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dotthings · 4 years

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Let’s talk about why Dean dancing with a lamp is subtext, but it’s subtext that supports textual arcs. Dean dancing with a lamp is not random. Meta on why Dean dancing with a lamp is part of the build of a textual arc for Dean, thematically, which also connects to his relationship with Cas. This symbolic moment being tacitly about Destiel will only feel like reaching if you ignore context, ignore canon, ignore long arcing, ignore textual material surrounding it. This isn’t just me talking about a ship, this is an important arc for Dean himself emotionally and the way canon’s working, Cas has become the star player in this specific emotional Dean arc about yearning.

Here are some canon quotes. I could just leave these here and not write another word of meta because the canon wrote it for me. But I’ve added some further commentary to spell out clearly what I’m getting at.

Dean in 8.14 “Trial and Error” by Andrew Dabb:

“You see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel. I don't. But I tell you what I do know – it's that I'm gonna die with a gun in my hand. 'Cause that's what I have waiting for me – that's all I have waiting for me. I want you to get out. I want you to have a life – become a man of Letters, whatever. You, with a wife and kids and – and – and grandkids, living till you're fat and bald and chugging Viagra – that is my perfect ending, and it's the only one that I'm gonna get.”

Dean in 10.16 “Paint it Black” by Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner:

“You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it....Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time.”

Sam and Dean in 11.04 “Baby” by Robbie Thompson:

SAM: Really? You don't . . . Ever want something more? DEAN: I'm sorry, have you met us? We're batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don't ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But . . . Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

Sam and Dean in 13.23 “Let the Good Times Roll” by Andrew Dabb:

DEAN: But on a beach somewhere, you know? Can you imagine? You, me, Cas, toes in the sand, couple of them little umbrella drinks. Matching Hawaiian shirts, obviously. Some hula girls. SAM: You talking about retiring? You? DEAN: If I knew the world was safe? Hell, yeah. And you know why? 'Cause we freaking earned it, man.

Sam and Dean in 15.08 “Our Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven” by Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner:

DEAN: Look, man, I didn't want to say anything, okay, 'cause I was kind of in in a bad place, and, uh, yeah, I didn't want to jinx it or whatever, but, you know, I tried the family thing, right? SAM: Yeah, me too. And that's not for us. DEAN: No, not really. But I'm just saying if it was to work, Eileen, you know, she gets it. She gets us. She gets the life. She's hot. SAM: Dean. I mean, I'm not even- DEAN: Look, all I'm saying is you- you could do worse, okay? And she could certainly do better. Like, so much better. I'm happy for you, Sammy.

Dean and Garth in 15.10 “The Heroes’ Journey” written by Andrew Dabb:

DEAN: You know, I gotta say, aside from pincushion in there… this is pretty nice. GARTH: Yeah, better than I ever thought I'd get. I mean, hunting -- I figured I'd be dead before I'm 40. You know, go out young and pretty. But now I've got a great wife, great kids. I guess...sometimes things work out.

Dean in 15.10 “The Heroes’ Journey” by Andrew Dabb:

Dean, wistful, watching through the window as Garth and Bess dance: You know, I always thought I could be a good dancer if I wanted to be.

Ok, let those roll around in your brain for moment.

Now: CONTEXT. CONTEXT. CONTEXT.

There’s this long running arc about maybe Sam and Dean could each find a significant other, not white picket fence, but...something, with someone already in the life, who gets their life. There’s Dean’s move from despairing and believing the only ending he could have, the only ending any hunter could have, is dying with a gun in hand, to Dean’s enthusiasm for the concept of retirement, Dean’s wistfulness about finding a significant other, for what he thinks he can’t have, and he starts the cycle all over again, if he can’t have it, then he wants Sam to have it, so Dean encourages Sam with Eileen. Saileen, the Dean-blessed, Dean-approved Sam ship. Dean ships it. And that is how the canon is trending, complete with Sam and Eileen kissing goodbye and saying “this is real” and even God himself saying their feelings were real, “that was all you,” even if God manipulated events around them. Which is an overt mirror to Dean and Cas and Dean’s expressly stated doubts about what’s real and what isn’t, and Cas telling Dean “we are.”

Much the way Sam has been witness to Destiel, and has often pointed out Dean’s Cas feelings. Dean’s got a front row seat to Saileen and approves; Sam’s had a front row seat to Destiel and approves.

Let’s throw in Robert Berens’ work in The Trap here, since that’s relevant to this specific topic as well, because why did Sam and Dean in the potential future timeline where they’d killed Chuck give up and cave in to their vampire instincts? The world being overwhelmed with monsters...and losing Eileen and losing Cas. It’s right there in the dialogue. I’ll give you the quote and everything:

Sam and Dean in 15.09 “The Trap” by Robert Berens:

SAM: You want to quit? What's happened to you, Dean? Ever since -- DEAN: Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we've ever cared about? Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in a Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah. You know why? 'Cause the monsters -- they're everywhere. Everywhere! What we do -- it's not even Hunting anymore. It's whack-a-mole. We don't even save people. Every friend we've ever had is either dead, or they got wise and they packed it in. SAM: Jody's still fighting, and Bobby -- DEAN: Bobby has a death wish, and you know it. And Jody -- ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does, too. And after Eileen... so do you.

“Ever since” Dean had to bury Cas in a Ma’lak box. “After Eileen...so do you.”

So there’s this canonical long, long thread across multiple authors (and those weren’t even all the quotes, I’m sure people could dig up more) about Dean in particular yearning towards finding a significant other, some contentment, with someone who already is in the hunting life, who gets it, who understands.

An episode that flat out shows how losing their significant others is the final straw that rips out Sam and Dean’s last will to fight, and they lose themselves, and after they’re turned into vampires, they just...give into the darkness. Where Sam gives up their shot at destroying the big bad because losing everyone they love is too high a cost. Where losing Cas makes Dean lose hope, where losing Eileen sends Sam into a death wish mindset. Sam and Dean don’t just need each other. That’s not canon, it never has been.

And then right after that, along comes meta episode The Heroes’ Journey. Sorry if you don’t like The Heroes’ Journey, but it’s what the canon did, it’s textual, along with everything else I’ve pointed out here, and in among the crackish humor are some real emotional narrative points.

