Discover Top Posts Tagged with #spn 13.04

okay, so there was no new winchesters tonight, but I HAVE been listening to the @endofthebookpod episode from the last new ep last week (go listen!). I haven’t had a chance to hear the whole episode yet, but i wanted to type this before my brain let go of it... huh, memory magic

SO. Anyway, point being, the discussion around Lata learning memory magic, and the comments about how it wasn’t really a big part of spn canon so wondering how it was going to be used... my VERY first thought when Lata offered to remove Roxy’s traumatic memories was of Cas in s6 taking all of Lisa and Ben’s memories of Dean (ostensibly to protect them and to unburden them from the horrific trauma they experienced because of their association with him-- only partly for Dean to protect them from being used against him again, but because he HATED what he’d done to Ben, having to watch his mother killed (or near as), and Ben both wanting to become a hunter like Dean and then having to confront what that actually means as Dean carried his dying mother to safety and Ben had to shoot someone (yes, a demon, but still, a person-shaped thing).

Okay that was a lot of words to say that DEAN HIMSELF had made that choice for someone else in the past, and here’s Roxy confronting all the suppressed traumatic memories and CHOOSING DELIBERATELY TO KEEP THEM. (I already wrote a bit about that here)

But memory magic was also like... a core staple of Heaven’s power structure. Cas spent several seasons dealing with the aftereffects of heaven’s torture, which largely involved brainwashing quite directly. Not only can most angels Obi Wan humans (these are not the droids you are looking for level stuff, or even the level that Zachariah used on Sam and Dean in episodes like 4.17 It’s A Terrible Life), but Naomi had a specially built device to specifically dig into angel main programming and tweak the internal dials-- everything from behavioral correction to what we will learn in later seasons involved deleting specific memories of things (like the fact Cas was a participant in several biblical atrocities like the killing of the firstborns, etc.).

Sure, Naomi needed specially constructed tools to achieve that level of mental manipulation-- which Crowley and his demons were then able to duplicate to use on Samandriel and eventually Sam/Gadreel-- but Cas? Well, he had a Particular Specialty with memory magic himself. It was a major plot point in s13. Not just in 13.14 Good Intentions when he confesses to Donatello that he had a special ability that he swore to never use on anyone without their consent, but that he deems it too urgent not to use it on Donatello, for the sake of the world. He feared the corruption that Donatello suffered because of the Demon Tablet, and he needed the information Donatello refused to give about the alternate universe gateway spell.

This power was supposedly unique to Castiel, like many other angels were “specialists.” Specifically we know Uriel’s specialty was smiting towns, Zachariah’s specialty was... lets call it giving unique experiences to people directly. Whatever. Cas’s special power was not only reading people’s minds (something we saw him do a good number of times before this-- like tapping Rowena’s forehead and knowing the one person she felt love for, Oskar), but also specifically stripping those memories from people’s minds.

Which is kinda what we saw him do to Lisa and Ben. And what he did from Donatello here. Literally removed the memories so he could sort through them all himself.

Is that what Lata is learning to do now, whether from Tony or some other source inside her dreams? To access other people’s memories and then selectively strip those memories away from the person?

Because that’s like a Cas Special.

(even the broken AU Castiel was called in to use that special talent specifically, to strip the information the angels wanted directly from Charlie and Ketch’s minds... if that was a standard angel power, they wouldn’t have needed to call in Cas specifically, and I always felt that was a MAJOR reason that version of Cas was as broken as he was, that being forced to use that power is what damaged him, since Our Cas had REFUSED to use the power until it was the only option they had left...)

(I won’t even mention The Empty and the Entity’s interesting power to just... flip through Cas’s memories in 13.04... okay i mentioned it, but I don’t know what else to do with it yet lol, other than to suggest that whatever is happening in The Winchesters is adjacent to or being affected by the Empty... I wouldn’t be shocked if the Akrida turned out to be agents of the Empty actually so... off point mittens, get back to the point now...)

but then that also made me wonder... did Cas hold on to all those memories he stripped from Lisa and Ben? Did he flip through them when he was feeling sad? did it actually make him feel WORSE about everything that had transpired leading up to 6.22 and the choices he made afterward? his determination to obliviate himself into Emmanuel even? or to stay in purgatory? heck... i just made myself very fucking sad...

Okay. I just needed all this on record. Memory magic is a HUGE part of spn, and whatever it’s leading up to in The Winchesters feels very, very relevant.

And also very, very connected to Cas.

#the winchesters #spnwin s1 spoilers #spnwin 1.10 #spn 13.04 #spn 6.21 #castiel winchester

Dean, to Sam: "I need you to keep the faith for both of us. Because right now I don't believe in a damn thing."

Cuts straight to Cas in a sunlit field.

SUBTLE.

#spn spoilers #spn 13.04 #supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #destiel