I'm glad this speculation doesn't sound TOTALLY BASELESS. It just dawned on me last night and I got excited about it as a potential angle on Dean's character arc this season.
(Hell doesn't count, because the story that would give that part of Dean's character its due would require that Dean have a *choice* about his behaviour.)
I think it's more complex than Hell not counting. Because I think hell has everything to do with Dean's behavior now, because I don't think you can easily separate Dean being coerced into torturing in hell with Dean torturing in Purgatory, for example. I don't think it's a matter of blame or choice as far as how Dean's reacting right now. I do think that doesn't excuse how he's behaving right now either. Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying. They were both impossible situations to maintain your full vulnerable humanity in. Dean might have had more agency in Purgatory -- he's not on the rack, for example -- but in a lot of ways he doesn't have much more choice than he did in hell, not if he doesn't want to die in the first five minutes.
It's hard to articulate what I was trying to get to when I'm talking about Dean's responsibility for his behavior, because the way he's behaving right now was formed out of a need for survival, so it's not as easy as really saying "well, make a different choice now! don't you know that you're not at war anymore?" If it were that easy, I don't think he'd be acting like a dick about hunting and erasing Sam's opinions and etc.
But from a meta standpoint, yeah, I agree that it's easier for the writers to get at the story from this angle.
And it flips the usual SPN script of *Sam* being the one who needs to be watched, who needs to be humanised, who needs to be reined in--which, 8 years in, can only be a refreshing change. *g*
I see where you're coming from here, but I also don't think the show has ever been as simple as being about Sam needing to be watched, humanized, and reined in -- I mean, as far back as season 1 we have Dean worried about his own humanity, and Dean's sense of his monstrosity has been an ongoing theme since then. This isn't new, is what I'm saying, so much as it is brought more and more to the forefront. I do think that this season will have very broad parallels with season 4 as far as what character is out of control and how that out of controlness is coming from a place of survival and trauma.
That scene stood out to me, too, because--looking back on most of the rest of the series--it's such a rare thing for Dean to be so clearly positioned as *wrong*. (Especially when the opposing viewpoint is coming from someone not human.)
Yeah, I have to disagree with that too. I dont' think it's that simple. We've got Lenore and the Rugaru for example, and yes both of them end up killing but it's not as simple as "Dean's right or wrong about them" imo. I also don't think the show positions him as being "right" about Amy, for example, but I also don't think it positions him as being "wrong," either. I don't think it's about right and wrong when it comes to this kind of thing, because I don't think these are situations that have easy right or wrong answers.
I don't agree with the stance that Dean is never positioned as wrong on this show. I do think he hasn't had an entire seasonal arc where his choices are clearly the driving force of the conflict as much as Sam's in season 4 and Cas's in season 6 were; but I also think his choices have had a quieter long-term impact -- making the deal in season two was the "wrong" choice that basically led to the apocalypse, for example. I just don't think Dean's "wrong" choices fit as easily into a neat seasonal arc as Cas and Sam's did, but I think maybe that's where this season is heading. And I'm not really sure which character is right and which character is wrong is really the show's area of interest.
I don't think you can easily separate Dean being coerced into torturing in hell with Dean torturing in Purgatory [...] Dean might have had more agency in Purgatory -- he's not on the rack, for example -- but in a lot of ways he doesn't have much more choice than he did in hell, not if he doesn't want to die in the first five minutes.
We differ in this, then, because I totally think you can separate the two. Hell, as you said, was coersion: coersion into transformation, as the experience of Hell is designed to strip people of their humanity and turn them into demons. Therefore, the result of Dean agreeing to get off the rack and pick up his own knife was inevitable--the only choice he had in that situation was *when* he'd say yes. *If* wasn't even a question. (Given the show's mythology about humans becoming demons by forgetting or abandoning everything that made them human in the first place, I've always seen Dean getting off the rack in Hell as less of a self-preservational choice than a self-*negating* choice. While Dean's guilt over his actions in Hell stems from his belief that he started torturing to spare himself, I see it as him giving his Self up--not in the sense that his true Self doesn't have it in him to be dark and cruel and monstrous, but in that Dean's true Self keeps those parts of him in check.)
In Purgatory, however, while he had to kill whatever came at him before it killed him, he *didn't* have to torture whatever he came across for information about Cas. Torturing in Purgatory wasn't a survival choice, it was (for lack of a better term) a lifestyle choice--and it was a choice he made, that he was free to make, while in full possession of his humanity. Which brings me to this:
Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying. They were both impossible situations to maintain your full vulnerable humanity in.
I agree to an extent with your second sentence here, but not really the first. Did Dean have to turn into a killing machine to survive in Purgatory? Yes. But saying he had no choice about losing (or, well, ignoring) his humanity in Purgatory is like saying he had no choice about the person he became in Endverse: yes, the circumstances were uncompromising, and Dean's survival and the survival of the people he felt responsible for required him to make awful choices, but the way he *chose* to cope with the suboptimal nature of his circumstances and decisions was to shut down emotionally. He was still fully human, but he *chose* to pare himself down, to deny the parts of himself that saw the wrong in his own actions.
the way he's behaving right now was formed out of a need for survival, so it's not as easy as really saying "well, make a different choice now! don't you know that you're not at war anymore?" If it were that easy, I don't think he'd be acting like a dick about hunting and erasing Sam's opinions and etc.
Exactly. And that's why I hope your spec about Dean's storyline this season is correct: because seeing him have to navigate the road back from the harshness of what he became in Purgatory--seeing him rediscover that he *is* more than his darker self--is a character-based story I'm very interested in.
reply 1/2 amonitrateNovember 10 2012, 17:01:28 UTC
Therefore, the result of Dean agreeing to get off the rack and pick up his own knife was inevitable--the only choice he had in that situation was *when* he'd say yes. *If* wasn't even a question....While Dean's guilt over his actions in Hell stems from his belief that he started torturing to spare himself, I see it as him giving his Self up--not in the sense that his true Self doesn't have it in him to be dark and cruel and monstrous, but in that Dean's true Self keeps those parts of him in check.)
I agree with a lot of this! But I don't think there's a division between Dean's "true self" that keeps those parts of him in check and what happened in hell. I don't think there is a "true self" in this sense. I think everyone eventually breaks under torture (like you said, it's a matter of when rather than if) but since he didn't turn into a demon after he turned to torturing, I don't think picking up the razor was a matter of giving his Self up. I don't think he'd feel the immense guilt afterwards if it had been a matter of negating his self? I think torturing in hell reinforced some things Dean felt about himself already pre-hell in a way that doesn't fit for me with this idea of negating his Self versus this True Self that protects him from acting these ways. I don't believe in a division of true self versus... whatever self there is if you go against your true self.
