I was just
scrolling down my dashboard as usual when I came upon this post by @adoringjensen.
The moment I saw it, I couldn’t help remembering season 7 and all the pain Dean
went through. That’s probably why I decided to write this post about Dean’s
mental state in season 7.
Dean is
allergic to feelings. He always tries to hide what he feels and what makes him
vulnerable. In season 7, since Cas turned into Godstiel, Dean wasn’t OK. He
felt helpless. The only thing he could do was to work on baby, fix the car…
that’s what he could do. He said that
in 7×01. A huge part of the episode showed us Dean working on the car while
listening to reports of what Cas was doing as god. Dean was so hurt. In fact, there was a moment when he told Sam:
“Cas is never coming back. He’s lied to us, he
used us, he cracked your gourd like it was nothing. No more talk. We have spent
enough on him.”
That was the
episode where Dean started drinking. I laugh every time I remember that some
people have said Dean’s drinking was caused by Bobby’s death. There’s nothing
worse than someone who doesn’t want to see what’s right in front of them.
In 7×01, Bobby
was still very much alive. There were two things that made Dean start drinking:
Sam’s hallucinations and Cas’ betrayal. Dean’s drinking might have just gotten worse after
Bobby’s death, but it all started in 7×01. We saw it when Sam found Dean
drinking and told him:
“You want some coffee with that?”
What was
Dean’s answer? “It’s 6:00 p.m. somewhere.”
It was
probably early in the morning and Dean was already drinking. That wasn’t Dean’s
typical behavior because if it had been, Sam wouldn’t have noticed the
difference and said something about it. In fact, Sam knew that Cas’ betrayal
had affected Dean more than anything. That’s why when Dean asked him why he
lied about the hallucinations, Sam said:
“You got a lot of pretty severe crap swinging
your way lately, and – and I thought –what? I thought why burst the one good
bubble you had left?”
What was the
severe crap swinging Dean’s way lately? The only thing that had happened was
related to Cas. We know that Cas was godstiel not for just a couple of days.
Dean fixed the Impala and I don’t think he would have managed to do it in one
or two days. Sam had seen Dean working on the car for days. Sam knew his
brother so well that he understood his mood was affected by the “severe crap”
happening to him. That’s why he didn’t want to tell him about the
hallucinations to avoid making things even worse.
Poor Dean
was hitting rock bottom. He even told Sam:
“You know
how I’m gonna deal? I’m gonna stuff my piehole, I’m gonna drink, and I’m gonna
watch some Asian cartoon porn and act like the world’s about to explode because
it is.”
It was Sam the
one who reached to Cas. Dean had already lost hope; he thought Cas was gone. However,
when Cas showed up and asked for help, when he was trying to make amends and
show regret, when he almost died, Dean still worried about him. Dean still
called his name and thought that “maybe angels don’t need to breathe.”
When Cas
woke up and told Dean he would find some way to redeem himself, Dean didn’t
tell him that wasn’t possible. He just said, “All right, well, one thing at a time. Come on. Let’s get you out of
here. Come on.” Despite the hurt and the pain, Dean was willing to give Cas
another chance.
When the
Leviathans took control over Cas, it kills me to remember that Cas had told
Dean and Bobby to run. Dean asked Bobby to run and get Sam, but he didn’t try
to leave. He wanted to stay and see if he could help Cas, though it was too
late at that point.
Don’t even
get me started on 7×02. That episode was almost the death of me. The moment
Dean saw Cas get into that river, the moment he took Cas’ trench coat out of
the river and said “So he’s gone” and then folded the coat and decided to keep
it. He decided to keep something that belonged to someone who had lied to him and hurt his brother.
WHY?
Bobby knew
Dean was not OK. That’s why he was trying to get Dean to talk about how he
felt, but Dean kept saying he was fine. Bobby didn’t buy that crap, though. Notice what was number 1 in Bobby’s list of what he thought was troubling Dean:
“Of course. Yeah. You just lost one of the best
friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and Purgatory’s most
wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re – you’re
fine.”
Time passed
by and Dean was still very much affected by what happened to Cas. If you
remember episode 7×05, Dean was having nightmares. But what was the first thing he saw? Cas going into that river!! He
also dreamt about Sam’s hallucinations and killing Sam’s monster-friend Amy
(which was simply Dean’s subconscious saying that he couldn’t trust anything
that wasn’t human… though it’s interesting that he didn’t try to kill Cas in
7×17 when he returned despite Cas having killed so many people; in
fact, he even defended Cas when he felt regret for the death toll he had caused
in heaven and on earth).
