The Writers Are Not Chuck.
@impressivedisaster this comment deserved to be its own post. Here's what it was in reaction to.
The Question
We all now occupy a reality where the writers of our show seemingly chose to obliterate all of their years of thematic subversion and character development in one fell swoop: the series finale.
I know it's popular to hate the writers, and I get it. They're names we're familiar with, and we can interact directly with their work and see their individual impact on the story. They're a highly visible target on which to place the blame, and for the most part, fandom does so. But I need us all to take a moment and review what happened here.
The evolved story we love so dearly, and all of the things that have come to define it -- found family, healing, self acceptance, honesty, and yes, destiel and saileen -- are elements these very same writers spent the last several years placing emphasis on and weaving into complex story arcs that spanned multiple seasons. Beyond this, they also made a point to contrast this new vision with the old one by purposefully putting the old vision in a bad light. They did that. They told that story; it wasn't something we imagined, because you can track it.
So what the hell happened, then? Once again, the popular theory seems to be that this was all one long con to ridicule us and hurt our feelings. Call me crazy but it's hard for me to imagine eight or so people devoting years of their creative efforts into something without ever caring about the story they were telling. Or, that weren't prepared to follow through on if given the opportunity. I'm sorry, but it's all highly implausible-- especially when there is a simpler, and much more obvious explanation.
The Answer
Supernatural already has a lengthy history of being strangled into submission by outside forces. Most of the damage done to the story is imperceptible, and is at best difficult to trace, because unlike the writers, the network can meddle with the plot and story features virtually without detection. The blame, as intended by the network, always falls on the creative team. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
I could get into how spn fandom is currently living out my worst nightmare of capitalist manipulation of a scorned demographic but that's its own post. Point here is, fandom, we've got the wrong guy. We are doing exactly what allows the establishment to get away with the corruption of a creative work again and again -- taking our anger out on the wrong people.
And guess what? As we are all sifting through this last season for what the hell went wrong, I can see us noticing that this turn of events was foreshadowed. The point of it seems to be sailing over a lot of heads, but all it takes to set that right is a better understanding of the hierarchy of decisionmaking in the entertainment business. The writers of the show have certain freedoms, but at the end of the day are beholden to the will of a higher power.
Sound familiar? I don't know, like the plot of season 15?
Now I have no interest in opinions that I'm giving the writers too much credit here. I'm not reading into things, I'm reading. I've correctly interpreted the authorial intent for several seasons now and the reason I failed to predict the 15x20 shitshow was because the authorial intent vanished. Instead, I found myself with a sloppily assembled 39 minutes of plot regression eerily similar to the kind of Supernatural the show told us Chuck wanted. Sure, you can tell me it was the writers showing their true colors. The beautiful story we had prior to it was a fluke, or a cruel joke. But that's a weak theory.
No. I think the right answer is the one that makes the most sense. The one we have precedent for. The one that explains the wheels falling off of the plot at the eleventh hour and everything going bad without warning. The one that breathes new meaning into Becky, and Chuck.
Chuck was never the writers. He was the network.
The Supernatural he wanted to watch was the one the network wanted the writers to write, and although Chuck was defeated in in the story, he won in our world, and the storytellers want us to know that.
Amazing points. I personally think that at one time, Chuck did indeed represent the writers.
He is shown with books and paper - as a writer. He in this era perhaps symbolises Kripke - an author who puts his characters through hell for the sake of a good story, consistently writing in pain and horror and tragedy. He then begins to go to fan conventions and has a scorn for the fans and their work. He’s old school Supernatural.
But this season, he is no longer writing. No longer is he symbolised heavily with paper and books - although he is shown writing at a laptop. This above image best symbolises who he has become - the Network. He has multiple shows that he portrays on TV - he is in charge of multiple stories across multiple screens.
“I don’t need more - more things, more distractions, I need less. It’s time to clear the board - all the other worlds, alternate realities, the sub-plots - the failed spin-offs - it’s time to start cancelling shows.”
A show’s writers don’t cancel other worlds (read: other shows), alternate realities (read: the ideas and spn scripts which never got past the network), the sub-plots (read: the subtextual plots) - the failed spin-offs (there’s nothing veiled about that one). It is THE NETWORK - it is THE CW who didn’t pick up the spin-offs, said no to subplots and subtext, said no to the writer’s wishes.
Here is Chuck, stood in front of a MASS OF TELEVISIONS, calling each his own ‘show’ and saying that he is cancelling them - cancelling elements of their plots. This is not, in any way, metaphorical for what a series writer can do. Dabb didn’t cancel Wayward Sisters or Supernatural. The CW did.
So Chuck has represented two entities - the old writers of S1-5 the Kripke era and Kripke (meta loving Kripke himself - as he admitted in The Road So Far or whatever that horseshit nostalgia fest was called) and now The Network. The Network wanted a sanitised, homophobic, good-for-advertisers finale, and Kripke wanted a brothers-only, go-out-swinging-and-bloody, S1-5 era finale. This Chuck is a Frankenstein’s monster Chuck of Kripke/Singer and The CW. Both the old writer and the current Network. Dabb didn’t write him into the show in the first place, he never represented Dabb and the writers Dabb hired. To Dabb, Chuck was Kripke and the old SPN team - constantly pushing back on his progressive Supernatural because they were all still EPs. Then the CW started rejecting his spin-offs, so Chuck started to morph from a character who was somewhat accepting of the fan’s stories and the new writer’s stories, into the new Big Bad. The ultimate Monster. With Wayward Sisters (remember, this was written by Dabb and Berens) not being picked up by The CW so that they could remake Charmed (ffs), Dabb and Berens had a LOT to be angry about, and so The CW was ingrained as Chuck, and he became the ultimate monster who would cause the demise of Supernatural and every single character on the show.
