#dean's hell trauma

[silver-salt-knife]

The thing about Dean in 4x01 (and season 4) is that he spent more years in Hell than being alive.

[shallowseeker]

"I've been re-hymenated" sure hits less like a joke now that I'm spending time with all my wicked, smart Alastair friends. :(((((

[hellerfanboy91]

Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 4x11 Family Remains

Spoilers for 4x16 On the Head of a Pin

This episode is reasonably creepy on first viewing, and its tone reminds me of series one and two of the show when it still intended to be a horror film every week. It could also almost be an episode of The X-Files, but the shaky edifice crumbles pretty quickly with a bit of scrutiny. Jeremy Carver usually writes fairly good episodes, but he dropped the ball on this one as too much of the plot relies on the characters being stupid. The son is stupid and uncle Ted is stupid, but – to quote Paula’s review – ‘a great deal of plot in this one runs on mindboggling parental stupidity’. The result of this is that most of what I have to say regarding this episode is a commentary on how most characters in the episode are too dumb to function.

On a technical level, the plot is a failure people by morons. Thematically, however, it is not without merit as it serves to show us more about Dean and his time in Hell. It is also one of very few episodes when the effect Hell had on Dean is explored in any real way at all. Unfortunately, that exploration is mostly done in a way most casual viewers would miss, i.e. by having the children in the wall be mirrors for Dean.

The children in the wall are the monsters of the week, but they are not evil and are not in their position through any fault of their own. They are victims of their dad/grandad’s horrific abuse, but the result of that abuse is that they became feral monsters who had to be put down. The fact that it was the dad/grandad who abused them only struck me while writing that last line, in spite of the fact I have written about John’s abuse of Dean on several occasions. Ignoring the incestuous implications of the comparison for now, think rather of the crawlspaces and basement the children were locked in as a metaphor for Hell. It is fitting that Dean, not Sam, goes into the basement to rescue the son, and that he should be the one to kill the feral brother in there, as this is a metaphor (intentional or not) for Dean’s own experience in Hell.

Dean’s metaphorical descent into the underworld also provides a chance to see hints of Dean without the mask he wears. ‘Trauma’ has become such an overused word that I hesitate to use it, but at the same time Dean’s reaction to e.g. seeing uncle Ted’s death reminds me of footage of WWI soldiers’ shellshock. He cowers against the wall and shivers, though of course part of that could have been an attempt to hide from the killer. Paula raised the point that this was not in the script: this is Jensen’s Jacting Joices. In other words, Jensen chose to add some depth to Dean which the writers did not.

At the end of the episode, Dean brings up his experience of Hell by telling Sam that he ‘enjoyed’ being a torturer in Hell. It felt good being able to hurt others after enduring so many years of pain himself: when he was hurting other people, his own pain vanished. He was well on his way to becoming a monster when Cas rescued him, and this is likely one of the reasons Dean ‘doesn’t believe [he] deserves to be saved’. The line between Dean and demon is very thin, a fact he is well aware of. One reason he punched Sam twice when he found out Sam was still working with Ruby is because of this. He could see Ruby was manipulating Sam in order to finish the job Azazel started, thereby turning Sam into the kind of monster Dean almost became. See 4x04 Metamorphosis for a more detailed discussion of that.

It was only when rewatching this episode a second time to make notes for this analysis that I realised the conclusion I always automatically came to was perhaps not what the writers intended. Dean’s reference to ‘years of pain’ always sounded to me like it was about Mary’s death, his upbringing fighting monsters, John’s abuse, etc, but only this last time did I connect the ‘years of pain’ with Dean’s three decades or so of being tortured. Quite why that never came to mind is beyond me, but whichever was the intent is immaterial: they are not mutually-exclusive. Though Dean probably had his decades of torture at the forefront of his mind and the conversation was about his experience of Hell, this does not mean he was not talking about his time before going to Hell.

Something else I recently came across was a commenter on Paula’s review discussing whether or not this scene was added to make Sam’s misdemeanours later seem less extreme. ‘Yes, Sam did X, Y, and Z, but Dean enjoyed torturing people in Hell, so he’s bad too’, that kind of thing. I can see that.