Dean was not
OK during the whole season, but he didn’t want to talk about it because that’s
what he always does. Denial. But now that I finally get to talk about episode 7×09, it’s
remarkable that Dean finally said what was bothering him because he was drugged. He
admitted that what had been making him feel terrible was what happened with/to
Cas. He didn’t mention Sam’s hallucinations, and Bobby was still alive. But Dean
said:
“I’m fine! I – I actually feel great. The best
I’ve felt in a couple months. Cas? Black goo? I don’t even care anymore. And
you know what’s even better? I don’t care that I don’t care. I just want my
damn slammer back.”
Poor Dean.
Both Sam and Bobby knew that Dean wasn’t OK. That’s why they even discussed it
before Bobby’s death.
Sam: So,
you think he’s okay? Bobby: Yeah, he’s all right. Sam: Good. So you don’t worry
about him?
Bobby: What
do you mean? Before the Turducken?
Sam: Yeah.
Yeah, I kind of mean more like, uh… more like ever since my head broke… and
we lost Cas. I mean, you ever feel like he’s – he’s going through the same
motions but he’s not the same Dean, you know?
So Dean
himself told us that he wasn’t OK because of Cas. But why was that? We got the
answer thanks to Ben Edlund’s amazing subtext in 7×15.
Jeffrey was
a Dean parallel and his connection with his demon was a parallel to Dean’s
connection with Cas. So what do you think it meant when Jeffrey said this?
“I just
started to drink and drift, and I got lost. Had some kind of mental break.”
First we
thought he was talking about surviving being possessed, but it wasn’t
like that because later Jeffrey explained:
“Did you
ever think that maybe I loved being possessed? Did you? I loved the connection,
the power. And I loved him.Love of my
life, actually. I was nothing before he found me – a shadow too scared to
do what I was brought here to do. Too timid to live up to my true potential. […]
He’s the one who saved me. And you sent him to Hell.”
Jeffrey
even tried to explain Dean further:
“I watched you
torture an innocent man to get out a demon. Pretty charged situation…
revealing. You guys talked about a lot, showed a lot of character. God… you
were so desperate to fix the world back then. It kills you… that people keep
getting hurt… and you just can’t stop it. Or I should say… it’s killed you,
shouldn’t I? […] Hey. I was there. I was
depressed, Dean, because he was gone. I was a wreck, an emotional shell, a
drunk. I was suicidal. […] I realized I was nothing without my demon. Then
I decided I have to get him back.”
Please, for
god’s sake tell me how is it even possible for someone not to see the
parallels? What did Dean decide in 7×17 (two episodes later) when Cas came
back? He decided that he had to get his angel back, so he gave him back his
trench coat –the one that Dean had kept, no matter how many times they had to
change cars that year. Why didn’t he just leave the trench coat in the Impala?
Nope, Dean was carrying Cas’ trench coat everywhere because Cas was gone and Dean was depressed; he was
a wreck, an emotional shell, a drunk.
As Dean
himself said in 7×17 when talking to Emmanuel about Cas:
“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.”
Dean is a
very complex character. He was suffering because he had lost the love of his
life, but until that point, he hadn’t understood it yet. That’s why my headcanon
is that he finally began to understand it when he was in Purgatory, when he
decided that leaving Purgatory without Cas wasn’t worth the pain, when he made
it his mission to get his angel back, just as Jeffrey did with his demon.
So… yeah.
Sorry for all this rumbling. I just get very emotional every time I think about
season 7 and Dean’s love for Cas.
Yesss, I love all of
this. Especially the call out to “Repo Man,” which was SUCH a
Dean/Cas episode for not having mentioned Cas even once.
The only thing I’ll
add to this is that I think at least a bit of the “severe crap”
that Sam was referring to had to be related to Lisa and Ben. They
represented the normal life that Dean just couldn’t be a part of, and
the decision Dean made to completely remove himself from their lives
– and more specifically HOW he was removing himself – was really
morally questionable. Sam started to call him out on it, but stopped…
and he didn’t stop when Dean threatened to break his nose; he stopped
when he saw the tears in Dean’s eyes.
But even with that
it’s still incredibly easy to reconcile everything said here, because
Dean’s eyes started shining when he was thankingCas
for healing Lisa, which Cas had done without Dean asking. But then
Dean put Castiel’s “I do everything that you ask” statement to
the test by asking Cas to remove himself from Lisa and Ben’s
memories. Cas confirms to Dean that yes, he really does do everything
that Dean asks, he does always come when Dean calls, and he is Dean’s
friend.
Which just makes everything that follows even more severe and more crappy. ❤
In the episode that MISHA was in that we would be watching, Rufus said “I need you” to Jiya. Pfft.
In SPN:
“… Especially me” – Bobby Singer to his wife Ellen in 6×17.
I mean it’s really not a stretch when this is the time Dean figures out his feelings and with rest of their story to see that this is clearly romantic.
And then Cas rejects him? Immediately and twice? 8×07 and 8×17? By “straightening things out” and leaving? He doesn’t mean to obviously, but that’s how it comes across.
And their reactions?
I LITERALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE CAN WATCH THIS AND NOT SEE THIS AS ROMANTIC.
WE HAVE DEAN BEING HEARTBROKEN, FEELING REJECTED, UPSET AND ANGRY. CAS NOT UNDERSTANDING DEAN’S MULTI-LAYERED REPRESSED WAY OF SAYING HE LOVES HIM AND THEREFORE NOT KNOWING WHAT HE’S DONE WRONG (because he’s not human and his people skills are rusty) BUT TRYING DESPERATELY TO FIX IT WITH THE THINGS HE KNOWS DEAN LOVES (because these are things Dean has said he loves out loud to Cas so he, being literal, latches onto these, showing us that he just doesn’t understand Dean’s hidden meaning).
AND HOW THIS FITS IN WITH THE REST OF THEIR ROMANTIC AF STORY.
HOW CAS THEN FALLS AND REALISES WHAT HE FEELS IN RETURN IS LOVE. THERE’S SOME FLIRTING AND UST DESPITE DEAN’S REJECTING HIM IN TURN FOR SAM, BUT ONCE THAT IS SORTED DEAN THEN IMMEDIATELY GETS THE MARK OF CAIN AND HIS FEELINGS GET REPRESSED FOR THE BEST PART OF 2 YEARS, MEANWHILE HIS SOFT MOMENTS ARE USUALLY AROUND CAS. HOW THEN DEAN SPENDS THE NEXT 2 YEARS SHOUTING “WHAT ABOUT CAS?!” AT ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN WHILE CAS TRIES TO REDEEM HIMSELF FOR HIS PAST MISTAKES AND GET A WIN FOR DEAN… FOR HIMSELF.
HOW DEAN IS NOW COLLAPSED OVER HIS DEAD BODY IN SHOCK AND NOT ABLE TO PROCESS WHAT JUST HAPPENED WHILE SAM IS UPSET, PROCESSES BUT RUNS INSIDE TO SORT OUT THE ACTUAL PROBLEM ON THEIR HANDS.
WHILE DEAN JUST… FALLS TO HIS KNEES AND PRAYS.
HOW. DO. PEOPLE. NOT. SEE. THIS. AS. ROMANTIC.
If anyone still has doubts whether “I need you” is romantic – just go to google images, and google the phrase in ANY language. I googled it in Polish, English and German (because the movie “Wings of Desire” ends with the main girl telling the ex-angel who gave up his grace to be with her “Du brauchst mich. Du wirst mich brauchen” – “You need me. You will need me.”), and all you get are images of love declarations. So, yeah.
@margarittet speaks words of wisdom. I just googled it in Italian and all the pics refer to romantic love with one (1) that was a prayer to God. Lol.
Yes. It was even noted by Jensen as well, because it’s SOO obvious. Sam only bonds with people if he can project (he feels they’re in the same situation he’s in), or if there’s sexual interest/attraction. Even when he’s supposed to be empathizing with other people, the writers just have to have him say something about how “this is just like me!” or about how he’s invested because he really needs to believe his own redemption/ salvation is possible. They do with Matt, Jack, the family in Salvation, Max, Ava, Andy, and even Madison.
And what makes it worse is the counterpoint. They have Sam care when the person’s situation is nearly identical to his own, but the same investment is starkly absent in other situations. How he has no problems advocating for leaving victims to their fate if it furthers his own goals (Wendigo, Scarecrow, Kevin, ect), the lack of remorse in Faith, his suggestion they just count John good as dead and abandon him to his captors in DT, his lack of empathy for the prisoners OR the guards in FPB, his disgust and dismissal of Ron in Nightshifter, his lack of concern at the prospect of knifing Lilith’s child host in NRFTW, his suggestion they preform human sacrifice in JIB, the admission that the real reason he’s into saving people is because he thinks it’ll change his destiny in Playthings, the list goes on. And that’s not even including times he’s failed to show any kind of empathetic concern for Dean in moments where he really, REALLY should have.
By having Sam only really shown to empathize when he is bemoaning his own feelings/situation, by having him show too little concern or simply fail to act as an honestly empathetic person should act otherwise, by having him often give voice to his own emotional investment during times he IS supposed be being empathetic…well, it makes it seem like Sam is only truly concerned about his own feelings and emotional needs.
I know the writer’s didn’t intend it to be that way. I really think Sam’s just suffering from Chosen One syndrome in a bad way. But if you consider his behavior just as it appears onscreen, Sam reads very much like a covert narcissist.
If you ask me, this ties in with Sam’s lack of self-awareness. On the one hand Sam assumes that everyone and everything relates to him somehow, but on the other he’s completely blind to the most obvious parallels between himself and other people. For instance, in There’s No Place Like Home he’s shocked at the notes Charlie’s therapist made about her after she lost her parents and Dean has to point out to him, “Dude. If a shrink interviewed us at that age, you think the report would be all kittens and rainbows?” Or in Repo Man, he has an incredibly hard time accepting that Jeremy the psychopath was just acting and pretending to be normal, oblivious to the fact this is what he and Dean do pretty much all the time.
