SPN 11.14 The Vessel
SPN 11.14 The Vessel
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
-- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Courage. We see it every day in the choices Dean and Sam make, choosing to live a life of sacrifice, believing that eventually it will end "sad or bloody". We become numbed to the display, taking it for granted. This week's episode made the reality of it come alive again through the example Dean witnessed time-traveling back to the doomed submarine USS Bluefin.
Seeking a weapon powerful enough to stop Amara, Sam discovers in the Men of Letters' archived records the account of the Hand of God, a powerful weapon that was presumed to have sunk on the submarine transporting it back in 1943's WWII. No problem, right? They've got Castiel... err, Lucifer, to pop Dean back into the past, retrieve the weapon, and have something potentially useful to use against Amara.
Dean: That sub is a tin can floating in the middle of the ocean, doomed to go down. You can't really mess with history at 20,000 leagues. So we get in, get the weapon, get out. It's a milk run.
Not trying to change the past, not trying to save anyone that shouldn't be saved, yada yada. They know the time-traveling rules from previous trips to the past. No problem. It's not personal at this point.
Lucifer thinks it is a great idea. He too is seeking a weapon to use against Amara.
Crowley: You're not strong enough. You've had your weapons delivered. You realize they won't be enough. If you thought you could beat Amara you'd be taking the fight to her. Right now.
Lucifer has no intention of going after Amara until he is sure he can take her out. He's looking for that metaphorical gun in his hand, that assurance that the scales of such a showdown would be tipped in his favor.
What if that point never comes? What if that extra edge can't be obtained? What happens when the fight comes and there is no way out?
Dean: This sub is going down. But the Allies do win. From Man of Letters to Man of Letters, I'm fighting a war in the future. It's not like your war, it's big. Biblical, end-is-nigh big. And I need your weapon to win. That is why I came.
Petey: But we all die? Me? The girl? The rest of the crew? Just trying to get your story clear.
Dean: Yes.
This is the moment when the reality of the loss of the USS Bluefin started to become real to Dean. When Petey asked for that specific clarification: we all die?
That? That's a tough pill to swallow. Dean is honest with everyone, not just Delphine. He speaks directly with this doomed Woman of Letters, according her the respect of trusting her to understand the stakes of his request. Crewman Petey, listening in, brings the stakes from the future to his present. Dean can only offer him the comfort of telling him the Allies do win the war a few years down the road, but it doesn't make it any less devastating to absorb.
There's worse news to come, though. Delphine's protective sigils have blocked Lucifer from being able to board the sub, making Dean just as doomed as the crew, unless he kills her to break the last protective symbol in place on her body. And now... Dean hesitates. It's not just a milk run anymore.
These people have become real to him. Their lives were already doomed, but turning Delphine into a sacrifice in the process doesn't sit right on Dean.
Of course it doesn't. It made me flash back to the beginning of this season.
Sam: There is always a cure. You just have to want to find it.
Dean: Yeah, how are you gonna find it if you're dead? And around and around we go. (11.01)
Dean started this trip from the practical end of the spectrum and has now circled around to wanting to find another way.
Dean: Teach me how to use it. It's the power of God. Maybe I can use it to save you, save the sub.
Delphine: And your war?
Dean: I wanna help you now.
Delphine: You save this ship, get us to the surface, and then what? The power of God will consume you, and you'll have merely brought the weapon closer to the Nazis' grasp. We are supposed to die, let us do it with a purpose.
That is a spine of steel on display - Delphine's courage in the face of knowing she will die, and not just accepting it but looking to find a way to make it mean something.
It wasn't just Delphine who displayed real courage in that submarine. The entire crew, from Captain on down, chose to see their mission through to the end.
Befehlsleiter Gumprecht: I offer you a choice. Surface now, relinquish the girl and her cargo, and I can assure you and your men the highest of POW treatment. Or you can protect her and we will depth charge you and your boat right into the seabed, and we will recover the cargo ourselves.
There was an option for survival on the table, an option that never made it into the records because it wasn't chosen.
Delphine: I don't expect you to understand. But this cargo - the Germans can't have it. You need to believe me.
Captain: Our orders were to protect you and your cargo. We wouldn't even consider a surrender.
That is the kind of courage Lucifer wouldn't even begin to comprehend.
But sometimes, even when you know you're beaten, you can still find a way to sneak out a little victory. Purpose driving the courage, making the sacrifice, the loss, mean something greater.
Delphine: I'm going to get you home. And I'm going to get you and your men your first German ship.
Delphine got her impossible victory. She got Dean safely back into his present time and took out an entire warship of Thule Nazis.
