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#spn 15x17
drulalovescas · 5 months
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So Supernatural did not introduce Abel, the Biblical brother, but created a whole new character, Colette, the love of Cain's life and paralleled her with Cas
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And they did not introduce Biblical Eve, but created a whole new character, Serafina, an ANGEL, the love of Adam's life. And they showed them, a human and an angel, in a loving ROMANTIC relationship
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And in Despair, the episode in which Cas confessed his love to Dean, they showed us Charlie losing the woman she loved.
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Sam losing the woman he loved.
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And Dean losing ... Cas.
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It's as if, AS IF, the show was trying to tell us something?????
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deanwasalwaysbi · 4 months
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Dean's nothing about our lives is real speech? When he says "everything we are is because of chuck"? He was speaking privately & directly to Castiel when he said that.
Not to Sam. Not everything I am. Everything we are. Dean was having a full on crisis.
"You asked, 'What about all of this is real?' We are." Dean didn't know how right Cas was.
Like no baybee. It'll take 15 episodes, but god himself will tell you Cas defied him and his plan to love you, actually.
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2sw · 2 months
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we'll figure it out.
Supernatural S8E23 Sacrifice // S15E17 Unity
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captainchilly · 5 months
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One Castiel Quote per Episode 135/136 → 15.17 “UNITY"
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unhinged-jackles · 1 year
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Rewatching 4x18: The Monster at the End of This Book and it is absolutely fucking insane with the context of season 15.
Like first of all, the title. It's the episode where Chuck is introduced and we all know now how he is God and was the final big bad the boys had to defeat. I know it's a bit iffy if it was always planned for Chuck to be God but coincidence or not, what a lovely parallel.
But more than anything else, throughout the entire episode Dean is desperately trying to break free of the narrative, of Chuck's visions. Sam doesn't give a flying fuck but that's a whole different can of worms.
The only thing that allows Dean to do that is Castiel. Cas chooses free will when he chooses to tell Dean that archangels are tied to prophets in order to help him help Sam. When Dean goes to get Chuck, Chuck says,
"What are you doing here? I didn't write this."
Which takes place only a couple of scenes after Cas tells Dean that a prophet's visions can't be changed.
"As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass."
Castiel defied the word of a God with one single decision.
Cas choosing free will is the catalyst, and will always continue to be. Look at what Chuck said to Castiel in 15x17: Unity,
"You know what every other version of you did after 'gripping him tight and raising him from perdition?' They did what they were told. But not you. Not the 'one off the line with a crack in his chassis.'"
Cas has always been the one thing that Chuck couldn't control, even from the moment we first met Chuck way back in season 4, and that fact alone makes me fucking feral.
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Unity  ∞ SPN 15X17
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kirathehyrulian · 10 months
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And the brothers and their car carfucked happily ever after.
For part 1 [click here]
For more edits [click here]
Technically it’s not the end of the week yet so I wanted to do this last idea. I’ll have to save the other ideas for next year.♥
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adaav · 1 year
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Sam trying to save Jack in 15x17.
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notalawyerdude · 6 months
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"Sam, for what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy, I think your internal compass is functioning perfectly."
That line, said by an Angel of the Lord, specifically about something that does not cause harm to Sam,
That moment absolutely healed something profound within Sam
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shallowseeker · 7 months
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Cas, the Angel Tablet, and learning to know and trust his own heart, part 1
His weakness is revealed! The angel tablet as a symbol of Cas's understanding of his own heart.
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Part 1 (You are here)
Part 2
Part 3
== What is the angel tablet? ==
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Image by Bkshadows
The angel tablet is one of Heaven's most powerful weapons, and sometimes its physicality serves as just that: a weapon.
Other times, it's a curious motif of the secrets of angels, and their angelic romantic love. As one of three known Words of God, it:
"pertains to the nature of Angels as well as granting unimaginable power to Angels who have a connection with it."
///
== Angels + Love + Disconnection ==
Throughout the series, angels regularly showcase volatile (and sometimes petty) emotions. They grieve each other; they Fall. They shriek. They tremble. We see this in Anna, Uriel, Hester, Lucifer, Anael and many others.
But due to years of brutal beatdown and brainwashing, they're disconnected from their own hearts. They cannot recognize their own feelings. Even when they are displaying Big Emotions or even longing, they repeat the company line:
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Image by MisterRandom2
DEAN: You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that? CASTIEL: As a matter of fact, we are. And? 4x10: Heaven and Hell
ANNA: Perfect... Like a marble statue. Cold... no choice... only obedience. 4x10: Heaven and Hell
///
== The illegal union with humanity ==
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Image by Mikael
In SPN, angels often connect to their own hearts through their (illegal) living among their human-blended families. In 12x10: Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, we see that angel-human progeny are outlawed by the oldest laws in Heaven.
///
In season 8, this illegality surrounds Dean and Cas, and this idea of human-angel unity is littered with motifs such as Cupid bows, and Nephilim hearts. It hammers home the image of forbidden romantic love between angels and humans.
Ther clinging to one another is what allowed Dean and Cas to break Chuck's story: "You're not supposed to be here." This union is what allowed them to see and kill the Leviathan, a feat that is supposed to be the domain of God only.
