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mittensmorgul · 6 years ago

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The TNT loop got me good today. 7.21 is... a new level of angst now. I’ve been yelling my incoherent feelings at @wigglebox about this, and decided I just needed to make all the parallels. So I’m just gonna quote chunks of the transcript for 7.21 here, and then comment on it. Because it is A Lot™

(honestly y’all should be glad I’m not a gif maker because a) it probably would make this post lethal, and 2) the first casualty would’ve been me)

Okay, here we go. For reference, I’m just using the transcript here, and basically annotating it with thoughts from the POV of 15.03. Some of it will be directly quoted from this transcript at the superwiki if you’d like to follow along for maximum pain (or to fill in any blanks I’ve left in the rest of the episode), and some of it will just be direct commentary.

We begin with Cas awakening, bolting upright, from the catatonic state he’s been in since he’d healed Sam’s Hell Trauma. Remember, Cas took that wound into himself. Cas’s awakening wasn’t “natural.” It coincided with the awakening of the Prophet Kevin Tran, and Dean shattering the ancient rock concealing a long-buried “Word Of God.” I’d like to take a moment here to remind everyone why Sam had even suffered this trauma that Cas had to heal in the first place. Not only was “breaking Sam’s wall” one of the “terrible things” Cas had done in s6 in the name of trying to keep Dean from being conscripted back into service in the new Apocalypse Raphael was plotting, but it also led directly to The Worst Thing Cas Has Ever Done In The Name Of Doing The Right Thing Of His Own Free Will. Because ALL of this was couched in that language. In 6.20, in that final scene, this was the specific language that Cas used with Dean in his final attempt to earn Dean’s trust and support in his (soon to be) catastrophic plan. And Dean couldn’t give it to him. ALL of this is now currently wrapped up into the events of the first three episodes of s15. Free Will, the Word of God, a Cosmic Wound that has injured both Sam and Cas (and that Cas was unable to heal this time), Kevin Tran forced into service, A Plot to gather god-like power through the consumption of souls, a Rift into an afterlife for the purposes of releasing a terrible apocalypse on the world... heck... there’s probably more, but this will do nicely for a start, for the purposes of Painful, Awful Context.

FLASH TO TITLE CARD

(see what I mean? this is gonna be a long, bumpy ride... I should probably put this under a cut...)

The lightning flashes and odd weather effects from breaking open the tablet caused a worldwide disruption to the weather, to the point that a meteorologist on the radio said he wasn’t baffled by it, but offended.

So the Word of God being freed, from being given power by having been revealed, revealed something that went beyond confusion, and was just so wrong it actually made the guy ANGRY. Hmm. Kinda like Dean in early s15, yes? Dean’s our “offended weatherman.”

(I really miss the text separator line function. Thanks for taking that away from us, tungl. I guess I’ll have to insert something else between commentary... asterisks it is... I’ll keep it to three for a visual separation that hopefully won’t screw too badly with screen readers)

DEAN: So, what? We start the storm heard 'round the world? SAM: When we broke this thing [SAM touches the stone tablet] open last night, every maternity ward within a hundred-mile radius got slammed. Looks like any woman in the last month of her pregnancy went into labor.

WELL that’s definitely an interesting parallel... motherhood, giving birth. With the imagery of Rowena’s spell in 15.03 looking both like Mary and Jess in 1.01 as well as a weird sort of “reverse birth” of hundreds of souls.

***

Sam and Dean were planning to head West to Rufus’ cabin, until THIS, that had them heading in the exact opposite direction, because Cas:

SAM: What? [to DEAN] Cas is awake. DEAN: When? [SAM puts the phone on speaker and holds it out.] When? MEG: Last night about eight. DEAN: And you waited till now to call us? MEG: I've been busy with Cas. He's just a tad different than when he dozed off, 'kay? DEAN: What do you mean, different? MEG: Hey, Seacrest, guess what – not a nurse. Just playing one on TV. Want answers? Start driving.

Or, because Demon who teamed up with them specifically because they intended to use Cas for his specific power... Meg intended to earn Cas’s loyalty for her own security/protection/personal mission against Crowley, so she could swing him like a big hammer. In s15, Belphegor’s machinations were much the same, with his long-term plan to earn just enough of Cas’s trust to use him as the key to open the box holding Lilith’s Crook. By hook or by crook, right? Demons, man. I mean, I’ve mentioned the parallel to 8.17, and the crypt scene with the unlocking of this box in a different crypt for a different god-level power item (in 8.17 it was brainwashing and the angel tablet, and in 7.21 it’s denial and the leviathan tablet, but you can draw a big fat straight line through all of it). And this is just another go-around of all those same themes.

***

DEAN: We raced all the way here, and now I don't know. I can't say I'm fired up to see what's left of the guy. SAM: You think he remembers at all? DEAN: That, and I'm guessing whatever kind of hell baggage he lifted off of your plate. It's not gonna be pretty.

Oh remember this? Previously on Supernatural, this was owie, but now it’s been weaponized with new context from s15, with this endless cycle of guilt and blame laid on the table between Dean and Cas. He couldn’t look at Cas, was terrified to see what had become of Cas because of ALL of this. Because of everything that began in s6 and culminated with them finally cracking the Word of God. Or at least A word of god, since we know now that this wasn’t the only thing Chuck wrote, you know? And we’re still due to progress through Metatron’s hackneyed retelling, too. But even back then, Dean’s feelings of guilt, blame, and loss were all tangled up together regarding Cas, and infused with a confusing dollop of friendship, need, and (dare I suggest) love. Because the kind of stuff Dean (and Sam) have forgiven Cas for over the years? Even if it was only in knowing the underlying good intentions and wondering about all of Cas’s motivations, this isn’t the kind of thing you forgive someone for unless you truly care about them, deep down. The only ones who truly have the power to break you like this are the ones you love.

***

After Cas’s unsettling attempt at a “joke,” (pull my finger *lights explode* *disturbing chortling*), Dean needs information, and needs it from Cas.

DEAN: Okay, just hang on, Cas. Wait. Let us catch up to you for a second. SAM: So, you're saying you remember who you are, what you are. CASTIEL: Yes. Of course. Oh. Outside today, in the garden, I followed a honeybee. I saw the route of flowers. It's all right there, the whole plan. There's nothing to add. SAM: You might want to add a little Thorazine. MEG: Right? He's been like the naked guy at the rave ever since he woke up. Totally useless.

