Happy Endings: Supernatural, The Dark Night of the Soul and why Sam and Dean don't have to die
(warning: two minor spoilers for 7.11)
I'm generally a very positive person but...
I can usually find a silver lining but.....
I hear a lot of people talking along these lines while expressing their feelings about the show lately, and they tend to continue by saying that they find it impossible to imagine Sam and Dean ever finding their way out from under the dark cloud that seems to have been following them relentlessly the past couple of seasons. I can't count how many times I've read comments here and there stating that the only ending a given fan can imagine for them is death, whether it be going out in a blaze of glory fighting the Leviathans, driving off a cliff like Thelma and Louise, or even some kind of bleak fratracide-suicide scenario.
I suppose I'm one of the few people who still believes that a happy ending is still in the cards, that Sam and Dean may still drive off into the sunset, wherein said sunset is not a metaphor, but a for-real sunset and the boys are alive and well as they drive off into it. Some might ask: Have you been paying attention to how crappy their lives have become, how many terrible things have happened to them? Are you completely delusional?" And to those people I ask: Are you really as optimistic a person as you think? Because optimism isn't just about seeing the glass half full. Let's face it, sometimes it's an empty glass. And at times like that, being optimistic means believing that one day soon, you will find that oasis in the desert and be able to fill that glass up, even when there is only sand for as far as the eye can see. Some people also call this "hope", although here we are talking about the fate of fictional characters, so I feel as though having "hope" for the direction of a TV show may be too strong a sentiment. Personally.
So yes, I'm optimistic.
I'm going to elaborate here, and focus on Dean as I do so, first, because I am much more emotionally invested in his character (Hi! Deangirl!) and therefore feel more comfortable talking about his inner machinations, and second, because I feel as though there is a much greater concern for his ability to cope with the harsh realities of their lives right now than there is for Sam, who has always been more adept at working through his emotions than Dean.
Rather than supposing that Dean is on a long, painful downward spiral, the end product of which will be his death (by his own hand or hand of monster), I choose to see him on a complex and yes, difficult spiritual journey. Now, understand that I'm not a religious person. I don't think I even qualify as "spiritual"... whatever that really means. But Supernatural exists in a world where souls are as real as the butter on your toast, so I don't really feel conflicted using the term spirituality within the context of the show. Not only that but one can also understand the idea of a spiritual journey as simply a personal philosophical experience, which I think one could easily do here as well.
What led me to flesh out this idea further, and come to believe this spiritual journey could in fact end on a high note, was actually an article I read about Film Noir in the wake of season 6. In it, I learned that Film Noir is sometimes referred to as "The Dark Night of the Soul" expressed cinematically. And I wondered, what the hell is the Dark Night of the Soul? As it turns out, The Dark Night of the Soul is a text describing a particularly difficult testing of faith written by St John of the Cross, a 16th century Roman Catholic Mystic. In Christianity, it is generally understood as a spiritual crisis along ones journey towards finding union with god, but in the treatise itself it's more specifically described as being a time when a person of faith seems unable to find meaning and reward in their own spiritual life and feels as though God has abandoned them. But what makes the Dark Night of the Soul special, is that once they make it though all this, they come out the other side a better person, with even stronger faith than before:
Rather than resulting in permanent devastation, the dark night is regarded by mystics and others as a blessing in disguise, whereby the individual is stripped (in the dark night of the senses) of the spiritual ecstasy associated with acts of virtue. Although individuals may for a time seem to outwardly decline in their practices of virtue, in reality they become more virtuous, as they are being virtuous less for the spiritual rewards (ecstasies in the cases of the first night) obtained and more out of a true love for God. It is this purgatory, a purgation of the soul, that brings purity and union with God. (1)
Now let's not get into the implications of the mentioning of purgatory here (not that it doesn't excite me), since that is a whole other essay right there, but simply think about this in terms of what Dean is going through, and the possibilities it implies. Clearly we need to see it metaphorically to a large extent. I don't think Dean would describe the thrills he experiences as a hunter as spiritual ecstasy (or if he did, he'd make it sound all dirty). And we can also understand Dean's spiritual rewards not in the strict sense-i.e., getting into heaven or racking up "points" with God-but in a broader sense that includes his sense of accomplishment, his pride and even thanks he receives for those who he saves. Additionally, the true love for God may be understood as the set of fundamental beliefs held so close to ones core being that one is capable of following them unflinchingly.