This conversation also amounts to one of the final discussions of Dean’s time and actions in Hell. It will come up again in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin to play a pivotal role in that episode’s plot, as well as to reveal that Dean is ‘responsible’ for triggering the Apocalypse, but thereafter do prepare yourselves for it to become yet another of Dean’s storylines which got dropped.

Other than that, this episode has no relevance to the overall show or character development, and the majority of the rest of this analysis is going to be rather negative. On a surprising note, Sam did little to irritate me outside the cold open this time which makes a lovely change. For the majority of the episode, Dean and Sam actually seemed like two people who worked well together, similarly to 3x08 A Very Supernatural Christmas also written by Jeremy Carver. In that episode, Sam was a dimwit but not hostile. In the cold open of 4x11 he came across as patronising and intrusive with his pop psychology and attempts at analysing his brother’s behaviour, at which Dean rightfully prickles. Of course Dean's probably throwing himself into work so that he does not have to deal with his memories of Hell. So? What else is he supposed to do, break down and cry? Other than that Sam was just fine in this episode, I suppose.

That just about does it for the serious discussion, meaning all that remains is to dissect some stupidity, and there was a lot of it. Firstly, when the son was in his bedroom at night ‘unpacking his boxes’, the door to his closet opened and the girl in the wall threw a ball to him. Rather than screaming and running out of the room at the stranger in his room, he picked up the ball and decided to play. Even were the boy significantly younger, this behaviour is too idiotic to believe.

The only person whose reaction to the weird goings-on was believable was the daughter who screamed when she realised the thing licking her hand was not her dog, but ‘Casper the Pervy Ghost’.

Compounding this medley of idiocy is the parents’ steadfast refusal to believe their son was actually telling the truth about not writing GO on the wall. His reaction to it was clearly genuine surprise, and even if his story about the girl in the wall was difficult to believe, a child of his age talking like that about something like that warrants at least a bit of investigation. Not least because the house is in the middle of nowhere and it might actually be an axe-murderer hiding in the basement. I am aware this was supposed to look like rational parenting, but it made them look dumb. It also did not help that the dad was a middle-class man-Karen.

Stupider still was the idea that Dean would leave his gun in the car rather than having it with him wherever he goes. He is always shown to be carrying, and the only reason for him to not be here is plot-necessitated stupidity. If he had his gun with him, he would have shot the girl the moment she stepped over the salt circle, and then the story would have been over. Further to the subject of guns, who on Earth did the girl even know what a gun is, much less how to unlock a car boot, steal all Dean’s weapons, and slash his tyres? And regarding the tyres, Paula wondered why the tyres being slashed would prevent Dean et al walking to the nearest road or to the motel Dean said is nearby. Do you see the reliance on stupidity and plot contrivance now?

Inexplicable is also how a feral girl armed only with a knife and forced to live on rats managed to be strong enough to overpower a man like Dean. One swing of his fist and Dean could have caved her skull in, but the plot demanded he struggle. ...The plot also demanded that everybody run out of the room to let Dean fight alone, only for Sam to rush in at the last minute and shine a torch at her rather than caving her skull in with a fire poker or something. I can suspend my disbelief, but this was asking too much.

It was also stupid that the first thing Uncle Ted when everybody got out of the house was bitch to Dean about how he was right about it not being a ghost, rather than thanking Dean for saving their lives. Ted was clearly written to be the idiot who dies first without the audience caring too much. Well, ‘first’. The dog died first in what is a truly tiresome cliché.

Anyway, that about does it for this episode, another unfortunately short one. Noteworthy is perhaps the actress who played the cleaner who found the dead man from the cold open played the mother Mrs Peacock in The X-Files 4x04 Home, another episode dealing with incest and which I referred to in my analysis of 1x15 The Benders. I was also reminded of The Descent (once again) by the way the girl in the wall moved around in the basement. The rest of the stuff in the basement and walls put me in mind of how claustrophobic some scenes in 2x06 No Exit, and a friend pointed out that when Dean smashes in Chekov’s dumbwaiter, scratchmarks can be seen in the woodwork.