Let’s start at the end of this mess and work our way back to the start. Meg declares Cas “totally useless.” Because in his current state (I don’t fight, I watch the bees), he literally can’t be the weapon she hoped he’d be for her own personal needs. Like Belphegor in s15, it took some chipping away before Cas could even remotely be “useful” to him. Cas couldn’t even look at him, and he certainly would never agree to fight for him (the muscle).

Next let’s tackle Cas’s perception of creation, as told in metaphor between his observation on the micro-level scale of the “route of flowers,” which he directly compared to the macro-level scale of “the whole plan.” As if there was a “whole plan” to the universe. I could write a doctoral thesis on just this statement alone, of how Cas’s observation of the plan inherently altered it, how his presence in the garden as observer watching the bees do their thing, following them along their paths to the flowers irrevocably inserted him into the “whole plan,” and whether he or the bees realized it or not, those bees by necessity altered their paths to accommodate Cas’s presence in their daily routine. Did this make their lives easier? More difficult? Regardless, it had to affect their choices, which flowers to visit, which paths to fly, because Cas’s mere presence provided an obstacle to their routes. They couldn’t fly through him, you know? Left or right, over and around, He became something the “whole plan” needed to work around. And isn’t that what Chuck’s been doing since the start? And on an entirely different level, Chuck’s done it all with intent, because “the whole plan” had been his creation from the beginning.

And then, both first and last depending on your perspective, is Dean, asking Cas to stop just long enough for him to finally catch up. Asking Cas to wait. Because Dean feels like he’s the one who’s fallen behind.

Okay, everyone take five to have a good cry *passes out tissues*

***

CASTIEL: Will you look at her? My caretaker. All of that thorny pain. So beautiful. MEG: We've been over this. I don't like poetry. Put up or shut up.

Ah, Cas and “poetry.” He’s temporarily given up on seeking Free Will, temporarily abandoned the attempt to “teach poetry to fish,” as he’d said in 6.20. And Meg doesn’t like poetry either. She just wants Cas to suck it up and do what she needs him to-- be her personal hammer. She doesn’t care about him, but only what he can do for her. Put up or shut up.

***

CASTIEL: Oh. Of course. Now I understand. SAM: Understand what? CASTIEL: You were the ones. Well... I guess that makes sense. DEAN: What makes sense? CASTIEL: If someone was going to free the Word from the vault of the earth, it would end up being you two. Oh, I love you guys. CASTIEL pulls DEAN and SAM into a hug.

Of course The Winchesters would be the Disruptors™ to the natural order, right? Even though Sam and Dean had only stumbled across the word of God by accident, while trying to clean up the planet-wide epidemic of cosmic Goo left behind after Cas’s attempt to rewrite the story and play god. But still, of course it would be Sam and Dean, because it’s always Sam and Dean, right? I mean, Cas already hung a lampshade on “The Whole Plan” being right there for anyone to see, in everything from the path of the flowers right up to the unearthing of the Word.

Chalk another one up to the spiral narrative as everything.

***

Cas mutters something about cat penises, and females not being consulted on that terrible bit of creation. Chuck, man. Throwing barbed penises around with zero consideration for the ladies. Ow. But on to the bigger things:

DEAN: Cas, please, we're losing ground out there, okay? We need your help. Can you not see that? CASTIEL: This is the handwriting of Metatron. SAM: Metatron? You saying a Transformer wrote that? DEAN: No. That's Megatron. SAM: What? DEAN: The Transformer – it's Megatron. SAM: What? CASTIEL: Metatron. He's an angel. He's the scribe of God. He took down dictation when creation was being formed. SAM: And that's the Word of God? CASTIEL: One of them, yes.

They’ve been drowning in goo for months, and Cas coming back had represented a beacon of hope in the darkness. But the reality of the whole situation at hand wasn’t something Cas could deal with. He was so burdened with personal guilt that he chose to ignore the mess, reacting with anger (and by disappearing) with directly confronted with it. In s15, Dean... can’t just disappear, even though he’s the one drowning now.

A... Transformer. A misinterpreted word that changes the meaning, creating a baffling misunderstanding that requires a re-translation and correction before understanding can occur. That’s so meta I could cry. “I always get the words right.” Cas had no idea what “Megatron” or “Transformers” were, but saw that Sam and Dean were literally “speaking language he didn’t understand,” but that they’d come to a satisfactory conclusion that seemed irrelevant to their current conversation anyway, and just... continued on as if the disruption had never occurred. An entire loop of conversation just flew right over his head. He might not get words wrong, but sometimes he just doesn’t get them at all, you know? Nor does Dean always understand what the intent behind Cas’s words are. They need a translator. Or they need to stop speaking in references and metaphor, and speak clearly in unmistakable language. And all of this is wrapped up in the parallel to the indecipherable Word of God, which will require a unique translator to interpret.

Author to Scribe to Prophet, because the knowledge within is not meant for angels. It’s not even meant for humans. It’s just another randomly-scattered puzzle left by Chuck to be simultaneously helpful and dangerous. Choices and drama.

***

CASTIEL: Don't like conflict. CASTIEL disappears and the stone tablet drops to the floor, breaking into three pieces.

Aah, the conflict, that Meg attempts to blame on Dean, when she was the one who (I mean, understandably she was curious, but she’s still a demon that Dean still doesn’t trust, who once possessed Sam and tried to force Dean to kill him, so... she’s not actually their friend, she was “mutually assured destruction” in case things with Cas went sideways while Sam and Dean were running around trying to clean up the Leviathan mess...). Cas’s reaction to conflict back then had been to drop the Word like a hot potato, smashing it to pieces on the floor. Even when he isn’t trying, he’s tearing up pages and altering the shape of Chuck’s story. Bless him. But he’s still... actively avoiding doing anything, including acknowledging his own role in the events that have brought them to this point, and to everything Dean had been fighting almost on his own (Sam’s been “in the bell jar” most of s7 fighting the Hallucifers) and basically surviving with whiskey, denial, and pasting a fake smile on and pushing through trauma after trauma without Cas (or... pretty much anyone else in any measurably reliable way). But we all know this isn’t how DEAN reacts to trauma, right? He pushes people away, by manufacturing conflict when he runs out of organic conflict.

***

DEAN: All right, I'll go handle Cas. Sam, will you please pick up the Word of God?

Dean, delegating responsibilities. He’ll take the broken angel, and Sam will take the broken Word.

***

MEG: We both call, who do you think Cas will come to? I'm guessing me. You heard him – thorny beauty, blah, blah. I'm the saint who stayed with him. He owes me. His words. SAM: Yeah, what about what he owes us? MEG: Well, work on him a little. Maybe he'll start crushing on you, too, hot stuff. SAM: What are you gonna do with a broken angel? Don't be stupid. MEG: I'll take power where I can get it. I've got myself to look out for.