In The Heroes’ Journey, Dean gets to see Garth’s life. Garth found his significant other, Bess, and she’s another werewolf. Now, Garth’s life resembles the traditional white picket fence idea a lot more than what Team Free Will are headed for. Garth has a big house with a porch, and he’s a dentist. He’s also a werewolf and his wife is a werewolf and his kids are werewolves because Bess is a pureblood werewolf, Garth didn’t exactly leave the life, and he helps Sam and Dean on a case. But nothing’s been indicating to me that anyone in Team Free Will is headed for that kind of settling down, with a house, becoming a dentist. However, the canon has been practically shouting now, as we near final episodes of SPN, to make the point about a desirable outcome--some kind of stability, contentment, and a significant other. Dean gets a front row seat to seeing a hunter can have that. Garth’s a hunter who turned into a werewolf and he can have that.

When EP’s talk about how they aren’t headed for a white picket fence or driving off into the sunset or settling down, none of that rules out them finding...something...with someone, and some form of stability and contentment. Nope, I can’t really imagine them in the suburbs becoming dentists. But canon sure is putting up big neon arrows to...something. Think outside the box. This isn’t about the white picket fence.

And in The Heroes’ Journey, Dean, conked out on the good gas so Garth can fix his teeth, has a trippy dream where he dances with a lamp.

Rewatch the ep. Look at how the dance is choreographed not just the use of light, because that’s a clue too. The whole dance could have been Dean and Garth being dancing bros, but Garth fades off the stage, and Dean dances alone...until he grabs the standing lamp. In a season where Dean and Cas’s relationship is an A-plot, define it how you like, it’s A-plot. Their breakup and their reconciliation, which played like a marital breakup and reconciliation, are tied to major mytharc beats. In a season where a long-running textual theme about Dean’s developing hope for retirement and his wistfulness about “things...people...feelings...” is getting further play. Where Dean and Cas’s relationship continues to be one of the show’s most central ones.

Dean dances with a lamp. While his emotionally fraught, intense close relationship with Cas--A BEING MADE OF LIGHT--has a long-running arc and recently more and more textual level content spelling out the sublimated romantic interest in small words, while there’s an arc about Dean’s yearning for that stability, contentment, a significant other.

CONTEXT.

We don’t think Destiel’s “going canon” because Dean dances with a lamp, it’s that Dean dancing with a lamp is kinda loud serving as reflection of canon textual arcing. Sometimes subtext adds a layer. Sometimes subtext is directly tied to the surface layers, an echo, a highlighter.

I’ll just be over here, crying because Dean danced with a lamp.

#Dean Winchester #Castiel #Destiel #Destiel meta #spn meta #spn #supernatural #Saileen

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amwritingmeta · 4 years

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4x06 Deconstruction: This One Goes Out to All of Dean’s Fears

I started working on this after 14x19 and it’s been sat in a document folder needing to be turned into a post ever since. With all the fairly delicious callbacks to this particular ep in 15x07 this seems the opportune time to give it a polish and share. Hope y’all will enjoy! xx

So, I’ve been meaning to do this ever since I wrote this meta on 4x05, because watching the opening half of S4 is like taking a nose dive into Dean’s character and what he needs to understand about himself in order to let go of old patterns of behaviour and belief systems, grow into his own person and find the answer to what will actually make him happy.

The trajectory of this nose dive is set up through Castiel arriving on the scene with his way of looking into Dean’s soul and stating uncomfortable truths: You don’t think you deserve to be saved and Good Things Do Happen.

S4 and Dean’s rebirth (or his rehymination, as he calls it in 4x05) is all about setting him on the path towards adulthood. This is where his coming-of-age story really begins in earnest. The need for him to let go of old patterns of behaviour has been hit on throughout S1-3, but those first seasons act more as a setting up of this fact, letting us follow the behavioural pattern, whereas in S4 we start to get more contrasts to it, including discovering new sides to him, like exactly how much he knows and reads etc.

Now, let’s focus on how Yellow Fever explores Dean’s inner fears and explicitly lets him know that he has to confront them.

This episode states that this is the work that’s beginning for him, whether he likes it or not.

(he likes it not) (which is why he rejects the proposition in the episode’s final scene) (and has continued to reject it out of narrative necessity ever since) (but I skip ahead)

I’m late to the party here, so I’m #sorrynotsorry for the repetition, but I’m really eager to finally dig into this episode, since how it comes off the back of 4x05 and how it leads right into the absolute smasher that is 4x07 has felt so weighty to me ever since I deconstructed Monster Movie.

Contemplating the visual and thematic callback in 14x16 to this very episode, established through Felix the snake, as well as the most recent callback we got through that lovely piece of dialogue in 15x07, I feel that the intricately crafted exploration of Dean’s fears in 4x06, and the stated need for him to confront them if he’s to be happy, is more intriguing than ever.

Alright, before we go ahead and dig in, I want to present you with a few thoughts on Dean. Namely, I’d like to list the fears I see this episode exploring and they are:

Fear of Rejection (linked to perception of societal judgement)

Fear of Death (linked to Hell)

Fear of Growth and Internal Transformation (linked to fear of happiness)

Fear of Happiness (linked to losing his mother at a young age)

Fear of Failure (linked to Protect Sammy, and, in turn, linked to all the above)

These fears, and how they interlink in rather amazing ways, inform his behaviour, and it’s his behaviour when confronted with all of these fears that the narrative of 4x06 explores. And to my brain it does so in staggering ways, yeah?

Yeah. Okay. Let’s dig.

Little Pink Bow

We start the episode with Dean, running for his life, terrified.

I mean, he is literally running from his fears. It’s rather gorgeous.

The scene also paints the mood for the rest of the episode, where Dean’s skewed perception of the root of his fears are explored in depth.

As a viewer, you’re brought into the belief that Dean is truly running from Hellhounds because, of course, this belief is effectively established through use of sound as Dean is running away from the noise of barking dogs, teasing the idea that the fear Dean’s displaying has to do with seriously bad memories of getting ripped to shreds and sent to Hell. (remember that we’ve only had glimpses through snippets of nightmares up until now of how much Dean actually remembers of his time there)

The scene itself is shot with urgency and real threat. We feel Dean’s fear. We worry for him. We wonder what the fuck is going on. We don’t want him to get attacked and dragged back to Hell!

