#the cas vs chuck battle royale theory | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shallowseeker · 1 year

Note

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!

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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?

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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.

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