#spn chaoskampf

[shallowseeker]

Levianthan blossoms as hearts

Leviathan blossoms as the heart of creation, ugly and born of destruction

The Leviathan blossoms ARE hearts. They're three-pronged hearts. Wrapped in husks (bodies), with blood-red centers (heart/soul). Look closely, and each Levianthan blossom sports three chambers. It's reptilian, like the Leviathan sea serpents, like the heart of an (Immortal) Snake.

WARNING: Gore (Ketch's heart getting ripped out, mainly)

Like the triparted road that has become the "heart" of our narrative, the Leviathan blossom also symbolizes what's left of Team Free Will: Sam, Dean, Cas:

These are familial flowers, signifying the eternal message that family makes you stronger, but it also makes you vulnerable.

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Hearts are delicious?

Everywhere you look in season 15, Gods and Angels are consuming hearts. Hearts are a classic food of the Gods. (Nectar, ambrosia are legendary as well, and they're after nectar for their spell.) Also, in some versions of Biblical literature, it is the body of the Leviathan that God uses both to feed his chosen ones in the Wilderness and/or create Earth & Heaven.

(1) Ardat kills Ketch by taking his heart. She does this once his heart becomes strong and courageous--once he refuses to give up his friends. (2) The witch screams, "I'll grind your heart to dust." (3) Jack devours a heart.

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Leviathan flowers + the miracle of death, decay, and rebirth

So. Sprung forth from the Leviathan body of God's oldest enemy, this is the fruit that would allow them to Cage God. It's a betrayal in every sense of the word. It's using the miracle of death, decay, and rebirth against Him.

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Cas + the little heart he saved

Even though all the other familial hearts were destroyed (reduced to ashes, in fact), Cas saved this one. He stole this little heart, and he fought for it. "Once I had the blossom, I fought." (The blossom was timed to the prayer. The blossom is, in many ways, symbolic of the prayer, too.) It's also the mixtape. He heard it.

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Later in the episode, we cut to where the blossom is being prepared for the Mark Spell. And two lobules are mostly missing. One is entirely missing, and one is open and weeping, mortally wounded. It resembles a dissected aorta. Only one is intact.

Two hearts are being crushed by this pestle, though only the blood of one party is being spilled.

Cas has saved it, but he's doomed its happiness.

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Even when you win, you lose

When Sam chooses not to smash the globe, Sam isn't just losing hope. He's choosing not to break Dean and Cas's hearts. Because that's what winning will do.

*looks between them, on the cusp of realizing something*

"I can't. I'm sorry, I just can't." Even when you win (war), you lose so much that it no longer feels like victory.

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Too bad Chuck was always going to crush them. (How's that for pacifism, eh, Sam?)

Starting with those two.

Cas.

And Dean.

Note the grace-like smoke emission of the orb, as well as the meaty gruesomeness of its guts.

Kill the story by weakening its heart.

[shallowseeker]

Kelly + Jack + water + taking control of the narrative

Kelly + the pool of self-reflection

KELLY: "He said he was thrilled. He said it was the only time he ever created anything."

When Kelly is calling her friend about her pregnancy, she's by the swimming pool, with the sound of water gently playing in the background.

She will be linked to water again:

when she tries to escape her fate in the bathtub

when Castiel glimpses her in The Future by the side of the ocean (script only)

and again when she lives in the house by the lake with Castiel

there are multiple "sea" and "chaoskampf" paintings hanging in said lakehouse

THREE fisherman + stormy sea paintings appear in the nursery Kelly is painting in 12x23

Indeed, the portal to another universe opens up just in front of the lake, symbolizing transition and revelation. (In particular, it will be Mary's revelation of what would have happened had she not made her demon deal.)

But what's the big deal with water?

For starters, it's an inversion of Sam, whose nursery was enveloped in the motif of fire. (Jack's nursery is notably not enveloped in fire; he only gets this motif when Dean's room is shown burning in his AU earth torture as he listens to the screams of Sam and Dean, his earth fathers.)

The pool itself is the physical embodiment and reference to the very beginning of Earth, primordial chaos, before mankind existed.

In Supernatural with its highly Biblical motifs, bodies of water can also be tied to new beginnings and resurrection. We see it with Cas and the Leviathan (when Cas walks into the lake to die, Baptism-like).

Water can also be a tremendous uncontrollable force that takes over your life, as with Dean and AU Michael. In symbology, drowning is a specific warning of doom, representing your helplessness, overwhelming emotions, or the impending death of a loved one.

The number 5:

Here, Jack is associated to room 5, the fifth element Aether: According to ancient and medieval science, aether, also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere. Jack is an unstoppable life force, and Kelly's (unfairly) caught in the middle of it.

The broken mirror?

Here's an interesting shot. When Sam is exorcising Lucifer, a mirror breaks (it's above the chest of drawers and between Dean and Kelly). The common reading would be to attribute this to bad luck and offending the gods. Another SPN-common thing is to try to one-to-one link to characters. But the interpretation I think I like the most with regards to mirrors is the breaking OF Chuck's control and the beginning of Jack's usurpation. (Kelly Kline means, "war, small.")

Indeed, one wonders if Jack is already at work, protecting himself from his position in the womb. He's throwing off the narrative and making things go wrong. They're too easily able to defeat Lucifer, and after this, all the "heroes" he came into contact with start failing left and right.

Sam and Dean are incarcerated

Because of that, at least one of the Winchesters is symbolically defeated by Billie the reaper/future Death

Cas loses Kelly, and he can't hunt or find the boys

Rowena's magic won't work

and even Crowley comes up null

The only one everything's going "right" for? Kelly Kline. Jack is working to ensure he's born.

Later, we'll see Jack choose Cas as Father (and Cas's truck breaks down + Dean immediately gets to work to fix it) and in choosing Cas, Jack (symbolically) takes Dean at the same time, narratively reflected by stealing control of Baby.

(Image from WinchesterFamilyBusiness).0