#seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

Lying’s a sin

That line in 13.15 was humorous, but it reminded me of another time a similar line was used in a different way. There were several other callbacks to important lines from 4.01, with the discussion of doing “good things,” reminding us that “Good things do happen, Dean.” But earlier in the episode, when Sam and Dean were still trying to figure out who pulled Dean out of Hell, they have an interesting and I’m sure not at all coincidental run-in with some demons who are looking for some answers of their own:

DEMON WAITRESS: So you get to just stroll out of the pit, huh? Tell me. What makes you so special? DEAN: I like to think it's because of my perky nipples. I don't know. Wasn't my doing, I don't know who pulled me out. DEMON WAITRESS: Right. You don't. DEAN: No. I don't. DEMON WAITRESS: Lying's a sin, you know. DEAN: I'm not lying. But I'd like to find out, so if you wouldn't mind enlightening me, Flo... DEMON WAITRESS: Mind your tone with me, boy. I'll drag you back to hell myself.

But Dean sees the truth, that she’s scared and confused about how he escaped Hell that she’d invested herself in the belief that Dean MUST know, and had put him into a position where she had the upper hand.

The entire scene reads as similar to the scene in 13.15 in the mafia boss Scarpatti’s living room... the setup was slightly different, but in both cases Dean read the situation right, and reacted in almost exactly the same way.

In 4.01, Sam had been in town (before he knew Dean was alive, with Ruby) looking for demons that might have information on Lilith. Since his plan to bargain for Dean’s resurrection had failed, he was left with what he believed was his only recourse: seeking out Lilith directly (to bargain for Dean, or even just for revenge). In 13.15, Sam and Dean had been in town looking for St. Peter’s skull, so they could use it to bargain for what they thought they needed-- the blood of St. Ignatius.

In 4.01, Sam and Dean wandered into that diner to eat, to discuss what they’d learned from Pamela about Castiel, the mysterious entity which had pulled Dean out of Hell (which was admittedly not much, since they still weren’t sure he was’t a demon himself). In 13.05, they wandered out of the hotel while they discussed what little information they had about who had stolen the skull from the guy who’d stolen it from the convent.

In 4.01, Sam and Dean are “ambushed” in a sense by the demons, who were running the diner they happened to be in. In 13.15, Sam and Dean are “ambushed” by the mobsters in the alley outside the hotel they happened to be in.

In 4.01, the demons believed Sam and Dean had more information for them, that Dean was complicit (or at least knowledgeable) in his resurrection. In 13.15, the mobsters believed Sam and Dean were involved in the murder of their thief and the “theft” of the skull from the hotel.

In 4.01, Dean rolls a natural 20 for Intimidate, not because he had some secret knowledge, but because he is just that good at reading people and knowing how to react. He presses this act until he and Sam have gained enough of an advantage that they’re allowed to leave the diner. His bluff:

DEMON WAITRESS: Mind your tone with me, boy. I'll drag you back to hell myself. [SAM, who has been staring daggers at her through this exchange, shifts as if to attack. DEAN holds a hand up and SAM stops, settles back into his seat.] DEAN: No, you won't. DEMON WAITRESS: No? DEAN: No. Because if you were you would have done it already. Fact is, you don't know who cut me loose. And you're just as spooked as we are. And you're looking for answers. Well, maybe it was some turbo-charged spirit. Or, uh, Godzilla. Or some big bad boss demon. I'm guessing at your pay grade that they don't tell you squat. Because whoever it was, they want me out. And they're a lot stronger than you. So go ahead. Send me back. But don't come crawling to me when they show up on your front doorstep with some Vaseline and a fire hose.

Sam had been “killing a lot more demons than that” since Dean’s death, and his first instinct was to attack and kill those demons. Or maybe use his “freaky ESP stuff” that he’d already lied to Dean about earlier in the episode. So Dean wasn’t lying here, but there’s this weird undercurrent that Sam... is... to an extent. Because he was working with Ruby, he did have information he wasn’t sharing with Dean, but he also believed he may have been doing the wrong thing but he’d convinced himself it was for the right reasons. Sam sincerely believed that his mission to kill Lilith was inherently “good.”

In 13.15, Dean again rolls a natural 20 for Intimidate, not because he had some secret knowledge, but because he is just that good at reading people and knowing how to react. Scarpatti thinks he’s got Sam and Dean pinned down. He apparently googled them and learned they were declared dead six years earlier (assuming after 7.06 here). He used that fact to attempt to intimidate them into answering his questions and working for him instead of Greenstreet. Throughout the exchange, Sam seems visibly intimidated (or at least flustered), but Dean keeps pressing the “my veins are filled with liquid nitrogen” cold, unshakable facade. He keeps it up until he and Sam have gained enough of an advantage that they’re allowed to leave Scarpatti’s home.

One more interesting thing to point out is that Sam couldn’t believe Dean’s attitude he copped with Scarpatti, pushing the envelope repeatedly with the mobsters who they knew had a reputation for murder. But Dean with his “mobster talk” was already thinking past that situation. Instincts... like the same instincts that prompted him to return to the hotel room because he just KNEW the key to unraveling the whole mystery was still in that room. Sam mocked him TWICE about his “feeling.” And yet, Dean had been right.

(Unfortunately Sam had to get brained with a telephone before the message sunk in, but...)

So there you go, a bit more of the 4.01 in 13.15.

#spn s13 spoilers #spn 13.15 #spn 4.01 #lies and damn lies #using your words #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

Wow... remember the s12 Hellatus Meta Wank-A-Thon? Remember how toxic and awful it was? If you’re not in the mood to relive it, you probably don’t want to click the read more.

Or: the one where Mittens picked on an innocent crack post because I was sick of reading Dean Character Assassination.

AKA: That one where Mittens goes spare defending actual meta from wanky crack that completely misrepresented Dean Winchester.

i.e. That one where Mittens explains the difference between Dean’s instincts and the quality of information those instincts supply him with, and the fact that Dean’s instincts really are never wrong per se but also don’t imbue him with the power of Omniscience.

also, read at your own risk... there’s a reason this is under a cut. However if you’re an unapologetic Dean girl you’ll probably enjoy it.

From this post (which I do understand as crack, due to the fact it pulls random scenarios entirely out of context to support a headcanon that contradicts pretty much every bit of meta I’ve ever read... including this post and the attendant photo/gif set that also went around recently, which I can’t seem to find on my blog but essentially proves the opposite of this-- and honestly y’all can’t have it both ways just because the opposite interpretation is convenient):

Dean: Cas would never say 'no' to me, it's not Cas. Trust me, I'm the Cas expert Sam: Hold on Dean: What? Get the Holy Fire! Sam: *Pulls out list, puts on reading glasses, begins reading from list* Won't acknowledge Castiel gone dark side, when he was working with Crowley. Although all the signs were there. Made up false memories from purgatory because you couldn't accept Cas choosing to leave you Dean: Shut uppp Sam: Didn't realise Cas was possessed by Lucifer

Because yes, Dean IS the Cas expert, even when he doesn’t understand the fact.

Let’s go point by point:

1. in 6.20 Dean refused to accept that Cas had gone “dark side” until he had evidence to prove that Cas could do something so horrifying. Just the same as Dean has spent basically the entire series giving SAM the benefit of the doubt. Dean is not quite so eager to condemn his loved ones without undeniable proof that they’ve betrayed him, you know? Let’s look at 2.05 for evidence of this, because that example also conveniently includes a form of mind control:

Andy: Tell the truth! Sam: That's what I'm - Dean: We hunt demons. Andy: What? Sam: Dean! Dean: Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn't even touch. Sam here, he's my brother... Sam: Dean, shut up! Dean: I'm trying. He's psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you're a murderer, and he's afraid that he's going to become one himself, 'cause you're all part of something that's terrible. And, I hope to hell that he's wrong, but I'm starting to get a little scared that he might be right.

Or perhaps we should look at Dean’s low-level suspicions of Sam’s “demon powers” in s4, carefully noting that he refused to prematurely make accusations against Sam until he had evidence to base his ~gut instinct feelings~ on.

Despite months of suspicions, despite NUMEROUS attempts at practically BEGGING Cas to let him help, to at least listen to what Cas was involved with, Sam and Dean spent most of s6 entirely in the dark. It’s not that they didn’t CARE about Cas, it’s that Cas REFUSED TO INVOLVE THEM. From 6.03:

CASTIEL: I can explain later. Right now we have to -- DEAN: No, not later. Now. Stop, all right? Too many angels, Cas! I don't know who's on first, what's on second. CASTIEL: What is "second"?! DEAN: Don't start that. CASTIEL: It is simple: Raphael and his followers, they want him to rule Heaven. I -- and many others -- the last thing we want is to let him take over. It would be catastrophic.

and 

DEAN: Why does Raphael want to bring back all this crap? CASTIEL: He's a traditionalist. DEAN: Cas, why didn't you tell us this? CASTIEL: I was ashamed. I expected more from my brothers. I'm sorry. Now I need your blood.

At this point Dean has been out of the loop on EVERYTHING for near on a year, and Sam is currently soulless (but we don’t know that yet, aside from the fact that Dean is side-eyeing Sam and having uneasy and wary ~feelings~ that something is not quite right with Sam). Dean’s playing a game of Cosmic Catch-Up set to the highest difficulty level. He’s not about to go flinging around accusations that he can’t back up with evidence. His ~gut feeling~ isn’t enough to condemn his loved ones. They’ve earned better from him than that.

Even Death warning Dean in 6.11 about Cas, and the dangerous road he was traveling down regarding “the souls” (despite it being so vague as to be entirely unhelpful to Dean, other than to give some credit to that gut feeling of ~wrongness~ about Cas’s behavior, without giving him any direct evidence to bring to Cas and confront him in a way that Cas can’t wriggle out of yet again).

Like the end of 6.15:

SAM Cas, what the hell? Wait, wait, you were in on this, using us a diversion? CASTIEL It was Balthazar's plan. I would have done the same thing. DEAN That's not comforting, Cas. CASTIEL When will I be able to make you understand? If I lose against Raphael, we all lose. Everything. DEAN Yeah, Cas. We know the stakes. That's about all you've told us! CASTIEL I'm sorry about all this. I'll explain when I can.

As we learn in 6.20, we understand that even in 6.15, or in 6.17, or 6.18, or 6.19-- all episodes where Cas had an opportunity to come clean to Dean and Sam and yet CONTINUED to hide the truth from them, not because he was short on time but because he knew what he was doing was morally wrong and that he would lose their support, yet he was far too deep in his web of lies (can you see why this “reimagining” of canon is infuriating yet? And how horrifyingly painful s6 is when you look at it honestly as the narrative presents these cold facts?)--

CASTIEL I had no choice. I did it to protect the boys. Or to protect myself. I-I don't know anymore.

or

SAM Castiel...This is really important, okay? Um...We really need to talk to you. DEAN Castiel...Come on in. CASTIEL But I didn't go to them...Because I knew they would have questions I couldn't answer...Because I was afraid.

or

CASTIEL Wonders never cease. They trusted me again. But it was just another lie.

