#spn 1.12

[stealingurman]

Season 1 episode 12 what is happening. Dean is WHAT? he's HUH?

[zmediaoutlet]

spn20rewatch, 1.12: "The guy probably would've died anyway."

After agreeing that, yes, you're invested in the mission of this family after all, and you're an equal participant in it and you're bought in -- what are you willing to do?

Death comes easy in Supernatural -- it's kind of the starting premise -- and avoiding death comes more-or-less easy, too. Faith is the first time we see the Winchesters evade the obvious conclusion but it's far from the last, and it's also the first time we see how easy the slippage comes between breathing and not, between moral and not, between allowable and not. Reapers seem to come for the dying no matter what, but it isn't actually that hard to redirect that energy from one person to another. What happens when you do it? What cost are you willing to bear?

Dean takes a mortal wound in the everyday exigencies of the hunt. He was a good person, saving kids from a monster. He doesn't deserve to die. (Right?) A faith healer sees something special in him and he's chosen, over a lot of others, and he will be snatched back from the jaws of patient death, and -- that's good, right? Dean will live and he will save many more kids, and him being alive is a net positive in the world. Does it matter what it costs?

Unfortunately, as Sam is soon to learn, evading the inevitable in the moral structure of Supernatural's universe is just a whole-ass series of trolley problems. Yes, Dean lives, but Marshall Hall dies. Did Marshall deserve that? He was probably a decent guy. Maybe he didn't save kids from monsters, but he was a human person and that should be enough to deserve life. Was his life more valuable on the eternal scales than Dean's? For Sam, most certainly, but we can't trust Sam's judgment on making that call. Is there any possibility of being objective, here? (On a meta level, would the driving structural forces of this narrative allow any other option?)

DEAN: Sam, the guy's playing God, he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book. SAM: No. We're not going to kill a human being, Dean. We do that, we're no better than he is.

Tricky calculus. Who decides? And, worse, what if you know that by one decision you're dooming some to death, but some others will live? Would Sam have made the decision to go to the faith healer if he knew that someone else would go in Dean's place? We really don't know, and at this point I'm not sure Sam knows, either. He'd certainly say that he wouldn't, especially with the benefit of hindsight. In the lonely growing darkness in a motel room with his dad refusing to answer the phone and Dean's white face in a white hospital bed blotting out every other thought -- who knows what decision he would've made, with full awareness.

How lucky that he got exactly what he wanted without having to make the grimiest possible version of the choice. Sam (and we) can wonder what might have happened, if Layla had been chosen first and they'd realized what the stakes really were and then on a later day Roy had turned his smiling benevolence Dean's way. Who decides who lives and who dies? Luckily the universe tends to intercede on the Winchesters' behalf before they have to answer that question truthfully.

[mittensmorgul]

I’m pretty sure I made a post of these two scenes when 12.19 originally aired, but these two scenes share the exact same themes and point. From 12.19:

and from 1.12 Faith:

[DEAN reluctantly rises and moves toward the stage. SUE ANN moves to assist and stands him next to ROY.] ROY: You ready? DEAN: Look, no disrespect, but ahh, I'm not exactly a believer. ROY: (smiling) You will be, son. You will be. ROY: (To the crowd) Pray with me, friends.

[...]

[DEAN's eyes glaze over. His knees weaken and he sinks to his knees, ROY's hand still on his head] ROY: Alright, now. [DEAN wobbles, his eyes fall back in his head and he slips to the stage floor.] SAM: (jumping from his chair and running to the stage) Dean! [The crowd is clapping excitedly. SAM grabs the front of DEAN's Hoodie. DEAN's eyes burst open and he gasps.] SAM: Say Something! [DEAN blinks groggily and looks up. ROY is standing above him, hands out from his sides, palms up, looking happy. beside and slightly behind ROY a tall man in a black suit with white hair, very white skin and extremely wrinkled skin comes into focus. He stares at DEAN then turns away and vanishes. DEAN watches him, shocked.]

The only difference is instead of “faith” in God or a higher power, Dean was suspicious. Cas bought into it wholesale because it was telling/showing him what he wanted to hear.

[spngeorg]

So we're officially here, the first episode that I had to stop and stare at a wall for a few minutes and then immediately go back and watch it again. I had been enjoying the show before this. It felt like a fun little adventure story about chasing a mysterious monster that had altered their lives forever, seeking revenge and answers and trying to find their father. But this episode? This changed things for me, far more than Home even did.Maybe I just have a thing for Capital-D Death, in a cosmic sense. Then again, so much of later canon about God and faith and life and death (and Death) only serves to make this episode stronger in retrospect. And in some ways way more painful! Wheee! >.>I've personally started to think of this episode as Chuck having discovered the Trolley Problem and wondering how to make it work as an overall life choice. Though he takes it to entirely new levels, and had been since the beginning of creation.Things I reference in this week's episode include:

A Spiders George post I wrote the first time I watched this episode post-14.20, and the Big Chuck Reveal

My general tag for this episode

The Superwiki entry for this episode

The script (NOT a transcript, the actual script) for this episode

Sorry this one’s a bit on the long side... just know I cut about a quarter of it in editing. I could probably talk about this one for years if anyone let me :’D

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts

[plainwater-pdf]

1.12 Faith // colorsnatural

[plainwater-pdf]

oh we’re posting safe sammy content ?

[sammyblep]

that moment in 1.12 where you can SEE dean thinking about how he’d willingly trade his life for layla’s if it meant the redirected reapings would stop and how he thinks it would make up for the life he inadvertently took and you can SEE his anguish over the fact that he was used to kill someone and he wants nothing more than to undo that. i

[sammyblep]

so. dean’s first up-close encounter with faith (in the show if not in his whole life) was having another man killed to save his life. this, for the hunter who wants nothing moer than to save people. this for the man who has been self-reliant his whole life. the first time he was made to trust others so he might be helped, he was used in the most horrible of ways. and this definitely isn’t reflective of how he acts in later seasons about angels and faith and michael. this definitely wasn’t a defining moment for him, being saved at the expense of another life, being told he was worth more than others. all that to a man who has dedicated himself to a servitude that comes with no thanks. this is fine i’m fine this is f i n e