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neven-ebrez · 5 years

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Supernatural's Narrative Structure Throughout the Years (Read More edition)

Supernatural has seen four showrunners (with one consistent one throughout, Robert Singer), which are: Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver and now, Andrew Dabb. At the beginning, the show focused on a more simplistic method of storytelling; the protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester went up against urban legends while looking for their elusive father. Thirteen seasons later and this pilot season marks the only true exception to the show’s narrative structure. Starting in season 2 the show adopts a method of storytelling known as the A/B/C structure. There is a “A” plot (known as the show’s “mytharc”), its “B” plot (its character development arc, usually shown through the lens of Dean Winchester, but the show frequently, especially in its later years, shows this through others), and then finally, its “C” plot, which exists in the form of “filler episodes” referred to as “Monsters of the Week”, or MOTW for the purposes of the meta writing community. And it is through this mirrored structure that the complete story of Supernatural is told.

Dean Winchester is the show’s lens of righteousness (earlier on, but this shifts from time to time) and it is through him that the adopted structure of the show reveals both its strength and weakness. Dean has learned not to talk about his hard life and frequently when he is begged to share his feelings, they are dismissed (unfortunately by Sam, Bobby, and Cas at various points) in favor of the show’s enforcement of toxic masculinity (oh, drama!) to maintain such structure needed to support a static two lead format. Instead of Dean talking about his feelings, they are told through the show’s MOTW characters and situations. This process is referred to as “the ‘C’ plot mirrors the 'B’ plot”, discussed further in length here and here. Because of the various degrees of repression carried by our main characters, the show uses other characters to tell their stories with words. The show often also creates whole characters to represent ideas, both simple (Bela Talbot, S3) and complex (Amara, S11). Almost every character that is not Sam and Dean, especially in the seasons, is created and crafted to tell the story of them. This creates situations where the show is frequently problematic in its social message/image because it’s using a multitude of diverse often under represented characters to tell the story of two white textually straight male leads, and then later, its two most often recurring regulars. Because these things are not socially equal, the show endures quite a lot of justified criticism as a result.

Bela Talbot is the first structural case of simple mirroring being done (although her character was requested at the behest of the network, true, the manner in which they utilized her is entirely significant). I think it’s first important, however, to talk about how Kripke crafted the show using the structure. He talked about how in the end he wanted good Dean versus bad Sam. This, of course, focuses the early structure of the show to align Sam with darkness and damning decisions. All of season two pushes Sam onto a dark path exploring his cursed demon blood powers while Dean tries desperately to stop this. Season 3 introduces Bela, a narrative mirror for Dean to show what would happen to Dean if Sam wasn’t in his life. She IS DEAN, but WITHOUT a Sam in her life. And for her, this spells doom as she desperately tries to avoid the fate of her deal with a Crossroads Demon (a deal she made to avoid child sex abuse, a stand in comparison to Dean’s robbed childhood which the show would later revisit heavily in season 11). The structure of the season 3 is relatively simple. Bela was supposed to die while Dean is saved from his deal’s fate by Sam, effectively showing that while Sam is doing some dark things, that they are justified through the means to save Dean (a common moral stance Supernatural would come to depict over and over again). This, of course, doesn’t get to happen. The writers strike of 2007-08 forces Kripke to abandon this structure in favor of simply sending Dean to Hell. Our first attempt at a predictive narrative structure thus fails. It is not discarded, however, and our first successful implementation of it is in season 4.

In season 4 the writers are met with the tough task of getting Dean quickly out of Hell and so Angels are introduced. This would prove to be a major turning point in the show’s success and its ultimate current structure some 9 seasons later. The introduction of Angels, while initially desired to be temporary was fully embrace with the introduction of Castiel as portrayed by Misha Collins. This mythology introduction gave Kripke the perfect way to have good Dean versus bad Sam in the form of Michael versus Lucifer, and old tell of rebellious siblings confronting one another in an ultimate fight. Here, the show begins its ultimate structure towards this alignment, with the demon Ruby pulling Sam towards Lucifer and Castiel pulling Dean towards Michael (or, well, stopping Sam, as pulling Dean towards Michael is actually a goal of Zachariah in Season 5 instead of it being a goal of Castiel).