Unlike Belphegor, Meg never even attempted to disguise her motives. She wanted Cas for his power, broken or not. She’d find a way to manipulate him to defend her-- despite his insistence that he doesn’t fight. And it’s interesting it’s Sam who’s given the line “what about what he owes us?” While Dean’s discussion with Cas is far more personal.

***

DEAN: You realize you just broke God's Word? CASTIEL looks away and DEAN sits down at the table opposite him. DEAN: It's Sam's thing, isn't it? You taking on his, uh, cage-match scars. I'm guessing that's what broke your bank, right? CASTIEL: Well, it took... everything to get me here. DEAN: What are you talking about, man? CASTIEL: Dean, I know you want different answers. DEAN: No, I want you to button up your coat and help us take down Leviathans. Do you remember what you did? CASTIEL holds up the board game “Sorry!” He shakes it once and the board and pieces appear on the table, set up ready to play. CASTIEL sets the box aside. CASTIEL: Do you want to go first?

Dean’s still kind of in awe at the notion of directly defying God’s Word, and Cas just... doesn’t even seem bothered. Dean needs to find an explanation for Cas’s avoidance of the Urgent Matter at Hand. He blames it on what Cas suffered after taking on Sam’s Hell trauma, but Cas tries to tell him it’s so much more than that, that his entire experience since the moment he gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition had led to this moment. But that’s too much for Dean to even wrap his head around, and Cas is just... speaking in riddles anyway. So he presses on and demands a direct answer. Cas continues speaking in riddles.

And pushing for a more direct personal conversation, despite the chasm of misunderstandings separating them. For possibly the first time ever, it’s Cas speaking in metaphors and references that Dean does not understand. And it frustrates the hell out of him. He just wants to get some straight answers out of Cas before the world goes up in flames. Or drowns in dark waters.

He needs Cas to “button up his coat” and help save the world. Save it from the mess he technically made of it. But Cas won’t even engage with what Dean’s saying to him, like in s15 Dean doesn’t even engage with what Cas is saying to him (but Cas is also refusing to button up his coat and do what had to be done in s15, refusing to even look at Belphegor... despite actively assuming another equally important job... he wasn’t avoiding HELPING, just avoiding the specific task Dean had tried to give him... as the one of them most qualified to monitor a demon for ~demonic hinkiness~ or whatever. Sam and Dean would’ve just assumed they were dealing with Jack if Cas hadn’t been the one to tell them it was actually a demon, you know?

***

Meanwhile, back in Cas’s room, Kevin is knitting the Word of God back together, while being simultaneously baffled and terrified by everything that’s going on.

***

DEAN picks up a “Sorry!” card. CASTIEL: You know, we weren't sure at first which monkeys were gonna make it. No offense, but I [DEAN moves a marker on the board] was backing the Neanderthals because their poetry was... just amazing. It's in perfect tune [CASTIEL picks up a card] with the spheres. But in the end, it was you – the [CASTIEL moves a marker] homo sapiens sapiens. You guys ate the apple, invented pants. DEAN: Cas, where can we find this, uh, Metatron? Is he still alive? CASTIEL: I'm sorry. I – I think you have to go back to start. DEAN moves a marker. DEAN: This is important. CASTIEL motions for DEAN to pick up another card. DEAN does and moves another marker. DEAN: I think Metatron could stop a lot of bad. You understand that? CASTIEL picks up another card. CASTIEL: We live in a "sorry" universe. It's engineered to create conflict. I mean, why should I prosper from... your misfortune? [CASTIEL puts down a marker and moves DEAN’s marker back to the start.] But these are the rules. I didn't make them. DEAN: You made some of them. When you tried to become God, when you cut that hole into that wall. CASTIEL: Dean... it's your move. DEAN pounds a fist on the table and swipes the board to the floor. DEAN: Forget the damn game! Forget the game, Cas. CASTIEL: I'm sorry, Dean. DEAN: No. You're playing "Sorry!"

Dean’s still trying to solve their bigger problems, but he’s really trying to play along to appease Cas, trying to speak to him on a level he can understand. Trying to “play his game” and hope that Cas will play by the rules Dean had thought they both understood-- give and take. Mutual contribution to the conversation. But Cas continued talking about things Dean believed were irrelevant in the face of the current crisis. Neanderthals losing out to homo sapiens. And again, Cas talking poetry, and referencing the spiral narrative of creation.

The thing about Sorry! is that the game involves a lot of elements of chance, but also a lot of elements of CHOICE. I know someone’s written meta on this in the past, but really quickly, in Sorry, each player controls a number of different pawns, all of which must eventually be advanced from the starting point to their respective finish line. The playing board itself is the defined and accepted parameters of the world the game will play out on, yet there are multiple different “paths” for each player to take. The players draw cards in turn (the element of Chance) and then decide which of their pieces to advance according to the instructions on the card they selected (the element of Choice).

The thing is, in this game, Cas could’ve chosen to “play a different piece.” He could’ve made the game easier on Dean while still advancing his own position, and yet he chose to strategically remove Dean’s piece from the board. Cas was playing not just to win for himself, but to frustrate Dean’s chances to even get a fair turn to play. Cas was playing by the rules, after all, which encourage competition over teamwork. The name of the game is Sorry! after all, and “sending your opponent back to the start” is half the point of the game. Cas wasn’t going to even play in the spirit of cooperation with Dean. He wasn’t going to provide answers. This was, in a horrific way, Cas’s attempt to revert himself back to the “reprogrammed” Cas that came back from Heaven at the end of 4.20. All under the guise of playing sorry, without having to engage with it in good faith.

Dean wasn’t even asking Cas to fight here. He was trying to respect Cas’s choice to “avoid conflict.” But Cas wouldn’t even TALK to him, wasn’t even engaging with him as if HE was real. And Dean was not unreasonably frustrated.

Dean’s been fighting back against an impossible enemy that can’t be killed and has devised a way to suppress human free will into submission, so that all of humanity will willingly march themselves into the slaughterhouse. It’s horrifically WORSE than the apocalypse to Dean, and he’s desperate and at the end of his rope, and is hoping for even a spark of hope to keep fighting himself... and Cas has nothing but poetry for him.

***

And then the angels show up, prepared to take the Prophet with them, as if Kevin was their property. Kinda raises some questions about how the Prophet Chuck could’ve been unaware of what he was, you know? Almost as if it had literally been a lie...

