(I’m late to the party due to a busy-bee week and most of what I’m saying has been touched upon by other smart lovelies but anyway)
Ohh jeez, 13x12 was VASTLY meta and there’s no finish line to the layers and interpretations here!
Okay, expanding on my migraine-riddled answer to this ask *plays All You Need Is Love* *fitting song, eh?*
Jenny and Jamie—Sam and Dean’s mirror characters in a goddamn BRILLIANT Yockey episode where Brodependency = Bad and literally/metaphorically leads to DEATH, loss, and suffering—played their own roles in Dean’s arc as well as the love spell subplot that keeps on giving!
Under the love spell’s influence, Dean listened to Jenny telling him that he should kiss Jamie. And he did. Why is this possibly relevant?
Jenny (bi-coded Space Cowboy unicorn shirt) represented Dean’s Non-Performing side, the soft side that’s real and true, the side of him that wants SO many things for himself and wants to be LIBERATED and wants to reject ALL of society’s hetero-centric gender norms dictating who he should be as a man and wants to LOVE (and be loved in return). Jenny was considerably more emotional than her sister, expressing her want: getting their mother back.
Jamie (Beauty and the Beast shirt), on the other hand, represented Dean’s Performing, the Beauty who withholds his true self by projecting a Beast out of fear, the older brother side of him that protects Sammy and fights monsters, the side of him that represses emotionality and hardens his heart, shoves it to the back of his mind under lock and key as he focuses on what must be done. The “I believe in you,” the go-down-swinging, the Save-My-Loved-Ones-In-Spite-of-Consequences side.
Jamie: I’m sorry. I know I’m the big sister and I’m supposed to be the strong one or whatever. I just really miss her.
Jamie: I know, and I like–really believe in us.
Jenny: Jamie, I just want her back so bad.
Jamie: And we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and curse the souls of like a million people to make it happen.
Sound familiar? Jamie believes in her and Jenny: the inseparable Peas In a Pod whose codependency implodes violently, killing them. It’s Yockey’s hella self-explanatory visual declaration—-can’t get any better than that!
Then we saw Rowena—awesome-as-hell expositional Rowena, highlighting Brodependency, setting HERSELF free, establishing that our main characters should “END IT”. End the unhealthy dependability, rip off the mask, and RELEASE yourself!
Now back to the (deliberately written) love spell (that drew our attention to Dean and, surprise surprise, Who He Loves despite it being totally unnecessary for 13x12′s plot. S13′s BRIMMING with Destiel elements/parallels. It’s like they wanna keep reminding us about them. I wonder why ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Dean gave Jamie–the girl he’s in (fake) love with–a Grimoire gift. Who else did he give a (true love’s) gift to?
In addition to the love spell (obviously) lending us Destiel exposition regarding Dean’s desires and who he wants in his home/his ‘soulmate’ brought to him by ‘cosmic fate’, it offered gorgeous dualism to this season’s Who You Are themes (particularly 13x12 with WHO YOU ARE written all over it) because through the Dean-Jamie kiss, Dean’s Non-Performance exerted dominance over his Performance by convincing him to surrender control: to kiss someone he’s supposedly in love with, and this whistles the same tune as 13x04 Feminine Mia Vallens destroying Toxic Hypermasculine Buddy.
I think that’s the glorious meta-paradox: the love spell simulated Dean’s feelings, yes, but it also gave him the freedom to pursue those feelings—to VERBALIZE, ACKNOWLEDGE, and ACT on them since we know—-after nine years of organic Destiel narrative SWOLLEN with romance tropes, character development, and Dabb & Co further illuminating and textualizing previous subtext—-who Dean truly is in love with. Wow, foreshadowing!
It’s about time that Dean follows his heart.
Also, the S11 callbacks are ENDLESS –> Amara’s False Love and control turning out to expose Dean’s True Love and freedom –> she gives Dean what he NEEDS –> his characteristic progression towards WANT –> the degradation of Dean’s Performing!! Yeah, the Amara arc was literary genius.
(Again, we see this scene unfold after Sam mentions Cas. TPTB affiliating a specific someone with a specific emotion. Dean is 13x06-level giddy (whomp, there it is: Cas returned to Dean in 06), and Sam’s not even mildly taken aback or shocked at all. I mean, this is the countenance of someone who’s interested–who knowingly has some idea. Straight-outta-fanfic, and lbr, we act like this when a friend tells us they’re in love—when that love is obvious to everyone else except them. Tropes galore.)
Ah S13, you render me speechless. I can’t WAIT for the next episodes!!
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