@heavensmostadorableangel pointed out the fact that Michael has a trend of using family and their safety to manipulate people into agreements.
(We’ve seen him do this three times over the course of supernatural: the first when he uses the fact that Mary is in danger to get John to agree to hosting him, the second when he has Zachariah torture Adam to get Dean to agree to become his vessel and the third when he has Zachariah promise Adam that he’ll be reunited with his mom if he agrees to be his vessel.)
I wonder where Michael learned this method was effective? Was it by trial? Character analysis? Or did he learn it from someone? Someone who’s a master manipulator? Someone like Chuck?
Now this isn’t me excusing Michael’s behavior - what he did was plenty shitty - but I honestly wouldn’t put it past Chuck to use this method (using family & their safety) to manipulate his kids, the archangels. I mean, its already canon that Chuck is an abuser. It’s slightly less obvious but also widely accepted in our community that Michael is one of the many beings Chuck abused.
So let’s say Chuck does this. He threatens Michael’s siblings’ (Lucifer, Gabriel, Raphael) safety and manipulates Michael into doing his bidding. Michael, being the victim of this strategy, sees how effective it is. So when he gets into a similar situation where he’s the all powerful one and the lesser beings aren’t cooperating, what does he do? Fall back on strategies he knows - first hand - will work.