Or the fact that Cas asked God for a sign, to let him know he was doing the right thing... and despite it really being too little too late, God sent him the sign. Dean literally told him to stop. That was the sign. Cas plowed right over it anyway.

And it is clear REPEATEDLY throughout s6 that Dean KNOWS there’s really important stuff that Cas has not told him, but again... he still TRUSTS Cas to be honest with him. That trust doesn’t break until 6.20, and it breaks so horribly that he doesn’t even know who or what to trust in again. That’s essentially his entire s7 arc, after all. Cas’s betrayal practically destroys him.

But sure, he refused to accept Cas’s betrayal without actual evidence in 6.20 because he’s an idiot with bad instincts.

On to point the second: Dean creating a false memory of his escape from Purgatory because he couldn’t bear the thought that Cas wouldn’t want to leave with him.

When he first arrived back, one of the first things Dean tells Sam in 8.01 is this:

SAM: What about Cas? Was he there? DEAN walks a few steps away and speaks with his back to SAM. DEAN: Yeah, Cas didn't make it. SAM: What exactly does that mean? DEAN: Something happened to him down there. Things got pretty hairy towards the end, and he... just let go. SAM: So Cas is dead? You saw him die? DEAN: I saw enough. SAM: So, then what, you're not sure? DEAN: [turning back to SAM] I said I saw enough, Sam. SAM: Right. Dean, I'm sorry.

This is the first and last time he admits out loud in words that Cas LET GO. That it wasn’t HIS fault that Cas didn’t make it out. He does honestly admit it here, when the wound is so painfully raw. And when Sam presses him for details, for clarification, he shuts that conversation down, but the wound’s been poked at now.

Yet life goes on, and Dean’s back in it but Cas isn’t. The reality of that takes a bit to settle in for him, the fact that Cas DID let go, and the only explanation he can think of for WHY he’d do that was because Dean himself wasn’t worth holding on to. And dear me, without being able to ASK Cas about it, all the while spiraling into a horrible guilt and depression, grieving the loss of the best friend he ever had yet again, Dean began to turn that memory into something that wouldn’t drive him straight to the bottom of a bottle. He knew the truth of it, just as well as he was suspicious of Cas from the MOMENT he arrived back from Purgatory, but for Dean Whiskey-And-Denial Winchester the only way to keep going is to shove all that down.

Nobody said that was a healthy response to horrifying loss, tragedy, and grief, but it was all Dean had back then.

So no, that’s not a valid point either.

On to point the third: “Didn’t notice Cas was possessed by Lucifer”

Except what basis did he have to believe that was even a remote possibility? As far as EVERYONE knew at first, Rowena’s spell sending Lucifer back to the cage had been a success. Sure, Cas didn’t return to the bunker like he told Dean he would at the end of 11.10, but Dean knows how this goes. In his mind, Cas has better things to do than hang out with him and Sam (because Dean’s self-deprecation is one of the longest running themes in the whole series), and at the beginning of 11.11, only a day or two post 11.10, we have this as proof:

SAM: And what about the Darkness? What about Cas? We haven't heard from them. DEAN: Okay, first of all, we've got zero on Amara. And Cas -- Cas will be fine. He always is.

What was he about to say there? In that stuttering blank? “Cas does what he wants, why would he suddenly think I’m more important than whatever he wants to do?”

But right from the start, he’s wary of Cas and his sudden appearance at the bunker. Go rewatch all of his exchanges with Cas(ifer) in 11.11. He has no reason to suspect that Cas had said yes to Lucifer and currently WAS NOT CAS, but he’s confused by Cas’s unusual behavior. I think we spent that entire week between episodes screaming about Dean’s discomfort and confusion and WRONG SHOULDER OMG, Everything about that scene is jarring and uncomfortable and awkward... But again, Dean doesn’t lob unfounded gut-instinct accusations at his loved ones. He gives them the benefit of the doubt until his suspicions are confirmed.

Not to mention the fact that Dean is only just then beginning to come to grips with the fact that Amara is exerting some sort of control over HIM, and he doesn’t really know how to deal with HIS OWN MANIPULATED FEELINGS.

(seriously, do ALL of these references actually mirror directly to possession and mind control? Hmmm, I’m sure that’s entirely coincidental...)

That doesn’t mean he’s NOT suspicious when his SOMETHING’S WRONG alarm bells are going off... from the end of 11.11:

SAM: Is Cas gone? DEAN: Yeah, I guess so. SAM: What was he doing here anyway? DEAN: He was looking for lore on the Darkness. Something a little off about him, too. SAM: Something always seems a little bit off about Cas. [Scoffs] Yeah, you know, being so close to Lucifer probably wasn't easy for him, either. DEAN: We'll just keep an eye on him.

The VERY NEXT TIME they interact with Cas(ifer) in 11.14 the entire truth comes out. And they are shocked and horrified by it.

The exact same way they’re ALL shocked and horrified to learn that Lucifer is still at liberty in 12.22, and Cas is equally shocked and horrified to learn that fact in 12.23. Dean had no reason to even believe it was a possibility in s11 until his uneasy feelings about Cas’s odd behavior were revealed to be Lucifer possessing Cas.

Doesn’t mean he didn’t see the odd behavior and react accordingly.

Okay. THIS is meta. The other is crack. That’s the difference.

#oh DEAN #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #MMMoRDOR #mittens wanky drafts dump

[mittensmorgul]

4.02: Are you there God? It’s me, Dean Winchester.

The Impala pulls up to a stop. SAM is driving while on the phone. SAM: Yes, Dean, I'll get the chips. (pause) Dude. When have I ever forgotten the pie? (pause) Exactly. SAM gets out of the car and sees RUBY waiting.

Long story short, Sam gets caught up talking with Ruby about angels and why she can’t stick around if angels are getting involved, and Sam tells her he’s not scared of angels... >.>

But the upshot of all of that is... Sam forgets the pie.

The last time Sam had gone to fetch food when Dean had asked for pie specifically was in 2.21. Sam was snatched right out of the diner (and obviously was unable to get pie whether he would’ve remembered it or not). Everyone in the diner was killed horribly (by demons that time), just as they were in the diner in 4.01 (this time the DEMONS were killed, presumably by Cas). But in 2.21 Sam was resisting using his “demon powers” out of fear of becoming evil, but now we see him freely using those same powers because he’s been convinced that he was somehow taking an inherently evil thing and using it for good. On top of that, he was flat-out lying to Dean about ALL of it.

(this is the sort of logic that works on people who’ve been manipulated-- or should we say “brainwashed” because that’s the word of the year, even if it’s not “truly brainwashing,” it’s undeniable that Sam’s been influenced by Ruby and that he truly believes he’s doing the right thing... despite the fact that we KNOW he’s been manipulated and influenced both through physical addiction to demon blood and emotional and mental conditioning, and this will all eventually lead to him releasing Lucifer and beginning the apocalypse. I mean... this is how the show utilizes brainwashing... I don’t think anyone can say that Sam was operating entirely independently and making objectively grounded choices here, but this is a meta for another post... >.>)

The whole point here is pie. Because of course it is.

In 13.08, Bart the Crossroads Demon tries to soften Dean up with a slice of cherry pie, at the same time he tries to soften Sam up by calling him “the smart one.”

(and recall in 4.01, another diner scene where Dean orders his own pie that’s delivered by a demon, which he never gets to eat, because back then Dean was thoroughly behind the eight ball. He had yet to learn that he’d been rescued by angels, and that he and Sam were a part of a much larger “destiny,” and that the apocalypse was about to chew them up and try to spit them out... and he never got to eat that pie... Things Have Changed for Dean in the intervening nine years...)

So Bart orders Dean this lovely cherry pie, maybe expecting Dean to just mindlessly gobble it down. But Dean waits. He ignores the pie, waiting for Bart to play his cards and make his pitch, because Dean’s soooo not behind the eight ball anymore. Now he’s got the veritable King of the Crossroads (and a poor imitation of the old one, at that) calling HIM up to make deals, thinking he can somehow keep the upper hand over the Winchesters when the moment he made that call asking for their help he’d already irrevocably lost it.

So yeah, of course Dean eats the pie, because he’s already cut the metaphorical strings attached to it.

#spn 13.08 #spn 4.01 #spn 4.02 #spn 2.21 #dean vs pie vs cake #s12 pie masterpost #the special agony of brainwashing #THEEEEEEMES! #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #s13 meta rewatch

[mittensmorgul]

Do you know of any instances in canon history where Dean's intuition has turned out to be wrong in a major way? Because it seems like we're going to start to see some answers to the "he was brainwashed" question since Jack flapped off and Dean still doesn't trust him.

Hrrrrm. This is a really difficult question, because like the Winchester Hunting Mindset, it’s not this black and white.

Like obviously of course he has and hasn’t, but extenuating circumstances. Context matters. Shades of grey, etc. etc.

Even all during s6 he fought against what his intuition was telling him about Cas, because he so wanted to believe in Cas. I mean, that’s a huge part of why he couldn’t forgive himself, or get over what Cas had done even by 7.17. He blamed himself for not pushing harder for answers, or maybe even for taking that whole year off with Lisa and trying to play normal

But aside from emotional overriding of what he’s got that bad feeling about, I can’t think of a single instance of his intuition being flat-out wrong.

Even in smaller ways, he’s typically right about the case stuff and Sam’s the doubter, but you specifically asked for if he’s been wrong in “a major way,” so I’m going to try and focus on The Big Issues. But again, the only instance I can think of right off the top of my head where he was stubbornly and blatantly wrong about a case was in 12.04– when he was absolutely convinced it was the social services lady who was a witch. Again, waves hello at Davy Perez, for absolutely nailing Dean’s immediate personal trauma and underscoring so many of his personal issues involving Mary’s fresh abandonment, his lifetime of likely run-ins with Family Services and well-meaning social workers, his parentification of Sam, his problematic relationship with John and the responsibility to hide the truth about their lives and protect Sam at all costs… which played right into the case they were working and colored his personal reactions. But again, extenuating circumstances…

Because of his personal issues with Mary and abandonment and the fact the social worker was openly admittedly a witch. Dean also got a very different impression of the family than Sam did (literally, he only had half the information to make his judgment on). He saw the father and son, the “happy families” side of the story where everything was presented to be done by their own choice, for positive family-bonding reasons in the wake of a personal tragedy. Meanwhile, Sam was in the house getting the skeevy third-person retelling of a first-person story by the mother, making it clear to us, who saw both sides of the story, that something was Definitely Fishy in that house. Meanwhile, all Dean could see after that encounter was that Sam had a bizarrely antagonistic reaction to a conversation he could only assume was nearly identical to the one he’d had outside.