In season 4, all the characters (even Sam and Dean) and episodes (frequently showing the release of “seals” which bind Lucifer) are being used as functions towards a single goal, the release of Lucifer. It was a simple and clean straight forward structure that allowed flow into a cohesive storyline, which remains the best of Supernatural’s structure and storytelling even to this day imo, It also allowed individuality (and the exploration of what it means to have humanity) to blossom within the addition of Castiel (originally only slated to be a 3 episode character), though the character could still be simplified into Dean with Sam’s bad choices. Castiel would not start becoming his own character (instead of a character mirror or narrative concept) until much later in the series, though he would still be often regaled to simply serving the “B” plot of Dean, eventually getting a permanent “B” plot with him, thus cementing his importance in Dean’s life and within the show’s newer, complex structure.

Season 5 saw the end of Kripke’s vision, but with one problem. The show was getting a renewal. We can see through season 5’s structure that Kripke intended Sam and Dean to die together in the Devil’s hole, unable to kill one another due to their love. Against renewal and in an effort to salvage the sacrifice structure, we are instead introduced to Adam, a half brother who would instead receive Dean’s fate. The season builds and compounds a sense of hopeless in our characters, both desperate to not play a part in Heaven’s games. Our mytharc and MOTW episodes in season 5 exist to drive this sense of compounding inevitability. It is a structure not as clean as season 4’s but mainly because it has the same problem as season 3’s: the ending had to be changed. But meanwhile the show had another problem: “Where do you go after the Apocalypse?” It would not be a problem tackled by Kripke, but instead long time writer Sera Gamble, as Supernatural experienced its first showrunner change.

With the departure of Kripke came the beginning of structural chaos and uncertainty. Season 6 is driven by questions that seemingly have no answer against a plot that had just been done. The Apocalypse was being put back on the rails and Castiel was dealing with it mostly offscreen, unlike Sam and Dean who, as leads, got to deal with it visibly in every episode in season 5. This caused the audience to not experience the sense of urgency and desperation that Castiel is going through and it proves to be a structural weakness throughout the whole season as Sam and Dean deal with the fallout of Castiel’s righteousness in the form of Sam’s hell damage from his damaged soul in the cage and Crowley’s experiments on monsters, which is seemingly without purpose until the end of the season draws near and we finally see the importance the monsters hold. Banished of Lucifer, the recurring addition of Crowley provides the show with a central point in which Hell things will now operate going forward. This is the season in which Castiel begins the pattern making the mistakes of Sam. And it is from this point that the show’s mirrored storytelling reaches new heights, most of which are predictable, unfortunately. Just as Sam and Dean release Lucifer, Cas releases the Leviathan into the world and thus we are shuttled into season 7, Apocalypse 2.0, monster edition (instead of angels/demons).

Season 7 saw the ultimate weakness of the two lead structure, while the show headed down an already trotted path against massively failing ratings. It is here that Gamble killed off both Bobby and Castiel while dumping a massive amount of emotional baggage onto Sam and Dean from which the show (and characters) seemed unlikely to recover from, buried in the Friday Night death slot. Here, the season introduced a true structured “B” plot for Dean and Cas, but it remained in the mirrored structure only, seeing as how Cas was effectively DEAD. It is given in the form of grief and suffering, as per Gamble’s favored depiction of the show. Not only were things hopeless, but everyone Sam and Dean cared about were dead (oh look, it’s season 13′s premise as well!). The structures of Gamble era were driven primarily with a focus towards sorrow and suffering and while it’s true that the Leviathans (as compared to the totally delightful, but utterly senseless wanderings of season 6) were an interesting metaphor for corporate America’s greed and monstrosity, this did little to enrich and progress Sam and Dean as characters who were headed for anywhere except death. And it is here we enter Carver era.

