Supernatural Essay
So, I'd intended my first REAL post to consist of fanfic. Probably DC comics fanfic, since that's what I read and what I've been scribbling lately. But, like my first attempt at actually posting, things have gone awry and I have instead random fannish squealing of a writerly type to offer.
Spoilers for CW's SUPERNATURAL follow, up through the most recent episode ("Nightshifter", 2.12).
So, having just consumed the entirety of Supernatural (herein ever after -- probably -- referred to as SPN, because it's easier) in less than two weeks, I have only just begun to think about it instead of just squeeing over SAM and DEAN and their very pretty car. And the ways in which the show is hilarious and a mini-horror-flick every week. Or every fifteen minutes, if you're like me and watched them in giant marathons of doom. Still. It's about brothers and family and parents and growing up and getting it together and breaking down and consequences and never assuming anything and there's about a dozen other meta-things I could write, but it's not what my genre-writing brain has come up with. The question that has been gnawing at my brain is the definition of 'human' and 'monster' in the show.
Both are terms that the main characters throw around somewhat carelessly. Justifications for their Hunting are often along the lines of "It's not human!" or "It's a monster, and we kill monsters!" That works for a while in the first season, while the show is finding its legs, but things get complicated when Sam admits he dreams about things before they happen ("Home"). Then things get more complicated when he powers start getting more powerful -- not to mention completely uncontrolable -- in "Nightmares" when he starts having visions during the day. And then there's the random and not-yet-repeated telekinesis. Which he also has no control over, not the way Max did. Issue in this episode being that the 'thing' that's killing people? Is human. Has random powers, but is human. Is maybe even justified in what he's doing if you look at it through certain glasses. Dean is reluctant, but Sam so very much identifies with this kid. Sam sees himself in this kid, if John had "a little more alcohol, a little less hunting monsters", and actually has a good thing to say about their childhood with John, which is very much a new thing for Sam at that point in the series.
Max himself is a turning point, the first of the kids whose Moms got pinned to the ceiling that Sam and Dean find. He has powers, too. This introduces much guilt on Sam's part, but I'm not writing that meta right now. The point is that Sam defines Max as human and Dean, who is much more the Hunter at this point, sees the kid first and foremost as something killing in a supernatural way. Which apparently at this point makes him fair game for Dean, since Dean brings the gun into the house.
The other kids like Sam -- and I'm defining this narrowly right now to mean "kids whose moms got pinned to the ceiling and burned" -- have been treated in various ways by the show, though mostly Sam and Dean treat them like humans, especially after Max. Andrew annoys them a whole heck of a lot, especially with his "I'm gonna steal the Impala!" stunt, not to mention saying "Tell the truth!" and making Dean spill every bean this show ever had. I'm a little fuzzy as to why Andrew's persuasion doesn't work on Sam, because Max's TK did, and Sam and Ava (one of the non-mom-burning psychics) both have visions about the other psychics. But! They talk to him, and investigate what he says rather than assuming that he's the evil thing that did it when that's what they do with the various and sundry other things they come up against. Like Max, though, Andrew ends up kiilling somebody before the end of the episode (which is "Simon Said" btw). Sam and Dean don't treat him like a monster afterward, but there's Discussion between them about the possible future of the psychics. Then there's the last of them, the electrokinetic, whom we're told (by his killer) tortured the neighbor's cat before being slit from stomach to throat. By a Hunter. Which is yet another question for later in this increasingly insanely long meta-essay-thing.
Now, though, I want to deal with the place where the human/monster line gets blurry. Sam and Dean obviously consider the psychics humans with powers, but since it's not like magic -- which apparently anybody with the right knowledge can use -- it's inborn, it brings up the question of whether or not the psychics actually are human. We've no evidence that they are, actually, and SPN doesn't seem to be forthcoming with any answers to this question. Just shades of gray. Gordon, at least, of the Hunters considers the psychics nonhuman, and therefore to him they fall into the monster category and are "lawful" prey, so to speak.
Then there are the monsters like the cow-blood drinking vampires and the shapeshifters. Okay, so the vampires are obviously supernatural beings who have the instinct and capability to kill people. They have done so, in previous episodes. But this particular lot doesn't, and resists, and Sam and Dean chose to see them as more than monsters (though not necessarily human). Gordon of the black-and-white viewpoint who will, I promise, be dealt with later, doesn't think that makes them worthy of mercy. They're monsters, so they deserve to die. Now, the shapeshifters on the show are interesting. The first one is undeniably evil and killing people, and also supernatural and that makes him lawful prey. The second is also killing people and supernatural, which makes him lawful prey as well. The thing is . . . the first one, when he's posing as Dean, implies that he might have been born human. Might have thought he was human and horribly deformed until he learned to slip his skin. Neither of the shapeshifters commit crimes that a human couldn't commit -- they just have better tools. They're killing people and robbing banks, not possessing people, eating human flesh, or causing plane crashes. Okay, so the mundane authority has no chance of catching them through detection rather than red-handed, like they got the first 'shifter, but the fact remains that the line there between acceptable Hunting and things that should be left to the cops has been blurred.
