#mostly it's cramming soggy puzzle pieces together

[zmediaoutlet]

so i know we just have to accept certain retcons, but the big one that bugs me is yellow eyes's plan for sam and how it doesn't fit with all the vessel stuff. how do YOU make that work in your head?

hallo hallo anon, you have hit on one of the Great Big Bugaboos of spn canon and also the #1 evidence we have to throw in the face all those goofs who uncritically repeat the "Kripke had a 5 year plan!" factoid. He clearly did not, he was flying by the seat of his pants, and while he managed to put stuff together in a fun way the pants are Not Coherent.

Nevertheless, we can make it work, and the way we make it work is that the various members of the angelic and especially demonic hierarchies do not have complete information. Let's do a rough timeline:

In the beginning Chuck created the universe. This is widely regarded as a bad move.

Then, you know, handwaving on him setting up some version of a 'destiny' story arc which will inevitably end in his two sons fighting to the death, via characters he'll create called The Winchesters.

After inventing demons and being a real jerkface, Lucifer ends up in the cage.

In the 70s or whatever, Azazel goes to Ilchester to butcher a bunch of nuns and talk to daddy Lucifer -- Lucifer says "you have to help get Lilith out of her pit so that the seals on my cage can get broken." Azazel says, "But how, Evil Daddy?" Lucifer says, "This really special child." -- HERE IS WHERE THE RETCON APPEARS TO HAVE HAPPENED, BUT WE CAN WORK WITH IT

Sam Winchester is fated in the demonic archives among the true higher-ups, but lower-level demons don't necessarily know about him and his importance.

Azazel starts seeding the earth with special babies. COMPLETE CONJECTURE TO FOLLOW: While he knows that Sam is the one who will be Lucifer's vessel, he also knows that a series of events will need to occur so that Lucifer will get out of the cage to take his vessel in the first place. The first seal is the most important: a righteous man must shed blood in hell. How do we get that to happen? CONJECTURE TWO: I think that Dean must be the Righteous Man because of his place within the tripartite celestial structure: God-Michael-Lucifer mirroring John-Dean-Sam. I do not think that John could have ever actually been the one to 'spill blood' that would allow the first seal to break. (Ethical conjecture three: perhaps it's the weakness itself which has its own kind of righteousness? John's implacable; Dean is not.) CONJECTURE UHH FOUR I GUESS: Azazel is designing an elaborate scheme to ensure that Sam will die on a particular day (maybe bc it works well for opening the door to hell?) specifically to ensure that Dean will sell his soul to bring Sam back, and thereby doom himself to the hell where he will break the first seal.

This should be 6b but tumblr doesn't work this way: now, would it be a hell of a fucking lot easier for Azazel to just ensure Sam dies somehow? Yeah. But given everything we know about him and the dorky-ass demons who hang out in s1 and s2, Azazel is clearly a dramallama and does stuff for the lulz. Plus, I think there's an element of 'proving' to Sam how much destiny has a hold on him, because that is so important for his grooming into saying yes to Lucifer. If he was just hit by a car or something it doesn't have the same effect than if he's part of the emo hunger games.

Sam dies; Dean sells his soul; Sam lives, and wants to save Dean. But of course, he can't save Dean, because Dean *must* go to hell to ensure the first seal is broken. This is why the angels don't help Sam at all, and why Ruby is allowed to run around with impunity. Happily the writer's strike intervened and gave us a miserable fucking s3 finale where that happened, because that is WAY more interesting than Hero Sammy Saving The Day.

Ruby has been getting instructions from Lilith the entire time, presumably since she became a demon herself, and gets launched literally as soon as Azazel is out of the way to continue the Sam-grooming.

CONJECTURE FIVE(?): Azazel and Lilith fucking hated each other, lol. But it's Lilith who's the *actually* important demon, so she wins and Azazel gets sacrificed for being really bad at teaching drama.

It's not actually that complicated, but you do have to take "the special kids were just sacrifices on the altar of let's see what we can get Sam to do" as a given. If Sam had actually started killing all of them, that'd be one thing, and Azazel could have turned that to his favor before maybe having Ava stab Sam in the back regardless. (Then, a Special Kid will go and open the devil's gate for him anyway, so the demons can get out there and start their important seal-breaking prep.) Since Sam was being such a Good Guy -- well, so what, Ava will kill all the rest of them, and then either her or Jake will get turned easy-peasy and kill Sam too. Dean will make his deal either way, and the apocalypse is off with a bang. Or a sick crunching of knife into bone.

Anyway, that's my theory. It fits alongside my ironclad theory that all of history and fate and destiny was leading toward two brothers standing in front of each other in a cemetery, and the only real free will starting once Dean could choose what to do when Sam-as-Lucifer stood in front of him, and what he chose was to be there for his brother. Thereby giving Sam a solid space to grasp and overcome Lucifer, and then save all the days. The Righteous Man who begins it is the only one who can end it, as they say.