susurrantpetrichor:

crossroadscastiel:

Friendly reminder that they tore up the ending once, and they will do so again. Metatron, like Lucifer before him, will come to see just how wrong he is. Team Free Will is having none of this destiny bullshit.

Yes, I would just like to say: about that subtext line, and “Who gives the story meaning? Is it the writer? Or you?” That was def a nod from Robbie to the fandom, but I think in an even more substantial way than I first thought.

Because do you really think Metatron believes that—that it could be the reader who gives the story meaning and not the writer? Naw, man. Look at him—arrogance and condescension are like his defining character traits. He wants to be the hero, he wants to be in charge, he knows the ending even though no one else does and he expects everyone to just play their part. He offers up the resurrection of Gabriel as—truly—nothing but fan service, and then takes it away. Metatron doesn’t care about his audience; he only wants to manipulate them into caring about him. He chuckles over the idea of characters “surprising” the writer, but, as he says in the quote above, he doesn’t intend to let those surprises affect his plan for how the story will play out. When Metatron offers the possibility that meaning comes from the reader, he is toying with his audience. He is baiting them. Metatron is every asshat who’s ever said “Oh, of course I’d do _______, if it served the story. (“The” story, as if there is ever just one story. Metatron is too focused on the work to perceive the Text, ya know, ya know…)

As I attempted (poorly) to express in response to larinah’s awesome meta here, I don’t think Metatron is so much a stand-in for Jeremy Carver et al., but a dark shadow of them, in the Jungian sense. His blind arrogance points to their own insecurities—he believes his education has brought him wisdom (it hasn’t); he believes he knows what’s best for his characters (he doesn’t); he believes he can tell the most compelling story (he can’t); he believes his audience should stand in awe of him (they don’t); he believes he is Good (he isn’t.) I keep talking about the White Man’s Burden flavor of Metatron’s villainy, and I’m pretty confident it’s intentional. Metatron is the kind of villain a bunch of well-meaning, well-educated white dudes would create, knowing that they could be him, but hoping they can be better. If Chuck was the writers’ shadow in the Kripke era, he wasn’t much of one—Chuck was mostly harmless, and ultimately benevolent, if kind of a mess. Metatron, on the other hand, seems to signify a more brutally honest, introspective look at writers’ ability to a) be totally, embarrassingly wrong* and b) cause harm as a result. Metatron is the villain. Nobody wants to be Metatron. Whatever Carver’s intentions at this point, I expect he’s doing what he believes to be his best to not be Metatron. Who knows whether his best will be enough—it’s in the nature of a villain like Metatron to not realize you’re the villain.

But. If Carver et al. are trying to not be Metatron, you can probably get an idea where the show is headed by looking at everything Metatron’s ever said or done and think of its opposite. (One of the many reasons I’m still betting on a resurrection for Kevin.) As many have noted, it’s Metatron who told Cas first to “Find a wife. Make babies.” and later, when that didn’t work out, to become a villain. Well. Neither of those things is on the real writers’ agenda. Been there, done that, in fact, and it didn’t stick. (Truthfully I don’t think either of those things was ever intended to stick anyway, but idk.) Castiel is a well-drawn character who continues to surprise. What is so great about “Meta Fiction” is that Metatron, the bad writer, the pretentious, condescending ass who doesn’t care about anyone’s life but his own—he doesn’t believe any of that stuff he said about meaning. He’s an ivory tower solipsist smirking at hypotheticals. Whereas Robbie “no such thing as totally overanalyzed” Thompson, the real writer, who listens to fans with such endless patience and kindness, who created Charlie “reprogrammed it to reflect my flamingly liberal politics” Bradbury—he does believe it. He cares. He’s the anti-Metatron. The hope I’d put out there is that this episode wasn’t just Robbie acknowledging the validity of oppositional readings. This was Robbie saying that a villain would acknowledge the existence of oppositional readings, and then laugh at/ignore them. A good writer, at the very least, would treat them with respect. But there’s a chance they’ll do more. And if Robbie is as humble as Metatron is arrogant, then he, at least, is willing to let the story truly surprise him, and let the characters tear up his own ending in favor of a better one. I suspect that he is not alone among the staff in that, but who knows, who knows.

*[sidebar: larinah, I remembered your comment about Metatron and Jonah during this episode, with the thought that Cas is very much a vine that he did not tend or make grow, and yet to which he seems to feel entitled…]