#dean vs repression

[drsilverfish]

A Pearl of Great Price - 14x13 Lebanon

Well, Supernatural’s 300th episode was SO affectingly emotional. And beautifully so.

But what exactly is up with that magic pearl in 14x13 Lebanon?

Continuing my meta series on the Jungian themes of S14 (have I mentioned how much I LOVE S14?) I’m going to talk about the significance of the Baizhu, the heart’s desire granting pearl of the episode, as the pearl of great price. 

In particular I’m going to talk about the pearl as holding special significance as the object which permits Dean to confront (and make peace with) the ghost of John Winchester. The pearl helps to move on Dean’s psychological haunting by an internalised construct of his father, which has oppressed and repressed him for so long  - part of the Jungian Shadow-work of the season. 

So, why was a pearl the magical object chosen to grant Dean’s wish-of-the-heart, thus altering the time-lines to resurrect John Winchester?

Pearls have significance in the Bible as metaphors for Heaven, because of their beauty and value...

In Revelations, the gates of Heaven are made of pearls, hence the pearly gates. And in the parable of the pearl, the “pearl of great price” is commonly interpreted to represent Heaven:

”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

— Matthew 13:45-46,

King James Bible

So, the pearl grants Dean’s wish for what he had long imagined as a kind of Heaven - his original family, Mom, Dad, Sam and himself, all together again. 

But, as with most wish stories (and I’m sure @prairiedust​ will be writing a great meta about fairytales and wishes) - be careful what you wish for is the maxim here.

Because Dean finds that the price the pearl exacts is too high. 

If they accept the world the pearl has delivered, he and Sam will, eventually (as the timelines course correct) no longer be hunting together. Sam will be a lawyer and a kale-eating motivational speaker (a hilarious nod to Tom Cruise’s dick character in Magnolia) and Dean will be on the FBI’s “most wanted” list again. They will be separated. Neither will the brothers have the gift of their mother’s return, because Mary will never have been resurrected by Amara. Additionally, their adopted Nephilim son Jack will not exist, because Lucifer (presumably) will remain in the Cage. And finally, Castiel will not have escaped his endless obedience mind-wipes in Heaven, thanks to his transformational encounter with Dean, starting with the raising of the elder Winchester from perdition. Instead, Cas will stand at that dick-in-Heaven functionary Zaccharia’s side, and will neither know nor love the Winchesters. He will still belong to Heaven (and not to Dean). 

So, the pearl can be understood as the pearl of great price, because the price the pearl requires is simply too great, and the “Heaven” it offers is a false one.   

Dean chooses (with Sam’s full assent) in the end, all the pain, all the suffering of his and Sam’s lives, including his 40 years in Hell and Sam’s agony in the Cage with Lucifer, because that journey has brought them to who and where they are now. Dean chooses the found family that their journey has brought, not the (impossible) fantasy family of his boyish imaginings.  

JOHN: (to Sam and Dean): “And now you live in this secret bunker, with an angel and Lucifer’s kid?”

later....

JOHN (to Dean): “I guess that I’d hoped eventually that you would… get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family…”

DEAN: “I have a family.”

(And oh boy is that ever the kind of conversation that happens between a hetero-normative parent and their queer kid - but that’s another meta).

However, there’s more, because as well as representing too great a price, and a false Heaven, thanks to its Biblical associations, the wish-granting pearl in Lebanon also links to the season’s Jungian themes. 

A pearl has also (I argue) been chosen by Dabb and Glynn as the episode’s wish-granting object, because of that object’s connection to alchemy. 

Jung’s key interpretive understanding of the mystical pseudo-science of alchemy, is his revelation that the transformation of matter in medieval alchemical texts can be understood as representative of the (potential for) the soul’s psychological journey towards greater self-actualization. 

“The alchemical operations were real, only this reality was not physical but psychological. Alchemy represents the projection of a drama both cosmic and spiritual in laboratory terms. The magnum opus had two aims: the rescue of the human soul and the salvation of the cosmos. What the alchemists called ‘matter’ was in reality the [unconscious] self...”