Replacing Gamble as showrunner was another long time writer for the show, Jeremy Carver. Helming and writing with fresh eyes from having been away for a while, Carver era saw the dawn of a new light in the show. It is often called a reboot of the show. Castiel was back, Netflix produced a new influx of viewership, and the show had more or less cemented itself into the CW fold, renewed late and against all hope from grave of Friday night. Conventions and streaming media provided a life line that gave way to a new form of structure on the show: precised mirrored storytelling in the form of a (possible, likely) three act structure. In Carver era, (unlike its predecessors) things became driven by a repetitive thematic means and the genre of the show was shifted to something with an adventurous tone. The Winchesters were going to close the Gates of Hell! Instead of reactive, our characters were thrust into being proactive. This shifted the structure onto choice… and consequence. Every detail fed into this: pop culture references, color coding within the visual framework, characters created that represented specific emotional struggles for our characters to interact with and conquer (or die through). Season 8 is easily compared to Star Wars episode IV in terms of its place in Carver Era. While Star Wars episode IV could function as a stand alone (seeing as the show didn’t realize the introduction of its lifeline yet), it was made to function as part of a beginning of a much longer and detailed story.

Once again in season 8 Sam and Cas began to take on the role of pushing the mytharc along, with Sam completing the Hell trials to close the Gates and Cas breaking Heaven’s control over him to close the Gates of Heaven. The role of Castiel (while visually is reduced from seasons 4, 5 and 6), in relation to his relationship with Dean, becomes significant. A vast number of narrative structural mirrors are put into place to frame the relationship a certain way, and they are decidedly romantic in nature. The Dean/Cas relationship then begins to be told exclusively through interspecies romantic relationships, with a significant amount needing to break some kind of hold over a supernatural being, reflecting Naomi’s reprogramming of Castiel to kill Dean (8x11-8x17). The text and subtext of this season is further queer coded to a significant degree, evident very early on by reference to such works as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (8x03), among many others. Carver was taking the Dean/Cas relationship very seriously and it was a showrunning decision that would drive the storyline in structure just as much as the Dean/Sam one going forward, even after his departure. Cas, meanwhile, is given a lot of structural baggage to explain away his absence as a regular instead of a lead. Not that he wasn’t crafted this way before, but soon a structural decision would come that tied both the Dean/Cas storyline and the Dean/Sam one together in a way that would prove inseparable. The choices made in the season 8 finale (with both Cas and Sam trying to leave Dean alone) are the consequences that would fester and bleed into the new season and the rest of Carver era.

Consequences. Choice. “I did what I had to…”

Under higher ratings than the show had had in YEARS, season 9 began, along with my structural meta series, The Divine Reviews, where I sought to document the show’s new structure (mostly how serious it was taking the newly active Destiel “B” plot from its former place as a grief standalone storyline). 9x01-9x03 represents a tying of the storylines for Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas in a way that makes it impossible to talk about one without the other, structurally speaking. Dean can deal with Cas leaving him, but only if Sam is alive. And when push comes to shove, Dean will sacrifice Cas’ safety and position at his side if it means the survival of Sam. The weight of this realization falls heavily on Dean and is the structural source of grief that saturates a season full of rape metaphors as Dean tricks Sam into not dying through the angel Gadreel’s possession of Sam. For the first time, the show makes it uncomfortable to side with Dean (unless you like the fact that Dean will force his will on Sam to keep him alive) and Dean starts down a dark path of self hatred the likes of which the show has never delved into to such a striking degree. This self hatred structurally manifests itself as the Mark of Cain and Dean’s decision to take it on without warning of consequence represents a significant turning point in the show’s ongoing structure. Dean begins to carry the mytharc and the metaphor within, with significant structure weight put into the fact that Dean can’t bother to feel guilt for his actions, understandable as they are. Dean and Cas thus begin a new romantic structure, one where lovers are torn apart by family duty (this is, perhaps, most laughably shown in 9x20 in the failed Bloodlines pilot episode that gives us heterosexual interspecies couple Violet/David who even mirror Destiel dialogue into their relationship of star crossed lovers separated by things beyond their control).

Post midseason finale in season 9, narrative mirrors begin in earnest that take the foreshadowing for Dean to die into high gear. These are vague and non-specific, however, with the decision to turn Dean into a demon through the Mark of Cain being made late into the season. The death of Abaddon (and the possibility that she would simply possess him) seals Dean’s structural fate, as he is killed by what it narratively represents, the block to his character development. It is here that the show hits a structural sag with season 10 and the Mark of Cain being structurally translated into a variety of narrative woes: a disease that infects Dean’s heart, a catalyst which amplifies Dean’s already weary and repressed soul, a force from which there is no destruction and no relief.