We get an abrupt stop to Dean’s flight when he crashes into the cart of a homeless man, but Dean’s on his feet quick enough and it’s put in dialogue that what you should do is run from your fears. Because if you don’t, they’ll kill you! And then…

…we get the tiniest, friendliest little dog, complete with pink bow as a visual aid underlining exactly how non-threatening it really is meant to be perceived by us.

This reveal of Dean not being about to get dragged back to Hell is funny, obviously, on many levels because we’re relieved that Dean’s terror is unfounded, and then we get hit with the understanding of Dean the Soldier Warrior Man running away from the sweetest little creature ever.

So, though this is sincerely funny thanks to impeccable acting, to me, there’s a bit more to it, and it’s to do with how this scene really sets the tone for the entire episode.

This tone is all to do with the exploration of Dean’s character makeup and what really makes him tick.

Surface level narrative explores our first impression of what this episode is about: Dean’s fear of dying and going back to Hell. (Run! It’ll kill you!) This episode is about to lay it bare to us how Dean’s struggling with his memories of Hell, with his lingering fear that God has made a serious mistake and that it’ll all get ripped away from him again.

His feelings of guilt at how he caved and began to torture souls keeping his self-loathing as intact as ever, and that self-loathing keeps him feeling, very much, that he didn’t deserve to be saved. Which feeds his fear that it was all a big mistake. And around and around it goes.

But his persistent self-loathing and feelings of worthlessness are in turn anchored entirely in fears that have been with Dean his whole life. The fears listed above in the intro to this analysis. And, to me, these fears are what that pink bow is about.

Because subtextually I see Dean running from himself when he tries to escape that little dog. He’s running from fears that are, if he really dared open his eyes and look at them, not nearly as threatening as he thinks they are. If he just dared recognise them for what they are and begin to face them, he’d see that they’re no more dangerous than that little dog is.

Subtextual level narrative explores those fears, the ones intrinsic to Dean’s character, the ones feeding the surface level narrative fear of Hell and that are keeping the guilt and sense of worthlessness and lack of faith in himself very much at the forefront of his self-perception.

S4 is all about pushing Dean to open up to who he truly is. It’s about asking himself what will make him happy. It’s all about identity. And, yes, the series as a whole is about identity, but this season pushes that theme into a whole new focus from previous seasons.

There’s a shift with Castiel entering the narrative and God reaching down a hand to give Dean a mission. There’s tentative faith beginning to blossom in Dean, which is a hugely important building block for Dean to dare to face his fears, and is also something this episode picks up from 4x05 (It’s kind of like a mission… Like a mission from God…) and builds on.

His Heart Gave Out

So, we get an immediate plant that what we’re about to deal with is matters of the heart.

This plant is important for the plot of the episode, of course, but symbolically hearts are tied to Dean and it’s been implied since as early as 2x01 (ah @mittensmorgul pointed out that it actually starts in 1x12 and of course! how could I neglect the episode that started the faith thread?? tut! thanks for the pointer Laura!) that heart issues could be what kills him, rather than a bullet between the eyes. Right?

Right. But rather than looking at it as a direct foreshadowing of Dean’s death, it could be seen as a comment on what is keeping him from living, and what’s keeping him from truly living is the fact that he’s unable to open his heart, to have faith, to trust. (and how can you follow your heart if you don’t trust it?) (you can’t is how)

Also very much the reason why Castiel the angel of Heaven and bringer of faith (who’s biggest problem is having too much heart) has stepped onto the scene, but I shan’t digress.

The fact that the coroner actually takes out the heart of our vic and places it in Dean’s hands gets a rather amazing bookend moment in the scene where Lilith tells Dean he knows why this is happening to him and that he should listen to his heart. *slow eyebrow raise* I’ll get back to that.

Sheriff’s Office

Please note that the cute young deputy is already noticing Dean, and Dean notices him noticing, and Sam is noticing them noticing each other. This is important to note not only because it’s fucking amazing to make note of it, but also because of the Moment that comes later. We all know it, I still gotta call it out, but that’s for later.

Now for the sheriff.

I just want us to make note of a few things regarding the sheriff as well:

The sheriff gave the deputy instructions he didn’t want to be disturbed and now scolds him for doing as told

The sheriff gets the brothers to take their shoes off

The sheriff keeps putting disinfectant on his hands

Conclusion, he’s a control freak, and he’s a control freak because?

I’d say he’s a control freak out of fear. A man doesn’t use disinfectant like that if he’s not terrified of germs, right? And this character trait lowkey links him to another control freak germaphobe. Yup, that would be Dean.

I’d also like us to note that Dean can’t stay professional and act like an actual adult (because he’s not one) when the sheriff says the word gamecock. The sheriff, being an actual adult, gently corrects the behaviour, leaving Dean looking self-conscious.

Could Be a Hundred Things

We continue the setting up of how Dean’s fears are about to go through some serious deconstruction, and with it the man himself, when Sam and Dean leave the sheriff’s office to have this exchange (edited btw):

Dean: Something scared him to death. Sam: Alright, so what could do that? Dean: What can’t? Ghosts, vampires, chupacabra. It could be a hundred things. Sam: So, we make a list and start crossing things off.

Yeah, remember the list I made of Dean’s fears? Going through that list and exploring Dean’s fears is what the narrative of this episode is setting up to do. Dean is, as the brothers are soon to realise, infected with the same ghost sickness that killed the vic. So here we have foreshadowing, in dialogue, of exactly what this episode means to do: go through the list of Dean’s fears and highlight, with each new situation where one of these fears is explored, exactly what Dean’s issues are and why the biggest one is… his closed off heart.

First fear: rejection.

Because why exactly do those teenagers make Dean need to cross the street? He doesn’t like the look of them, but why? They’re just a group of friends standing on the sidewalk in broad daylight.

I’d say it’s to do with Dean’s fear of societal judgement, that has kept the conviction and reliance on his toxic masculinity armour so firmly in place for so long. Even firmer in place, I’d argue, than John’s immediate influence.