I don’t think it’s accidental from the writers’ part, it’s too consistent and survives several rounds of change in the writers’ room. I think it all stems from the basic system of characterization for the two brothers – they decided that for a show with two leads the only way for the show to work was to make them fundamentally different in their personalities, their approach to others, their morality, and the masks they use to conceal their deeper selves. So they built Dean as the seemingly insensitive, rough around the edges, devil-may-care guy who has actually a huge emotional intelligence and cares too much. And they built Sam as the seemingly friendly, caring California-educated golden boy who is actually fairly bad at empathy and whose journey on the show is basically his struggle with what means to be a good person.
I’m screaming ya’ll. If I ever get my shit together, I’ve got a meta brewing called “Why Jarpad’s hair makes it hard see when Sam is being a ~fuckboi.” It will be more empathetic than its title (and Sam). However, I’ll briefly add to @postmodernmulticoloredcloak’s assessment. Dean was raised to be toxic masculinity incarnate…but also to be Sam’s caretaker. Sam saw this. He heard how John treated him. How he was put on a pedestal. Its only logical that Sam would have a hard time seeing past himself when he’s been raised to believe he is literally the most important person.
Yes of course, Sam was basically the “only child” of the weird family made of John the Father and Dean the Mother. I wanted to write a post some time ago about Sam’s perception of John and Dean but with my graduation and everything I forgot :p I’ll make a note. Oh I just saw that I had already made a note lol. Anyway. (NB I’m not saying that only children are inherently narcissistic or selfish or anything, of course, but lbr we all know at least one person who is an only child and it shows…)
So Sam is the child to the odd couple of parents John and Dean (a few scenes in the show suggest that he thought of Dad-and-Dean as a unit similar to how we often think of our parents as a unit). But – I am aware that this could sound controversial but please keep in mind that I am not judging or downplaying disabled people’s needs – Sam has also been raised as the Disabled Younger Sibling to Dean’s Abled Older Sibling. If I remember correctly the show’s canon doesn’t specify when and how exactly John started suspecting that there was Something™ about Sam that tied to the supernatural/monster that killed Mary, but it’s implied that John kind of always suspected that what happened over Sam’s bed happened over Sam’s bed for some kind of reason, and he tried to keep Sam shielded from the supernatural and to other hunters for that reason. Sam got a “special treatment” over Dean, whom John saw as just a normal kid – Sam got to live a fairly messed up childhood, yes, but messed up in “normal” ways – dad moving around the country, poverty, neglect, but he still experienced that as a child, with a caretaker that was Dean. Dean didn’t get a caretaker, he became his sibling’s caretaker – it’s a dynamic that can happen in families where there’s a kid with special needs, the older sibling(s) assume a more of less subtle caretaking role towards their sibling who (rightfully) needs extra care. Of course I am not saying disabled people are inherently selfish or narcissistic, faaaar from it, but there is some kind of self-centeredness that comes from receiving extra attention and care than others (esp peers like siblings). NB that I am not saying this as moral judgement or criticism. In Dean and Sam’s case, Sam wasn’t actually disabled (although his demon blood situation is coded as a disability), but he was a tiny child so he obviously had the needs of a tiny child, and there was something about him that made John wary about exposing him to the supernatural and the hunting world too soon. So Sam got extra protection and Dean didn’t get any protection – as John didn’t deem he needed it – and even got burdened with being Sam’s parent since John didn’t provide that.
Slightly digressing but since I’m on it – this is what I mean when I say that Dean represents the queer side of the ‘freak’ coin and Sam represents the disabled side of the ‘freak’ coin. There is something about his body that is seen as something wrong and shameful etc etc – that’s why I think that the ideal endgame for Sam is to embrace supernatural powers, as a companion to Dean’s endgame to embrace his attraction to men.
Okay guys, listen up, because I’m about to fuck you up with some knowledge.
So we all know under Dabb’s reign, we’ve seen a multitude of parallels. Season 12 has been chock-full of callbacks from earlier seasons: characters, scenes, props, etc. We saw it with the colt, with Mary’s return, Bobby’s return, “[insert parent name here] went on a hunting trip, and [they] haven’t been home in a few days”. We’ve had Dean and Cas paralleled with Sam and Eileen, Dean and Cas paralleled with Cain and Colette, Dean referred to as Cas’s “human weakness” by Ishim…I mean really, at this point they’re endless. I could make hundreds of posts about the parallels, particularly in regard to Dean and Cas, but I won’t because frankly, there are better meta writers than me on the tumblrverse and they’ve already been done to death.
see @tinkdw and @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper, seriously those guys’ blogs have some seriously incredible information, metas, and I thoroughly enjoy reading literally everything they have to say.