Season 10 on the whole represents a failure to find a solid avenue to character development in Dean. Supernatural didn’t know how to solve it’s own created problem. And while Dean’s death was given several avenues in season 9 from which to walk down, the same meandering does not look all together acceptable as it was before. For the first time Crowley is woven into the structural storytelling, carrying Dean away, just as Hannah does to Cas, leaving Sam alone to solve the problem “of Dean”, who is given the structural foreboding task of avoiding Cain’s fate, which saw him kill his wife and brother, Cas and Sam respectively in our structure. The season, rather than focusing on the underlining cause of Dean taking the Mark of Cain, focuses instead on Dean trying desperately to avoid dealing with the consequences of his actions. This culminates in Dean beating Cas nearly to death just as Cain kills his wife. Cas avoids such a fate, however, and begins a more passive stance in the narrative, supporting Sam, instead, who must now fill the role of Abel in our structure. By Death, Dean is ordered to kill Sam to avoid further complications from the Mark of Cain, which is revealed to be an age old lock to something ambiguously called “the Darkness”. Dean is, of course, unable to kill Sam, and kills Death instead and then we are given our final structural form of the decision to take the Mark of Cain in the form of Amara, God’s sister. Still, we are dealing with consequences of Dean’s choices, but not the underlying cause.

At this point, the Dean/Cas storyline has been given lover/wife mirrors for going on 3 seasons now. Cas is continuously coded as Dean’s “wife” by all structural elements within SPN’s mirrored storytelling. Their relationship has been given much structural depiction and weight, which continues on into season 11 against the false lover, Amara. I talk extensively about the child abuse and sex abuse mirrors involving Amara and how they relate to Dean’s stolen childhood here. It is here, after 2 seasons of the same storyline, that the Mark of Cain Dean character developmental structure has been given its final form, but sadly, would not see its end.

We see Dean’s helplessness towards his past in the form of Amara’s control over him. And with Amara comes our third sibling vs sibling mirror in the form of God versus Amara (the previous being Michael versus Lucifer and Cain versus Abel), Supernatural’s go to depiction for Sam and Dean’s histories and averted futures. The season’s structure builds towards the inevitable appearance of God to stop Amara, who has justifiable reasons to be angry as Hell. Supernatural has, at this point, painted itself into a bad corner. There’s no bigger storyline it can go to as it is faced with the monumental task of resolving not only God and Amara, but everything that their struggle represents, Dean’s stolen life at the hands of his father. For it’s conclusion, Supernatural would now face a different structural problem, however.

The network would not allow them to kill God. And while I have no absolute certainty from which to draw on here, I can only guess that either Amara was going to die also, most possibly to restore balance to the universe as Chuck’s death would cause everything to be destroyed or she was going to bring him back shortly after killing him. We never get to know the truth of the structure as Chuck is effectively only injured, not killed. And Amara makes the choice to heal him and forgive him instead of them possibly sharing oblivion together. Amara then gives Dean back the thing she determines he needs most: his mother. And it is here that Dabb era officially begins, Dabb having shadowed the running of the show at the end of the season following the mid season silent departure of Carver.

Season 12. With a character development arc for Dean already 3 seasons in the making, Dabb is given the monumental showrunning task of “where do you go after God leaving?” A smaller scale mytharc is given in place of the sweeping epic of Carver era. The British Men of Letters are introduced as a way of shaping Sam into being a leader among the American hunters, readdressing the question of what Sam can do to stay in the life and find his place outside of Dean. Dean, however, continues on the structural development path of confronting the thing that prevents him from feeling he only deserves to go down swinging. Mary is fleshed out as a person though she and Castiel continue to suffer from the show’s inability to switch to an ensemble cast, which is, at this point, a point of long regarded contention among many fans.

Mary and Cas begin to mirror each other (as we contemplate their significance to Dean) and drive the story, each wishing to make amends and give Sam and Dean a world they feel is best without either of them asking how Sam and Dean feel about their actions. This sees Mary siding with the British Men of Letters and Cas pursuing Lucifer in an attempt to cage him once more, having let him out to deal with Amara last season in another attempt to save Dean from action (Cas’ need to die for his family because he sees himself as expendable is a plot line that’s long overdue for resolution). We see Mary being made to earn her place as family through her realizing why Cas already has. It is the most passive Sam and Dean have ever been in the structure, with everything mostly driven by Mary and Cas along with the overall theme of what it means to truly love and sacrifice to earn the label of “family”. For this, Cas is given a structural death sentence. And Supernatural delivers, painfully. A portal to another world is opened up courtesy of Jack, the nephilim of Lucifer and it is here that Dabb era ultimately takes us: a new world of possibilities. The same can not, however, be said of the show’s narrative structure, which seems to be on a one way road and has been for a long, albeit slow, time.