Torturing in Purgatory wasn't a survival choice, it was (for lack of a better term) a lifestyle choice--and it was a choice he made, that he was free to make, while in full possession of his humanity.
I don't think lifestyle choice is a very good term for this. It was a choice, yes. I'm not so sure you can say he's in full possession of his humanity when he's in a situation that is 360 degrees combat. Soldiers in war commit atrocities, and yes they have a choice, but it's... more complex than that. There are pressures bearing there that aren't there in everyday situations (lifestyle). I'm not sure 24 hour combat for basic survival is a place where anyone can hang on to their full humanity. Which is why I think there are similarities to hell.
Dean would see it as a survival choice, in that he is framing it in his head as for Cas's survival, as when he tortured demons in 6.21 it was framed from his POV as for Lisa and Ben's survival. I'm not saying I agree with that view (in fact, in 6.21 I loved that torturing didn't actually get him any useful information at all) and I think it degrades him more than it's worth for any information it gets him -- but I do think from his POV it becomes about survival in that kind of constant combat situation.
The reason I think they're connected is that torturing post-hell on this show has always been linked back to hell. We see that in "the end" where like in Purgatory it's a choice, but Present!Dean explicitly references it in terms of what he did in hell. Basically, as far as the character of Dean goes and his inner life, you just can't separate what happened to him in hell, how he first tortured, with his subsequent uses of torture. These things don't exist in an emotional/motivational vacuum for him. The use of torture was first normalized for him in hell - that's where he became aware that he, Dean Winchester, was capable of torturing another being. Yes, it was coerced in Hell and a choice when he gets out of hell (whether we're talking about 6.21 or Purgatory) but I don't think it's an easy separation in Dean's head.
Hold onto your hat, I'm about to get all ~philosophical~ up in here. *g*serricoNovember 11 2012, 07:45:35 UTC
I don't think there's a division between Dean's "true self" that keeps those parts of him in check and what happened in hell. I don't think there is a "true self" in this sense.
I don't think there's a division, either; I'd frame it more as...different facets of a whole person, in that "True Self" = Whole Person. You can't *have* a whole person without all the different facets; therefore, Dean's true self--Dean qua Dean--includes his enjoyment of what he did in Hell *and* his recognition of that enjoyment as wrong *and* his subsequent feelings of guilt. (And all the rest of him: his worship of John, his resentment of John, his love of Sam, his justifications for the more illegal aspects of his day-to-day life, his position as the little spoon in bed, etc etc.)
I don't think he'd feel the immense guilt afterwards if it had been a matter of negating his self?
If Hell is designed to make you evil--if you being evil is the inevitable outcome--and you behave evilly under its influence, where does the blame fall? It's a philosophical question that can be argued either way--both ways, even--and Dean happens to come down on the side of I'M A BAD PERSON. But Dean, bless him, is something of a self-flagellator, and I think there are more nuances to what happened to him/what he did in Hell than he acknowledges.
For example: yes, Dean felt guilty over what he did in Hell, but only after the fact; he didn't feel guilty *while he was doing it*. Since Dean *does* have quite the guilt reflex, I see that as pretty clear evidence that he wasn't *wholly himself*--Dean qua Dean, at least as I understand him--while he was in Hell.
Maybe TPTB didn't intend that interpretation; maybe they intended Dean's opinion of himself re: Hell to be considered gospel. But again, I have to come back to the "Hell turns humans into demons" thing: if transformation is a given, there has to be a point at which the original stops being what it was. Even if the transformation is less a light switch than a process, once the process has begun, the original has changed. Thus, looking at it from *outside* Dean's POV, it becomes possible to question the amount of *Dean as his whole self* that was actively involved in his decision-making while in Hell.
To extend the usual metaphor of torture "breaking" people: Hell broke Dean into pieces, at which point the parts of him that weren't conducive to being shaped into Hell's demony end result were discarded. (Again, only metaphorically. "Repressed" might be a better word [except that it doesn't fit with the whole "breaking" metaphor *g*], since Dean was able to re-access those parts of himself after Cas rescued him/he was free of Hell's influence.)
I think everyone eventually breaks under torture (like you said, it's a matter of when rather than if) but since he didn't turn into a demon after he turned to torturing, I don't think picking up the razor was a matter of giving his Self up.
Do we know he didn't become *demonic*, though? Like, I know he didn't become *a demon*, because if he had, the show probably would've stated it explicitly in canon (for the angst! *g*). But based on the details we've been given about What Happened To Dean In Hell, in the context of Hell as the place designed to turn humans into demons^, my interpretation is that it was the choice of getting off the rack in the first place--the act of choosing to join his torturers--that maybe didn't make Dean a demon, but was a significant point in the process of Dean's transformation. And as a choice that facilitated Dean's transformation, it negated his true/whole Self.
But again, that's my interpretation of canon; yours obviously differs, and I think the actual canon is vague enough to support lots of different takes on the subject.
^That's another point, too: since neither the real world nor Purgatory creates/produces demons, there must be a separate, supernatural element to the experience of Hell that doesn't exist elsewhere. Like, people in the real world can do evil things, and the entities in Purgatory can be meat grinders, but souls become *demons* only in Hell. Which suggests there's an extra twist to the nature of what the soul goes through there, since no matter what horrible things a person does in the other places, it *doesn't become demonic* except in actualfax Hell.
TO BE CONTINUED, yet again, even more, below. (I am a wordy broad.)
Re: Continued!amonitrateNovember 12 2012, 21:42:02 UTC
I dont' think we're too far apart as far as interpretations within hell goes. I think of it as a looong continuum -- Ruby was there hundreds of years (topside time), was a demon, yes, but didn't wholly forget her humanity -- I don't think she was lying about that, because I think it was key to her ability to get Sam to trust her. She had enough humanity in her that she could use it. So I guess what I'm saying is yes, getting off the rack is inevitable and yes, it's part of the path to Full Demonhood, or whatever you want to call it, but I get the sense that this takes a really, really long time. Earth time. Even longer in Hell time, obviously. So I'd say that at the time he was rescued, Dean was probably not very far along on that continuum. Probably no more along than, say, a human topside who tortures people for pleasure under no coercion, if that makes any sense.
I guess I'm uncomfortable framing getting off the rack in hell as a choice, or that Dean "chose" to join his torturers. From his POV, sure. Yeah, that's how he sees it. But I dont' think it's a choice. Given that we've seen perfectly "good" people get condemned to hell for wanting to escape incest as a child (Bela) I have a really hard time framing any of this as choice.
