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shallowseeker · 8 months

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Cas, the Angel Tablet, and learning to know and trust his own heart, part 1

His weakness is revealed! The angel tablet as a symbol of Cas's understanding of his own heart.

Part 1 (You are here)

Part 2

Part 3

== What is the angel tablet? ==

Image by Bkshadows

The angel tablet is one of Heaven's most powerful weapons, and sometimes its physicality serves as just that: a weapon.

Other times, it's a curious motif of the secrets of angels, and their angelic romantic love. As one of three known Words of God, it:

"pertains to the nature of Angels as well as granting unimaginable power to Angels who have a connection with it."

///

== Angels + Love + Disconnection ==

Throughout the series, angels regularly showcase volatile (and sometimes petty) emotions. They grieve each other; they Fall. They shriek. They tremble. We see this in Anna, Uriel, Hester, Lucifer, Anael and many others.

But due to years of brutal beatdown and brainwashing, they're disconnected from their own hearts. They cannot recognize their own feelings. Even when they are displaying Big Emotions or even longing, they repeat the company line:

Image by MisterRandom2

DEAN: You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that? CASTIEL: As a matter of fact, we are. And? 4x10: Heaven and Hell

ANNA: Perfect... Like a marble statue. Cold... no choice... only obedience. 4x10: Heaven and Hell

///

== The illegal union with humanity ==

Image by Mikael

In SPN, angels often connect to their own hearts through their (illegal) living among their human-blended families. In 12x10: Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, we see that angel-human progeny are outlawed by the oldest laws in Heaven.

///

In season 8, this illegality surrounds Dean and Cas, and this idea of human-angel unity is littered with motifs such as Cupid bows, and Nephilim hearts. It hammers home the image of forbidden romantic love between angels and humans.

Ther clinging to one another is what allowed Dean and Cas to break Chuck's story: "You're not supposed to be here." This union is what allowed them to see and kill the Leviathan, a feat that is supposed to be the domain of God only.

Free will--rebellion--is a team effort. Sam and Dean could not have done it without Cas, and he could not have done it without them. They learned courage from each other, and they borrowed courage from each other, too.

These elements of rebellion swirl in season 8 and have tragic counterparts in season 15.

Jane the Nephilim (Jack), a love-mark "Cupid's bow" on Cupid's palm (Dean & handprint, symbolic of human love & families), and Castiel's Fallen Angel grace (Cas & The Empty). All elements of angelic-human forbidden love are sacrificed in season 8...as they are in season 15.

A stereotypical arrangement of human-angel motifs goes something like this: The hybrids are killed in front of their parents, to punish them, by witnessing the death of their beloved ones. The fallen angels are then judged by God and cast into dark places. The human lovers linger, as demons to be executed and silenced. It's eerily reminiscent of season 15.

Some believe the fallen angels who sired the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6) (Greek Enoch 20:2), a place of "total darkness."

Floods are the preferred method of torture for the blended, "Nephilim" families: Jack was born on Washaway beach, his birth cabin littered with paintings of the violent sea, and his mother Kelly seemed to recede into the ocean.

As the series progresses, Cas and Dean move from being killed via explosions, Hell hounds, purifying fires, and purifying Purgatory elements...to being overtaken by turbulent waters and summarily executed, as traitors are, with stabs to the back.

Castiel was overtaken by a cosmic sea of black, and Dean was drowned relentlessly by Michael. There is certainly a Flood motif for them in a way there is not for Sam.

///

God wants them to keep to their domains; Heaven and Earth are not to merge.

He tells the angels to keep their Dominion over the humans, as shepherds tend to their sheep. He tells the humans, "submit and obey," and then, if you do, maybe someday, I'll elevate you above the angels. You can be equal to me, if only you grovel and take a knee, of course.

(I promise, I promise.)

