Feel free to ignore if you don’t wanna answer, I just wanted to pitch something to you, since I’ve seen you briefly-kinda talk about it in the past:
Say Andrea Kormos wasn’t killed by Dean, and say Benny didn’t leave her on Prentiss Island—very canon divergent lmao—; Do you think the two of them would continue running their maker’s operations together, or would Benny somehow convince her to leave that life behind and choose a different kind of freedom? (The second one implying that Benny would put in the work and effort to show Andrea a different way of life).
This is probably more fanon than anything, so I apologize; you just usually have great ideas, so I thought I’d bounce them off of you and see what you thought. ❤️!!
Oh, no. I don't mind!
Hmm, not sure how I feel about Benny being the one to show Andrea the correct and ethical way to be a vampire, when she's the thing that Benny oriented his morality around originally... Is Benny really going to show her a different way, when the different way was originally... just HER?
I mean. Maybe. But it doesn't feel quite right to me somehow. Benny doesn't imho LOOK much like a monster character that builds community or even rebels against the way of doing things per se. Or at least not naturally (and that's ok!) He usually runs, then later gets Revenge. He's more Mary Winchester runaway than, for example, Garth's father-in-law, Rev Jim Myers. (SEE: Jim Myers, who challenged a whole werewolf Apocalyptic belief system and built a community.)
This is a BIT of a departure from your original question:
Andrea
I think a more interesting story would be Andrea coming into contact with something, or someone that made her re-evaluate humanity on her own terms, or even remember her Greek roots.
It would hurt, probably, for Andrea to rediscover what she loves in something outside of Benny, but I think that's how it might go on the high seas unless Benny grows in a very specific way.
Benny borrowed her humanity, and then when she fell form it, he was completely fatalistic and dehumanizing to her. Especially after Purgatory, he's not a vampire who's inspiring people to "new, ethical ways." -> ("We're all damned.") I can't imagine him carrying that mentality on the high seas with any success. I think she'd have to find this way on her own, free from the father vampire. I think Andrea's arc should go in an opposite way of Benny's suicide: "I remember who I am now: I want to support people DESPITE being a vampire."
Benny died because of how he felt about his own plight: "I don't fit, so I might as well do something good in pursuit of my own preferred suicide/fatalism/hopelessness."
Andrea's heroic putting-her-life-on-the-line would in my mind need to be the opposite: "I AM still like you; it's my mutual humanity with you that makes me care enough to give my own life for something I discovered I still care about."
That's what we see at the end of season 10 with corrupted Dean:
DEAN: And you know what? I don't blame Rose [for her own corruption] anymore.
&
DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you --when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A-a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.
Dean's struggle with his own monstrosity let him see humanity in himself, albeit an ugly humanity. And monstrosity within humanity, for that matter.
OFC, due to the psychological damage of 24-7/360-war grayscale Poughkeepsie Pure (TM) Purgatory-world, Dean and Benny were the opposite of this headspace when they killed her, so EYE think it'd be THE natural way to handle her arc. I believe SHE is the NARRATIVE GHOST haunting The Werther Project ep too in a major, MAJOR thematic way on this issue specifically.
ANDREA: I'm RIGHT here. I'm [still] here!
(Why can't you see me?)
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Benny
You know, originally when I watched, I thought maybe Benny consensually drained Andrea when living away from his vampire nest, but on second watch, he's emphatic that in that time with Andrea, he used the black market, which is interesting. The ethics of the black market is a very Sam Winchester-coded approach, like. I mean. At minimum, it's a complicated, tenuous sort of ethics, right?
Black markets can and IRL do get utilized humanely for food, medicine, or other necessities. BUT. It CAN lurch into, "I don't condone it, but my support comes in ways that enable others to be exploited, but don't make me personally feel guilty." (Which again, what are the alternatives? I don't know. It's certainly a problem I'm very sympathetic to.)
