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shallowseeker · 8 months

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The inherent shame in loving angels: Dean & Castiel

I think 14x09 The Spear & 14x10 Nihilism have some marvelous built-in lines pointing to the guilt concerning angelic possession.

Pamela Barnes's presence and subsequent blinding in Dean’s dreamscape is so, so fascinating. It implies that, despite what Dean says in The Spear, Dean is strugglingwith what the reality of Cas is and a new perspective on the brutal knowledge of what his presence means.

Take these lines from The Spear:

CAS: You seem good lately. Happy, even. [ Dean is getting gear from back seat ] You -- We have a broken tape deck, we drove this whole way without music, and you did not complain once. DEAN: [ Closes car door ] You know, I guess I'm just fired up. I mean, look. We got -- We got Jack back. When was the last time we had a big, no-strings-attached win like that? CAS: But now we have Michael. DEAN: I know. CAS: And, Dean we're taking a big risk going after the spear like this. DEAN: I know we are.[ Stopping Cas ] Listen to me. Michael conned me. Kept me trapped and drowning inside my own body. Now, when you and Sam were possessed by Lucifer, I -- I thought I understood, but I didn't, not really. So, yeah, if we get a chance to trap him, I'll take that, but I won't be truly happy until he is dead and I kill him. And now I have a chance to do that, so, yeah, I'm good. Let's go.

On the outside, Dean is happy. There's just one thing left to defeat, and then, maybe finally he can be happy. (We know from 12x23 that his happiness, the 'everything he's ever wanted' includes his makeshift little family: Cas, Mary, Jack.)

But Michael's possession left him psychologically injured. Angelic power and possession is on his mind. He's still struggling with the horror of what that felt like.

He does not mention the elephant in the room--that Cas not only know what's like to be possessed, but to possess.

///

Then, we see Pamela Barnes in 14x10 Nihilism, and yes, she's conspicuously dressed in Hell and wing motifs. Michael reminds us that it was Cas who pulled Dean from perdition, and then we get this:

(Flashback to Pamela's eyes being burned out) DEAN (looks at Pamela, whose eyes are now pure white): You're blind? PAMELA: Yeah, I've been blind for a while. Thank Feathers here for that one. CASTIEL: That was -- Dean, that was an accident. ♪ And I'm searchin' for a rainbow ♪

This is Dean's subconscious. It's taunting him that he's been blind...for awhile.

It's an ominous undercurrent reminding him that yes, he's loved Cas for awhile, and yes, that's blinded him to what Cas truly is. His subconscious is struggling and balking at the new perspective he has on Cas's human victims. Pamela was an accident, but Jimmy wasn't. Countless others weren't either.

He can't help but think about it, and he's desperately suppressing it. He loves Cas. But Cas blinded Pamela, like he blinded Dean. And Dean loves him anyway, and that's horrific, isn't it? He can't have that. They can't possibly deserve that happiness together. They're both here at the expense of others. It's frightening and ugly and drowning him with guilt.

Beyond Pamela lies the specter of Jimmy Novak. The ugly truth is that the third member of Team Free Will stripped a man of his free will so utterly.

And yet, Dean's subconscious is chanting, “I love you. I can’t help it.”

It's true what they say: love is blind.

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shallowseeker · 7 months

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fyi jack doesn't appear in rocky's bar

Probably shouldn't be answering these when I'm in a bad mood, but since you're poking me. Yeah. Neither is Mary. The bar is a workers'/coworkers' paradise, and that's all Dean's allowing for himself here. It's an anemic, starved happiness, where Dean is...endlessly waiting on a happiness that is so Paused that nothing truly bad can happen.

And Rocky's is mostly empty.

Dean's lost a lot of friends, and here, he's subconsciously aware that even if he retires, his loved ones might still be fighting/working, not at home with him. Thus, you get...the roadhouse. He is become like Ellen Harvelle.

The roadhouse is the domain of road warriors. It's and "after-work drinks" type of contentedness, not the "toes in the sand" type he'd been alluding to just a half-season before. That's why the bar itself is filled with the motifs of coworking and friendship. It's why it's full of those "sublimation's kinda your thing, Dean," motifs, like the Tombstone symbols.

Dean sublimates his own desires. He'll take a big place doing who-cares if everyone can just be there. Ergo, roadhouse.

///

It's also why Sam and Cas are still working; they're out on a hunt, but they're not too far. They're "just down the road," in Wichita. Still in Kansas. It's why Dean is still working, albeit in a work-from-home situation, where he kills vampires ("theme of hunger") on an endless loop.

Mary isn't there at all. May! The thing "we finally found...after all this time," and the most broadly consistent part of Dean's "everything we've always wanted," is not here. Mary is integral to Dean's happiness, and he desperately wants her happiness too, as evidenced by Lebanon and all that's signified by his limbo-wandering in the companion series, The Winchesters.

And Jack? Jack is the thing he never gets to keep. It's the thing he's been steeling himself to lose since the very beginning:

People like Mary and Jack are not in the roadhouse because they're very much a part of the things he wants but can't have, you see. They don't even one-to-one work motifs, because they're not and never have been co-workers to the degree that the others have.

So, Jack would be in a bunker version of a fantasy, no doubt. So would Mary. And probably versions of Sam and Cas (and Dean) that aren't, you know, working.

EDIT: Oops, I forgot the attributions. Scripts are from here. it's Tombstone and Jack in the Box.

(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

#season 14 #supernatual VS the loss of meaning #spn nihilism #AU michael #dean + possession #spn 14x10 #dean + fantasy life #dean + anemic contentment #dean + starved happiness #spn + career #spn + workaholics

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