Last but most certainly not least are the humans on the show who end up on the wrong side of our heroes. There's the town that sacrifices people to a pagan scarecrow god, though they get 'punished' when the god takes two of their own number and Dean and Sam take care of banishing the god. In the episode "Faith", the minister's wife binds a reaper and uses it to kill people she has judged as unholy and transfer their life force to heal the worthy through her husband. Technically, the 'evil' in the episode is the wife and the reaper is merely the tool, a supernatural executioner's axe. "The Benders" features horror-movie hicks who hunt people for fun, and Dean even says "Demons I get, people are crazy." He finds a JAR full of human teeth and pictures of the traditional 'hunter and dead prey' type which are frankly creepy. There's the guy who brings his girlfriend back as a murderous zombie. The corrupt cop whose first kill becomes a death omen, trying to warn the subsequent victims. The people who made deals with a demon who then sends hellhounds after them. Generally, because the Wincesters have writers to manipulate their universe, the evil humans get taken out by whatever Bad they summoned. At any rate, the Wincesters themselves are never forced to deal with the monstruous humans.
With one exception.
Gordon. (finally!) Fellow Hunter. Vampire-slayer, if that term can ever be used again without invoking Whedon's mythology. He's the first actual other Hunter they've met, since Ellen and Jo don't actually Hunt things till Jo runs off later. He and Dean get along like a house on fire, and he states right out, with all the truth at the bottom of a glass, that he loves the job because it's black and white. Kill the bad thing. It's not human, so it's not murder. Makes life easy for Gordon. Then Sam and the vampires complicate things, because they're not killing people -- note, not out of sentimentality, but for survival. To keep the Hunters away. And Lenore, leader of the cow-vampires, echoes what John told the boys about vampires in the first vampire episode. Only she's talking about Hunters. "Once these people get your scent, they never stop tracking you. They'll keep coming till we're all dead." We get our first real disquieting notions about Gordon when the boys stumble in on him torturing Lenore. Cutting her up for information. It's so very human a torture, and somehow much more disturbing than Dean and Sam using exorcism to torture information out of Meg's demon -- and the audience is allowed to be retroactively okay with that, since the demon is irrefutably evil and the first words out of Meg's mouth after the exorcism are "Thank you." Gordon doesn't stop even after Lenore proves that she can control herself, and since she's in charge, in theory she can control the others as well. He also reveals that he killed his own sister after she was Turned, which is a Big Deal on this show, with its love of family dynamic and the sheer strength of the sibling bond between Sam and Dean. Dean has always been protective of Sam, and the thought of killing a sibling is repulsive to him, and therefore to the audience who's seeing this through his eyes. Dean and Sam chose to deal with Gordon by hitting him until he falls down, then tying him up. They have no real grounds to kill him, and technically he's human, so he's not lawful prey anyway.
They probably regret this course of action when he shows up again and tries to kill Sam. He never outright says that he doesn't consider Sam human anymore, but he DOES say that a demon told him that the psychics were going to betray humanity and as far as he's concerned, that makes them "lawful prey" (where I've been getting the term, actually). Monsters.
And . . . really, that's what I've got. SPN has a very interesting progression from supernatural=evil to a big blur where the human/monster line used to be, and it's only going to get more complicated. Sam and Dean haven't really decided where the new line between human and monster is going to be, and since Sam's powers and the cow-eating vampires there's definitely the question of what lawful prey is and how they decide that. What defines human? What defines monster? What makes a monster -- or a human, though they haven't gone there yet -- lawful prey?
I have a lot of admiration for SPN because the show is willing to go there, to ask those questions in a genre that is usually defined by black and white, by easily discernable lines. We don't have the answers to the questions yet, only some of the evidence. And we KNOW our boys are some of the least-informed players in the giant game the yellow-eyed demon is playing, so we can also extrapolate that we're not being given important information. The questions are definitely part of the development of Sam and Dean's characters, and will probably define sides in the coming war. I doubt there are only going to be two.