John introduced it as a necessity for survival, for keeping your head focused in a fight, for putting emotion aside and getting the job done, but wearing the armour also meant social status and acceptance, even admiration. I think Dean caught onto this at a young age. Because that’s how we all form our personas (how we present ourselves to the world), through societal conditioning. Or through growing aware of this conditioning and telling it to go fuck itself. (good for you if you’re in that place) (Dean’s journey has been all about getting there)

The fact that Dean’s insecurity stretches to even the possibility of teenagers side-eyeing him is a really great set-up for how this very deep fear is about to get put under an extremely bright light for the rest of the episode, through Luther’s storyline.

She Smells Fear

Sam and Dean go to see the vic’s neighbour Mark and oh, he really, really likes his reptiles.

Second fear: growth and internal transformation.

Why do I see this scene as being indicative of this fear? Well, because of how snakes, as we know, symbolise transformation. They symbolise healing. (Ouroboros anyone?)

Now, of course, surface narratively speaking, Dean doesn’t exactly enjoy having a huge albino python sliterhing onto his lap (though the dirtier connotations that can be made from the visual are all shades hilariously poignant) (also the fact that the Devil was a snake and Dean’s fear of Hell) (all part of the symbology for the surface level fear), but him freaking out at all the reptiles and one spider (also symbolic of transformation), to me, has much more to do with what these creatures all declare for the subtextual reading (the pink bow related one), and their declaration is a continuation of what 4x01 told us.

Dean needs to open himself up to much needed internal growth and transformation.

This is what the first five episodes of the season, landing us here in 4x06, are all about: deconstructing Dean, forcing him to gain new perspectives on himself, on his behavioural patterns, on what has shaped him into the man he’s always seen himself as.

Look at how, in just a few short episodes, he’s had someone enter his life that has not only brought with him a whole new world view, where God and the Devil exist, and where Heaven, for whatever reason, actually seems to be on his side, but this someone has also brought him back in time to bring him a new understanding of his mother and who she really was, not who she was when filtered through John’s view of her.

I mean, that’s giving an insight into his lack of faith in himself as well as laying the foundation for beginning to question his self-perception right there. Within the first three episodes of the season. *head explodes*

So, to my mind, this episode is an extension and, in many ways, a deepening of what the season has clearly set itself out to do, yeah?

The fact that Marie is stated in dialogue to smell fear is just delightful.

Might I also draw your eye to how we, in this scene, are told that the vic was freaking out. About witches. Who is skeeved out by witches? Dean. So there’s a narrative tie there, which I find interesting. (that the witch-freakout for Frank is tied to The Wizard of Oz comment is just icing)

Why is Dean so skeeved out by witches? I would say because witches symbolise something deeply regressed within him, which is his feminine side. His non-performing side. Rowena comes as a Dean mirror, and a very powerful one at that, bringing deep truth and standing in, for her first seasons, as a representative of toxic masculinity traits not simply being allocated to men and underlining how we can all display these traits, regardless of gender.

There’s also the ghosts (the past), the vampires (dual nature of identity and wearing a mask to cope) and chupacabra (happiness, mayhaps?), and how Carl Jung talks about what monsters really represent to us and why they’re so prevailing throughout human mythology. I mean, I studied this at uni so Carl didn’t teach me this, but the fact that it ties in with Carl Jung’s doctrine just gives me a sense of synchronicity. But. This is already getting fucking long, guys. :)

Moving on.

When Mark says that Frank used to tape his butt cheeks together we get another moment of Dean being an absolute child about it, unable to keep a smile down, presumably at the idea of butt cheeks taped together, not the idea of bullying, and again he totally offends the person talking, and he grows sligthly self-conscious about it.

He really needs some self-perspective, yeah? Yeah.

Scratching the Itch

I mean… Look, I think that Dean has never been able to scratch the proverbial itch because what he’s the most scared of is the idea of daring to believe in a good thing happening, because good things do not last, not in Dean’s experience. You know?

He’s a big-hearted, soft-to-the-core, loving type of human being, who longs, more than anything, for real love, to be loved for who he truly is. And all of that, including his true identity, is being repressed out of his fear. Of happiness. Because Good Things Don’t Last.

I’ll talk more about the root of this further down, but I just find the fact that in this episode, the ghost sickness, which is a manifestation of fear, is literally an itch he keeps trying to scratch, and it just gets bigger and worse and is a visual statement of how his internalised fears are pretty much driving him out of his head is a rather poetic choice.

So, we get the information that Frank’s wife committed suicide way back when and that Frank had an airtight alibi and then we get the reveal that Dean appears to be, by all accounts, haunted.

Ghosts as representatives of needing to put the past to rest… Just throwing that in there.

And Dean is driving slow.

Second fear: death.

And this was already established through the fear of Hellhounds at the beginning of the episode, yeah? But given the deeper issues being addressed here, you could actually argue for Dean’s fear of death not only being linked to a very real fear of Hell, but of a genuine desire to live.

Peeling back the layers of the Blaze of Glory bravado that’s kept him on a self-destructive fast-track for so long and revealing the softer belly underneath.

I mean, one could argue. Since this episode is all about stripping away the toxic masculinity armour and showing the non-performing side to Dean. Showing us the truth, rather than the lie he’s been telling Sam since he got back from Hell. And on a subtextual level, stripping away the armour that’s keeping him safe from himself and exposing those nerve endings.

Because he should listen to his heart.

But we’ll get to that.

Eye of the Tiger

I really do appreciate the detail of the cowboy scene on that hotel. Like. Wow. It’s almost insane. To me, this show is all about deconstructing the American ideal of the 50s, right? The ideal that’s informed toxic masculinity patterns since then, as well as the toxic patterns of societal judgement at large.

It was in the 50s that the Hollywood western shaped the cowboy/sheriff character into becoming a glorifed male hero ideal, moving away from the truth of the rather open-minded wild wild west and into the commersial version of a very white, very straight man’s man who got the job done, no matter what, and sorted shit out wherever he went. Yeah?

Anyway, I digress. This deconstruction is why cowboys and native americans and the wild west symbology is just so poignant on the show. And here it is. In all its glory. Attached to a hotel that could be said to be low-key linked to happiness.