This stark division, the reminder that they’d both had an entirely different experience in their respective interviews and thus come away with entirely different theories about the case, is highlighted as soon as they leave. Rather than sharing the reasons for their vastly different impressions and trying to figure out WHY they were given two entirely different impressions of this family, they each stubbornly stick to their guns. That was the entire POINT of this episode, on a meta level. And this lack of communication and understanding of the other’s entirely different experience and viewpoint and insight, Sam’s entirely unprepared for the entire family to be “in on the secret” and Dean’s bowled over to discover the social worker was nothing like she’d appeared to be on the surface.

And as soon as he saw the other side of the story, he instantly figured it out

So that’s the one glaring exception to Dean’s instinct, and it essentially works as an “exception that proves the rule,” because of the meta nature of the reasons he was “wrong” about the social worker.

That brings me to Dean’s role in the overarching narrative of the entire series. He’s the emotional POV for the audience. We’re supposed to ride along with him and even when he’s wrong he’s right. I know this bothers some people, and for some this is a major reason that they just don’t like Dean as a character. But most of the time, he’s the barometer for how the audience is supposed to react and feel and interpret the entire narrative.

We know Dean lies professionally, and is therefore an unreliable narrator, but we’re also given to understand that we’re still supposed to be “on his side” because he’s our emotional POV.

Whether he’s 100% right about Jack puppeting Cas or not doesn’t matter to me, so much as Dean’s reading of it being presented as the correct reading. Whether Jack meant to or not or whatever… (and we have ample evidence that most of what happens with his power is not something he does consciously, but that doesn’t mean he’s not subconsciously doing this stuff anyway), Dean’s read was the presented “main” reading and the events seemed to match it.

But I would argue Dean’s less right than 100%, but not more than 50% wrong. (the 50% being powers vs Jack himself doing it, i.e. the bit he’s partly “wrong” about is his assumption of any sort of intent on Jack’s behalf) and there will be a REASON he is wrong if he is which would necessarily justify his reading.

The fact that DEAN believed in the sock-puppeting, and the fact that JACK believes that it was a possibility, is what’s led directly to Jack’s current dilemma

Now that Cas is back, and he and Dean can finally (as he said in 12.23) “work through our crap,” theoretically he’ll be able to talk with Cas about all of that and try to understand Cas’s motives between 12.19 and 12.23. Unfortunately, Cas is also not objectively placed to talk about it, since it happened TO him and his emotional attachment to Jack /now/ is again a separate thing.

I fully believe he would have formed those same bonds with Kelly and unborn Jack in BETTER circumstances. Even if he’d gone back to the bunker with Sam and Dean as he’d already consented to do before the events at the sandbox. Arguably, it would’ve been a much safer and secure place for Jack to have been born, and for Dean and Sam to have come to understand the larger circumstances at play here.

As it is, Jack or his powers just made it happen for sure. Because of Dean’s stated concern that Cas wasn’t under his own control there, it renders anything Cas would have to say about it moot, because we can’t trust his objectivity. Because of Dean’s stated pov opinion on it.

Cas’s innate goodness and kindness vs his issues with protecting people/being a guardian angel/wanting a win all would lead him to care for Jack, and to feel responsible for caring for Jack, even if Jack’s powers hadn’t become a mitigating factor. I mean that’s why Kelly “picked him” to be Jack’s guardian in the first place. She (or Jack’s power) could plainly see Cas’s “goodness” in direct contrast to Dagon’s “badness.” He was even wavering about his orders to kill Kelly and Jack a few times IN 12x19, but he got pushed over the edge hard. This was not a gentle nudge or a moment of genuine character realization.

In the span of one glowy-golden-eyed sock puppeting (and that part is NOT up for debate, Jack’s power literally took Cas’s hand and used him to destroy Dagon), he went from “Jack must die and go to heaven before he’s born” to “Jack must be born with all his power at all costs” with no logic in between. We didn’t see his process on screen, and "he’s powerful enough to make me zap a knight of hell" is not good enough reasoning.

This was arguably the first instance of Jack’s power trying to do something good (killing Dagon) while having drastically unanticipated consequences (Joshua’s death, Dean being injured, the Colt being destroyed, and Cas abandoning his stated mission to take Kelly to Heaven so that Jack could be born with all his power). His power had already resurrected Kelly and thereby saved Jack, and that had caused cosmic alarm bells to ring in Heaven, providing the homing beacon Kelvin used to locate Kelly in the first place.

If anything it should be more concerning that he has that much power before he’s ever born. That firmly demonstrated his self-defensive instinct that we’ve seen trigger his power repeatedly since he’s been born.

After his power ~does the thing~ he doesn’t even seem to understand that he’d done anything. Like waking Cas up in the empty. Or the fact that his power resurrected Kelly when she’d killed herself, and yet he has no concept that he probably could’ve resurrected the guard he’d accidentally killed in 13.06 in the same way. Jack still is in a stage where he has to WANT to do things and I think understanding the guard is dead was too final to realize he COULD bring him back.

He seems to just ~do stuff~ with his power, not realizing it, and then later once he realizes he CAN, he attempts to do it deliberately– like the whole “throw people around” thing he seems to have perfected so he can do it without killing the rest of TFW at the end of the episode. I mean, the previous time he’d pulled that trick led to the circumstances he was terrified would happen ~without him intending harm~ but being unable to stop it from happening anyway. And yet he still did the Force Throw thing.

Then again, his INTENT when he was throwing that power at Dave the Ghoul was to kill/maim/injure… but he clearly has a lower setting on it and wasn’t afraid to use it on Sam, Dean, and Cas before flapping off, immediately after stating his reasoning for leaving being his desire NOT to hurt them…

He’s so highly conflicted about his OWN relationship with his powers that HE HIMSELF thinks of them as a tool and not inherently a part of himself. Right now his powers are literally acting like the man behind the curtain, and everything Dean’s witnessed with his own eyes has confirmed his initial impression that Jack’s powers are Not Trustworthy.

Over the course of the first six episodes of the season, Dean’s gotten to know Jack //the human person// outside of his powers, and seen what he was struggling with, his self-loathing and self-doubt and fear and confusion, and knowing that Jack’s powers may have set up the circumstances that led to Cas dying but also led directly to Cas coming back… well, that proved Jack’s intent was good, but still doesn’t clear up the whole “my power does what it wants and damn the consequences” issue that brought them to this point in the first place.

It’s rather a moot point if it ever really had been true or not before 13.04, but Dean’s BELIEF that it was true influenced Jack’s belief about whether or not it was true, which led directly to Jack “calling out” for Cas in the Empty… sort of proving the mechanism by which his power acts without his conscious control, and extends a TERRIFYING amount of influence into realms were even God has no power to act. And he does it all without it even registering to him. So in that respect, yeah, Dean’s 100% right.

He’s right because that’s the function of his POV within the narrative itself. And again, I know that has the potential to piss people off, and it’s kind of a hard fact to swallow sometimes, but unless the narrative explicitly proves Dean’s intuition wrong, we’re supposed to trust Dean’s assertions. And so far I’ve seen nothing to contradict this one.

#spn 13.06 #spn 12.19 #Anonymous #jack nougat winchester #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #the special agony of brainwashing #feeling a wee bit rightfully terrified of the Incredible Nougat Power #dean is the center of the universe

[mittensmorgul]

Hi, Mittens, Can we talk about how Dean managed to recognize Ketch on a moving small screen? I mean Sam had to froze it, zoom it and then paused for a moment before recognizing him. But Dean just... glanced at it and went "wait!" Same thing with the Dave thing in 13x06 (and I think he had done it before too, but I don't remember when). We can officially add super recognition skill to Dean's gut's power now right?

YEP. Dean is such an observant and competent bean.

And this is ALSO something I’m sort of tangentially discussing with Lizbob. Imagine that. :P

Also he only fought ketch a few times and one of those he was drugged to the gillshe’s a smart cookie

mittensmorgulyep

elizabethrobertajoneswellhe said he fought Ketch a couple of timesI can ONLY remember 12x22?I am going on Dean’s word here

mittensmorgulwell he saw Ketch move in 12.14Like, studied him rather intently, to the point people were shouting GAAAAYYYY

elizabethrobertajonesAh yesYES

mittensmorgulso yeah, even on that level, Dean would recognize how the man movedLike, I look at people walk, and I can tell if they’ve got martial arts training

elizabethrobertajonesI can’t believe I figured out it was ketch when he teased Dean he didn’t give him a cavity search

mittensmorgulBut if I see them move more than just walking, it tells me quite a bit about them. It’s a distinctive thing you actually learn from studying martial arts (or presumably just from a lifetime of fighting things :P)

So maybe it was some sort of lizard brain reaction to just seeing the way the man on the tiny screen was moving, and it pinged some sort of hair-on-the-back-of-his-neck-standing-up sort of warning that prompted him to look closer. Whatever the reason, I am not doubting anything that Dean states as absolute fact this season.

(I mean, we know Mary is actually alive in the AU despite Dean having denied it several times, but that’s the exception that proves the rule, because just like with Cas, he NEEDED to convince himself she was dead because there was nothing he could do to save her anyway. And believing she might still be alive where he has no hope of reaching her would’ve killed him, too. Plus, bringing her back would’ve meant risking opening the portal again, knowing the only way to close it again might require another sacrifice equal to Crowley’s, and Dean COULDN’T kill someone else just to get Mary back…)

(and when Sam shows doubt about Mary too, Dean tells him to keep his hope alive, because yeah, he knows he’s not right about Mary being dead, but again, he can’t deal with the fact he’s powerless to do anything about that fact.)

#smiyuki16 #spn 13.07 #spn 13.04 #dean is a genius and if you disagree you can fight me #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

But hey, at least Dean’s instincts have proven correct yet again...

#spn s13 spoilers #spn 13.07 #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #mr ketch

[mittensmorgul]

My favorite moment in 12.15:

SAM: Gwen, that, um, that thing was a hellhound. GWEN: A… what? DEAN: Hellhound. Kind of hard to explain. Uh, basically, giant, invisible hounds from Hell. Huh. Wasn't hard at all. [Chuckles]

Kinda hard to explain... *explains in half a dozen words* *immediately revises opinion on the difficulty rating of this particular exercise via sarcastic needling of his brother*

Sam thought lying to her about this would make it easier for her to accept and just move on with her life, despite the fact that she CLEARLY knows there’s something else going on here...

Just like Sam thought lying to Dean about working with the BMoL would make it easier for him to accept and just move on with his life because he was just happy to be hunting regularly again, despite the fact that Dean can CLEARLY see that there’s something else going on with Sam...

#spn 12.15 #lies and damn lies #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #not even mentioning cas's part in 12.15 regarding heaven and his reluctance to visit heaven for help #and then his reluctance to tell dean about his decision to go to heaven for help...