Sam: "Last time I checked, I killed all kinds of things."
Dean: "Those things are asking for it. There's a difference."
Are they?
Is there?
Spoilers for CW's SUPERNATURAL follow, up through the most recent episode ("Nightshifter", 2.12).
So, having just consumed the entirety of Supernatural (herein ever after -- probably -- referred to as SPN, because it's easier) in less than two weeks, I have only just begun to think about it instead of just squeeing over SAM and DEAN and their very pretty car. And the ways in which the show is hilarious and a mini-horror-flick every week. Or every fifteen minutes, if you're like me and watched them in giant marathons of doom. Still. It's about brothers and family and parents and growing up and getting it together and breaking down and consequences and never assuming anything and there's about a dozen other meta-things I could write, but it's not what my genre-writing brain has come up with. The question that has been gnawing at my brain is the definition of 'human' and 'monster' in the show.
Both are terms that the main characters throw around somewhat carelessly. Justifications for their Hunting are often along the lines of "It's not human!" or "It's a monster, and we kill monsters!" That works for a while in the first season, while the show is finding its legs, but things get complicated when Sam admits he dreams about things before they happen ("Home"). Then things get more complicated when he powers start getting more powerful -- not to mention completely uncontrolable -- in "Nightmares" when he starts having visions during the day. And then there's the random and not-yet-repeated telekinesis. Which he also has no control over, not the way Max did. Issue in this episode being that the 'thing' that's killing people? Is human. Has random powers, but is human. Is maybe even justified in what he's doing if you look at it through certain glasses. Dean is reluctant, but Sam so very much identifies with this kid. Sam sees himself in this kid, if John had "a little more alcohol, a little less hunting monsters", and actually has a good thing to say about their childhood with John, which is very much a new thing for Sam at that point in the series.
Max himself is a turning point, the first of the kids whose Moms got pinned to the ceiling that Sam and Dean find. He has powers, too. This introduces much guilt on Sam's part, but I'm not writing that meta right now. The point is that Sam defines Max as human and Dean, who is much more the Hunter at this point, sees the kid first and foremost as something killing in a supernatural way. Which apparently at this point makes him fair game for Dean, since Dean brings the gun into the house.
The other kids like Sam -- and I'm defining this narrowly right now to mean "kids whose moms got pinned to the ceiling and burned" -- have been treated in various ways by the show, though mostly Sam and Dean treat them like humans, especially after Max. Andrew annoys them a whole heck of a lot, especially with his "I'm gonna steal the Impala!" stunt, not to mention saying "Tell the truth!" and making Dean spill every bean this show ever had. I'm a little fuzzy as to why Andrew's persuasion doesn't work on Sam, because Max's TK did, and Sam and Ava (one of the non-mom-burning psychics) both have visions about the other psychics. But! They talk to him, and investigate what he says rather than assuming that he's the evil thing that did it when that's what they do with the various and sundry other things they come up against. Like Max, though, Andrew ends up kiilling somebody before the end of the episode (which is "Simon Said" btw). Sam and Dean don't treat him like a monster afterward, but there's Discussion between them about the possible future of the psychics. Then there's the last of them, the electrokinetic, whom we're told (by his killer) tortured the neighbor's cat before being slit from stomach to throat. By a Hunter. Which is yet another question for later in this increasingly insanely long meta-essay-thing.
Now, though, I want to deal with the place where the human/monster line gets blurry. Sam and Dean obviously consider the psychics humans with powers, but since it's not like magic -- which apparently anybody with the right knowledge can use -- it's inborn, it brings up the question of whether or not the psychics actually are human. We've no evidence that they are, actually, and SPN doesn't seem to be forthcoming with any answers to this question. Just shades of gray. Gordon, at least, of the Hunters considers the psychics nonhuman, and therefore to him they fall into the monster category and are "lawful" prey, so to speak.
Then there are the monsters like the cow-blood drinking vampires and the shapeshifters. Okay, so the vampires are obviously supernatural beings who have the instinct and capability to kill people. They have done so, in previous episodes. But this particular lot doesn't, and resists, and Sam and Dean chose to see them as more than monsters (though not necessarily human). Gordon of the black-and-white viewpoint who will, I promise, be dealt with later, doesn't think that makes them worthy of mercy. They're monsters, so they deserve to die. Now, the shapeshifters on the show are interesting. The first one is undeniably evil and killing people, and also supernatural and that makes him lawful prey. The second is also killing people and supernatural, which makes him lawful prey as well. The thing is . . . the first one, when he's posing as Dean, implies that he might have been born human. Might have thought he was human and horribly deformed until he learned to slip his skin. Neither of the shapeshifters commit crimes that a human couldn't commit -- they just have better tools. They're killing people and robbing banks, not possessing people, eating human flesh, or causing plane crashes. Okay, so the mundane authority has no chance of catching them through detection rather than red-handed, like they got the first 'shifter, but the fact remains that the line there between acceptable Hunting and things that should be left to the cops has been blurred.
