Thoughts on Cas at the end of S6
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what happens to Castiel at the end of season 6. The conclusion that I’ve come to is, I understand what motivates everyone during that arc. I think there’s wrong on all sides, but that no one person can be solely blamed. And to explain that, it’s necessary to go back to the beginning of S6. There are some important unanswered questions from that time.
Also, this is LONG. Apologies in advance, but if you do read all of it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
SPOILERS: really only through 7.02, but vague references to the story arc through 7.15. I am completely unspoiled for unaired episodes with ONE exception: I know that Cas is set to come back in 7.17, and I know a little about that, but not much. I don’t really reference that spoiler in this though, and I’d appreciate no other spoilers in the comments!
Why didn’t anyone tell Dean that Sam was alive?
This is the first question that comes up for me. I think Dean and Cas’s decisions later in the season can be traced to their disconnect during that “missing year,” and their lack of contact - particularly on the issue of Sam’s return - seems critical. But, in fact, neither Sam, Bobby or Cas told Dean that Sam was alive. And I can’t help but wonder why.
Soulless Sam I can basically excuse on principle. He was soulless, so until he actually needed Dean, it makes sense to me that he wouldn’t go to him.
Bobby says that he was doing it because Dean was “out” of the life and he didn’t want to disturb that. The primary problem with this is that Sam is clearly Dean’s family, first and last, regardless of who else may be in it. Letting Dean think Sam was dead was cruel. Thinking Dean could ever be happy without Sam in his life was foolish. But I guess I can accept why Bobby did it and why he thought he was doing the right thing, for Dean.
There’s many reasons why Cas didn’t tell Dean. He was busy in Heaven. As an angel, perhaps he didn’t quite get why it was so important. He rescued Sam; if Sam then chose not to go to Dean, I could see why Cas might not think he needed to tell Dean himself. And maybe Cas also thought he was sparing Dean.
Regardless of why they did it, Bobby and Cas were both clearly wrong in not telling Dean that Sam was alive and in thinking that Dean could ever truly be happy without Sam. So going into S6, we already have this huge disconnect between Dean and everyone else.
I think Dean went to Lisa partly because he had nowhere else to go, and partly because he promised Sam. I think a part of Dean did crave the normalcy and stability, but he clearly wasn’t okay without his brother. Or Bobby, or Cas, the people who make up his family just as much as anyone else will ever be able to. I can accept that he loved Lisa and Ben and considered them family, but that doesn’t mean he forgot about who his other family was.
Cas raising Sam and why he lied about it
This is another big issue that affects the rest of the season. Why did Cas lie about raising Sam?
The answer is, we really don’t know. We can speculate on it, of course, but definitively, we don’t know, and that’s something that has always bothered me.
I think a fair assumption is that Cas didn’t leave Sam’s soul behind on purpose. Now, we don’t know that for sure, but I think it’s a likely scenario. He says that he was filled with “hubris” when he went to Hell, so I could see him being overconfident and not realizing the huge mistake he made.
When, then, did he realize it? Did he really not know Sam was soulless until he reached in to touch it in front of Dean?
It’s not really clear. Crowley claimed that he raised Sam and could get his soul back, but we know he was basically using that as leverage to get the boys to hunt for him. Since Cas was working with Crowley, one could assume that Cas also knew Sam didn’t have his soul.
I just don’t really get the motivation for lying, in any case. Nearest I can figure, he didn’t want them to suspect his connection to Crowley at all. Or he was ashamed that he made such a huge mistake, and really didn’t know how to fix it.
Regardless, it sets up a precedent of Cas lying to the boys all season. He saved Sam and that’s huge, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why he lied about it.
Cas’s deal with Crowley
Finally, getting to the crux of the issue: Cas making the deal. I understand why, at least initially, Cas did it. When he got back to Heaven, Raphael told him he was going to restart the apocalypse. Cas couldn’t let that happen. It would mean that everything that he, Dean, Sam and Bobby had gone through in the previous year was for nothing. His motivation in doing this is clear. Stopping Raphael, and preventing a second apocalypse, were always necessary goals. I don’t think anyone would disagree with this. I think the only disagreement comes in the way in which that happens.
Cas believed that the only way to stop Raphael was to go along with Crowley’s plan of opening Purgatory and sucking in all the souls.
(Side note: it’s unclear if Cas was always meant to take in all the souls himself. His original deal with Crowley was to split the souls. But when Balthazar confronts him, he says “I assume you’re the vessel” and Cas doesn’t contradict him. So I’m not sure.)