Carl Jung in Speaking: Interviews and Encounters ( p228) (in a 1952 interview with Mircea Eliade).  

Here is one of the earliest printed books on alchemy (originally 1546, by the reputed alchemist Bonus Ferrara, but translated into English, as here, in 1894):

You can actually read a copy of the translated text itself here:

https://archive.org/stream/newpearlofgreatp00laciiala/newpearlofgreatp00laciiala_djvu.txt 

The “pearl of great price” is another name for the “Philosopher’s Stone”. On a material level, in alchemy, this is the supposedly mystical and magical substance which could turn base metals like mercury into gold. So alchemical texts, like Bonas’ one above, read in part as weird chemistry recipe books. But, on a metaphorical level, this chemistry was understood (in Bonas’ book and elsewhere) as analogous to the soul’s journey to God:

“The Sages represent the Stone as bearing the same relation to the metals which is borne by form to substance, or, soul to body.”

Jung takes that Christian interpretation of alchemy (made by correspondence of the world below with the world above) and transmutes it into a psychological one. For Jung, the alchemical work is the work which psychoanalysis can assist a person with - the work of facing and integrating with one’s Shadow self.

My previous series of meta on S14 and the Shadow is here:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/181122764984/14x09-the-spear-jungian-decoder-ring-edition

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182299438269/jung-and-deans-journey-towards-self-integration

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182486474324/ouroboros-in-prophet-and-loss-14x12 

So, how does the episode’s pearl of great price (aka the Philosopher’s Stone, aka the mystical substance which makes possible the soul’s journey to God, aka, according to Jung, that which makes possible profound psychological progress) happen for Dean, in particular, in Lebanon (given that he was the one whose wish the pearl granted in the first place)?

Well, Dean has been running from an internalised psychological construct of his father, a haunting by John Winchester’s ghost, if you will, for a very long time.  

The opening sequence to 14x13 Lebanon is key in recognising this. Because one of the flashbacks we get is to 14x04 Mint Condition, in which Dean confronts the ghost of “Hatchet Man”. 

Here is the 14x13 Lebanon flash-back at the start of the ep. Dean, with the axe:

confronts the ghost of the comic store owner, animating the life-size model of “Hatchet Man”:

As my meta on Mint Condition made clear at the time, 

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179735406854/batman-vs-superman-connection-and-conflict-in 

the episode, “...invites us to see Stuart’s conflict with the ghost of his father-figure, the comic store owner, as a mirror for Dean’s conflict with the ghost of his own father, for whom AU Michael (in the narrative arc of S14) acts as a mirror (AU Michael = John Winchester = Dean’s own internalised repression via the metaphor of Dean’s “drowning” possession by Michael).”

That the psychological construct of the ghost of John Winchester has been a very repressive internal construct, for Dean, is further symbolised in S14 both by Dean locking AU!Michael in a closet in his mind AND by the Ma’lak box Dean has built and has been intent on locking himself inside for all eternity.

Just to re-emphasise this, the opening sequence of 14x13 also shows us AU!Michael once again banging on the doors of Dean’s mind-closet:

Dean repressed a lot of himself in order to be a “good little soldier” for his Dad, in order to try and be the parent for Sam that his Dad was manifestly failing to be, and in order to embody the kind of (straight) masculinity he thought his father approved of. 

So we can think of John in 14x13 Lebanon as partly representing the opportunity (at last) for Dean to confront that internal “ghost of John Winchester”, i.e. for Dean to confront a part of himselfL

When Dean is able to hear his father tell him he is proud of him, when Dean is able tell his father, out loud, that he loves him, when Dean is able to tell his father that he has a found family that includes Castiel and Jack, when Dean is able to tell Sam out loud (as a result of his encounter with his father) this:  

DEAN: “Look, we’ve been through some tough times, there’s no denying that, and for the longest time, I blamed Dad. I mean, hell, I blamed Mom too, y’know, I was angry. But, say we could send Dad back, knowing everything, why stop there? Why not send him even further back, and let some other poor sons of bitches save the world? But, here’s the problem? Who does that make us? Because I gotta be honest. I don’t know who that Dean Winchester is. And I am good with who I am...”

that is Dean being able to tell himself all those things:

I am proud of you

I love you

I have a “found family” whom I love

I am good with who I am.