Last but most certainly not least are the humans on the show who end up on the wrong side of our heroes. There's the town that sacrifices people to a pagan scarecrow god, though they get 'punished' when the god takes two of their own number and Dean and Sam take care of banishing the god. In the episode "Faith", the minister's wife binds a reaper and uses it to kill people she has judged as unholy and transfer their life force to heal the worthy through her husband. Technically, the 'evil' in the episode is the wife and the reaper is merely the tool, a supernatural executioner's axe. "The Benders" features horror-movie hicks who hunt people for fun, and Dean even says "Demons I get, people are crazy." He finds a JAR full of human teeth and pictures of the traditional 'hunter and dead prey' type which are frankly creepy. There's the guy who brings his girlfriend back as a murderous zombie. The corrupt cop whose first kill becomes a death omen, trying to warn the subsequent victims. The people who made deals with a demon who then sends hellhounds after them. Generally, because the Wincesters have writers to manipulate their universe, the evil humans get taken out by whatever Bad they summoned. At any rate, the Wincesters themselves are never forced to deal with the monstruous humans.
With one exception.
Gordon. (finally!) Fellow Hunter. Vampire-slayer, if that term can ever be used again without invoking Whedon's mythology. He's the first actual other Hunter they've met, since Ellen and Jo don't actually Hunt things till Jo runs off later. He and Dean get along like a house on fire, and he states right out, with all the truth at the bottom of a glass, that he loves the job because it's black and white. Kill the bad thing. It's not human, so it's not murder. Makes life easy for Gordon. Then Sam and the vampires complicate things, because they're not killing people -- note, not out of sentimentality, but for survival. To keep the Hunters away. And Lenore, leader of the cow-vampires, echoes what John told the boys about vampires in the first vampire episode. Only she's talking about Hunters. "Once these people get your scent, they never stop tracking you. They'll keep coming till we're all dead." We get our first real disquieting notions about Gordon when the boys stumble in on him torturing Lenore. Cutting her up for information. It's so very human a torture, and somehow much more disturbing than Dean and Sam using exorcism to torture information out of Meg's demon -- and the audience is allowed to be retroactively okay with that, since the demon is irrefutably evil and the first words out of Meg's mouth after the exorcism are "Thank you." Gordon doesn't stop even after Lenore proves that she can control herself, and since she's in charge, in theory she can control the others as well. He also reveals that he killed his own sister after she was Turned, which is a Big Deal on this show, with its love of family dynamic and the sheer strength of the sibling bond between Sam and Dean. Dean has always been protective of Sam, and the thought of killing a sibling is repulsive to him, and therefore to the audience who's seeing this through his eyes. Dean and Sam chose to deal with Gordon by hitting him until he falls down, then tying him up. They have no real grounds to kill him, and technically he's human, so he's not lawful prey anyway.
They probably regret this course of action when he shows up again and tries to kill Sam. He never outright says that he doesn't consider Sam human anymore, but he DOES say that a demon told him that the psychics were going to betray humanity and as far as he's concerned, that makes them "lawful prey" (where I've been getting the term, actually). Monsters.
And . . . really, that's what I've got. SPN has a very interesting progression from supernatural=evil to a big blur where the human/monster line used to be, and it's only going to get more complicated. Sam and Dean haven't really decided where the new line between human and monster is going to be, and since Sam's powers and the cow-eating vampires there's definitely the question of what lawful prey is and how they decide that. What defines human? What defines monster? What makes a monster -- or a human, though they haven't gone there yet -- lawful prey?
I have a lot of admiration for SPN because the show is willing to go there, to ask those questions in a genre that is usually defined by black and white, by easily discernable lines. We don't have the answers to the questions yet, only some of the evidence. And we KNOW our boys are some of the least-informed players in the giant game the yellow-eyed demon is playing, so we can also extrapolate that we're not being given important information. The questions are definitely part of the development of Sam and Dean's characters, and will probably define sides in the coming war. I doubt there are only going to be two.
Sam: "Last time I checked, I killed all kinds of things."
Dean: "Those things are asking for it. There's a difference."
Are they?
Is there?