could probably transcribe the whole thing from memory. She pointed out like all the biggest meta episodes (5.09, 10.05, this one...) that the overall message of the episode itself is pretty simple, but it’s this journey of Sam and Dean having to work together in a completely bizarre situation (and heck I think that covers 6.17 and 6.18 too, to an extent... it’s gonna be a fun day for me...).

At the end of the day, the entire meta-relevant (for the purposes of this meta series anyway) boils down to the last two lines:

DEAN Yeah. Yeah, real, moldy, termite-eaten home sweet home. Chock full of crap that want to skin you. Oh, and, uh, we're broke again. SAM Yeah. But, hey...At least we're talking.

Throw Cas in with the Winchesters as someone who’s ALSO talking to them (because after the preview for 12.19, we know he’s on THEIR side this time around, and hopefully won’t be going radio silent on them and secretly working against them... he is officially a Winchester now), and I think this is essentially where they’ll be after ditching the BMoL...

I will confess that I’ve always thought the “performance” Sam and Dean had to put on to survive in this alternate universe was set up specifically by Balthazar before he booped them there. Let me explain.

Balthazar shows up at Bobby’s while Bobby’s stepped out in the middle of a storm for a liquor run. Balthazar narrates every step of the spell under his breath as he tosses Bobby’s kitchen and office, almost immediately finding all the ingredients he needs for the spell (which Dean of course remembers in detail, because of course he does). Which gives Sam and Dean a “project” to work together on while they’re trapped in the actors’ world. Because if they hadn’t had that goal, that need to work together to theoretically try and get themselves BACK to their own universe, would they have stuck together?

Would Sam have been dragged off to the Otter Benefit Gala thingy while Dean was dropped off at Jensen’s house to frantically pray to Cas, with no clue as to how they were sent there or whether it was something they might be able to duplicate to get themselves home?

Because the real point of the episode wasn’t JUST for them to provide a distraction to Raphael and his forces, but THEY also needed to be distracted from what Balthazar and Castiel were doing with the weapons...

Balthazar needed to get all three of that crap, basically.

I love it, the first place that Virgil finds them is the sewer set from 6.12, where Sam and Dean fought the dragons (and one of them escaped to “unlock purgatory” and let out Even, just like Virgil escaped with the key).

This entire EPISODE is filled with self-referential in jokes, like one long series of Easter eggs for the nerds who pay attention to the details. Like, surface level it’s just pure hilarity, but underneath but almost everything is a meta point.

Even Misha crying in an alley while Virgil monologues at him-- and kills him...

HOMELESS MAN Yeah, yeah, Raphael. Like the ninja turtle. He was calling someone name of Raphael, up in heaven. Yeah, yeah. That's right. The – the scary man killed the attractive crying man, and then he started to pray. And the strange part – After a while, I s-swear I heard this voice, answering.

Plus we learn that Virgil was the Weapons Keeper of Heaven. It’s his job to keep the weapons. He probably took it REALLY personally when Balthazar stole a bunch of them and went on the run. And he probably took it even WORSE when Balthazar offered them all to Cas. All Raphael had to do was point Virgil at Balthazar like an attack dog (similar to how Anna pointed Uriel at Sam and Dean back in 1978 in 5.13) and let him take care of business for him. But of course this world Balthazar sent them to had no magic, and therefore Virgil had no powers there...

(Okay can I tell you how much I adore “Serge Ladouceur” just casually leaning out of the way when Virgil opens fire in the studio? He doesn’t even blink, just *yoink* leans backward while his coworkers are dropping like flies? Okay.)

And then Balthazar shows up to reveal the entire trick to Raphael when Sam and Dean are pulled back to this world...

And then Cas shows up to threaten Raphael properly (and Sam gets to see Cas’s wing shadows for the first-- and I think only-- time, but again we only see Dean’s reaction to this.)

Cas returns them to Bobby’s house and just ~flaps off~ AGAIN, with zero explanation of what’s going on, nothing but an eyes-cast-down apology, and an “I’ll explain when I can.”

Because 6.15 was a smaller trick wrapped up in the season-long trick that only comes completely to light in 6.20, where it promptly crushes all of us.

