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Supernatural 5.16
Last week's episode was so utterly meh that I couldn't be bothered to do a reaction post. This week gave me a bit more to work with. Spoilers.
soulmates?
Yet more on the fate vs. free will front, in the latest episode of Supernatural. Heaven is made up of billions of personal heavens, none of which interact, save for cases of angelic interference, or of soulmates. Ash introduces the soulmates-share-heaven thing when he's explaining his model of how the afterlife upstairs works. ("Nice to have a practical use for string theory." I'm sure it is bb). Keeping in mind that true love seems to be a result of cupids mind whammying potential vessels in aid of selective breeding, I'm going to go with 'soulmates' being more of the same: souls that the angels have linked so tightly through their machinations, that they can't be separated in heaven.
Are Sam and Dean soulmates? Let's examine the evidence.
For: Sam and Dean were together in heaven.
Against: Sam and Dean started in separate heavens, and only got together after Castiel made Dean aware of where he was, and sent him to Sam.
For: Ash says that it's incredibly rare for people to be able to jump out of their own heaven. Sam and Dean have been able to walk through each others heavens.
Against: Ash 'woke' himself up, whereas Dean was woken by Castiel, and he in turn woke Sam. Additionally, Sam and Dean visit Ash's heaven, and an offer is extended to visit Pamela's heaven. Sam and Dean don't have a natural ability to visit each others heavens; they've taken the red pill.
For: The implication is that soulmates are a result of meddling by cupids. All the Winchester family relationships have been heavily manipulated by the angels. They've absolutely been brought together by the angels.
Against: The brothers are fated to be vessels for another set of brothers, who are trying to kill each other. Sam and Dean are soulmates if Lucifer and Michale are soulmates, maybe?
I'm coming down against the brothers being soulmates. Not because of the Sam/Dean angle, which I don't think needs to figure into a soulmate relationship (if we're talking canon), but because I am so completely Team Free Will that I find the idea repugnant.
heaven is for... Sam?
Pamela and Ash were certainly enjoying their own blue heavens, weren't they? I'm on the fence as to whether they were manipulated in some way by Zachariah. We know from Mary's turn as a YED that Zachariah can shape heaven like it's his own personal playdough, so as far as I'm concerned, everything the brothers experienced upstairs is suspect, just as everything Dean experienced during The End, is suspect. However, my gut feeling is that Ash and Pamela were both sincere, and that they weren't directly influenced by Zachariah. Not only is Zachariah big on using the truth for his own ends, but their being happy (enough) is thematically fitting. Heaven as one's greatest hits makes so much sense, in SPN metaphysics, and when you take into account the angels' characters and their opinion of humans. Their most frequent contact with humans is in heaven, where they happily run through an endless cycle of self-supplied pap. They're easily managed sheep. Limited in so many ways. And it's true to a large extent that people in the SPN world are limited, are sheep, are willingly blind to what's really going on. That was true before the angels were introduced, and it's even more true now that there's been another layer of 'truth' superimposed onto Sam and Dean's world.
Stepping out of that security takes tremendous effort, and rarely is there a reward.
So much of this episode (and recent ones) was designed to strip from Dean, his reasons for fighting. Ash and Pamela are happy. He has no family to fight for. Help isn't coming. Dean is methodically being broken down.
Sam, on the other hand, is being rebuilt. The angels have focused their attentions on Dean, and Lucifer has been slacking in the vessel-claiming department. While Sam has had setbacks due to his addiction, he's also demonstrated incredible strength of will and clarity of purpose. While Dean is getting tired, getting demoralized, giving up, Sam is finding his faith and facing his fears. Dean is coasting. Sam is still building new relationships and reaching out to people (Castiel, the sheriff). Sam also got a tremendous faith-building, reassurance this episode: he learned that when he dies, he'll be going to heaven. He's "done things" and yet God forgives him. He drank demon blood, started the apocalypse and all that jazz and yet he's not damned. This is huge.
where in the world is John Winchester?
When I pimp the show (you can ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijikun), I'm always careful to explain that while Sam and Dean are awesome, and Castiel is certainly nifty too, John Winchester is king shit of the Supernatural universe. Dean broke after 30 years of torture in hell. John was on the rack for 100 years and never broke. Sam and Dean were raised from childhood to be the awesomest of awesome hunters. John taught himself the art of hunting, while traveling cross country, raising two children, grieving for his wife and nursing his developing alcoholism. Sam and Dean die for each other, sure, but John got there first. He figured out Azazel's plan. He knew something about the Michael sword. John is a pegasus-riding, rail-gun-carrying superhero.