///

== Crime and punishment ==

It's interesting then, that the "Angel Tablet"/Metatron spell was punitive towards angels, causing them to Fall and be cast out. As above, it included sacrificing a Nephilim, stealing a Cupid's love bow (the symbolic taking of a human lover), and sacrificing the grace of a fallen angel.

If Castiel's heart is a blended family, Metatron, like God, cruelly works behind the scenes to clock and punish it. This resulting spell that Metatron devised burns up the wings of the Primary Angels in Heaven, killing many in the process.

Although Metatron aimed his Revenge at the Primary Angels, there's a good chance that this punishment originally existed to be aimed at the human-angel blended families. It seems to predate Lucifer's casting out. Indeed, Apocryphal texts like Enoch 10 shows a sadistic delight in the punitive action of having the Sinful parents watch the deaths of their children:

and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is forever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss

(One thing's for sure, it's certainly Metatron's Revenge of the Nerd.)

If indeed the spell can be assembled from the tablet (it's unclear if if was even in there), that Lucifer hid it inside a crypt suggests he couldn't read it, was protecting someone, or may have been on the side of the Nephilim and their Fathers. All are fascinating possibilities.

///

== Is the tablet Castiel's heart? ==

In part. It's other things, too.

Like all motifs in SPN, it morphs in and out of being a stand-in for many different things. In episode 8x17 Goodbye Stranger, it stands in for Castiel's career loyalty...and his heart. At flashpoints, it's Dean's heart, too, because their hearts say the same thing.

Samandriel says of Castiel, "Too much heat was always his problem," so I think much of Castiel's dangerous / insurrectionist power lies in his angelic courage to keep trying to Love, even when Heaven tries to wash it clean.

This disrupts Chuck's Story.

Sure, it makes Cas weaker in some ways, and he'll struggle with that, but it makes him so much stronger, too. More tenacious, more resilient.

I like to think that Chuck slowly starts to become more in competition with Cas, especially as Dean falls more and more in love with him.

"Too stubborn!" Chuck shrieks in 15x17 Unity.

///

== Location, location, location ==

Where do we find Castiel's heart in 8x17 Goodbye Stranger? Meg reveals its location, (just as she knows where Castiel's affections truly lie).

Image from TheWinchesterFamilyBusiness.com

A CRYPT, A BASEMENT, A WAREHOUSE, AN ORCHARD, A FLOOD

It's in a crypt (typically a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or mausoleum). It's located beneath an orchard that was washed away by a hundred-year flood, a call forward to the looming unity of Dean and Cas. Again, we see echoes of Nephilim themes, like the cleansing Flood. Like the orchard, Cas's heart went missing.

WENDY RICE: Well, she-- she didn't, but she did mention an -- an old orchard that had gone missing... This -- this town was wiped from the earth by one of the river's 100-year floods. ... I've been working to re-create a map for years as part of my research, and this -- this is the old Jakubiak orchard there. [she points to a section of the map.] I found out yesterday it's where Downey meets Bond Street. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

The orchard was washed clean, just as Castiel is brainwashed over and over again, losing sight of his own heart. The old site is now covered by a warehouse. There's an intersection of roads: Downey and Bond, like a profound bond. Cas doesn't so much Learn Humanity as he Revives his Own Dean Heart, one that he had all along.

Remember, it is a warehouse where 8x17 cold-opens, where Naomi forces Cas to act out killing Dean. (And ultimately, Dean will die in a warehouse via Metatron's Heavenly war, in season 9.)

INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT DEAN comes around the corner in a darkened warehouse, gun drawn. He brings his gun up but it's struck down. He is struck down. CASTIEL appears over him. DEAN: No, Cas. No! [DEAN raises his hand towards CASTIEL, but CASTIEL breaks his wrist, we hear the bone snap. DEAN groans in pain.] ... NAOMI: No hesitation. Quick. Brutal. [NAOMI and CASTIEL stare down at DEAN.] Everything's back in order. [NAOMI smiles at CASTIEL.] Finally. [We see a close-up of CASTIEL, his face expressionless.] You're ready. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

This warehouse is like Dean himself, and how his love currently manifests, overflowing with a surplus of affection...for Cas. Later, they come to a warehouse to retrieve the tablet.

