elizabethrobertajones:

welcome–to–awkwardville:

the-rising-demonmistress-of-styx:

From what I’ve seen most people are like: the sole purpose of having Rudy in this episode is to make the mirror scene no homo.
Well, I get where are you coming from but… what if there actually WAS some other purpose? Because now as I think about it, the death of Rudy in Dean’s mind might have been that next time he told Cas about. He looks in the mirror, sees Cas, who isn’t well but is at least alive, and then he sees someone he didn’t even thought about saving, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t even flinch. He sees Rudy and realises it REALLY could have been Cas. It hits him with a great force, that realisation how out of control he really is, if he came this close to killing someone he loves.
This is why he doesn’t contact Cas, doesn’t say goodbye. He just can’t risk putting his angel’s life in danger. If he wasn’t planning on killing Sam, he wouldn’t contact him either (note:.he calls him only after his little talk with Death). It could have been shown differently, yes, but I can see the reason behind this and it’s not solely a fuck you to shippers.

Exactly! Rudy’s death wasn’t about Rudy himself. Rudy was a symbol of ‘innocent person that gets killed because of Dean’s condition’. It takes a toll on Dean because there was no reason to get Rudy killed. He had no reason to get Rudy killed. He had no ill against Rudy. And yet he got him killed. And it terrifies him because he realizes that he could get literally anyone killed. He almost killed Cas… and ‘next time’, he figures, he could actually kill him for real. Because if he’s gotten a random acquaintance of his killed for no reason… who knows who else he can get killed. He had just an insignificant little squabble with Rudy, and yet that apparently was enough for him to want him dead. What’s gonna happen if next time he faces a person he’s got a whirlpool of confusing, messy, vaguely scary feelings for?

Yes, the meaning of the mirror scene indeed was ‘that could have been Cas’. It probably would have been more clear if they had shown Rudy first and Cas second (’hey Dean you killed Rudy – hey Dean it could have been Cas instead’), but I guess they went for ‘BAM Dean look how you trashed Cas – you could have killed him like you did with Rudy, you know?’. Dean was feeling guilty about Cas before (that’s why he was drunk in that motel room trying to tell himself he was good…), what’s changed now is that Dean has gotten the proof that he’s indeed able to kill someone he knows just because. And that has a retroactive effect on Dean – ‘oh my god when I said ‘next time won’t miss’ I could have actually meant it’.