[mittensmorgul]

I don't really like S6 Dean. Despite being right most of the time, he didn't take the time to understand people's motives and was quick to issue ultimatums (cough cough Cas). He was very demanding of others - Sam, Bobby, Cas. I loved soulless!Sam, though. Can I ask for your thoughts/links?

Hi! And yeah, I think this is one of the difficulties with s6. Nearly the entire season is presented from Dean’s pov, with the exceptions of 6.04 (from Bobby’s pov) and 6.20 (from Cas’s pov). We get a rare few glimpses through anyone else’s eyes for the entire season, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that when we’re being told the story from Dean’s pov specifically we are supposed to feel his frustration and anger and desperation and betrayal. Instead I find that people sublimate those feelings, and instead of directing them outward at ~all the shit that put Dean in a place to feel that way~, viewers direct it back AT DEAN HIMSELF, rather than feeling it from Dean’s pov, simply because it’s freaking difficult to internalize that as the main pov of most of the season.

In turn, we find ourselves in Dean’s typical position, of sublimating those negative feelings. *insert that gif from 12.05 of Dean telling Sam that sublimation is kinda his thing…*

I’ve been blarghing in Lizbob’s direction for the last few days about early s6, and she helped me work through this, so the following is loosely cobbled together from that chat. It’s about half me, half lizbob, edited to look coherent. Hopefully. :P

Dean WAS right about nearly everything in s6. Tragically so. Similar to how he was proved right throughout s4 when we previously saw Sam “compromised” by a supernatural influence. He was desperately trying to save all the people he loved from horrifying fates, and they weren’t LISTENING. In s6 it took him six episodes to convince Bobby to help him figure out what was wrong with Sam, because even Bobby didn’t trust him after hiding Sam’s ~aliveness~ FOR A DAMN YEAR from Dean

So it’s not like Dean was in a mood to be patient with people lying to him, keeping secrets from him, or working behind his back, right from the start of s6. In 6x04 Dean reaches out for help but from BOBBY’s POV it’s the last straw on him being needy. So Bobby, Sam and Cas all shut him down pretty quickly.

And Samuel thinks he’s a sissy (Lizbob’s line there for a year.

Bobby did have his whole soul issue, but honestly A WHOLE FREAKING YEAR. He’d known Sam was alive, known that he’d been hunting with the Campbells, known that he’d suddenly and mysteriously returned from Hell with no explanation, and had become Robohunter and that Sam didn’t want Bobby to tell Dean that he was alive and back from Hell.

Like, how much more personally betrayed is it possible for Dean to feel? That Bobby would keep Sam’s resurrection from him when Bobby knew how much Sam meant to Dean. I mean, just a few years earlier Dean sold his soul to bring Sam back from the dead, and then went to Hell for it himself. Bobby HAD to know what Sam’s “death” in 5.22 was doing to Dean, and he still chose to hide Sam’s not-deadness from Dean FOR A YEAR because he promised Sam he would.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

So he’s left with what, exactly? The car, and a dwindling and broken relationship with Lisa, BECAUSE of everyone stumbling back into his life in 6.01. Even after Dean started hunting again, Sam still went his own way, did his own thing. Only after 6.03 Did Sam even agree to get back in the Impala with Dean, and only then because his other car had been wrecked when a couple of fighting angels squashed it.

Then there’s all the stuff that was a direct result of Sam’s being soulless. If Sam hadn’t been soulless Dean wouldn’t have been turned into a vampire and not done that to Lisa and Ben, like just for example.

Everyone is SO ANGRY in season 6. And Dean is this lost confused puppy who was just getting over a massive breakdown, and making a small boring safe life. And then every single root cause of his trauma is back within a week. No wonder he’s getting snappy after a while when no one will tell him anything.

He is the lost confused narrator and detective trying to figure out the season. The only info we know is what Dean knows, or what Sam learns post-soullessness that he shares with Dean. And even when Sam’s back he’s not really the narrator because Dean was the sole POV for long enough that every thread is tangled around him.

And we know he doesn’t fully trust Sam right from the start (he’s been drugged with djinn poison and hallucinating Azazel when it’s actually Sam giving him the antidote, and then he gets dosed with djinn poison again), and he sees Cas is acting shady and hiding stuff from him too, and he’s not even sure he can trust Bobby because he’d been hiding all this from him “for his own good” for a year, and he can’t bring this crap home to Lisa and Ben…

From Death asking him about the souls and digging deeper to what is Cas up to, what is Samuel up to, what was Crowley up to, blah blah blah and he doesn’t even want to THINK Cas is up to something.

When Death himself warns you about something Very Serious going on, it’s probably a good idea to take that lesson seriously, but it’s easier to think Cas is a dick than that he’s doing something awful he doesn’t want to tell Dean about.

(sublimation)

But also we, the audience, would rather believe that Dean must be wrong about at least some of this, because OWIE IT HURT to feel this level of betrayal and broken trust and abandonment and horror toward the core family that is practically ALL Dean has ever had in his life. WE don’t want to believe that our beloved Sam, Bobby, and Cas could (whether intentionally or unknowingly) do so wrong by Dean. And yet, he keeps fighting for ALL of them, because they ARE his family, and all he really has.

Then even when Dean earns Sam’s soul back, having played Death for a day and had his first majorly painful lesson in the natural order and cosmic consequences™, he’s still got to deal with the trauma and managing Sam’s reactions to learning the truth of his own “missing year.” Sam kept “scratching the wall” and Dean was doing everything in his power to convince Sam to just leave it alone, on top of everything else he was trying to juggle essentially alone...

So you don’t have to like Dean, or like the way he reacts to all of this, but hopefully this at least goes a little way toward explaining WHY he does what he does. Because really, in s6, Dean was not wrong. He was vindicated by the narrative in the most horribly painful ways.

Sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reasons, as Cas reminded Dean in 9.10. Cas was speaking from experience, and Dean knew it. S6 was the experience Cas was referring to, having done the wrong thing for the right reasons… all to save one human… I mean… *clutches at chest and falls over*

S6 Dean may have been right about pretty much everything, but egad he wanted nothing more than to be freaking wrong for once. Being right is sometimes the absolute worst.

Just like he was right about John being possessed in 1.22.

Just like he was right about there being no way out of his deal in s3.

Just like he was right about Ruby in s4.

Just like he was right about Cas “acting shady” and Metatron being up to no good in s8.

Just like he was right about the devastating consequences of using the Book of the Damned in s10.

Just like he was right about there being something “off” with Cas after 11.11.

Just like he was right about the BMoL in s12.

(and for me, personally, why I believe he’s also right about Cas being “sock puppeted” by Jack after 12.19, because the narrative– almost entirely without exception– vindicates Dean’s gut instinct about the Big Narrative Arc Issues). 

You absolutely don’t have to like Dean in s6. Maybe you’d react to those circumstances in an entirely different way. Maybe you tend to identify more with Sam or Cas and feel a little yanked around by the narrative in s6 because of it. But hopefully you can at least see Dean’s pov here, and even without liking it, maybe at least understand and sympathize with the guy a little. He was having a REALLY awful couple of years there...

#spn s6 #we don't talk about season six #oh DEAN #the scheherazade of supernatural #Anonymous #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

So many nice Destiel moments in 8.7! But I have a question about something else, forgive me if it's been addressed before. Why do you think they introduced Donatello in s11 when he was not a part of this group Crowley kidnapped and Samandriel said there weren't any other prophets born yet? Did they forget some of this group survived? :)

In 9.10:

METATRON: He was a threat, but I flipped a switch upstairs, and now that Kevin is gone, there will be no more Prophets. And what about Dean Winchester?

Metatron did something that “deactivated” all the prophets. Those folks were just… regular folks after that. But with Chuck actively working on Earth again, he had the power to pick himself a new prophet. Or maybe it’s something that’s automatic (like the making of Hands of God, that’s just a side effect of coming into contact with Chuck’s power). Who knows? But that’s why Donatello and not one of these potential prophets.

AND OH GOD the Destiel moments in s8 are so damn heartbreaking… because of Naomi. She ORDERED Cas to SPY on Sam and Dean, and report back to her. I mean, he probably would’ve wanted to stay with them anyway, but…

NAOMI: Tell me about Sam and Dean.CASTIEL: The Prophet is being kept safe. The tablet has split in two and the Winchesters are trying to recover the missing piece. Why am I telling you any of this?NAOMI: It’s not your concern. Help the Winchesters, come when they call. You will report in to me regularly, and you will never remember having done so.CASTIEL: No. I won’t do that.NAOMI: [smiling] Now, as you were. They won’t even notice you were gone.

He is on a mission for her, will report back to her, and yet will never remember having done so. So how much of Cas’s choices during this time are HIS, and how much are Naomi influencing him to participate in this mission for her?

Before I talk about that, I’d like to talk about how Crowley came to be the s8 Big Bad, because I think that’s important too. Just like Eve getting pissed off that Crowley and Cas were trying to hack and pillage Purgatory in s6, and just like the monsters were getting pissed in s12 when the BMoL were trying to exterminate them, Crowley’s in the same position regarding Hell in s8. OF COURSE he’s going to do whatever it takes to stop Sam and Dean from locking him and all the rest of the demons in Hell forever.

He hates that place, first off. But sealing up Hell… talk about something having Cosmic Consequences. Even the ATTEMPT to close Hell was enough to unbalance the natural order. And then Metatron went and dumped all the angels out of Heaven. That didn’t do anyone any good, either. So yeah, Crowley wasn’t just being a jerk for nothing here… He wasn’t the Big Bad of s8– Sam and Dean were. Or at least their hubris was.

Okay, back to the Destiel. Cas is still, throughout this time, struggling with his guilt, with the consequences of his actions from s6…

CASTIEL: See, it wasn’t that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn’t want to be saved.DEAN: What the hell are you talking about?CASTIEL: It’s where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn’t deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I… I planned to stay all along. I just didn’t know how to tell you. You can’t save everyone, my friend… though, you try.

And he doubles down on this in 8.08. He insists he’s fine when Dean asks, but he can’t look Dean in the eye. Dean’s still worried about him, because he still has no idea how Cas managed to get out of Purgatory. CAS still doesn’t know how he got out of Purgatory, because he doesn’t remember his chats with Naomi… But it’s clear that Cas is still “not quite right”:

DEAN: Don’t get me wrong. I’m – I’m happy you’re back. I’m – I’m freaking thrilled. It’s just this whole mysterious-resurrection thing – it always has one mother of a downside.CASTIEL: So, what do you want me to do?DEAN: Maybe take a trip upstairs.CASTIEL: To Heaven?DEAN: Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can’t tell us how you got out.CASTIEL: No.DEAN: Look, man, I – I hate those flying-ass monkeys just as much as you do, but –CASTIEL: [forcefully] Dean! I said no![After a pause, DEAN closes the laptop, walks over and sits on the edge of the other bed, facing CASTIEL.]DEAN: Talk to me.CASTIEL: Dean, I… When I was… bad… and I had all those things – the… the leviathans… writhing inside me… I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I – I – I can’t go back.DEAN: 'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you.CASTIEL: Because if I see what Heaven’s become – what I – [sighs] what I made of it… I’m afraid I might kill myself.

then we get Moosus Interruptus (again), and Dean never gets a chance to probe further into this. Needless to say, it’s part of his underlying concern for Cas for the rest of the season.