So who are the new, current writers represented as in our story? Chuck no longer represents them? Who represents the dreams and wishes of the writers? I know Dabb is in everyone’s bad books, but I truly believe he did love our characters. Remember again, that Berens AND Dabb wrote Wayward Sisters, the beautiful feminist queer spin-off that The CW said ‘fuck-you’ to.
The new writers wanted to go ahead with what they’d been trying to do all season, try to defeat the Network and make destiel canon. And they knew they might not be able to have Dean and Cas together, sharing a kiss or sharing the rest of Dean’s life together. They were told the by Network that they couldn’t have that... but they could try and say it.
“Happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being, just saying it.”
The writers are being told by the Network that they can’t let Cas and Dean have a relationship or gay happiness, so they allow themselves to at least just say it - have it be told out loud.
"I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive and you're angry and you're broken. You're... you're 'Daddy's Blunt Instrument.' And you think hate and anger, that's... that's what drives you. That's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you sees it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are. You're the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know.”
Here’s the thing with this speech. Who are these enemies? Which enemies see Dean as broken and Daddy’s blunt instrument? The random Monsters of the Week who don’t know Dean as a person? The leviathan? Lilith? Lucifer didn’t necessarily see Dean as daddy’s blunt instrument? Abbadon? Metatron?
Do you know which enemy knows Dean well enough to even form such a detailed judgement about him. Which enemy actively plays into this idea of Dean? Chuck. Angry, broken, daddy’s blunt instrument, unworthy of living into old age, never able to have true love - this is how Kripke and The CW see Dean. THEY are the enemies Cas is talking about here.
Cas, in this scene, takes on the direct opinions of the writers. These are the words the writers want Dean to hear before their enemies fuck everything up. They have settled on just telling Dean that he deserves more, and sacrificing themselves just so that they can have this one moment of professed gay love. They know Chuck/The CW is out there and they will win, but they’re going to go out epically. They know they can’t ultimately save Dean from his demise (caused by The CW), but they can give him this moment, right before they’re killed off and Chuck takes over for the next two episodes.
Cas’s speech was so utterly heartfelt. No one who doesn’t themselves mean it could have written such a beautiful speech. I truly think, maybe this was Berens and Dabb, along with Castiel, professing their love for Dean one final time before they yanked into the empty by The Network.
With Cas’s death, the writers are gone. The audience, and Sam and Dean are now in the hands of the old writers (Kripke’s writers Bucklleming) and The Network.
And whilst the writers were confirming Dean’s character arc as someone who isn’t his dadd’s blunt instrument, is someone they deeply love, is someone that they want to live and survive, Chuck/The Network is wreaking havoc on their world.
The CW: We don’t like your love interest for Jared as his female fans won’t like her and won’t be able to imagine they live happily ever after with Sam. Get rid of her.
The CW: We don’t like your gay characters. Get rid of them.
The CW: We don’t like your Found Family. Get rid of them.
The CW: We don’t like your female characters and Wayward Sisters. Get rid of them.
Did anyone else wonder why Donna was there? Was her brief appearance just a tad random? I love Donna, but she really didn’t need to be there. Unless she represented something bigger than herself...
We assume that all these people are brought back, but we never actually get to see them again and whether they all came back to life is never explicitly said. They’re eradicated. Dabb and the writers are gone, and The CW doesn’t want them back, so therefore they’re never seen again. Chuck got rid of everyone, but as viewers we are seen characters who each represent parts of the show that Dabb and the Writers were trying to protect.
And we’re left with Sam and Dean (and Jack, but he’ll be gone by the end of episode 19). Chuck’s/Kripke’s/The CWs perfect ending.
So the brothers defeat Chuck, but this doesn’t mean that The CW’s power is shown to be gone. It’s transferred.
Chuck is an empty vessel, but the power that Chuck/The CW has lives on and they’re in charge now that Cas/The Writers have gone.
Jack/The CW brings back the world full of people, but isn’t shown to have brought back Eileen, Charlie, Donna - the characters The CW never wanted or liked. Jack/The CW doesn’ bring back Cas (he says he has off-screen but... that’s not bringing someone back onto the screens so in my books, doesn't really count). Jack/The CW/Kripke doesn’t save Dean - they want him to die. They keep Sam alive to die in tired and useless old age, rather than the witchy leader MOL he was meant to be. Dean and Sam were never going to escape their S1-5 ending, because they never really destroyed the power of God/The CW. Their protector - Cas/The Writers - was dead and gone and couldn’t save them.
Ultimately, when Chuck died, they didn’t kill God/The CW. The CW’s power can’t be killed. They always were, and always will be the true God in Supernatural’s world.
The writers went out with a bang with Cas’s confession, and after that, Dean and Sam were in the cruel hands of God’s power: The CW.
I’ve been so confused about Dabb and how he could have done this. But he didn’t. I’ve watched with my own eyes how he’s been running Supernatural and nothing about 19 or 20 made me feel like he had much to do with those episodes. As soon as Cas died, everything changed. Supernatural felt like a completely different show. Chuck was killed off at the end of episode 19. Chuck’s power was never killed off. The writers were never Chuck. The writers never had the power of a God. Dabb and Berens were angels, trying to protect and love their beloved humans, but they got yanked into the empty in episode 18, never to be seen again. Dabb and Berens went out screaming that Dean deserves gay love and freedom and not to die young and bloody and as his dad’s blunt instrument. But angels are no power for god. So Dean died the Kripke way - The CW way. And we’re letting the bastards get away with it.
Fuck The CW. Fuck the EPs and Kripke from the S1 - S5 era. Don’t blame Dabb. His power died with Cas.