To get to your earlier point, I do think repressed is a good way of looking at what happens in hell and what happens to Dean when he is removed from hell.
I don't think Purgatory belongs on the continuum of good/evil or wrong/right, I think it's about animal nature. Kill or be killed in the animal sense, rather than in the murder/sparing a life sense. More like... just the natural order of things, where there isn't a morality at play. And there are supernatural elements to both heaven and possibly purgatory, we've been hinted at that Dean didn't sleep or eat in Purgatory, for example. Cas questioned where monsters that are killed in purgatory go -- possibly they just get resurrected there to continue on.
In hell though, we're talking about souls rather than people. The souls go to hell -- when we saw Famine eating a soul, it was a glowy light, by the time the soul has completed going through hell, it is a black smoke, but both things are elements that are able to be housed within a body. Much like angelic grace. So I don't think there's a separate supernatural element to hell so much as it changes the nature of the soul from, to be REALLY ANVILLY, light to dark.
Unfortunately we don't know anything about how anyone gets to hell who *hasn't* made a deal with a demon. Even witches like Ruby made demon deals. SPN's cosmology hasn't really stated that "bad" people automatically go to hell for what they've done. So at this point, it's very hard for me to conceive of any of the souls we've seen making deals, even the witches like Ruby or the one from MM, deserving what happens to them in hell. Does the painter in Crossroads Blues deserve to become a demon for having some pride? Etc. I like that about SPN's conception of hell, it frames the entire thing as completely unfair and awful. Especially in cases like Bela's, which I felt was really intentionally included on their part to underline the horrific idea of hell itself as a concept.
Final part! I hope!serricoNovember 11 2012, 07:48:46 UTC
Soldiers in war commit atrocities, and yes they have a choice, but it's... more complex than that. [...] I'm not sure 24 hour combat for basic survival is a place where anyone can hang on to their full humanity.
It's absolutely more complex than that, partly because it's not necessarily the actions committed that define humanity, but the reasoning and emotions behind and in response to those actions. Whole huge mess of context-dependent ambiguity, there, as well as rabbit-hole-esque questions about how exactly one chooses to define "humanity", so I'm just gonna agree with both your sentences I've quoted there, and continue. *g*
Basically, as far as the character of Dean goes and his inner life, you just can't separate what happened to him in hell, how he first tortured, with his subsequent uses of torture. These things don't exist in an emotional/motivational vacuum for him.
Exactly--*for him*. DEAN may not be able to separate his formative Hellish torture experience from his subsequent Earth/Purgatorybound ones--he may take the "in for a penny, in for a pound" view--but that doesn't mean there aren't differences between what motivated him to get off the rack in Hell and what motivated him to carve his way through the Endverse or Purgatory. (And by "carve" I'm referring specifically to the torture. Killing for self-preservation is another matter.) And that doesn't mean the (non-consensual) choice he made in Hell grandfathers every post-Hell injury he decides to inflict.
Dean sees it as he made a choice [...] that he failed as a moral being and can't be redeemed from that. That's a big part of his self-hatred [...] he sees torturing in hell as a choice that damns him.
He does, yes, but this loops back to how Dean's perspective--how he conflates his post-Hell decisions with the decision he made in Hell--isn't particularly objective. Is he *actually* damned because of his choices in Hell, or is that just how he perceives himself? Given Dean's total lack of respect for Heaven, does it *matter* if, by cosmic reckoning, he'll end up in Heaven when he dies? Is where he'll go when he dies even how Dean measures whether he's "damned"? Obviously it's not; otherwise, since he *knows* he's going to Heaven when he dies for good, he *wouldn't* still feel as guilty over what he did in Hell, or consider himself sufficiently ruined as a person that a few more violent excesses won't hurt him any further.
And *that's* the attitude that looks to be causing problems for him this season: his belief that he's already damned, so why not just *be damned*? Why not be "pure", and torture his way through Purgatory without regret? Why not be ruthless about hunting down and killing things in the real world? Why not refuse to acknowledge Sam's desire for independence in favour of keeping him in the life that Dean finds most comfortable?
These are choices Dean's made about how to live his life. Some of them, he made before Purgatory; some of them, he made *in* Purgatory. To go back to what you said in your original reply, the part that I think is the crux of our little debate here:
Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying.
Hell eliminated Dean's ability to choose, period, by not giving him any choice in what happened to him or what he did. Purgatory, on the other hand, might have constrained Dean's choices within a certain extreme set of survivalist circumstances, but it *still left him free to choose*.
What Dean became in Hell is something that was done to him; what Dean became in Purgatory is something he did to himself. Are there justifications for how Dean felt and what he did in Purgatory? Absolutely. Do those justifications hold up when he feels and behaves the same way *out* of Purgatory? I don't think so. And seeing him realise that--and deal with his trauma and its aftereffects--is the story I want to see play out with Dean this season.
Re: Final part! I hope!amonitrateNovember 12 2012, 22:01:00 UTC
Given Dean's total lack of respect for Heaven, does it *matter* if, by cosmic reckoning, he'll end up in Heaven when he dies? Is where he'll go when he dies even how Dean measures whether he's "damned"?
I'm not talking about "damned" in a cosmic reckoning sense. But in a sense that yes, he is ruined as a person in the present, hence his line about potentially killing Linda Tran being just another nightmare.
And *that's* the attitude that looks to be causing problems for him this season: his belief that he's already damned, so why not just *be damned*? Why not be "pure", and torture his way through Purgatory without regret? Why not be ruthless about hunting down and killing things in the real world?
Yes, I agree with this. I don't think the part with Sam is coming from the same place, though.
What Dean became in Hell is something that was done to him; what Dean became in Purgatory is something he did to himself.
This is where I think we're not going to agree, or maybe I'm just not able to articulate my difference with what you're saying here. What Dean became in Purgatory is not something he did to himself. Not wholly, at least, I think this is a vast oversimplification that ignores a whole bunch about the pressures of a year's worth of constant battle for simple survival with zero pause, and what it does to someone. How that alone degrades humanity. So no, I don't think Dean was in possession of his full humanity when he made the choice to torture in Purgatory any more than he was in possession of his full humanity when he got off the rack. I'm not saying they are the same situations, but I don't think there is a neat line to be drawn the way you've drawn it.
I don't wholly disagree, like I said, he did have more agency in Purgatory. I'm not interested in justifying Dean's actions, at all. And I do agree that hopefully realizing that what kept him alive in Purgatory is not going to hold up outside of purgatory is a story we'll see. I think we disagree on the torture aspect and how much it can be separated for someone who first tortured under extreme duress that we can't even conceive of, is all.