Because the bluebird is a symbol of happiness.

Fourth fear: happiness.

And, look, Dean’s fear of heights is linked to the hotel, okay? His fear of flying. And flying is linked to? Yeah, you get the idea here. Of course, Castiel.

Here’s the thing, this is a highly dubious reading, because it’s absolutely not anywhere in the narrative that Bluebird is the chosen name for a hotel suddenly related to a fear of heights related to a fear of flying and being out of control and it tying back to Cas, who is making Dean feel all sorts of not-in-control. Yeah? That’s my reading.

But it’s my reading because there’s more.

Wait for it.

First, let’s talk a bit more about this scene —>

Dean rejects food. (love Sam’s reaction face like the fuck?)

Why the fuck does Dean reject the food?

I’d say because food is a superficial band-aid, right? It’s ineffective comfort at this point. A way to eat his emotions, rather than find healthy outlets for them, like, I don’t know, actually connecting to others because that’s just a recipe for disaster, death and loss. But his emotions, right now, will not be suppressed by simple means. They’re completely in control of him and refuse to be put back in their designated boxes.

So the ghost sickness can be spread like any disease and, of course, attacks the heart. Dean got infected when holding Frank’s heart.

Sam didn’t get infected and Sam and Bobby’s theory is that the men who got infected all had a history of being dicks. Which is, you know, funny, but tragic, when looking at the surface level fear of Hell. Because Dean became a torturer of souls. So kinda a dick. Very much using fear as his weapon.

But when it comes to the principal and the bouncer, it’s not verified that they did. Sam and Bobby are just associating using fear as a weapon with the roles of principal and bouncer. Especially when looking at how Dean tries to reject the idea that he, as a hunter, uses fear to scare people, Sam telling him all they do is scare people, and fair enough, but the ghost sickness isn’t infecting Sam.

And it isn’t infecting Sam because, for the subtextual layer of Dean’s fear, this theory is too shallow.

For the subtextual layer of Dean’s fears I’d say that the ghost sickness actually latches onto guilt.

There’s even the aspect to Frank where guilt might actually be the foremost reason for why the ghost sickness infects him as well, since we’ll learn later through Luther’s brother that Frank’s wife wasn’t killed, but was a victim of suicide. We don’t get it extrapolated on what caused her to take her own life, but safe to say her marriage was anything but healthy, and Frank’s outrage and murder of Luther seems to be underpinned by him being wholly unable to process his own guilt, instead ending up projecting it onto an easy target.

baby gonna cry?

The fear of dying and of going back to Hell is threaded through in this scene, clarifying it further for us that this is what Dean’s terrified of.

The ticking clock pretty much acting like a visual underlining of Dean feeling like he’s back on borrowed time. It’s inevitable that he has to go back. For all the things he did while there. He can’t have been forgiven. He sure as shit hasn’t forgiven himself.

Dean breaks the clock. Doesn’t need the reminder of how his head is, as he tells Sam, on the chopping block again. He’d almost forgotten what that feels like.

For a moment. Like a glimmer. There had been the thought that he was serving something bigger. That maybe he was off the hook. Chosen to do great deeds. Aw, Dean. You’re not meant to learn how to have faith in a higher power. You’re meant to learn how to have faith in yourself.

They realise, as Dean coughs up a wood chip, that he’s the biggest clue they have.

Dean doesn’t like it.

Cassity & Sons

Now. Of all the things to call this lumber mill, this haunted structure - housing Luther, our ghost of the hour who is in the narrative to be representative of Dean’s deepest issues, his most repressed fear - of all the things to call it, there’s a Cass in the name.

It could just be a tounge-in-cheek thing. It could mean nothing. But I like to think it does. Coming off of the absolutely angel riddled narrative of 4x05 as well, I really do think it does.

From the Bluebird of happiness and Dean’s fear of flying/heights, to the structure that is about to be significant in exploring Dean’s deepest fear being owned by a man named Cassity… I feel there’s reason to think there’s a reason for it.

But, either way, this structure and Luther himself are important for exploring Dean’s deepest fears.

(they’re not playing around with the sign and making sure to linger on it either)

Now. Dean takes one look at this place. A place he has no idea if it’s haunted or not, btw. And states he is not going in there. Sure, nine times out of ten a place like that, given Dean’s previous experience with places like this, turns out to be haunted. Fair enough.

But in a subtextual context, with the structure itself owned and run by Cassity…

Dean doesn’t want to go in there because of what he’ll have to face. Which is, in essence, the need to face up to the fact that he’s already beginning to open himself up to the idea of change, to wanting change, because of this formidable someone who’s arrived in his life through a rain of sparks as a catalyst for Dean to begin to gain a sense of what faith actually feels like.

Dean doesn’t want to touch all that with a ten-foot pole.

Because, and this is wholly unconscious, but because touching it means daring to have faith that Good Things Do Happen. And because Dean’s fear of happiness is fed by the conviction that Good Things Don’t Last, and this fear sits at his very core and so – he drinks.

He downs half a bottle of whiskey.

Because he’s gonna need liquid courage to face the idea of opening himself up.

And he mans the flashlight.

Rejecting that gun is interesting, because, of course it’s tied to his fear of injury resulting in death, but it’s also Dean rejecting something that’s always brought him a sense of control before.

Consider: as he’s brought into situations of facing his fears, his armour falls away and the tools that that armour relies on, to make him feel in control, don’t actually fill that function anymore.

Regarding Dean relies on that same peeling back of Dean’s layers, yeah? That same deconstruction. The shedding of the toxic masculinity armour to have a peak at what’s really underneath it all.

Dean masks his fear and he masks it really well. He feels he’s on control, all the time, thanks to the mask, thanks to the armour, but the truth is that he is a bundle of fear. Always. He’s just gotten so good at masking it that he’s masking the truth even to himself.

That’s what this episode is all about. Lifting that curtain. Forcing him into a position where all that raw emotion is exposed and he can’t lie to himself anymore. It helps set up the reveal of how he remembers Hell, but it also sets up for Dean’s journey of introspection this season, yeah?

Surface level vs. subtextual level.

