Hello there. I know that this might sound a bit subversive but I have to ask if I m the only one a bit wirded out about jack's self preservation? I like him don't get me wrong but when he resurected Cas in my opinion it was for protection (against Dean). His want of killing Michael even if it kills Dean (its not the same as for sam and lucifer)
Hi there! I… haven’t heard it phrased quite that way. I think it’s a lot more complicated than this.
First off, Jack didn’t resurrect Cas, and I think this is an incredibly important differentiation to make here. Jack called out to Cas, unconsciously, with his power, and Cas “woke up” from what was supposed to be “eternal sleep” in the Empty. Cas was still effectively trapped there, and would’ve remained trapped there except for the fact that he raised a ruckus and continued to fight against the Empty Entity, until the entity agreed to release him. Jack didn’t make that happen. That was Cas’s fight on his own behalf here. All Jack did was ring the cosmic alarm clock that made the rest of Cas’s fight even possible.
I also have never heard anyone suggest that Cas called out for Cas for “protection” against Dean. I mean… that’s… really reductive. What Jack overheard was this:
Dean: Look, I know you think that you can use him as some sort of an interdimensional can opener, and that’s fine. But don’t act like you care about him, because you only care about what he can do for you. So if you wanna pretend, that’s fine. But me? I can hardly look at the kid. ‘Cause when I do, all I see is everybody we’ve lost.Sam: Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack.Dean: And what about Cas?Sam: What about Cas?Dean: He manipulated him. He made him promises. Said 'Paradise on Earth,’ and Cas bought it. And you know what it got him? It got him dead! Now you may be able to forget about that, but I can’t!
I don’t think his reaction was one of fear, especially considering Jack fear of his own powers and whether his powers potentially made him inherently evil. Dean’s words that Jack overheard weren’t about Dean being afraid of Jack, or hating Jack, but of the personal emotional pain he experiences that in his grief, are all traceable back to Jack. I don’t think Jack is afraid because of this, but heartsick that he might be in any way responsible for this pain he sees/hears/feels from Dean. And he wondered if he might really have been responsible for Cas’s death after all, because he really had no idea.
And I think Jack’s line of thinking regarding killing Michael even if that meant killing Dean too? Yeah, that’s based 100% on his own personal observations OF DEAN, and really on a surface level knowing that– had Dean been there to weigh in on it– Dean would’ve said the exact same thing. Like, back in 10.09, ,when Dean was terrified of what the Mark of Cain could turn him into:
DEAN: If I do go dark side, you got to take me out.CASTIEL: What do you mean?DEAN: Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, because he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again, man. I can’t be that thing again.
He even knew Sam would try to save him, and he begged Cas to do it anyway. But we KNOW Jack is serving as a mirror to all of TFW. And we know (from 10.19) that Dean even admitted to himself (via the hallucination of Benny in Purgatory that was actually just a bit of Dean’s subconscious) that he could never really force Sam or Cas to have to kill him, not because they couldn’t or wouldn’t, but BECAUSE IT WOULD BREAK THEM.
BENNY: Oh, I-I’m sorry. I forgot… about your plan. You gonna get Sam and Cas to put you down? You really think that they’re gonna keep that agreement? Come on. Dean, let’s say they do. Do you think they will ever recover from that? It will ruin them. This little backup plan of yours, I know you’ve been thinking about it for a time, I know it’s been gnawin’ at you. You can’t leave that job to them.
Dean had already admitted to himself that he couldn’t put that burden on Sam or Cas, knowing it was a horrific thing to ask of either of them. But when he offered something very similar to Jack in 13.02? It hadn’t been so much a threat as a promise, because Jack WAS terrified that he would become evil, or be manipulated into doing evil things with his power, like Asmodeus nearly tricked him into doing in that episode. He didn’t know enough about his powers or the world to know right from wrong, good from bad. He struggled with those concepts for a good long time, and still does to a degree… But Dean said to Jack the one thing that would’ve given Dean himself comfort back in 10.09– I will not let you go darkside and murder the world. I will be here to stop you if you do.
And yeah, in that moment Jack was afraid, and said as much to Sam, but heck… after that Jack actually began to consciously try to understand his own power (sure in 13.03 he pushed back against Sam’s strict teaching methods and scared himself… but heck, he clearly now understands what Dean was trying to tell him back in 13.02). Remember, this entire confrontation was prefaced by Dean’s horror that Jack would just sit there calmly stabbing himself to watch himself heal again. Dean grabbed the knife from him, protecting Jack from himself, and then took the burden of stabbing himself out of Jack’s hands:
Dean: You know, my brother thinks you can be saved.Jack: You don’t believe that.Dean: No, I don’t.Jack: So… if you’re right?Dean: If I’m right… and it comes to killing you… I’ll be the one to do it.
