#winchesters critical

[vaicomcas]

Cas episodes rewatch notes. Early S13.

There is this exchange early in 13x01.

SAM: What about Cas? Is he - is he really dead? DEAN: You know he is.

Sam saw as much as Dean when Cas was killed. This question is significant because it hints at what Sam must have been thinking: Death isn't necessarily "real" in their universe.

No, the writers didn't suddenly forget about that. In S13e5:

Billie: It’s funny to hear a Winchester talk about the finality of dying. 

Which makes it all the more jarring that the Winchesters made Zero effort to find a way to bring Cas back.

Quite the opposite. In S13e4:

JACK: My mother… could she be a ghost? SAM: No, we, um… we burned the body. DEAN: That’s right, and what gets burned… stays dead.

They didn't forget that in their universe resurrections can and often happen. Dean performed his grief so convincingly in preparing Cas' body for the funeral pyre, but what the Winchesters really did was they burned Castiel's body with the explicit intention that Cas stayed dead.

Poor Cas was under the illusion that the Winchesters would have tried:

CASTIEL The Winchesters. Sam and Dean, they must’ve made a deal.

No, they didn't. They didn't look in books, they didn't try spells, they didn't make a deal, Cas must stay dead so they get to keep their hunter code, their grief rituals and their man pain angst.

[lerry-hazel]

on Mary's death

Probably unpopular opinion among fellow Winchesters’ critics,

but I sorta kinda understand Dean lashing out and assigning blame for Mary’s death. Sure, some people would scream “I hate you!” and slam the door at the face of someone trying to give them a comforting hug, and some, apparently, would – literally – tell their supposed “best friend” to go to hell, but – I’m just glad I don’t have relevant experience to compare notes.

HOWEVER, can we talk about the person actually responsible for Mary’s death?

Which – barring the writers who first dragged in a totally unnecessary character and then found the lamest possible way to get rid of her – is Mary herself.

Because the problem was not Jack accidentally losing control of his powers. The problem was Mary deliberately – stupidly – getting into his face.

Mary – once again, literally – knew better than anyone else what Jack was capable of: Jack had tried to be “good” for Dean and Sam; it was Mary who taught him (at tender age of, like, 6 months) to kill his own kind by dozens. And then she “bravely” and “nobly” tried to stop Jack from killing – Nick.

Nick – who was willingly bringing Lucifer into the world, despite having had first-hand experience of what that could do to humankind, to the Winchester family specifically, even to Mary personally.

But, oh, wait, Nick is human!

The epitome of hunters’ hypocrisy, which doubly pisses me off because no subsequent plot twist calls for Jack being even a little bit evil.

***

Come to think of it, if Amara actually wanted to repay Dean in kind, she should have reunited him with his own estranged brother.

Would have been fun to watch the writers trying to justify hunting Michael down if he had just wanted to clean up the mess piled up in his absence – and still had had Adam as a vessel :-P

[crowley-the-1-true-king-of-hell]

Balthazar makes it very clear that he is BETRAYING a friend

BALTHAZAR: I'm betraying a friend here. A very powerful friend. We all are. So I think I've stuck my neck out far enough already. Good luck

He calls Cas powerful. Remember that this is another angel saying this so it really put Cas' power into perspective. He isn't just powerful to another human he is also powerful to other angels. This friend is Cas. So I really do understand why Cas killed Balthazar because even Balthazar himself understands that he is betraying Cas and Balthazar was so right to say "we all are" like he made it clear that 1. Cas is their friend too and 2. They [ Sam & Dean ] are also betraying him

Balthazar was, when his life wasn't on the line, a great friend and brother. Way better than Sam & Dean. Unrelated to that I totally get why he betrayed Cas for survival reasons, as well as out of worry that those souls would kill Cas. Meanwhile Dean's problem wasn't that, it was just that he didn't like Cas working with Crowley, even though he did the same

I also get why Cas killed Balthazar. I do find it sucky that Cas didn't kill the boys too, but Doylist, the boys are necessary for the show. I really appreciate that Balthazar acknowledges this for what it is. Betraying a friend rather than saving people

I believe it was Doylist not Watsonian that killed Balthazar. Because I genuinely do believe Cas loved Balthazar and yet he didn't "work around Balthazar's betrayal" like he did for Sam and Dean? Cas has even worked around season 8 Crowley!

Writers don't want Cas to have any distractions away from Dean ofc

Balthazar was also worried that Cas absorbing all of those souls would kill Cas

Was Cas wrong for this?