Free will--rebellion--is a team effort. Sam and Dean could not have done it without Cas, and he could not have done it without them. They learned courage from each other, and they borrowed courage from each other, too.
These elements of rebellion swirl in season 8 and have tragic counterparts in season 15.
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Jane the Nephilim (Jack), a love-mark "Cupid's bow" on Cupid's palm (Dean & handprint, symbolic of human love & families), and Castiel's Fallen Angel grace (Cas & The Empty). All elements of angelic-human forbidden love are sacrificed in season 8...as they are in season 15.
A stereotypical arrangement of human-angel motifs goes something like this: The hybrids are killed in front of their parents, to punish them, by witnessing the death of their beloved ones. The fallen angels are then judged by God and cast into dark places. The human lovers linger, as demons to be executed and silenced. It's eerily reminiscent of season 15.
Some believe the fallen angels who sired the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6) (Greek Enoch 20:2), a place of "total darkness."
Floods are the preferred method of torture for the blended, "Nephilim" families: Jack was born on Washaway beach, his birth cabin littered with paintings of the violent sea, and his mother Kelly seemed to recede into the ocean.
As the series progresses, Cas and Dean move from being killed via explosions, Hell hounds, purifying fires, and purifying Purgatory elements...to being overtaken by turbulent waters and summarily executed, as traitors are, with stabs to the back.
Castiel was overtaken by a cosmic sea of black, and Dean was drowned relentlessly by Michael. There is certainly a Flood motif for them in a way there is not for Sam.
///
God wants them to keep to their domains; Heaven and Earth are not to merge.
He tells the angels to keep their Dominion over the humans, as shepherds tend to their sheep. He tells the humans, "submit and obey," and then, if you do, maybe someday, I'll elevate you above the angels. You can be equal to me, if only you grovel and take a knee, of course.
(I promise, I promise.)
///
== Crime and punishment ==
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It's interesting then, that the "Angel Tablet"/Metatron spell was punitive towards angels, causing them to Fall and be cast out. As above, it included sacrificing a Nephilim, stealing a Cupid's love bow (the symbolic taking of a human lover), and sacrificing the grace of a fallen angel.
If Castiel's heart is a blended family, Metatron, like God, cruelly works behind the scenes to clock and punish it. This resulting spell that Metatron devised burns up the wings of the Primary Angels in Heaven, killing many in the process.
Although Metatron aimed his Revenge at the Primary Angels, there's a good chance that this punishment originally existed to be aimed at the human-angel blended families. It seems to predate Lucifer's casting out. Indeed, Apocryphal texts like Enoch 10 shows a sadistic delight in the punitive action of having the Sinful parents watch the deaths of their children:
and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is forever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss
(One thing's for sure, it's certainly Metatron's Revenge of the Nerd.)
If indeed the spell can be assembled from the tablet (it's unclear if if was even in there), that Lucifer hid it inside a crypt suggests he couldn't read it, was protecting someone, or may have been on the side of the Nephilim and their Fathers. All are fascinating possibilities.
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== Is the tablet Castiel's heart? ==
In part. It's other things, too.
Like all motifs in SPN, it morphs in and out of being a stand-in for many different things. In episode 8x17 Goodbye Stranger, it stands in for Castiel's career loyalty...and his heart. At flashpoints, it's Dean's heart, too, because their hearts say the same thing.
Samandriel says of Castiel, "Too much heat was always his problem," so I think much of Castiel's dangerous / insurrectionist power lies in his angelic courage to keep trying to Love, even when Heaven tries to wash it clean.
This disrupts Chuck's Story.
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Sure, it makes Cas weaker in some ways, and he'll struggle with that, but it makes him so much stronger, too. More tenacious, more resilient.
I like to think that Chuck slowly starts to become more in competition with Cas, especially as Dean falls more and more in love with him.
"Too stubborn!" Chuck shrieks in 15x17 Unity.
///
== Location, location, location ==
Where do we find Castiel's heart in 8x17 Goodbye Stranger? Meg reveals its location, (just as she knows where Castiel's affections truly lie).
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Image from TheWinchesterFamilyBusiness.com
A CRYPT, A BASEMENT, A WAREHOUSE, AN ORCHARD, A FLOOD
It's in a crypt (typically a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or mausoleum). It's located beneath an orchard that was washed away by a hundred-year flood, a call forward to the looming unity of Dean and Cas. Again, we see echoes of Nephilim themes, like the cleansing Flood. Like the orchard, Cas's heart went missing.
WENDY RICE: Well, she-- she didn't, but she did mention an -- an old orchard that had gone missing... This -- this town was wiped from the earth by one of the river's 100-year floods. ... I've been working to re-create a map for years as part of my research, and this -- this is the old Jakubiak orchard there. [she points to a section of the map.] I found out yesterday it's where Downey meets Bond Street. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
The orchard was washed clean, just as Castiel is brainwashed over and over again, losing sight of his own heart. The old site is now covered by a warehouse. There's an intersection of roads: Downey and Bond, like a profound bond. Cas doesn't so much Learn Humanity as he Revives his Own Dean Heart, one that he had all along.