And so what I see is Dean in a very dark place, where he seems no longer able to take pleasure in his work, to derive meaning from it the way he used to. He appears to simply be going through the motions. Even Sam has begun to notice that he doesn't seem himself. Still, through all of this, Dean is still holding steadfast to his beliefs, to the same guidelines with which he conducted himself before he became so lost. And it is exactly this type of strength of character that allows one to survive the Dark Night of the Soul: But the spirit, which all the time is being fed, goes forward in strength, and with more alertness and solicitude than before, in its anxiety not to fail God. (Book 1, Ch IX), or in Dean's case, his anxiety not to abandon the only thing he really has left besides his brother: his moral compass.
During the time, then, of the aridities of this night of sense (…) spiritual persons suffer great trials, by reason not so much of the aridities which they suffer, as of the fear which they have of being lost on the road, thinking that all spiritual blessing is over for them and that God has abandoned them since they find no help or pleasure in good things. Then they grow weary, and endeavour (as they have been accustomed to do) to concentrate their faculties with some degree of pleasure upon some object of meditation. (Book 1, Ch X)
Much like the person Saint John of the Cross describes here, Dean too has a great fear of being lost on the road, of no longer having any belief that an end is in sight for his suffering, that he and his brother have been utterly abandoned, not only by God, but by all heavenly creatures, and through death, by Mary, John and Bobby. As he continues to grow weary, Bobby provides him with the advice that is essentially what we see here, to find something to keep him going, to concentrate his faculties with some degree of pleasure upon some object of meditation. And as of 7.11, for Dean, that object of meditation has become revenge, just as it was for John after Mary’s death.
For Saint John, however, this is not a solution, but merely a symptom or indication that one is suffering through The Dark Night of the Soul. It gives the person a certain degree of stability along the way, but it is not the end of the journey.
And thus they are like to one who abandons what he has done in order to do it over again, or to one who leaves a city only to re-enter it, or to one who is hunting and lets his prey go in order to hunt it once more. This is useless here, for the soul will gain nothing further by conducting itself in this way, as has been said. (Book 1, Ch X)
It’s interesting to think of Dean doing this, of abandoning his mission of “Saving people, hunting things-the family business” in order to do, well, the same thing. Sort of. He seems to have given up hope that this journey will ever end, has abandoned it only to begin it again and again, with still no hope. It sounds a little like that guy pushing a rock up a hill that Dean spoke of to Frank in 7.11, otherwise known as Sisyphus (and we already have some great meta about the parallels that Myth has to the show here).
According to the myth, there is no end to poor Sisyphus’ struggle. He is doomed to push that rock up that hill for an eternity. But there is an end to the Dark Night of the Soul, and there is a didactic purpose to it:
Likewise, from the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility, which is the contrary virtue to the first capital sin, which, as we said, is spiritual pride. Through this humility, which is acquired by the said knowledge of self, the soul is purged from all those imperfections whereinto it fell with respect to that sin of pride, in the time of its prosperity. For it sees itself so dry and miserable that the idea never even occurs to it that it is making better progress than others, or outstripping them, as it believed itself to be doing before. On the contrary, it recognizes that others are making better progress than itself. (Book 1, Ch XII)
Essentially, what’s being said here is that this time in which one lacks a sense of spiritual purpose, guidance or reward acts as a sort of cleansing, where the sufferer is humbled. Before, when they felt more strong-willed and confident in their beliefs, they were susceptible to sort of believing their own hype, or falling victim to their own pride, but during the Dark Night, they are humbled. Without the pride to accompany their good deeds, those good deeds become all the more meaningful, despite the fact that the individual is unable to see that this is so.
If we look at how Dean behaved way back in season one and compare him to the way he is now, this contrast between prideful and humble is quite distinct. And as easy as it is to understand why Dean was so self-assured back then, it’s equally easy to understand why his attitude towards his job has become so fatalistic, why he no longer does it with the same gusto or joie-de-vivre as he used to. It makes a poetic, though perhaps cruel kind of sense that Dean might need to be subjected to the Dark Night in order to strengthen his beliefs, to make them all the more meaningful in the end, since he is able to live by them completely unadorned by the warm and cozy feelings that used to accompany them.
Yes, it comes at quite a cost, this spiritual journey. And for Dean, and for many fans, it seems hopeless, relentless, never-ending. But it’s also allowing Dean to test his beliefs like never before, to hold himself up on this basic framework that is all he has left after everything else has been demolished. And that framework will be that much stronger underneath once he builds over it anew.
I choose to believe a happy ending is still possible, that there is still something to be gained from all of this suffering, and as long as Dean doesn’t lose sight of his beliefs- as terribly depressed as he may be with them- I won’t lose sight of mine either.