What I want to talk about is Cas’s last scene in the finale. Here we see Cas enter the alternate universe, despite Sam and Dean already being there and having a plan for locking in Lucifer, and stabbing Lucifer, right before Cas’s death scene.
So I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about this scene and how Cas’s death was completely unnecessary and avoidable. That it was used strictly for the “man pain” we hear so much about, so we can watch the boys once again mourn the death of one of their friends. I agree, to an extent. His death absolutely was avoidable, also necessary because Destiel story arc, but here I believe Dabb knew what he was doing. Remember those parallels we talked about ^^?
So why? If Cas is coming back, like we now definitively know, why take the time and effort to include this scene? Because really, it was pointless. Lucifer could’ve killed Cas straight out of the portal without Cas ever entering, and it would’ve served the same purpose, and raised no questions. Because hey, shit happens, and Cas is almost always on the negatively receiving end of it. So why, Dabb? Why shoot this particular scene that seemingly makes no sense and had everyone questioning Cas’s intentions?
Come. Take my hand. Let me show you.
Dabb literally, intentionally, oh-so-deliberately, shot this scene:
To act as a parallel for this scene:
I REPEAT:
DABB DELIBERATELY SHOT THIS SCENE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF DRAWING A PARALLEL BETWEEN SAM AND JESS AND CAS AND DEAN.
IT IS THE EXACT SAME SCENE. THE SAME STRUGGLE. ALMOST IDENTICAL DIALOGUE. THE SAME FUCKING FRAMING, FFS!
and before you say, no wait, your hopefulness, Jess doesn’t come back, this makes for a sad ending, stop, no, what are you doing??
YOU ARE MISSING THE BLATANTLY GAY POINT
Dabb recreated the first scene of the show with Dean and Cas. He intentionally paralleled Sam’s canonical relationship with his girlfriend to Dean’s canonical subtextual relationship with Cas.
Further, the scene with Sam and Jess marked the beginning of the series, the beginning of Sam rejoining his brother in the family business, but also the unfortunate end of his relationship with the woman he loved. If you look at this reversed (much in the same way Cain said to Dean about how he was living his life in reverse), that would mean that this could possibly be hinting at the end of the show, but also the beginning of Dean’s relationship with the man angel he loves.
I mean, I’m not saying that Destiel is endgame…but fuck. Destiel is endgame.
Yes! Hallelujah. Amen.
Dabb is “fixing” things. He’s making parallels and reverse parallels and happy gay parallels. This scene (Sam dragging Dean away) goes down as one of my absolute favorites.
Yes to all of this!
Dean starts the series as an alone hunter and a womanizer, and ends as a hunter in a steady gay relationship.
Sam starts the series in a steady relationship on his way to be a scholar, and ends single on his way to be a scholar. (Still hoping for an Eileen and a dog.)
I agree with 99% of this. But to me, it was important that the AU hunter was _not_ John. Because the divergence point was not Dean’s birth. It was earlier. In that universe, Mary did not make a deal with Azazel for John’s life.
Which means that Dean has forgiven her for making the deal in 12×22, and then he gets to see what happened if she didn’t make it. (And it was so important it happened in that order.)
This is Dean experiencing the effects of one of the Four Horsemen, Famine. This moment in context for you:
DEAN (to Castiel) So, what, you just happen to know he likes the cosmos at this place?
CASTIEL This place is a nexus of human reproduction. It’s exactly the kind of-(Castiel watches Dean put ketchup on his cheeseburger) -of garden the Cupid will come to— to pollinate.
(Dean puts his cheeseburger back down)
SAM Wait a minute. You’re not hungry?
DEAN No. What? I’m not hungry.
CASTIEL Then you’re not gonna finish that? (takes Dean’s cheeseburger.)( looking toward a couple at a table across the room) He’s here.
SAM I thought famine meant starvation, like as in, you know, food.
CASTIEL Yes. Absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seems to be starving for something—Sex, attention, drugs, love…
and then:
DEAN Are you serious?
CASTIEL These make me…very happy.
DEAN How many is that?
CASTIEL I lost count. It’s in the low hundreds. What I don’t understand is…where is your hunger, Dean?
DEAN Huh?
CASTIEL Well, slowly but surely, everyone in this town is falling prey to Famine, but so far, you seem unaffected.
DEAN Hey, when I want to drink, I drink. When I want sex, I go get it. Same goes for a sandwich or a fight.
CASTIEL So…you’re saying you’re just well-adjusted?
DEAN God, no. I’m just well-fed. Look there.
Ok. Dean IS affected by Famine. He is well fed, yes, but that does not leave him unaffected. Everyone, each person began craving what they did not allow themselves in their daily lives. Some people sex, others food, love, attention, whatever it is in their day to day life that they sacrifice for whatever reason… These people were craving it and seeking it fiercely.
