#15x17 unity

[iheardyourprayer]

Like i hear you but dean calling jack "not family" in s15 was not dean. Like that was chuck. im willing to bet he even wrote the exact dialogue. Dean himself was the one that restated team free will to include jack. He's done a lot of terrible stuff to jack but like calling him not family at that point was not dean imho...

[magnificent-winged-beast]

Unity  ∞ SPN 15X17

[arcanespillo]

“Unity”

SPN S15E17

[shallowseeker]

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.

Part 1 (You are here)

Part 2

Part 3

== What is the angel tablet? ==

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:

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 ==

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.

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 ==

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.

///

== 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.

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).

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.)

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.)

///

== Castiel's unknowable heart ==

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.

///

== Castiel will hurt Dean ==

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.)

///

== Be honest with me (I love you) ==

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."

///

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.

///

== 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

///

The meaning is even more potent in the scripted version of the scene:

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

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 ==

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.

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:

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! ==

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

///

== What broke the connection? (I love you) ==

DEAN (wonderingly): Well, w-what broke the connection? CASTIEL: I don't know. DEAN looks HORRIFIED:

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.

///

(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

[samepisodebracket]

Round 1; Group 40

[menspussypowersactivate]

"Jack's not family!" Really?? Bitch?? Are you for real?? That's way to out of character, even for you.

[amaranthhiding]

Just something I made for the episodes 15x17 “Unity” 15x18 “Despair” 15x19 “Inherit the Earth” It might be hard to see, but the faces of Jack, Amara, and Cas in the middle are all taken from scenes where each of them has a single tear running down their cheek, while Jack is telling Cas how scared he is in 15x18, Amara is getting consumed by Chuck in 15x17, and Cas by the Empty in 15x18. The names on the floor of the bunker at the bottom of the image are the ones carved into the library table in 15x19. The flower is the one that Amara was holding when she declared herself a Defender of Earth in 15x17. I’m not very proficient with graphics stuff, but figured this one turned out well enough to share with you all. <3

[dyed-red]

(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.

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:

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."

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.

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:

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."

-

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.

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.

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:

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.

[bvtchcas]

Season 15

[xofemeraldstars]

SUPERNATURAL -> 15x17 ❝ unity ❞

[unhinged-jackles]

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.

[seasononesam]

Stackednatural- 72/327

Unity (15x17) October 29th, 2020

[chuckwon]

Concept: Jack Kline was turned into an Ostium

And looking at how the Ostium was used in the season finale further underscores what will be needed in the future for the story to move forward, and for Jack and his family to heal.

Let's go through it:

LATA: Our box has a name. They call it the Ostium.

CARLOS: Oh. Latin for "an opening in the body." What, didn't any of you guys ever go to Sunday School? ...So is that thing organic? Is it a mouth or... [chuckles] any other kind of hole?

LATA: Let's just stick with a mouth, please.

ADA: So this box eats monsters?

–SPNWIN 1x07, "Reflections"

–––

ADAM: It's one of my ribs, dude. Everything can contain the spark of the divine, but this puppy? It's packing enough punch to create life. Or, in your case, destroy God.

SERAFINA: Jack, making your vessel strong, reclaiming your human soul, it was... it was all preparing you for this.

JACK: What'll it do to me?

ADAM: Start an elemental chain reaction. It fuses your soul and your grace into a... Like a...

SERAFINA: Metaphysical supernova.

DEAN: Meaning what?

ADAM: You'll collapse into a living black hole for divine energy. One nothing can escape—not the darkness, not God himself. But once it starts... you can't stop it. So, don't use 'til game time. You dig?

–SPN 15x17, "Unity"

–––

Dean: All that prep work we did to turn Jack here into a cosmic bomb? Oh. Well, it turned him into sort of a power vacuum. He's been sucking up bits of power all over the place.

