11x22 - We Happy Few
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11x22 - We Happy Few
Watching the end of s11 this morning on the TNT loop, and reminded again how quickly Sam became the Chuck fanboy, and that with Chuck there, he was even willing to HELP LUCIFER, because gosh and golly everything was going to work out if God was actually on our side for once! They had The OG Weapon Against Evil on their side, and I think that’s what allowed Sam to even remotely tolerate Lucifer’s presence in the bunker.
And when they got started talking about killing Amara...
DEAN: I tried to kill her. (Flashback to DEAN stabbing AMARA only for the knife to shatter.) And it didn't work. CHUCK: Maybe it didn't work because you didn't want it to work. Maybe you didn't want to kill her. SAM: You want God to kill Amara because you don't want Amara to be killed? DEAN: Yeah, maybe there's a part of me that just can't hurt her. But if she's already dead— SAM: Then she's already dead. Right. LUCIFER: Well, that got weird. SAM: Dean… We always sweat this stuff, these choices. But, for once, we have God on our side. I mean, for once, we can actually just do things his way. (CHUCK opens his hands.)
The “easy plan” to defeat her that Chuck let Sam effectively talk himself into ended up being the Soul Bomb. Which... of course... would mean Dean sacrificing himself to make that plan happen. Always one sacrifice so the other could live. That’s always Chuck’s plot. And Sam walked right into it, and Dean went along because they didn’t have any other choice, it was the right thing to do... so God said...
I just... everything about s11. They did all of this.
And then wrote 15.20... I just will never understand it.
lol, 11.22 was probably the closest chuck ever got to just flat-out getting the ending he wanted, if only Amara hadn’t interfered in 11.23...
SAM: Dean… We always sweat this stuff, these choices. But, for once, we have God on our side. I mean, for once, we can actually just do things his way.
I mean
it would take him four more years to manipulate Dean into this again with Jack as the bomb instead of himself, but like... same plot, same twist, same old same old for Chuck the one-note storyteller
sad that the takeaway from the finale is free will is a lie, humanity can’t actually win, and chuck’s story is inevitable even without him manipulating events for his own idle amusement
I've watched season 11 again, and I have a question if you're willing to answer. In season 5, Cas was very disappointed about learning God was basically a "dead beat dad," as Dean called it. But when Cas had an opportunity to talk to Chuck, he didn't seem all that interested in talking to him or even asking a question or two. Why do you think they never had Cas interact with Chuck as a son talking to his father when it was such a huge deal for Cas in season 5?
Hi there! I’m happy to talk about this, because honestly I was personally GLAD that Cas treated Chuck the way he did in s11.
(A/N: I was halfway through writing this when my power went out last night, so now that everything is back on I’m gonna see if I remember wtf I was even talking about... if this goes sideways halfway through, blame Potomac Edison)
Cas had already realized long before exactly who and what Chuck was. I mean, not that Chuck was actually God, but that God and “His Plan” was always a load of BS.
Chuck left the angels a lot of conflicting information, and not a lot in the Free Will and Critical Thinking arena. I was just thinking about season 6, and this sort of feeds into a lot of the same distinction between Cas and the rest of the angels. My personal line of thinking earlier this evening was this line in 6.20:
CASTIEL I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you. DEAN Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me. CASTIEL You're the one who taught me that freedom and free will -- DEAN You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!
Major Tangent Warning, because I gotta write out what I was thinking earlier in order to explain why I am So Pleased with Cas and his reaction to Chuck in s11, which I think of as abject disdain. This is key to everything Cas had learned, to all of his growth as a person up to that point.
What Dean tells Cas here is in direct contradiction to what Raphael’s self-stated motive in restarting the apocalypse was. Also from 6.20:
RAPHAEL You rebelled - against God, heaven, and me. Now you will atone. We'll start by freeing Lucifer and Michael from their cage. And then we'll get our show back on the road. CASTIEL Raphael...No. The Apocalypse doesn't have to be fought! RAPHAEL Of course it does. It's God's will. CASTIEL How can you say that?! RAPHAEL Because it's what I want. CASTIEL Well, the other angels won't let you. RAPHAEL Are you sure? You know better than anyone, Castiel. They're soldiers. They weren't built for freedom. They were built to follow.
Raphael is just doing “whatever he wants,” in the way Dean was trying to convince Cas NOT to. Because if Dean learns anything in s6, it is the cosmic cost of his own actions. Think 6.11, and the lessons he learns having to play Death for a day. As much as Dean tries to work around the Bigger Picture of the Universe, he does understand that there is a right and a wrong, and that some things are worth fighting or even dying for, but the cost might sometimes just be too great. And unleashing all the souls in purgatory on the planet seems like just a different sort of apocalyptic level of bad... like putting out a fire with a flamethrower.