Dean, however, seems to have his cravings dulled. He is, as he states, typically easy and quick to fulfill his own cravings. “When I want to drink, I drink. When I want sex, I go get it. Same goes for a sandwich or a fight.“
What Dean is experiencing as an effect of Famine is an absence of cravings. He is quite literally craving Abstinence. He is craving the loss of every craving he has ever fed.
“I’m well fed.” He says.
Dean, honey, you are fasting.
This is the first meta on Dean’s “hunger” that I’ve read that I can get behind.
To add a really sad note to this, I always thought Dean’s lack of appetite in this episode had to do with the fact that he just wanted everything to stop. That was what he was hungering for — an end to everything. A large part of Dean’s life is really about excess: too much blood; too much loss; too many fights; too much meaningless sex; too much pain; too much junk food; too much alcohol; too many small, meaningless, trivial gestures and words. What he’s always been lacking is the big, important stuff. And we’ve always known that Dean, deep down, just wanted all of it to stop. Just stop. He’s always been borderline, if not outright, suicidal. Famine most certainly did affect Dean; he opened up Dean’s deep-seated desire for everything to just stop, to stop gorging himself on the meaningless and trivial, for everything to finally just end.
Hi there! And I offer your ears a kindly welcome back to the party.
I personally found it highly interesting especially after Chuck was shown, over the course of the last 4 episodes of the season, to essentially mimic Dean in every way they could possibly cram into the show. So here’s God, hanging out with the Winchesters at the end of all things, but what’s he doing?
he takes really long showers (which we know is one of Dean’s favorite little luxuries)
he constantly sings “crappy old folk songs” (while Dean’s been teased for years about his “mullet rock” addiction, Driver picks the music and all that)
Chuck lies. He does it A Lot. And they’re very Dean-like lies. More like deflections, very much the way Dean performs Dean. Chuck performs Chuck. Even Metatron called him out on it.
Without asking, he just decided to wear Dean’s BATHROBE. The dead guy robe. The one embroidered with Tyrone Power’s initials. I already wrote about that one right here.
Chuck’s dietary habits are very Dean-like also. He asks for bacon, specifically, which surprises Dean. (not even mentioning how the guy Dean once referred to as “my gay thing” ALSO broke religious edicts and enjoyed bacon…) (plus the whole “bacon masterpost” that Cass made the other day. Because bacon isn’t just bacon, it’s become a symbol, a code word in authorial shorthand)
Chuck found and watched Dean’s porn. While sitting at the table in his boxers with his feet up, eating and drinking just like Dean.
Just like Dean once tried to point out the value of creation to Cas back during the apocalypse, Chuck attempts the same thing with Amara. And this is just ONE of the narrative parallels here.
Chuck takes over Dean’s kitchen (because come on, it’s Dean’s kitchen) and makes pancakes for everyone. Like he’s nesting or something.
And this isn’t even mentioning the metaphysical parallel via Amara. Amara tried to use Dean as a proxy for Chuck. Chuck tried to use Dean as a proxy for himself in dealing with Amara. In all of their conversations, Chuck attempted to shoehorn Dean into the role that Chuck should’ve been playing all along. He told Dean that humanity would step up after he was gone, implying that Dean could somehow fill his shoes. Chuck couldn’t kill Amara; Dean couldn’t kill Amara (from the conversation toward the end of 11.22).
There’s obviously more to it than this, but these are the easily observable surface-layer comparisons that might prompt someone to wonder if there might be something deeper going on here with this comparison, you know?
Yes! There were a lot of really obvious, intentional parallels made between Chuck and Dean. I want to add margaritas to your list. Both Dean and Chuck are shown with a margarita glass in the episode.
To be completely blunt about it, God was made to be bisexual because he was a parallel for Dean and therefore it was just another way in which they were the same. Because Dean is Bi. Can I scream this from the rooftops already? Dean Winchester is fucking BISEXUAL and the show is practically SPELLING THIS OUT FOR US. *Breathes*.
There was no other reason for them to do it. None. At all.
For a start it is super controversial to make GOD bisexual in a world full of religious nut jobs still screaming for the persecution of LGBT people especially since apparently half of Supernaturals American viewing audience are right wing republicans (WTF?) and on top of that, give me ONE good reason other than the obvious as to WHY the writers would have brought him out of the closet?
Can you even imagine that conversation between Robbie and Andrew and the higher ups at the CW?
“We are gonna make God Bi.”
“Why would you do that? You can’t do that.”
“Why not? Nothing wrong with being bi. In the bible God loves all of humanity equally after all” *wink wink*.
“What kind of message does that give?”
“Exactly the kind of message we want to give our viewers”
“This is about the Dean thing again isn’t it?”
*Robbie and Andrew grin*
*higher ups at CW groan loudly.*
Higher Ups: “FINE. But keep it subtle.”