EMF

If ghosts are representatives of the past (and needing to learn how to let go) then the fact that Dean is dealing with fears that were established in his childhood, meaning he’s one hundred percent facing his past and what’s shaped him into who he is with every new situation this episode, then that EMF meter wouldn’t work around him, would it?

He’s haunted by his past. Suppressed Hell-guilt, and repressed fears anchored in his childhood. Oh my.

I love Sam in this episode. He’s unfortunately a reactionary character, the straight man, as you’d call it, because this isn’t his journey, but oh what a reactionary character he is. Also —>

Can’t do a post on this episode and not have Dean screaming his head off. *sadism*

Now, I very much enjoy the fact that, once it’s time to do the detecting, Dean takes part in it without hesitation. Autopilot kicks in and he engages with the search for clues without any fear, because there’s nothing scary about it.

But when the ghost (the past) appears, he runs like the damn wind.

Sam is there, though, to take care of it.

And Dean downs the rest of the bottle. Taking us into that epicness of epicnessess that is —>

Drunk and Unabashedly Flirty

I mean, look, okay? This is blatant.

Dean stands there, having a slightly worried expression on when he notices the woman to his right, glancing over at her suspiciously, okay? We get that he’s still scratching at the itch, he’s still alert, even though he is drunk, right?

But what does not faze him? What makes him put on a goofy smile? The very cute (I’d even call him a pretty boy) deputy from earlier, with whom he exchanged looks, so that there’s an already established sense of mutual attraction there.

Dean: You know what? You’re awesome.

And then Dean just keeps smiling goofily, taking the compliment that’s offered back to him, until Sam comes and pulls him out of there.

And the fact that this is the one instance in this entire episode after the ghost sickness kicks in that Dean is not displaying even a whisper of fear is what has informed my impression of him being absolutely comfortable with his bisexuality.

Here he’s dropping the toxic masculinty armour because?

Well, I’d say it’s because he wears that armour because it allows him to suppress/repress whatever fear is threatening to surface. Here, in this episode, we’re checking off a list, and he’s faced his fears at this point, and now only has to acknowledge them and learn how to actually dig deep and deal with them. (which he won’t) (but this episode is exposition for this being what the narrative wants him to do) (this is the big lesson it’s trying to teach Dean moving forward) (listen to your heart)

Luther

The habit of lying without a second thought (including to himself) is being stripped away with the rest of his coping mechanisms and here we get Dean freaking out over the thought of all the possible consequences that lying might actually land on their heads.

Sam acts the parental figure as Dean regresses out of his control freak patterns and into a state where he’s in need of Sam’s protection, not the other way around. Whenever this happens on the show it’s always nice to see Sam stepping up to the plate without hesitation. It’s just that Sam doesn’t seem to remember his ability to do that and falls back on the codependency easily enough. Understandable, since it’s the core of the narrative motor, but oh, Sam. You’re such a clear leader.

Luther’s brother speaks of Luther’s backstory, and just as the characteristics of Frank and the sheriff make them Dean mirrors, the ghost of the hour is the biggest Dean mirror to me, and reveals a lot to us about Dean’s deepest fears.

Garland: Everybody was scared of Luther. They called him a monster. He was too big, too mean-looking. Just too different. Didn’t matter that he was the kindest man I ever knew. Didn’t matter he’s never hurt no one. A lot of people failed Luther, I was one of them. I was a widower with three young ones and I told myself there was nothing I could do. Sam: Mr. Garland, do you recognise this woman? Garland: That’s Jessie O’Brian. Her man, Frank, killed Luther. Sam: How do you know that? Garland: Everybody knows. They just don’t talk about it. Jessie was a receptionist at the mill. She was always real nice to Luther and he had a crush on her. But Frank didn’t like it. Then when Jessie went missing, Frank was sure that Luther had done something to her. Turns out the old gal killed herself, but Frank didn’t know that. They found Luther with a chain wrapped around his neck. He was dragged up and down the stretch outside that plant till he was past dead.

Frank was the pillar of the community.

Luther was just the town freak.

Frank was respected.

Luther was judged and dismissed as not even being human, simply because he didn’t look like everybody else.

Frank is framed as being an abusive, violent dickhead - clearly not the most stabile marriage - and to find an outlet for his grief, Frank picks up a shotgun and then drags a man along a road until he’s dead.

Luther’s almost childlike innocense and kindness leads him to find an outlet for his unrequited feelings of love through drawing portraits of the object of his affections.

Frank is representative of toxic masculinity (performing Dean) while Luther is all about wearing his heart on his sleeve (non-performing Dean).

And, to me, Luther’s backstory of how wearing his heart on his sleeve gets him nothing but societal judgement, and leads to his death, is telling of Dean’s deepest fear, and why it’s been perpetuated for so long through his experiences of societal judgement, because Dean’s deepest fear is his fear of happiness, and it sits at his core and informs the rest of his fears, which, in turn, inform his behavioural pattern of using coping mechanisms to suppress/repress his true emotions, locking himself away from ever really having to open up to them.

And what is the root of Dean’s fear of happiness?

Well, here’s how I see it:

Dean’s biggest battle with his past isn’t the idealisation of his father, but why he idealised his father –>

The why stems entirely from Dean’s loss of his mother, because that loss meant having his life ripped to shreds, resulting in Dean losing his trust in that childlike sense of joy, tied to the stability of home, love, family –>

This is the root of his long-held belief that Good Things Don’t Last, which underpins the idea that happiness (and love) equals pain, an idea that’s been perpetuated throughout Dean’s formative years, since every time he’s come close to feeling happy, something’s happened to snatch that sense of stability and safety away –>

Fearing getting hurt by believing he deserves happiness was easily avoided by dressing himself in toxic masculinity armour, modelling himself after the strongest man he could think of: his father

So every time he came close to happiness and let himself believe, only to have things fall apart on him, that armour has gotten just a little thicker

Dean is stuck in an emotional loop that through this season’s first arc of deconstructing Dean with Chuck, but to me especially through the communication rift between Dean and Cas, is being highlighted, just as it was in 4x06. And we got the entrance into this mini-deconstruction thanks to the same occurance that lay the foundation for Dean’s fear of happiness: the loss of his mother.