Jung tells us that the more we run from the Shadow, the more its terrifying haunting power over us grows. It is only when we turn and confront it, and embrace it (as the repressed parts of ourselves) that we can achieve psychological growth. 

As I said in my meta last week on “The Riddle of the Sphinx” in 14x12 Prophet and Loss:

“The Jungian solution, which the S14 narrative is offering to the metaphorical Riddle of the Sphinx, is, to turn around and embrace the Shadow-self (the parts of oneself one has repressed) and in so doing, to evolve - to become more fully human.

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182482293379/the-riddle-of-the-sphinx-14x12-prophet-and-loss

The pearl of great price in 14x13 Lebanon, in symbolising the transformative alchemical power of the Philosopher’s Stone, has enabled Dean, in confronting and embracing the ghost of his father, to undertake some powerful Shadow-work. Shadow-work that will, eventually, help him to defeat both the repression locker in his mind where AU!Michael resides and the eternal repression locker represented by the Ma’lak box. 

[drsilverfish]

The Riddle of the Sphinx: 14x12 Prophet and Loss

First, thanks to @verobatto-angelxhunter  @gneisscastiel @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks  @mrsaquaman187  for inviting me to guest this week, as part of their ongoing SPN #Metafest project @metafest  

along with several other guests:  @bluephoenixrises  @poorreputation @agusvedder @amwritingmeta   @savannadarkbaby @prairiedust  and

@norahastuff 

I’m going to guest meta about the Riddle of the Sphinx.

Here is creepy Tony Alvarez drowning his first victim. 

Despite an opening dose of Bucklemming torture-porn (ugh - although tbf there was a narrative point, as the drowned girl was a mirror for Dean, just like the slain first-born son and the dude who almost got barbecued were - more on that later...)... So, yeah, despite that, I was thrilled to see this in the visual narrative architecture - the Sphinx Machine Shop, where Tony does his mangled prophecy induced killing.

The Sphinx, as you know, is a fearsome part-woman, part winged-lion beastie, in Greek mythology, who was famous for guarding the entrance to Thebes and asking travellers to solve the answer to a riddle in order to gain safe passage to the city. If they failed, she devoured them.

She is tied in mythology not just to puzzles and their solutions, but to fate...

Here is the Sphynx of Naxos, from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (560 BCE)

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_of_Naxos 

The Temple of Delphi was the site of the Oracle of Delphi, who was the High Priestess Pythia (a transferrable role) famous for her prophesies, which came to her in trance-states, supposedly from the God Apollo.

You see the link to SPN’s own Prophet role here.... 

The Sphinx also, famously, appears in Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, which became the basis for Freud’s also famous (and relevant a bit later) “Oedipus complex”. Sophocles didn’t invent the myth, but his telling is its most famous rendition. 

Despite his other misfortunes, Oedipus doesn’t get devoured by the Sphinx, because he solves her riddle, a popular rendition of which is: 

“What goes on four legs, on two legs, on three, and the more legs it goes on, the weaker it be?” 

The answer, is - a human (baby, adult, old person with a stick).

Oedipus’ story is a classic story about fate, just like Appointment in Samara (re-worked in an SPN episode, 6x11, but originally an old Mesopotamian tale) which @mittensmorgul  and I were talking about just recently, in relation to themes of fate vs free will in SPN (specifically in relation to the role played by Death - see here for the discussion:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182454009599/mittensmorgul-drsilverfish-mittensmorgul  )

Oedipus’ story is a (f-d up) family drama - rather relevant to our very own Family Winchester [no, NOT because this is all about either of the boys wanting to sleep with Mary Winchester - thanks Dr. Freud - although, come to think of it, Dean did say she was hot in 4x03 In The Beginning :-)]  

14x13 Lebanon promo shot 

When baby Oedipus is born, his father King Laius receives a prophecy that his son will grow up to kill him, and so, he sends a shepherd to expose the baby on the mountainside to die, before that can happen. The shepherd however, not being an asshole, saves the baby, and raises him secretly as his own.  