Morally wrong? No. Balthazar became a soldier. A double agent. He said as much himself. He signed up for the consequences of war

But is it valid to FEEL wronged by Cas and or more accurately the writers killing off Balthazar? Absolutely. I feel wronged by the writers killing off someone who genuinely cared about Cas. Even Balthazar's betrayal, while motivated by survival was also motivated by a fear of Cas dying to all those souls

Cas loved Balthazar like a brother and I find it hard to believe that Cas would kill Balthazar if Cas were a real being not under narrative control. Cas spared the Winchesters because the show is about them and also because he loves them. Even though the Winchesters also betrayed him. But he also loved Balthazar too. He grew up with Balthazar over millions of years. Cas has worked around season 8 Crowley and I'm pretty sure if the show wanted then Cas can work around Balthazar being a double agent. Maybe feed Balthazar lies etc

You deserved better from the show Balthazar. I really wish you told the Winchesters to fuck off like you usually do

[confusedkittensposts]

Spn is funny because they had heroes who claimed higher ground solely because they were human

most "bad guys" turned into good becuse the obejctive was saving Winchesters and as long as someone was useful to them or contributed to their benifit that character was "good"

I am not denying that sam and dean were heroes or that they didn't do anything good. but the Winchesters were not exceptionally Good and noble.

[lukas-dusk]

Castiel : So.

Castiel : I'm in love.

Castiel : with Dean.

Sam :

Castiel : I'm in love with Dean.

Sam : Our Dean?

Castiel : Yes.

Castiel : Thoughts?

Sam : And prayers your gonna need them.

[chaoticace22]

don’t worry guys i have eurovision covered in here

[strawlessandbraless]

Dean and Cas should have gotten to poke fun at Sam’s career choice more often. When Cas is annoyed, his response is always ‘ok law boy’ with an eye roll. Anytime Sam utters ‘so get this’, Dean and Cas rush to be the first to object. Dean threatens to sue Sam anytime he interrupts his alone time with Cas. The party city wig was actually one of those white British judge wigs.

[creatorofarcadia]

It's been a while since I watched Supernatural, so don't take my opinions as gospel or anything. But I think Dean is self-hating to the point of narcissism in some ways. Don't get me wrong, I empathise with Dean and understand why fans largely do too. But his self-loathing warps his perception and becomes the centre of EVERYTHING and at times that really has ripple effects on those around him - particularly Sam.

Take their childhood, Sam has a right to mourn the fact that he didn't get a normal childhood. He's allowed to be angry that he didn't get a home, a present father, a stable community, and consistent education. But whenever Sam attempts to express his complicated feelings about his childhood, Dean immediately interprets it as ' oh I was supposed to look out for you. Are you saying I failed? Are you confirming I'm worthless?' which grinds the conversation to a complete halt. Because of Dean's intense self-criticism, Sam can never really be 100% honest with him or ask for support with his own issues, especially regarding their childhood. As anything outside of 100% gratitude just becomes another stick for Dean to beat himself with, and the conversation is immediately derailed.

Not only does Deans self-hatred mean that Sam's expression of his own experiences are pretty consistently shut down. In some ways, I think Dean strips Sam of his autonomy - he's so self-loathing, he sees every decision Sam makes as being about/a reaction to him. A good example of this is Stanford. Rather than understanding Stanford for what it was, an attempt by Sam to carve out a better life from himself and escape hunting. Dean views it as betrayal or abandonment, some re-affirmation of his own belief that he's not worth caring about. Rather than understanding it's a rejection of hunting, he sees it as Sam rejecting him. To Dean, Sam isn't attempting to find a better life, he's punishing the family.

Overall, it's interesting that people largely and rightfully sympathise with Dean due to his self-hatred. However, I don't see as much discussion about how his self-hatred doesn't just hurt him, it hurts those he's close to, as it colours his interpretation of their every action. Dean's self-loathing is always the biggest thing in the room and that has consequences.

[nobodymitskigabriel]

Mary's deal with Azazel being unacknowledged in the later seasons when rly I think there should've been at least twelve screaming matches about it.