It’s the brightest of threads, threading through all of the emotional subtext and necessary character progression that the series as a whole has been pushing for since forever for Dean (and through his progression what it’s been pushing Sam’s and Cas’ individual progression towards as well) *gorgeous*

We Are Insane!

This scene is so everything because omg the comedic timing is just!

And I love how, when thinking closer on the topic of a Dean deconstructed, in Yellow Fever, when all there is to him is fear, he rejects the life, and all sides to it, but when he lost his memories in Regarding Dean, and what was left was his innocence, all that was left for us to see was his wonder and excitement.

Meaning that Dean stripped of all of his fears (once he’s faced them and accepted them and integrated them) is a soft, happy, content human being. As long as he actually remembers who he is and exactly how to survive, he’ll be goddamn unstoppable. And he’ll be balanced and happy.

*please, good gods, please*

Buh-Boom

Dean starts to have some serious hallucinations and any reason for Jared to play a different character or side to Sam is just all good with me (Gadreel is still just… mind-blowingly good).

So Dean sees Sam with yellow eyes and here comes the final fear.

Fifth fear: failure.

Failing to Protect Sammy means pretty much losing his purpose at the Yellow Fever point in the narrative. It’s changed since S12, because of a big shift in Dean’s perspective, but of course, Protect Sammy is still at the top of the list of Dean’s self-worth check list. What’s he worth if he’s unable to protect Sam? To his mind, still not much. Protect Sammy as identity marker has tripped Dean up his whole life, and here that fact comes into stark relay.

Now if we stay with Dean in the hotel room, we get to witness how his inner fears attack him, and of course the surface level fear is the one that manifests: fear of death and going back to Hell.

Thusly – hellhounds.

They turn out to be the sheriff, who’s come to confront Dean about his investigation, and I love how Dean, no matter his fraught mental state, knocks that gun out of the sheriff’s hand and then has the rather amazing fortitude to tell the sheriff he has to calm down. Only it’s too late. The sheriff suffers a heart attack.

Dean sits on the bed, scratching. Hears the voice of the Sam hallucination telling him he’s going back, and it’s about damn time too.

Dean…

…picks up a Bible.

This visual ties right back in with 4x05 again, with the threads of faith beginning to show themselves in Dean’s progression. He’s beginning to want to believe. He looks at that Bible like it’s a life line. He presses his lips to it and hey, I’d say this might be his first moment of giving into prayer as recourse.

But his prayer doesn’t exactly get him what he wants.

I’d theorise that it’s because he’s not meant to learn to have faith in God, but in himself, and this whole episode is about forcing him into a meltdown, which is what he’s in the middle of now. Zero faith in himself, zero faith that he’s not going back to Hell.

And that’s why Lilith appears.

I do love how Dean actually points the Bible at Lilith stating: You are not real.

He’s using God’s faith in him as a shield. Trying desperately to convince himself. Which is rather lovely given the context of how Lilith is a representation of something deep within him that he’s trying so hard to avoid confronting.

And here comes the reveal of exactly what the fear of Hell is really anchored in, because it’s not anchored in Dean’s memories of his gruesome death at the jaws of the Hellhound that killed him, it’s anchored in his memories of not four months in Hell, but forty years.

Guilt.

And Dean’s heart starts to give out.

Dean: You’re not real. Lilith: Doesn’t matter. You’re still gonna die, you’re still gonna burn. Dean: Why me? Why’d I get infected? Lilith: Silly goose. You know why, Dean.

What Lilith says now is, really, what’s informed my entire reading of this episode and I’ve mentioned it several times already. She tells Dean: Listen to your heart.

To me, it’s Dean at this point knowing, deep down, that the only way to keep himself from going back to Hell, the only way he can truly be saved, is all about him beginning to recognise his need to face his fears.

It’s about him daring to listen to his heart and daring to let his emotions be his guide, rather than shutting them down, bottling them up, without question.

This is what his journey is all about, yeah? To learn to let go of the past and all the fears that have been informed by what he’s been taught and told, and opening up to who he truly is and who he truly wants to be.

This is what the beginning of the season has set up for and what the rest of the season will continue to explore, slowly, of course, but meticulously, and it doesn’t slow down in S5 and, honestly, each season has added a new aspect of exactly this exploration, gently pushing Dean toward moments of daring to be honest with himself, which to this meta writer culminated in S11, when he finally had it pointed out to him that he’s not just attracted to or kind of enamoured with this angel dude, he is truly pining for him, and it made him unable to keep trying to deny the truth of how he’s fallen deeply in love, no matter the terror that comes with it. (and twice the worrying about getting ganked to boot)

I’d say that this realisation, this final admittance of his true feelings, is what opened Dean’s heart up to looking at what was really driving Amara from a different angle, and made it possible for him to, instead of blowing her to kingdom come using the soul bomb, actually talk to her on a more human level, about the feelings that were driving her actions. But, again, that’s my reading, not narratively stated anywhere so, you know, pinches of salt here.

Adding to all of this is how Dean needed Mary most because the loss of her is the root of Dean’s fear of happiness, and getting to have her back allowed him to gain perspective on so many things, like his idealisation of her (and through that beginning to slowly open his eyes to his idealisation of John as well) (though this didn’t take root until S13), and he got to tell her that he hated her for what she did to them, but that he loved her, he he got to forgive her, because he could finally see her as a human being, and human beings make mistakes, rather than only having her as an idealised memory, the loss of her idealised mothering love marring his ability to trust from a very young age. Especially his ability to trust himself, since he couldn’t save her.

This realisation is also what brought on the whole awkward 11x23 Brologue like… I don’t think you love me back because I couldn’t reach through to you, but hey, you mean a lot to me, bro.

I find it interesting that Sam’s the one to save Dean. Symbolically Sam and Bobby’s intervention saves Dean from being consumed by his fears. I’ve always felt like Sam stepping up and choosing to show Dean that he’s ready for independence, that he needs it, will push their unhealthy patterns to a breaking point, especially since Dean is already aware, he just doesn’t know how to let go when he’s not sure Sam’s ready. But we shall see.

I’ll Kill Anything

Look at where we land. Look at this absolutely stunning bookend and how it wraps the theme of fear and how it informs Dean’s behavioural pattern into a soft, warm statement of You Really Need to Stop This, Dean Winchester.