There are many reasons this was a terrible plan. The most obvious being, they had no idea what was in Purgatory or what sucking in the souls would do to Cas. And it turned out horribly. They only let out one other thing that wants to end the world, the leviathans. They had no way of knowing what was in there. But that’s the point: it was too dangerous.
Cas believed he was doing what he had to do, but the fact is, what he decided to do was too dangerous. And in the end pointless. Yes, they killed Raphael, but now we’ve got leviathans. So it’s clear to me that the plan was a bad one, and Cas was wrong in thinking that it had to be done. The plan was too dangerous and ineffective in the end. Cas was just plain wrong about it.
Should Cas have asked Dean for help? And would Dean have given it?
Which brings us to the question: what could Cas have done differently? Particularly, should he have asked Dean for help? And would Dean have given it?
If Dean still thought Sam was dead, then he might just be broken enough to turn Cas away. Or perhaps that would’ve been the thing that caused Dean to leave Lisa earlier. And at the very least, at least Cas would have tried.
Cas did go to Dean, initially. But he states explicitly that “after everything he’d sacrificed, I couldn’t ask him for more.” Had Cas gone to Dean, I’d like to think Dean would have helped. The Apocalypse itself had seemed impossible, too, and they’d figured a way out of that. Maybe they could have done something to stop Raphael, too. I think Cas did think Dean would help him and he was trying to spare Dean.
Did Dean just use Cas and Cas didn’t think he could go to Dean? It’s easy to admit that the Dean/Cas relationship falters a bit in S6. And that’s because of the year spent apart. Cas was in Heaven, etc., busy. And Dean was down on earth with Lisa. It’s easy to see how they could each feel abandoned by the other.
When they do get back in touch…Cas basically ignores Dean unless there’s something about one of the heavenly weapons. This is just the facts. I get the sentiment behind why Cas says that he “always comes when Dean calls”. Cas has done a lot for Dean, continues to do a lot for both him and Sam. That’s a given. What’s also a given is that the boys don’t really say thank you much, if ever.
But Cas ignores Sam’s calls for nearly a year about who raised him from Hell (despite knowing full well that it was himself). He comes in 603 because of the Staff of Moses. In 606, he only comes when Dean mentions the Horn of Truth, and Dean says that he’s been calling Cas for days, which Cas ignored. In 610, he only comes because Sam claims he has a heavenly weapon.
Moreover, every time he does come down, he repeatedly tells them that he’s so busy, etc. Which is why Rachel’s words to the boys in 618 are so jarring. She accuses them of only calling him when they need him, for matters inconsequential to Heaven. So what would she rather them do - not call him at all, right? Are they really supposed to be calling him to shoot the shit, to just check in and say hey the way you do to friends, when he’s impressed time and time again that he’s too busy for that? When he in fact ignores their calls unless it’s something to do with him?
I just don’t know what they could have done differently. If they ignored him altogether, he still wouldn’t feel like they were his “friends.” But he basically made them think he was too busy to just be “friends” and hang out.
Basically I don’t think Dean can be blamed for not letting Cas think he could ask for help. Dean DOES explicitly offer to help, in 609 (right after Cas pretends to kill Crowley): he says, “If there’s anything we can do - “ which Cas immediately cuts off with “There isn’t.”
I think Cas did expect Dean to help, back before the Crowley deal, which is why he didn’t ask him, out of some sense of sparing him. And I just don’t see how that impression changes over S6.
The crux of the matter: the trust issue
Beyond the fact that I do think that Cas’s plan was the wrong one all along, I think the main issue is the betrayal of trust. He lies about his plan, all season, to the boys. I can’t help but think that this shows that, on some level, he was ashamed of and doubted his plan: working with Crowley at all, and the plan itself to open Purgatory. If he thought it was a great idea that was on the up-and-up, why keep it a secret? Clearly he thought there was something at the very least shady about what he planned on doing.
And because he lied, when everyone eventually found out about the plan, they felt hurt and betrayed. Rachel and Balthazar, two angels who were on Cas’s side, were both skeptical and disapproving of the plan when they found out. You could say Rachel has a stick up her ass, but Balthazar clearly has looser morals. And yet, neither of them approved - and both were hurt that Cas lied.
Cas, of course, ends up killing them both. For what it’s worth, he seems truly sorry to do it, but that he must kill them in order for the plan to go on. This shows a pretty clear desperation on his part.