Sure from the outside, we can draw a line and call one a choice and the other not a choice. But for a guy who has never processed let alone come to any kind of terms with how and why he tortured the first time in the first place, I just don't think it's at all psychologically useful to draw that line. I don't think there are differences in the motivations for Dean internally, because he himself does not see a difference, because he still thinks it was his fault he did it the first time. That was the point I was trying to make -- not that there aren't moral differences from the outside, but that internally, for Dean, there may not be much of a difference. I don't think you can speak of the one without speaking of the other, because I don't think the one would have happened if not for other.
It's possible we're talking past each other at this point.
Basically, the way this show works with character continuity over time, I just really don't think it's possible to neatly separate the huge impact that torturing in hell had on Dean from his later uses of torture. We as audience realize that he was coerced into torture in hell, that everyone breaks -- but Dean himself does not see it that way. Dean sees it as he made a choice, that he made a choice to pick up the razor to get himself off the rack, that he failed as a moral being and can't be redeemed from that. That's a big part of his self-hatred, it's a huge open wound he's never been able to deal with because of the fact that he sees torturing in hell as a choice that damns him. So I just don't think you can separate, within the character of Dean, that use of torture in hell from his later uses of torture. He sees them all as choices he's freely making, because he thinks he's already damned by that first instance in hell.
MORE LATER I have to do my thinking in small doses right now!
but the way he *chose* to cope with the suboptimal nature of his circumstances and decisions was to shut down emotionally. He was still fully human, but he *chose* to pare himself down, to deny the parts of himself that saw the wrong in his own actions.
I think this is the crux of where we're disagreeing: I don't see this as a choice. I don't see that Dean CHOSE to cope with his circumstances by shutting down emotionally. I don't think shutting down emotionally is something Dean can choose to do, I think it just happens as a result of the dehumanization of the kind of fight for survival in both Croatverse and in Purgatory. I don't think it's a choice to pare himself down, I don't think it's a choice at all, I think it's a natural result of this particular person with his particular upbringing and experiences being placed in a situation with no good answers and constant threats to his life and to the lives of the people he's taken it on himself to protect.
That doesn't mean I think torturing is a moral choice there. I'm just saying that the emotional shutting down, etc, is not a choice. It's a result.
And that's why I hope your spec about Dean's storyline this season is correct: because seeing him have to navigate the road back from the harshness of what he became in Purgatory--seeing him rediscover that he *is* more than his darker self--is a character-based story I'm very interested in.
I solemnly swear to try very hard not to ramble on for pages this time.serricoNovember 13 2012, 23:58:11 UTC
Given that we've seen perfectly "good" people get condemned to hell for wanting to escape incest as a child (Bela) I have a really hard time framing any of this as choice.
Well, but the thing that makes them "bad" enough to go to Hell is that they willingly contracted with demons. Which, yeah, given the contexts in which some of the deals are made, is deeply harsh and unfair, but SPN's take on this stuff oftentimes seems to come from a Spanish Inquisition-style black-and-white morality: 1) Demons are evil; 2) you dealt with demons; ergo 3) you are evil, and YOU GO TO HELL.
Unfortunately we don't know anything about how anyone gets to hell who *hasn't* made a deal with a demon.
Yeah, and that's one of the glossed-over details of SPN's mythology that I really wish they'd clear up. When Cas was playing God, he made that throwaway comment about wanting to abolish Hell but having to keep it around as a threat to hold over people's heads, but I think that's the only time the show's even *suggested* that Hell might exist as a place for Bad People In General, and not just evil angels and demon-dealers.
What Dean became in Purgatory is not something he did to himself. Not wholly, at least, I think this is a vast oversimplification that ignores a whole bunch about the pressures of a year's worth of constant battle for simple survival with zero pause, and what it does to someone. How that alone degrades humanity. [...] I think this is the crux of where we're disagreeing: I don't see this as a choice. I don't see that Dean CHOSE to cope with his circumstances by shutting down emotionally. I don't think shutting down emotionally is something Dean can choose to do, I think it just happens as a result of the dehumanization of the kind of fight for survival in both Croatverse and in Purgatory.
I completely agree that nobody chooses how they react to trauma. Dean is no exception.
I think where we differ is in our ideas of the nature of the trauma each place dishes out, and whether it's possible for Dean to have had different responses to his experiences in each place. I'm not equating what he became in response to Hell with what he became in response to Purgatory; I've used an unseemly number of words to explain why I don't equate the two. I think *Dean* equates them--or, as you said:
I don't think there are differences in the motivations for Dean internally, because he himself does not see a difference, because he still thinks it was his fault he did it the first time.
--but I absolutely think it's useful, from a storytelling perspective, to examine the two separately. Which is why I've exploded a word bomb in your comments. *g*
ANYWAY. Between the two of us, this conversation (which I've enjoyed!) has gone very far away from my original point, which was: the storyline we're hoping to see play out this season is Dean's journey from his Purgatory damage to some kind of reckoning with that damage to some form of healing from that damage. Since Dean never got a storyline dealing properly with his Hell trauma (or his familial trauma, or his apocalypse trauma...), a storyline dealing with his Purgatory trauma is something I--like you--am excited to see.
Re: I solemnly swear to try very hard not to ramble on for pages this time.amonitrateNovember 15 2012, 02:01:54 UTC
Which, yeah, given the contexts in which some of the deals are made, is deeply harsh and unfair, but SPN's take on this stuff oftentimes seems to come from a Spanish Inquisition-style black-and-white morality: 1) Demons are evil; 2) you dealt with demons; ergo 3) you are evil, and YOU GO TO HELL.
I think our views of how the show approaches the meaning of the construct of hell are very, very different. I don't think the show's take on this is the Spanish Inquisition, black and white morality at all: I think the show takes the concept of hell (and deals with demons) as it exists in American Christian pop culture and holds it up to us and says: this is what you are saying happens. This is what you are saying would happen to a little girl who is being raped by her father if she finds a way out. I think it's commentary on the very concept of hell, on the awfulness of it, rather than supporting that concept. It hink this is why Bela is included, to underline this very point. SPN is saying that yes, the concept of Hell is deeply harsh and unfair and why do people who make mistakes in moments of weakness, or in a moment of desperation escape an untenable situation, why does this damn them? Because that's what the concept of hell is. I think this is why the theme of this season is closing hell. No hell below us, above us only sky: SPN's conception of Heaven is just as horrifying and corrupt. So no, I don't agree with your reading of how the show is using the concept of hell, here. I think this is one of the reasons the show *hasn't* come out and given us people who "deserve" to go to hell for what they've done, if they haven't made a demon deal. Because I don't think this show believes *anyone* deserves an eternity of torment.