Dean tries to treat Cas like the hunter-in-training that he insisted he wanted to be, yet all the while remaining A CONCERN about Cas’s mental state. And throughout this episode, Sam’s recalling his life with Amelia. Dean uses the same phrase– “Living in a dream world”– to describe Fred Jones’s state of mind, when Amelia’s father had used the same phrase to describe what she was trying to do with Sam, playing house together when they were both running from their problems and not really addressing them. Unfortunately, Cas takes that to heart, which is good in some ways and really… unfortunate in others.

Sure, he gets to a point where he doesn’t want to run anymore. He feels like he should face what he’d done. Not just punish himself by hiding and isolating himself (like he was doing in Purgatory), but really begin to make amends if he could.

(Recall that all the while Naomi has other plans for him, that he doesn’t know about consciously, despite acting on her wishes… so his wish to return to Heaven and face the consequences is overruled by Naomi, despite him not realizing that SHE is the one stopping him from acting on that wish. It really starts to mess with his head)

NAOMI: I can see what you’re thinking, and I won’t allow it.CASTIEL: You don’t understand. I have been trying to pretend that I can escape what I did in Heaven, but I can’t. All that pain that I caused – I – I have to come back, to make things right.NAOMI: And you are… by doing what you’re told. Bottom line – unless I ring my bell, you stay out of Heaven, Castiel.

And back on Earth, Dean is concerned, but after what Cas has said to him over the last few episodes ^^, Dean isn’t about to try and override Cas’s choices now. Dean invited Cas to stay with them, offered him shotgun, and told him he’d done good on the hunt. And Cas seems to be in a much better place than he was at the beginning of the episode. After his conversation with Dean, how honest Cas was with him about his feelings, Dean trusts Cas to talk to him now, to be honest with him if there was really something more going on here. But neither of them know that Cas isn’t fully in control of his choices here:

SAM: You – you what, Cas? W-why can’t you come with us?CASTIEL: I, um… I want to stay with Mr. Jones. Someone should watch over him for a few days just to be safe.DEAN: Okay, and then what?CASTIEL: Then I’m not sure. But I know I can’t run anymore.

The parallel at the end of the episode is between Sam and Amelia– just as Sam’s accepted by Amelia’s dad, just as he’s starting to feel good about this life he’s making with her, she gets the call that her husband’s been found alive. Suddenly the choice to stay with her has been taken entirely out of his hands.

Just like Cas’s choices are out of HIS hands, when Naomi tells him no, and forces him to stay on Earth. It messes with him in really big ways. At the beginning of 8.08, he honestly DID want to be a hunter, he honestly seemed happy about staying with Sam and Dean. But once he’d made the conscious decision to return to Heaven and really try to seek forgiveness for what he’d done, to find out how he’d gotten out of Purgatory, Naomi had to directly override that decision. After that, Cas was conflicted and adrift, prevented from what he’d wanted to do.

Naomi actively prevented him from receiving that repentance and understanding that he’d been ready to face. So he has no idea WHY he’s being prevented from this, and he’s honestly confused by it. It really screws with him… Naomi is overriding his free will, and it messes with Cas in so many other ways.

All of this comes to an explosive head in 8.10, as Cas’s orders from Naomi, his own wishes, his own sense of obligation to help Samandriel, his relationship with Dean and Sam… just, everything goes sideways.

We see Naomi fully sock-puppet him, putting words in his mouth and forcing his hand in killing Samandriel, all in the name of keeping the knowledge of the Angel Tablet out of the Winchesters’ hands. Because if they’re decoding the Demon Tablet with the goal of shutting Hell, then what might they do if they got their hands on the Angel Tablet?

But Cas doesn’t CONSCIOUSLY know any of this. Sam and Dean are entirely in the dark about it. But they do know that SOMETHING is wrong with Cas…

It’s obvious to Dean that Cas isn’t himself, and while Dean still has no idea what brought Cas out of Purgatory, or how it might still be affecting him, it’s clear that Cas isn’t entirely acting on his own free will here. He’s acting like Robo Cas in that scene after he kills Samandriel, blood dripping from his eye, and he absently thanks them for their help before booping off with Samandriel’s body without any further explanation of ANYTHING.

It’s so unsettling to Sam and Dean that they completely ward the cabin against angels before even discussing the situation.

DEAN: I told you something was off with him since he got back from Purgatory.SAM: So, what, you think someone’s messing with him or something?DEAN: Who?SAM: Angels?DEAN: Why would the angels have him kill another angel?

Then we don’t even SEE Cas for the next SIX EPISODES. But we do see Dean praying to him. We see him concerned about Cas, getting a bit piney and worried, not knowing if Cas is even okay, but not really having any way to find out. Frustrating as hell, and combined with the whole Hell Trials thing going sideways, worry over Kevin, the discovery of the Bunker, learning about Henry and coming to a small bit of peace over their family’s history, and both guilt and concern over what the trials are doing to Sam… holy cow he’s got a lot on his worry plate…

Then the minute Cas comes back in 8.17, Dean’s thrilled that he’s alive, hurt that Cas had been ignoring his prayers all this time, and suspicious of Cas’s current behavior. It’s clear to him that Cas is lying to him, but he doesn’t understand WHY.

Until Cas is nearly beating him to death and begs Naomi to let him stop hurting Dean. 

It’s the Big Threatening Button theory of mind control here– you can only control people’s actions up to a point before something will go so violently against that person’s own self-interest that they’re able to overcome said brainwashing. And for Cas, that point is Dean.

*stops typing to cry about this, and I’m only up to watching 8.09 here. I’m gonna be a mess when it actually airs next week…*

And knowing ALL of this, that scene where Cas flaps back to Heaven with Samandriel’s body looks unsettlingly similar to Cas leaving the playground with Kelly at the end of 12.19. He delivers nearly the same line to them both times–  he thanks them for what they’ve done. In 8.10 he boops himself off to points unknown, but in 12.19 he no longer has that ability, so instead of booping HIMSELF off, he boops Sam and Dean unconscious so he can flee with Kelly.

In NEITHER scene is he acting fully of his own accord. The scenarios are just too similar to allow any other explanation.

Cas kills someone under the complete control of another being:

Naomi forces him to stab Samandriel 

Jack forces his power into Cas to kill Dagon (which yeah, that’s good for Cas because Dagon was about to kill him if he hadn’t… so… )

Cas is behaving in an uncharacteristically fishy manner:

Cas is bleeding FROM HIS EYE, acting distant and robotic, not looking directly at Dean, and WE see how Naomi is literally sock-puppeting him– her literal words coming out of his mouth.

Cas has this weird golden grace creep across his skin and INTO HIS EYES, acting distant and robotic, not looking directly at Dean, and we can only assume that whatever zapped into his eyes is still affecting him, because we can’t SEE that glow anymore, but stuff like that has ALWAYS had lasting consequences on this show– Dean with the MoC, Cas taking on Sam’s soul damage… that visual effect, the glowy-veined thing, has only ever been used as a Not Good Thing.

I mentioned above that Cas thanked Dean in both of these scenes, but Dean’s line to Cas in both of these scenes is also telling:

In 8.10: DEAN: Cas, you okay?

in 12.19: Dean: Are you okay?

And in both circumstances, we’re supposed to be replying HECK NO HE IS NOT OKAY.

(heh, not to mention Amanda Tapping is directly responsible for BOTH of these scenes– directing Cas’s actions via mind control as Naomi in 8.10, and LITERALLY DIRECTING his actions in 12.19, as the LITERAL DIRECTOR of the episode… I find that pleasantly meta)

But there are KEY differences this time around. S8 culminated in Cas having his grace stolen, falling and becoming human AGAINST HIS WILL. But s12 ended with us watching Cas’s grace explode when Lucifer stabbed him with an angel blade, his wing prints burned into the earth. Both the angel and human parts of him are “dead” for now. The spoiler that he’ll be coming back in s13 (or at least the “important parts” will be coming back, and he’ll still be “our Cas”) makes me believe that he might finally have a CHOICE in all of this for once. And that’s what’s different this time.

Leading up to this eventual choice, the situation wouldn’t work unless nothing that’s come up to this point has actually BEEN his freely-made, 100% conscious choice. Because WHAT BROKE THE CONNECTION? An angel blade through the heart. Up to that moment, Cas had been hiding things (or trying to). He’d been running from Dean like he had with the angel tablet after 8.17.

The EXACT same way that he’d run throughout 8.21:

Lookit how run down he is. The tablet was FORCING him to do this, in the interest of its own self-protection. It doesn’t WANT to be found. It doesn’t WANT to be used, by ANYONE. Not demons nor angels nor Winchesters.

REMIND YOU OF ANYONE?!

Like Jack, who doesn’t want to be used by Lucifer or Dagon or EVEN THE WINCHESTERS. He might only have as much self-awareness of that lump of artfully carved rock before he’s born, BUT HE HAS AT LEAST AS MUCH POWER AS THAT ROCK.

(remember Metatron used the tablet to power himself up to nearly god-levels during s9, so we KNOW what an angel who WANTS to tap into that power can achieve. What could an entity who WANTED to tap into Jack’s power potentially use it for?)

But Cas… has no interest in exploiting either the power of the tablet nor Jack’s power for their own personal ends. Like the tablet accepted him as its guardian for that reason, Jack seems to have done the same with Cas in 12.19.

It’s freaking Harry Potter able to grab the Sorcerer’s Stone in the Mirror of Erised because he wanted to PROTECT the stone from being used, while everyone else wanted to use it for their own ends. BOTH TIMES– with the angel tablet and now with Jack.

Why do I keep finding Harry Potter references in this show? Ugh.

So now that Cas has been put into this position YET AGAIN, but in a slightly different way, and with a different perspective after living through the intervening years (which he admitted have “changed him” and have been “the best part of his life” and during which he’s grown to accept the Winchesters as his family, and that he loves them), how will things be DIFFERENT this time around? That’s what s13 will show us.

Because EVERYTHING that’s happened in the intervening years has changed Cas. He lived as a human for a time. He was jerked around by the universe, by Metatron, by God and the Darkness and Lucifer and Heaven… and after all of that, NOTHING ELSE is the same as it was back in s8.