Andrew and Robbie *are not subtle at all.*
🙂
DEAN WINCHESTER IS BISEXUAL. GOD IS BISEXUAL. WE CAN ALL GO HOME.
Hah! Yeah, that too. Though clicking through that link to the Tyrone Power Dead Guy Robe meta basically covers it. 😀
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but Chuck has been the first character ever in the long history of the show who has been explicitly declared as bisexual. Sure we had plenty queer characters (and by plenty I mean we can still count them with one hand) and lot of them could have been potentially bisexual as well. Like Jenna. She confirmed her attraction to her own gender but hypothetical she could have been bisexual as well. Just… the show never went there. No, instead the first character who has ever been without a doubt identified as bisexual, was God. And as mentioned before this is a huge deal. This isn’t just any random character but still a huge religious affront to a lot of people.
Also Dean = humanity, and God created humanity after his own image. Case closed.
This tattoo that we see on Ash’s forearm in Dark Side of the Moon has been driving me nuts for a long time, not the least of why because we only see it on this one scene of him showing Sam his practical application for string theory. In other shots of his arm? It’s not there.
It’s just not there.
Nor did we ever see it on his arm before, when he was alive. We can surmise from this that the symbol has some kind of meaning and that the meaning was particular to the scene.
I had searched for the symbol and its significance for a long time, but it wasn’t until my recent rewatch of My Own Private Idaho that it clicked for me:
Mikey has the symbol on his coat over his left shoulder, we see it several times, from different angles. And from some angles, it looks like the number 4.
And in fact when we look at the evolution of the number, the Sanskrit shape for number four, from which later the Arabic and then the European numbers developed (and keep in mind that the text of the episode explicitly references Vātsyāyana, an ancient Hindu cryptographer) looks like the symbol in Ash’s tattoo:
४
With Mikey, it’s possible that the number references Shakespeare’s Henry(s) IV, on which the film is based, but there seems to be no connection between the plays and the Supernatural episode.
There are so many things symbolized by the number four that we can’t be certain why it should be significant in the scene. But there are two things mentioned in the scene that seem important: string theory and nirvana. Dean does not think that heaven is nirvana, Dean thinks it’s the Matrix. But what is nirvana, for him? Where does Dean Winchester find peace?
In the context that the concept of nirvana is explicitly mentioned and that the number on Ash’s tattoo is Indic in origin, the thing that number four immediately recalls are The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. And the fourth noble truth? This is the path leading to the cessation of pain.
Because he’s there to bring Dean peace, and not pain. Carry on, my wayward son. There will be peace when you are done.
Quick, look at this list. Which Winchester brother does is make you think of?
Assertive or dominant
Good student
Self-disciplined
Motivated
Respectful of authority
Mature
Is it Sam? It’s Sam, isn’t it. That’s a list of traits for firstborns.
Now look at this list of traits. Who does this make you think of?
Charming
Affectionate
Immature
Rebellious
Empathetic
Popular
Dean this time? Well, that’s a list of traits for youngest children.
Now, let’s talk a little about how birth order determines these traits, and then I’ll tell you why these lists should be the only proof you need that Dean is Sam’s parent, not John.
So these traits don’t just appear out of nowhere. It’s the actions of the parents that shape these general personality types based on birth order.
For instance, when parents have their first kids, every single thing that kid does is absolutely amazing, and gets praised like crazy, because it’s the first time they’ve seen it.
-First steps? Oh my god! Everyone look! I’ve never seen anything like it!
-First day of school? Spectacular. Take a million pictures.
-First A on a paper? Wow! Hang it on the fridge. This is amazing!
Because first borns get praised so much for their achievements, they learn to associate very intense good feelings with accomplishing things. So they seek it out again and again, often going into stereotypically “successful” fields like medicine or law. Meanwhile, when it comes to the second borns, the parents just can’t generate the same level of enthusiasm as they did for their first child. It’s not anything malicious, it’s just a natural reaction to an experience not being as intense the second time around. This results in the younger children not getting that early, overwhelming connection between success and happiness. Therefore non-firstborns tend to be less driven by achievement.
Parents are also typically more hands off with their younger children. Essentially they know the drill by the time they hit the second kid, so they don’t nervously hover as much as they tend to with their eldest children. This results in children who have more freedom to find their own path. Getting used to that level of independence can result in rebellion when someone else does try to rein them in. (Meanwhile the eldest children are more heavily supervised, because again, everything’s new to the parents. Therefore these kids tend to do better with boundaries later in life. [In school, for instance.])
So let’s get back to Sam and Dean. If all that’s true, why is Sam presenting like a firstborn, and Dean like a youngest? It’s because Sam is a firstborn. He’s Dean’s firstborn. Meanwhile, John’s absent parenting is an extreme version of the normal parental tendencies that create the traits of a youngest child.