HESTER: You smote thousands in Heaven. You gave a big, scary speech. Then you were gone. What the hell was that?! CASTIEL: Rude, for one thing. INIAS: Where have you been? CASTIEL: Oh, Inias. Hester, I... I know you want something – answers. I... I wish it could be that… There are still many things I can teach you. I can offer, um, well, perspective. Here. [CASTIEL points a finger at HESTER.] Pull my finger. [HESTER doesn’t move.] Uh... Uh... Meg will – will get another light, and I'll – I'll blow it out again. And, well, this time, it'll be funny, and – and we'll all look back and laugh. HESTER: You're insane. DEAN: Hey. DEAN is standing in the doorway. DEAN: Heads up, Sunshine. DEAN puts his hand in an angel-banishing sigil he’s drawn on the wall outside the room. White light flares and the angels vanish.

Unlike Dean, who’d tried to be patient and understanding with Cas despite everything, Hester simply angrily demanded answers from him. And Cas... was equally evasive with her. She labeled his evasion “insane,” but Cas is 100% sane. He knows exactly what it is he’s avoiding answering for, but he’s paralyzed with fear that anything he does will only add to the problem. And Dean gets rid of the angels before they can start killing everyone (including Cas).

I mean, Cas’s answers are pretty obvious anyway, you know? His guilt, his hubris for believing he was choosing the right thing, in trying to teach the angels a better way-- Free Will and the protection of humanity-- that in the execution he lost his own free will (and his life) and unleashed a horror onto Heaven and Earth that he’s entirely incapable of fixing. It’s not like he doesn’t HAVE answers, they’re just... to much for him to even face. Guilt is a terrible thing.

***

DEAN: That is back in one piece, I see. And you're saying that there's some sort of a "How to punch Dick" recipe in there somewhere? KEVIN: I-I don't know what you're saying, but it seems kind of like an "in case of emergency" note. What did they mean by "prophet"? DEAN: Oh, no. [to SAM] Really? SAM: Yeah. Yeah, that's what the angel said. KEVIN: I don't want to be a prophet. DEAN: No. You don't at all.

Yeah... nobody wants to be a prophet. It’s a terrible job. No free will, no freedom at all, just ensnared into the service to God’s Word. (oh, and poor Kevin will try to resist, will willingly nearly kill himself trying to turn God’s Word around into a weapon he can wield. I can see why Chuck would single him out for specific “punishment” for messing around with his story like that.

***

MEG: Yeah. Yeah, Castiel. It's me. DEAN: Cas? Where? Where is he? MEG: [to DEAN] Shut up. CASTIEL: I’ll stop speaking. MEG: No. No, Cas. You talk. CASTIEL: [audible over MEG’s phone] I’m in a place called Perth. MEG: Perth? DEAN: Perth? As in Australia? MEG: What dogs? [to DEAN] He says he's surrounded by unhappy dogs. CASTIEL: They’re chasing a rabbit around [indistinct]… MEG: Oh. Okay. He's at a dog track in Perth. CASTIEL: I’m surrounded by large unhappy dogs. MEG: Yeah, they're unhappy 'cause the rabbit's fake. Listen, we're on highway 94, north of St. Cloud, Minnesota, just passing mile marker 79. CASTIEL materializes in the back seat between MEG and KEVIN.

Okay, first off, miscommunication. This is just riddled with miscommunication. But the background conversation, Cas is at a dog track surrounded by large, unhappy dogs. Kinda makes interesting light of all the “Dean is a Weird Dog” the show has been hammering on for years-- both literally and metaphorically. But... these dogs at the track are given the runaround. They’re trained to run a specific track for the entertainment of the spectators, running in endless circles chasing after a lure that they can never quite catch before they arrive at the finish line, where even winning the race just means they’ll have to run another round around the track the next day. And the lure? The rabbit they’re trained to follow after? It’s fake. It’s all part of the bigger game the poor dogs can’t escape from. I’d be unhappy, too.

Which is all a tidy metaphor for how Dean feels in s15, but how Cas has seen pretty much everything since way back at this point, if not far earlier.

Hence even more miscommunications, or at the very least each of them not understanding where the other is even coming from, based on these wildly different baseline perspectives. Cas, as an angel, had always been one of the spectators before Dean had pulled him into the race, so to speak. He’s always understood all of existence as a sort of game in this way, but Dean had never even had an inkling of the bigger game they were all part of all along. He’d thought he understood the rules, understood his role in the game, and it took until s15 for him to see that all of it had been a game to Chuck. That even when he’d thought he’d escaped the endless go-around of fake rabbits, it had only put him back at the startling line over and over again to run another race. And Cas... can’t understand Dean’s perspective here any more than Dean can understand Cas’s, despite them each believing they actually understand one another and just don’t care... awful, right?

***

CASTIEL: They're from the Garrison – my old Garrison. Looks like Hester's taken over. We were assigned to watch the earth. Often, it was boring. The wars were very boring and the sex – you know, the repetition. Anyway, I was, uh... I was their captain. Isn't that strange? SAM: Cas, why are they pissed at us now? CASTIEL: [to MEG] You know, those racing dogs were absolutely miserable. They can only think in ovals. DEAN: Cas, don't make me pull this car over! Why are angels after us? CASTIEL: Are you angry? Why are you angry? DEAN: No, I-I'm... Please, can we just stay on target? CASTIEL: There is no reason for anger. They're only following protocol. If the Word of God is revealed, a keeper of the Word will awaken, like this [He touches KEVIN’s nose] hot potato right here.

Observing creation enabled Cas to see the “repetition.” The endless loops. Like the dogs running in ovals. But he’s unable to connect with humanity directly right now, unable to risk feeling. And we’re back to doorways to doubt, and the same “only humans can feel true joy.” But also suffering. As long as he remains at a distance, he can protect himself from feeling all of that, from having to recognize his part in it.

And he doesn’t understand why Dean is angry that he keeps talking in circles.

Dean just wants to know why the angels are angry at THEM, why they’re coming after THEM when they’ve got so many other bigger problems they’re trying to solve.

***

CASTIEL: Anyway, Garrison code dictates you take the keeper to the desert to learn the Word away from men. DEAN: What kind of sense does that make? He has to tell us so that we can use it. CASTIEL: That's God and his shiny red apples.

Cas didn’t expect anything less from God. Dean just wants to stop the Leviathan from eating humanity and destroying life as they knew it, and Cas... doesn’t have anything to give.

