"Why is Cas relegated to standing around looking pretty when did he stop being capable of doing anything? I MISS CAS AND HE’S RIGHT THERE" As a quiet lurker in fandom I'm going to speak out for once because I've been watching Cas' demise as a character correspond to the behavior of one faction of the Destiel fandom: ExorcisingEmily & her buds. They have been so overzealous in trying to prove they're "right", they destroyed any chance the show would utilize Cas & Dean's relationsihp in any way.
Hi anon, thanks for the message. First of all, I feel like I should clarify what I mean about missing Cas even though he’s right there, in case it’s unclear.
What I don’t mean: “OMG CAS AND DEAN DIDN’T INTERACT WHY”
Because honestly, some of the things I’ve loved about season 9 and the first half of season 10, are how Cas has had his own adventures, or adventures with Sam, and he’s gotten to do a lot of fun things and grow as a character. Prior to the Carver era, Cas’ character was driven by how he could be useful to Sam & Dean’s storyline. So we’ve gotten to see Cas make choices (good and bad ones) for himself, we got to see him mentor Hannah (again, both with good and bad advice), and we got to see him see the consequences of his past decisions (Claire and Amelia) and make attempts and amends. Cas is learning, growing, and he’s finally a fully defined character, without using Winchesters as a reference point.
It’s only been in the last few episodes, where Cas was more directly interacting with Dean’s storyline (if not Dean himself) and with Sam, where he starts to become superfluous. Granted--which powers Cas has at any given time are sort of a mystery in and of themselves. What does he know? What can he figure out? What can he do? Seems to depend on time and tides (and writers and what sort of magical fix they need at any given time). You would think though, that a being capable of rattling off solutions to the complex (read: probably undefined/unsolvable) differential equations required for time travel would be better at processing data than a shitty Surface tablet. (Not to mention--why does Crowley seem to know more about biblical history than Cas? why can’t Cas read ancient magical texts? ?????)
This brings me to a bigger point: Cas is really freaking powerful, as originally written. What causes tension when you can bring everyone back to life every time they die? And they can’t get hurt? Angel trumps demon, angel trumps monster, angel trumps pretty much everything. Now, through a confluence of narrative choices (opinions about the quality of those choices aside) and effectively leveling up the bad guys (incl. Winchesters), angels aren’t so hard to kill any more. Everyone has angel blades! Even that blonde teenager who lives down the street from you!
But the Winchesters are also super powerful, like, demi-god status at this point. They kill gods, they kill angels, they kill the Father of Murder and Death. Why do Sam and Dean work against each other so often? Because if they work together they’re pretty hard to stop. Why doesn’t Cas work alongside them? Because if you have all three of them, working together, wtf is going to stand in their way? Where is the interesting story in that?
--This is, incidentally, reason #1 why I am optimistic for ~The Darkness~. If it’s really as Big and Bad as They (Death, Dean, TPTB or whoever) say it is, you have a good reason for a superhero team up.
(Not that, even in the best case scenario for season 11, I won’t side eye the fuck out of how they got there, through a series of fumbles, ooc decisions--or lack of choosing, mistakes, accidents, and just general not-talking-to-each-other-ness. It starts to get hard to believe that the Winchesters care about each other so much that they don’t even respect anything the other has to say. That’s not love, that’s the other thing.)
Anyway, that brings us back to Destiel. Only, not really, because I don’t equate Cas’ character assassination with his screentime with Dean. I’d love to hear about it though, if you’ve got an explanation!
Conversely, I think that the Winchesters’ characters are greatly improved by their interactions with Cas. And Kevin. And Charlie. And Bobby. And pretty much ANYONE who isn’t each other. You can only have so many conversations and interactions between two people before they start repeating themselves (short of like, sex and murder, we’ve pretty much covered them all--and we just watched Dean almost kill Sam. Wincest would be an improvement, just to add something new… ty tous-les-coups for that fantastic mental image). Each ally and friend and new family member that we get to know well enough adds dimension not only to themselves, but also to Sam and Dean and even Sam and Dean’s relationship with each other.
Then there’s the issue of how writing decisions get made. They’ve made statements, over and over, that fandom reaction has pretty much no effect on within-season decisions, because the writing happens way ahead of when the episodes air (see: commentary about Bela from Kripke, and Robbie Thompson’s recent comments from the SPN DePaul symposium).
Now, they could take fandom commentary into account cross-seasonally, I guess. You didn’t give any sources for your claims, so I’m having difficulty parsing it. Something you might not know about me: I used to write posts over at the Fandom deBunker. A few more related things: I try to always assume best intentions of anyone, because it’s too easy to get caught up in how things get said and lose sight of facts, and I dislike rumors that have no sources.
If you’d sent this comment to the deBunker as a rumor, I would’ve looked into where exactly the idea that some small part of fandom was influencing TPTB came from. (I don’t have time for that, and I’m not sure what purpose it would serve at this point in time. Feel free to share your sources, though, anon! Both an account of the fandom’s actions, as well as your evidence that TPTB is reacting specifically to that, would be preferable. I think the vernacular is receipts.)
Now, I don’t know exorcisingemily. I think I remember hearing some wank regarding them? I don’t know what it was though. However, and what I’m really trying to understand is, what exactly is the reason anyone in fandom would look at things on screen that disappoint us, and then go pointing fingers at others in the fandom. Of all the people to want to blame (and as much as I like to to roll my eyes at parts of fandom on occasion) fandom really isn’t it.
(Related: if you came to my blog to try and start shit with someone I don’t even know… shame. If not, fine, but consider the implications of your words maybe?)
Also; even if you have a set of things that any given part of the fandom has said or done, in the last few years, it’s highly unlikely to be the reason stuff is happening or not happening on the show. The CW thinks of SPN as a male-audience type show, doesn’t care much the female audience has to say (which isn’t an spn-specific issue), and there was that whole thing about tumblr being “the male pinterest” so. I’m really not seeing this magical connection between fandom and TPTB that you seem to think exists.
Please, enlighten me--but also know that mean-spirited spec presented as valid hypotheticals isn’t welcome here.