Remember, it is a warehouse where 8x17 cold-opens, where Naomi forces Cas to act out killing Dean. (And ultimately, Dean will die in a warehouse via Metatron's Heavenly war, in season 9.)
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INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT DEAN comes around the corner in a darkened warehouse, gun drawn. He brings his gun up but it's struck down. He is struck down. CASTIEL appears over him. DEAN: No, Cas. No! [DEAN raises his hand towards CASTIEL, but CASTIEL breaks his wrist, we hear the bone snap. DEAN groans in pain.] ... NAOMI: No hesitation. Quick. Brutal. [NAOMI and CASTIEL stare down at DEAN.] Everything's back in order. [NAOMI smiles at CASTIEL.] Finally. [We see a close-up of CASTIEL, his face expressionless.] You're ready. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
This warehouse is like Dean himself, and how his love currently manifests, overflowing with a surplus of affection...for Cas. Later, they come to a warehouse to retrieve the tablet.
EXT. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE, ALLEY - NIGHT MEG: So, this is it. Basement? DEAN: All right, Cas and I will head in and get our Indiana Jones on. Sam, you stay outside with Meg. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
Once inside, they reach a wall, and Castiel cracks it, letting Dean inside where his heart resides.
CASTIEL: I don't know. Wait. [They're walking through a darkened corridor when CASTIEL stops, feels the cement wall.] There's a draft. There's something behind there. Stand back. [Hand against the wall, energy flows through his hand, the wall cracks.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
8x17: GOODBYE STRANGER
So, we have old orchard motif (Cas's love without Heaven's interference; Dean is himself a new "valley")
Flood (Divine punishment)
A broken wrist (Punishment, for continuing to reach for each other despite all the barriers keeping them apart)
Warehouse (Dean loves Cas; it's where the love is stored, like the kitchen; Heaven wants to keep it impersonal and distant)
then a journey DOWN a basement
through a wall, and into a crypt, where Cas's stone-cold, dead heart awaits.
There's also a nod to Indiana Jones, which brings to mind 4x22: Lucifer Rising, a cherished callback to one of the first moments that Cas captivated Dean, and one of the first times they messed up Chuck's story. "We're making it up as we go."
Here in the crypt is where Dean will share his secret truth and shatter the stone barricade around Cas's heart, setting it free.
(It flies away.)
15x18: DESPAIR
This is a mate scene to 15x18: Despair, which features a library motif (Cas breaks the narrative, just as his grace was hidden in a book and blew out the pages of the story)
Death (Mortalpunishment)
A heart attack (punishment for Dean's love)
Bunker (Cas protects Dean, his love is stored in his tenacious, sometimes misguided protection)
then a journey DOWN to the archive room
where Cas erects a "barricade" to protect Dean, with warding
but they are pushed back into a dungeon, where Dean's heart is entrapped (Devil's trap)
The shackles are a nod to Dean's time in Hell, one of the first moments that Dean met Cas.
Here in the dungeon, Cas will share his secret truth and throw Dean out of the entrapment. Cas sets it free.
Dean wears his heart on his sleeve.
(It's bleeding.)
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== Castiel's unknowable heart ==
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When they find the tablet, Naomi tells Cas to leave and to tell the Winchester that the crypt is Empty, just like Heaven tells its angels that they're heartless.
Naomi doesn't want Dean to touch it. Cas rationalizes that Dean can and should open it, and it's a logical move, too, since it's warded against angels. Angels, after all, are cursed by God not to connect to their own hearts.
In the crypt, everything is covered with dust, spider webs. Close-up of CASTIEL's face. CASTIEL (breathes): I found it. ... CASTIEL: Dean... [POV switches back to the crypt. CASTIEL points towards an item on a shelf against the wall.] That's it. [DEAN shines his flashlight on a carved, wooden chest.] DEAN: How do you know? CASTIEL: It's the only thing in here warded against angels. [DEAN picks up the heavy object and places it on the table in front of CASTIEL. DEAN picks up a small dagger, and pries open the lid. He reaches in and lifts out a rather large block of stone.] DEAN: Winner, winner, chicken dinner. CASTIEL: Good. Hand it to me, and I'll take it to heaven. DEAN: No, we will take it to Kevin so he can translate. [DEAN holds the block of stone using both hands.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
Cas wants to hand his stone-cold heart to Heaven to use as a weapon. Heaven doesn't want angel hearts to belong to angels. They must belong to heaven. But Dean wants to understand it, like he wants to understand and translate Cas.
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== Castiel will hurt Dean ==
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Image by Winchester-GIFs
Cas angels up. Thunder and lightning. A storm.
CASTIEL: I won't hurt Dean. NAOMI: Yes. You will. You are. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
It's a tragic callback to Castiel's season 7 PTSD!ridden lamentation, that he (or Heaven) is going to hurt Dean and he doesn't want to:
CASTIEL: I can't help. You understand? I can't. I destroyed... everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that? 7x23: Survival of the Fittest
Castiel's heart is brutal, angelic, and pragmatic. Angels are destroyers. Angels hurt humans, and humans hurt angels. Castiel's heart will hurt Dean. If they give their hearts to each other, if they ally with one another, it's as he said in 4x22: "We'll all be hunted down and killed."