Notice Raphael's comment to Castiel about how Ken Lay got into heaven: not because he's a "good" person, but because he "believes." Note how the souls in heaven and hell are used as currency. There's so much going on here beyond "if you make a deal with a demon you are evil and deserve hell."
Re: I solemnly swear to try very hard not to ramble on for pages this time.serricoNovember 15 2012, 12:40:13 UTC
Actually, our views of how the show approaches the meaning of the construct of Hell *aren't* very different. Like, at all.
*Of course* there's more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell than "black and white morality". Otherwise, we wouldn't get the constant questions the show poses about what, exactly, constitutes a "good" person or a "bad" person, a "human" or a "monster"; we wouldn't have had Bela, trying to escape abuse, or Dean, *the show's protagonist*, end up in Hell; the idea of Ken Lay getting into Heaven *just* for being a devout Christian wouldn't have been fuel for satire, and Jimmy's faith wouldn't have destroyed his family and his life; most of the angels we've met wouldn't have been on the side of human genocide, and the Christian God wouldn't have been revealed to be a deadbeat. There's *so* much more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell than right/wrong, black/white.
But SPN's concept *is* based on the constructs of Christianity, which--historically--*are* very black and white when it comes to dictating right vs wrong. SPN's cosmology is painted in multitudinous shades of gray in order to critique those Christian constructs, to question their validity and worth as objects of belief/faith (and, not-so-incidentally, so TPTB can build compelling stories of their own out of the Christian premises and their moral/ideological/philosophical loopholes)--but it still shares their basic structure. According to that structure, if you deal with a demon for ANY reason, you're evil and you're going to Hell when you die; that's just how it is. SPN *builds on that foundation* by telling stories that illustrate the very logical and humanist position that that SHOULDN'T be how it is.
There's more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell *because* there is a foundational premise for the "more" to go on *from*.
(Hell doesn't count, because the story that would give that part of Dean's character its due would require that Dean have a *choice* about his behaviour.)
I think it's more complex than Hell not counting. Because I think hell has everything to do with Dean's behavior now, because I don't think you can easily separate Dean being coerced into torturing in hell with Dean torturing in Purgatory, for example. I don't think it's a matter of blame or choice as far as how Dean's reacting right now. I do think that doesn't excuse how he's behaving right now either. Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying. They were both impossible situations to maintain your full vulnerable humanity in. Dean might have had more agency in Purgatory -- he's not on the rack, for example -- but in a lot of ways he doesn't have much more choice than he did in hell, not if he doesn't want to die in the first five minutes.
It's hard to articulate what I was trying to get to when I'm talking about Dean's responsibility for his behavior, because the way he's behaving right now was formed out of a need for survival, so it's not as easy as really saying "well, make a different choice now! don't you know that you're not at war anymore?" If it were that easy, I don't think he'd be acting like a dick about hunting and erasing Sam's opinions and etc.
But from a meta standpoint, yeah, I agree that it's easier for the writers to get at the story from this angle.
And it flips the usual SPN script of *Sam* being the one who needs to be watched, who needs to be humanised, who needs to be reined in--which, 8 years in, can only be a refreshing change. *g*
I see where you're coming from here, but I also don't think the show has ever been as simple as being about Sam needing to be watched, humanized, and reined in -- I mean, as far back as season 1 we have Dean worried about his own humanity, and Dean's sense of his monstrosity has been an ongoing theme since then. This isn't new, is what I'm saying, so much as it is brought more and more to the forefront. I do think that this season will have very broad parallels with season 4 as far as what character is out of control and how that out of controlness is coming from a place of survival and trauma.
That scene stood out to me, too, because--looking back on most of the rest of the series--it's such a rare thing for Dean to be so clearly positioned as *wrong*. (Especially when the opposing viewpoint is coming from someone not human.)
Yeah, I have to disagree with that too. I dont' think it's that simple. We've got Lenore and the Rugaru for example, and yes both of them end up killing but it's not as simple as "Dean's right or wrong about them" imo. I also don't think the show positions him as being "right" about Amy, for example, but I also don't think it positions him as being "wrong," either. I don't think it's about right and wrong when it comes to this kind of thing, because I don't think these are situations that have easy right or wrong answers.
I don't agree with the stance that Dean is never positioned as wrong on this show. I do think he hasn't had an entire seasonal arc where his choices are clearly the driving force of the conflict as much as Sam's in season 4 and Cas's in season 6 were; but I also think his choices have had a quieter long-term impact -- making the deal in season two was the "wrong" choice that basically led to the apocalypse, for example. I just don't think Dean's "wrong" choices fit as easily into a neat seasonal arc as Cas and Sam's did, but I think maybe that's where this season is heading. And I'm not really sure which character is right and which character is wrong is really the show's area of interest.
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We differ in this, then, because I totally think you can separate the two. Hell, as you said, was coersion: coersion into transformation, as the experience of Hell is designed to strip people of their humanity and turn them into demons. Therefore, the result of Dean agreeing to get off the rack and pick up his own knife was inevitable--the only choice he had in that situation was *when* he'd say yes. *If* wasn't even a question. (Given the show's mythology about humans becoming demons by forgetting or abandoning everything that made them human in the first place, I've always seen Dean getting off the rack in Hell as less of a self-preservational choice than a self-*negating* choice. While Dean's guilt over his actions in Hell stems from his belief that he started torturing to spare himself, I see it as him giving his Self up--not in the sense that his true Self doesn't have it in him to be dark and cruel and monstrous, but in that Dean's true Self keeps those parts of him in check.)
In Purgatory, however, while he had to kill whatever came at him before it killed him, he *didn't* have to torture whatever he came across for information about Cas. Torturing in Purgatory wasn't a survival choice, it was (for lack of a better term) a lifestyle choice--and it was a choice he made, that he was free to make, while in full possession of his humanity. Which brings me to this:
Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying. They were both impossible situations to maintain your full vulnerable humanity in.
I agree to an extent with your second sentence here, but not really the first. Did Dean have to turn into a killing machine to survive in Purgatory? Yes. But saying he had no choice about losing (or, well, ignoring) his humanity in Purgatory is like saying he had no choice about the person he became in Endverse: yes, the circumstances were uncompromising, and Dean's survival and the survival of the people he felt responsible for required him to make awful choices, but the way he *chose* to cope with the suboptimal nature of his circumstances and decisions was to shut down emotionally. He was still fully human, but he *chose* to pare himself down, to deny the parts of himself that saw the wrong in his own actions.
the way he's behaving right now was formed out of a need for survival, so it's not as easy as really saying "well, make a different choice now! don't you know that you're not at war anymore?" If it were that easy, I don't think he'd be acting like a dick about hunting and erasing Sam's opinions and etc.