–SPN 15x19, "Inherit the Earth"

–––

"A living black hole for divine energy" / "a power vacuum" is akin to how the Ostium functions. (And remember that Chuck orchestrated this outcome.)

The final step of Jack's transformation in 15x17 and the way the Ostium is activated are also similar:

Adam's rib, containing extra "spark of the divine," was placed in Jack's palm and he absorbed its power. After his initial explosion outward, Jack was then turned into a vessel that acted as a vacuum for divine power.

When an item was placed on the Ostium–like a rock from the Akrida's world–it absorbed the item, which determines what powerful beings the box "eats" and where it sends those beings when activated.

Both Jack and the Ostium were also wielded as weapons.

Which, of course, this show condemns explicitly:

LATA: So you had a friend stuck in a cycle of violence, and instead of helping him, you wielded him like some kind of weapon?

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

And, with Joan / the Akrida Queen, we saw what happened to a hunter who absorbed monster essence: she became corrupted.

JOAN: What I decided was that the monsters weren't the problem, kid. Mankind is the problem. They always need saving. And Hunters are the ones who end up paying the price with our lives. And then what do these rescued humans do with their precious second chance at life? They waste it… kill each other, beat each other down, destroy our planet. Monsters have it right. Humans are nothing more than food.

LATA: Is that you talking? Or is it the monster essence that's powering you?

MARY: The monster essence drove her mad. She became so obsessed with making sure that Hunters were protected, and she believed the only way to do that was to wipe out everyone who needed saving.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

(Joan is also a dark mirror for Dean, but that's a separate meta topic entirely.)

With how Jack is acting in 15x19 and the SPNWIN finale (and as part of Chuck Won as a concept), something seems to be wrong with him along those lines.

So in regards to the Ostium, what was the solution the team used in the season finale? What did they need to defeat the Akrida Queen?

ADA: The Queen is about to sing her swan song. We can't rewind this tape here.

CARLOS: Wait. What if we could rewind the tape? Metaphysically speaking, if you know what I mean.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

–––

CARLOS: Well, whatever you feed it creates a portal connected to that object. So we fed it the rock, and it was able to shoot the Akrida back to their world.

MILLIE: So, if we feed it the journal and trace the sigils in reverse, the Ostium can bring here whatever was tied to the journal... the Mystery Man, if he's even alive.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

They reversed the polarity of the Ostium to try to summon Dean, which required using the journal–something “personal” and “clearly connected” to him, as Mary said at one point.

Now, of course, the result when they used it on the Ostium was that it gave the team the Impala rather than Dean for plot reasons. However, the point holds: Dean's journal was the key to metaphysically rewinding the tape and getting the Ostium to release / return what it had absorbed.

That journal was filled with Dean's thoughts, which we got throughout the show in the form of the story he's telling / narrating. They're the healing lessons repeatedly demonstrated by the 1972 gang that Dean has to use in his own life to free himself from the trap he's in, break the cycle of violence, and get his own happy ending.

So, follow the through-line:

The Ostium and Jack are seemingly similar. Just like Dean's journal was used to reverse the Ostium and get it to release/return what it absorbed... The lessons inside of Dean's journal are what’s needed to reverse the polarity of Jack’s transformation, getting Jack to release the God power he absorbed too.

And what are those lessons in Dean's journal? Ah, well, that's what The Winchesters (the story Dean is telling) is dedicated to showing and telling us. That's the function of the entire show.

To highlight a few mirroring moments relevant to the topic at hand:

TONY: You're scared of your own son?

ADA: I'm not scared of you. I... you are my son, and I love you.

TONY: If you love me, you would've told me the truth.

[...]

ADA: I... was wrong to lie to you about who you are, and I was even more wrong for not believing in you. I know you're not your father. You're not the worst parts of him. You're not the worst parts of me. You're just... you're my... You're Tony.

–SPNWIN 1x05, "Legend of a Mind"

----

MAC (possessing John): Why did you give up on me?