Sam: So how'd you get through today? I mean, what did you do?
Dean: Nothing. Sam, they... I was just a witness.
There's nothing Dean hates more than feeling like a useless spectator. It was why he took this time-travel trip in the first place.
Dean: At the moment, I'm the least valuable player. You both know that I can't kill Amara! So the least I can do is get the thing that we need so that you can!
Dean has no problem risking himself for the sake of the greater good. Sam too. Their courage isn't in doubt.
So what was the greater takeaway for Dean to understand about this whole venture?
Dean: The German ship that sank the Bluefin, what happened to it?
Sam: It went down. Unlike the sub, its wreckage was found. Um, there was a giant hole that'd been ripped through the entire thing. Something must have hit the fuel tanks - it exploded. But it burned, sank.
Judging by the small smile that quirked his lips when hearing the outcome, Dean understood the victory Delphine had achieved with her sacrifice.
And he approved. He was witness to the courage of that entire crew's choice to make a stand against evil, despite overwhelming odds. Unwittingly sacrificing the one-shot usefulness of the Hand of God was an acceptable price to pay -- it wasn't all for nothing.
It's a story he's still absorbing and wasn't ready to talk about the details yet with Sam. But Dean and Sam are facing their own war with impossible odds.
Lucifer: Dean's the one with the link to Amara. Why have I been trying to spare you?
All signs are starting to point toward Dean walking the path of sacrifice himself to take out Amara. He's the marked one that's being tracked by two different evils; Lucifer, hoping to make some kind of use of that connection Dean has with Amara, and Amara herself, looking to find a way to convince Dean to stop resisting her will.
But Dean doesn't come alone. Sam's in the boat with him, so to speak. By his side, sharing the outcome with his brother, for better or worse. They are both in this war together.
Sam: What do we do?
Dean: What else? We hunt Lucifer, trap the bastard and save Cas.
What about Amara?
Delphine: And your war?
Dean: I wanna help you now.
The other half of the bumper sticker. This shows the continuation of Dean's mindset that is fixed on saving, not just hunting. Amara is still out there, and she'll make her appearance when she's ready to. In the meantime, there's Castiel needing saving from Lucifer's possession, and that's going to be an almost impossible endeavor by itself.
Facing impossible odds, they plan to see this fight through, no matter what.
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
-- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Courage. We see it every day in the choices Dean and Sam make, choosing to live a life of sacrifice, believing that eventually it will end "sad or bloody". We become numbed to the display, taking it for granted. This week's episode made the reality of it come alive again through the example Dean witnessed time-traveling back to the doomed submarine USS Bluefin.
Seeking a weapon powerful enough to stop Amara, Sam discovers in the Men of Letters' archived records the account of the Hand of God, a powerful weapon that was presumed to have sunk on the submarine transporting it back in 1943's WWII. No problem, right? They've got Castiel... err, Lucifer, to pop Dean back into the past, retrieve the weapon, and have something potentially useful to use against Amara.
Dean: That sub is a tin can floating in the middle of the ocean, doomed to go down. You can't really mess with history at 20,000 leagues. So we get in, get the weapon, get out. It's a milk run.
Not trying to change the past, not trying to save anyone that shouldn't be saved, yada yada. They know the time-traveling rules from previous trips to the past. No problem. It's not personal at this point.
Lucifer thinks it is a great idea. He too is seeking a weapon to use against Amara.
Crowley: You're not strong enough. You've had your weapons delivered. You realize they won't be enough. If you thought you could beat Amara you'd be taking the fight to her. Right now.
Lucifer has no intention of going after Amara until he is sure he can take her out. He's looking for that metaphorical gun in his hand, that assurance that the scales of such a showdown would be tipped in his favor.
What if that point never comes? What if that extra edge can't be obtained? What happens when the fight comes and there is no way out?
Dean: This sub is going down. But the Allies do win. From Man of Letters to Man of Letters, I'm fighting a war in the future. It's not like your war, it's big. Biblical, end-is-nigh big. And I need your weapon to win. That is why I came.
Petey: But we all die? Me? The girl? The rest of the crew? Just trying to get your story clear.
Dean: Yes.
This is the moment when the reality of the loss of the USS Bluefin started to become real to Dean. When Petey asked for that specific clarification: we all die?
That? That's a tough pill to swallow. Dean is honest with everyone, not just Delphine. He speaks directly with this doomed Woman of Letters, according her the respect of trusting her to understand the stakes of his request. Crewman Petey, listening in, brings the stakes from the future to his present. Dean can only offer him the comfort of telling him the Allies do win the war a few years down the road, but it doesn't make it any less devastating to absorb.
