Taking Kink Meme fills too seriously...

[rirren]

This fic is killing me. I was just meant to be writing it for the kink and now my brain has got all caught up with worrying about whether Gadreel (the villain of the fic) is in character. And then I went and did the worst possible thing for this situation: I went and read a bunch of meta about Gadreel on tumblr and ended up sympathising with him

Comments

[rirren]

I really quite like Gadreel. I think maybe a big part is how Jared did such a great job playing him. I really enjoy 3D bad guys and thinking about how or if different villains could be redeemed. Even with Ghoul!Adam I sometimes wonder if he was faking all those brotherly moments with Sam and think wistfully of a redemption arc for him/it (pretty silly idea but would make a cool fanfic, I think--Sam, big brother to a ghoul lol).

Yeah, the consent thing is interesting. Zachariah tried to torture the Winchesters into saying yes, and Bartholomew's groups were getting yeses from people while being less than honest (not telling people there was a chance they could explode) but Gadreel was completely dishonest and got Sam to say yes without even knowing he was saying yes to possession. Was it that Gadreel was locked away so early (only humans back then being Adam & Eve & maybe Lilith) that he didn't really understand how the vessel idea worked? Or was it that he was so messed up after torture that he didn't care about consent?

I think Sam and Gadreel are paralleled with the experiences they went through (being blamed and having their reputations ruined for a mistake) but they reacted in different ways, and Sam comes out as absolutely the better person from his reaction.

[safiyabat]

So there are the two possibilities that you mentioned - either that there were so few humans when he was imprisoned that he didn't understand how vessels worked - or that he was so screwed up that he didn't care. Of the two my money is on the second, because he showed concern for Abner's vessel and knew enough about humans to simulate Dean and Sam to each other.

But there's a third possibility too - in Gadreel's eyes Sam is too tainted, too much of an abomination, for his feelings on the matter to actually count. His blood, after all, is not entirely human.

[rirren]

The thing is, I would like it to be number 1. Because Gadreel must have missed out on pretty much the entirety of human history--all he's known is the couple of humans innocently frolicing about the Garden of Eden before landing back on Earth. But then Gadreel seemed to have asked proper consent from his first vessel (when that vessel said 'yes' just before he was repossessed).
The third possibility just makes me sad, but I could definitely see it as being true. There have been zero angels that have reacted positively to Sam's demon blood except Lucifer so it would be pretty extraordinary if Gadreel didn't view Sam as an abomination for that.

I am really intrigued by all the implications of Gadreel's imprisonment. So if he was locked up probably just after Adam and Eve ate the apple, then he's missed out pretty much all of human history and everything humans found out about after learning the knowledge from the apple. So I bet he didn't really know what sex was, or murder was (among humans at least). If you think about it even more I don't know why he would know what demons are. Because demons are made from humans that turned evil and none of that would have been going on in the Garden of Eden times. I think he must have only been aware of humankind as this abstract thing--God's most loved creation that angel were supposed to protect and love more than God.

[safiyabat]

Balthazar, honestly, doesn't seem to have had a negative reaction to Sam's blood. He didn't treat Sam any differently than he treated anyone else and when he found out that Dean wanted to re-attach Sam's soul he actually treated him with compassion. (This is why Balthazar is the only angel I actually like.)

I think that Gadreel must have still been able to tune into Angel Radio, because he was able to figure things out really quickly. He found a vessel quickly, made use of the vessel without sticking out like a sore thumb, came up with a cunning plan... I don't know. Maybe he just absorbed Bartender Guy's knowledge easily. I can't think that he's all that innocent, but I can buy that his motivations were at least not terrible regarding the angels.

[rirren]

I totally forgot about Balthazar! Yeah, he wasn't bad for an angel, was he :) Also, Gabriel didn't mention anything about the demon blood but he was hardly nice to Sam and just wanted the two of them to play their roles.

Yeah, Gadreel must have listened to Angel radio because otherwise how would he have even known what a vessel was? I don't really think Gadreel had a cunning plan or anything though. It seemed like he just wanted to avoid the other angels at the beginning and then it was Metatron coming up with all these plans later and Gadreel going along with them. Although, I still can't really figure out what Gadreel was doing answering Dean's prayer. Either he knew about Dean's reputation and thought it would be good to have Dean on his side (not that smart since Dean is probably the worst person to hang around with if you want to lay low), or he didn't know who Dean was and saw this as an opportunity to help people and redeem himself.

I don't really think Gadreel's completely innocent or anything but I do find him a really interesting character. And possibly I have been swayed by all these metas I read on tumblr. The only people talking in-depth about Gadreel on tumblr are fans of him, so their meta has a fairly positive view of him.

[safiyabat]

I vary between thinking that the guy must be incredibly arrogant and thinking that he must be incredibly naive. If he thought he could just hide out with the Winchesters but has been listening to Angel Radio, then he has to be lacking something in terms of processing speed. Even if he thought he could blackmail them - er, "convince" them to lie low by holding Sam hostage stuff just finds them. It just plain does.

In terms of angels... Gabriel never said anything to Sam about the demon blood but he made it pretty clear that he hadn't much use for him, and for no particular reason. He limited his positive interactions - conversations, etc - to Dean, while restricting his torture to Sam (Dean didn't actually suffer in the Mystery Spot, since he kept resetting to before his own death. Only Sam remembered any of those experiences. And Sam was the one who got turned into a car, an experience which Gabriel made certain he understood to be a rape allegory.)

I much prefer demons :) At least they don't pretend to be righteous.

[rirren]

I think Gadreel underestimated the Winchesters and humans in general, due to his lack of contact with them. But yeah, it's this kind of stuff that makes Gadreel's characterisation difficult to get right. Anyway, I'm going with the naive route for my fic.

You know I really don't get why the show keeps comparing possession and other stuff to rape. Because that seems to suggest they are aware of consent problems with vessels but then they never really address that at all (like with April the reaper). I think the one time they addressed it was with Ruby 2.0 and that was at Gamble's insistence. It's like they make jokes about it ('angel condom', 'teen mom' etc) but then they fail to realise, oh wait, rape is a serious thing, and think it's just joke material. But it's just really weird that they can acknowledge it in one way and ignore it at other times.

Anyway, yeah, at least demons are fun. Angels screw over humans just as much but they are not as interesting when they do it.

[safiyabat]

I think that they recognize the consent issues, I think that they just don't recognize that consent is a serious thing. They've got a couple of women writers but the people in charge are men, which doesn't necessarily mean that they can't understand but it makes them statistically more likely to believe that rape jokes are funny. (I know there are women who laugh at them too, which is why I'm just saying "more likely.") Sad, but I don't think that they're ever going to take it more seriously. After all, it was only in the Gamble administration that they made rape a serious issue at all in the show; they condemned Bela Talbot for being a victim.