TRACY: I didn't know how to help you. I was scared.

MAC: I was scared too. I needed my family by my side.

TRACY: I know it's about ten years too late... but I'm here now, and I am so sorry.

LATA: It's not too late, Mac. You can still break the cycle.

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

–––

MARY: Because I still want to get out of hunting. I really do. But it's not gonna be at your expense.

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

–––

Mutual honesty, apologies, and forgiveness between Dean and Jack are the vital place where they must start. After all... Jack went through with his transformation and later with the corrupting absorption of God power simply because he was desperately trying to earn Dean's forgiveness, something that was repeatedly emphasized throughout season 15. The cycle remained intact instead of broken, and that's why they lost.

So saying that they need to reverse the polarity... What does that mean? It means that their family needs to have emotional release for there to then be the cosmic release of God power, so that that power can be put back out into the universe and no longer have personhood.

Only then will they break the cycle of violence and be able to be free of Chuck's influence once and for all.

You don't need Jack and Ostium parallels to understand and know this about the story. But I do think it's neat, further enhances the overall themes, and once again supports the fact that a Chuck won plot / what happened to Jack was deliberately being centralized! :)

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

Take a breath. Revel in this wonderful thing you created.

Amara in Unity (15x17): Best of SPN Ladies [376 / ?]

[shallowseeker]

I'm sorry to be dumb, but did I miss something? Who is Hokmah?

That was just a little detour Jack-rambling with a friend. :-)

For the little girl that appears in the Occultum garden in 15x13 Destiny's Child, I was trying to think of a cosmic force she could represent that isn't Eve, and I landed on a personification of Hokhmah/Hokmah/Chokmah, "Lady Wisdom."

You didn't miss anything. She's not called that in the show! @13x02 and I were just playing with the idea over here. :D

You'll get a decent condensed Western overview here on Cengage that I like pretty well, but "she's" a complicated theological point of interest if you wanna crawl through more academic scholarly sources.

I think you can shape her in a very positive way. Jack saw Wisdom! He regained his Soul!

////

But on a darker note, I think a negative view of Lady Wisdom has enormously evil implications for the destruction of the Cas-Dean-Jack family unit in the finale, leaving only Sam's "pure, idealized, almost Noah-esque" family in its wake.

In terms of poetry, Lady Wisdom can signify the idea of a perfect woman and ideal mate. As a point of contrast, the non-ideal mate is depicted as "the path of the Strange Woman," who carries you into Folly."

Both the wife and Wisdom protect their mates from the dangerous "strange woman," who lures the unsuspecting man into sexual misadventure (Prv. 5:20–23, 7:5–23, cf. 2:26–19). Social commentary regarding proper family bonds finds expression here...

I think that's echoed in 15x17 Unity's horrific depiction of Seraphina and Adam, who make out incessantly, are stoned out of their minds, and obsessed with Revenge and Fate. Adam even gives birth to an unnatural "revenge-baby" whose intent is Destruction. It's God who's supposed to yank out ribs and do Divine Fatherhood, not angels.

Now, in actuality, there's noting wrong with a little PDA or getting high, but Adam and Seraphina's sudden intrusion into the story combined with Chuck's apparent knowledge of the rib-bomb ("Have fun watching him [Jack] die.") seems ominous.

I think the grotesque caricatures of Seraphina-Adam reveal what Chuck truly thinks about the Dean-Cas partnership. (Of course, Chuck takes no responsibility for driving Seraphina and Adam to their desperation either...)

Anyway, Seraphina is Folly. So is Cas. It's true that Cas and Dean are in a pretty negative feedback loop at this point in the story, but Chuck, as usual, is painting it in rip-roarin' 2D. With a dash of disrespectful disdain.

