InsaneJournal

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Ruminations on the core of SPN
I'd like to begin with what may appear to be a slight digression. I've been wondering if what might make a certain genetic line of humans able to host angels was the result of some angel/human merger way back when. In fact, wouldn't it be interesting if Lucifer was the one who started that host/(maybe hunter) line to begin with? I know Lucifer's supposed to have hated humans but I don't think that would really matter either way. I was just thinking of how in Buffy S7 we discover that Dracula and Spike's hints in S5 and S6 were correct, and that the slayer power came from a demon/human merger. In fact, "empowering a slayer" looked not unlike what we see as demon possessions in SPN, with Buffy stuck in a devil's trap mystical circle while on the other side of the dimensional rift Willow sits in a salt circle mystical circle and tries to bring back.

Which leads me to some interesting developments in SPN S4 which seem to map out a philosophy for the show. I touched on some of that here but I couldn't help thinking about it further as I considered what emerged in Buffy S7. Earlier this year I discussed some of the curious similarities in Buffy S6 and SPN S4. Those musings were not intended to suggest that SPN was intentionally mirroring Buffy, merely that the development of both the story (and perhaps also the fandom) were following a certain path. I imagine those of us who have been multifannish for a long time might be able to whip out all sorts of similar parallels with other genre shows – maybe it's an inevitable progression. But I really only know a few well and it does seem to me that, in retrospect, S4 of SPN revolved less around what Sam or Dean would do, than a philosophical crisis coming to a head as a result of their own internal psychological crises. As we move into S5 I suspect that we're going to get a focus on the underpinnings of the show. Unfortunately, as we saw in BtVS S7, if this isn't properly paced it can wind up being an exasperating season with major developments being stretched out and then crammed together.

Just a quick view at some things the two seasons may have in common:

1) Potential introduction of many new characters and return of some old ones as part of efforts to test out possibilities for spinoffs (or in SPN's case, future seasons).
2) A season which reflects, through juxtaposition with its beginnings, how much older the characters have become, and how they actually are adults now, making the nature of leadership a central issue.
3) The biggest Big Bad of all, in an ultimate showdown between good and evil that ends up changing the basic premise of the show.
4) Badly damaged relationships between characters, with one individual drastically changed and suffering great remorse. The obvious case would be Buffy and Spike, but it also applies to a recovering Willow, and the on-again/off-again relationship of Xander and Anya.

How exactly SPN will deal with the above is anyone's guess and I plan to stay unspoiled. But I am reminded of the overall arc in BSG, which is that one can represent the universe with family dynamics. In that show the humans, gods, and cylons are all set up as a sort of family with their internal struggles, loyalties, and greater goals. I thought this was clever in two respects. The first is that it's rather impossible on even big budgets to represent heaven, hell and humanity in a complex struggle. By using the microcosm of the family structure everything could be reduced to more easily grasped and represented elements. The second is that, given the show's origins and the names of ancient gods among the characters, this idea harked back to how the Roman/Greek gods were depicted as a large, struggling family with their actions explaining all sorts of natural phenomena.

But ultimately it works because the family is the crucible of humanity. In SPN the name Winchester is in many ways a brilliant choice, not just because it is riddled with American overtones of the old west, but because it is a name which links family and work. Winchester is a product (one which, coincidentally, ended just as our TV Winchesters began) which means something different to outsiders versus insiders, but are for our Winchesters, at least, inseperable. In S4 we had some very explicit parallels set up as Castiel reminds Dean that obedience to God is no different than his "blind faith" in the family god, John, (or the family angel, Mary). At the same time, by doing so, Castiel is actually emphasizing that devotion to the family outstrips anything else in life. Castiel himself is enraged by Uriel, not only going against Castiel's concept of God, but in committing fratricide. And even though Anna has rejected her "family," Castiel remains reluctant to harm her. At the same time what Dean discovers this season is how fallible and human these parental gods were and that his form of devotion to them is unworkable.