***

DEAN: Okay, you know what? Screw the Garrison. We need the tablet to end Sick Roman's "Soylent Us" crap. CASTIEL: If you want the Word, you'll have to duck Hester and her soldiers. SAM: Yeah, you're in our corner, right, Cas? CASTIEL: No, I don't fight anymore. I watch the bees.

see? yet despite that declaration, Cas does try to help how he feels comfortable-- painting sigils to hide them from angels, but leaving off banishing sigils or he himself wouldn’t be able to stay. Kind of a conundrum, right? Sacrificing some of the safety Sam and Dean could’ve worked into the sigils so he himself could remain in the room with them.

***

CASTIEL: You seem troubled. Of course, that's a primary aspect of your personality, so I sometimes ignore it. SAM: Okay. Um... right now I'm just wondering about you. CASTIEL: What about me? You're worried about the burden I lifted from you. SAM: I think I was done for. Do you see Lucifer? CASTIEL: I did at first. But that was... It was a projection of yours, I think, sort of an aftertaste. Now I more see... well, everything. It's funny. I was – I was done for, too. The weight of all my mistakes, all those lives and souls lost, I... I couldn't take it, either. I was… I was lost until I took on your pain. It's strange to think that that helped, but – SAM: I know you never did anything but try to help. I realize that, Cas, and I'm grateful. We're all grateful. And we're gonna help you get better, okay? No matter what it takes. CASTIEL: What do you mean, "better"?

And here we have it. Sam plainly expresses his own guilt and regret over what’s become of Cas. But Cas hasn’t even begun to see how deep he’s buried himself to avoid dealing with his own guilt. Using Sam’s trauma as a sort of penance, he’s using that to “transfer” his own guilt away from himself, the way he shifted Sam’s trauma into himself. As if the second shift washes away the first and he’s wiped the slate clean. As long as he lets himself believe that, he doesn’t have to face what he’s done, and the consequences of his own choices.

Which is... kinda what Dean’s doing in early s15.

***

KEVIN: I am not prepared to factor the supernatural into my [DEAN puts the brown paper bag over KEVIN’s face] world view. DEAN: Okay, there we go. [He pats KEVIN on the back.] That's it. That's it. Just breathe. Take it easy. KEVIN holds onto the bag and breathes into it. DEAN: Oh, I don't know, man. What can I say? You've been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There's no use asking "why me?" 'Cause the angels – they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart.

I mean, Dean’s seen what trying to care has done to Cas. And Dean... was the one who pushed Cas to care in the first place.

***

And Meg kills a couple of demons who’d picked up their track, but that also brings the angels back down on them:

MEG: Typical. I save our bacon, and you're sitting here, waiting by a devil's trap. Seriously, I just killed two of Crowley's men. I could have gone the other way on that. CASTIEL: It's true, incidentally. There's other demons' blood on that blade. MEG: Look, I'm simpler than you think. I've figured one thing out about this world – just one, pretty much. You find a cause, and you serve it. Give yourself over, and it orders your life. Lucifer and Yellow Eyes – their mission was it for me. DEAN: So, what? We should trust you because you wanted to free Satan from Hell? MEG: I'm talking "cause," douchebag, as in reason to get up in the morning. Obviously, these things shift over time. We learn, we grow. Now, for me currently, the cause is bringing down the King. And I know we'll need help to do it. DEAN: Crowley ain't the problem this year. MEG: When are you gonna get it? Crowley's always the problem. He's just waiting for the right moment to strike. I know what I'm supposed to do. And it isn't screw with Sam and Dean or lose the only angel who'd go to bat for me. SAM breaks the devil’s trap with his foot. CASTIEL: This is good – harmony and communication. Now our only problem is Hester.

yeah, but they haven’t really communicated anything useful yet. But Cas does know that the angels are about to find them again...

***

HESTER: You took the Prophet from us?! CASTIEL: I'm – I'm sorry? HESTER: You have fallen in every way imaginable. INAIS: Please, Castiel. We have to follow the code. Help us do our work. DEAN: He can't help you. He can't help anybody. HESTER: We don't need his help... or his permission. HESTER nods to INAIS, who nods back. There is the sound of angel wings and INAIS disappears. HESTER: The Keeper goes to the desert tonight. INAIS reappears with KEVIN. DEAN: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off. We're actually trying to clean up one of your angel's messes! You know that. CASTIEL: He's right. An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it. DEAN: Look, just give us some time, okay? We will take care of your Prophet. HESTER: Why should we give you anything... After everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! For that, you're going to pay. HESTER walks towards DEAN. CASTIEL: Please. They're the ones we were put here to protect. HESTER: No, Castiel. HESTER backhands CASTIEL and he falls to the ground. INAIS and the other MALE ANGEL each hold up two fingers to stop DEAN and SAM from going to CASTIEL’s aid. HESTER: No more madness! [She punches CASTIEL.] No more promises! [She punches CASTIEL again.] No more new Gods! [She punches CASTIEL repeatedly and then holds up an angel knife.]

I couldn’t decide how to break this up to talk about it, because one thing leads directly into the next, and it all goes to context.

Hester accuses Cas of falling “in every way imaginable.” In the wake of their brush with free will, the remaining angels are attempting to restore the old order to Heaven, because there’s not much left to them than what they’d known before. When the new rules fail, the only thing they know to do is revert to the old rules.

Dean calls them out on it, and Cas even steps in to support Dean’s words. Only Cas can’t even say *I* and *me* here. He talks about himself in the third person, but at least he’s acknowledging what kicked off this mess, even if he’s still not taking direct responsibility for it. Not only that, he acknowledges that Dean had tried to stop him, and that he’d refused to listen. This seems to be a key point again in 15.03. The inability to acknowledge guilt and responsibility, and the refusal to listen. This entire conversation is just a few painful twists away from the Breakup Scene in 15.03.

But Hester lays down The Worst Truth, that Dean himself is at fault for destroying Cas, for just the TOUCH of him “corrupting” Cas, breaking him until he broke the world. To Dean, this was the equivalent confirmation of all his worst fears-- he’s poison, he’s worthless-- that Cas got from Belphegor in 15.03-- that Dean doesn’t care about him beyond his usefulness. But this is something that Dean will carry with him for YEARS, and which Dean will continue to feel in every dealing he has with Cas going forward-- that HE is at fault, that HE is unworthy, that everything that makes Cas “fall” in any way is because of him, because he’s poison. And so he internalizes every mistake that Cas makes, every burden he endures, as his own, because it’s all his fault anyway, right?

But Cas, too, learned a lesson here as Hester beat and prepared to kill him: NO MORE MADNESS. NO MORE NEW GODS. And when confronted with the truth of what Belphegor planned-- to become a new god in the same way that Cas had-- he understood what he had to do. He would not exchange one problem for another, exchange one apocalypse for one that would likely be even worse. It was a terrible choice, and I think this is the root of his decision.