Oedipus grows up, and he eventually learns from the Oracle at Delphi herself (see above) that he is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Believing the shepherd and his wife are his true mother and father, whom he loves, he leaves his home in the mountains for the city of Thebes, determined to defy the prophecy.

On the way, he meets a quarrelsome old man on the road, they fight, and Oedipus kills him:

When he gets to Thebes, he finds the King has been slain, by persons unknown, and the town is at the mercy of the Sphinx. Oedipus, by guessing the Sphinx’s riddle, obtains safety for the town and is, in gratitude, appointed King himself and given the widowed Queen, Jocasta’s, hand in marriage.

All is well for a bit, until a plague descends on Thebes, and Oedipus is told that to save the city, he must avenge King Laius’ death. So, he goes sleuthing, with the extremely relucant help of his seer Tiresius, and to his horror, discovers that he is the one who killed the King (that old dude on the road to Thebes all those years ago), that he is the King’s true son, and has, therefore, killed his father and, in marrying Queen Jocasta, married his mother and committed incest, fulfilling the prophecy he set out to escape from. He promptly blinds himself in horror. Poor ancient Greek dude. 

The Chorus laments the power of fate

O heavy hand of fate!          Who now more desolate, Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?          O Oedipus, discrowned head,          Thy cradle was thy marriage bed;

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31/31-h/31-h.htm  - Project Gutenberg translation of Oedipus Rex. 

A reference to the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx is extremely pregnant right now in the SPN narrative, for two reasons:

1) Fate vs Free Will

2) The Ghost of John Winchester

1) Fate vs Free Will

Dean thinks his interpretation of the book Billie handed him in 14x10 Nihilism - apparently the only death of his in which AU!Michael doesn’t take over his meat-suit and burn the world - means he has to sink himself to the bottom of the ocean, in the Ma’lak (angel) box and that’s “fate”. 

Like Oedipus, there is no escape. 

However, 14x12 tells us two things. Firstly, by analogy - the prophecy is wrong. Alvarez thinks he is carrying out the prophetic Word of God TM by recreating a twisted version of the Plagues of Egypt sent by God in Exodus:

1) The slaughter of a first-born son

2) Drowning in the Red Sea

3) Fire out of Heaven

(all of which are mirrors for what Dean thinks is his “fate” right now: death of a first born son; being drowned forever at the bottom of the ocean in the Ma’lak box; being consumed by the AU Archangel Michael’s Heavenly grace/fire).

But it’s a garbled message, received as a result of Prophet Donatello’s comatose scramblings. 

Secondly, screw prophecy - against the odds, Dr. Sexy of the Lord (yeah - you know Dean thought it) is able to revive Donatello, thus preventing further scramblings (aka wrong prophesies). 

CASTIEL: “Dean - if there is a spark, a hope, then I have to try.... you taught me that!” 

I loved that line, with its resonance all the way back, like a skein of blue grace, to the Apocalypse Mark One, when Dean convinced Castiel, in Zacharia’s (also due to return in 14x13 Lebanon) “green room” in 4x22 Lucifer Rising, to disobey Heaven for the sake of humanity (Yes, Dean, an angel did fall for you...). 

In other words, just as the Winchesters beat their “fate” to be “angel condoms” for Michael and Lucifer last time around, by “tearing up the script” and “making it up as they go” (4x22 Lucifer Rising) thanks to the help of rebel angel Castiel, so they can do so again.   

2) The Ghost of John Winchester

In the SPN world’s worst kept spoiler, we know John will return next week in 14x13 Lebanon. We’ve been meta’ing about the ghost of John Winchester haunting the SPN narrative for... forever.  

Here is some meta of mine on the subject from S12:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/158388550099/john-winchesters-ghost-and-the-haunting-of-s12 

John is explicitly recalled, during the brothers’ (beautifully rendered) car conversation in 14x12:

DEAN: “You ever think about when we were kids?”