Our lil angel has come so far… :’)

(and yes, this is why it totally would’ve skeeved me out if destiel had actually gone canon back in s8… the eurgh factor was just too high with all the mind control…)

(and whoops I mentioned to lizbob that i was typing up something about s8 destiel several hours ago, and she just pointed out that I hadn’t posted it yet, and I had to confess that I was still typing it a couple hours later, so I figure I should probably stop now… :P)

#spn s8 #spn 8.07 #spn 8.08 #spn 8.10 #spn 8.17 #spn 8.21 #destiel #the scheherazade of supernatural #s12 hellatus rewatch #spn s13 speculation #Anonymous #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

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

[mittensmorgul]

Okay... parallel time:

4.21:

DEAN: She's poison, Sam. SAM: It's not what you think, Dean. DEAN: Look what she did to you. I mean, she up and vanishes weeks at a time, leaves you cracking out for another hit— SAM: She was looking for Lilith. DEAN: That is French for manipulating your ass ten ways from Sunday. SAM: You're wrong, Dean. DEAN: Sam, you're lying to yourself. I just want you to be okay. You would do the same for me. You know you would.

[...]

SAM: I'm being practical here. I'm doing what needs to be done. DEAN: Yeah? You're not gonna do a single damn thing. SAM: Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I'm asking you, for once, trust me. DEAN: No. You don't know what you're doing, Sam. SAM: Yes, I do. DEAN: Then that's worse.

6.20:

DEAN This is usually the point where we would call Cas for help. BOBBY We talked about this. SAM Yeah, Dean. DEAN No, you talked. I listened. This is Cas, guys. I mean, when there was no one...And we were stuck - and I mean really stuck - he broke ranks. He has gone to the mat cut and bleeding for us so many freakin' times. This is Cas! Don't we owe him the benefit of the doubt at least?

[...]

CASTIEL Listen. Raphael will kill us all. He'll turn the world into a graveyard. I had no choice. DEAN No, you had a choice. You just made the wrong one. CASTIEL You don't understand. It's complicated. DEAN No, actually, it's not, and you know that. Why else would you keep this whole thing a secret, huh, unless you knew that it was wrong? When crap like this comes around, we deal with it... Like we always have. What we don't do is we don't go out and make another deal with the Devil! CASTIEL It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it? DEAN I was there. Where were you? DEAN You should've come to us for help, Cas. CASTIEL Maybe. (There is a loud sound of wind. A large cloud of demon-smoke approaches.) It's too late now. I can't turn back now. I can't.

and then 6.21:

CASTIEL: Dean, I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call, and I am your friend. Still, despite your lack of faith in me, and now your threats, I just saved you, yet again. Has anyone but your closest kin ever done more for you? All I ask is this one thing. DEAN: Trust your plan to pop Purgatory? CASTIEL: I've earned that, Dean. DEAN: (scoffs) CASTIEL: I came to tell you that I will find Lisa and Ben, and I will bring them back. Stand behind me, the one time I ask. DEAN: You're asking me to stand down? CASTIEL: Dean. DEAN: That's the same damn ransom note that Crowley handed me. You know that, right? Well no thanks. I'll find 'em myself. In fact, why don't you go back to Crowley and tell him that I said you can both kiss my ass.

Sensing a pattern yet? Like, Dean seeing the bigger picture clearly, trying to talk his loved ones out of terrible situations they feel trapped in, that lead to terrible consequences when they carry out their ill-advised plans regardless. Still, in the end we have Lucifer and Leviathans to deal with as a result.

Now go watch 12.19 while holding this all in mind...

#spn 4.21 #spn 6.20 #spn 6.21 #spn 12.19 #not really meta more like an exercise in critical thinking #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...

[mittensmorgul]

It’s Spirals All The Way Down.

I’ve been thinking about this since I made this post last night (but honestly I’ve been thinking about this since 10.23…), about how this show uses imperfect mirrors and parallels and what level of the text and subtext is actually telling us the full story here.

(and really Metatron looked directly into the camera and TOLD us this in 9.18)

But s12 especially has been structured on the foundation that ALL THE STORIES ARE WRONG. All the mirrors are flipped or broken or distorted somehow. All of our preconceived notions are fundamentally flawed. EVERYTHING in s12 is operating from this premise that “the story became the story,” even if it wasn’t TRUE. Even if it was based on a partial truth, or an extrapolation of something that someone believed was true. We’re finding out that underneath it all, none of it had ever been the FULL story.

Perspective matters. Point of view matters. Context matters. Having the entire story matters. The facts matter. And understanding all of that CHANGES the meaning for everyone.

What we believe to be true, when confronted with a new point of view or new information, makes us question the basis of our beliefs and reassess everything we always thought was true.

That’s what Mary coming back has done.

Under a cut because long, but not as long as I was expecting because Lizbob saved me typing a lot (there’s a link to her notes at the point I stopped typing to read instead... :P)

(AN: cut removed during the 2018 Tumblr Nippocalypse)

I’ve been seeing this play out all season and tagging it various things from “the story became the story” and “lies and damn lies” and “revenge of the subtext” and all the “another way” screeching, and the Rashomon Effect. It’s all about the same thing, really. And on about nine different meta and subtextual (and even surface text) levels, it describes EVERYTHING that happened in 12.20.

(seriously my brain is exploding trying to hold it all)

I think the easiest way to convey even a small part of just how fucking meta this episode was is to explain the various mirrors and parallels the episode demonstrated to us-- from the very obvious surface level story to the extremely deep-layer character and emotional stuff. Because NONE OF THE MIRRORS MATCH UP RIGHT. Because the story became the story, and all the cards are shuffled, and all the mirrors are cracked.

(it’s fucking brilliant, is what it is)

I’ll try to go about this in an orderly fashion, but knowing me, it’s gonna turn into a jumbled mess. Then again, maybe that’s metaphorically appropriate.

So here’s me just kinda going through the whole episode chronologically and pulling all the parallels.

Tasha at the beginning seems to be doing some normal things hunters do. She checks into this hotel (a lovely place on the surface, the dude at the front desk is all polite and all, but ick the woman winding yarn in the front room is >.>... which Tasha lampshades by offering to clear up her “muddy aura” for her).

Tasha even drives a green “green” car. She’s a vegan. She’s a “natural witch” who was born with her powers. She’s healthy and organic and good. Yet she’s there to look for a “borrower witch,” who got powers from a demon and is using them in evil ways. Her spell she performs lets her follow this glowy-purple representation of her own powers into this dark and dank storm cellar where she discovers something horrifying, and she’s stabbed in the back before she even has a chance to react.

Meanwhile back at the bunker, Dean is explaining how WRONG Cas seemed the night before. He’s wracking his brain trying to come up with a way to find and help Cas, because he believes Cas has been “sock-puppeted” by Lucifer Junior. In the same scene Sam unwraps the broken Colt and they discuss whether or not they can fix it… Unlike Cas who’s hopefully still in there and “whole,” the Colt might need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

A phone buzzes, and neither Dean nor Sam owns that phone… and they assume it was left behind by Mary. (and now I’m CONVINCED that phones never lose their charge in the bunker. The place came complete with free wifi and anti-gps tracking. I think at this point Tesla was a Man of Letters who built a small Wardenclyffe Tower over the bunker. Heck, it was supposed to be an old power station right? Maybe that’s more literal than we expect…)

Sam answers, and it’s Alicia calling for Mary. She’s surprised to hear Sam’s voice, and I’m thinking it’s because last time she talked to Mary she’d been trying to call DEAN, but Mary answered and went to help her instead, because Sam and Dean were “missing.” I think Mary may not have bothered to tell Alicia and Max that she’d ever “found” her sons. Nice, right? That probably leads to some of Alicia’s assumptions about the relationship between Mary and the boys that she asks Sam about later. (she’s not a hugger-- and we then see Alicia immediately exchanging a hug with her own mom to highlight that difference)

And here the parallels and mixed bag of mirrors begin to shift around.

Alicia, at the very beginning here, seems to be the very clear mirror to Dean 1.01. Max is the clear mirror to Sam in 1.01. But even this is a skewed interpretation. Because who would that make Sam and Dean? In the pilot episode, they had no one to call for help in looking for John. They had no one willing to drop everything and be with them through that. All they had was John’s journal that he left behind for them with a set of coordinates that would lead them on a mad scavenger hunt.

Sam even lampshades this parallel by telling Dean their mom’s on a hunt and hasn’t been home in a week, recalling some of the first words Dean ever said to Sam in 1.01. Which makes a weird double-mirror as Alicia and Max as a UNIT a mirror for Dean calling for help, and Sam and Dean as a UNIT a mirror for Sam in the pilot of reluctantly agreeing to go along despite having other pressing personal concerns (protecting a loved one who may be in peril if left alone-- Jess in the pilot, knowing Sam had dreams of her death days before it happened, and now Cas in 12.20-- having a potentially life changing interview for law school, or a potentially life-changing job of repairing the Colt)

While Sam gets ready to go, Dean calls Mary to tell her about Alicia’s request for help on a case (since Alicia had been trying to reach Mary in the first place), but then he breaks down and asks to just talk to Mary about his own personal issues, because he’s “spun out” about them. What have we seen him distressed about throughout this scene? CAS.

He was arguing with Sam about running off to help Alicia when all he wanted to work on was the Cas issue. Sam gives him a very well ordered and thought out list of reasons they’d already done all they could about Cas for the moment-- an APB to Jody covering three states, even! So Dean relents, but he’s so unhappy about it he is willing to open up to Mary about it.

But the very next scene sees another shift of those already imperfectly aligned mirrors.  Accidents don’t happen accidentally, and all that. First we need to check in with the other half of our story, Mary and the MoL.

Ketch is “interviewing” a shifter who’s taken on Mary’s appearance, and is creepily talking to “Real Mary” while looking “shifter Mary” in the eye, and he has NO HESITATION in torturing her, either way. Mary very pointedly refers to the shifter as “he,” despite it looking just like her, while Ketch even MORE pointedly calls the shifter “IT,” and believes IT deserves what he’s doing to it and a whole lot more. If only Mary knew what her father had been up to back in s6, torturing monsters for info on Purgatory. But this time, the information Ketch is trying to get is on the location of the shifter’s FAMILY.  It’s become PERSONAL in every way.

As soon as Sam and Dean meet up with Alicia and Max, the mirrors begin to flip. Alicia is suddenly paralleled to Sam, while Max is paralleled to Dean. But the mirrors are so imperfect. Alicia talks about how Max and Tasha have a closer bond because they’re both natural witches, and how she feels a bit left out. Sam compares that to Dean and John’s bond over hunting and how he’d always felt left out there. Meanwhile Max and Dean bond over the fact Max got the bartender’s phone number, thinks Dean’s car is “major,” and admires his grenade launcher.

And can we pause for a moment here to see the same progression from grenade launcher (NO!) to what they really need in this situation-- witch killing bullets-- that the post it notes in 12.11 led Dean to? Okay. Moment over.