There's worse news to come, though. Delphine's protective sigils have blocked Lucifer from being able to board the sub, making Dean just as doomed as the crew, unless he kills her to break the last protective symbol in place on her body. And now... Dean hesitates. It's not just a milk run anymore.
These people have become real to him. Their lives were already doomed, but turning Delphine into a sacrifice in the process doesn't sit right on Dean.
Of course it doesn't. It made me flash back to the beginning of this season.
Sam: There is always a cure. You just have to want to find it.
Dean: Yeah, how are you gonna find it if you're dead? And around and around we go. (11.01)
Dean started this trip from the practical end of the spectrum and has now circled around to wanting to find another way.
Dean: Teach me how to use it. It's the power of God. Maybe I can use it to save you, save the sub.
Delphine: And your war?
Dean: I wanna help you now.
Delphine: You save this ship, get us to the surface, and then what? The power of God will consume you, and you'll have merely brought the weapon closer to the Nazis' grasp. We are supposed to die, let us do it with a purpose.
That is a spine of steel on display - Delphine's courage in the face of knowing she will die, and not just accepting it but looking to find a way to make it mean something.
It wasn't just Delphine who displayed real courage in that submarine. The entire crew, from Captain on down, chose to see their mission through to the end.
Befehlsleiter Gumprecht: I offer you a choice. Surface now, relinquish the girl and her cargo, and I can assure you and your men the highest of POW treatment. Or you can protect her and we will depth charge you and your boat right into the seabed, and we will recover the cargo ourselves.
There was an option for survival on the table, an option that never made it into the records because it wasn't chosen.
Delphine: I don't expect you to understand. But this cargo - the Germans can't have it. You need to believe me.
Captain: Our orders were to protect you and your cargo. We wouldn't even consider a surrender.
That is the kind of courage Lucifer wouldn't even begin to comprehend.
But sometimes, even when you know you're beaten, you can still find a way to sneak out a little victory. Purpose driving the courage, making the sacrifice, the loss, mean something greater.
Delphine: I'm going to get you home. And I'm going to get you and your men your first German ship.
Delphine got her impossible victory. She got Dean safely back into his present time and took out an entire warship of Thule Nazis.
Sam: So how'd you get through today? I mean, what did you do?
Dean: Nothing. Sam, they... I was just a witness.
There's nothing Dean hates more than feeling like a useless spectator. It was why he took this time-travel trip in the first place.
Dean: At the moment, I'm the least valuable player. You both know that I can't kill Amara! So the least I can do is get the thing that we need so that you can!
Dean has no problem risking himself for the sake of the greater good. Sam too. Their courage isn't in doubt.
So what was the greater takeaway for Dean to understand about this whole venture?
Dean: The German ship that sank the Bluefin, what happened to it?
Sam: It went down. Unlike the sub, its wreckage was found. Um, there was a giant hole that'd been ripped through the entire thing. Something must have hit the fuel tanks - it exploded. But it burned, sank.
Judging by the small smile that quirked his lips when hearing the outcome, Dean understood the victory Delphine had achieved with her sacrifice.
And he approved. He was witness to the courage of that entire crew's choice to make a stand against evil, despite overwhelming odds. Unwittingly sacrificing the one-shot usefulness of the Hand of God was an acceptable price to pay -- it wasn't all for nothing.
It's a story he's still absorbing and wasn't ready to talk about the details yet with Sam. But Dean and Sam are facing their own war with impossible odds.
Lucifer: Dean's the one with the link to Amara. Why have I been trying to spare you?
All signs are starting to point toward Dean walking the path of sacrifice himself to take out Amara. He's the marked one that's being tracked by two different evils; Lucifer, hoping to make some kind of use of that connection Dean has with Amara, and Amara herself, looking to find a way to convince Dean to stop resisting her will.
But Dean doesn't come alone. Sam's in the boat with him, so to speak. By his side, sharing the outcome with his brother, for better or worse. They are both in this war together.
Sam: What do we do?
Dean: What else? We hunt Lucifer, trap the bastard and save Cas.
What about Amara?
Delphine: And your war?
Dean: I wanna help you now.
The other half of the bumper sticker. This shows the continuation of Dean's mindset that is fixed on saving, not just hunting. Amara is still out there, and she'll make her appearance when she's ready to. In the meantime, there's Castiel needing saving from Lucifer's possession, and that's going to be an almost impossible endeavor by itself.
Facing impossible odds, they plan to see this fight through, no matter what.