Aside/// This could also be a smokescreen for using Andrea ofc, but again, why not just say ethical rather than black market specifically? So he's either lying, AFRAID to drink Andrea (an anon pointed out that almost all drinking results in kills a la Dean and almost-Lisa, so it's something he wouldn't dare risk), or Andrea having big juicy objections about the practice of it.
All interesting in their own right.
But to the real point: even if Benny did use the black market or rely on Andrea, I'm not convinced he's ever in a position to have "put in the work" to "show her a new way," even out on the high seas. He can't even talk to a vampiric Andrea without passive-aggressively calling her a whore (yes, as a ruse, of course), then immediately spiraling when she expresses fear and hopelessness—calling her a non-person and a failure he wants to leave in a smoking crater.
This is not a charismatic guy. He's not the kind of person who's going to convince Andrea of anything. More importantly, he's not the kind of person who's going to convince ANYONE of anything, because, crucially, he doesn't actually believe in anything. Which, again, tragic and very VERY understandable to be beaten down like that.
He sees "something" in humanity, but that seems, esp without Andrea, a tragic way to make himself more palatable to his troubled idea of himself. (Fatalism.)
On his second-go-round at life, it's obvious he hadn't planned much beyond getting his Big Revenge. (A la John.) What on earth is he going to teach a high-seas Andrea that she doesn't already know? "Get lucky and take a human lover as supply? Pick off rich people yachts and heiresses or Evil People who 'deserve' it?" Maybe she was already planning to "pick up where Dad left off," but have it be about "Saving People, Drinking Things" approach.
But it's implied in the deleted scene that without his one friend helping him, Benny fell off the wagon and fed. That's pretty heavy, and again, it doesn't speak to a resourceful vampire who has anything to teach Andrea about how to make it work. While it IS true Sam IS working behind the scenes to keep Benny branded as outsider and keep people hot on his tail, Benny's OWN past is also doing that in equal measure.
In canon, he goes to his granddaughter to get support from her, not really to give it. ("I even found someone to hold myself accountable to. Best kind of someone, Dean. Family.") And it's hard to be a source of support when you're unstable yourself—hence the ghost-of-John energy. And the Sam-coded, "I don't trust myself," of it all. Could he have grown past that? Sure. Cas did with Claire. But Benny's situation is different. After his pragmatic acts of loyalty are over, he's searching for an ephemeral "goodness," and I think that's a much more significant barrier to overcome. He's not even looking for redemption or ways to support others, really. It's just not on his radar.
Benny really is THE vampire. He's like Sam in that he's so busy surviving he's not thinking much about others much except if it aligns with his immediate goals. Helping Dean to go topside to get the big Revenge (talking sassily down to Dean about eating "the little piggies" when Dean pressed him about safety), saving Cas to ensure Dean's trust, going his granddaughther he's apparently never had need of visiting before, and then helping save Sam again because he wants really the big S Suicide.
BENNY: He's chasing a memory, Dean. That's all.
He might as well be talking about himself.
EDIT: I've said this before but Benny DOES remind me of if late-season Mary was faced with the Hunter John, who descended from the Goodness of Civilian Life into the Corruption of Hunter Life and Became Too Much like all the ugly things Mary saw in herself. But I think Mary IS more like Dean on the whole, in that she's pro-Redemption, because despite the odds, she still believes in it for herself (which is what imho The Werther Project really shows)!
Going anon because this is a sensitive subject in fandom and I don't want to offend anyone.
I'm don't 100% agree but you inspired me to take a closer look at the Blood Brother ep. I've never seen it analyzed like that, and although your words bothered me, I think you had some good points. I don't think the fandom idealization of Benny is as bad as the fandom version of Sam, but your argument that similar forces are at work for both of them is really compelling.
I never really cared about Andrea, but everything you said has given me pause, but I think you might be right and the illusion in The Werther Project is a lot closer to the actual Benny we see on screen.
I love your take on Andrea, and I'm with you that it might've have been cooler and more of an unexpected twist to see her in purgatory instead during season 15! I love your brain!
