#also interestingly they do another john possession thing in the prequel-- which I may yet go back and live-blog

[egipci]

thoughts on michael possessing the bodies of both father and son

Thoughts on Michael possessing the bodies of both father and son: Great, wonderful, amazing, etc. etc. I have a lot of affection for Matt Cohen!John (and indeed for the prequel guy--- I'm very vulnerable to young John, for some reason), both times we (and Dean) see him he's dead or almost dead, and I think so much about how Dean knows him and doesn't know him and loves him and feels conflicted about him because he's not actually his dad, he's just a very vulnerable kid, and Dean is so vulnerable to him--- there should be a million time travel fics about them, but I'm afraid it's a niche market with one (1) customer, so.

Anyway, John as angel vessel is one of the things I wish had gotten more airtime, though I don't know how they could have done that without getting too (or more) hammy.* People have talked before about how revealing it is that Michael appears to Dean as John and Lucifer to Sam as Jessica (keeping in mind one is an actual possession vs an illusion). There is the first love angle, for the gross shippers (among whom I am chief) but also there's the sort of desire they each represent: Jess qua Lucifer represents rebellion, superficially, but also a home Sam makes for himself, a home that he chooses, unlike the home he had with Dad and Dean (insofar that he thinks he didn't actually want/choose them).

Michael!John is more interesting because up until 5x13, John explicitly occupies the role of "God" in the narrative, Dean makes that comparison himself-- he's the agent pitting Dean and Sam against each other, Dean has to kill Sam for his affection and approval, out of duty (and doesn't, once), Sam is rebelling against his father whom he loves because he doesn't get enough affection either, etc. etc. and all that maps out pretty neatly, if even a little simplistically. But then we meet John again in s5 and he's not just God, he's also Michael (despite not having a brother!). It's yet another John-Dean "thing" that Sam doesn't have access to -- Dean has direct access to becoming his father that Sam does not. But that John is not only the unknowable absent father but also the faithful right hand-man is also interesting in what it says about God and Michael, and the possibilities for John and Dean. John connects them in an interesting way — to appropriate Trinitarian language: Michael and God seem homoousios, maybe -- not identical, but of one essence. And that's basically Dean's reward, for the small price of fratricide (and potential genocide and mass extinction) --- a sense of unity with his father, a sameness -- which, outside of any specific love/desire Dean holds for his father, ties into the position the father/god occupies as maker/font of being/one who begets, etc. (to use Trinitarian language again)--- see also how the show consistently uses "hole" language to describe Dean's "emptiness"/longing for death/non-existence and also his longing for his father. This is not to say that his longing for John = desire to die, or that one necessarily causes the other --- but there is something interesting there about how the text positions them as the same sort of wound-- survivable but also irreparable and immanent (but-for divine intervention, perhaps).

The other thing is it's Azazel!John redux: the creepy frightening force you're running away from/trying to defeat is literally your dad, but also he's violating your dad in a pretty significant way. But more minutely on a beat-by-beat level: Mary is about to die, John makes a deal, but then instead of Mary getting possessed it's John (again), and he's less explicitly sexually menacing with Dean, except he's very politely asking him to get inside his body-- so, you know. In fact Michael!John brings up Azazel outright: Azazel is part of the plan, that he would possess John and kill Mary and go after Sam and spit in Dean's mouth whatever the hell he has going on with Dean. And there's the angel ornament at the end of the episode watching over baby Dean, which invokes the motif of John over the crib, etc. etc.

TLDR: it's good stuff!

*I've been known to rant and rave about how John as vessel should have come into play in Lebanon--- Dean wishes for Michael out, and John the second best ever vessel comes in, and he offers himself up for Dean and through some weird magic they put Michael into his head and *he* goes into the malak box and into the deep or whatever. not necessarily super compelling, but like, it's better than a glorified bloodless jdm cameo, methinks.