Cas had to make a choice here. He’d chosen his path every step of the way, wrestled with each decision he’d had to make over the previous year leading up to that point, but he’d passed the point of no return, and his direct prayer to Chuck went unanswered, and he never got a sign whether he was doing the right thing or not.
I’ve argued in the past that he absolutely DID get a sign, in the form of Dean telling him to stop in 6.20. But Cas dismissed him, out of pride, out of hubris, out of desperation to do the one thing he believed could give him the power to stop Apocalypse 2.0, save Heaven, and also save Dean in the process, since Dean would be back on the radar to be Michael’s vessel if Raphael succeeded in breaking him out of the Cage.
And here’s the really tangenty part of the tangent: it just made me think of all the nitwits who won’t wear a mask in public, or follow social distancing rules because MAH FREEDUMB, you’re impinging on MAH LIBERTY. BUT THE CONSTITUTION!
Because yes, we can do what we want, but we can’t do WHATEVER we want when our actions are harmful to others!
The framers of the Constitution could never have foreseen a pandemic like this. But any SOCIETY where people must coexist needs to put some constraints on liberty, and the framers absolutely DID understand this.
They also couldn’t have foreseen air travel, but we have established rules about this. They couldn’t have foreseen cars and traffic lights and interstate highways, and yet we have rules that govern our behavior there, as well. Air traffic controllers, stop signs, speed limits-- we don’t just have the right to drive 90 mph through a school zone and run through red lights. And yet nobody yells BUT MAH FREEDUMB! when they get a speeding ticket.
Polite society ALSO must include *MY* right not to be killed because someone else decided that traffic laws didn’t apply to them, see?
Basically, wear your mask and shut up about it, whiny pissbabies. This is what is required of you to live in a functioning society. You do NOT have the right to infect others with a potentially deadly illness. Full stop.
But back to Cas and the Leviathan infection he’s about to infest the entire planet with...
Dean was effectively giving him the “wear a mask, nitwit” speech, but on a cosmic level.
And Cas had to live with the consequences of his choice, with the GUILT and DEPRESSION that resulted. And he spent the next few seasons desperately trying to make up for what he’d done, to atone and do whatever he could to redeem himself-- to Dean. He’d tried to redeem himself to Heaven, but the more he eventually began to learn about Humanity, the less affinity he felt for his fellow angels, and for Chuck’s construct of Heaven.
Because back to another previous point, Chuck effectively left the angels two opposing sets of instructions: orders to watch over the earth and act as shepherds to humanity, and orders to bring on the apocalypse at any cost. Can’t do both, truly. Even Naomi will eventually say, right before Metatron stabs her in the head, that she (and the other angels) forgot that their true mission was to protect and defend humanity, and she didn’t know when or why that ever changed.
FINALLY back to the point! WHEEE!
Basically, Cas has, in the six years between s5 and s11, experienced “god-ness” from every angle, experienced his own guilt over what he now believes were misguided actions, that sometimes Humanity has a better answer, and there are some things that just aren’t worth it in the long run.
Mostly, he’s realized just HOW deadbeat Chuck has always been. And the revelation that Chuck had actually been God all along? Saw their pain and suffering at trying to STOP the apocalypse all those years before? KNEW FULL WELL that Sam, Dean and Cas were doing everything they could to try and save the world from basically the entirety of Heaven and Hell, who were plotting the destruction of humanity and most of creation with it. I mean... Cas spent s5 begging for God’s help, to save the world, to convince Michael and Lucifer that they did not have to destroy humanity, and Chuck... had done LESS than nothing. He’d sat there and ghoulishly watched the entire mess unfold like a bad tv show... oh wait... :’D
By s11, Lucifer had not reached that point that Cas had. Lucifer had many other issues, having been rejected and locked up for most of existence, and even HE had been the one in 5.22 to try and talk Michael out of enacting Chuck’s battle plan. Lucifer never had the experiences Cas did (and despite being given every opportunity to have them over the next few seasons after s11, he continues to reject those experienced at every turn anyway, only serving to highlight the difference between Cas and, honestly, most of the rest of the angels). Lucifer had a personal need for a direct apology from Chuck for everything he’d been put through-- starting with taking on the original Mark and ending with the cage.
Of course Lucifer didn’t get an honest apology, because in the end, it was all just a theoretical production to Chuck. He had never apologized, in any of his universes, to any of the beings he created. And he never would. And on some level, Cas-- via his experiences, what he himself had already come to understand about God and creation-- already understood this about Chuck.
Cas... didn’t care about him anymore. He cared about HUMANITY, about Chuck’s CREATION. The creator might be a worthless jerk, but what came out of his creation is a thing of ultimate beauty. Humanity, love, free will, and the beauty of the universe is what ends up saving the world in 11.23, so I’ve chosen to accept this read of Cas and his relationship and opinions of Chuck. Because it’s perfectly in line with the “moral” of season 11.