We start this episode with the visual of Dean running from his fears. The fears that are coming at him wrapped up in a neat pink bow. :P

We end this episode after it’s spent a good forty minutes picking through Dean’s fears, with him facing the two fears that always get to him the most, the ones that perpetuates his reliance on the toxic masculinity armour to help define who he is: his fear of rejection and his fear of failure.

We get the fear of rejection in how he completely overreacts to Sam and Bobby’s gentle teasing about how this line of work can get awfully scary, Dean forcefully reasserting how he’ll hunt, he’ll kill anything, unable to bear the thought that the men who know him best in the world could, for even a moment, think of him as yellow aka a coward (which of course they don’t) or question his killer instinct (which of course they wouldn’t).

This brief emasculation, however, really bothers Dean in the moment (and Jensen plays it gorgeously) and he squares up to it without hesitation, the armour slamming down and leading right into the softer moment with Sam, when he gets the chance to be honest with his brother, to share some of the burden, but…

…Protect Sammy is still prevalent, and Dean chooses to downplay the ordeal he just went through, and lie through his teeth about the true nature of it, still not opening up to Sam about Hell.

So, back to square one we go, but with all this glorious insight into Dean as a character to warm us by, and here we now are at the end of it all, and I’m so very curious what Dabb - who cowrote this episode with Daniel Loflin btw - will give us. *hopeful for all the good things* *always*

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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Watching from the pilot episode after 14.20 is just... nine levels of satisfying. ALL the themes are here, but it’s like being able to watch an entirely new series. Dabb captured EVERYTHING and showed us that all of it was there all along if you just knew and understood the perspective would even ever exist to be able to see it this way. He pulled my favorite meta point and made it textual:

Perspective shift changes EVERYTHING. The physical narrative hasn’t changed at all, but our ability to see it for what it is has shifted. And the result is GLORIOUS.

It’s like 14.20 gave us the Jeopardy answer, and looping back to the pilot episode replies with the question.

(considering Dabb referenced Jeopardy! in 14.20 makes me think he actually planned this exact observation)

So many off the Big Themes of the entire series are here to see from this perspective, too:

lies vs selectively omitting the truth to protect people

what we do for family, and what family means

manipulation -- right down to the MotW, the woman in white:

Dean at the computer researching “murder” and getting zero results, because they expected a vengeful spirit to be motivated by murder, but this whole case was something they didn’t expect-- from John “disappearing” to laying this false trail to push them into going hunting again together. Their perceptions influenced their beliefs and their actions in response, because they couldn’t see the bigger picture. The information they’re given is deceptive from the start, right down to the story they’re given about the Woman in White:

They’re told her children’s deaths were accidental, she looked away for just a minute, and when she looked back they were drowned in the bath. They’re told she went mad with grief and guilt and jumped off the bridge because of it. But that’s not what really happened at all. And they’re incapable of stopping her until they truly understand what actually happened-- that she was angry at her husband for cheating on her with another woman and deliberately drowned her own children in a fit of rage before killing herself, only to regret it all once she was dead. Only then can they see that the way to stop her is to force her to face what she’d done, to directly confront the children whose lives she destroyed.

They had the wrong story. It had all sounded perfectly plausible, but within the context of the misinformation, they would never be able to see the bigger picture or be able to find the proper conclusion that would end this recurring cycle of the Woman In White’s vengeance, enacted over and over on whomever happened to be driving by.

DEAN So this is where Constance took the swan dive. SAM: So you think Dad would have been here? DEAN: Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him.

Chasing stories. Which is what Chuck has been watching them do for his own entertainment. And this moment, Dean is SO CLOSE to understanding that he’s not chasing another story, but his own, paralleling their hunt for the WoW to their hunt for John, not understanding that John is deliberately laying a trail for them to follow, drawing them along through specifically chosen cases almost as if he’s preparing them for what’s to come while also trying to shield them from being able to see the whole truth yet...

SAM: Okay, so now what? DEAN: Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while. SAM: Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday— DEAN: Monday. Right. The interview. SAM: Yeah. DEAN: Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl? SAM: Maybe. Why not? DEAN: Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done? SAM: No, and she's not ever going to know. DEAN: Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are. SAM: And who's that? DEAN: You're one of us. SAM: No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life. DEAN: You have a responsibility to— SAM: To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back. DEAN: Don't talk about her like that.

And here we have lies and damn lies, understanding who they are and what they are and their place in the universe. Back then they thought it was something completely different, but through the years they’ve come to a larger and larger understanding, until 14.20 when they finally saw the Whole Truth, directly, with their own eyes.

Dean talks about this throughout the entire series-- about only believing what he can see for himself. Well, he’s finally had that final curtain ripped down. And it’s reflected in microcosm at every level of the story, going back to the pilot.

Remember when Cas was one of those things he couldn’t believe in at first, even after being presented with the evidence of Cas’s existence? Yeah, I do too. :’)

While typing this, 1.02 played, touching on all of these themes but also the big theme of how Sam and Dean deal with the general public when they’re exposed to the supernatural. Lies, truth, what part of the truth is actually helpful and what part only leads to pointless suffering. Watching Wendigo after watching 14.16 is an eye-opening experience about storytelling.

I feel like s14 provides the secret decoder ring for the entire series, and damn is it ever Cookietacular.

#spn 1.01 #spn 1.02 #spn 14.16 #spn 14.20 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #spiders georg of the tnt loop #lies and damn lies #grand unification via love theory #i'm gonna be writing about this forever... apologies in advance...

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almaasi · 5 years

Text

reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x15 “Peace of Mind”

CAS!!!!! CAS CAS CAS IS THE BESTEST CAS CAS CAS CAS

03:24pm

ALL RIGHT I’M READY

I ACTUALLY SLEPT LAST NIGHT SO I’M NOT CURRENTLY DYING. only, like 40% woozy and 90% drained of energy

LOOKING FORWARD TO SOMETHING WHOLESOME

another steve yockey episode?? screenplay by someone called meghan fitzmartin. sweet

all i know about this episode is from a tumblr post that said “cas”, “funny” and “brother in law bonding”, and an instagram post with sam looking like a shady art auctioneer who sells endangered animals on the side