Dean has forgiven Mary for setting him on the path to have a robbed childhood, effectively wrapping up the long drawn out Mark of Cain storyline. Forgiveness. Love. Family. New beginnings. These are the themes that run through Dabb era. Dean is finally given everything and then within the space of one episode it has been taken away. The nephilim introduces the show to once again ask the age old question: “nature or nuture?”, as Sam and Dean are forced to deal with an unprecedented force thrust upon them in their moments of grief. Like Carver before him, Dabb era looks to be using a three act structure, with Carver’s final act serving also as Dabb’s beginning. This would place season 13 quickly through the realms of Star Wars V-VI. Things are bleak, hope has quickly been lost, the lover has been taken and the family has been torn apart. A dark empire looms. And it is here that Dabb era continues.

Season 13 functions structurally as a reworking of season 12, with much the same values as Dabb’s first season, but with Sam and Dean’s desires driving the structure instead of Cas and Mary’s. A course of hope is set, one where the Winchesters can finally find a way to try and live a life that actually includes LIVING while hunting, all the while trying to hang it up for good, but realizing this may simply be an unattainable dream.

Dabb era has firmly made its bed as “Family Don’t End in Blood” and has laid in it. Mirrors for Dean and Cas continue to be a familial/romantic blend, reflective of how Dean and Cas’ confusion and fear over addressing the unquantifiable love between one another continues to bleed into the entire narrative, the show continuing to use missions as a buffer to having the characters finally have a “feelings” talk to one another. It is a conversation they both continue to fear: when Dean stops lumping Sam into his feelings, and Cas stops deflecting to a more pressing mission as a means to avoid the fear of heartache that comes with Dean simply calling him “family” or “brother” one more time. NEED over WANT.

Sam’s development into leader, however, is put onto the back burner in favor of the season’s elaborate structural examination of trauma. Sam can no longer do anything as long as Lucifer continues to linger. Like with season 12, season 13 gives the Winchesters back everything, then threatens to take it all away again. Mary’s desire to help the AU world over returning home hits the Winchesters very hard. The mission to protect people is given full focus to Sam. If Sam wants a relationship with his mom, then helping reshape the life of the hunters living in the hunting world is how he does that. This is essential. And while season 14 will drive this idea, the Mary/Sam angle is something temporarily set aside.

Trauma (from hunting, from Mary, from John, from Heaven and angels), building a family through bonds, and hope for the future all culminate as the thematic lifeblood that runs through Dabb era. I discuss season 13 further at length here. Like the two seasons before it, the theme of trauma and how to move forward from it continues into season 14 with Michael structurally translating as the trauma of bad parenting/leading upon Dean Winchester specifically. Season 13 and season 14, in many ways, will (seemingly) function as two sides to the same coin, a narrative structured to examine how the trauma of the past informs (and stagnates) the fear and hope of the future. I’ve called season 14 an accordion arc, and it is, but it’s also one that is far more natural than season 10 due to more careful planning. Seasons 13 and 14 within Dabb era function and do the same as seasons 9 and 10 within Carver era: carrying the driving conflict/mytharc (the MOC for Carver era, Michael for Dabb era) across two seasons, but to Dabb’s credit over Carver, Dabb seems to have planned for it a lot better ahead of time.

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This post was originally crafted here. It was requested under a READ MORE so I reworked it into a single new post as presented above. It will be updated when season 14 is complete.

#narrative structure #supernatural meta #please see all previous tags involving original post

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neven-ebrez · 7 years

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Supernatural's Narrative Structure Throughout the Years

Supernatural has seen four showrunners (with one consistent one throughout, Robert Singer), which are: Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver and now, Andrew Dabb. At the beginning, the show focused on a more simplistic method of storytelling; the protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester went up against urban legends while looking for their elusive father. Twelve seasons later and this pilot season marks the only true exception to the show’s narrative structure. Starting in season 2 the show adopts a method of storytelling known as the A/B/C structure. There is a “A” plot (known as the show’s “mytharc”), its “B” plot (its character development arc, usually shown through the lens of Dean Winchester, but the show frequently, especially in its later years, shows this through others), and then finally, its “C” plot, which exists in the form of “filler episodes” referred to as “Monsters of the Week”, or MOTW for the purposes of the meta writing community. And it is through this mirrored structure that the complete story of Supernatural is told.