Happy to give you something to ponder, then! It's sometimes fun to entertain the shadow selves of characters, and I think the treatment of Andrea Kormos toes the line of darkness and nihilism in a way that is often overlooked. :-)
TBF, I think all soldier-coded characters struggle with this. Michael, Dean, Cas, Mary, AU Charlie and others...struggle with this pretty often. It's not unique to his character per se. It's that old soldier-coded derealization. I feel like it's especially strong/most pronounced in the in child-raised soldiers, ones who've been raised/created to fight (Dean, Mary, Cas, Jack, etc).
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But anyway, I like this angle because it compels me, not because I dislike any of the soldier-coded characters. After all, it's a bit unflattering to be a soldier, fighter, warrior, (cop, hunter, military, angel, etc etc etc) in the first place!
But the idealization of Benny feeds into the strange imho idealization of Purgatory, that "pure" is somehow a positive thing when it's applied to Dean-Cas (it almost-never is in SPN, and I don't think it is here either). I think the whole existence of Purgatory is a nod to the worst selves of the soldiers, that black-and-white mentality and "rigid code" that both Dean and Cas tend to fall into...as well as suicidality and checking out of the complexity of "civilian" life.
When Benny says he doesn't "fit" and he's no good here, he's embodying the soldier who goes back. It's alluded to with, "The guy who got out and then came back. Like an idiot." It's got a name: "The Back There Paradox."
Deployments, and especially combat deployments, were a place where we knew how to use the skills we had developed. What we did was significant...Life could be very simple while deployed; get up, do your job... Sure, it got boring and repetitive, but we knew how to do stuff and we knew where things were. It was familiar."
We see this too with Dark Kaia in season 14-15: " At least over there, I understood things -- the world, my place in it."
What I'm saying is that soldier-coded characters' rigid adherence to "rules" can be just as neurotic as Sam's moral relativism spirals. (Cas is super fascinating because he embodies both tendencies!)
Purgatory represents "unthinking war," where there's 24/7, 360-degree combat. It's the horrific bloodlust that many soldiers are often too ashamed to admit they're addicted to, what is often quoted as: should "stay overseas, unsaid." It's the secret shame veterans won't readily admit to but many understand and know all too well.
Dean even shows signs of this in his fantasy world in AU Michael's bar, with the fame he crows about here (14x10, Nihilism):
DEAN: What you got?
PAMELA: (wiping Deans face) Worst part of working here is having to clean up the blood after some pissed-off monster busts in to kill you.
DEAN: (smirking) Well, what can I say? I'm famous.
///
"Being exposed to the adrenaline and the fame associated with being a soldier creates a dangerous addiction.
Many veterans that deployed to combat come back to the states and chase the high that they felt on the battlefield."
x
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The unusual thing with Dean and Cas, is that they each recognize the nihilistic soldier in each other...ranging at times from joyful nihilism to the suicidal sorrow that's all wrapped up with identity-as-soldier-"weapon" and seeing combat far too often. (THIS is the subtext that attracts so many veterans.)
But the thing that's different for them is that they're crazed to get each other out. Underlined in two separate throughlines in season 8 and 15.
This is a little bit echoed in Alt Mary and Alt John, who also want to get each other out of hunting in SPNwin. That's what attracted Mary to John initially, that he was a soldier with a big heart even though he'd seen The Horrors.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is. I have a soft spot for the soldier who try, have tried, and are trying to get out. Even when they fail, like Benny did.
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Anyway, soldiers are "loyal dogs." We see Dean referred to as a dog as late as season 15, when Lucifer calls him old "faithful," (like a dog) in one of Chuck's alternate endings. They're also "fish" (out of water). Bait. Bombs. Hammers. Blunt instruments.
They struggle with feeling perpetually dislocated when they're away from combat.
That’s where the, “I’m not sure what’s real” primarily stems from.