[red-hood-vigilante]

to yell about an argument done to death: even the language around sam in-show and amongst fans annoys me. sam didn't 'let lucifer out of the cage' which is a wording that implies he solely and singlehandedly opened the door - he unknowingly broke 1 of 66 locks on a door because he was being completely in the dark about lilith being a seal and what killing her would do.

dean unknowingly broke the first lock and started the entire thing but nobody in-show or amongst fans carry the same energy for dean as they do with sam even though neither knew what was happening or even that a seal was broken until it was too late. 'dean let lucifer out' never heard of her.

and then! dean's torture of people in hell is never brought up but sam gets this thrown in his face years and years and years later (by dean multiple times no less) and there's still the convenient ignorance of everything else surrounding this; angels let 64 seals break in the name of the heavenly plan, castiel sat on the truth about lilith of a year and opened the door to the panic room to push sam towards ruby and lilith, dean's voicemail was altered to send sam over the edge, dean was held captive by angels to prevent him getting to sam in time, the plan of heaven and hell was to isolate and crush sam mentally so he'd see lucifer as a grace and say yes, lilith dying by sam's psychic abilities was NEVER the requirement so dean stating he and bobby would kill lilith while sam was locked up in the panic room means she could've died a different way with the same result.

there are a lot of things about this that is so glossed over all the time. and it's just reduced to 'sam let lucifer out'. that exact phrasing. i hate it because it is truly not what happened. if anything he was the one that solved everything despite carrying the least amount of part in this. it was literally a collaborative effort manipulated by forces way beyond sam and dean, why is sam blamed for it by fans AND characters who had their own part in this.

[hellotailor]

can't wait to find out what the Supernatural spinoff is like via thirdhand memes on here tomorrow.

[vaicomcas]

9x21 and 9x22 enrages me as much as TMWWBK. I'll have to break it down to multiple posts.

"The Commander"

Sam and Dean haven't even entered the door and they already started judging Cas as soon as they heard the angel call him "commander".

"If you will follow me, the commander will see you now."

What a neutral and normal thing to say! Yet look at Sam and Dean's faces! Look at the contempt they already had, just upon hearing someone referring to Cas in a respectful way!

They go in, Cas was so happy to see them, he hugged each of them warmly. And the first thing they say to Cas? It was to disparage him.

Look at the condescension and judgment on their faces! Look at it!

Cas picked up on their disapproval immediately. He said, "not my idea. The angels had no leader and they insisted on following me."

Dean responds with sacarsm:

Sam: "so this war between angels is really gonna happen, huh?"

Cas: "Not if I can find a diplomatic option for getting rid of Metatron."

Dean: "Good luck with that".

No respect for his noble cause, no concern for the challenges and danger Cas was in.

Cas: "Dean, this angel-on-angel violence, it has to end. Someone has to say, 'stop.'"

Sam responds by skepticism and doubt: "and that someone is you?"

I wrote elsewhere that it takes unimaginable courage for Cas to step up to lead. The amount of self-hating and self-blaming he had to overcome, the knowledge that Metatron had made plans for him to fail in his leadership, his belief that he was a screw up: He fought through all this burden in order to restore his family.

How devastating is it to have the only "friends" he had see his leadership, his army, and immediately cast doubt and disapproval? Immediately put him down as a leader?

And this was only the first 2 minutes of the Winchesters seeing Castiel leading his army. All because Cas being called Commander! He was the commander! It was simply a fact! The Winchesters couldn't stand it. What would they be happy with? If everybody else think of Cas as "a weird, dorky little guy" too?

[seasononesam]

Stackednatural- 47/327

Bad Day at Black Rock (3x03) October 18th, 2007

[crowley-the-1-true-king-of-hell]

I fixed Dean's entry for Castiel in the MoL Bestiary

First purple: Like a child

I don't like an autism coded trait like seeing things literally being see as a child like trait. Because when Cas is seen like a child that means he gets less respect and faith in his ability

Second purple: Betrayed us

Bitch? Tf? When? He did nothing you didn't or wouldn't do yourself

Third purple: Left us

How dare Cas have the audacity to have a life outside of you and Sam I guess 🙄

Fourth purple: We will always have his back

Are you sure about that? Because it sure af didn't look that way in season 6. Sure it didn't work out, but you didn't side with Cas NOT because you can see the future and had a vision that it wouldn't work out. It's because you didn't like Cas working with Crowley

Hands up if Cas should get to write his own entry about Dean in the bestiary? But it has as much criticism in it as Dean's does if not more so?

I mean Bestiary is about animals both Supernatural and not Supernatural. Humans are animals

Are angels animals?

a living organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli.