Dean Winchester is the show’s lens of righteousness (earlier on, but this shifts from time to time) and it is through him that the adopted structure of the show reveals both its strength and weakness. Dean has learned not to talk about his hard life and frequently when he is begged to share his feelings, they are dismissed (unfortunately by Sam, Bobby, and Cas at various points) in favor of the show’s enforcement of toxic masculinity (oh, drama!) to maintain such structure needed to support a static two lead format. Instead of Dean talking about his feelings, they are told through the show’s MOTW characters and situations. This process is referred to as “the ‘C’ plot mirrors the 'B’ plot”, discussed further in length here. Because of the various degrees of repression carried by our main characters, the show uses other characters to tell their stories with words. The show often also creates whole characters to represent ideas, both simple (Bela Talbot, S3) and complex (Amara, S11). Almost every character that is not Sam and Dean, especially in later seasons, is created and crafted to tell the story of them. This creates situations where the show is frequently problematic in its social message/image because it’s using a multitude of diverse often under represented characters to tell the story of two white textually straight male leads, and then later, its two most often recurring regulars. Because these things are not socially equal, the show endures quite a lot of justified criticism as a result.

With the departure of Kripke came the beginning of structural chaos and uncertainty. Season 6 is driven by questions that seemingly have no answer against a plot that had just been done. The Apocalypse was being put back on the rails and Castiel was dealing with it mostly offscreen, unlike Sam and Dean who, as leads, got to deal with it visibly in every episode in season 5. This caused the audience to not experience the sense of urgency and desperation that Castiel is going through and it proves to be a structural weakness throughout the whole season as Sam and Dean deal with the fallout of Castiel’s righteousness in the form of Sam’s hell damage from his damaged soul in the cage and Crowley’s experiments on monsters, which is seemingly without purpose until the end of the season draws near and we finally see the importance the monsters hold. Banished of Lucifer, the recurring addition of Crowley provides the show with a central point in which Hell will now operate going forward. This is the season in which Castiel begins the pattern making the mistakes of Sam. And it is from this point that the show’s mirrored storytelling reaches new heights, most of which are predictable, unfortunately. Just as Sam and Dean release Lucifer, Cas releases the Leviathan into the world and thus we are shuttled into season 7, Apocalypse 2.0, monster edition (instead of angels/demons).

Carver era saw the dawn of a new light in the show. It is often called a reboot of the show. Castiel was back, Netflix produced a new influx of viewership, and the show had more or less cemented itself into the CW fold, renewed late and against all hope from grave of Friday night. Conventions and streaming media provided a life line that gave way to a new form of structure on the show: precised mirrored storytelling in the form of a (possible, likely) three act structure. In Carver era, (unlike its predecessors) things became driven by a repetitive thematic means and the genre of the show was shifted to something with an adventurous tone. The Winchesters were going to close the Gates of Hell! Instead of reactive, our characters were thrust into being proactive. This shifted the structure onto choice… and consequence. Every detail fed into this: pop culture references, color coding within the visual framework, characters created that represented specific emotional struggles for our characters to interact with and conquer (or die through). Season 8 is easily compared to Star Wars episode IV in terms of its place in Carver Era. While Star Wars episode IV could function as a stand alone (seeing as the show didn’t realize the introduction of its lifeline yet), it was made to function as part of a beginning of a much longer and detailed story.