Dean didn’t say it with malice. He said it with finality. Even though at the time they had no idea if it was even possible to kill Jack by any known means, you know? In Dean Logic, this was supposed to be a comfort, to take this weight of fear off Jack’s shoulders, you know? Because Dean has BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, HAS THE BLOODY T-SHIRTS TO PROVE IT. From all sides of the coin, going all the way back to John’s orders to him in 2.01– if you can’t save Sam, you’re gonna have to kill him. As the least emotionally invested person in Jack at that time, Dean stepped up and announced he would do the do should it become a Jack Murdering the World situation.
Because Dean knew himself in 10.22 that Cas could never follow through and put him out of his misery:
Castiel: Maybe you could fight the mark for years, maybe centuries like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever, and when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I’m the who’ll have to watch you murder the world, so if there is even a small chance that we can save you, I won’t let you walk out of this room.
Cas would’ve stayed by his side to bear witness to Dean’s ultimate destruction rather than kill him. And that’s why Dean walked out. He knew he had no failsafe, that he was essentially doomed to destroy the universe, and nobody would stop him (and he knew he couldn’t stop himself– Cain became what he was when he tried to take his own life with the First Blade and was reborn as a demon, after all… Dean couldn’t kill himself… which is why he went to Death in 10.23).
So yeah, to Dean? That statement would’ve been a comfort.
But let me underscore this point too: DEAN POSSESSED BY MICHAEL IS NOT THE SAME AS MoC DEAN “GOING DARKSIDE” OR JACK “TURNING EVIL BECAUSE OF HIS POWERS.”
Honestly? In the depths of his possession, drowning and failing to claw his way to the surface, we don’t know if Dean would’ve begged for death or begged for life. When he’d said yes, it had been in part to save Jack’s life (as well as Sam’s, as well as ensuring that Lucifer was stopped now that he had Jack’s immense nephilim power source and was intent on destroying the world as we know it). For all Dean knew, Lucifer had already killed Jack and Sam, but he knew he had to try to save them. And I think Jack does bear some measure of personal guilt over this fact. He’d been the one to trust Lucifer. He’d felt confident enough in his own power not to see how Lucifer was ready to betray him for standing up to him.
Jack’s already lamented the loss of his powers because he was unable to save Dean or defeat Michael.
I in no way think Jack’s insistence that Cas accept that he might have to kill Dean in order to defeat Michael was predicated on a fear of Dean. Or even on anger at Dean for having said yes to Michael. But Jack’s understanding of humanity, and his understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, is… not fully developed yet. We’re watching him go through the emotional equivalent of adolescence here, considering he was ready to run away from home because he didn’t think he should be treated like a kid in 14.03. He may have been parroting back things he’s heard Dean say in similar situations before, but he doesn’t understand the nuance.
Also, Cas needed to hear that from the other side of the table, you know? Just as Cas was unable to verbalize his objections to killing Dean back in s10, now he’s had a chance to have considered that scenario. He knows how Dean (and Sam, but we’re talking about killing Dean specifically here, so I’m gonna pin this one on Dean for now) had been willing to stay by his side and fight Ramiel in 12.12 despite having no real hope for his survival. They refused to give up on him. And in 12.10, Dean had a chance to banish Ishim and save himself, but the risk that Cas wouldn’t survive being banished was too much and Dean had essentially surrendered his own life even on the uncertain chance that saving himself might hurt or even kill Cas. So. In 14.02:
Jack: Cas, Michael has to be stopped.Castiel: I know, and he will be, after Dean is –Jack: No, Dean doesn’t matter. You’re all so focused on trying to save Dean. And I get it, I understand, but if he can’t be saved, if it comes down to him or Michael… Michael has to be stopped. Caged or killed –Castiel: And if that means that Dean dies, too?Jack: Then Dean dies. I know this Michael. I’ve seen what he’s done to an entire world, and so have you. If stopping that from happening here means that Dean has to die, then… Do you think he’d want it any other way?
Cas… really has to think about that… because this isn’t a question with an easy answer. Jack makes it sound so simple, but Cas knows from personal experience that it is in no way that simple.