I actually think the Benny in Dean's Werther Project hallucination was truer than Dean's idealized recollection/memory of him.
And deep down, even though he rejected it for self-preservation, Dean knew it. That's why his anxiety manifested the way it did in the first place. TLDR: It's alllll about Andrea.
A lot of this is redundant, but here ya go.
Benny was acquiescing of the execution of corrupt loved ones. Blood Brothers is a crucial Benny episode. It's illuminating...and unflattering.
Reality check? Benny was mostly okay with "a sacred executioner (Dean)" doing the painful dirty work so he didn't have to. Benny might also be particularly sympathetic to monster-suicide, as that's what he chose for himself.
Benny directly showed us in-canon that he was resolved to kill even his most beloved "corrupt family members"--like Andrea Kormos. She was quickly deemed too far-gone and corrupt, nevermind that their conversation was too short, too condescending, and too aggressive on Benny's part to explore meaningful change and solutions.
So yeah.
I think the real Benny might be totally game for Dean killing himself so his loved ones didn't have to. Especially if Dean himself posed a risk of doing harm/attacking said loved ones, as Andrea Kormos did when she attacked Benny.
That was the "real" Benny all along. And that hurts.
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Benny didn't try to convince Andrea. He instantly judged her, offering no validation of the emotional struggle with addiction or alternative way forward.
Benny believes in sparing loved ones the task of killing their corrupted loved ones. He was part of practicing it with regards to Andrea. See below:
ANDREA takes his hand, but stays where she is.
ANDREA: Where, Benny?
BENNY: What are you talking about? Anywhere. [ANDREA looks down.] You're not leaving here, are you? And you never were.
So, yeah. Okay. He's clocking her intentions here, but he's also doing a lot of heavy lifting assuming her thoughts, ascribing the most uncharitable mode to her motivations. (Using an always-and-never statement to boot.)
It comes off so condescending. It's an accusatory mode of communication.
He jumps straight to the vibe of, "you never wanted to leave here, you're corrupted!" whereas her "Where, Benny?" speaks more of desperation and fear. (It reads to me more like: "How, Benny? Why should I fight what I am, Benny? I can't do this, Benny. Can't fight this. It's too hard.")
But he...doesn't seem interested in helping her rediscover herself. He doesn't validate her feelings or illuminate a path to redemption using his own past sins to help pave the way.
He doesn't even talk about another way forward. (Nevermind that he himself did some pretty awful crimes on the high seas for decades before "redeeming" himself. (Rules for thee, but grace for me?)
ANDREA: We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted.
BENNY: What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest.
ANDREA: But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here.
BENNY: What I loved – it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.
I just want to emphasize how this conversation is barely a conversation. It's an attack on Andrea before a real conversation can even begin to take place.
The mere act of being afraid of leaving, of having Stockholm Syndrome and losing her "father," of feeling connected to the Easy Mode of vampiric hunting is met with an over-the-top attack on her character.
(You're not you. You're corrupt. You've become like me, because of me, and I don't want you anymore. You're dead to me if you're like me. You can't be redeemed...even though *I* was.)
It's a flagrant dehumanization.
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What could he have said? Is this a tonal argument?
I guess it could be if you squint, but he directly insulted her, denying her existence to her face. That's why she reacts with a desperate, "Benny, I'm right here."
She's not a memory. She's monstered.
He could start with acknowledging how hard it is to be a 'human-ethics-centered’ vampire. He could share his own struggles. Show some empathy, or at least some sympathy! At bare minimum, he could discuss a new way forward. ("Anywhere," isn't a discussion.) Instead, we get...zilch.
He's much too busy being horrified by the apparent corruption of The Perfect Woman.
He goes straight to the vibe of: "you're an irredeemable monster."
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Is it worse to go too far...or not to try at all?