Plus it’s just so personally satisfying to me watching each individual character’s reactions to Chuck, and understanding how that aligns with all of their personal arcs.
Dean: brought the “how could your forsake your creation” of a broken-hearted son who has finally seen the truth. something he worked out YEARS ago between himself and his own father, so it didn’t come with that particular personal baggage and didn’t completely break him in the process (as it may have done with Cas had Chuck revealed himself, say, in 7.01...)
Sam: brought his life-long hope that God was real, his faith in God’s inherent “goodness,” did the Chuck Fanboy for a bit before seeing Chuck a lot more clearly. He was able to relinquish his idol worship of Chuck as the Savior of Humanity.
Cas: had brought his experience of Humanity and Godhood, the entire spectrum of Creation that he had experienced for himself and grown through. Cas, for all his mistakes, had never stopped TRYING to do the right thing, never stopped doing everything in his power to save humanity and creation from every cosmic threat, while Chuck himself had only hidden away and watched from the sidelines, when he’d ALWAYS had the power to make everything good and right and allow the Winchesters their peace. Honestly, what BETTER response than to treat Chuck like a bit of gum stuck to his shoe?
Metatron: who had basically spent s9 trying to turn himself into Chuck Lite, literally plagiarizing his Supernatural novels to create his own origin story as the new God, and failed miserably. What other angel could truly confront Chuck, writer to writer, and call him out for His Story? Even fallen as low as he could go, Metatron understood first-hand the responsibility of The Cosmic Author in ways even Cas couldn’t, because narrative symmetry. Metatron was always about the Word, as God’s Scribe. He was a bad copy of the original with the names scratched out. He basically wrote the worst self-insert fanfic of all time. And that gave him the narrative space to confront Chuck about everything that Cas no longer had. Cas had long since rejected that role, sided with Humanity, and smashed Chuck’s Word. The original tablet-breaker.
Crowley: carried on Crowley-ing. Doing the best he could with what he had, and somehow miraculously BS’ing his way through.
Rowena: recognized the Biggest Power in the room and ingratiated herself to it for comfort and protection, and hopefully for a bit of power and security.
Billie: gosh she just stepped in at the 11th hour to annoy Chuck. :’D
But yeah, I’ve always been incredibly pleased that Cas basically ignored Chuck in s11. Good for him.
Did Chuck only recently make it so that a soul that's been to hell can't go to heaven, or is that how it's always been and he made an exception for John and Bobby?
We just don’t know. Isn’t that incredible?
The show has been doing this repeatedly since 14.20, pushing us to question what’s real and what’s Chuck’s whim now.
Just like we saw Jack’s “STOP LYING!” and then everyone stopped lying, I think we’re supposed to recognize this as the sort of thing Chuck has done on a lot of levels of the story, for years. And oftentimes, his explanations for things sound really contrived, you know? They literally lampshaded that fact in 15.02:
Dean: Kevin's not even supposed to be in Hell, okay, so when this is all over, we're gonna send him up in Heaven where he belongs.Belphegor: Yeah, yeah, not gonna happen. Souls cast down to Hell? That's the end of it. Heaven can't take 'em.Sam: That's not true. Our dad made it to Heaven after he was in Hell.Dean: And Bobby Singer.Belphegor: So God made an exception. Didn't He used to like you two? Just saying. Without the big guy... them's the rules.
DIDN’T HE USED TO LIKE YOU TWO?
He did this back at the end of s11, a lot... changed the rules to suit his narrative. Basically everything having to do with him and Amara-- “she’s blocking me,” when we actively saw her searching for him and being unable to find him; telling Dean he should’ve killed her when he had the chance, and then admitting she can’t be killed; telling them he’s been “hands off” forever and then proving everything was his doing... I mean... he’s not a reliable narrator. :’D
Creating the Equalizer gun was pretty much the ultimate example of this-- a weapon that shoots plot devices.
So... I think the real question isn’t whether or not he made up that rule on the spot and it became reality, but what these bits of information tell us about Chuck and his motives and his story overall, you know?
All of this, I believe, is designed to put us into Dean’s headspace here regarding Chuck, and Dean’s own feelings about the entire world basically being a game rigged against him. We-the-audience are supposed to share Dean’s uncertainty, his total emotional unbalancing at the revelation that Chuck has been so specifically meddling in their lives from the very start. And all these little reminders of how... plastic Chuck’s reality is.
heh, this reminds me of long meta I wrote earlier in the season, right after 15.04: https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/188943278490/plastic-fantastic
The very next episode gave us a plastic, and yet entirely self-aware of the fact, plot device in Lilith, as Sam and Dean began to realize just how much Chuck might still be meddling in their lives. And then we saw a series of what appear to be “wins” with Eileen’s return, but the episode is bookended by questioning whether or not any of it is actually part of Chuck’s story.
