#spn themes

[metanaturalsbitch]

SUPERNATURAL 2005 - 2020. (More)

[shallowstories]

To me, the way Anna fell, to become a human child, is meaningful in of itself.

If I were put in charge of writing Anna, in a reboot or otherwise, I would base it primarily around the concept of parents defending their children, and Anna longing for that (rather than sex, loyalty, chocolate cake, etc). It's not that those things aren't important, but that the the specter of Anna falling to become a child, wanting to be protected by her parents...it would hit SO hard.

Her deepest fear is her father killing her, after all.

Imagine fully-angelic Anna witnessing a mom rocking an innocent child and calling it "her little angel." Imagine Anna killing children, and watching parents do everything in their power to stop it. The ferocity of their defense would have such an impact, you know?

I REALLY like that approach.

[shallowseeker]

Dean + "Everything we've always wanted"

Hello, scripted All Along the Watchtower line:

Ah, yes. Everything Dean's we've always wanted. This comes shortly after meeting Max & Alicia Banes on 12x20, who also use "We" to cloak their individual wants and needs, like a shield. So what are the requirements for this everything-I've-always-wanted?

Mary (a flawed-but-Loving Parent-Hero; the symbolic road to accepting Our Imperfect Selves)

Cas ("Flawed Father Material" who is Brave, Dutiful, and Devoted; the One Who Carries Your Burden-Halved; the symbolic road to de-Romanticizing White Picket Fence & Apple Pie Life)

Sammy (the child who finally Grew into Leadership; circa season 12; The one who leads the American hunters against The British Men of Letters; the one who elevates the Family Legacy; the symbolic road to dealing with The Moral Gray of life)

///

We also get this aired line from 12x22:

DEAN: (dejectedly) Yeah. You know, it wasn't long ago, I thought we had it made. We saved the world. We got Cas back. We had Mom back. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but still, we had 'em.

It wasn't perfect. Like I was thinking in this season 8 post, this represents the acceptance of De-Romanticizing the Apple Pie Life.

[sidecarghost]

Sam and Dean Winchester Character Development

Kripke (s1-s5): family

Gamble (s6-s7): identity

Carver (s8-s11): oppression

Dabb (s12-s15): apathy (for lack of finding a more fitting theme)

This post explored the core themes of each Spn showrunner.

Sam and Dean Character Development by Moral Integrity and Agency

I plotted my interpretation of the character’s development for Sam and Dean in terms of agency (free will) and moral integrity. They fluctuate between eras, but they both end up at the same point by the end of each era, so Sam and Dean share the same plot.

Justification below the cut.

Kripke era (family): Sam and Dean both started out with a decent amount of moral integrity but little agency. Dean got into hunting because it’s what John Winchester wanted. Sam got into hunting because it’s what Dean wanted. Each brother suffers terribly to save friends, strangers, and the world from demons, monsters, and heaven. Despite the extreme amount of suffering, they become the heroes they were never meant to be. By the end of the Kripke era, the brothers have grown to become extremely strong willed and altruistic. They refuse to be pawns to the superior strength of Heaven and Hell, and they give up everything to stop the Apocalypse so life can go on for everyone else. Even though it means they will suffer tremendously for it.

Gamble era (identity): Dean loses a lot of agency and Sam loses a lot of moral integrity right off the bat, but I just plotted the start and end pointed the era. Dean tries to assume the role of patriarch to Lisa and Ben but the role is stifling. He thinks it’s what should make him happy, but he finally comes to terms that the apple pie life isn’t enough. Dean finds fulfillment helping people and making a difference. Sam is soulless and resists getting his soul back because he enjoys not being morally obligated to do the right thing. His moral integrity dives quite a bit in this arc. His agency is completely violated when his brother forces his soul back on him, but the effects of this betrayal are deferred until Cas breaks his wall. At that point Sam hallucinates Lucifer and loses his grip on reality. After Cas takes the hallucination from Sam, he remains traumatized but is sane and himself again. The betrayal of Dean and Cas by violating his consent are never satisfactorily addressed. But Sam becomes more dedicated to being independent and doing the right thing.

Carver Era (oppression): Monsters are revealed to be morally complicated. And a defunct organization called the MoL oppressed monsters for centuries. Sam and Dean discover they are the inheritors of the MoL legacy. They both become even more determined to make their own paths, but they never stop killing monsters. Their agency has grown, but their moral integrity has shrunk considerably. If the show had addressed the moral quandary of killing morally complex beings doing their best to survive in a world where humans oppress them, then this arc could have ended higher. But the issue is never resolved throughout the end of the the series.