***

Here have some dramatic irony, and the demon saving Cas’s life:

INAIS: Hester! No! [He grabs HESTER’s arm.] Please! There's so few of us left. HESTER punches INAIS in the face with the hand holding the knife. HESTER: [to CASTIEL] You wanted free will. Now I'm making the choices. HESTER raises the knife. White light blazes from her chest and she falls to the ground. MEG has stabbed her. MEG: What? Someone had to.

Hester claimed she was choosing her actions now, using the same excuse of Free Will that Cas himself had claimed as his motivation for swallowing Purgatory in the first place. Even when everything she’d done had been in the name of restoring the Old Order, of following the Rules that angels had always obeyed. Talk about not getting the point of Free Will.

This is what Dean’s struggling with now in s15, with his own long-held understanding of what Free Will even meant, with this new context that Chuck had repeatedly thrown new obstacles in his path, personally. There are no rules left, or so it feels like to him. There’s nothing to revert back to, or hold on to as an ideal, when every choice they make has been engineered to lead them to equally bad outcomes.

***

But Cas... he’s understood this for a very long time:

INAIS: These are strange times. CASTIEL: I think they've always been. INAIS puts a hand on CASTIEL’s arm. INAIS: I wish you'd come with us. CASTIEL: Oh, I'm not part of the Garrison anymore, Inias. I'm sorry.

Sure, he’ll be forced back against his will, but in a way that will help save him eventually. It won’t feel like salvation for years to come, though, but it’s a journey.

***

SAM: Here. “Leviathan cannot be slain but by a bone of a righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of the fallen.” Uh... It says we need to start with the blood of a fallen angel. SAM and DEAN look at CASTIEL. CASTIEL: Well, you know me. [He holds out a small bottle.] I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters. CASTIEL hands the bottle, which is filled with blood, to DEAN. DEAN: What are you gonna do, Cas? CASTIEL: I don't know. [He smiles.] Isn't that amazing?

AAAAHAHAHAH. Angel blood, required by Belphegor’s first spell. This scene was directly paralleled in 15.01, and with context, it’s it awful? After refusing to fight for the entire episode, Cas is happy to bleed. To do penance, but not to be burdened with action or responsibility. And with complete freedom to choose his next move, to choose for himself what to do with himself, he... chooses nothing. And heck, I get it, after billions of years of thinking he didn’t have ANY choices, suddenly he’s presented with EVERY OPTION, and is DELIGHTED by that.

But the one thing he WON’T choose? Staying with Dean. Standing by Dean’s side while he fights to clean up Cas’s mess.

Dean’s next line to Sam after Cas leaves? “Well, let’s get to work.”

They can’t rest yet. They can’t stop, because the world’s still ending and they’re still entirely on their own. Only now they’re armed with at least a DIRECTION they can work toward. It’s something, but... it’s still just the two of them alone against the apocalypse. Which is what Cas had spent s6 trying to avoid. And can’t face at all now.

And this is what Dean had long since resigned himself to-- that Cas, given the choice, would leave. So Cas choosing to leave in 15.03? I think Dean was shocked he hadn’t left sooner.

And then of course there’s the angels dying when they return Kevin to his home, only to be deceived by Leviathan and abducted.

He just couldn’t win. And neither could Cas, and neither could Dean and Sam. It was an unwinnable game that would just break them all again.

I could do a post like this for 7.22, and for 7.23, and probably for every other episode from all the episodes between then and now, but this has taken me all day. I really hope y’all are making all the same connections, spotting all the thematic subversions and twists of every turn of the narrative spiral between then and now. But this episode killed me today. And it gives a lot of obvious context to Dean and Cas’s choices and issues in early s15 that led to the Breakup. But hopefully it also lays down the foundation of what they truly need to put out on the table to move past this impasse.

They need to put down something better than Sorry! They need to use real words and actually listen to each other. But the fact that scene in 15.03 directly called out this miscommunication, this refusal to listen (and it’s not just on Dean here, but Cas has refused to listen, too). And now the narrative demands they have that conversation for real. For their own good, but for the good of the world, to break these eternal ovals and finally break free of this endless chasing after the fake rabbit.

#spn s15 spoilers #spn 15.03 #spn 7.21 #spn 15.01 #spn 15.02 #destiel #if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #it's spirals all the way down #spiders georg of the tnt loop #s15 meta rewatch #using your words #holy crap this is long... it's taken me all day because i had to keep stopping and doing something cheerful in between thinking about it

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hippychick006 · 6 years ago

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I saw some posts recently with Hellers once again bringing out the old “Jared confirmed the Castiel/Colette parallel” which has always bugged me, so I thought I’d finally do a post on it. Putting under a cut so those not interested can quickly move on, but it isn’t that long (for a change).

Heller Myth: Jared confirmed the Castiel/Colette parallel at Seacon 2015. Suck it antis!

Reality:

This is the question that was asked: I was just wondering, in the Executioner’s Song, the Castiel and Colette parallel was a big part of the plot, or just something that happened?

No explanation given by the fan as to who Colette was, who she was to Cain and what specific parallel the fan was drawing between Castiel/Colette and certainly no hint whatsoever they were actually linking Colette/Cain and Castiel/Dean. The way the question was phrased made it seem like the parallel between them was an obvious and known canon fact, rather than a fan’s head canon drawn from thin air and more than a little desperation. J2 had absolutely no reason to question the validity of the parallel and the question being asked.

First off, let’s all acknowledge that the question should not have been asked at all. Shipping questions (which this obviously was) are not allowed at conventions and yet again, a Destiheller ignored the rules and here we are. That aside;

Fact: There is not a single mention of Colette in The Executioner’s Song, so how on earth there could have been any parallel between Castiel and Colette in that episode in the first place, let alone it being “a big part of the plot” I’ve got no idea. The only time Colette was ever mentioned by Supernatural was in 9.11 (First Born), and a whopping 25 episodes separate First Born (where Colette is part of the story) and The Executioner’s Song (where Colette is not even mentioned).

Fact: There is no similarity at all in Colette’s story in 9.11, with anything Castiel said or did in 10.14. The only reason hellers came up with a “parallel” in the first place was because they started at the point “I want Destiel to exist in canon” so in order for that to read true, the only conclusion they come to to support that is Castiel has to be Colette’s equivalent, he just has to be. But there’s absolutely nothing tying the two characters story together in reality.