SAM: “Maybe, yeah, sure, sometimes, why?”

DEAN: “I know I wasn’t always the greatest brother to you.”

SAM: “Dean, you were the one who was always there for me. The only one. I mean, you practically raised me.”

DEAN: “I know things got dicey, you know with Dad, the way he was... and I just.... I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should of. I mean, I had my own stuff, y’know, and in order to keep the peace, it probably looked like I took his side quite a bit. Sometimes, when I was away, you know it wasn’t cos I just ran out, right? Dad would, he would send me away, when I really pissed him off. I think you knew that.”

SAM: “Man I left that behind a long time ago, I had to.”  

AU!Michael, I’ve been arguing since the start of the season, is a mirror for Dean’s self-repression and for John Winchester. See:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179463975289/shirtlesssammy-14x03the-scar-meta-writers

John was one of the major causes of Dean’s self-repression, as illustrated in the convo above, where it’s clear Dean had to grow up too fast to become a substitute-parent to Sam, where he was often obedient to their father to “keep the peace”, and where he was also often, unreasonably, punished by his father in the process (such as, as we already know, when he was sent to Sonny’s after stealing food for Sam in 9x07 Bad Boys). 

According to psychoanalysis, we always internalise psychological constructs of our parents - Freud calls them imagos. So the Riddle of the Sphinx, for Dean, is how to kill (or rather, lay to rest) the ghost of his father (whom AU! Michael is a mirror for) and with it, the self-repression which has wounded him so much, psychically, since childhood, without letting it kill him too.  

Nick, of course (general shudder) also serves as a John Winchester mirror in the episode - his obsessive revenge quest for the slaughter of his wife (aka mirror Mary Winchester) by Abraxas, led to something she never wanted - damage to innocents along the way (aka mirror innocents, Sam and Dean). 

To Conclude

The answer to the Sphinx’s riddle, the one that helped Oedipus avoid being devoured by her was.... humanity.

Light Sphinx, 2015-2016, Mixed media (inc. foam, hand stitched fabrics, LEDs, beads, synthetic hair), 74 x 32 x 54 cm by Tarryn Gill

https://tarryngill.com/Light-Sphinx-Shadow-Sphinx-2015-16 

Dean IS the symbolic representation of humanity (which is why Amara was so fascinated by him, and let’s not forget Metatron’s words about Castiel in 9x22 Stairway to Heaven  - “He’s in love with.... humanity”).  

Our first-born Winchester son just has to believe what this episode showed him -  prophecy can be wrong.

His “fate” - to die, to drown forever, to be consumed by holy grace/fire, to remain trapped by the ghost of his father, by his own self-repression, by AU!Michael, by the Ma’lak box (aka, in subtext, the closet) is NOT the “Word of God”.

And killing one’s father doesn’t (as it did for Oedipus) have to mean damnation, if, the way one does it, is symbolically, by laying his ghost to rest in one’s heart and mind (hello upcoming SPN 300 14x13 Lebanon).

Freud believed the resolution of the Oedipus complex (for boys) was identification with the father (and no, we don’t have to concur with Dr. Freud). Dean has actually been on an oppositve journey, to get out from under his father’s shadow.   

The Jungian solution, which the S14 narrative is offering to the metaphorical Riddle of the Sphinx, is, to turn around and embrace the Shadow-self (the parts of oneself one has repressed) and in so doing, to evolve - to become more fully human.

So, a final salute to Jerry Wanek and team, and the ever wonderful SPN set dressing narrative, for The Sphinx Machine shop!

NB:

You can read my Jungian Meta series here, if you’re interested:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/181122764984/14x09-the-spear-jungian-decoder-ring-edition

 http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182299438269/jung-and-deans-journey-towards-self-integration

And if, you want to read more of my SPN meta in general, go visit my blog and look under the “Meta” sidebar tag: http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/tagged/Meta 

Plus, if you want to read lots of other people’s fabulous SPN meta, go check out the “SPN Meta” sidebar tag: http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/tagged/SPN%20Meta 

Thanks for having me @metafest !

DrSphinx out.