Like s6, we haven’t seen the full trick of s12 yet...

(I honestly could talk about this episode ALL FREAKING DAY, but heck the TNT loop is a cruel mistress.)

#spn 6.15 #s12 meta rewatch #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #dean is a genius and if you disagree you can fight me #we don't talk about season six #winchester family dynamics #revenge of the subtext #tagging it with my s12 subtext tag because it's also the tag for my fic of the same name based on this episode...

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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You Learned It From The Goats

Yes I’m writing meta on one of my own tags. you learned it from the goats

I blame Ben Edlund.

Before I started using this tag: are you an angel or a man castiel? (hint: he's no angel), that was my Cas vs Humanity tag, especially as it relates to Cas’s relationship with coffee, and his symbolic association with coffee (and coffee shops) in the show. And it all dates back to 8.21 and possibly my favorite thing that Cas has EVER done in the entire series.

(and honestly I think I’m going back to the old tag because goats are adorable)

And we’ve already discussed how EVERYTHING about the BS Cafe was somehow or other Cas coded in 12.18, but how did I ever forget the goats... in an episode with a half goat half man hybrid monster.

And yes, it didn’t actually turn out to be a satyr (who stirred up lust in his victims and inspired orgies in the woods, a la the Chitters in 11.19), but was actually Moloch who demanded blood sacrifices which were covered up by the false legend about Black Bill the goat-headed man in the woods. It was actually just a man wearing a fake goat head bringing sacrifices to a god with a goat head.

They learned THIS from the goat-god. This blood drinking.

In an episode where Dean only drank coffee that first night in the diner, and then prefaced his entire flirtation with Carmen by comparing her to the “hot coffee.”

And then by satisfying every desire he described in 5.14 when Cas asked him about the things he craved.

CASTIEL Yes. Absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seems to be starving for something--Sex, attention, drugs, love... DEAN Well, that explains the puppy-lovers that Cupid shot up. CASTIEL Right. The cherub made them crave love, and then Famine came, and made them rabid for it.

Like Darren the Jon Snow character, and his friend Jared, who were denied these things or had unhealthy relationships with them...

But Dean?

(Castiel appears with another hamburger) DEAN Are you serious? CASTIEL These make me...very happy. DEAN How many is that? CASTIEL I lost count. It's in the low hundreds. What I don't understand is...where is your hunger, Dean? DEAN Huh? CASTIEL Well, slowly but surely, everyone in this town is falling prey to Famine, but so far, you seem unaffected. DEAN Hey, when I want to drink, I drink. When I want sex, I go get it. Same goes for a sandwich or a fight. CASTIEL So...you're saying you're just well-adjusted? DEAN God, no. I'm just well-fed.

And that’s what Dean’s trying to do in that ENTIRE diner scene. Because according to 12.05:

Sam: Dean its called sublimation. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, it's kinda my thing.

Also, burgers are equally associated to Cas and humanity, in that moment in 4.22 where he decides to defy heaven and help Dean just as Dean’s about to give in and bite into the burger Zachariah offered to pacify and entice Dean with (DECEPTION BURGER! SERVED WITH A BUCKET FULL OF EL SOL BEER!), and Cas shows up to free him.

El Sol might not’ve been present in that diner, but Carmen was-- and Carmen was the original El Sol girl from 2.20.

Oddly enough, the only beer sign in the diner was for a REAL WORLD BREWERY, and not one of the standard SPN universe brands-- 3 Sheeps. At least they weren’t goats as well... And even THIS is a meta-worthy thing, because of the real history of that company as a fourth-generation interest in brewing, whose operating philosophy on their About page is We have a strong aversion to doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Dean: Next time you hear me say our family is messed up, remind me that we could be psycho goat people.

Heh.

#you learned it from the goats #spn s12 spoilers #spn 12.18 #castiel winchester #spn 8.21 #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #spn 12.05 #spn 5.14 #oh DEAN #performing dean #literally this was performing dean performing and sublimating and performing some more #el sol #spn 2.20 #supernatural beer signs #3 sheeps #seriously i got distracted seeing the real-world parallels there...#revenge of the subtext #silent storytelling #this is a jerry wanek appreciation blog

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