And he's not human. In season 6, Cas started his drawn-out repetition of this: "I'm not human." And he keeps right on emphasizing this, despairing, in season 8, "I don't think it will work for me. I'm not human."
I'm not like you. I'll hurt you. (I'll destroy everything.)
If Dean thinks he's poison, a blunt instrument, then Cas is war personified, a sharpened blade. He'll break what he touches, and even when he breaks, he'll be sharp like glass. Certainly not something you can hold onto.
("War is what Michael does." It's what angels do.)
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== Be honest with me (I love you) ==
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Dean pleads with a suddenly dangerous-looking Cas:
INT. BASEMENT, CRYPT - NIGHT DEAN: Just tell me how you got out of Purgatory. Be honest with me -- for the first time since you've been back -- [DEAN nods towards the stone he's still holding] and this is yours. [CASTIEL's blade drops into his hand.]" 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
Be honest with me and this is yours.
Now the tablet is symbolic of Dean's love, too, taunting the possibility that, "Be honest with me, and (my heart) is yours."
///
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This is the crux of what Dean has been dealing with since season 6. He finally understands his own oversized reactions and defensive barbs. Season 7 brought a crash of unrelenting grief, followed by a slow understanding.
The Turducken revealed that a large part of Dean's issues in that season were about "Cas and the black goo." It hit Dean so hard. It caused Dean to "go through the motions," to "not be the same Dean," to be like "one of the dead hunters walking." Feeling for Cas is different for Dean, and Dean's trying to figure out why:
DEAN: Honestly, I-I-I don't know if he is dead. I just know that this... whole thing couldn't be messier. You know, I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was. It might take me some time, but... I always could. What Cas did... I just can't – I don't know why. EMMANUEL/CASTIEL: Well, it doesn't matter why. DEAN: Of course it matters. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity
Of course it matters. it's Dean's feelings! It's Dean trying to sort out why everything with Cas feels so Big. Why Cas matters so much. Why Dean kept the coat. Why he missed him so much. Dean was puzzling it over and trying to figure it out all this time.
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== The coat + Take it. Please. ==
Dean's deeper feelings start to become apparent in the coat scene. Dean tenderly folds the coat, cradles it to his chest, and drags it from car to car. He mouths along the words to "All Out of Love (I'm so lost without you)."
Then, he meets Cas again, and he returns it, a symbol of their longing and their mutual caring (they care about the same things):
DEAN: Wait. DEAN opens the trunk of the car and takes out CASTIEL’s trenchcoat. Somber, he holds it out to CASTIEL. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity
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The meaning is even more potent in the scripted version of the scene:
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He goes to the car trunk. Digs... Comes up with Cas's folded, stained COAT. DEAN: Dumb to keep. I know. I saw you-- dissolve or whatever. But, just in case. 'Cause I never stopped wanting to fix it either. So we got something in common. (re: the coat) Just-- take it. Please. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity
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This "just take it, please," line is just so desperate. It sounds dangerously close to "giving away your heart." Please.
Take it. Please. Be honest with me and this is yours.
It's freely given. It's not Destiny or Fate. It's the Rebellion of Free Will.
///
== Dean defends himself against the onslaught ==
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Though Castiel's "heart" is encased in stone, it is this stone that is protecting Dean from Cas-as-Heaven's war hammer. (This tablet was not present to protect Naomi's Dean-doppelgangers.)
Dean is protecting himself from the blows, and yet...he keeps trying to reach for Cas.
He puts a (reciprocal) hand on Cas's shoulder, a callback to Castiel's handprint/influence/connection to Dean. It is simply a bond. The love isn't cosmic Fate. It's simply two people, reaching for each other. Their hands often reach for the left shoulder, for the direct line to the other's heart.
CASTIEL attacks, DEAN blocks the blow with the stone.] Cas! [Flashes of light, thunder rumbles.] ...  [CASTIEL strikes again, DEAN again uses the stone to block the blow. Thunder rumbles.] ... DEAN: Cas! [DEAN puts his hand on CASTIEL's shoulder. CASTIEL backhands DEAN who is thrown into a wall and falls to the floor.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
The storm is the sound of Castiel's heart, rebelling. Thunderous. It's not dead. It's not dead. (It's not as Dean thought in 4x22: "You soulless son of a bitch. You're already dead. We're done." Cas's heart is alive.)
CASTIEL is attacking DEAN. DEAN throws a punch, CASTIEL grabs his forearm and breaks it. We hear the bone snap, DEAN drops the stone, it shatters, revealing the tablet that was encased within. Lightning flashes. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
Cas hurts Dean, and as Dean is forced to let go, the stone casing protecting the Angel Tablet (Castiel's heart) shatters.