EXT. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE, ALLEY - NIGHT MEG: So, this is it. Basement? DEAN: All right, Cas and I will head in and get our Indiana Jones on. Sam, you stay outside with Meg. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

Once inside, they reach a wall, and Castiel cracks it, letting Dean inside where his heart resides.

CASTIEL: I don't know. Wait. [They're walking through a darkened corridor when CASTIEL stops, feels the cement wall.] There's a draft. There's something behind there. Stand back. [Hand against the wall, energy flows through his hand, the wall cracks.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

8x17: GOODBYE STRANGER

So, we have old orchard motif (Cas's love without Heaven's interference; Dean is himself a new "valley")

Flood (Divine punishment)

A broken wrist (Punishment, for continuing to reach for each other despite all the barriers keeping them apart)

Warehouse (Dean loves Cas; it's where the love is stored, like the kitchen; Heaven wants to keep it impersonal and distant)

then a journey DOWN a basement

through a wall, and into a crypt, where Cas's stone-cold, dead heart awaits.

There's also a nod to Indiana Jones, which brings to mind 4x22: Lucifer Rising, a cherished callback to one of the first moments that Cas captivated Dean, and one of the first times they messed up Chuck's story. "We're making it up as we go."

Here in the crypt is where Dean will share his secret truth and shatter the stone barricade around Cas's heart, setting it free.

(It flies away.)

15x18: DESPAIR

This is a mate scene to 15x18: Despair, which features a library motif (Cas breaks the narrative, just as his grace was hidden in a book and blew out the pages of the story)

Death (Mortalpunishment)

A heart attack (punishment for Dean's love)

Bunker (Cas protects Dean, his love is stored in his tenacious, sometimes misguided protection)

then a journey DOWN to the archive room

where Cas erects a "barricade" to protect Dean, with warding

but they are pushed back into a dungeon, where Dean's heart is entrapped (Devil's trap)

The shackles are a nod to Dean's time in Hell, one of the first moments that Dean met Cas.

Here in the dungeon, Cas will share his secret truth and throw Dean out of the entrapment. Cas sets it free.

Dean wears his heart on his sleeve.

(It's bleeding.)

///

== Castiel's unknowable heart ==

When they find the tablet, Naomi tells Cas to leave and to tell the Winchester that the crypt is Empty, just like Heaven tells its angels that they're heartless.

Naomi doesn't want Dean to touch it. Cas rationalizes that Dean can and should open it, and it's a logical move, too, since it's warded against angels. Angels, after all, are cursed by God not to connect to their own hearts.

In the crypt, everything is covered with dust, spider webs. Close-up of CASTIEL's face. CASTIEL (breathes): I found it. ... CASTIEL: Dean... [POV switches back to the crypt. CASTIEL points towards an item on a shelf against the wall.] That's it. [DEAN shines his flashlight on a carved, wooden chest.] DEAN: How do you know? CASTIEL: It's the only thing in here warded against angels. [DEAN picks up the heavy object and places it on the table in front of CASTIEL. DEAN picks up a small dagger, and pries open the lid. He reaches in and lifts out a rather large block of stone.] DEAN: Winner, winner, chicken dinner. CASTIEL: Good. Hand it to me, and I'll take it to heaven. DEAN: No, we will take it to Kevin so he can translate. [DEAN holds the block of stone using both hands.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

Cas wants to hand his stone-cold heart to Heaven to use as a weapon. Heaven doesn't want angel hearts to belong to angels. They must belong to heaven. But Dean wants to understand it, like he wants to understand and translate Cas.

///

== Castiel will hurt Dean ==

Image by Winchester-GIFs

Cas angels up. Thunder and lightning. A storm.

