[meta]: A new God: but an old story.
Why Castiel is still just a lost little boy with an absent father.
So let me Preface this by saying that I’m a loser who meant to write this ages ago and forgot to. To be honest, I had to wait for nearly a month after The Man Who Knew Too Much aired before I could watch it, and then wanted to look for Castiel-related meta already in place before I went and made a fool of myself by saying something that someone else already had. Anyway.
So, 6.22. Overall, I thought it wasn’t the greatest finale. Yes, I adored the inside-Sam’s-head we got, and the episode contained all sorts of things necessary for a finale, including some resolutions, the big cliffie and emotional angst by the tonnes. But maybe it was because I was accidentally spoiled (and I was so careful too) for the Cas-is-the-new-God reveal (though finding out exactly how was still a surprise). Who knows. That’s not really what I wanted to talk about anyway.
With Castiel as the all new powerful God, everybody’s going oh em gee, he’s the new big bad. But really- I don’t think so. Why? Because all I saw in that episode was a lost little boy who didn’t know any better.
Already, a couple of people have come out and said this- I can’t remember where exactly, but I do remember seeing a few opinions in favour of Cas that was all about Castiel being misunderstood. In my opinion, that’s only half right. Yes, I believe that he’s the Sam of season four- doing the wrong things for the right reasons, but I don’t believe he’s being misunderstood by fandom, but rather, by the characters, because Castiel doesn’t have the capability to truly explain his reasoning.
Bardicvoice posited that the souls acted like a drug, and Castiel being all I am God was basically a drug trip powered by too much raw power, and Cas didn’t really understand what all that power could do. To an extent I agree. I don’t think Castiel really thought it through entirely, I do believe that he was so driven by his need to defeat Raphael that he didn’t want to see the consequences of what that power could do. In the end though, he did know that it was a hell of a lot of power, and he still chose to go ahead regardless. It all comes down to motivation.
One thing is certainly for sure- Castiel above all, was in a very difficult position, and was given the opportunity to save the world and to save Heaven. It’s the classic tragic storyline that we saw with Sam- to save the world the Hero must destroy everything he is. Bad choices are made, and people get hurt in the process, but it’s in the pursuit of right. He certainly made a few mistakes- Balthazar’s death was unnecessary and rather callous, as was Visyak’s. Isolating Dean and not asking the Winchester’s for help or really letting them in on what was going on was wrong too- and though I believe he kept his secrets out of love to protect the Winchesters, he saw throughout his time on earth the destruction that secrets did to the Winchester’s relationship.
Which leads me to his fatal flaw:
The pure and simple truth is that Castiel is an angel. Always was. And as an angel, he is above human mistakes. Instead, his entire reason for being is wrapped up in God and the purpose of serving Heaven, of being righteous, of protecting humanity from evil. He is a part of it and it is a part of him. We saw how destructive the removal of these (God and Heaven) was during season five- Castiel pretty much fell apart. Heaven fell apart. The apocalypse was a spanner in the works that erupted in a civil war in Heaven. Part of it was God’s abandonment- angels are basically losing their way because they no longer have a focus and direction.
Remember, they are angels- they are nothing outside of humanities’ faith in them, (and they know it and resent that). And in Supernatural, we saw how they were without purpose, and without that faith. We saw what it was like for an angel to be cut off from Heaven, to be wandering aimlessly. We saw what happened to them when they begin to experience.
And Castiel? Is truly a spectacular product of his experience.
Here is an angel, not particularly powerful in angel circles, but obedient and loyal and directed (both self and externally). Being an angel, all he knows is righteousness and the pursuit of justice. He’s a soldier, and his very existence is tied up in the rules of Heaven. All he would have done was obey orders and eradicate evil. All he knows is that humanity was created by God, God loves them, and their sin is purified by God’s grace. His entire understanding of humanity is centred on the idea that humanity loves God back.
And then he raised Dean Winchester from Hell. Dean Winchester, who swears, and drinks, and sleeps with multiple women and doesn’t believe in God, or Heaven, or Castiel. Dean, who has no God in his life, hates himself, hates his life, feels alone and depressed. His relationship with his brother, as much as he loves Sam, is plagued by mistrust. Over the course of season four, Castiel is bombarded with a world- our world- that has little regard, or need for religion, and all through the eyes of a Winchester, who are worse off humans on the scale of happy feelings than most. If he had been exposed to much more stable and happy humans, the outcome of season six would have been vastly different.
Instead, he was exposed to the worst of the darkness of humanity, a humanity that gleefully creates and festers evil within itself. He gets a taste of this, learns horrible truths about his home and his reason for being, is abandoned by the one being who could help him understand (God) and so he chooses to defy Heaven and help the Winchesters avoid the apocalypse. Consequently, he’s kicked out of Heaven and cut off from his power. Unlike Anna, who chose to reject Heaven, Castiel was forcibly removed from it. Regardless of his choice to help the Winchesters, he was still loyal to his father and to the ideals of Heaven. He just believed Heaven was going about the wrong way to achieve them, first with the apocalypse, and then with Raphael.
For the first time in his existence, Castiel experienced what it was like to suffer as a human in a God-less world. And this- this I believe is everything when considering the I am the new God statement.
With season six’s civil war, we got a full on fantastic Castiel-centred episode. We saw how alone he was in Heaven, how Dean and Sam use him to their own advantage with little regard for thank yous, and the guilt he has over not rescuing Sam completely. We have an angel feeling, as humans do, all the negative emotions that equal despair (things like loneliness, guilt, emptiness etc) and feeling abandonment by the one being who is supposed to love creation and who is powerful enough to save it. And for Castiel, who has only ever believed and seen evidence that a life without God is meaningless and destructive, would no doubt believe that God’s (or a god’s) interference on earth is the answer to this.
Do I believe this is the key motivating force behind season six Cas? Hell no, pardon the pun. Cas wanted the souls to help him defeat Raphael, and to save Heaven. But I do think that having this soul-power has given him the idea that he can save humanity as well. And really, it’s all in the title. Sam isn’t the man who knew too much (i.e., the consolidation of his life with being soulless and his soul’s experience in hell), it’s Castiel- who knows far too much about a lost humanity and a lost heaven, and did the only thing he could think of to save it.
He destroyed himself.