Exactly. And that's why I hope your spec about Dean's storyline this season is correct: because seeing him have to navigate the road back from the harshness of what he became in Purgatory--seeing him rediscover that he *is* more than his darker self--is a character-based story I'm very interested in.
Part two to come! (WOO, DEBATE. :)
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I agree with a lot of this! But I don't think there's a division between Dean's "true self" that keeps those parts of him in check and what happened in hell. I don't think there is a "true self" in this sense. I think everyone eventually breaks under torture (like you said, it's a matter of when rather than if) but since he didn't turn into a demon after he turned to torturing, I don't think picking up the razor was a matter of giving his Self up. I don't think he'd feel the immense guilt afterwards if it had been a matter of negating his self? I think torturing in hell reinforced some things Dean felt about himself already pre-hell in a way that doesn't fit for me with this idea of negating his Self versus this True Self that protects him from acting these ways. I don't believe in a division of true self versus... whatever self there is if you go against your true self.
Torturing in Purgatory wasn't a survival choice, it was (for lack of a better term) a lifestyle choice--and it was a choice he made, that he was free to make, while in full possession of his humanity.
I don't think lifestyle choice is a very good term for this. It was a choice, yes. I'm not so sure you can say he's in full possession of his humanity when he's in a situation that is 360 degrees combat. Soldiers in war commit atrocities, and yes they have a choice, but it's... more complex than that. There are pressures bearing there that aren't there in everyday situations (lifestyle). I'm not sure 24 hour combat for basic survival is a place where anyone can hang on to their full humanity. Which is why I think there are similarities to hell.
Dean would see it as a survival choice, in that he is framing it in his head as for Cas's survival, as when he tortured demons in 6.21 it was framed from his POV as for Lisa and Ben's survival. I'm not saying I agree with that view (in fact, in 6.21 I loved that torturing didn't actually get him any useful information at all) and I think it degrades him more than it's worth for any information it gets him -- but I do think from his POV it becomes about survival in that kind of constant combat situation.
The reason I think they're connected is that torturing post-hell on this show has always been linked back to hell. We see that in "the end" where like in Purgatory it's a choice, but Present!Dean explicitly references it in terms of what he did in hell. Basically, as far as the character of Dean goes and his inner life, you just can't separate what happened to him in hell, how he first tortured, with his subsequent uses of torture. These things don't exist in an emotional/motivational vacuum for him. The use of torture was first normalized for him in hell - that's where he became aware that he, Dean Winchester, was capable of torturing another being. Yes, it was coerced in Hell and a choice when he gets out of hell (whether we're talking about 6.21 or Purgatory) but I don't think it's an easy separation in Dean's head.
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I don't think there's a division, either; I'd frame it more as...different facets of a whole person, in that "True Self" = Whole Person. You can't *have* a whole person without all the different facets; therefore, Dean's true self--Dean qua Dean--includes his enjoyment of what he did in Hell *and* his recognition of that enjoyment as wrong *and* his subsequent feelings of guilt. (And all the rest of him: his worship of John, his resentment of John, his love of Sam, his justifications for the more illegal aspects of his day-to-day life, his position as the little spoon in bed, etc etc.)
I don't think he'd feel the immense guilt afterwards if it had been a matter of negating his self?
If Hell is designed to make you evil--if you being evil is the inevitable outcome--and you behave evilly under its influence, where does the blame fall? It's a philosophical question that can be argued either way--both ways, even--and Dean happens to come down on the side of I'M A BAD PERSON. But Dean, bless him, is something of a self-flagellator, and I think there are more nuances to what happened to him/what he did in Hell than he acknowledges.
For example: yes, Dean felt guilty over what he did in Hell, but only after the fact; he didn't feel guilty *while he was doing it*. Since Dean *does* have quite the guilt reflex, I see that as pretty clear evidence that he wasn't *wholly himself*--Dean qua Dean, at least as I understand him--while he was in Hell.
Maybe TPTB didn't intend that interpretation; maybe they intended Dean's opinion of himself re: Hell to be considered gospel. But again, I have to come back to the "Hell turns humans into demons" thing: if transformation is a given, there has to be a point at which the original stops being what it was. Even if the transformation is less a light switch than a process, once the process has begun, the original has changed. Thus, looking at it from *outside* Dean's POV, it becomes possible to question the amount of *Dean as his whole self* that was actively involved in his decision-making while in Hell.
To extend the usual metaphor of torture "breaking" people: Hell broke Dean into pieces, at which point the parts of him that weren't conducive to being shaped into Hell's demony end result were discarded. (Again, only metaphorically. "Repressed" might be a better word [except that it doesn't fit with the whole "breaking" metaphor *g*], since Dean was able to re-access those parts of himself after Cas rescued him/he was free of Hell's influence.)
TO BE CONTINUED, again, some more, below. :)
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Do we know he didn't become *demonic*, though? Like, I know he didn't become *a demon*, because if he had, the show probably would've stated it explicitly in canon (for the angst! *g*). But based on the details we've been given about What Happened To Dean In Hell, in the context of Hell as the place designed to turn humans into demons^, my interpretation is that it was the choice of getting off the rack in the first place--the act of choosing to join his torturers--that maybe didn't make Dean a demon, but was a significant point in the process of Dean's transformation. And as a choice that facilitated Dean's transformation, it negated his true/whole Self.
But again, that's my interpretation of canon; yours obviously differs, and I think the actual canon is vague enough to support lots of different takes on the subject.
^That's another point, too: since neither the real world nor Purgatory creates/produces demons, there must be a separate, supernatural element to the experience of Hell that doesn't exist elsewhere. Like, people in the real world can do evil things, and the entities in Purgatory can be meat grinders, but souls become *demons* only in Hell. Which suggests there's an extra twist to the nature of what the soul goes through there, since no matter what horrible things a person does in the other places, it *doesn't become demonic* except in actualfax Hell.
TO BE CONTINUED, yet again, even more, below. (I am a wordy broad.)
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I guess I'm uncomfortable framing getting off the rack in hell as a choice, or that Dean "chose" to join his torturers. From his POV, sure. Yeah, that's how he sees it. But I dont' think it's a choice. Given that we've seen perfectly "good" people get condemned to hell for wanting to escape incest as a child (Bela) I have a really hard time framing any of this as choice.