Cas doesn't need to eat under ordinary circumstances so he's not an animal. But since his entry was written anyway then Dean and Sam really should be added as entries as well

Should be called "Supernatural beings" rather than bestiary

No no no make new vessel Crowley write Sam and Dean's entries. That would be amazing! Would have "morons" and "self-righteous" everywhere

Feathers wrote the previous entry about Squirrel and Moose. I've crossed out every Sam, Dean, my family and my brother/s and written "Moose" "Squirrel" and "moron" above that instead

I have to work quick though, before Feathers catches me editing his entry

Okay this is my entry

SQUIRREL AND MOOSE

Squirrel is a moody alcoholic and Moose has temper issues. They both come up with good ideas and have even outsmarted me but then when they open their mouth it's so moronic I wonder if God helped them? They've both caused so much collateral damage, and pain. But they think it's fine because they save one person every now and then. Anyway despite all that they are great big bloody heroes and unfortunately are a bad influence on me ...

I wish they wouldn't look down on Feathers when he loses his powers

Feelings >_<

This is my entry for Cas

FEATHERS

Cas is very powerful, very capable and very intelligent. Too many people, especially Squirrel underestimate him or look down on him. Even without powers he would be able to kick the candy out of most of his enemies

Feathers has been my partner in mischief! My enemy in arms! My hunter buddy! My crush! My kitten metaphorically speakinv

He is so magnificent I chose him over my revenge on Lucifer and I don't regret that decision

Feathers never gets boring unlike Squirrel. After six months with Demon Squirrel in a bar I wanted to tear off my own face

Right sorry this entry is about Feathers not my feelings! I got a bit carried away there. It was Feather's idea to fake my death and Feathers did a really good job lying to Moose and Squirrel. I was very proud that he had them fooled for two years!

He came up with so many good strategic ideas for getting monsters and he is amazing at torture! Better than me even. Which I may be a smidgen jealous about. I did teach him but he surpassed me

I also like ruffling his feathers because it's sexy when he slams me up against a wall

He did betray me but can you imagine if there were Leviathans running around in Hell? *Shudders* so it all worked out for the best. Beside he did apologize and he's too fun not to work with

I decided to forgive him and team up with him again because a life without Feathers is a boring one. Even Feathers as an enemy is better than no Feathers at all

Feathers has or used to have these powers

Entering human dreams. Okay so one day I was bored and I decided to give this human nightmares and Cas gave me the stare and turned my nightmare into a happy dream

So we were both trying to win the dream battle and well Cas won. Look he's an angel okay! He's meant to be stronger

Smiting demons

Telekinesis. Did you know he uses telekinesis just before a smite to stop a demon from teleporting away before the smite happens? Most demons can't teleport but on the off chance they can

He only bothers doing that if he means to kill the demon in a "hit list" sense rather than a "you're in my way" sense. I felt him holding onto me when I teamed up with Raphael but I wasn't worried because I had Raphael's protection

Teleportation. Okay so we would play this game where we had to teleport behind each other and tag each other. What you think spending two years together and it was nothing but business?

Time travel. I've been tempted to ask to be sent back in time myself but I've noticed how weak it makes him and I didn't want Cas to die but at the time I lied to myself and said it's because I didn't want my partner being too weak otherwise he's useless to me

His powers go above and beyond that so this will have to be continued at another date maybe

I've also enchanted my entry so none of those lot will be able to edit it or rip the page from the book

*A few hours later*

Crowley hears Dean yell "Crowley! What the hell is this? You son of a bitch!" as he points at his entry

Crowley smoothly responds "well that's an entry for you and Moose"

[confusedkittensposts]

unrelated rant, sorry to hijack: While I liked the crowstiel part of the deleted scene, I absolutely hate how it ended with Cas proclaiming that his relationship with Winchesters (and Claire Novak) was far superior to all of his prior achievements and experiences. It's extremely heavy handed and continues the show's dirty job of stripping Cas of his own angel identity and his own worth in order to prop up humanity. So I am glad this scene was deleted in the end. (I am also irritated with the whole concept of "winchester derangement syndrome", "shattered at the alter of the Winchesters". Castiel's (and other characters) noble actions, their sacrifices, were reduced to Winchesters influence rather than their own goodness and their own conscience. The writers forced it into the narrative in that shameless Winchester-centric way, where nothing has value if not connected to Winchesters, and now they rub our faces in it with this flowery terminology. I absolutely detest it.)

from by @vaicomcas,

[chiisana-sukima]

What's your opinion on the take that Sam is always running away?

The short answer is I think spn's ethics are insane.

The longer answer is that if you did a rewatch and counted up all the times that Sam objectively "runs away" from a problem/his family/etc and all the times Dean "runs away" from the same, I'm not sure who would actually win. But I do think the narrative frames Sam as the one who runs, and that, over the long term, it treats "running away" as his cardinal sin.