CASTIEL: I won't hurt Dean. NAOMI: Yes. You will. You are. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

It's a tragic callback to Castiel's season 7 PTSD!ridden lamentation, that he (or Heaven) is going to hurt Dean and he doesn't want to:

CASTIEL: I can't help. You understand? I can't. I destroyed... everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that? 7x23: Survival of the Fittest

Castiel's heart is brutal, angelic, and pragmatic. Angels are destroyers. Angels hurt humans, and humans hurt angels. Castiel's heart will hurt Dean. If they give their hearts to each other, if they ally with one another, it's as he said in 4x22: "We'll all be hunted down and killed."

And he's not human. In season 6, Cas started his drawn-out repetition of this: "I'm not human." And he keeps right on emphasizing this, despairing, in season 8, "I don't think it will work for me. I'm not human."

I'm not like you. I'll hurt you. (I'll destroy everything.)

If Dean thinks he's poison, a blunt instrument, then Cas is war personified, a sharpened blade. He'll break what he touches, and even when he breaks, he'll be sharp like glass. Certainly not something you can hold onto.

("War is what Michael does." It's what angels do.)

///

== Be honest with me (I love you) ==

Dean pleads with a suddenly dangerous-looking Cas:

INT. BASEMENT, CRYPT - NIGHT DEAN: Just tell me how you got out of Purgatory. Be honest with me -- for the first time since you've been back -- [DEAN nods towards the stone he's still holding] and this is yours. [CASTIEL's blade drops into his hand.]" 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

Be honest with me and this is yours.

Now the tablet is symbolic of Dean's love, too, taunting the possibility that, "Be honest with me, and (my heart) is yours."

///

This is the crux of what Dean has been dealing with since season 6. He finally understands his own oversized reactions and defensive barbs. Season 7 brought a crash of unrelenting grief, followed by a slow understanding.

The Turducken revealed that a large part of Dean's issues in that season were about "Cas and the black goo." It hit Dean so hard. It caused Dean to "go through the motions," to "not be the same Dean," to be like "one of the dead hunters walking." Feeling for Cas is different for Dean, and Dean's trying to figure out why:

DEAN: Honestly, I-I-I don't know if he is dead. I just know that this... whole thing couldn't be messier. You know, I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was. It might take me some time, but... I always could. What Cas did... I just can't – I don't know why. EMMANUEL/CASTIEL: Well, it doesn't matter why. DEAN: Of course it matters. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity

Of course it matters. it's Dean's feelings! It's Dean trying to sort out why everything with Cas feels so Big. Why Cas matters so much. Why Dean kept the coat. Why he missed him so much. Dean was puzzling it over and trying to figure it out all this time.

///

== The coat + Take it. Please. ==

Dean's deeper feelings start to become apparent in the coat scene. Dean tenderly folds the coat, cradles it to his chest, and drags it from car to car. He mouths along the words to "All Out of Love (I'm so lost without you)."

Then, he meets Cas again, and he returns it, a symbol of their longing and their mutual caring (they care about the same things):

DEAN: Wait. DEAN opens the trunk of the car and takes out CASTIEL’s trenchcoat. Somber, he holds it out to CASTIEL. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity

///

The meaning is even more potent in the scripted version of the scene:

He goes to the car trunk. Digs... Comes up with Cas's folded, stained COAT. DEAN: Dumb to keep. I know. I saw you-- dissolve or whatever. But, just in case. 'Cause I never stopped wanting to fix it either. So we got something in common. (re: the coat) Just-- take it. Please. 7x17: The Born-Again Identity

This "just take it, please," line is just so desperate. It sounds dangerously close to "giving away your heart." Please.

Take it. Please. Be honest with me and this is yours.

It's freely given. It's not Destiny or Fate. It's the Rebellion of Free Will.

///

== Dean defends himself against the onslaught ==

Though Castiel's "heart" is encased in stone, it is this stone that is protecting Dean from Cas-as-Heaven's war hammer. (This tablet was not present to protect Naomi's Dean-doppelgangers.)