Dean’s expressing his doubts out loud, pretty consistently, but Sam... he keeps stating his feelings on the matter while Jared’s acting is showing us that Sam is gradually growing more uncertain. Since 15.08 left us with Sam having been directly lured into Chuck’s presence (a blatant manipulation by Chuck! Was Sue ever real at all in this episode, or was it always Chuck pretending to be her?). On the other side of things, we have Dean and Cas being told they need to return to Purgatory for a “Leviathan Blossom,” which is something we’ve never heard of before, after *we* have seen Chuck repeatedly reference Purgatory over the season so far. Benny was in one of Sam’s visions sent by Chuck, he specifically referenced the Leviathans when trying to get Becky to agree with him that people like the monsters in his stories, and in 14.20, the Leviathans were the FIRST thing he referenced when telling TFW just how “hands off” he’s been by basically saying it was THEIR idea to create all these terrible scenarios, and not HIS idea and actions entirely.
Chuck: Listen, you guys know me. I'm hands-off. I built the sandbox -- you play in it. You want to fight Leviathans? Cool. You got that. You want to go up against -- what was it? -- the "British Men of Letters"? Okay. Little weak, but okay. But when things get really bad, like the Apocalypse or the Other Apocalypse, that's when I have to step in.
Chuck may have built the sandbox, but he keeps throwing garbage into it while everyone else is just trying to have a bit of a toes in the sand time, you know? And he consistently invents stuff to both throw into the box AND explain it away and deflect culpability from himself.
And the entire point of the season is sifting through the sand to find the truth.
I'm kind of confused at the moment and I was wondering if you could help me. When Chuck reappeared in season 11, he was ready to sacrifice himself to save the world from Amara (after being convinced his creations are worth saving) but now in season 15 he's apparently a god who enjoys drama and wants to stay alive so he can replay the angst-y aspect of Sam and Dean's story. Am I perhaps missing something? Sorry to bother you.
Hi there! and first off, it’s no bother at all!
I’m going to suggest that the fastest route to clearing up your confusion would be to understand that Chuck just flat-out wasn’t being honest... about anything, really... back in s11.
He was shady and squirrelly and basically manipulating everyone all over the place. From the moment we saw him hiding out in his bar at the end of the universe, and Metatron started calling him out for his cowardice-- for hiding and riding out the end of the universe in his cozy little clubhouse all by himself, we were being invited to question who Chuck really was. I mean, sure, he’s God, but what kind of god is he? Is he wrathful? Vengeful? Loving? Does he think of creation as his beloved child or as idle entertainment for himself?
And he lies. Like. A lot.
I find it difficult to look at his behavior in late s11 and just trust that surface-level, or anything that comes out of his mouth, for that matter. Even within the span of 11.20, Metatron caught him out in a hefty number of lies, or misrepresentations, or attempts to shift blame to others...
And we-the-audience were shown multiple times that he was flat-out lying to the Winchesters. Like while he was hiding out in the bunker, insisting that he couldn’t find Amara because she was blocking him or warded against him, while we were shown Amara literally tearing up Heaven and Earth trying to find HIM. She used Cas’s body to make a connection to Dean to deliver a message to Chuck... here, quotes from 11.21:
Dean: So, where is she?Chuck: No freakin' idea, fellas. She's warded herself specifically against me. What have you come up with?
and
Amara: I've missed you, Dean. It's been a while since we've spoken. I'm aware my brother has surfaced. If you should cross paths, if he should reach out to you, he should know this – Lucifer, his favorite, isn't doing so well. [Casifer appears, tortured and beaten] To say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel. By choosing to ignore me, my brother is allowing this to happen. These and... other things. I thought you should know. [She fades away]
SHE HAS BEEN TEARING UP THE JOINT TRYING TO GET AN AUDIENCE WITH CHUCK, and Chuck is just like “oh no she’s specifically warded against me.”
LIAR.
And when you approach everything about Chuck from that understanding, it all makes sense. He was never willing to sacrifice himself. He was waiting for His Favorite Characters™ to go full self-sacrifice mode for him. Again.
He’d convinced Sam to take on the Mark of Cain to lock her up again. He needed to feel “big,” for his “fan club” to reunite to adore him (in the religious sense of the word).
Amara: Spoiled brat. I needed solitude and he needed a fan club, so he made all that. Then when I complained, he stuffed me in a hole for eons – with your help.
NONE of this changed from the time Chuck returned to the story through the present day. This is who Chuck is, who he’s always been. He lies, and when people blame him for bad things in the world, he points to anything other than himself and says, “No, that’s actually the cause of your problems.” Like he did with the other gods (according to Fortuna in 15.11). Just like he did with Amara. With Lucifer. With everything that didn’t turn out objectively well. But all this time, he keeps manipulating the universe to turn out poorly, because that’s what he finds amusing.