CASTIEL is beating DEAN. DEAN's face is bruised and bloodied. DEAN: You want it? [CASTIEL looks dispassionately at the now exposed tablet.] Take it! But you're gonna have to kill me first. Come on, you coward. Do it. Do it! [CASTIEL continues to beat DEAN.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
Dean is talking to Heaven here, to Naomi. He's saying to her, you have to kill ME in order to kill this connection between me and Cas as we are right now. After all, Dean wouldn't leave him in Purgatory. He's goading Heaven that he won't let go. Dean knows his own heart now.
He keeps reaching for Cas, even though Cas let go of his hand and has in fact broke the wrist of the very hand that had clung to him so tightly in Purgatory.
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DEAN: Ohh! [DEAN, seriously beaten and bloody, now has one eye swollen shut.] Cas. Cas. [Weakly, reaching towards CASTIEL.] I know you're in there. [CASTIEL raises his angel blade, ready to strike.] I know you can hear me. Cas... [DEAN's voice breaks, pleading.] It's me. [CASTIEL stands there, blade at the ready, light glints off the blade.] We're family. We need you. I need you. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
///
The script emphasizes Dean, barely hanging on:
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From above: CRYPT - NIGHT. Dean is barely hanging on now. Beaten. Swollen. Bloody. DEAN: I know you're in there. I know you are. I forgive, you Cas... (then) ....I love you. Cas looks at Dean. As if hearing him for the first time. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
This situation is no longer as simple as pleading for honesty and equal partnership:
Be honest with me, and this is yours.
It has become more desperate, unconditional, raw:
I forgive you. I love you regardless. (I need you anyway. Even if you're broken. We're family. We'll be broken together. "Do I look like good luck to you?" I'm broken, too.)
///
== The connection to Heaven breaks! ==
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Cas rears back, stunned. In the script, it's written, "as if hearing him for the first time." He drops the blade. After all he's been through, the arrogance of being a petty God, the disparaging of human family as ants and pets, the partial penance of Purgatory, and now the unholy analgesic of Heaven's mission, Cas's heart is finally open.
Cas feels...something. It's loud. Thunder and lightning. It's alive.
He lets go of Dean, reaches down to grasp the tablet, and it flashes a bright light that blinds Naomi and hides him from her gaze. I think of how Cas's out-of-bounds nature hides him from demigods, like Noah the gorgon (season 14), and how Chuck cannot seem to predict him.
Castiel's love is a Wild Card.
CASTIEL is holding the angel tablet, standing over DEAN. DEAN: Cas? [Breathing heavily, he's horribly beaten. ] Cas? [CASTIEL reaches his hand towards DEAN. He wails, in a panic, thinking Cas is about to smite him:] No. Cas. Cas! [CASTIEL places his hand on the side of DEAN's head, DEAN gasps, and is suddenly healed.] CAS: I'm so sorry, Dean. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
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== What broke the connection? (I love you) ==
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DEAN (wonderingly): Well, w-what broke the connection? CASTIEL: I don't know. DEAN looks HORRIFIED:
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Image by @xofemeraldstars
Dean's not stupid.
He knows what he just said to Cas, and he knows what he himself meant. Dean's figured himself out. In asking, "What broke the connection," he's fishing. It's as good as asking, "What about your feelings." He's been wanting to know Castiel's unknowable heart, and Cas hits him with this light rejection. Is Cas lying to him again, or does he really not- ? Dean thinks he must've misunderstood. Badly.
But the thing is, Cas isn't playing. The tablet, like his heart, is free, but like the tablet, but Castiel can't fully "read" it yet. He's got too much heart, and plenty of emotions, but after billions of years of military servitude, he can't recognize his own feelings or parse them.
(Of course, Dean doesn't know that.)
CAS: I just know that I have to protect this tablet now. DEAN: From Naomi? CASTIEL: Yes. And from you. DEAN: From me? What are you talking about? [CASTIEL and the tablet are suddenly gone, the sound rumbles through the crypt.] Cas? Cas! Damn it. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
///
== Cas flees ==
Fresh off yet another bout of Heavenly brainwashing and torture, Cas needs to flee and figure out how to handle his own heart.
It's no wonder he's spun out. The last few years:
In season 4, he was murdered by Raphael after billions of years of military servitude.
This Raphael-wound led to bitterness and shame, and Cas shouldered a war all by himself in season 6.
(He didn't even trust his comrades to know his Purgatory-eating plans, and he didn't trust them enough to share the burden of that power, either).
In season 7, he became a megalomaniac and family annihilator.
In season 8, he turned to self-punishment/penance/suicide.
He pledged to suffer as penance, and he did not reach for Dean any sort of happiness.
He did not allow himself to go home.
But even so, Heaven still wouldn't let him rest, and they retrieved him for more work.
After all that, he's been hit with this barrage of emotion, and he doesn't understand it or how he feels about it. So, he protects. Withdraws. Flees.
He needs more time to sort himself out.
///
==Dean is hurt in that prickly, embarrassed sort of way==
Dean is mega-hurt.
Because on his part, it was, in essence, a love confession. Naomi's later dialogue is written with this "love confession" in mind:
NAOMI: "I only wish he felt the same way."
And in 8x18 Freaks and Geeks, when Sam asks if Dean is okay, it's Dean who brings up his feelings. "Cas dinged you up pretty good. Are you okay?" Dean bristles -> "What, like my feelings?"