Dabb Era (apathy): Sam and Dean have lived long enough that they have lost their status as heroes and have become the villains of their own story. They have succumbed to believing in their own moral superiority and no longer seriously question the consequences of their own actions. They rarely concern themselves with acts of altruism, and instead pursue acts that will benefit their own agendas. They separate themselves from the rest of the world by spending more and more time in the bunker. The suffering of others becomes less real and less consequential when they are safe in their underground cave. By the end of the era, they have come full circle in the series. Each brother has sacrificed their agency to fulfill the roles assigned to them in the pilot. Dean as the loose canon that dies young in a hunt, and Sam as the basic white guy that lives out the rest of his days in an apple pie life with a random child and even more random wife.

[corancoranthemagicalman]

Saw your tags on my sam's theme post, feel free to hmu about music in spn, i'd love to talk to someone about it!

Oh, my gosh!! I’m completely unknowledgeable about it but would love to absorb information. Mostly I’ve been sort of obsessing over what components make up the music that plays during Thee Yellow Curtain scene? I made a post about it somewhere and I haven’t been able to really in-depth review any of the music with my admittedly awful knowledge of music, but I just.. ever since the bleed of Cas’ Theme into Dean’s theme I’ve been obsessed with how they use the themes. Like Dean’s full theme is amazing and I love how they use parts of it to either be the Americano or the Family Theme. So good. ;A;

[tinkdw]

13x15: the moral of the story

I am so happy because I was struggling with the point of some of the negative stuff going on this season so far... So, this episode was just one big confirmation of my meta of 13x14 and how it was addressing morality very heavily this season with their choices leading either to an upwards or downwards finale and addressing the underlying theme of morality since the pilot. 

To have it addressed as a point purposefully made and a whole episode dedicated to it to make us think about it is frankly a relief! 

It’s on purpose, it’s for a reason! 

Good :)

Morality has always been an underlying foundation of the show. The themes, the plots are family, love, faith etc but under it all, as with most stories we have the foundation of morality, that good things happen to good people, that doing things for the right reasons is important.

It’s been consistent that when they do things for others they win, when they do things that put others in danger out of desperation for each other (ie 8x23 and 10x23) bad things happen.

This is consistent and this is a very common narrative, see this post where I mention very quickly the hugely blatant ones of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Buffy just off the top of my head, because stories don’t just exist in a random void, there is always a moral to a story, usually that it’s always better to be good and heroes are selfless.

Anyway, this episode gave us many meta points. In itself I wasn’t totally enamoured with the semi-noir genre attempt, I was very interested by the boys’ interaction with the story but I was a bit bored by way too much going into peripheral people’s stories etc and it could have been done in a more fun, blatantly emotive way, but the meta side and the side that was clearly making a point I loved.

1. Dean is worried for Cas dodging bullets in Syria. Now I have to watch what I say here as I already had antis using my mentioning Syria as an excuse to send me shit, but there’s a reason they chose Syria as Cas’ location out of any country in that region which could be relevant to the spell’s ingredients. I didn’t do this. The show did. For a reason. Syria is a place where currently immoral awful things are happening to good people. It is a horrific situation. Some people are doing awful things to other people in the name of religion. People are doing bad things for bad reasons and framing it as good reasons, this does not take away from the fact that it is incomprehensibly immoral and abhorrent. This was not an accident given the theme of morality in this same episode.

2. Separately to this, Dean is worried about Cas (as usual). Dean is shown as using two established coping mechanisms in this worry. Food (the pizza) and a Woman (the girl in the coffee shop). This is the same old coping mechanism when Cas is in danger / missing / dead.

3. Sam doesn’t know Dean. This is something that we see a lot in the earlier seasons and then sporadically since, but I love that this is coming back given we’ve had quite a few moments so far this season (and last) that have shown Dean is tired of keeping up the facade:

Dean: “you’re like a Boy Scout, always prepared!” Sam: “you’re like... I don’t know what you’re like.”

No shit Sam! The idea that Sam doesn’t actually know who Dean really is (because Dean sublimates and hides so much, particularly around Sam) is consistent and I can’t wait to have this explored textually.