Once again in season 8 Sam and Cas began to take on the role of pushing the mytharc along, with Sam completing the Hell trials to close the Gates and Cas breaking Heaven’s control over him to close the Gates of Heaven. The role of Castiel (while visually is reduced from seasons 4, 5 and 6), in relation to his relationship with Dean, becomes significant. A vast number of narrative structural mirrors are put into place to frame the relationship a certain way, and they are definitively romantic in nature. The Dean/Cas relationship then begins to be told exclusively through interspecies romantic relationships, with a significant amount needing to break some kind of hold over a supernatural being, reflecting Naomi’s reprogramming of Castiel to kill Dean (8x11-8x17). The text and subtext of this season is further queer coded to a significant degree, evident very early on by reference to such works as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (8x03), among many others. Carver was taking the Dean/Cas relationship very seriously and it was a showrunning decision that would drive the storyline in structure just as much as the Dean/Sam one going forward, even after his departure. Cas, meanwhile, is given a lot of structural baggage to explain away his absence as a regular instead of a lead. Not that he wasn’t crafted this way before, but soon a structural decision would come that tied both the Dean/Cas storyline and the Dean/Sam one together in a way that would prove inseparable. The choices made in the season 8 finale (with both Cas and Sam trying to leave Dean alone) are the consequences that would fester and bleed into the new season and the rest of Carver era.

Consequences. Choice. “I did what I had to…”

Post midseason finale in season 9, narrative mirrors begin in earnest that take the foreshadowing for Dean to die into high gear. These are vague and non-specific, however, with the decision to turn Dean into a demon through the Mark of Cain being made late into the season. The death of Abaddon (and the possibility that she would simply possess him) seals Dean’s structural fate, as he is killed by what it narratively represents, the block to his character development. It is here that the show hits a structural sag with season 10, the Mark of Cain being structurally translated into a variety of narrative woes: a disease that infects Dean’s heart, a catalyst which amplifies Dean’s already weary and repressed soul, a force from which there is no destruction and no relief.

The network would not allow them to kill God. And while I have no absolute certainty from which to draw on here, I can only guess that either Amara was going to die also, most possibly to restore balance to the universe as Chuck’s death would cause everything to be destroyed. We never get to know the truth of the structure as Chuck is effectively only injured, not killed. And Amara makes the choice to heal him and forgive him instead of them sharing oblivion together. Amara then gives Dean back the thing she determines he needs most: his mother. And it is here that Dabb era officially begins, Dabb having shadowed the running of the show at the end of the season following the mid season silent departure of Carver.

Mary and Cas begin to mirror each other (as we contemplate their significance to Dean) and drive the story, each wishing to make amends and give Sam and Dean a world they feel is best without either of them asking how Sam and Dean feel about their actions. This sees Mary siding with the British Men of Letters and Cas pursuing Lucifer in an attempt to cage him once more, having let him out to deal with Amara last season in another attempt to save Dean from action (Cas’ need to die for the Winchesters is a plot line that’s long overdue for resolution). We see Mary being made to earn her place as family through her realizing why Cas already has. It is the most passive Sam and Dean have ever been in the structure, with everything mostly driven by Mary and Cas along with the overall theme of what it means to truly love and sacrifice to earn the label of “family”. For this, Cas is given a structural death sentence. And Supernatural delivers, painfully. A portal to another world is opened up courtesy of Jack, the nephilim of Lucifer and it is here that Dabb era ultimately takes us: a new world of possibilities. The same can not, however, be said of the show’s narrative structure, which seems to be on a one way road and has been for a long, albeit slow, time.

Dean has forgiven Mary for setting him on the path to have a robbed childhood, effectively wrapping up the long drawn out Mark of Cain storyline. Forgiveness. Love. Family. New beginnings. These are the themes that run through Dabb era. Dean is finally given everything and then within the space of one episode it has been taken away. The nephilim introduces the show to once again ask the age old question: “nature or nuture?”, as Sam and Dean are forced to deal with an unprecedented force thrust upon them in their moments of grief, well, mostly Dean’s grief, according to the PR around the new season. Like Carver before him, Dabb era looks to be using a three act structure, with Carver’s final act serving also as Dabb’s beginning. This would place season 13 quickly through the realms of Star Wars V-VI. Things are bleak, hope has quickly been lost, the lover has been taken and the family has been torn apart. A dark empire looms. And it is here that Dabb era continues, which has many threads that still needing tending.

A reason to live.