Sam, Dean and Bobby are pretty hurt and shocked by Cas’s plan, too. Of course, he doesn’t kill them, but he also doesn’t stop his plan for them either.
Which brings us to what happens once everything is out in the open. I do think that as hurt as the boys are by the concept of the plan itself, they’re just as hurt by the fact that Cas in fact lied about it. This is certainly the case for Dean.
And at that point, the impasse begins. Castiel truly believes that he is doing what is necessary to save the world. That, deplorable as his actions may be (and his keeping them a secret tends to show that he believed that they were, in fact, deplorable), it was what he had to do.
Dean doesn’t believe the same. Dean insists that there’s some other way to figure this out. But he doesn’t present an alternate solution. And it’s not clear that, at that late point, he could have.
Whether Cas should or could have gone to Dean initially, the fact is he didn’t. So, by the time Dean finally finds out, is there anything Dean could have done?
Dean basically disapproves of the whole idea. He asks Cas to trust him, that it’s a bad plan.
And at the very same time, Cas asks Dean to trust that he does know what he’s doing. He kept it a secret because he didn’t think the boys would approve. But now that they know, he wants them to believe that he can handle it, that he’s right, and that it’ll work.
In the end, it didn’t work. But Cas thought it would and, regardless, really believed that it was his only choice - that it was a risk he had to take.
Dean didn’t believe that, and moreover, didn’t believe in Cas. He didn’t trust Cas, when push came to shove. Instead, Dean turned his back on Cas, refused to support him, basically told Cas he’d fight against him if he didn’t back down.
There seems to be an argument that had Dean believed or supported Cas, he might not have done what he did. I don’t know if I’d go that far. By 6.20, it seems pretty clear that Cas will do whatever is necessary to go through with his plan. And whether or not he could have been dissuaded earlier on is irrelevant.
However, Cas does feel isolated and alone as everyone he trusted turns their backs on him. Moreover, he feels increasingly desperate that this is the only choice.
I think Cas does what he thinks he has to do. I’m not sure that, had Dean backed or supported him, Cas wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing.
But the fact is that Dean did abandon him, and that did make Cas more desperate. So to the extent that Cas was hurting in all of this, and Dean’s actions may have influenced Cas, there is that.
Dean asked for Cas’s trust, which Cas didn’t give him. Cas didn’t trust - and rightly so, perhaps - that Dean could’ve come up with some other plan in the few days that they had. But at the same time, Dean didn’t trust that Cas knew what the hell he was doing.
Who was right or wrong, at that point, is really irrelevant to the personal conflict between Dean and Cas. That breakdown in trust hurt both of them profoundly, and that’s what will have the lasting effect on their relationship.
I guess why it’s so hard to analyze these episodes is because no one was entirely right or wrong. Cas had good intentions and truly believed he was doing what had to be done, but he happened to be completely wrong about that. Dean happened to be right that Cas’s plan sucked, but his abandonment of Cas certainly didn’t do their relationship any favors.
It’s just that I can so clearly see what each side did wrong, but no matter how much I think about it, I can’t think of what could believably have been done differently. Which is why it hurts so much. What we have at the end is a total loss of one of the strongest allies Dean and Sam have ever had, and yet I can’t for the life of me think of another way it could have gone.
I can’t fault Cas for his actions because they do make sense to me. And I can’t fault Dean either because I know why he acted the way he did, too. They both made mistakes - but neither is alone in that.
When Cas comes back to himself for a moment in 701, he does seem genuinely sorry. And I do feel like he’d try everything he could to redeem himself. I’d like for Dean to understand his part in what he did wrong, if possible, too.
I don’t know where the storyline goes from here. But so far, it’s made sense for Cas, painful as it has been. It makes sense to me that an angel with free will would make such mistakes. That an angel would rebel against Heaven, fall to humanity, fight for free will at all is astonishing. But that it would eventually go bad - isn’t so much of a stretch. Cas always thought he was doing the right thing. To me, his mistakes are perfectly believable.
And that’s why I feel like his arc so far has been justified. Realistic, and satisfying. I actually love it - it’s precisely the type of angst that I love, that comes from rich, believable characterization. And the only reason it affects me this much is because I do care, and it does feel like a believable storyline.
So we will see where the season goes from here. I’m hopeful that the resolution to this story will come eventually and that it’ll be better than what we’ve gotten so far. I can just hope that the show begins to touch on the implications raised by all the complex character motivations they’ve drawn so far.