4. Father Lucca giving us some lovely Dean/Cas faith material:

On the skull: “It means everything to my congregation. Imagine you woke up one morning and this thing you loved (...) was just gone, what would you do?”

Sam: “try to get it back”, looks at Dean.

*insert gif of Dean trying to get Cas back whilst saying he’s everything*

I mean?!

5. Father Lucca giving us some lovely morality lessons and exactly referencing Dean’s earlier comment and saying this is bad:

Dean: “Look this isn’t a perfect world we’re trying to save okay? And if I’m not perfect trying to save it, so be it”

Father Lucca: “Change it (...) the world’s not perfect but do you use that as an excuse? Do us use that to excuse your own sins? The world will never be perfect. If good men do good things it can be better” 

Dean looks awkward but Sam is convinced to help him.

I mean this is a blatant No, Dean, that’s not what good men do, you need to find yourself again, this isn’t you or what you really stand for (see every time Dean wants to focus on saving one person with less regard of the bigger picture because it’s the right thing to do since the pilot).

Good men doing good things - not doing bad things for the right reasons, doing good things for the right reasons. Ie. in this episode’s instance getting the skull back for the priest is the right thing to do.

Father Lucca to Dean about Sam later: “ All good things beget good things and what you’re brother is doing is a good thing”

Now morally without knowing the outcome yet I thought hey! this should lead to something good for the boys as this is always the case, they did the right thing even though it didn’t benefit them and they should be rewarded, because it’s the standard heroes reward in every story.

Oh, look, in the end Father Lucca turns out to be the Holy Man that they were after the blood of in the first place so they get the reward by doing the right thing! Such accident! Much coincidence!

*Tink stares into the camera*

As an aside, @amwritingmeta reminded me of just how many Disney / fairytale stories they’ve been referencing recently too and these always have a moral to the story. Just saying.

Now, Sam clearly is fully on this path of wanting to do the right thing (he said it clearly in 11x01 that they had to change and he’s been trying hard ever since). Dean has been also doing this (eg 11x23) but he is very iffy in this episode and has been all season, see Dean being framed as bad when he threatened Kaia to save Mary for example, in this episode he has a real reticence re the main plot and not wanting to give up their goal to help Lucca for nothing, but also that whole I would murder someone who stole the impala bit, that wasn’t for jokes, that is... ick. This is supposed to be bad. Sam know’s it’s bad, his reaction is telling us we should see this as troublesome. Cas also last episode showed he is shady, unfortunately set on doing bad things for the right reasons etc and I know, I KNOW this was the “lesser of evils” concept but look my dudes it’s framed as bad, it’s framed as morally questionable and then this episode came straight afterwards begging us to consider these things. That is NO accident. Of course it’s not saying Dean and Cas are evil, it’s just, well, are they soon going to decide to take the ends don’t justify the means attitude or will it be after they’ve fucked up and released the next big bad, ie. opened the rift most likely. No matter what, it’ll end well, obviously, they’re heroes, it’s just a case of timing and dragging out the story. Whatever happens short term, clearly this theme is hella important.

Anyway, the final scene is just one big metaphor of morality.

Father Lucca is moral, he refuses to lie and still distracts the guy enough. He tries throughout the episode to do the right thing and ends up “miraculously” only being grazed instead of likely killed if the shot was 5cm to the left.

Bad: Margaret is greedy. She dies. The others are all greedy, avaricious, immoral and end up shooting each other. All the baddies end up killing each other in a huge lesson of repercussions of your shitty actions.

Good: Meanwhile, as per the above, the boys did the right thing for the right reason, they took the moral high ground and helped Father Lucca because it was the right thing to do even though it went against their own aims and they got rewarded for it by getting what they sought in the first place and getting it in a positive way.

Grey are: Not assuming that anyone is good or bad or anything until they prove themselves either way. Just because the bad guys all seemed OK to start with doesn’t mean they’re not all morally reprehensible, just because Lucca seemed bad to start with doesn’t mean he’s not the good guy and the most Holy Man etc. etc. etc.

=> Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t go headstrong into a plan without thinking about the consequences on others. Do good things for good reasons and get rewarded for them.

*Tink couldn't stare into the camera any more than I am already*

Bonus: Dean now has faith and is helping Sam with his in a direct flip of earlier in the season. I wonder what changed! We just don’t know!