Fact: Jared was not involved in filming the scenes in First Born where Colette’s story was told (only Crowley, Dean and Cain were part of those scenes). Jared was also not involved in filming the scenes in the barn between Dean and Cain in The Executioner’s Song, so his knowledge of Colette as a character, let alone a parallel is going to be pretty non-existent. Even within fandom, when this question was asked, people couldn’t remember who she was and had to look it up.

Fact: Seattle convention was 27-29 March 2015. Executioner’s Song aired on February 17 2015. Due to hiatus, only 2 more episodes aired after Executioner’s Song and before the convention. The episode should therefore have been reasonably fresh in both actors’ minds (if they had watched it), which brings me on to…

My opinion based on known facts: Jared rarely watches the episodes. He did not live tweet during The Executioner’s Song and though not concrete proof, it’s highly likely he did not watch the episode. The same with First Born.

So, with all that in mind, let’s look in detail at the answer given.

Jared: Which one was that episode again? (doesn’t know what fan is talking about, even though as I’ve said, the episode was only 3 prior to the actual convention)

Fan: The one where Dean killed Cain.

This prompted J2 to remember at least part of that episode and the only reason they remember it so clearly is that it was the one where Jensen stabbed Jared in the leg - which they then proceeded to spend a few minutes telling and re-enacting, before they got back to the question and the first thing they ask is;

Jared: What were you asking about? (he clearly has no clue)

Fan: whether the Castiel and Colette parallel was part of the plot, or whether it just happens.

Again, the way this was asked, made it seem as if there was a no brainer that there was a parallel between Castiel and Colette, that a statement of fact was being made, rather than a fan’s completely made up head canon.

Jared (to Jensen): I’ll let you take this one (clearly still hasn’t a clue)

Jensen: I think she really wanted to hear from you (equally as clueless as Jared)

Jared (eventually mans up and provides an answer, but he talks about parallels in general terms, and he does that because he doesn’t know what parallel the fan is asking about in relation to Castiel and Colette, because why would he? He’s not a heller and Colette is a minor character who appeared in only 1 episode - and as I’ve already mentioned Jared was not involved in those scenes for that episode and is unlikely to have watched it): “I think that the parallels are on purpose. I think that one of the things our writers do very well is play opposites and parallels… we see it often with Sam and Dean...” (he then goes on to talk about Sam and Dean because of course he does, it’s all that interests him and Jensen and when the show does parallels, it’s generally with these 2 lead characters. He eventually comes back to…), “so I think you noticing the parallel is a kudos to you, because I think it was done on purpose.”

He’s not saying it was definitely done on purpose because it’s clear he still has no idea who Colette even is and what their parallel to Castiel might be, so he goes with what he thinks is a safe answer.

Going back to watch the two episodes, there is no way that Castiel can even remotely be “interpreted” as being Colette, even with the most extreme reaching. This is what Cain had to say about Sam, Castiel and Crowley in The Executioner’s Song (because yes, Crowley was in this episode too, conveniently forgotten by hellers, because who the hell is he a parallel for?!) (transcript extract from superwiki);

Cain (to Dean): Has it never occurred to you? Have you never mused upon the fact that you're living my life in reverse? My story began when I killed my brother, and that's where your story inevitably will end.

Dean: No. Never.

Cain: It's called the Mark of Cain for a reason!

First ... first, you'd kill Crowley. There'd be some strange, mixed feelings on that one, but you'd have your reason. You'd get it done, no remorse.

And then you'd kill the angel, Castiel (I like how he has to clarify which angel – who by the way, Cain himself called Dean’s pet in this episode with this line: “When your pet angel found my burial site”). Now, that one ... that I suspect would hurt something awful. (I mean yes, I agree, if I had to kill my dog, I’d be completely inconsolable)

And then... then would come the murder you'd never survive, the one that would finally turn you into as much of a savage as it did me.

Dean: No.

Cain: Your brother, Sam.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my take away from this is that once again, Sam is most important and Dean could survive without Crowley and Castiel, but not without Sam. I mean it’s right there in the text, why are people looking at non existent subtext in the first place?

Going back to Colette’s story in First Born. This is the important part where Cain talks about her;

Cain: She knew who I was… and what I was. She loved me unconditionally. She forgave me. She only asked for one thing.

Crowley: To Stop

In The Executioner’s Song, no one asks Dean to stop, you’d think if they were really going to parallel Colette, that’s what they would do, but no, Dean gives up the blade entirely of his own volition. Colette is not a factor in Executioner’s song, there’s nothing to parallel to, hence why she’s not even mentioned.

Only one person ever asks Dean to stop killing, and that’s Sam in 9.21 King of the Damned after Dean has killed Abaddon and he’s still stabbing her with the blade:

Sam: Dean! Dean! Stop! You can stop.

Dean does, he drops the blade.

Look, if you’re using what Jared said at Seacon as proof of your ship becoming canon, I don’t know what to tell you, other than you know that it isn’t true. Deep down you know he didn’t intentionally validate your non-existent ship. Deep down you know if you’d asked the question in this way: “I watched Executioners Song which aired recently and I saw a strong parallel between Colette, who was Cain’s wife, and Castiel who I see as being the equivalent of Colette to Dean. So, I’m wondering if that parallel was intentionally put into the episode, and if so, and Castiel is the equivalent of Dean’s wife, is Destiel going to become canon at some point?” the answer you would have got back would have been 100% clear that there was no parallel between Colette and Castiel in that way and Destiel does not exist. Anyone genuinely thinking otherwise, is in for a whole world of disappointment when the show ends.

#not sure what to tag this as #destiheller delusions #destihellers #colette myth

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

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SAD TIMES! so when dean says that the boys home with sonny wasn't so bad because nobody bad touched him, burned him or beat him with a metal hanger? does that mean he's comparing his time there to all the other times he did get bad touched or burned etc? i bet that's it. like he could actually enjoy hid freedom from his father and freedom from responsibility in general and he was finally free of all the bad things that happened to him?

