Hello spn georg! I have a question requiring your deep knowledge. As much as I swooned over Carlos's holy water hair commercial, I was confused because I thought damage by holy water was just a demon thing in the spn universe. It burns vampires too?
Hello! I have to start this off by sobbing, because I had written out a VERY long and detailed response to this, lost track of time, had to run an errand with a split second notice, and left this open and unsaved. And then returned home to find my laptop had rebooted itself and ate the entire post. So. I have to recreate an hour's work that was VERY THOROUGH, and therefore this will never feel like a good enough answer to me... hopefully it'll suffice for you :'D
(honestly this is what i get for writing directly in tumblr. you'd think i would've learned this lesson by now, but nope... i'm back writing this response in tumblr too lololol... hopefully it goes better this time >.>)
I mentioned at the top of my original post that I had another anon venting about folks review-bombing the Winchesters ratings on imdb and other ratings sites, and agree with the anon that these are awful people with nothing better to do with their time, because THE SHOW HAS BEEN TELLING US FROM THE BEGINNING THAT IT WILL EXPLAIN WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON IF WE JUST WAIT UNTIL THEY'RE READY TO REVEAL THAT IN THE NARRATIVE. They've been telling us they are dropping CLUES as to what the "trick" of this story is-- like how Dean is exploring the past, how directly this affects the canon of the original show, and what is actually happening-- and I see all of these head-scratchers like holy water suddenly affecting vampires as exactly those sorts of clues. Let me explain.
What did established canon have to say about vampires and holy water? NOTHING! ZIP! ZERO! Established canon has never mentioned holy water in conjunction with vampires in any context-- either as being effective at repelling or slowing them down, or as being useless against them. For all we know, Sam and Dean could've had another weapon in their anti-vamp arsenal all these years, and just never thought to give it a try. They had dead man's blood and beheading as their go to weapons, maybe they felt they didn't need anything else? Either way, they never even TRIED it.
So established canon never DISPROVED holy water as an effective vamp repellent. Introducing it in such a gloriously fabulous way now doesn't break anything.
Oh, and we've often learned that unexpected things are effective weapons against various monsters over the years... i mean, wood chippers trump everything, right? LOL!
And can we just pause for a moment to discuss that? Because this is the sort of thing fandom has been clamoring for more of in canon for years. There have been many posts over the years that are basically lists of Awesome Hunting Tools that canon never even considered, like filling hula hoops with salt to play demon ring toss with, stuff like that. Because that hair flip? Have I mentioned how much I love Carlos? Okay, now I have. I honestly don't care if it broke canon even a little if it gave us that scene :'D
BUT! Even if holy water always could've been an effective weapon against vampires in original canon, it's easy to handwave with "Sam and Dean couldn't have learned it from John because John was too busy being dead inside (LOL sorry not sorry) while Carlos was busy being amazing with that little trick outside." Maybe John just never even knew holy water would do anything.
And if none of that is enough to handwave it for you, I'll jump back to the top of this essay and vehemently point at what should be incredibly obvious based on everything we know about how this show is being constructed. WE ARE *SUPPOSED* TO NOTICE THE INCONSISTENCIES. THEY ARE THE CLUES AS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING.
There are SO MANY wtf head scratch moments for me in The Winchesters. So many things are are just ~ever so slightly off~ based on everything we know. And that's not even mentioning the Big Obvious WTF of John supposedly knowing all about hunting, the MoL, monsters-- all of it, that doesn't line up at all with what we have SEEN of John and Mary's life in original SPN canon.
I mean... Samuel has hair now? LOL!
There is SOMETHING going on that will hopefully provide an AHA! SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON! moment for us. There is a twist, a turn, a peek behind the big curtain that will show us what's been going on. WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT WILL HAPPEN IN EPISODE 13!
So saying at episode 9 that it's all crap and invalid because it doesn't line up with established facts is just... such a boring stance to me. Like, enjoy the mystery! Piece together the clues!
For my other anon again, I can see how it would be fun for folks who have no idea about original canon, who don't even know they're even looking at clues because they haven't memorized every last detail about original canon, you know? But for those of us who know enough to pause and scratch our heads over this stuff, golly isn't it fun wondering how it all fits together? Because I'm having fun with it. :D
But hopefully that at least covers your question about holy water and vampires.
even if I'd typed up a much better reply before tumblr ate it...