*Takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes* Sweet muffins, I’ve been busy recently.
Before I start here, know that I’m still destiel positive. I still think the reading of Cas’ “I love you” as romantic is intended and valid. However, I also think the platonic reading is intended. I think they’re still trying to play both sides. That doesn’t mean I think they’ll do that forever though. I can see the signs of shore here. Seagulls and sandbars. It feels like a matter of time before we reach land but I can’t know of course.
The title of 12.12 can be read as a cheeky acknowledgement of this.
“Stuck in the middle” as in “between things”, an ambiguous phrasing in itself since it doesn’t specify where the things are or what they’re between on its own. The (With you) implies another party of either a person or persons. Again ambiguous and where they are in relation to being stuck is also ambiguous but the acknowledgement of some other party involved is drawn attention to.
The phrasing makes it sound like either someone is stuck in the middle of a group of people or between a two entities or they’re relationship with someone is “stuck in the middle” and ambiguous.
Dean and Cas are stuck in the middle of the interpretation of their relationship between familial and romantic, between singular and plural with the meaning of “you”... at least in general English. But not just that... to me it sounds like they’re drawing attention to the nature of the ambiguity of the phrasing in the episode and how their relationship is handled textually. The episode/writing is stuck in the middle with how to interpret the word “you”.
I’ll flail at more unambiguously positive things later. There are definitely plenty of things to flail at.
*Mr. Burns hand wringing*
Yes, excellent.
Mostly...
Ok, so no one drank milk in this episode but it kind of wasn’t needed, intentions weren’t exactly subtle.
...Also, I knew it! Mwahahaha! Those damned, shot hogging waffles! I know what you’re trying to tell me, waffles. I understand you. What’s that, waffles? @mittensmorgul already shed light on your grand conspiracy? Why, yes. I know, that’s what she does and she does it very well. In fact, I’m sure many others have too. However, I’d still like to break this scene down myself because it's interesting... well, part of it is. Part of it’s a tired tendency in tv that’s still common and makes me cringe.. *sigh*
Ok, so after Dean wakes up next to a blatant Alice in Wonderland reference, he gets a guy to lend him his phone and asks Sam to meet him at a waffle house(House of deceptiooon!). There’s your exposition.
Scene in the waffle house opens with a shot of sugared up waffle stack leaving the kitchen. Just based on this and our knowledge of waffles in the show, we can gather that this scene will involve deception. The waffles are placed as being part of Dean’s order, but he doesn’t touch them. The camera reminds us of the waffles again in the scene by lazily panning down and blurring out the foreground. Dean never touches these waffles. When the waitress from the night before approaches Dean, she slaps him when he doesn’t remember her. He then pays for the food and leaves the waffles on the counter untouched. The most he acknowledges them is offering them to Sam, who declines. Sam even thinks Dean is drunk, even though he’s not. Could count as another deception, but it’s less important here.
Sounds to me like maybe this girl was the waffles, unfortunately. I’m not really a fan of likening her to food but it’s kind of what’s being written... again, not uncommon. And that point is brought into harsher light when they meet her again in the burger place later on. She starts telling them about the night before and how she was busy. Dean had drank a few tequilas and flirted with her, then according to her, they “Let off some steam” Dean doesn’t remember. I agree with Mittens when she said the waitress was testing him. Her story just doesn’t add up on its own. The only part of what she says is true is that he drank some, got on the bull and flirted some, agreeing to meet her later.
Dean ordered a plate of sugary waffles, vaguely acknowledges them, but leaves them on the table without touching them and following through.
Dean agreed to something sweet from the waitress, flirted with her, but left without touching her and following through.
@obsessionisaperfume here’s the Kuleshov Effect post I talked about. Hopefully it is sufficient.
TL;DR: Editing is probably the most powerful tool film has and how it’s used tells the story. Literally. In the case of SPN, there is a lot of instances that can be read as destiel riding in on a giant brick.