And with that, this analysis is at an end. You can read more of my reviews here:

Series 1

Series 2

Series 3

Series 4

Sundry

Paula's review is here and here is her article about Dean's dropped storylines.

[ginger-mosaic]

Suptober Day 16: Red

CW: Blood, gore, Dean’s hell trauma

---

Red. Red everywhere. On his hands, on his face, bleeding from his own chest. The rack holds what is left of the human that he was working on. Now his art is finished and he’s covered in blood, both his own and not his own. His heart beats outside of his chest, or no, that’s the still beating heart of his victim, convulsing in his hand. Oh God, what has he done? What has he—

Bright light, shining in his eyes, and someone shaking him and calling a name—oh, his name. Dean! Dean! Wake up!

If only he could.

---

This year I’m doing 100-word stories. This is also posted on my AO3!

[thedogsled]

Post-ep notes: s13x09, mid-season finale.

I’m going to take some quick notes and then go the fuck to sleep like a good angel. Let’s see if I can remember everything I want to.

In this post: Shooting from above; Dean Winchester’s trauma; Jack the Nephilim; Angel theory; Kaia, Patience and Jody; The bad place spec; Hooded personage; ; Billie’s house of cards; and me being super duper tired and still having to do adult things tomorrow.

The filmed from above shots that run through this episode give a very strong sense of being watched over, and not in a good way. We get a lot of very overwhelming music to stress you out, those muted foghorn things they do in the trailers for disaster movies. I think this is actually intended long term as a Wayward aesthetic and not an SPN one tbh, since I imagine they will be in different styles, but it does also give the feeling of impending doom i.e. Billie’s house of cards falling down.

Speaking of: Dean Winchester doesn’t give a shit about houses of cards, because fuck that.

No but really. This is PTSD Dean shining through. We were reminded of his Hell trauma last week, and when he was shown Mary suffering “Somebody help me!” he went right back to it. You’ve got to imagine how often he must have screamed that with no answer. No answer no answer no answer until he BROKE, until he came down off the rack and picked up the poker for himself. And now he finds out that all this time he’s been lying around drinking beer and grieving or celebrating with his cowboy boyfriend or hunting Mary has been in her own Hell calling out for help? Damn right he’s going to do whatever it takes to save her, because nobody saved him. Dean’s actions are those of a traumatized, desperate man.

Moving on.

Jack my bundle of lovely boy has grown so much since he left the bunker. I know I for one could see the ‘he didn’t kill Derek’ coming because I trust him, so that was a little ‘You really thought your nougat boy had done it, didn’t you!’ at the audience, and then in the car Jack is like staring through the fourth wall at the audience shaking his head ‘so fucking what if I’m Satan’s son he’s not my father’. And outright says so, and Dean tells him he’s family. The only sting in the tail of this is it comes easily for Jack and it took for fucking ever for Dean to tell Cas when he needed to hear it. (I was right here. Where were you?) But Jack is family and Sam believes it too thank fuck for that. Sam ‘he’s not an it, he’s Cas!’ Winchester, who needs to make emotional connections for himself. But yeah Jack was just so full of sweet optimism despite everything and I loved him for that. I keep talking about found family, but that boy has found his. He chose TFW.

Kaia is a broken human soul and I love her all the more for it. I love that Jack gave her something hopeful, and I love that it was clearly not brainwashing, and she decides herself to cooperate. Then we get to see it, we get this vision from Jack’s POV of all the universes in their swimming circles of stars and it is beautiful. It’s like looking into the heart of the TARDIS too - i.e. it can turn Daleks into sparkly dust - but w/e. I loved the dreamwalker stuff, though, that was awesome, and I can’t believe we saw that painting so long ago and just thought it was storyboarding. lololol anyway.