Other poems use the female imagery to constitute competing superhuman forces. The path of the strange woman, who appears as personified Folly in the concluding poem of Proverbs 1–9, leads to death: "her guests are in the depths of Sheol" (Prv. 9:18, cf. 2:18–19, 5:5–6, 5:23, 7:27). Wisdom, in contrast, offers life, an offer whose credibility is enhanced by the remarkable poem in Proverbs 8. 

So, here is Chuck's judgment, perhaps. Cas is a rival superhuman force that is unnaturally taking Dean away from Him. (Early in season 15, Lilith tells us that Chuck has "a pervy obsession" with Dean, so it's a very unsettling tug-of-war here.) Cas might even be aware of it, as he uses the alias Clarence Worley in 15x06, post-Chuck confrontation (and Cas has become pretty pop-culture savvy).

It's a power struggle. Chuck paints his rival-God sons as the "Strange Women" to His Own Divine Ultimate Fatherhood, the same way he brands Michael as "cuck." Chuck does not tolerate individualism from his sons, and so uses emasculating language. Furthermore, he does not value feminine three-dimensionality, as shown by how he treats Amara’s wisdom. She too is painted “Strange,” because his perspective of individuals rings hollow. Amara does not fit Chuck’s restrictive, mental stereotype of Hokmah.

In the finale, Dean is "Chuck-downgraded" from the masculine Adam to the Woman in the Gray Robe, and then, her tongue gets cut out. (Chuck’s “mirrors” usually favor Dean as the masculine Marlboro man.) It's...hmmm. Quite sadistic, really, what happens to Dean. It shows how 2D and hierarchical Chuck treats gender. Also, Dean loved Cas. If Dean didn't love Cas back, this death would have been more heroic and less...maudlin and back-stabby, I think. (There’d have been no need for bury your gays.)

In terms of modern society, Cas is actually more strange than Seraphina. He's a superhuman force in the shape of a man. He's diametrically opposed to Chuck's idea of Hokhmah, which is in fact the Idea of Blurry Wife. Chuck wants traditional, picture-perfect wives: he wants Lisa and Amelia and fake!Mary and Blurry Wife. Not strange women like Rowena or Eileen or worse—ursurper figures like Lucifer, Michael, Castiel, or Jack.

I clumsily talk about this idea of the Nephilim family unit in the tablet meta as well as the idea of joining/sundering Heaven and Earth in this forbidden love meta, but I think what I want to say is that Cas represents both the poetic specter of Strange Path/Folly and the Corrupt Idea of the Unnatural, Enochian Sire of a Nephilim.

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."

Sounds a lot like the Empty, huh?

///

Is Blurry Wife Chuck's approved idea of Hokmah? Perhaps. Seems like The Perfect Sam-Fam is network-approved!

It's a twisted idea, isn't it? That the "impure" Nephilim family was Washed Away leaving only this bizarrely cookie-cutter, picturesque one in its wake. Jack was born on Washaway beach, and Dean and Cas became increasingly paired with flood and water motifs as the relationship escalated.

So anyway, this negative view of Lady Wisdom can in fact carry us all the way through the finale and the destruction of the human-angel Nephilim family unit. Because of this, the finale echoes on a homophobic note that reverberates through most who see it, even when they can't put their finger on why it feels that way.

Cas, Jack, and Dean are buried.

Cas is thrown into the Empty/Darkness, like the legendary Fallen Sires of the Nephilim. (He even exits through a punishment symbol, a pair of handcuffs.) Jack becomes like the Nephilim before him, a cursed untethered spirit, barred from existing in an earthly body. Then, there's Dean, the human partner, who is stabbed in the back in a brutal Execution and cursed to wander in search of the connection he is disallowed from having (that's what The Winchesters feels like, no?).

It's wicked.

///

Further reading:

This has a nice chapter on Hokhman, which goes into some of the root words used in the poems themselves. (It's chapter 6.)

Above excerpt from "Ḥokhmah ." Encyclopedia of Religion.  Encyclopedia.com. 22 Aug. 2023 &lt;https://www.encyclopedia.com>