in my perception of characters as ‘main characters’ there are only two and thats sam and dean. castiel is at the same relevance as any other surrounding character. i would place him in a similar vein as crowley but i personally place crowley in a category where anna, rowena, bella, ruby, claire, mary etc are also present and i dont apply any narrative power to ‘team free will’ bc it is a paper mache of a concept within the hierarchy of power of our inner circle. castiel is morally ambiguous if not incompetently antagonistic (as compared to crowleys more competent antagonistic streaks) which is where he is the most interesting (and where angel politics can be fun) bc we see with both castiel and crowley a diminishing of their power within their respective circles with their desire to be assumed to deans inner circle (which both hell and heaven are very hierarchical so) and would place them beneath dean (to answer to dean) but as we see even with characters that have dean’s respect (benny) this is a tenuous position to be in, even for dean’s family (his most important, sam, who gets shredded for stepping outside of his role) and can create an interesting subversion of the positive concept of ‘found family’ with dean as patriarchal head ofc where as seen with adam, jack, kevin, charlie that this is actually a violent place to be in but is idealized due to the growing power of deans position as perceived ‘hero’/powerful hunter/threat but anyways, deans influence (and sam’s in a different way/sam’s inability to be allowed to influence by dean’s isolation tactics within his inner circle) is fascinating toward characters like castiel, kevin, charlie, crowley, etc bc despite this being a found connection, a sought for relationship, it is not necessarily a positive force in their lives (: and can and Does make them worse <3 (emulation of dean, mangling of their lives pre dean, used&abused tactics for dean to get what he wants from them, and gaslighting) and that across the board, you fare better if you establish yourself as an independent unit (that which requires you to fight the gravitational pull of the ‘family unit’ and sought after labels/roles that as proven by sam should be a warning to be considered a ‘family member’ with someone who applies very strict rules to roles within this structure)