Ok, so preamble for those who don’t know what it is: The Kuleshov Effect was named for Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov. It deals with a “mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation.”
The original test that coined the name was a short series of clips showing an actor in a black and white film with a stoic expression, intercut with various images. It’s about 50 seconds, have a looksie.
The short was built to see what meaning people would give to the man’s expression and as Kuleshov expected, they reacted accordingly based on what shots were intercut. So the stoic face was read as hungry, lustful, sad, whatever by most people even though it was all the same expression.
You can invoke this effect without both pieces ever seeing each other. You can create a vast head space for a character that the actor may never see by intercutting the actor with something like... war stock footage. We can understand what the character is going through without it ever being spoken and without the actor saying or sometimes really doing anything in relation to it.
That isn’t to say that actors aren’t important, of course they are. But a lot of understanding a filmed work look to the editing. The same way books look at word choice, sentence structure, etc. Editing is the last stand of “authorial intent” (as a nebulous term. Not by a single person) between the production and the audience. It’s the syuzhet, the filter of bias that sets the tone and the pace and the narrative and almost no one is truly privy to it until all of production is over.
Now, directors, producers, various others depending on the work often help dictate the editing to an extent. They decide what version of shots to leave in and give an idea of what they’re going for. Some take a much more active role and are part of the editing process to a great extent. Sometimes it’s just the director helping, sometimes it’s like... 8 other people in production. Sometimes a film studio drops all their footage for their several million dollar property off at a trailer house and says “panic number’s on the fridge, I’ll be back in the morning.” and expects the final edit not to suck.
Editors exist for a reason and it’s not just to cut the film to an edible size, set pace and presentation. “When to cut” and “how to think like an editor” are important to the process on their own and they are their own people.
Authorial intent is honestly kind of hilarious. Especially in works with multiple “intenders”
But let’s poke the intent bear anyway, shall we? ‘Bunch of examples under the cut.
Let’s start with 12.10 since it was recent and was pointed out specifically by @bluestar86 not long ago.
Gah... I don’t have any gifs. I keep trying to make them but they don’t want to work for whatever reason when I post them.
I’ll add them in later if I remember/get them to work.. *sigh*
So in 12.10, we’re shown the scene Cas tells about what he remembers when he and Ishim’s fleet killed Akibel. At one point, Akibel states something like: “ “how can you know humans and not love them?” with the camera cutting to Cas’ reaction.
Another instance happens in 12.09 after Billie is killed and the BMoL meet up with the Winchesters on the bridge. When the Winchesters are getting back into the impala, the BMoL tell the Winchesters they were “unprofessional” with the camera then finding Castiel and then cutting to him entering the car with foliage framing the foreground. It’s a PoV shot.I have a feeling they’ll be after Cas before the season’s end.
One of my favorites is in 8.17 (when it doesn’t make me sad), while Sam is talking to Meg. It’s intercut with Cas and Dean’s Crypt Scene to an interesting parallel. It’s a bit muddy, but it’s there:
Meg: So some chick actually got you off hunting eh? That’s a rare creature. So tell me, how did you meet this unicorn?
-And the scene cuts to Cas in the crypt with Dean. They have the start of their tiff, followed by a J-Cut and we’re back to Meg and Sam talking. Now take a look at this exchange and then think about how it relates to the next scene with Dean and Cas.
Meg: You hit a dog and stopped, why?
Sam: That whole story and that was your takeaway?
It is kind of a weird takeaway... isn’t it? Moving on.
Meg: No, I heard the rest. You fell in love with a Unicorn. It was beautiful, then sad, then sadder. I laughed, I cried, I puked in my mouth a little... and honestly I kinda get it.
Sam: Really?
Meg: ...We’ve got company.
Sound familiar to another situation?