While Dean was busy getting the second child’s typical lot of subdued praise from John, he was providing Sam with the intense applause and attention that typically goes to first borns. So Sam learned that achievement equals praise, and Dean learned that achievement doesn’t get noticed. When Sam says his first words, I guarantee that Dean praised Sam like he hung the moon. When Sam makes it through his first day of school, Dean probably gets him ice cream and makes a big ballyhoo about the whole thing. Dean keeps telling Sam he’s great for every new thing he succeeds at, so Sam, like all firstborns, tries the same pattern with other adults. And it works. He does well in school, he gets praised by his teachers. He does well on his LSATs, he likely gets praised by his advisors. The loop of achieve, get praised by adults, feel good, gets reinforced for Sam over and over. So, he keeps seeking out success, because it feels right.
Meanwhile, John wasn’t around enough to praise Dean’s achievements with any consistency. (Also, from what we’ve seen on the show, praise isn’t really John’s style.) So, Dean doesn’t get the same feedback as Sam. He doesn’t learn to associate success with paternal figures being proud of him. But everyone wants to be praised, so he learns to seek approval from his peers. He learns how to be charming, how to make people like him. Dean becomes popular because it fills the same need that being successful fills for Sam.
And while John was treating Dean to the (very) hands off parenting style that results in the characteristic rebellion of youngest children, Dean was hovering over Sam like a brand new parent. Dean’s never raised a kid before (obviously), so of course he watched Sam like a hawk. You can see how this dynamic influences the Winchesters in school. Sam got used to consistently having an authority figure direct him, so he didn’t have a problem when he encountered the same thing at school. Meanwhile, Dean balks at school rules, because the authority he’s used to receiving is intermittent. As a child, Dean has a lot of independence, way more than is even healthy. He’s not used to following consistent orders. He’s used to John’s style of swoop in, give a bunch of orders, and inevitably leave again. Dean’s been left alone for long stretches of time ever since he was young. So of course, when someone new tries to come in and tell him what to do, Dean rebels.
All of this is how we know that Dean was more Sam’s parent than John was. If John was Sam’s actual caregiver, then Sam would act more like a youngest. If neither John nor Dean acted as Sam’s parents, then Sam would act like a youngest for the same reasons Dean does. The only explanation is that Dean acted as Sam’s parent, while John did not. That is the only configuration that results in Sam having the personality traits of a firstborn, while Dean does not. (Thanks the dynamic described above, Dean actually also shows a lot of traits that orphans are more likely to present with, while Sam doesn’t. But that is a depressing meta for another day.)
YES! I just went looking through my own blog for it, and for some reason couldn’t find it (gah I know I reblobbed it back in February… but I did find it on @sandraugiga‘s blog, so here have a link or two).
So I wrote a thing (all over @elizabethrobertajonesperfectly nice post– sorry about that again) yesterday about how Chuck was both hiding AND also (consciously or not) imitating Dean. From the moment he arrived at the bunker, nearly everything he did physically could believably have been scripted for Dean, right down to his wardrobe choices. Yes, even hanging out in his boxers and the Dead Guy Robe:
I mean just look at his lil ankles! Boy ain’t wearing pants under there.
And whether Dean knows it or not, Ben Edlund did indeed state that the monogram TEP does stand for Tyrone Power. My guess is that Dean would DEFINITELY have looked through the Men of Letters records to try and figure out exactly which Dead Guy’s robe he was wearing. I mean, can you really see Dean “I’m gonna need to bathe in Purell” Winchester really just wearing the robe of some random dead dude? Not only wearing it, but kinda bonding with it? He loves that silly thing. It’s a nice robe and all, but really.
Seeing Chuck in that robe, though, was one of the major clues how just what extent Chuck was going to in his emulation of Dean. In case watching porn on Dean’s laptop, enjoying the water pressure in the shower, eating a powdered donut, taking over the kitchen, and everything else weren’t obvious enough. We all know that’s Dean’s robe. You don’t just sneak into another man’s room and commandeer his bathrobe. Especially not one that fandom identifies as “Dean’s Dead Guy Robe.” Heck, I’ve even written it into AU fanfic (yes, Project Beyonce Dean even owns the Dead Guy Robe).
And as a fan of Zorro films, trust me, Dean knows who Tyrone Power is. HE PLAYED ZORRO.
That last link there? Google “Tyrone Powers Movies” and it’s the FOURTH link, below the IMDb link and two Wikipedia links. So it’s not like it’s some obscure factoid you have to go internet spelunking in order to unearth.
So this one article of clothing that Dean seems to love originally belonged to a bisexual man. And was borrowed by openly bisexual Chuck. And is currently owned by Dean.
*stops for 10 minutes to stare at a tree and think about Dean’s Zorro fantasies in relation to the fact he probably knows that a bi guy who famously played Zorro used to wear his robe…*
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