So yeah, honestly it wasn’t fun, uplighting, romantic or particularly characterful, but as an episode helping me, who had read the past episodes as very morally iffy and thinking about why they decided to frame these questions and make us think about it, why there was such a twitter/tumblr wank fest over Cas’ choices last episode, as to why they are doing this overall throughout the season and where this is leading...for all that, this episode was fantastic.

It told us so much about the structure of the season, why it’s been like this, what their point is, where it is going, why it is going that way and that is just great :)

[amwritingmeta]

13x08: Scorpions and Frogs

So, as much as I think this fable is bullshit (it’s a bullshit crappy fable with a bullshit crappy core morality message of bullshit) of course Meredith Glynn uses it expertly. Fair enough, the scorpion is a scorpion and the frogs are all frogs (no sneaky froggies with poison glands here) but there are the wonderful twisty bits –>

Sam and Dean (frogs) aren’t in any way naively letting Bart (scorpion) climb onto their backs

They make a deal not based in trust, but mutual gain (the fable frog stands to gain absolutely nothing by helping the scorpion across the river, aside from the satisfaction of having helped a fellow critter)

Then they become the scorpions in the scenario when they outright decide to play along with the heist scheme - and kill Bart regardless the outcome

Halfway through (a little further through but never mind) Frog-Dean is put to the test and he has to stick his hand into a Mouth of Truth replica to unlock the door to the vault. (the original Mouth of Truth says that, if you’re a liar and stick your hand into it, it’ll bite off a few of your fingers) Instead of a test of truth, this is a test of faith for Dean!! I love it I love it! To secure what they need to find Jack, Dean has to let go of his tightly held need for control. MEREDITH GLYNN!!

He sticks his hand in the mouth (after a bit of hesitancy and kind of “no don’t want to oh okay-ing” same as with the birth canal tunnel of new beginnings and facing the toxic masculinity rep in 13x06) and goes non-performing in ways we see too rarely and YELPS (I love Jensen Ackles) and gets stung.

But survives this sting. Because he put his faith where it was right to put it - not in the scorpion itself, but in doing the necessary thing in order to get Jack back.

*fields of purple flowers and running and leaping*

Now, what’s Sam doing?

Sam is the decoy. And, really, he enters Shrike’s home as the scorpion, right? As Shrike will say at the end of the episode “You’re on the wrong side of this one, boys”. And now Scorpion-Sam goes on to stab Shrike in the stomach, but Shrike (the Frog) survives, because he’s in the right here. Then Shrike gets shot by Scorpion-Dean before the Scorpion Bros proceed to shove Shrike through a room where he gets DARTED IN THE FUCKING FACE. (that was some visual) Shrike - the self-preservation Scorpion - is turned into the Frog and Stung by his own Stinger.

Flippety flapjacks, Batman!

So Shrike is one frog under the weight of having Scorpion-Bart on his back.

Alice, of course, is the other frog. (so many frogs)

She’s in deep debt and feels she has no choice but to carry the weight, right? Until she is handed a stinger by Dean. And I’ve already written about this but let me just mention again how Alice (to me at least) represents Dean’s non-performing side and how he effectively assists that side to burn into a fucking cinder the toxic masculinity controlling her.

*mad cackle of glee at the beauty of it!*

So the role of the frog and the scorpion are constantly flipped, the bullshit morality fable is called out for its bullshit (I love Meredith Glynn I LOVE HER) and we’re left with CHOICE being key in everything. At the end of the day, it’s all about perspective and choosing which side you’re on. What’s right to you will be wrong in the eyes of that person over there.

Looking at it from the perspective of this narrative we’re shown those shades of grey and asked to consider who we agree with. Of course we side with the brothers: they’re doing good, they’re trying to get Jack back, Jack isn’t only the key to balance for the narrative itself, but he really is a loose canon - the brothers want to get him back to protect others. They’re the good guys.

But they team up with a demon. And then plot to kill that demon because he’s a demon (and yeah fair enough but also wow). And they break into someone’s house. And they steal from him. And this guy turns out to be one of the demon’s many victims.

It’s interesting to note that Bart is kept slightly ambiguous until Shrike tells his story, at which point Bart’s true toxic masculinity colours are revealed (gasp surprise what) and he’s subsequently iced.

I just love the threads of this theme and how Meredith Glynn underlines the two sides to everything and doing this brilliantly until using standard narrative tools to push the good vs bad that is necessary, and through it validating the bad going the way of bye-bye, naturally!!

*I love this show*

[savvyinpink]

DEAN WINCHESTER // SUPERNATURAL