-Cut back to a closeup insert of Cas and his Angel blade. The above discourse serves a few purposes with the lens I’m applying to the cuts here:
1) It parallels a relationship between Sam and a love interest to Cas and Dean. How many times has that happened? Oh yeah. Constantly.
2) We know that Dean has been paralleled to a dog before. Cas hits Dean, then stops... he breaks his connection to Naomi by any means needed. He chooses “them”.
Meg: Go. Save your brother...and.. my unicorn
We know what she’s talking about. She’s saying her feelings for Cas and how important she is to him but using the established metaphor. Cas is likened to a unicorn by Meg- who’s connection to Cas draws us further into the intercut parallel by specifically referring to Cas in metaphorical terms and comparing her situation with Sam’s. That situation being what’s happening in the crypt during their conversation. You could argue that Cas and Dean are each other’s unicorns but for the purposes of this, Dean is the dog Cas hit to make him stop, and Cas is a rarity that changes you.
On its own, the scene allows for some drama and the continuation of Sam’s story but we don’t learn anything new on Sam’s end. We also don’t really learn anything new on Meg’s end. We already knew she had something for Cas It mostly serves to give motivation to Meg’s actions but why tell the whole story at that time?
The famous “Too much heart was always Castiel’s problem” cut to the river scene in 8.02. Remember, a physical person edited that. Why put that scene there? What were they trying to accomplish?
Some instances from season 11:
Dean and Sam’s intercut difference in takeaway at the end of 11.11
11.18: Amara’s reaction shot when her attempts to reach Dean are cut off by his concern for Cas.
11.21: Amara uses Cas to find Dean, we see her placing her hand over Cas’ heart, then cutting to Dean behind a cage motif.
11.22: Casifer going limp on the cut after Amara inflicts her power on Dean and Lucifer’s “vessel” being out of commission afterwards. You cannot convince me that Amara didn’t access Cas’ function through her power..
Isn’t it interesting that throughout season 11, the closups on hearts and pining have all involved Dean or Cas?
Here’s a favorite from all the way back in 5.04. This episode is full of editing choices that tell us about a potential relationship between endverse Dean and Cas:
2014!Dean kills his own man and 2009!Dean intervenes. From the shot of the remaining men and 2009!Dean, we’re led to believe the convoy is disturbed by 2009!Dean. It’s not until 2014!Dean starts talking about his “pretty messed up situation” does the camera cut to 2009!Dean, who, along with the audience, realizes that 2014!Dean isn’t pointing at him, he’s pointing and talking about Cas, and from Cas’ expression, there’s a reason for it. This scene sets up, almost entirely through editing; an unseen structure of the conflicts in the episode and the endverse. The way the relationships for Dean have progressed in this version of the future.
Also in 5.04, there are several great ones in the meeting scene just before they take the fight to Lucifer:
2009!Dean: We were in uh... Janes.. cabin last night, and apparently we, and.. Risa. Have a connection.
Within this dialogue alone, there are several shots showing character relationships. There’s Risa’s disgusted arm crossing, 2014!Dean’s sort of sad glaring, realization of what is known about him in the room and who is present, but most notably Cas’ inhale of realization and smile at the end of what is said. Cas isn’t being spoken to. He has seemingly no reason to have a reaction shot here that says without words “Of course he did” unless there was some reason to place it there. It’s a very specific reaction. 2014!Dean shoots the rest of that conversation down right quick.
There really are so many instances of this. I can only think of a few. I’m sure many others could think of more. Feel free to add your own. Doesn’t have to be destiel related.
Even if we don’t get many match cuts in this show (for some dumb reason), we aren’t short on very heavily framed instances of the Kuleshov effect giving us little glimpses of whatever swims around in the post production of SPN. The final decisions that tell the story mixed with our own expectations and perspectives. Many hands working to create a world.
A friend told me maybe the crew-ra won’t make any ship between main characters canon and that’s why they’re encouraging all ships, because it’s not unusual in kids’ show to have no canon ship by the end *sweats*