For example, when Dean runs away from his mistakes in Road Trip, the narrative does frame that as immature and self-destructive, and punishes him with the Mark of Cain. But by s11, this is reframed briefly as a "we" problem in s11a (Sam: "if we don't change, right now, all of our crap is just gonna keep repeating itself") and then never held against Dean personally thereafter. Whereas Sam's equivalent attempt at running away--the s4 demon blood arc--continues to be held against him by the narrative until at least 13x21 (Cas: we let Lucifer out of the Cage.)

Even more interestingly, at least to me, with the exception of Stanford, the narrative also tends to treat Dean's episodes of running away from Sam as "abandoning" him, but Sam's episodes of running away from Dean as "betraying" Dean.

This is Dean abandoning Sam to his fate as Lucifer's vessel. The narrative punishment is extreme, but not only does Dean get a do over in the same episode and it never comes up again, but the quote is remembered by fandom primarily as a quote about how close they are. And I do think that's borne out by the narrative. If Dean abandons Sam, the world will literally end.

Meanwhile though:

When Sam screws up with Dean, he's betraying him. The problem isn't just that Sam is an addict or that he ran away from Dean's attempt to forcibly detox him for his own somewhat questionable "good", but that he did so with a demon whore. It's portrayed as a personal betrayal in a way that Dean abandoning Sam to Lucifer is not.

In some ways, Sam is even the more steadfast brother. He may physically leave Dean at times but he never stops believing in Dean's capacity for good. When it's his turn to lock Dean in the panic room because Dean gives up and runs to destruction at the hands of Michael, he doesn't do it. And in the Mark of Cain arc, he affirms that even if Dean kills him, he accepts it as necessary and still believes Dean is a good man.

Which brings me to spn's ethics and fandom's response.

If there's one single thing that spn is entirely, completely, one hundred percent consistent on, it's that tumblr is wrong. You can't just walk out; leaving is always wrong and will usually end the world. It's wrong if it's temporarily for the evening because you'd like to have Thanksgiving dinner and your family doesn't do that, or for four years because you want to go to college, or for forever because all your remaining loved ones have been killed before your eyes, or if it's only a partial withdrawal because you want better boundaries in the face of years of violence and autonomy violations. (To be clear, spn thinks the violence and autonomy violations are wrong too; it's just especially adamant that the only appropriate response is self-sacrifice.) The only reason Sam is finally allowed to temporarily leave in the finale is because he so obviously no longer wants to.

And all of this, to be completely blunt, is batshit fucking crazy. And I mean that in the clinical technical sense of the word. As a system of ethics it's an enormous mess, as a behavioral guide it's guaranteed to result in inappropriate assignment of blame and unnecessary suffering, and it's hard to interpret it all for me personally as anything but a response to trauma.

I do think that on an emotional level there's something wildly compelling about it though, and it's fiction, after all, so there's nothing wrong with it as a fantasy. The idea that if only you could prove your loyalty strongly enough your family would finally accept you, flaws and all, is an impossible wish many of us have spent a lot of our real lives trying to actualize. And seeing it happen on screen when it can't happen irl can be cathartic, much like revenge stories can be cathartic even though irl revenge is a terrible idea. The vibes are, in short, without flaw.

The thing that's hard for me though is remembering that everyone irl grows at their own speed. Not everyone is in a position to cleanly separate their emotional enjoyment of a plotline or theme from their intellectual calculus about whether or not it makes any fucking sense--especially when those plotlines or themes are about violence, betrayal, abandonment, and abuse. And it's hard for me to remember sometimes that huge swathes of meta aren't actually the result of [insert negative judgement here] but are just reflective of a different series of experiences than the ones I happen to have had.

Honestly I find it frustrating. I wish people would be better about separating out what the story is saying from what they think of that message themselves. I feel like the format of fandom meta is often kind of a disaster. It adopts an authoritative, academic tone, but is usually actually used to express personal feelings and wishes without acknowledging that it's doing that.

It's not that I think people should have to disclose their personal experiences to write meta--on the contrary, sometimes that's helpful but sometimes it just makes it worse. Rather, I wish people would get in the habit of using more "I" statements and acknowledging their subjectivity more overtly. Back in the days when dinos roamed the earth and I was an undergrad, I learned that the use of the third person passive voice in academic writing is a political choice. It grants the illusion of more authority and objectivity than actually exists. I wish fandom would take up my professor's call to abandon it to some extent and say "I feel hurt that Sam left Dean alone with John to go to college" rather than "Sam is always running away".