So, not only does Cas not love him, but he doesn't even trust him. Dean clung to him so hard, and Cas let him go again. (The timing is so tragically wrong, as usual.)
SAM: So... what happened? I mean, Cas touched the tablet, and it reset him to his factory settings or something? DEAN: I don't know. And I don't care. All I know is that he is off the reservation with a-a heavenly WMD. Listen, man, I can't take any more lies -- from anyone. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger
The song is revealing, really:
♪ tried to see your point of view ♪ ♪ hope your dreams will all come true ♪
♪ will we ever meet again? ♪ ♪ Feel no sorrow, feel no shame ♪ ♪ come tomorrow, feel no pain ♪ ♪ sweet devotion ♪ it's not for me ♪ ♪ just give me motion ♪ ♪ and set me free ♪
I flash-forward to Hannah in season 10, to that instinctive recoil from human emotions:
HANNAH: But t-those are human things. (10x01 Black) ... HANNAH: These f-feelings, they aren't for me, for us. (10x07 Girls, Girls, Girls)
I wonder.
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Take a breath. Revel in this wonderful thing you created.
Amara in Unity (15x17): Best of SPN Ladies [376 / ?]
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dyed-red · 1 year
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(1/2) May I please vent for a moment? I have a lot of very Sam feels lately, and I never really see much about this so maybe my POV is skewed. I rewatched the episode Unity (15.17), One of the points in the episode is that if Jack kills Chuck right then, everyone who has died and been brought back to life will be dead again. Dean says he doesn't care, let them all die. Sam asks "Even me?" and Dean doesn't answer, just repeats that Chuck must die. To me this is one of the most heartbreaking
2/2) scenes because we have 15 years of Dean doing anything to save Sam, even when Sam didn't want to be saved, and now when Sam has is good with their relationship and their definition of family and how they live their lives is when Dean doesn't care? Maybe it's just me but the look on Sam's face at that moment was absolutely devastated. Dean, now is when you don't put your brother and your relationship before everything??? Is it just me? OK, it's just me. Sorry for the long rant.
Oh darling you are always welcome to vent for any moments, especially with feels.
First off, that scene is fucking incredible. There is SO MUCH emotion in it. Devastating. And it's a sign of how good it is and how much emotion they brought to it that it has affected you so deeply, so bear that in mind.
But, because I abso-fucking-lutely love that scene and you gave me a perfect opportunity to geek out in way too much detail about it, let's take an extended look.
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Dean is so angry. He hates Chuck. Hates him like he's hated possibly no one ever. I'm not sure he hates Lucifer as much as he hates Chuck, and that is truly saying something.
In the case of Lucifer, of literally anyone and anything else, even universe-ending threats like Amara, the priority was saving people, not killing the monster. Whatever was necessary, but not no matter the cost. The cost was born to save as many as could be (and later, to keep Sam as safe as could be). The ultimate was not death in and of itself, the point was salvation.
That's no longer the case here. The point is killing Chuck. Literally no matter the collateral damage, no matter the cost. This is a new level of desperation that we've never seen from Dean before, a new level of hatred.
(And it's coming from a place of intense powerlessness and violation, but more on that in a sec).
And right after Dean lays bare how truly deep that hatred runs, Sam asks that incredible, devastating, shocking line in response:
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And Dean may not immediately have words at the ready, but his expression isn't a dismissal. He looks shocked that Sam could even ask, mouth forms an attempt at a scoff or denial or - or something. Something that, to me, clearly communicates 'no'. He looks hurt by Sam's question (which is important for contextualizing his next lines).
But interestingly enough, the scene cuts from there to Chuck and Amara, and the next spoken word is "Balance."
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Chuck and Amara are siblings, and there is a parallel and foil happening between them versus Sam and Dean here, as there has been all season. Chuck absorbs Amara and subjugates her. He is still his toxic self, who wants all of the control and all of the power and is willing to destroy his sister, the only being in the entire universe who could be his equal, the only being in the entire multiverse and all creation who might be able to truly understand him.
And for what? Extra power? Maybe.
But maybe that's just what abusive people do -- they tear down your walls and take all of you, whatever they can get, and use and unmake you and destroy you, if given the opportunity. They remake you into their image, into what they want from you, so that you aren't allowed to exist with your own wants separate to what they want, and what they want for you.
That's what Chuck has just done with/to Amara. And there is no "balance" (no equality) to it.
Then we jump right back to Sam and Dean.
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And I think you're reading that first line of Dean's as dismissing what Sam has just asked. Sam says "what about me?" and you said that Dean doesn't answer. And you're right, to a point, because hurt expression notwithstanding, he doesn't outright reply to Sam's explicit question.
But I'm not sure that that means he doesn't answer. Because you're also correct that Dean repeats, hurtles onward that Chuck has to die, that this has to happen. But I don't personally read it as a dismissal, and I do read it as Dean answering Sam's question, but maybe not in the way you think.
I read it as Dean protesting. I read it as him begging.
So let's go back over his reply one more time, with a close, if forgiving, reading:
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Chuck has to die.
Dean's sentence is declarative, a statement of fact. It is necessary for Chuck to die. This is a need, a requirement.