Dean is protecting himself from the blows, and yet...he keeps trying to reach for Cas.

He puts a (reciprocal) hand on Cas's shoulder, a callback to Castiel's handprint/influence/connection to Dean. It is simply a bond. The love isn't cosmic Fate. It's simply two people, reaching for each other. Their hands often reach for the left shoulder, for the direct line to the other's heart.

CASTIEL attacks, DEAN blocks the blow with the stone.] Cas! [Flashes of light, thunder rumbles.] ... [CASTIEL strikes again, DEAN again uses the stone to block the blow. Thunder rumbles.] ... DEAN: Cas! [DEAN puts his hand on CASTIEL's shoulder. CASTIEL backhands DEAN who is thrown into a wall and falls to the floor.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

The storm is the sound of Castiel's heart, rebelling. Thunderous. It's not dead. It's not dead. (It's not as Dean thought in 4x22: "You soulless son of a bitch. You're already dead. We're done." Cas's heart is alive.)

CASTIEL is attacking DEAN. DEAN throws a punch, CASTIEL grabs his forearm and breaks it. We hear the bone snap, DEAN drops the stone, it shatters, revealing the tablet that was encased within. Lightning flashes. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

Cas hurts Dean, and as Dean is forced to let go, the stone casing protecting the Angel Tablet (Castiel's heart) shatters.

CASTIEL is beating DEAN. DEAN's face is bruised and bloodied. DEAN: You want it? [CASTIEL looks dispassionately at the now exposed tablet.] Take it! But you're gonna have to kill me first. Come on, you coward. Do it. Do it! [CASTIEL continues to beat DEAN.] 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

Dean is talking to Heaven here, to Naomi. He's saying to her, you have to kill ME in order to kill this connection between me and Cas as we are right now. After all, Dean wouldn't leave him in Purgatory. He's goading Heaven that he won't let go. Dean knows his own heart now.

He keeps reaching for Cas, even though Cas let go of his hand and has in fact broke the wrist of the very hand that had clung to him so tightly in Purgatory.

DEAN: Ohh! [DEAN, seriously beaten and bloody, now has one eye swollen shut.] Cas. Cas. [Weakly, reaching towards CASTIEL.] I know you're in there. [CASTIEL raises his angel blade, ready to strike.] I know you can hear me. Cas... [DEAN's voice breaks, pleading.] It's me. [CASTIEL stands there, blade at the ready, light glints off the blade.] We're family. We need you. I need you. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

///

The script emphasizes Dean, barely hanging on:

From above: CRYPT - NIGHT. Dean is barely hanging on now. Beaten. Swollen. Bloody. DEAN: I know you're in there. I know you are. I forgive, you Cas... (then) ....I love you. Cas looks at Dean. As if hearing him for the first time. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

This situation is no longer as simple as pleading for honesty and equal partnership:

Be honest with me, and this is yours.

It has become more desperate, unconditional, raw:

I forgive you. I love you regardless. (I need you anyway. Even if you're broken. We're family. We'll be broken together. "Do I look like good luck to you?" I'm broken, too.)

///

== The connection to Heaven breaks! ==

Cas rears back, stunned. In the script, it's written, "as if hearing him for the first time." He drops the blade. After all he's been through, the arrogance of being a petty God, the disparaging of human family as ants and pets, the partial penance of Purgatory, and now the unholy analgesic of Heaven's mission, Cas's heart is finally open.

Cas feels...something. It's loud. Thunder and lightning. It's alive.

He lets go of Dean, reaches down to grasp the tablet, and it flashes a bright light that blinds Naomi and hides him from her gaze. I think of how Cas's out-of-bounds nature hides him from demigods, like Noah the gorgon (season 14), and how Chuck cannot seem to predict him.

Castiel's love is a Wild Card.