Fathers come off as harsh and unknowable figures in SPN. In S4 we get two rather interesting looks at fathers in the family – Samuel, Dean and Sam's previously unknown grandfather, and John himself in the bits we see through Adam's memories. Both of these are somewhat ambivalent portrayals. For example in JtS we see John's warmth in his relationship to Adam and his mother, yet this is contrasted with an even greater distancing from Sam and Dean as a result. In both my meta and various other metas about JtS, John's relationship to Sam and Dean and his differing legacy to each were explored. In light of Castiel's relationship to God, one he believes in strongly with next to no evidence we're aware of, we can also see how Sam, Dean, and Adam each knew pieces of John which they expressed as reflections of themselves. We can only speculate about Adam, because the Adam we saw was a ghoul, but even he reflected back the part of John he knew, a merciless hunter. (One could even say that we do see the real Adam reflecting his knowledge of John – we only get to know him in a hidden, distorted way, through a person who's not the "real" Adam.). Sam reflected back John's remoteness, anger, and pragmatism. Dean reflected back his protective nature, his disinterest in things outside of work and family, and his dogged determination to win.

Thinking of this, I wonder to myself how Castiel was chosen as Dean's liaison. Was he simply seen as a "good soldier" who could be trusted to follow orders? He doesn't seem like much of a warrior, and he didn't enter hell alone – he tells Dean that angels laid siege to hell. Yet he was the one who reached Dean. Was this by design or happenstance? Was he simply the first to reach him? Or is Castiel somehow an angel of mercy who had his own specialty as Uriel had his? I've talked before during this season of how Castiel seems a stand-in for John in many ways, particularly in Pin where we see his only real exchange with Sam. But for the most part it is to Dean alone that he speaks, and I don't think he is like John so much as a way for Dean to see himself reflected in a way that allows him to replay his relationship to John. For example in his confrontation with Castiel in Monster, where he makes plain he will not fulfill his obligations to Castiel if he doesn't receive help for Sam in return, I could see him wanting to vent that anger on John in S1 when he repeatedly calls for help and doesn't get it. There he couldn't take this position. Here he can.

I have always found it curious that Sam was the one cast as the believer in SPN (which probably says more about my perspective on believers than Sam). While I completely understand Dean's relationship with God as one where God has been tested and failed, and no further proof has been offered, it is Dean who strikes me as more prototypical of a religious man. What he believes in, he believes strongly and without question. He is the one who fits himself to whatever situation is needed and commits to it wholeheartedly (Folsom, TL). But at his core he doesn't change and he tends to approach everything on a least common denominator basis. He is, in a non-pejorative sense, a man of simple tastes and beliefs. Sam, on the other hand, is complicated and less easy to decipher because Sam's center seems to be ever shifting. And he tends to question everything – himself, Dean, their father, other people, hunting, the supernatural, his future, and the word "no." Once he's exposed to angels and their machinations, it certainly seems as if he has no further use for God either. I'm quite curious if, after what he learns from Anna, that he even believes God exists any more, given that angels themselves are ambivalent. But Dean, for all that he says he doesn't believe, does seem to take seriously the idea of God being a positive force. He warns Sam in Metamorphosis, that he is going against God's wishes. He grabs a Bible and appears to pray in YF. He prays aloud in Monster. He doesn't trust angels or destiny, but he does seem to ascribe to God some of the same "blind faith" that he once gave to John.

Which brings us to the second father portrayal, Samuel. Although the Campbells seem to be a fairly functional, even warm family given Mary's apparent relationship with her parents, Mary herself is very divided about remaining in it. As with Sam and Dean's life, there is no separation between the family and its work. We see Mary either working with her family or planning her escape. In the one normal-seeming scene where Mary sits listening to records, her conversation with Dean makes clear what's on her mind – leaving with John. We see too little of her family life and her parents to understand how she would do this, but it might turn out to be not unlike Sam – a total break. Sam himself didn't want to leave the family, he just wanted to be a person independent of it, but felt John had given him no choice about negotiating a middle ground where he remained close to the family while separated from its work. Samuel seems fairly bullheaded as well. Would Mary have fared better? Impossible to know, of course, especially since we get hardly any POV from Deanna. But I was struck by how, in the last act of ItB, the father figure is once again inhabited by the YED (as in DT) to carry out his final attacks on the Winchesters and to confront Dean, and how similar his approach is in both cases. Intentional by the writers, of course, but it also seems to me, significant in its representation of paternity as dangerous and destructive. For example, in Metamorphosis, John Jack doesn't change until he realizes he is to become a father. It is that news that leads to his transformation as he lashes out and attacks. In Family Remains, Brian himself becomes a killer at the end of the episode in defense of his family, killing a girl who was herself destroyed by an unchecked father.