Alicia asks Sam, after he talks about growing up with John, “What about with Mary?” And he stumbles over how to answer that, literally stutters over using the word, “vanishes” to describe how she disappears from their lives while hunting. She doesn’t seem like much of a hugger (which we find out Tasha and Alicia ARE in the next scene).

Creepy unfriendly guy by the creepy storm cellar… I’m sure that’s not plot-relevant.

(aside to mention that Sam has been trapped in those sorts of cellars before-- notably in 12.01-02 while being tortured by Toni Bevell, but also waaaay back in 1.12, which was another episode that dealt heavily with faith (hence the title) but also the manipulation of life and death)

Our four intrepid hunters enter the hotel and are greeted by the flower-wielding desk clerk before Tasha notices them and asks what they’re doing there. Max is like “yeah, told you everything was fine,” and Alicia is just happy to see her mom (with the hug).

***At this point, Lizbob just posted her rewatch notes, and I’m reading them and seeing just how much she already covered, so I don’t just go on randomly repeating stuff you can read elsewhere, because these notes are already approaching 2k words and I’m like a quarter of the way through the episode…

**** YEP, okay, I’m just gonna direct y’all to Lizbob’s notes, save myself loads of typing and y’all’s eyeballs lots of reading… and just leave a few notes here to expand on a couple of things. So at this point, please go read this: https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/160349267153/12x20-watching-notes-reblog-if and then think about these few additional items:

Even the decor inside this hotel is an illusion, the fake trees and vines when outside is the real thing. Inside the hotel, things might look real on the surface, but really it’s just wallpaper…

Dean rolled his eyes at the idea of wine SEVERAL times, and yet didn’t make fun of the repeated mention of vegan food. I guess he can respect people’s lifestyle choices. BUT HE WAS EVEN ALL READY TO EAT THE VEGAN FOOD.

The Mary-Ketch Battle Royale: All season we’ve talked about how the MoL are coded in the same way as the angels. The strict structure, the OBEDIENCE above all, The Code being their Word Of God, and Ketch lampshades all of it by telling Mary that Enochian Brass Knuckles only work on angels… she points out that brass knuckles are still brass knuckles, and humans are just as vulnerable in tender places to just getting walloped with a heavy bit of metal, magic or no. :P

The witch: What a ridiculous Cain parallel. Not only did she want to “pass on her burden” in a way, she also silenced Dean in a really similar way to how Cain silenced Crowley. Plus they both had the same sort of general attitude. :P

And then at the end, Max is a mixed bag of parallels… with bits of both Dean and Sam’s current issues. He regrets not listening to Alicia’s concerns that something was wrong, and didn’t examine Tasha a little more closely to notice something was “off” about her. (Like Sam currently dismissing Dean’s passionate assertion that Cas is not acting under his own free will now. That Cas WOULDN’T ditch them, nor would he disable his phone, like Tasha did.) But he’s also brought back Alicia as a twig person, because while it’s still sort of her, it’s definitely not the original (like Sam working on the Colt, but also like the both of them have done for each other over and over again,)

But this is the way the entire SEASON is being told, through a shifting series of mirrors and callbacks to the past, but applied in different ways to different characters.

The two Mytharc plots of s12 are being told like concurrent, overlapping Monster of the Week stories, where the “case of the week” is more of a vehicle for Sam and Dean to step back and evaluate, to look within themselves and process the lessons of the Mytharc episodes. It’s like after 11 years of constantly escalating apocalyptic-level problems to deal with, s12 is giving them a whole YEAR to step back and reevaluate.

And yes the BMoL is a Big Bad, and so is Lucifer and Lucifer Jr., but the narrative is treating them like overgrown MotW monsters just in the way the plots are structured.

Everything is a slightly out of focus mirror for everything else, and it’s freaking brilliant.

#spn s12 spoilers #spn 12.20 #parallels #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #sam vs reality #winchester family dynamics #castiel winchester #mary f. winchester #men of letters vs hunters #the witch twins #the rashomon effect #the story became the story #lies and damn lies #face your past head-on and find another way a better way #it's spirals all the way down

[mittensmorgul]

I've got Pac Man Fever on in the background for the meta rewatch, and one of the first things we learn is that the bunker isn't trackable to within a 20 mile radius. And all I can think is that like Dean with the Colt, trusting too much in it because it's apparently invincible.

Sam and Dean continued trusting in the security of the bunker because it was so incredible this way. We know the Colt still had five things it couldn't kill (and not WHAT those things are), yet Dean trusted it to kill an at-the-time unidentified god in 12.18. And nearly got himself killed by a plain-old human, because there's still the factor of reliably being able to point it at the thing and shoot it.

Even after 12.17 and how they missed Dagon with it...

It's just a tool, but they'd put ALL their faith in it...

Overconfidence is... a form of hubris.

And all season I’ve been yelling about how hubris is bad.

It seems like they’d put way too much trust in the security and sanctity of the bunker. You’d think they’d have learned after pretty much EVERYONE invaded the place at one point or another in the last few years...

Yet they STILL trusted in the building they’d come to think of as “home.” Even after finding the MoL’s listening devices. They brought Toni back there, even after hearing her prattle on about how the MoL was responsible for all the hunter deaths, even knowing that they killed Mick for being “too sympathetic” to the Winchesters’ views, and even after Mary’s warning phone call that they had a problem followed by their complete inability to find or contact her since that warning. Even knowing that the bastards HAD KEYS TO THE BUNKER.

That’s hubris, and hubris is bad.

Despite the pileup of subtext pointing to Dean’s instinctive mistrust of these people, the fact that he’s been so on-the-nose RIGHT about so much this season, he certainly has a couple of blind spots big enough to drive the Impala through.

He never even questioned how the MoL came by the Colt? Possibly because he was simply too relieved or pleased to have it back at all.

That’s hubris, and hubris is bad.

They trusted in Mary, who they don’t even really know. And who definitely doesn’t really know them. She thinks she knows them via John’s journal, and since the beginning of the season we’ve seen Dean resisting telling her the worst of the truth about their lives. He hadn’t wanted to overwhelm her. He hadn’t wanted her to feel like he was blaming her for what happened after she died. It’s not like she knew all of that stuff would happen-- that John would be consumed by revenge for her death, that their entire lives would become devoted to the one thing she never wanted for them because of her death. It seemed unfair to Dean at the beginning of the season to burden her with that knowledge when she was still adjusting to suddenly being alive again at all...

12.18 invited us to ponder what Sam and Dean’s legacy would be. In an episode where a horrifying family legacy of murder and greed had been buried and ignored for 20 years resurfaced and doubled down on the horror and greed. The sheriff had tried to bury and ignore the root of his family’s evil deeds while fixing up all the “surface level” wrongs his family had inflicted on the town they essentially owned. He sold it off to the people who lived and worked there. He even gave his half-brother the company that had been the backbone of the town, and he himself took on the mantle of justice for the people by becoming the sheriff.

Yet even when faced with the evidence that his family’s long-buried legacy might be coming back to haunt him, he passively ignored the threat. Yes, he eventually experienced doubt and went to check to make sure Moloch was still safely locked away, but while he’d been busy trying to ignore the monster’s existence, the other surviving member of his family had uncovered the secret for himself. His brother was lured in by Moloch’s promises, and a desperate, selfish drive to have the life he felt he deserved but had always been denied.

In his fervor, he not only capitulated to the monster’s desire for blood, HE FREED IT from the prison where it had been contained for more than a hundred years. Suddenly it wasn’t one death a year to appease the god, it was a string of deaths. Like the god had extra leverage over him because he hadn’t seen the bigger picture.

This is Mary, who was so desperate to make the life she’d intended to for her family, the life she felt she’d been denied by circumstance. But she didn’t have all the facts-- either about her own family’s history OR the Men of Letters. Yet she signed up to work with them anyway. Despite her doubts, despite the fact she instinctively, on some level, knew it was wrong enough that she hid her mission from Sam and Dean in 12.12, and then STILL didn’t tell them the truth when she discovered how shady the whole operation was.

Mary’s hubris has led to the loss of her free will, now subsumed by the Men of Letters’ agenda. She realized too late that she’d put her faith in the wrong place. She’d pinned her personal hopes and desires to an evil force because on the surface they seemed to share her end goals, and was willing to turn a blind eye to their blatantly obvious faults. To the hubris of the underlying agenda itself.

This is also Crowley, whose motives for diverting Lucifer from the cage in the first place seem like pure hubris anyway, A hubris compounded by his willingness to deal with the Men of Letters and his repeated tormenting of Lucifer. And Crowley’s hubris has led to him seeking refuge from the fate he’d made for himself by literally becoming a rat and being tossed out with the trash. Not fucking subtle, bucklemming.

So Sam and Dean have ended up trapped within their own “legacy,” the bunker that they’d gradually made their own without knowing the full extent of the baggage that came along with it, that some portion of the Men of Letters survived Abaddon’s slaughter in 1958 to become even more secretive and radicalized in their isolation. Sam instinctively wanted to trust them, because nothing he’d found in the bunker had made him believe that the Men of Letters might have evil intentions. He desperately wanted to believe the best of these people despite the evidence of his own experiences at their hands. He didn’t trust HIMSELF over their self-proclaimed superior knowledge and goals. Now that’s all come back around to bite everyone in the ass.

Dean’s been ignoring or suppressing his own instincts all season, despite being confronted with confirmation that his instincts were right all along. But his lack of faith in himself has a lot of baggage attached to it and THAT is what I believe he’s been working through. In the past he’s tried to enforce his will over that of others (see: his instincts about Ruby and how he pushed Sam away by trying to enforce his will, his instincts about Cas in s6, his own poor choices in s8 and s9 that culminated in him practically destroying the universe because he tried to enforce his own will by thinking it was a good idea to slam the gates of Hell... which led to the COSMIC CONSEQUENCES (i.e. cavalcade of dominoes falling that ended up releasing the Darkness and nearly ending the universe), and then having God himself rest the burden of looking after the Earth in Dean’s hands in 11.23. But he blames himself for ALL of it.

I’m watching 8.22 right now (hello, Dabb), watching Sarah Blake die because of his choices.

I can’t honestly say this loud enough. EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED ON THE SHOW SINCE 12.09 IS THE COSMIC CONSEQUENCES. Really, everything that’s happened since Mary was resurrected at the end of 11.23 has been a cascade of increasingly dire consequences. Billie had tried to set the natural order to rights SEVERAL TIMES over the early part of the season, asking Mary to choose to go back to Heaven where she belonged, but it had still been her choice at that point, and she rejected the offer.

In 12.09, Mary was ready to accept her own death in the fulfillment of Dean’s deal with Billie, but Cas spared her from paying the price. Honestly, he didn’t do it for MARY, but for DEAN. What would it have done to Dean at that point to have Mary pay the price for his own failure? Because that’s how it would’ve felt to him. It would’ve broken him. Instead, Mary’s been given a free pass to continue existing, and to continue screwing with the Natural Order.