CASTIEL is holding the angel tablet, standing over DEAN. DEAN: Cas? [Breathing heavily, he's horribly beaten. ] Cas? [CASTIEL reaches his hand towards DEAN. He wails, in a panic, thinking Cas is about to smite him:] No. Cas. Cas! [CASTIEL places his hand on the side of DEAN's head, DEAN gasps, and is suddenly healed.] CAS: I'm so sorry, Dean. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

///

== What broke the connection? (I love you) ==

DEAN (wonderingly): Well, w-what broke the connection? CASTIEL: I don't know. DEAN looks HORRIFIED:

Image by @xofemeraldstars

Dean's not stupid.

He knows what he just said to Cas, and he knows what he himself meant. Dean's figured himself out. In asking, "What broke the connection," he's fishing. It's as good as asking, "What about your feelings." He's been wanting to know Castiel's unknowable heart, and Cas hits him with this light rejection. Is Cas lying to him again, or does he really not- ? Dean thinks he must've misunderstood. Badly.

But the thing is, Cas isn't playing. The tablet, like his heart, is free, but like the tablet, but Castiel can't fully "read" it yet. He's got too much heart, and plenty of emotions, but after billions of years of military servitude, he can't recognize his own feelings or parse them.

(Of course, Dean doesn't know that.)

CAS: I just know that I have to protect this tablet now. DEAN: From Naomi? CASTIEL: Yes. And from you. DEAN: From me? What are you talking about? [CASTIEL and the tablet are suddenly gone, the sound rumbles through the crypt.] Cas? Cas! Damn it. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

///

== Cas flees ==

Fresh off yet another bout of Heavenly brainwashing and torture, Cas needs to flee and figure out how to handle his own heart.

It's no wonder he's spun out. The last few years:

In season 4, he was murdered by Raphael after billions of years of military servitude.

This Raphael-wound led to bitterness and shame, and Cas shouldered a war all by himself in season 6.

(He didn't even trust his comrades to know his Purgatory-eating plans, and he didn't trust them enough to share the burden of that power, either).

In season 7, he became a megalomaniac and family annihilator.

In season 8, he turned to self-punishment/penance/suicide.

He pledged to suffer as penance, and he did not reach for Dean any sort of happiness.

He did not allow himself to go home.

But even so, Heaven still wouldn't let him rest, and they retrieved him for more work.

After all that, he's been hit with this barrage of emotion, and he doesn't understand it or how he feels about it. So, he protects. Withdraws. Flees.

He needs more time to sort himself out.

///

==Dean is hurt in that prickly, embarrassed sort of way==

Dean is mega-hurt.

Because on his part, it was, in essence, a love confession. Naomi's later dialogue is written with this "love confession" in mind:

NAOMI: "I only wish he felt the same way."

And in 8x18 Freaks and Geeks, when Sam asks if Dean is okay, it's Dean who brings up his feelings. "Cas dinged you up pretty good. Are you okay?" Dean bristles -> "What, like my feelings?"

So, not only does Cas not love him, but he doesn't even trust him. Dean clung to him so hard, and Cas let him go again. (The timing is so tragically wrong, as usual.)

SAM: So... what happened? I mean, Cas touched the tablet, and it reset him to his factory settings or something? DEAN: I don't know. And I don't care. All I know is that he is off the reservation with a-a heavenly WMD. Listen, man, I can't take any more lies -- from anyone. 8x17: Goodbye Stranger

The song is revealing, really:

♪ tried to see your point of view ♪ ♪ hope your dreams will all come true ♪

♪ will we ever meet again? ♪ ♪ Feel no sorrow, feel no shame ♪ ♪ come tomorrow, feel no pain ♪ ♪ sweet devotion ♪ it's not for me ♪ ♪ just give me motion ♪ ♪ and set me free ♪

I flash-forward to Hannah in season 10, to that instinctive recoil from human emotions:

HANNAH: But t-those are human things. (10x01 Black) ... HANNAH: These f-feelings, they aren't for me, for us. (10x07 Girls, Girls, Girls)

I wonder.

///

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