It’s no wonder so many of his creations enjoy destroying everything for funsies. Chips off the ol’ block, as it were.
Amara stopped Sam from taking the Mark, refused to let herself be caged again. And instead he tried to blame first Lucifer for failing to contain Amara, and then Dean for failing to kill her, even knowing that NEITHER of those things were ever possible for them to have done. Like... what an asshat. And then he waited for his clever little favorites to find another way... another way that would directly necessitate one of them sacrifice himself to save the rest. Soul bombs ahoy!
But Amara didn’t actually want to kill Chuck, she literally just wanted to talk with him. Like... all along, ALL of this agony, was the result of Chuck not wanting to accept fault for any of it.
And now, four years later, Chuck’s acting exactly like what Amara accused him of being back in 11.21-- a spoiled brat.
There’s so many more examples I could point to, but this is literally always how Chuck has been portrayed. He was literally never on their side.
And Amara... literally never wanted to destroy creation. She wanted Chuck to answer for what he’d done to her. Destroying creation was her play to get his attention after he spent the majority of the season ignoring her, or actively hiding from her. Metatron even guessed that one right:
METATRON: You started writing the second she came back, didn't you?(CHUCK puts his hands in his pockets.)METATRON: No wonder you're on a deadline! Now I understand why you're masquerading in that sad, little meat suit! For the same reason you created this nostalgic bar to write your masterpiece in – you're hiding!
Because that’s what Chuck always does. Hide from responsibility, lock up his problems and pretend he didn’t create them, and blame everyone else for his own failures. Over and over again. Always has.
eeeee I’m very happy that a dead Cas is now officially chuck's ideal ending. (Kind of? I mean,,,, he told Sam that what he showed him is what would happen if TFW won, but it was still the ending *Chuck* has been wanting.) either way! It’s now textually part of the What We Absolutely Can’t Let Happen package!
Lol, I mean, a dead Sam and Dean are officially part of Chuck’s ideal ending, so it’s kinda like... if Chuck is targeting you like that, if he specifically and horrifically wants you off the table that bad because he knows that with you alive then his plans fall apart... yeah...
Which, honestly... explains an awful lot why Chuck’s spent so much effort keeping Cas busy with other stuff in the past. I’m entirely rethinking s6 and s7 here, because this explains so much. It’s not that Cas was being controlled by anyone, but after 5.22, Cas... poked at things. He let (half of, anyway) Sam out of the cage, he stood up to Raphael who was scheduled to finish the apocalypse, and then he teamed up with Crowley to hoover all the souls out of Purgatory.
I mean Chuck was probably giddy with anticipation over the leviathan getting freed, you know? He didn’t even have to interfere to bring on his monster apocalypse. Just sit back and watch the chaos. He didn’t even mind Death nudging Dean in the right direction a few times, because Dean was so busy with his own immediate problems he couldn’t figure out Death’s hints in time to stop Cas anyway... And then Cas inadvertently and conveniently cleared himself off the table once the monsters were free. And yet... something about this wasn’t entirely satisfying, and Cas was brought back without his memories and stashed away to what... to give Dean a bit of hope that Chuck could just dash again? Because then Cas stashed himself away AGAIN after fixing Sam and taking on the trauma that was killing him, and then stashed himself in Purgatory for a while before coming back as an unwitting pawn of Heaven.
I think Chuck enjoys watching Cas go through this over and over again.
“Punishment resurrection.”
But s15 TFW isn’t the same fractured and scattered TFW from s6. They know Chuck’s God. And they know he’s the antagonist who keeps pushing them through more and more horrific versions of his own ugly story.
Billie is not OG Death, and she’s willing to bide her time and plan.
Sam is not soulless. He’s been through all of this before, and he’s endured, and he’s gonna endure again. He may have had his hope shaken a bit, but I don’t think that’s something Chuck can actually take from him entirely. As long as he’s alive, there’s a chance.
Dean is not the grieving, out of the loop shell of himself he was in s6. He knows what’s going on now, even if everything seems kinda bleak... He’s already established that in addition to Sam (who’s not in hell or soulless now), he also needs Cas in his life, even if it’s just the two of them sitting at the table commiserating.
And Cas... finally understands that Dean wants him to stay, needs him to stay, and that every time Dean has told him this before (even if it was worded differently, because Dean struggles to express himself directly) Cas had left anyway-- for Dean’s own safety, to shield Dean from having to do something terrible, to sacrifice himself so Dean wouldn’t have to-- Dean didn’t care because all he could see was I asked him to stay and he left anyway. I am not enough. I am not worth staying for. And now in Purgatory, they finally began to have that conversation. Cas got a win for Dean, a year worth of s8 prayers that Cas had heard have been condensed into a single prayer that finally brought them together instead of convincing Cas he needed to keep running away to protect Dean. Instead of shoving Dean through the portal and staying behind, Cas waited at the portal for Dean and they walked back through together. Almost like ALL of the things that have been haunting Cas and driving him to penance since s6 have at least begun to be addressed and resolved in s15.