He's also an absolute bastard, a poor father, and generally a failure at things unrelated to "saving people, hunting things." And that's ok. That's actually perfect. It makes for an easy and natural parallel to God. I think the John/God parallel is much less forced that Sam/Lucifer or Dean/Michael. John was the god of Sam and Dean's young lives. He created their world, set down its rules, and was fierce in seeing those rules obeyed. Then one day, he just let go. Went off and did his own thing, leaving Dean (and even Sam) flailing. Where was he? What would he want them to do? And everywhere they went, there were and still are, traces of John. Old friends and enemies, mysterious storage lockers and tidbits in his journal.
And now comes the revelation that John is not heaven. Is he back in hell? Is he on earth, playing skeeball with God? Reintroducing the John question brings back a crucial piece of season one, in a new and interesting way. Maybe they'll never find God, or figure out what's up with John. Never know how and why John became John, why he hurt his sons, why he abandoned them, why he did so many things - in all likelihood these questions will never be answered to Sam and Dean's satisfaction. But finding those answers is beside the point.
"Back off."
some other minor stuff
- Joshua: not sure how I feel about this. I'm still poking at this. It's... a very Christian development, isn't it? That God talks to the humblest of angels?
- Zachariah: is losing his MIND, isn't he? Wow. So he's feeling the pressure of getting the apocalypse moving. If we assume that he was always directly above Castiel in the command structure, then he's seen two angels go rogue (Uriel, Castiel), and he's failed to deliver Michael's vessel. Epic fail.
- Dean's lack of manly tears: THANK YOU GREAT GAZOO.
- Castiel: Yeah, uh, not sure what to say about this. If he goes dirty-hippy I won't be pleased. Let's just leave it at that, yes?
- Heaven/hell: just how bad do you have to be, to go to hell? I'd love to see some confirmation of who's in heaven, and who's in hell, beyond what we saw in this ep.
- The music: seriously, what is with the strange musical choices lately? Where's mah classic rock!?
Yeah. I think that's it. Although I should say, I'm not sure that I actually liked this ep in and of itself, or if I just enjoyed the implications of it. Needs rewatching, I suppose.
Last post of the day, I swear!
soulmates?
Yet more on the fate vs. free will front, in the latest episode of Supernatural. Heaven is made up of billions of personal heavens, none of which interact, save for cases of angelic interference, or of soulmates. Ash introduces the soulmates-share-heaven thing when he's explaining his model of how the afterlife upstairs works. ("Nice to have a practical use for string theory." I'm sure it is bb). Keeping in mind that true love seems to be a result of cupids mind whammying potential vessels in aid of selective breeding, I'm going to go with 'soulmates' being more of the same: souls that the angels have linked so tightly through their machinations, that they can't be separated in heaven.
Are Sam and Dean soulmates? Let's examine the evidence.
For: Sam and Dean were together in heaven.
Against: Sam and Dean started in separate heavens, and only got together after Castiel made Dean aware of where he was, and sent him to Sam.
For: Ash says that it's incredibly rare for people to be able to jump out of their own heaven. Sam and Dean have been able to walk through each others heavens.
Against: Ash 'woke' himself up, whereas Dean was woken by Castiel, and he in turn woke Sam. Additionally, Sam and Dean visit Ash's heaven, and an offer is extended to visit Pamela's heaven. Sam and Dean don't have a natural ability to visit each others heavens; they've taken the red pill.
For: The implication is that soulmates are a result of meddling by cupids. All the Winchester family relationships have been heavily manipulated by the angels. They've absolutely been brought together by the angels.
Against: The brothers are fated to be vessels for another set of brothers, who are trying to kill each other. Sam and Dean are soulmates if Lucifer and Michale are soulmates, maybe?
I'm coming down against the brothers being soulmates. Not because of the Sam/Dean angle, which I don't think needs to figure into a soulmate relationship (if we're talking canon), but because I am so completely Team Free Will that I find the idea repugnant.
heaven is for... Sam?