This is what Castiel needs to be given once he comes back. Not just a reason to die, but a reason to not leave Dean. Dean telling him he’s “family”, that he’s their “brother”, that Dean simple “needs” him… none of this has worked, has been enough to get Cas to stay. The effective elimination of “guardian” saw Cas throwing himself into another guardianship role upon the rejection of the label by Dean. For a long time now, Supernatural structure has been crafted around the parameters which would make Dean happy, condemning all actions by characters that go against this and helping Dean eliminate the roadblocks to his own happiness. Mary and Cas made the wrong decisions to save Dean from pain and are thus punished by the narrative for such actions. It is here, in Dabb era, that the Winchesters are finally made to contemplate the actions of others towards their survival and they are made to suffer for it, Dean more than Sam.

The return of Cas, we are told, will represent a turning point for Dean. And while Sam tries to get the nephilim to reopen the door to the world where they lost their mother, the nephilim himself will be made to question what makes him who he is. Like Sam, he is given powers he can’t control and like Dean, he doesn’t want to become his father (all according to the PR anyway). Jack is effectively painted as a mirror for both Dean and Sam to reflect upon themselves and their actions, the power of their choices. I’m sure Cas will experience the same kind of narrative mirror in Jack, but only time will tell for sure on that one. As getting Mary back falls mostly to Sam (Dean having thought her to be dead), I can only guess that getting Cas back will mainly be a plot for Dean, Sam having been regaled to Dean’s support on all things Cas by reassuring him for a while now. And while Dean and Cas are no longer being portrayed by same sex/interspecies/lover mirrors by the narrative anymore (in favor of sibling mirrors or unrequited love mirrors, which both illustrate Cas’ POV for what Dean says they are and what Cas fears they are), I think a great deal can be gleamed by seeing exactly how Dean handles his death (as opposed to the other times). To push the sibling mirrors of 12x11 and 12x20, one would think they wouldn’t burn his body, much like Sam and Dean never burn one another’s, but I doubt this is the case, as the text has been pulling Dean in mostly one way towards Cas, though how clear the show will be is always a matter of speculation, but they haven’t honestly given themselves much room on this, structurally speaking (though we all have seen how Supernatural sometimes betrays its structure for various reasons, as noted above several times).

It’s hard to say what, if anything, Michael’s desire will translate into in the broader sense of the structure. I just don’t know enough to even take a guess except to maybe say it’s showing the difference in Sam and Dean’s view of the nephilim (Sam wanting to control/use him, and Dean wanting to kill him), in the form of Michael versus Lucifer but that is simply not a sustainable structure. It is clear, however, that the apocalypse world in general is meant to serve as visual shorthand in the realigning of Sam and Dean as moral centers in the Supernatural universe. While it was hard to side with Dean’s actions in Carver era post S9 (and Lord knows, the show almost lost me), it is quite easy to see here that without Sam and Dean, things would be so, so much worse. Mary’s fate is also a murky matter. One would guess that since she is a part of Dean’s happiness in having a whole family, that she is essential to keep alive (Dean seeking her to talk about his feelings and such) and that the show would not kill her being that it’s gotta be close to its end. The show’s failure to promote Sam Smith to regular does not work to Mary’s favor in terms of survival (especially since it promoted Alex Calvert and Mark Pellegrino to regulars instead). It could be that the show plans to transplant her onto the spinoff at the end of the season but I’m not sure that’s the case, obviously.

And while I think the show will toe the line with the nephilim being good or bad, I think he’ll ultimately be good, or rather, do something good, perhaps in the Apocalypse world. The structure simply demands it. With a big bad like Michael potentially coming to our world there’s really little room for Jack to ultimately be bad, too. I’m sure he’ll have some set backs, but there’s really only one logical way the show can go there. It will be interesting to see how much Mary drives the story this year, but I’m guessing she won’t much and neither will Cas. I think Sam and Dean’s interaction with the nephilim will do this instead, which means he’ll need to give them each something they want. For Sam this is Mary and for Dean this is Cas. Meanwhile, Dabb has given the show a good lifeline in the mythology sense in the form of a multiverse. Instead of closing doors like his predecessors, he has quite literally opened them. For Supernatural’s narrative structure, it’s a whole new world.

#supernatural meta #narrative structure #spn spoilers #speculation #pr is not showrunning #narrative structure through the seasons #i wrote way more and simplified way more than i thought i would #and i have zero time to respond to this so it is open to discussion #see you all tomorrow #wow #you can't see how much i hate season 10 in this #i'm proud of myself for simply moving things along

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