COSMIC CONSEQUENCES.

Dean still hasn’t found the balance in himself that he’d helped bring about in the universe. The balance between trusting in his own will versus forcing that will on anyone else. Trying to bend others to his will has a long, long history of failure attached to it. And yet standing all the way back like Chuck and just passively observing these consequences unfolding despite that itching instinct to intervene hasn’t actually resulted in anything good either.

COSMIC CONSEQUENCES.

Cas felt like he’d failed Sam and Dean in 12.09 by not being able to find and save them from prison. He doubted himself so much that he wasn’t even able to carry out a normal hunt on his own when we know he’d become a shockingly effective hunter in his own right over the last few years. Self-doubt, lack of self-worth, all over the loss of Sam and Dean... led directly to the events of 12.12 where he nearly paid the price with his own life (except for the interference of Crowley, he would have).

(Heck, I’m watching 8.23 right now. This isn’t a new theme for Cas...)

He’s still trying to atone from his decision to say yes to Lucifer in 11.10. That’s the genesis of an awful lot of the cosmic consequences we’re dealing with now, after all. His failure to protect Sam and Dean in 12.08, however, is a driving force behind his current spate of terrible choices in a misguided attempt to protect them from paying those cosmic consequences on his behalf.

The tricky thing about cosmic consequences is that you simply can’t walk past them and ignore the inciting incident that kicked them all off in the first place. Like the Barrett family’s buried secret-- the literal god buried under their basement floor, the foundations of their entire lives, or even Dean refusing to kill that little girl in 6.11, our original introduction to Cosmic Consequences-- you can push them down and try to ignore them and hope they’ll go away. You can run around trying to clean up the resulting chain reaction of terrible consequences as they erupt into flames all around you, but until the original imbalance is corrected and the truth is unearthed and dealt with directly, that’s all they’ve been able to do.

Cas’s self-doubt, like Dean said in 12.19, has blinded him to the danger he was in. He’d said yes to Lucifer in 11.10, voluntarily handing his free will over to Lucifer, and he’s never really had a chance to reclaim that agency. It seems that everything he’s tried to do since then has been a rather futile effort to reclaim that agency.

I’ve said it so many times this season, but Cas “wished” for faith, and he was slammed with it. And the wishes turn bad. The wishes turn very bad. I think one of the main reasons it was so easy for the nephilim to inflict its will on Cas was that he’d surrendered that will in 11.10 and never fully reclaimed it. He hasn’t asserted it for himself again, instead acting on his own, scrambling around blindly trying to put everything else right while the original act of surrender remains unrevoked.

COSMIC. CONSEQUENCES.

That’s all any of this is, really. That’s the whole story right there.

It’s not about who has to pay the price, it’s about going back and reversing the entire original story. It’s about getting a second chance to put right those original wrongs. It’s about realizing that we can’t just have what we want, because that’s not how life works. Back in 4.08 Sam and Dean were in a very different place to where they are now. Even back in 6.11 when Dean began learning this lesson on a cosmic scale. It’s not just about cleaning up their messes, it’s about finding balance between the natural order and free will. And remembering that no one person’s will should decide the fate of the entire universe at the expense of the natural order.

#spn s12 spoilers #spn 12.21 #hubris is bad #COSMIC. CONSEQUENCES. #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #that's what free will is #revenge of the subtext #bucklemming canon acrobatics #spn 6.11 #spn 4.08

[mittensmorgul]

We need all three of that crap...

If there’s a key, then there has to be a lock.

Keys are a HUGE thing in s12  I’d wanted to write coherent long meta on this subject, but I just need to get it out into the universe so we can all cry collectively over this.

There are at least three major keys to contend with in s12:

The key to the bunker (their home is not secure). Apparently Men of Letters the world over have copies of that key, and nothing in their home is safe (even the safe). No wonder Dean kept the Colt under his pillow. which brings us to point 2...

The Colt. One of its original purposes was AS A KEY TO THE HELLGATE in 2.22. Samuel Colt referred to the gun as a curse in 6.18. And heck if it hasn’t been a curse to the Winchester family over the years. It’s like a freaking monkey’s paw. (again, like a “the wishes turn bad” ancient Babylonian curse coin). And now it’s gone forever, but it still has more to unlock... like the bit of leaked coversation we have from 12.22 between Dean and Mary, and how their family was “cursed.” Which both begins and ends with the Colt... It’s got to unlock the rest of the Winchester Family Trauma.

the keys to the Impala (aka Dean’s Metaphorical Soul). Cas asks for them, Dean tosses them over without a second thought (he trusts Cas completely with his soul...), but Cas doesn’t understand the significance of Dean’s trust there, and without realizing it, he casually tosses the keys over the seat, enabling Kelly to steal Baby. Cas was preoccupied (and so where Sam and Dean), and while their thoughts were elsewhere a creature who would mindwhammy Cas into serving its will instead of his own, instead of Dean’s. 

Heck it’s just like in 6.20 where Cas spent the whole episode asking God for a sign, asking for ANY sign that he’s doing the wrong thing here... and Dean tells Cas to stop. To trust him, to not do this. Just because.

And Cas doesn’t get that that was the sign.

Because he’s trying so hard to do the right thing, to bring a win home for Dean, for himself, that he missed the “win” right in front of him.

#spn s12 spoilers #spn 12.19 #because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts #the scheherazade of supernatural #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #*flings self into the sunshine*

[mittensmorgul]

Dean is strange. It's like he can't help but be right all of the time. Even when logically there could be another answer, his instincts are always right. If I were Sam or Cas, I would really feel like I couldn't catch a break.

Yeah, I mean this is just his special thing. He’s excellent at spotting bullshit. He’s a naturally gifted strategist. Without even trying, he’s usually at least eight or nine steps ahead. He’s intuitive and empathetic. He reads people very well. He picks up knowledge from all sorts of sources, from the conventional to popular culture to ancient lore books and somehow comes up with the right answer more often than not. He’s insightful, thinks fast on his feet, and has a force of will that rivals gods.

I mean, that’s how s11 ended, with him talking God down of a ledge.

(seriously someday I need to get my hands on the show bible, and I bet that’s pretty much the definition of Dean’s character ^^)

I was watching 8.02 earlier, and he was still developing some of these traits (especially the force of will thing...), and several times in the episode, his opinion was discarded-- each time in the name of doing something for family. Despite Dean explaining exactly what would happen, Kevin overrode his advice to stay away from Linda. Kevin wanted his mom to be safe, though, and insisted on going to check on her. If only he’d stayed away like Dean suggested...

Then Linda insists on coming to the auction with them, but Dean tries to talk her out of it... and that goes poorly as well.

The only win Dean got in the whole episode was back in Purgatory, and it was a hollow victory. Because he’d convinced Cas to stay with him and try to find the way out of Purgatory, but at the last moment Cas let go (because he’d never intended to leave with Dean anyway). And ain’t that a kick in the head.

So yeah, Dean has been wrong on occasion (even catastrophically wrong), but it’s usually when he’s “so desperate for a win he can’t see straight,” like he said of Cas in 12.19. Because he gets that. But most of the time, yeah. If Dean insists something’s true, it’s probably true.

#spn 12.20 #spn 12.19 #spn 8.02 #oh DEAN #dean is a genius and if you disagree you can fight me #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #Anonymous

[mittensmorgul]

Alicia's death gives me Charlie feels (a bit). Neither of their deaths looked realistic. Charlie is smart, yet she runs away from her badass caretaker (Castiel) and hides in a small motel with no weapons or security, because she became too overwhelmed to stay still. Alicia is similar, couldn't accept her mother was dead, not like her brother did, and was begging and begging for fake Tasha to wake up. Fake Tasha wakes up and Alicia's all smiley. A normal hunter would be suspicious of that thing!

Yeah... but I think this specifically is a case that was meant to parallel Alicia to Sam around the end of s1. When John was possessed by Azazel, and Dean was holding him at gunpoint. Sam doubted at first, but HE SIDED WITH DEAN. He trusted Dean’s assessment. It saved his life.

(he still couldn’t kill John even if it meant killing the demon, because they would find a better way...)

But Alicia refused to believe that wasn’t her mother. She didn’t trust Max’s assessment of the situation. Nor Sam’s nor Dean’s. Alicia, for whatever reason (she loved her mom, she KNEW her mom, they were just having “girl time,” and she hadn’t seen any of the horror-- her mother’s body, the other twig people, the evil of the witch controlling them. To her eyes, it was her brother who’d gone mad and was torturing her mother. It was HIM who laid whatever spell on her that seemed to be causing her pain, because she didn’t understand the magic that they used.

This is partly what I meant by all the broken mirrors. This is where these broken reflections are highlighting DIFFERENCES. But also paralleling old events with Sam and Dean’s current situation. Because on the surface level this looks like a “worst case scenario” out of Sam and Dean’s past, you start diving below the surface and see how that broken mirror is reflecting a veritable rainbow of the past for both Sam and Dean, as well as where they stand right now.

Let’s start RIGHT FRIGGIN’ NOW! (heh I just watched 7.14 the other day and I still laugh at that title card)

It comes down to belief and doubt. But in this case, DOUBT WAS THE CORRECT AND LIFESAVING MINDSET. Not trusting the surface layer evidence, but looking deeper to spot the ~wrongness~ buried beneath that surface layer. If Alicia hadn’t relied on the surface-layer performance the twig doll was putting on, she may have intuited that something was just not quite right with her. It was almost as if she willfully ignored the inconsistencies that would’ve pinged Dean’s radar so hard if he’d actually known Tasha before. Like the fact that Tasha hadn’t been returning Alicia’s calls that had made Alicia so desperate to drag Sam and Dean into the investigation in the first place. She’d been worried, but SHE accepted Tasha’s explanation for the lapse in her regular behavior, so Dean (and Sam) trusted Max and Alicia’s acceptance. They didn’t have reason NOT to.

Contrast that to Dean’s concerns about Cas, which Sam isn’t outright dismissing, but he is objectively doing everything they are capable of doing in order to find him. But also compare it to Dean’s reaction to Mary’s THREE SECOND LONG voicemail that Dean listened to at the end of the episode. Coming right on the heels of her reassuring and rather motherly message of concern for him, the, “Dean, we have a problem,” was practically a call to arms for Dean. He went from 0 to 60 in three seconds, and he recognized the EMERGENCY nature that message implied.

Looking back at the entirety of canon, they’ve been faced with these tests of belief over and over again, faith and doubt, belief vs reality. And s12 is making Sam and Dean (and US) really examine the foundations supporting those beliefs and seeing what’s really at the heart of everything.

#spn 12.20 #the story became the story #parallels #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here... #the rashomon effect #face your past head-on and FIND ANOTHER WAY a BETTER WAY #kajuned