Speaking of the angels! I loved that we got to see them working as a warrior unit like they were in Michael’s world? I feel like that’s important so that we can see how far away from that model Cas is now. And I love them tearing down the warding because it looked fucking cool. The wings burned onto the walls were awesome, and since the tear in realities is there I imagine we’ll see it again when bad things start coming through (some of the promo shots for 13x10 are daylight in the room that Sam and Dean disappeared in). ALSO angels driving cars? I mean obviously, cause they don’t fly any more, but I really loved that bit.

I’ve mentioned this before (and everyone will have their version and that’s the fun of a big cliffhanger like this), but my guess for the bad place is a world where monsters are real (as Kaia says). Sam and Dean tied to trees like sacrifices to a gorgon/dragon, and giant skulls like something you’d find Perseus fighting. Super cool, and I love Sam getting to tag along on this Dean vs. Trees adventure. (I won’t deny there’s a dino feel though but I don’t expect dinos because this is SPN, its spec fx budget can’t possible stretch to that, can it?)

Hooded guy/girl? Charlie? Balthazar? Another Cas? Badass au version of Asmodeus who’s not corny and awful? Come on, it could be anyone at this point but I’m super excited for the possibilities.

Speculative plot for 13x13: Lucifer and Cas escape prison and Sister Jo informs them that they’re literally the last two angels left, and we just watched the last six angels in Heaven get dusted. Could happen.

There’s like a billion more things (What is happening to Jody in Patience’s vision? Also I totally saw Patience’s dad pulling the ‘don’t ever come back’ thing but I wish he’d just run downstairs for a fucking hug) 

Aaaand yeah. Mostly I just really loved it, can’t wait to watch it again.

[silver-salt-knife]

It's important to recall how Dean and Cas actually met.

Of course Dean will forgive Cas after seeing him at his lowest and will cling to what he knows of him even after seeing him committing atrocities.

That's what Cas did for him after Hell.

[silver-salt-knife]

Grim question. Do u think Dean is actually "good" at torture? Coz there's so many times when we see that he's not actually the one in control. He ends up being manipulated instd. (Not that torture is an "effective" method for anything anyways but uk). I have a hc that he's actually pretty bad at it, esp for someone who was under Alistair's 'tutelage'. But Alistair and Meg and others like to pretend he's realllyyyy good at it to just dig into his wounds ukwim? Idk. Any thoughts you have about this, I'd love to hear <3

Actually… you are right. I can't recall actual evidence of Dean being skilled at torturing. The only onscreen torture scene is about Dean torturing Alastair and we can't say it's working (actually, the whole scene is about Alastair torturing Dean). The mentions of Dean being skilled for torturing are either self-loathing (4x10), either from monsters who aim to hurt him (4x16, 6x10, 15x01).

There's also the scene in 5x04, from Endverse!Dean and Endverse!Castiel implying that Endverse!Dean uses torture, but the Endverse isn't more genuine than any villain speech (team Endverse-is-a-Zachariah-illusion forever, btw).

As a counter-example, we know that Cas is good at questioning because we see him break his targets and get informations from them onscreen (6x19, 6x21, etc). Bobby and Sam resort to torture, too. Dean is the only one who is said to be good at it, though (because the prospect both shames and hurts him).

Just remembered 7x15 where Dean and Sam torture a demon (four years before the episode)… but actually both the demon and its evil meatsuit resume their life. The meatsuit wants to get revenge but doesn't look overly traumatized, so...

[silver-salt-knife]

Thing is Dean absorbs the lecturing words his family throw at him:

Sam, 4x14: You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Whining about all the souls you tortured in hell. Boo hoo.

-> he's never shown talking about Hell again on screen

Bobby, 4x22: You stupid, stupid son of a bitch! Well, boo hoo, I am so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess! Are you under the impression that family's supposed to make you feel good?! Bake you an apple pie, maybe? They're supposed to make you miserable! That's why they're family!

-> he never tells anyone about how Sam betrays him after that

Sam, 7x13: Look, man, she was not yours. Not really.

-> he doesn't talk about Emma again (except in that script)