What were we talking about at the top of this? I think I’ve gone off on a tangent again...
RIGHT! Chuck’s gotta nerf Cas for his plot to work out.
It’s wild, right? Because Chuck’s whole “This Is Your Future Life” episode he crafted to convince Sam that locking him away with a Mark is a terrible idea that can only end one way... Do you know how frustrating it must’ve been for Chuck to have to stop them from caging him? Because it was a double-edged sword. I mean, on the one hand, I’m sure he LOVED the idea of Cas slowly going mad with the Mark until Dean was compelled to lock him in a ma’lak box and bury him right along with his hope and happiness, but if they had succeeded in casting that spell, then CHUCK WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WATCH HIS FAVORITE SHOW. Like Amara in that same cage, his fun would’ve been over.
Can’t watch all the suffering if you’re locked in a cosmic dungeon!
It’s incredibly funny to me that Chuck convinced Sam that his nonsensical “future” was a true seeing, that he “shared his omniscience” with Sam with that watch. Because the one thing the show has demonstrated over the years that Chuck sincerely hopes they’ve forgotten, is that you can’t change the past, but the future is never set in stone until it comes to pass. And the future is built on choices.
Chuck can account for a lot of things, but he can’t account for Free Will. He can nudge, he can remove options, he can create roadblocks leaving only terrible choices open to them that will have awful consequences or require painful sacrifices, but... TFW has never completely done what they’re told, you know? Cas is the original “spanner in the works,” and Edlund once commented that yes, he has a “crack in his chassis,” but it’s a crack through which great things come. But Sam and Dean also have this frustrating and fascinating gift to stymie Chuck’s plot.
And this is the true power of TFW. I think this is the tool they need to fully understand for themselves in order to finally win. They’ve been edging around it for a while, but Chuck always finds some way to foil them when they start getting close to examining their own wants. Like every time Dean starts talking about being able to take a vacation, or feeling hopeful that the future looks a little less bloodsoaked for them, Chuck steps in and throws them a monster of a curveball. Last time Dean started up with the toes-in-the-sand talk, he’d been possessed by AU Michael by the end of the episode, and crushed like a bug, his free will rendered entirely irrelevant. No amount of fighting against Michael, of telling him to get out, was able to free him. And then Chuck showed up again to hammer the lesson home. Only they learned a different lesson from the one he was trying to teach.
Heck, that’s another frustrating thing for Chuck, isn’t it? TFW has a long, long history of doing that.
Dabb even tweeted lyrics from “The End” by the Doors before this episode aired. Because this was a 5.04 redux, in a lot of ways. The circumstances of the future that Chuck imagined to horrify Sam may be entirely different, but the premise, the themes, the structure of it all... it’s functionally identical. But that was a distraction of sorts, as well. The other episode this referred back to... was 9.18.
Metatron showed his hand, revealed his process, and it’s identical to Chuck’s, because Metatron was just playing God, in the exact same way Chuck always did. He was a writer.
CASTIEL: And you did all this to make me a hero?METATRON [laughing]: Ah, that's priceless. Um no. You are not the hero in this mess-terpiece. You are the villain. I'm the hero.
and
METATRON: Didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but that is why we rewrite. That was God's problem, you know... he published the first draft. You got to keep at it till you get all your ducks in a row.GADREEL: Was the Winchesters grabbing me part of your plan?METATRON: That was a surprise. But, hey, what writer doesn't love a good twist? My job is to set up interesting characters and see where they lead me. The by-product of having well-drawn characters is...They may surprise you. But I know something they don't know...the ending. How I get there doesn't matter as long as everybody plays their part.
Chuck also thinks he knows the ending. He’s absolutely convinced-- a la Lucifer’s conviction in 5.04 that “no matter what choices you make, we’ll always end up here,” and Metatron’s conviction that the ending was always destined to happen, couldn’t account for the true nature of humanity. Lucifer never saw it, because he never bothered to look for it. Metatron only saw it after he’d been rendered human himself. And Chuck? He thinks he understands, that his “omniscience” gives him a complete understanding of his creation, and yet... there’s things that humanity has created that he could never have dreamed up for himself.
He was right back in 11.22 (oh, hello Bobo episode again) when he told Amara that creation needed to be born, that it became something better than them. And yet Chuck can’t stop inflicting his own tired, formulaic story on his favorite characters. Because Amara was also right about him, that he was also greedy, and selfish, and only wanted to feel “big.” Chuck admitted that to Becky in 15.04, until he got over his writer’s block and started writing with a vengeance.