And here's where the Sam-Bobby-Dean triad of demon detox takes on a more positive light. Their methods may have been cruel and harsh. (Detox is an ugly, horrific, twisting, screaming-and-lying thing. Detox tells you that drug dependence is who you are. It tells you you like the disease. That you perhaps ARE the drug/disease).
But anyway, Bobby-Dean-Cas did not give up on "corrupted/addicted/overly righteous" Sam.
Likewise in season 10, the methods of Sam-Cas-Charlie were evil, but they did not give up on "corrupted/disinhibited/unfeeling" Dean. Although Sam and Cas started out being resolved to kill Dean, they realized they couldn't. Wouldn't. (In season 10, perhaps Sam is in his mind resolving not to trigger the abandonment Dean got so unhinged about in season 8.)
So I guess the question is, what's more evil? In SPN, is it worse to go too far...or to barely try at all? They're both bad, perhaps, but one is driven by hope, and the other by nihilism: "we're all damned."
Benny’s arc is rooted in nihilism from start (Andrea, revenge) to finish (torn apart in Purgatory, as he probably intended to go out).
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I think Andrea's feelings were obviously hurt; she was insulted...and with very good reason.
I mean, it's no wonder she attacks him. She cries, "You think you're better than me now?" He says he thinks they're all damned, and that certainly enrages her.
She senses, perhaps correctly, that it's really just lip service.
His actions imply that he really does think he's better than her. He did crimes and got redeemed. She's not even gonna get that chance. Not really.
(She has the "chance," I suppose. Technically. Sorta. But he purposely agitates her with his nihilistic lamentation of man-woe, spending much of his time judging her, not trying to convince her.)
You see, even when he messes up, Benny still "gets to be" himself. Even if that's a corrupted vampiric self. He's still "Benny." Not Andrea. When Andrea is a struggling addict, a vampire, Andrea "just is a memory."
Andrea is immediately disallowed her own identity simply for voicing that it might be easier to stick to the vampiric ways of hunting to live. It's black-and-white, abruptly cruel judgement, even before Dean gives the killing blow.
///
Later in the season, via deleted scene, Benny completely falls off the wagon, insisting "Dean doesn't wanna know (about his feeding off innocents)."
Benny is a symbolic perfectionist here. (As Dean himself can be when it comes to hero-worship and people.) Benny wants to remain idealized, just like he wanted Andrea to remain idealized. They're eaten alive by the symbolic, cooing Empty: "Wouldn't you rather remain a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment?"
Benny's okay with that. And in the end, Dean's okay with that, too. That's why both Amelia and Benny feel like mirages. If Benny is "away," Dean can fantasize that maybe Benny got to be “King of purgatory,” and most importantly, Benny gets to live in the idealized space Sam could never live up to: "brother who never let me down."
(Dean is struggling to cope with life in this season. I think his hero worship of people is something he tends to do to help combat the abandonment he feels is inevitable. And yes, as I've said before, I think this is because John was a hot-and-cold caretaker!)
The deleted scene implies that Dean could perhaps be content not knowing all the ways Benny fails to live up to the cartoon of Benny he's drawn in his head (as a means to cope with the disappointments of living). Benny was good because he was at arm's length, not close enough to wound, hurt, or disappoint. And as Benny's organ donor/blood donor/drug dealer, there's a comfortable dependance Dean can fall back on, giving him control and feeding into his specific brand of abandonment-neuroses.
Benny never clawed his way back the way other characters did, because the writers decided to strip away his complexity and cut out the meat of him. Give me the guy who fell off the wagon. Give me the guy in The Werther Project. That's the real Benny, and he's great. He's, to quote Amara, better than the false ideal. He's real and complicated.
//
As for Andrea's redemption, perhaps in Benny's mind, if Benny's not *immediately* enough on his own to change her behavior by *checks notes* coming at her with the least charitable assumption and denying her personhood, then she's a Lost Cause (TM). If Benny's not enough for her to change, as she was enough for Benny to change, then "no one/nothing is."
