I was curious and decided to look up what people thought about 9x22, and the “he’s in love...with humanity” line with the benefit of hindsight. I saw a fair few comments that basically amounted to, “but why can’t it just mean that Cas is in love with humanity?” I honestly can’t believe that this is an argument we’re still having. I understand people who say that Dean only has platonic/brotherly feelings for Cas. I don’t agree with them, but I can see how they would come to this conclusion. I can also understand when people say Metatron was a villain, and his words aren’t the exact truth. Again I don’t agree with it, particularly given the events of 9x23, but I get it.
What I truly cannot get my head around is the idea that, Metatron’s words literally mean, Cas is in love with humanity at large.
Naomi didn’t make him kill thousands of humans to brainwash him into heaven’s weapon, she made him kill thousands of copies of Dean.
It wasn’t humanity that knelt before him, gripping his hand and broke the connection Naomi had with him, by telling him how important and needed he was by humanity in general. It was Dean, and how much he was needed by Dean that did that.
When Cain revealed his plans for culling 1/10 of the human race, Cas was horrified but he tried to talk to him, make him see reason. But the second Cain mentioned Dean:
Cas drew his weapon, prepared to fight. A gesture that did not go unnoticed by Cain, and what lead him to “suspect” what Castiel was to Dean, if ascribing him the Colette role in his prophecy to Dean is any indication.
If it’s humanity that Cas is so in love with, why would he be willing to stand back and watch Dean “murder the world” rather than bring himself to hurt him?
Ishim didn’t refer to humanity in general as Cas’ “human weakness”. He knew that his own human weakness was one individual in particular, Lily, the woman he was in love with. It’s why he recognised that Cas’ human weakness was also one individual in particular, Dean, the man he is in ______ with?
In 14x01 Jack proposed that to defeat Michael, they needed to be prepared to kill Dean as well. Michael was a deadly threat to all of humanity and Jack recognised that he needed to be stopped at any cost. And of course Cas, who’s so in love with humanity, was completely on board with sacrificing one man for the sake of the human race in general right? Hmmm.
And then we circle back to the context of the line in question in relation to the episode it was in, 9x22. Metatron addresses the angels that are following Cas. He reveals some of the unsavoury things that Cas has done in order to turn them against him. And yet, there is only one thing Hannah asks of Cas: to punish Dean Winchester. Not Sam and Dean, not any other human, just Dean. Of course he refuses. He gives up an army for one guy and Metatron says those words:
“And then after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He’s in love...with humanity”.
There was no mention of ‘’humanity’’ or any other human after Metatron’s video call to Cas’ angel headquarters. There was no moment where Cas’ love for humanity was what caused the angels to turn against him. It was his love for Dean, it’s always his love for Dean. The action of giving up his army for Dean could have been construed as gesture based purely on platonic love, but it was the show itself that said he did this because he was ‘’in love’’.
Cas revealed his feelings for humanity in 4x07:
He loves and admires humanity, like one would admire a work of art.
But Dean on the other hand:
(obligatory singular plural)
There are many things about Destiel the show has fostered a sense of ambiguity around, but the notion that for Cas, it is always Dean above all else? That, has never been in question. After all Metatron said it best in 9x23:
And the Angel tablet, arguably the most powerful instrument in the history of the universe, is in pieces, and for what again? Oh, that's right: to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right?
So we were discussing something very very beautiful but very angsty at the same time.
This are just facts we noticed as team, @emblue-sparks @mrsaquaman187 and @cheerstofandomfamily and we want to share with you. Enjoy!
CAS invading for the first time Dean's personal space.
Remember First Encounter... When Dean asked "And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?"
And then Castiel proceed to say...
"Good things...
Gif credit @magnificent-winged-beast who pointed this too in her meta about the first encounter, she talked about this "entering into Dean', personal space" for the first time.
Is such an intense scene but full of Intrigue coming from Castiel. He was so intrigued with this human. He saw a broken man.
We had a lot of situations about Castiel invading Dean's personal space that we can recall in all season 4 and firsts episodes from.season 5 till... This happened...
Dean teaches CAS about personal space
And @mrsaquaman187 said here: "Dean is retreating this phrase so much" and is hilarious but with a side of truth...
Since then... We saw Castiel being so respectful about personal space with Dean, we noticed even when he needs to heal Dean he do that with such a delicate and tenderness touch, approaching his fingers or his hand to Dean's body so slowly... As if he was asking for permission... And we have this beautiful moments...
There... So intense, and delicate at the same time...
So yeah... He understood... But Dean is now the person who's hungrily searching for Castiel, and that's why we are having the following moments now...
Dean reaching for Cas physical contact
We believe there was a change in Dean's character since Purgatory. As I said like a thousand of times, Dean discovered in Purgatory that he was feeling something else than just platonic friendship for Cas.
So, after teaching Cas about personal space, now is Dean who is gravitating around the angel... Trying to remain cool with bro slaps, or bro touching, but sometimes... The touching are not so brodly...
Gif credit @bennylafitte
Gif credit @rosewhipped22
And he is always searching to be side by side, almost glued to the angel...
And that's 👆 so blantant coming from Dean. Is Dean who's looking for this contact... But why?
I said before, is because we wants to approach Cas in a different way... He is slowly trying to catch Cas's permission before this kind of touches. Bc Cas is his best friend, and he is trying to do this in the right way... Slowly...
This is such a sweet thought and we wanted to share with you....