Wait, what was this about again? *scrolls up*
OH! Right! Nerfing Cas so the writer can have his way with everyone else. Kind of a long-standing tactic, no? And it’s not even about limiting Cas’s angel powers, but about Cas himself, and what he means to TFW. And it’s taken Cas a VERY long time to even begin to understand this. It’s not what he can do for them, it’s not being “useful” or “powerful” or being able to wave a hand and whoosh away the bad guy. It’s about him being HIM. It’s about him standing up to Dean and telling him he’s being stupid, and Dean listening and following him when if they’d gone their separate ways they both probably would’ve failed in Purgatory. It’s about them having each other’s backs and anticipating each other’s needs, and knowing that they aren’t alone and are wanted and needed because they are the best friend the other has ever had. And there’s something to that very human connection, that very human concept of family and love that Chuck... is incapable of understanding.
Whenever love rears its ugly head, Chuck rushes in to crush it. Because in love lies hope, lies a power that he can’t beat down. It’s a plot twist he can’t write his way out of.
Amara tried to give the very beginning of that to Dean in 11.23, to give him a chance to understand Mary, and Chuck couldn’t abide it. Jack is too powerful in a mojo-way, sure, but his true power for all of TFW was love. And Rowena-- pushed into self-sacrifice after Chuck “pinataed Hell”-- her entire journey into TFW had been about love.
Remember the plot of Metatron’s narrative? Love, and heartbreak, and love? Yeah. Remember how he thought he defeated Cas? By killing Dean Winchester? Yeah.
Big picture themes time? Chuck tried to drive wedges between TFW and everything they love. And has been trying to force his own contrived romance plots on them. But Chuck doesn’t understand love at all.
That’s their one true weapon against Chuck, if they each can learn to wield it.
How did my intended lol response to your question turn into this? That’s the cosmic lol for you.
Today on the tnt loop, 11.21 and 11.22 (so far, we’re going through 12.03 today). But Chuck is here, and it’s fascinating to watch just how much he harps on the whole Free Will thing... From 11.22
SAM: Getting these groups to enlist and then work together, it's not gonna be easy. DEAN: Couldn't you just compel them? CHUCK: I invented free will for a reason. DEAN: So we're tying our hands on principle? CHUCK: No, you can't make an effective soldier by force. They have to choose this fight. DEAN: But they're gonna want to know they're backing a winner.
Compel, no. Persuade by manipulating the narrative, by dismissing or rendering ineffective any other play, by making it so that there doesn’t seem to be any other choice, by foisting blame off on everyone else... from 11.20:
CHUCK: Nature? Divine. Human nature – toxic. METATRON: They do like blowing stuff up. CHUCK: Yeah. And the worst part – they do it in my name. And then they come crying to me, asking me to forgive, to fix things. Never taking any responsibility. METATRON: What about your responsibility? CHUCK: I took responsibility... by leaving. At a certain point, training wheels got to come off. No one likes a helicopter parent. METATRON: What about Amara? She's your sister. CHUCK: I took responsibility for her, too. Locked her away – barely, I might add. And who let her out? METATRON: Sam and Dean Winchester. But they're trying to fix that. CHUCK: You know I love those guys, but the world would still be spinning with Demon Dean in it. But Sam couldn't have that, though, could he? And so how is Amara being out on me? METATRON: It's not. But I-you helped the Winchesters before. CHUCK: Helped them? I've saved them! I've rebuilt Castiel more times than I can remember! Look where that got me.
But it’s all a manipulation... Chuck presented his point of view as the truth, as the only way. This was his progression to winnowing everyone’s options and choices down until there was only one way out, only one solution.
DEAN: I tried to kill her. (Flashback to DEAN stabbing AMARA only for the knife to shatter.) And it didn't work. CHUCK: Maybe it didn't work because you didn't want it to work. Maybe you didn't want to kill her. SAM: You want God to kill Amara because you don't want Amara to be killed? DEAN: Yeah, maybe there's a part of me that just can't hurt her. But if she's already dead— SAM: Then she's already dead. Right. LUCIFER: Well, that got weird. SAM: Dean… We always sweat this stuff, these choices. But, for once, we have God on our side. I mean, for once, we can actually just do things his way.
To when everyone would let go of the fight and capitulate to “doing things his way.” To the point Sam was ready to take on the Mark without question. To sacrifice himself yet again.