Pamela and Ash were certainly enjoying their own blue heavens, weren't they? I'm on the fence as to whether they were manipulated in some way by Zachariah. We know from Mary's turn as a YED that Zachariah can shape heaven like it's his own personal playdough, so as far as I'm concerned, everything the brothers experienced upstairs is suspect, just as everything Dean experienced during The End, is suspect. However, my gut feeling is that Ash and Pamela were both sincere, and that they weren't directly influenced by Zachariah. Not only is Zachariah big on using the truth for his own ends, but their being happy (enough) is thematically fitting. Heaven as one's greatest hits makes so much sense, in SPN metaphysics, and when you take into account the angels' characters and their opinion of humans. Their most frequent contact with humans is in heaven, where they happily run through an endless cycle of self-supplied pap. They're easily managed sheep. Limited in so many ways. And it's true to a large extent that people in the SPN world are limited, are sheep, are willingly blind to what's really going on. That was true before the angels were introduced, and it's even more true now that there's been another layer of 'truth' superimposed onto Sam and Dean's world.
Stepping out of that security takes tremendous effort, and rarely is there a reward.
So much of this episode (and recent ones) was designed to strip from Dean, his reasons for fighting. Ash and Pamela are happy. He has no family to fight for. Help isn't coming. Dean is methodically being broken down.
Sam, on the other hand, is being rebuilt. The angels have focused their attentions on Dean, and Lucifer has been slacking in the vessel-claiming department. While Sam has had setbacks due to his addiction, he's also demonstrated incredible strength of will and clarity of purpose. While Dean is getting tired, getting demoralized, giving up, Sam is finding his faith and facing his fears. Dean is coasting. Sam is still building new relationships and reaching out to people (Castiel, the sheriff). Sam also got a tremendous faith-building, reassurance this episode: he learned that when he dies, he'll be going to heaven. He's "done things" and yet God forgives him. He drank demon blood, started the apocalypse and all that jazz and yet he's not damned. This is huge.
where in the world is John Winchester?
When I pimp the show (you can ask
kijikun), I'm always careful to explain that while Sam and Dean are awesome, and Castiel is certainly nifty too, John Winchester is king shit of the Supernatural universe. Dean broke after 30 years of torture in hell. John was on the rack for 100 years and never broke. Sam and Dean were raised from childhood to be the awesomest of awesome hunters. John taught himself the art of hunting, while traveling cross country, raising two children, grieving for his wife and nursing his developing alcoholism. Sam and Dean die for each other, sure, but John got there first. He figured out Azazel's plan. He knew something about the Michael sword. John is a pegasus-riding, rail-gun-carrying superhero. He's also an absolute bastard, a poor father, and generally a failure at things unrelated to "saving people, hunting things." And that's ok. That's actually perfect. It makes for an easy and natural parallel to God. I think the John/God parallel is much less forced that Sam/Lucifer or Dean/Michael. John was the god of Sam and Dean's young lives. He created their world, set down its rules, and was fierce in seeing those rules obeyed. Then one day, he just let go. Went off and did his own thing, leaving Dean (and even Sam) flailing. Where was he? What would he want them to do? And everywhere they went, there were and still are, traces of John. Old friends and enemies, mysterious storage lockers and tidbits in his journal.
And now comes the revelation that John is not heaven. Is he back in hell? Is he on earth, playing skeeball with God? Reintroducing the John question brings back a crucial piece of season one, in a new and interesting way. Maybe they'll never find God, or figure out what's up with John. Never know how and why John became John, why he hurt his sons, why he abandoned them, why he did so many things - in all likelihood these questions will never be answered to Sam and Dean's satisfaction. But finding those answers is beside the point.
"Back off."
some other minor stuff
- Joshua: not sure how I feel about this. I'm still poking at this. It's... a very Christian development, isn't it? That God talks to the humblest of angels?
- Zachariah: is losing his MIND, isn't he? Wow. So he's feeling the pressure of getting the apocalypse moving. If we assume that he was always directly above Castiel in the command structure, then he's seen two angels go rogue (Uriel, Castiel), and he's failed to deliver Michael's vessel. Epic fail.
- Dean's lack of manly tears: THANK YOU GREAT GAZOO.
- Castiel: Yeah, uh, not sure what to say about this. If he goes dirty-hippy I won't be pleased. Let's just leave it at that, yes?
- Heaven/hell: just how bad do you have to be, to go to hell? I'd love to see some confirmation of who's in heaven, and who's in hell, beyond what we saw in this ep.
- The music: seriously, what is with the strange musical choices lately? Where's mah classic rock!?
Yeah. I think that's it. Although I should say, I'm not sure that I actually liked this ep in and of itself, or if I just enjoyed the implications of it. Needs rewatching, I suppose.
Last post of the day, I swear!
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no subject
So I don't think that the bar is low, so much as the bar is in a different place than we expect.