So, he goads her with harsh, black-and-white words. "It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become." I.e. I'm a monster reformed, but you're a monster that deserves to die before we even validate your pain or talk about the chance of recovery/healing. (You were ruined/corrupted by my father in our game of war. Ouch.)
She is hurt and ofc attacks, and the sacred executioner (Dean) strikes her down (so Benny doesn't have to).
It's also potentially a kind of family annihilation/self-nihilism. That in Benny's mind both he and Andrea deserve to die for being "damned." (Indeed, Benny will submit to his own murder with nary a complaint.) I think this latter one is perhaps more charitable, that Benny was always in a bad place--suicidal.
Again, Benny’s dependence on Dean as drug dealer was comfortable for Dean, allowing him to both keep Benny at arms’ length/not let him close enough to be de-idealized and hurt him the way his family and loved ones have, while at the same time being forever on the hook of blood donor/organ dependency (the symbol of the in 8x03 cooler). Benny’s life on the show was like Benny’s death: a figurative open door that you never intended to open. And Season 8 is all about surreal, idealized figments.
ANDREA: You think you're better than me now?
BENNY: No. I think we're all damned.
ANDREA snarls and her fangs descend. DEAN stabs her from behind and then cuts off her head. BENNY and DEAN look at each other before BENNY looks down at ANDREA’s body.
Anyway, that's why I wanted Andreas Kormos for Purgatory II. I still do.
I was also so partial Andrea's rage, disappointment, and confusion. I wanted to see Andrea versus Benny. At minimum, I wanted Andrea back as The Stockholm bookend to the Nihilism, even if Benny was ripped to pieces (as his nihilism would predict). Andrea still had a will to live, even if it was evil/vampiric, and that's far more interesting to me.
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All in all, it would be completely in-character for the nihilistic Benny we got to know to be comfortable seeing Dean go the way of a corrupted Andrea. We didn't see Benny’s nihilistic worldview develop or shift in a meaningful way during the course of the show. Indeed, his nihilism actually became more severe the longer he drifted.
If "one friend" (Dean) abandoning him and some hunters tailing him is enough to get him to fall off the wagon, he had a very tenuous grasp on resilience indeed. We should all support one another and not seek to violently undermine (Hi, Sam), but at the same time we are not responsible for another person’s addictions.
Benny can be an off-key parallel like how Sam sometimes shifts the burden of his "wellness responsibility" to others? (The Benny-as-idealized-surreal-brother and Sam-as-real-imperfect brother hits hard. Benny’s addiction is excused and enabled as necessary; Sam’s is framed wholly as a choice, which...addiction is complicated. We're much less kind to family about it.)
All in all, I think it's foolish for Dean (and the audience) to think that Benny would treat Mark of Cain!Dean in any way meaningfully different than he treated Andrea Kormos.
Dean's hallucination in Purgatory was more in-keeping with what we saw out of the real Benny. The box knew that Benny was in fact the most likely of Dean's friends to argue for suicide, and it was probably uncomfortably right about that because Benny did not arc towards growth on any occasion. Dean's self-soothing narrative was the false one. Hopeful, maybe. But false.
Makes you wonder if the killing of Andrea was something that was subconsciously actually haunting Dean in a very real, gloriously complicated way. (The way I think Cas's taking of a human vessel subconsciously haunts in him 14x10 Nihilism).
I think Andrea haunts him especially in light of his own newly devolved disinhibition/loss of free will/corruption.
(The real Benny wouldn’t encourage a friend to die? We saw him do just that: tell someone they were too gone…and then watched Dean kill her so he didn’t have to.) Deep down, I think this is an example of Dean’s anxiety over the reality of what happened with Benny and Andrea. Charitably, he’s not seeing through an illusion so much as choosing to live for himself in this moment! Which is fine. We all need our fictions.
Disclaimer: I like Benny. I think all of this makes him crunchy and interesting. And it makes him make SO MUCH SENSE. He, like so many many characters in SPN...fell to nihilism. :(