He has to!
With the exclamation, the rise in his voice, and the repetition of the sentiment of the previous sentence (has to die), the declarative becomes more emotionally charged. It's not just that it is necessary for Chuck to die, it is necessary to Dean that Chuck die.
The emotion and repetition also make it clear, unlike a declarative, that this is not a certainty. "Earl had to die" is a calm declarative, a statement of necessity. Dean's emotional and repeated delivery moves this away from a statement, away from an agreed-upon certainty, and into something else. So what is it then, and where does he go next?
Otherwise he'll keep us tap dancing forever
Here, on the surface, Dean is providing reasons to back up his point that Chuck has to die. He's providing a counterfactual argument, what will happen if they don't kill Chuck, which is that they will never be free.
Looking deeper, Dean has shifted from the statement of Chuck's death as a necessity to a direct acknowledgement here that his death is not a certainty, by providing the "otherwise" case that acknowledges the potential for Chuck's continued survival.
Dean is also shifting the language over to 'us'. He's bringing Sam into this counterfactual argument. In doing so, it becomes clear that he is attempting to reason with Sam, to appeal to the consequences to Sam and to something that Sam (in Dean's eyes, at least, or else framing this argument this way would be pointless) should care about too.
and I can't live like that, man! I can't live like that!
Dean's words are now belying his desperation here. Not only has he acknowledged the possibility of Chuck not dying and the rational consequence he sees from that, but he is acknowledging the emotional consequence that will have for him, personally. This is something he cannot do. In repeating it, yelling it, he makes it a hard line of his. It is an impossibility, not an option. This is not tenable, to continue to live under Chuck, and for that reason, Chuck must die.
His logic has been laid out, now. He is asking Sam to join him in fighting Chuck, whose death Dean believes is necessary in order for them both (us) to live in an acceptable manner, otherwise he (Dean) cannot continue to live at all.
I won't!
Except, finally, acknowledgment that even that, even Dean's inability to live under Chuck, is not a material reality. Not a statement of cannot/is not, but rather it's a personal imperative. Won't, not can't. I choose not to. I refuse.
This couches his preceding sentences his a new light. This is his personal refusal, his personal feelings. Not a cold and rational reality or something which cannot be. It's not a foregone statement or necessity that Chuck die, it's Dean's need. His request.
And in the grander scheme of the emotion, the counterfactual of what it would mean to live under Chuck, the repeated necessity (repeated uncertainty) of Chuck dying, it lays bare that this is a plea. That Dean is begging his brother to join him in this. To stand by his side so that it is not trading Sam versus Chuck, but him and Sam standing together against Chuck and everything else in existence.
So, I read it as an implicit reply to Sam's question. "No, I would not trade you. Instead I'm demanding, no I am begging, that you stand by me so that we together can trade the rest of them. Because I refuse to live in this type of pain, and I hope this pain, these horrible consequences, are enough argument to convince you to join me."
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Let's go back to that Chuck and Amara scene for a sec.
Their scene and Sam and Dean's are interspersed and keep cutting back and forth. Chuck is convincing Amara to carry out his plan, using words instead of violence, but doing so in a way that is manipulative, and for a decidedly selfish end. He wants to control and subsume her. That's the toxic and abusive outcome, with Chuck completely dominating and destroying his sister. His means aren't violent, but his desired ends absolutely are.
Meaning, the stand-off between Sam and Dean starts with violence. Dean, in his own right mind and not possessed or demonic or under any external influence, pulls a gun on Sam.
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Sam is horrified, devastated. He immediately realizes the severity of how extreme this must be, for Dean to do this, something he's never done before, something that is in so many ways completely antithetical to who Dean is.
There is an altercation. Sam knocks the gun aside. Dean punches Sam. Dean's means are violent. The older brother, trying to convince and control his younger sibling to carry out his plan.
But Sam fights back.
Sam tells, demands that Dean listen. They argue.
THEY ARGUE.
Sam is not Amara. Rather than let himself be subsumed, he meets his brother where he is at, with violence, and holds him back. He meets Dean as an equal. And he outright demands with his body and with his words that Dean listen to him.
And Dean is not Chuck. Rather than wanting to control, subsume, or destroy Sam, Dean loves Sam as an equal. He loves Sam, period. His means are violent, but his ends, at least where Sam is concerned, are not, and have never been.
So when Sam demands Dean listen, Dean does. And that's when Dean begins to protest and plead.
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But Sam continues to stand firm on his side, on what he knows is right. On what he learned from watching Dean -- about choices, about autonomy, about hope.
From the moment that Sam reminds Dean that they always have a choice, Dean has lost. The argument is over, and where Chuck and Amara have turned into something monstrous through their toxic consumption of one another, Sam and Dean have chosen a different path.
To be honest, Dean starts to lose even possibly before Sam reminds him of choices (of free will, the longest-standing theme of the entire show). It begins from the moment Dean turns his attention from urging Cas and Jack onward to acknowledging what Sam is saying, even if only to argue with it. The rest of it is his slow and aggrieved, desperate surrender. His pleas to Sam. Sam's pleas in return to him, which Dean allows (foregone by this point) to win him over.
