*cracks knuckles* I'll take this one
Anon. Please, sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? Tea perhaps?
You've raised some concerns over the assertion since the new episode has come out that Destiel is in fact, still not canon. Let's talk about that.
Castiel has said "I love you" to Dean. That we can agree on. Perhaps then we disagree on the nature of that love? I say it's romantic, you say it's platonic. Shall we look at the text to see where any ambiguity may lie?
Cas and Dean are trapped, Death is chasing them. They are both powerless to stop her, and in a matter of moments she will break down the door and kill them both. There's no escape and no way out.
So far, so good. Think we can both agree on that.
Cas, then realises that there's one entity that could possibly stop Death - The Empty. But The Empty, as established earlier in the episode, can only come to Earth when summoned. We knows it's pissed at Billie, so if it could somehow be summoned, it's a safe bet to assume it would kill/take Billie, saving Dean and Cas. So how can they get The Empty here, in the precious few moments that they have left?
Cas reminds us that he made a deal with The Empty, his life for Jack's, a deal that would be invoked the moment he experienced a moment of true happiness. Cas has known about the deal for some time of course, but he's always wondered what would trigger the deal. What could it be?
Let's pause for a second before the next bit to clarify something. We're saying that Cas whatever this moment is, Cas has yet to experience it, because the Empty hasn't taken him yet. So we know that nothing he has experienced between now and the deal has been enough to trigger it. It didn't happen when they got Jack back. Nor when Cas finally got the validation that he was right that Jack was important. And it didn't happen when Dean, after saying "you're dead to me" broke down and told him that he was his best friend, and that of course he forgives him and they were back to being as close as they've ever been.
We know therefore that something has to change. That Cas, knowing that he's Dean's best friend, that he's family, needs to have something else happen that causes a moment of true happiness before he can be taken.
Agreed? OK let's dive back in.
Cas then says he didn't know what could trigger it, because "the one thing he wants, he knows he can't have".
What could Cas want that he's being denied? We know, canonically, that he knows that he's important to the Winchesters, that they see him as family. That Dean sees him as his best friend. That Jack sees him as a father. He has Dean's forgiveness. What does he want that he can't have?
He then goes on to say that in this moment, he's realised something, something that's going to cause the shift that will bring about The Empty. He realises that he doesn't need to HAVE this mysterious thing that he wants and can't have, he just needs to Be. He just needs to say something and when he says it, it will make him happy.
It stands to reason therefore, that this must be something that Cas has never said before. If he's just had this profound realisation about saying something that will make him happy enough to trigger his essence being dragged into The Empty, it has to be something new.
And then Cas starts talking about Dean.
How he sees him, how he understands him. How he now understands what it means to care because he met him and it was that caring which allowed him to care for everything else. Sam. Jack. The world. It all came back to how he cares about Dean.
Knowing Dean has changed who he is.
He says all of that, and still The Empty does not come. Was all of that what Cas was referring to when he said that he didn't need to have what he wants, he just needed to Be in it?
No. The Empty comes when Cas says "I love you"
The letter of the deal was, "when you give yourself permission to be happy". Cas gave himself permission to be happy, to say the thing that would make him happy, to the person he wants but thinks he cannot have.
That this love is romantic, is why this is a confession, a release, a moment of pure happiness. The familial love that they have shared - which Cas has explicitly expressed in the past - is known to both of them. The dramatic shift, the change that triggers the deal, is Cas admitting that he loves Dean, in a different way than Dean thinks he does. Without that, it is Cas telling Dean something he already knows. That Cas already knows. Nothing changes, the deal is not invoked.
Cas tells Dean that he is in love with him, and knowing that Dean now knows that, makes him happy enough to invoke the deal.
Cas had always thought the deal couldn't be triggered because the one thing he wants is Dean but he knows he can't have him. But actually, it's enough to just be in love with Dean, and to have Dean know that he is loves, that he is made of love, and that Cas sees who he is at his core and loves him unconditionally. Admitting that, finally, sets him free.
That, is what happened in that scene and that is why Destiel is now canon.
Careful with that tea by the way, it's scorching.
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