CHUCK: Once she's been weakened, I will take the Mark back from Amara and use it to seal her away. You ready? SAM: Yeah. DEAN: Wait, what? SAM: God and I talked about this. Someone needs to bear the Mark. DEAN: Well, that should be me. I-I've had it before. I'm damaged goods. CHUCK: Exactly. You've already been tainted. I can't transfer it to you. Sam volunteered. (DEAN glances at SAM then yanks on his arm to talk with him some feet away.) DEAN: First Cas is making kamikaze side plans, and now you? You couldn't have talked to me? SAM: We did talk. DEAN: And what happens when the Mark turns you psycho, then what? SAM: You lock me up where I can't hurt anyone and you throw away the key. DEAN: Sam, no. SAM: Dean, you told me you couldn't beat Amara, that it would have to be me. Well, this is it – me.
Not because it was a real solution to their problems, but because it was the only option they believed they had left. It’s the illusion of choice at this point.
SAM (to DEAN, quietly): We talked about this. It's time to do the smart thing. DEAN: So, what am I supposed to do, just sit by and watch? SAM: No. We're both in this fight. You're leading this army. DEAN: Oh, you mean babysitting the bad guys? (SAM huffs out a laugh.) DEAN: Okay, Sam. Okay. God's plan.
Amara stopped Chuck from executing his “give Sam the Mark” plan, so Chuck went with plan B-- turn Dean into a weapon. Always one brother sacrificed, and it doesn’t seem to matter to Chuck which one it is.
Chuck: I'm sorry. For this, for everything. Amara: An apology at last. What's sorry to me? I spent millions of years crammed in that cage... alone... and afraid, wishing -- begging for death, because of you! And what was my crime, brother?! Chuck: The world needed to be born! And you wouldn't let me! Amara, you give me no choice. Amara: That's your story. Not mine. The real reason you banished me, why I couldn't be allowed to exist... you couldn't stand it. No, we were equals. We weren't great or powerful, because we stood only in relation to each other. You think you made the archangels to bring light? No. You made them to create lesser beings, to make you large, to make you Lord. It was ego! You wanted to be big! Chuck: That's true. But it isn't the whole truth. There's a value, a glory in creation... that's greater and truer than my pride or my ego. Call it grace, call it being! Whatever it is, it didn't come from my hands. It was there... waiting to be born. It just is, as you and I just were. Since you've been freed, I know that you've seen it. Felt it. Amara: It didn't have to be like this. I loved you, brother. Well... you've won again. Finish it. Kill me.
But Chuck didn’t want to kill her, he just wanted her imprisoned again so he could go on lording it over his own creation. So he could go on feeling big. Which was his issue he went to Becky for help with in 15.04:
CHUCK: Things were said. Uh… Now I’ve found myself low on, um… resources. I went to ask my sister for help, and she rejected me. ‘Cause she sucks. And now I’m just… stuck. So, I thought I’d come see you, my number-one fan. And, I don’t know, see if you can help make me feel big again. BECKY: So, you want me to… fluff you? CHUCK: I mean, no. BECKY: You do. You thought you could just come back to me, your pathetic ex, your number-one fan, and get what you’ve always gotten from me… a nice big crank on your ego. CHUCK: Well, I mean… BECKY: Well, sorry, that’s not me anymore, Chuck. I am married to an amazing man, I have two great kids, and I like myself, Chuck. For the first time in a long time, I like myself. So, I don’t need you. CHUCK: I know. You don’t need me. No one does. I’m happy for you, Becky, that you like yourself. Because… I kind of hate me right now.
Which goes a long way toward understanding the journey Amara has chosen to embark on between this point and s15, where we find her enjoying her liberation despite Chuck. In 11.22:
AMARA (over CHUCK’S choking sounds): I'd die a million times and murder you a million more before going back there! (The Mark fades away from Sam's arm and returns to Amara's shoulder.) Tell me if you won't change, why should I?
She would do anything not to be locked away again, even let all of creation (and Chuck himself, and as a result even HERSELF) perish.
AMARA: My brother will dim and fade away into nothing. But not until he sees what comes next. Not until he watches this world, everything he created, everything he loves turn to ash. Welcome to the end.
But in 14.20, this is the exact sort of tantrum that Chuck himself threw, right down to the “Welcome to the end” line. And Amara... she flat out laid it out in those exact terms from 11.22, in 15.02:
Amara: Don't. Even on Your best day, You couldn't force my hand. And this is not Your best day. In fact, I don't think You can do much of anything. Ah, a few parlor tricks, perhaps, but You can't leave this world, not without my help. And me? I'm done, Chuck. I've changed. I've adapted. I've become the better me. And You? You are still the same -- petulant, narcissistic. So... I'm leaving You here. Once, long ago, You sealed me away. Now, in a way... I'm doing the same to You. You're trapped, diminished, abandoned. So I guess You got what You've always wanted. You're on Your own.
Chuck hasn’t changed. (and even Cas has understood how nothing will ever change unless they all fight for it, in 15.06.) Amara freed herself from Chuck’s control because she chose to change and adapt. Is that what Chuck will have to do by the end? To let go of his need to feel “big,” to control the entire story? One way or another, I think so.