From the moment Dean let Sam knock the gun aside, the rest of it is just the five stages of grief.
Denial: we don't have a choice. there's nothing else we can do.
Bargaining: I'd trade it all.
Anger: chuck has to die. he has to.
Depression: i can't live like that.
Acceptance:
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So... while a dizzying and almost-ruinous moment that we get from Dean, I do have to disagree, nonnie. I don't think think that this moment is showing us that Dean doesn't care. I think it's showing us that he cares so much.
So much that he already knew he lost. That he was desperate and grieving and sad and doomed, so incredibly doomed, so that when Sam said "what about me?" Dean's reply wasn't a dismissal -- it was him begging his brother to understand, to sit with grace in the depth of Dean's despair. To join him.
And instead of letting Dean drag him into the same place of hopelessness, of helplessness, Sam does what they have always done for each other. He reaches his hand into the muck and grabs Dean's from where it is buried under so many layers of hurt, and he pulls him up again. He keeps his brother human.
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queercherrypie · 1 year
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I saw someone on twitter saying that Castiel lost the screws because of Dean after being a celestial being of millions of years walking on the line, so I took these scenes because my brain strongly wanted to disagree, but I didn't want to talk to a heller and have a headache. So I'm making this post...
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laufire · 2 years
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Here the whole world (stars, water, air, And field, and forest, as they were Reflected in a single mind) Like cast off clothes was left behind In ashes, yet with hopes that she, Re-born from holy poverty, In lenten lands, hereafter may Resume them on her Easter Day.
For @roublardise #AmaraDays
[Caption: gifs of Amara in Supernatural accompanied by the poem above. The first three show Amara extending her arms, her hair in the wind, and looking up at the sky when she thinks Chuck is finally coming to her, before the angels try to attack her; Chuck extending a hand to her and Amara taking it, healing him; and Amara turning back and seeing the dying flowers around her, horrified. Those gifs are fused with a sequenced of a sunset. The last three show Amara smiling, her hair covered in snow; Amara sitting in a bench looking up, holding a flower with her eyes closed; and Amara’s face illuminated by light (when she heals Chuck). Those three gifs are fused with a sequence of a sunrise.]
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restlesshush · 2 years
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Okay god so the reason this post by @heaven-ecologist hits so much is like – yeah exactly! Cas wants to be Jack’s Dad but he doesn’t quite view himself as having that role, not in the sense that he doesn’t love him or feel responsibility for him like a parent – of course he does – but he just doesn’t feel like he can quite claim that title. Which in some ways is part of what’s beautiful about their relationship, everything he does for Jack (cf Byzantium) is out of love rather than some sense of familial obligation, but it also has its downsides. I think he views his relationship with Jack very asymmetrically: he feels like he, as a caretaker, should give him (and most crucially he wants to give him) his love and support, but because he doesn’t give himself the formal status of Jack’s Parent he doesn’t think he wields any authority in terms of how Jack should respond to him (ie, listening to him when he tells him not to be self-destructive), or in terms of how other people should treat Jack. This actually hampers his ability to be a good parent to Jack because while Cas is the one (out of all of tfw 2.0, including Jack) who most has Jack’s best interests at heart, it never occurs to him to argue that he has any special claim to being listened to, which he could use to argue in favour of Jack’s well-being more strongly. Moriah is probably the closest he comes – standing in between Dean and Jack, showing who he’s prioritising – but even then he argues about killing Jack being wrong and something he doesn’t want, but he doesn’t try to exert his authority as Jack’s dad, because it’s not occurred to him he has any to exert.
(This is also linked to why although I think Jack’s relationship to Dean is very hard to fix, Dean’s to Jack is actually pretty easy. If Jack is Cas’s kid and treating Jack badly is something that he knows Cas isn’t going to stand for, then Dean would have to behave better, and can do that. The designation of family that is conditionally applied to Jack means very little, but the way his treatment of Jack would affect things with Cas would mean a lot, as long as Cas has established authority there)
This stuff is also why I’m always thinking about Cas’s “you did WHAT?!” re Jack setting off the god bomb thing in Unity. Like, neither Jack of Dean thought to wait for Cas’s input as particularly mattering (and neither did Sam, though way less egregiously), and this line both reinforces that Cas isn’t seen as having authority and also points to that… did Cas almost think he should have been given authority here? Because like, if you want to have the final say re matters of your kid’s welfare, you have to make that expectation known or no one’s going to factor it in, and this is a place where this issue has sort of been thrown into very sharp relief for Cas. If he and Jack had both survived this, maybe this could be the beginning of him realising all of this and getting to use it to better fulfil his goal of taking care of this kid – of his kid. Because they did choose each other and he is his dad! And not only does it pain him not to know that, but learning it would enable him to take better care of Jack, which is something he wants so dearly.
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nikadd · 2 years
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no but how is it that in 15x17 chuck beats them bc he’s omniscient and he knows what plan they’ve concocted bc he knows everything but then in 15x19 they defeat him bc they made a plan and he doesn’t know about it. stupid ass show that never had a normal writers room. and it SHOWS.
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