To get to your earlier point, I do think repressed is a good way of looking at what happens in hell and what happens to Dean when he is removed from hell.
I don't think Purgatory belongs on the continuum of good/evil or wrong/right, I think it's about animal nature. Kill or be killed in the animal sense, rather than in the murder/sparing a life sense. More like... just the natural order of things, where there isn't a morality at play. And there are supernatural elements to both heaven and possibly purgatory, we've been hinted at that Dean didn't sleep or eat in Purgatory, for example. Cas questioned where monsters that are killed in purgatory go -- possibly they just get resurrected there to continue on.
In hell though, we're talking about souls rather than people. The souls go to hell -- when we saw Famine eating a soul, it was a glowy light, by the time the soul has completed going through hell, it is a black smoke, but both things are elements that are able to be housed within a body. Much like angelic grace. So I don't think there's a separate supernatural element to hell so much as it changes the nature of the soul from, to be REALLY ANVILLY, light to dark.
Unfortunately we don't know anything about how anyone gets to hell who *hasn't* made a deal with a demon. Even witches like Ruby made demon deals. SPN's cosmology hasn't really stated that "bad" people automatically go to hell for what they've done. So at this point, it's very hard for me to conceive of any of the souls we've seen making deals, even the witches like Ruby or the one from MM, deserving what happens to them in hell. Does the painter in Crossroads Blues deserve to become a demon for having some pride? Etc. I like that about SPN's conception of hell, it frames the entire thing as completely unfair and awful. Especially in cases like Bela's, which I felt was really intentionally included on their part to underline the horrific idea of hell itself as a concept.
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It's absolutely more complex than that, partly because it's not necessarily the actions committed that define humanity, but the reasoning and emotions behind and in response to those actions. Whole huge mess of context-dependent ambiguity, there, as well as rabbit-hole-esque questions about how exactly one chooses to define "humanity", so I'm just gonna agree with both your sentences I've quoted there, and continue. *g*
Basically, as far as the character of Dean goes and his inner life, you just can't separate what happened to him in hell, how he first tortured, with his subsequent uses of torture. These things don't exist in an emotional/motivational vacuum for him.
Exactly--*for him*. DEAN may not be able to separate his formative Hellish torture experience from his subsequent Earth/Purgatorybound ones--he may take the "in for a penny, in for a pound" view--but that doesn't mean there aren't differences between what motivated him to get off the rack in Hell and what motivated him to carve his way through the Endverse or Purgatory. (And by "carve" I'm referring specifically to the torture. Killing for self-preservation is another matter.) And that doesn't mean the (non-consensual) choice he made in Hell grandfathers every post-Hell injury he decides to inflict.
Dean sees it as he made a choice [...] that he failed as a moral being and can't be redeemed from that. That's a big part of his self-hatred [...] he sees torturing in hell as a choice that damns him.
He does, yes, but this loops back to how Dean's perspective--how he conflates his post-Hell decisions with the decision he made in Hell--isn't particularly objective. Is he *actually* damned because of his choices in Hell, or is that just how he perceives himself? Given Dean's total lack of respect for Heaven, does it *matter* if, by cosmic reckoning, he'll end up in Heaven when he dies? Is where he'll go when he dies even how Dean measures whether he's "damned"? Obviously it's not; otherwise, since he *knows* he's going to Heaven when he dies for good, he *wouldn't* still feel as guilty over what he did in Hell, or consider himself sufficiently ruined as a person that a few more violent excesses won't hurt him any further.
And *that's* the attitude that looks to be causing problems for him this season: his belief that he's already damned, so why not just *be damned*? Why not be "pure", and torture his way through Purgatory without regret? Why not be ruthless about hunting down and killing things in the real world? Why not refuse to acknowledge Sam's desire for independence in favour of keeping him in the life that Dean finds most comfortable?
These are choices Dean's made about how to live his life. Some of them, he made before Purgatory; some of them, he made *in* Purgatory. To go back to what you said in your original reply, the part that I think is the crux of our little debate here:
Purgatory wasn't about choice for him any more than hell was, I guess is what I'm saying.
Hell eliminated Dean's ability to choose, period, by not giving him any choice in what happened to him or what he did. Purgatory, on the other hand, might have constrained Dean's choices within a certain extreme set of survivalist circumstances, but it *still left him free to choose*.
What Dean became in Hell is something that was done to him; what Dean became in Purgatory is something he did to himself. Are there justifications for how Dean felt and what he did in Purgatory? Absolutely. Do those justifications hold up when he feels and behaves the same way *out* of Purgatory? I don't think so. And seeing him realise that--and deal with his trauma and its aftereffects--is the story I want to see play out with Dean this season.
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I'm not talking about "damned" in a cosmic reckoning sense. But in a sense that yes, he is ruined as a person in the present, hence his line about potentially killing Linda Tran being just another nightmare.
And *that's* the attitude that looks to be causing problems for him this season: his belief that he's already damned, so why not just *be damned*? Why not be "pure", and torture his way through Purgatory without regret? Why not be ruthless about hunting down and killing things in the real world?
Yes, I agree with this. I don't think the part with Sam is coming from the same place, though.
What Dean became in Hell is something that was done to him; what Dean became in Purgatory is something he did to himself.
This is where I think we're not going to agree, or maybe I'm just not able to articulate my difference with what you're saying here. What Dean became in Purgatory is not something he did to himself. Not wholly, at least, I think this is a vast oversimplification that ignores a whole bunch about the pressures of a year's worth of constant battle for simple survival with zero pause, and what it does to someone. How that alone degrades humanity. So no, I don't think Dean was in possession of his full humanity when he made the choice to torture in Purgatory any more than he was in possession of his full humanity when he got off the rack. I'm not saying they are the same situations, but I don't think there is a neat line to be drawn the way you've drawn it.
I don't wholly disagree, like I said, he did have more agency in Purgatory. I'm not interested in justifying Dean's actions, at all. And I do agree that hopefully realizing that what kept him alive in Purgatory is not going to hold up outside of purgatory is a story we'll see. I think we disagree on the torture aspect and how much it can be separated for someone who first tortured under extreme duress that we can't even conceive of, is all.
Sure from the outside, we can draw a line and call one a choice and the other not a choice. But for a guy who has never processed let alone come to any kind of terms with how and why he tortured the first time in the first place, I just don't think it's at all psychologically useful to draw that line. I don't think there are differences in the motivations for Dean internally, because he himself does not see a difference, because he still thinks it was his fault he did it the first time. That was the point I was trying to make -- not that there aren't moral differences from the outside, but that internally, for Dean, there may not be much of a difference. I don't think you can speak of the one without speaking of the other, because I don't think the one would have happened if not for other.