Castiel’s unasked for and undrunk bottle of beer was a feature in season 13-- a D or even E plot of its own if you will. Even beverages that Cas is known to consume were pointedly avoided over the last two seasons-- in 13x06 (Tombstone) it’s implied that Castiel makes the coffee that Dean is seen drinking later, but he does not drink any himself.
We’ve known Cas to drink coffee before…
And even the hard stuff…
And we’ve been told that doing this-- sharing in this feast of affection-- would be good for Castiel, as evinced in 13x13 (Funeralia)when Dean and Cas are in the bunker kitchen. Dean pours himself a cup of coffee. He and Cas are brainstorming ways they might track down Gabriel to “hijack his grace” in order to reopen the Rift. Dean decides to grease the wheels and gets a beer for himself and one for Castiel-- even though Cas declines, the minute Dean opens the refrigerator and gets him one anyway, Cas finally has an idea. It is this moment when Dean involves the “family” beer, Margikugels, that he and Cas are able to work together.
(Granted, Cas’ idea was bad, but then, he didn’t drink the beer.)
So even though Castiel has a seat at the table, so to speak…
... Sam has picked up on the way Cas is setting himself apart when the unopened beer (and now an uneaten pizza) again shows up in 13x21 (Beat the Devil.) Even in what was revealed to be Sam’s dream sequence Cas is not partaking in the shared meal.
This abstinence is meant to be noticed. It’s borderline rude.
Compare Cas’ aloofness then to 14x8 (Byzantium,) where Castiel not only drinks alongside Dean and Sam during Jack’s wake, he at one point brings a couple of bottles to the table.
In the next episode, he sits and eats “Krunch Cookie Crunch”, with Jack, putting aside his own dislike of “molecules” to partake in a late-night meal with his adopted son.
Cas over these three seasons, starting with his rescue of Kelly Kline from his own friends when he tentatively positioned himself as Jack’s guardian up to Byzantium where he (mirrored by Lily Sunder) fully accepted his role as Jack’s surrogate father, has finally integrated himself into this human family, and it wasn’t textualized by anyone calling him brother or dad, but by the primal act of sharing a glass and a meal with the people he loves, like a thanksgiving, or an agapefeast or lovefeast in the Christian church. It’s no accident that the scene where he told Jack that he loved him and then took his place to save him from the Empty happened in a kitchen.
Two times-- in Sam’s dream and then with the coffee in Tombstone-- Cas offers food but does not share it. LIkewise, Dean calls Cas his brother, but it is not until that exchange in Funeralia that Cas begins to believe it.
It took me a few episodes (and honestly all of season 13) to finally “get” what is going on in the Dabb era, to realize that things we think are being forgotten or retconned are instead choices and indicate growth in the super-poetic storytelling the writers are crafting this season. With that in mind, it’s been really wonderful to watch Cas blossom this year. I like seeing him getting closer to humanity through food sharing, as though he’s letting himself relax from a tension he hardly knew he was carrying, but that we were meant to spot throughout these last two seasons. It is a kind of reversal or subversion or mirror-image of the Aarne-Thompson motif C211.1-- “eating in fairyland”-- wherein a mortal eats food or drinks from a cup offered by fairy-folk and has to remain there forever. Cas has gone from refusing to eat even in someone else’s dream to sharing clandestine candy cereal at night with his son, and he is deciding to stay. It is striking in a season where things a character says turns out to be Very Important that in Castiel’s case, his vital development is coming in scenes where we are being shown and not told.
Something I thought was really cool in 14x13 was finding out that in Lebanon, Sam and Dean use the surname Campbell. Now obviously, there's probably a very good practical reason for it. Considering the criminal records these guys have under the name Winchester, it makes sense they wouldn't use Winchester. An alias would be the best course of action and the most believable cover stories always include a grain of truth to them.
But I also like to speculate on it from a thematic level. There is so much power in a name. So much of how we define ourselves is placed in our name, which is the foundation of our very being. Consider, if you will, the reason why Dean uses music as a source for his aliases. He associates the music as a sense of who he is.
The Winchester name is indicative of their father, someone they still carry emotional baggage with and until that emotional baggage is dealt with, they can't truly accept that name as part of them in a town that has always symbolized a sense of "home" for them. John Winchester was never "home" for them. And until those issues are resolved, Winchester will never give them that feeling of "home". However, them using the surname Campbell is indicative, thematically at least, of them having worked through their issues with Mary. Because they've worked through the baggage, they feel as if they can accept that name as a part of them and being able to accept that name gives them a sense of "self" in a place they associate as "home". It's also interesting using the name Campbell in the town where the bunker is located when the bunker is actually attached to the Winchester side of their legacy.
And I reay like that the Campbell name in regards to how they introduce themselves to the Lebanon townsfolk is revealed in a episode where they're dealing with the emotional baggage that comes with the Winchester side of them.
Just a thought I had. I would love to hear if anyone else has thoughts on this. Also, tagging my friends @metafest if they want to weigh into this.
Has anyone done an SPN meta on the Colt/Chuck’s gun from 14X20? Like, in my pre-caffeinated state:
Both are weapons with serious catches, i.e. the Colt’s limited ammo/inability to kill Lucifer, and the S14 God Gun killing the target and its user. The connection of both guns to Lucifer and his offspring, and the fact that Cas even tried to use the Colt to kill Kelly and an unborn Jack.
In fact, why haven’t I seen posts about the parallels between Cas and Dean and their decision to kill, and then spare, Jack?
Or, am I just not paying attention and people have totally been talking about these things, but I’ve been too busy lately to notice?
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:
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:
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:
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
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:
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