I’d read it as going under Dean’s pop culture knowledge of what’s “supposed” to happen in prisons or foster homes - the kind of abuse and violence that depictions of these often focus on, or of course sometimes are actually happening and you get horrible news reports about… (Honestly the fact they trawl the news for weird stories all the time means they must read some truly hideous news stories about regular people doing awful shit >.>)

I sort of file it under the same thing as what I was talking about in this recent post:

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/155634477583/i-wonder-why-this-harmonica-thing-is-never-a-part

about Dean’s jokes about being in prison. Basically, he’s always projecting that defensive mechanism, and in these cases, trying to fit into the pop culture prisoner persona in a very genre-savvy way. In the end of season 2 you get those two episodes very close to each other (back to back?) where Dean is a PA on the movie set and in prison, and both times Sam calls him out for getting way too in character, but that’s sort of how Dean operates :P He’s very good at shedding personality skins and trying on a new one, possibly because 90% of Dean’s on screen time is Dean under one personality or another that’s not really who he is, whether because he’s acting as a persona obviously on the job, or because he’s deflecting and acting up a version of himself for emotional reasons…

That conversation was Sam challenging him about what it was like at Sonny’s and how Dean liked it, so he had a reflexive response to continue protecting Sam under the old rules of “the story became the story” from however John originally told Sam what happened (and Dean went along with it willingly or not) but obviously with the rules changed now that Dean’s in charge of the story and Sam’s found out it even happened… Dean doesn’t really want to share the truth of it, probably because it took a huge emotional toll on him to leave so the fact he was happy there and sacrificed that for family would get a really bad response from Sam (who Dean’s watching closely the whole time protective of John’s part in this and knowing Sam is liable to go off on one about how terrible John was - thanks Sam :P), and we get to see a lot more than he ever tells Sam through Dean’s POV and the flashbacks to understand WHY he is defending his time there so carefully and weaving this non-committal story about it to Sam, as if nothing there mattered.

So he gets flippant and makes references to stuff he knows can be connected to the situation to remind Sam how awful it could have been, and come at it from the negative perspective which is a good way to sort of establish that it was at a bare minimum not, like, literal Hell. Which changes the way some one thinking about it from that would imagine the experience, because Dean’s setting up “not beaten or molested” as the baseline, rather than selling something like that it was peaceful and quiet and boring but he didn’t enjoy it, because that would still be too fishy for Dean to risk it, never mind trying to pass off, it was great and I had a girlfriend and was learning to play guitar but don’t worry, it was actually totally crap here and I couldn’t wait to leave.

(He kind of fucks that up that their next scene is Sam finding out about Robin existing, but patching over the issue for that one conversation, at least :P)

But I guess because it’s Dean and if you like angst, there’s no reason that you can’t assume he’s drawing on other traumatic childhood memories, whether that’s an exaggeration or not of what he describes, because he does just comment this out of the blue, and it’s sort of… the fact he associates it with himself? Actually, this reminds me of the other moment in this episode that’s really close to the surface text, talking about Dean going through abuse, and it’s the same point I made in my rewatch notes about the ambiguity of that moment so I’m just going to copy and paste that >.>

okay whoever did this superwiki transcript is actually fascinating me half as much as the episode… I normally delete the stage directions but:

Sitting in front of YOUNG DEAN, SONNY takes his cuffed hands to open up the cuffs. YOUNG DEAN’s forearms are bruised and red, as if bruised or abraded by bindings or ligature marks.

SONNY (noting the marks with concern)Deputy do that? (YOUNG DEAN scoffs and shakes his head.) What, your old man? (YOUNG DEAN shakes his head no.) Well, then, how’d you get it?

YOUNG DEAN (turning back to SONNY, somewhat defiantly)Werewolf.

SONNY looks at YOUNG DEAN for a long moment, realizing he’s not going to get a different answer from the kid.

SONNYOkay.

There’s a whole ton of discussion on this moment already out there - the “did John hurt his kids physically” argument is long and old and no stone left unturned etc (well, I have found relatively un-turned stones on this rewatch but shh) but I’m amused by the way the transcript takes pains to describe how the marks look, suggesting specifically that Dean was tied up e.g. making it much more likely this was something that happened on the job.

[Note from present!me realising I never quite finished this thought: which isn’t to say that this interpretation automatically decides definitely what the marks looked like and how they were made, just that this is how that fan read them… Writing it that way in the transcript removes any ambiguity from what the surface text is telling us despite the fact it’s just presented as an ambiguous visual clue that the fandom’s been arguing about for ages about how those marks could have been made, and the fact of this lack of ambiguity is what amused me…]

The actual dialogue is an interesting example of the season 9 storytelling theme - and of course “the story became the story” coming from this episode we know it’s hard at work. In this case though I’m looking ahead to 9x18 and Metatron asking what makes the story work and citing subtext. This moment is intentionally given as an ambiguous moment. Sonny thinks Dean was hurt by John (or the deputy) and has no reason to believe “werewolf” because that’s blatant fiction because to him monsters aren’t real. Dean is being this much snarky and deflective enough that even for us, knowing damn well that werewolves exist in their universe and that Dean was already hunting them at this tender age, Sonny’s speculation on it changes the flippant rely and can offer a crack through which to wonder for ourselves how else Dean might have got the marks, and just to weigh the possibility.

And then of course from there you can make your opinion whichever way takes your fancy, like writing stage directions to imply it was the monster, or assuming at the very least having Sonny suggest it might be a call to think about how John treated them, in an episode that’s already repeatedly underlined his emotional neglect/harsh emotional punishment to Dean - if not to assume he did hurt him, then to take it as a prompt to consider it emotional abuse being depicted in the episode. And then some John fans will take Dean’s line as total exoneration of John from ever hurting Dean, and probably go with all his surface level comments telling Sam not to get all weird about John and Dean saying that he deserved it…

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/148015532758/9x07-rewatch-or-i-love-this-kid-but-i-find-deans

Of course however Dean got the bruises, John at the very least comes out of this episode with another mark against his name for child endangerment and deliberate neglect, but the point I’m looking at here is that thought about Sonny thinking it was just run of the mill no supernatural stuff involved physical parental abuse. That creates an association in the story LINKING John to said abuse, whether the show is implying he did or not, his actions are equated to physical harm coming to Dean. I guess in the same way, this comment from Dean might not be directly implying that that ever happened to him, but it also makes an association between Dean and that kind of abuse happening to him as a kid, which again leaves you at least that avenue of thought to wonder how deep that implication goes…

(I think from Dean’s comments in that scene, he’s definitely more trying to guide how Sam thinks about what Sonny’s was like for Dean, and not getting alarmingly real about that sort of thing, as it was a fairly flippant comment even if for a rather grim emotional purpose… I’ve never thought about it inverting that he wasn’t talking about that sort of thing happening TO him there but instead being about it NOT happening to him specifically there, but it’s an interesting thought when it comes to interpreting it…

idk, I’d like to think that that didn’t happen to Dean, ever, and that he was mostly just run of the mill supernaturally neglected and endangered. :P)

#Asks #9x07 #abuse cw #*not a John Winchester fangirl*#... but not that much of not a John Winchester fangirl :P #it's a really grim avenue of exploring how the storytelling in season 9 was working #I mean I love how intricate the conversation about subtext and reading the story is this season but #brrrr #don't really wanna probe this one too deeply :P

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