It's possible we're talking past each other at this point.
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MORE LATER I have to do my thinking in small doses right now!
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but the way he *chose* to cope with the suboptimal nature of his circumstances and decisions was to shut down emotionally. He was still fully human, but he *chose* to pare himself down, to deny the parts of himself that saw the wrong in his own actions.
I think this is the crux of where we're disagreeing: I don't see this as a choice. I don't see that Dean CHOSE to cope with his circumstances by shutting down emotionally. I don't think shutting down emotionally is something Dean can choose to do, I think it just happens as a result of the dehumanization of the kind of fight for survival in both Croatverse and in Purgatory. I don't think it's a choice to pare himself down, I don't think it's a choice at all, I think it's a natural result of this particular person with his particular upbringing and experiences being placed in a situation with no good answers and constant threats to his life and to the lives of the people he's taken it on himself to protect.
That doesn't mean I think torturing is a moral choice there. I'm just saying that the emotional shutting down, etc, is not a choice. It's a result.
And that's why I hope your spec about Dean's storyline this season is correct: because seeing him have to navigate the road back from the harshness of what he became in Purgatory--seeing him rediscover that he *is* more than his darker self--is a character-based story I'm very interested in.
This I do agree with and am excited about!
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Well, but the thing that makes them "bad" enough to go to Hell is that they willingly contracted with demons. Which, yeah, given the contexts in which some of the deals are made, is deeply harsh and unfair, but SPN's take on this stuff oftentimes seems to come from a Spanish Inquisition-style black-and-white morality: 1) Demons are evil; 2) you dealt with demons; ergo 3) you are evil, and YOU GO TO HELL.
Unfortunately we don't know anything about how anyone gets to hell who *hasn't* made a deal with a demon.
Yeah, and that's one of the glossed-over details of SPN's mythology that I really wish they'd clear up. When Cas was playing God, he made that throwaway comment about wanting to abolish Hell but having to keep it around as a threat to hold over people's heads, but I think that's the only time the show's even *suggested* that Hell might exist as a place for Bad People In General, and not just evil angels and demon-dealers.
What Dean became in Purgatory is not something he did to himself. Not wholly, at least, I think this is a vast oversimplification that ignores a whole bunch about the pressures of a year's worth of constant battle for simple survival with zero pause, and what it does to someone. How that alone degrades humanity. [...] I think this is the crux of where we're disagreeing: I don't see this as a choice. I don't see that Dean CHOSE to cope with his circumstances by shutting down emotionally. I don't think shutting down emotionally is something Dean can choose to do, I think it just happens as a result of the dehumanization of the kind of fight for survival in both Croatverse and in Purgatory.
I completely agree that nobody chooses how they react to trauma. Dean is no exception.
I think where we differ is in our ideas of the nature of the trauma each place dishes out, and whether it's possible for Dean to have had different responses to his experiences in each place. I'm not equating what he became in response to Hell with what he became in response to Purgatory; I've used an unseemly number of words to explain why I don't equate the two. I think *Dean* equates them--or, as you said:
I don't think there are differences in the motivations for Dean internally, because he himself does not see a difference, because he still thinks it was his fault he did it the first time.
--but I absolutely think it's useful, from a storytelling perspective, to examine the two separately. Which is why I've exploded a word bomb in your comments. *g*
ANYWAY. Between the two of us, this conversation (which I've enjoyed!) has gone very far away from my original point, which was: the storyline we're hoping to see play out this season is Dean's journey from his Purgatory damage to some kind of reckoning with that damage to some form of healing from that damage. Since Dean never got a storyline dealing properly with his Hell trauma (or his familial trauma, or his apocalypse trauma...), a storyline dealing with his Purgatory trauma is something I--like you--am excited to see.
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I think our views of how the show approaches the meaning of the construct of hell are very, very different. I don't think the show's take on this is the Spanish Inquisition, black and white morality at all: I think the show takes the concept of hell (and deals with demons) as it exists in American Christian pop culture and holds it up to us and says: this is what you are saying happens. This is what you are saying would happen to a little girl who is being raped by her father if she finds a way out. I think it's commentary on the very concept of hell, on the awfulness of it, rather than supporting that concept. It hink this is why Bela is included, to underline this very point. SPN is saying that yes, the concept of Hell is deeply harsh and unfair and why do people who make mistakes in moments of weakness, or in a moment of desperation escape an untenable situation, why does this damn them? Because that's what the concept of hell is. I think this is why the theme of this season is closing hell. No hell below us, above us only sky: SPN's conception of Heaven is just as horrifying and corrupt. So no, I don't agree with your reading of how the show is using the concept of hell, here. I think this is one of the reasons the show *hasn't* come out and given us people who "deserve" to go to hell for what they've done, if they haven't made a demon deal. Because I don't think this show believes *anyone* deserves an eternity of torment.
Notice Raphael's comment to Castiel about how Ken Lay got into heaven: not because he's a "good" person, but because he "believes." Note how the souls in heaven and hell are used as currency. There's so much going on here beyond "if you make a deal with a demon you are evil and deserve hell."
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*Of course* there's more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell than "black and white morality". Otherwise, we wouldn't get the constant questions the show poses about what, exactly, constitutes a "good" person or a "bad" person, a "human" or a "monster"; we wouldn't have had Bela, trying to escape abuse, or Dean, *the show's protagonist*, end up in Hell; the idea of Ken Lay getting into Heaven *just* for being a devout Christian wouldn't have been fuel for satire, and Jimmy's faith wouldn't have destroyed his family and his life; most of the angels we've met wouldn't have been on the side of human genocide, and the Christian God wouldn't have been revealed to be a deadbeat. There's *so* much more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell than right/wrong, black/white.
But SPN's concept *is* based on the constructs of Christianity, which--historically--*are* very black and white when it comes to dictating right vs wrong. SPN's cosmology is painted in multitudinous shades of gray in order to critique those Christian constructs, to question their validity and worth as objects of belief/faith (and, not-so-incidentally, so TPTB can build compelling stories of their own out of the Christian premises and their moral/ideological/philosophical loopholes)--but it still shares their basic structure. According to that structure, if you deal with a demon for ANY reason, you're evil and you're going to Hell when you die; that's just how it is. SPN *builds on that foundation* by telling stories that illustrate the very logical and humanist position that that SHOULDN'T be how it is.
There's more going on with SPN's concept of Heaven and Hell *because* there is a foundational premise for the "more" to go on *from*.
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