By comparison, motherhood seems almost universally depicted as a positive, protective, if not civilizing force. One example is Rose in Playthings who protects first her daughter, and then her granddaughter, to the end of her life against her (childless) dead sister. In the few views of mothers we got in S4, the pattern holds, even if Kate in FR is ambivalent about her marriage. Indeed the mere absence of mothers is seen as a negative thing, as we see in ASS, FR, or even LDC, where the mother's absence makes her children vulnerable to predation, something we could also presume in Bedtime Stories. There are a few examples that don't quite fit the mold, such as the mother changeling in TKAA, the vengeful Tamara, the murdering Woman in White, and presumably Bela's mother, although that's nothing we actually see or hear about. One of the most interesting cases is Simon Says, where the mother there gave up her children, and Ansem is the one to burn her alive, a curious echo of cases, according to the YED, of mothers who attempted to protect their children.

I was curious to survey the representation of mothers and fathers through the seasons. Although seeing nuclear families in SPN was always rare or brief (such as the families in ELaC), there are some variations in the appearance of mothers and fathers. For example in S1, we see fathers in 9 episodes not counting John. I didn't count the view of Cassie's father, since outside of the flashback he was just as absent as dead mothers or fathers in other episodes, the parental substitutes in Scarecrow since they were not technically parents, and Mordechai in Hell House since he may never have existed. We see mothers in 9 episodes, and I did count Max's stepmother because she played a large role and was the only mother he had known. In S2 not counting glimpses in ELaC, or John in IMToD, we see 2 fathers. By comparison we meet Ellen, Mary returns, and there are 4 other mothers that season. In S3, we see 6 fathers and 8 mothers (not counting Mr. Spengler's brief appearance, or the unseen father victim in Christmas), rather a lot for the short season. In S4, aside from the Campbells, we see 4 fathers and 5 mothers (counting Jimmy and Adam's mom, but not counting the parents in Wishful Thinking, Anna's dead parents, or the murdered mother in SaV). Interestingly the lowest number of parents seen are in seasons where the arcs are particularly centered on the Winchester family dynamics – S2 and S4 – and which actually echo one another rather strongly in their focus and storylines.

If these are the general representations of fathers and mothers in SPN it seems curiously likely that God is a woman, and in the absence of her civilizing and protective force the worlds have descended into chaos and violence. (Zachariah does not, in his conversation with Dean, suggest that previous apocalypses were actually anyone else's doings but their own, and Uriel suggests to Castiel in Pin that God may never have been watching). This is important inasmuch as the representation of fathers has always been rather ambivalent. Some come off fairly well (the murdered father in TKAA, the loving, if oblivious, father in Bedtime Stories), but many are either absent, or their flaws have somehow caused the case that brings Sam and Dean to them (Devins and Carlton in Dead in the Water, the husband in the Pilot). It seems that the angels themselves reflect these various views of fathers – Uriel the destructiveness, Anna the terror, Castiel the protectiveness, and Zachariah, the absence and indifference.

So we can see that the primal scene that opens SPN, where Mary is destroyed, and John and sons are left to create their own world of struggle and chaos, rather echoes the hallways of heaven – some carrying on dutifully, some rebelling, some reshaping the world to suit themselves. In Dean's 4.22 conversation with Castiel, which seems to spell out the fundamental philosophy of the show, Dean weaves together a curious mix of independence and duty. A father's orders are not always to be followed, especially if it leads to destruction of the family. Survival of the family is everything, what we do is secondary to who we are to one another, trust is only for those inside the family. The problem, then, becomes how one defines "family." In Dean's speech to Castiel, "family" is the human race and life is the human experience, something he places above an exiled peace. In the finale of S3, Bobby tells Dean outright that family is not defined by blood alone. But this still figures very strongly for Dean. In 4.22, he argues to Bobby that he can abandon his duty to Sam because Sam is not of his family. In fact Sam's fear for some time has been rejection by the family – not just separation but denial. Bobby calls this back for Dean, reminding him that he is not John, not a father, his role is different and he needs to accept what it is if the family is to survive. In that conversation they are speaking of what remains of the Winchester family, but their survival is also tied to humanity's survival. If Sam is cast out, humanity is doomed for certain.

This all leads me to wonder if Lucifer will not, in the end, be destroyed, but rejoined to his family? Will Castiel become Dean to his Sam? Since the beginning of the series the Winchester family struggles have played out on an increasingly large cosmic battleground becoming less a human family with tragedies in their past, than small figures representing mythical forces. It'll be interesting to see if Sam and Dean's personal journeys continue to mirror those of the demons and angels around them, or if their final path is shown to be an alternative to those larger struggles.