SPN Meta: Berserker and Shaman
While taking advantage of my college library's unbelievable paranormal and folklore collections, I had some thoughts about Sam and Dean.
Is there such a thing as crack!meta?
Dean may be half-way to becoming a shaman, but Sam is a berserker.
Inhuman rages? Beheading a vampire with only razor wire, without slicing through all his own tendons in the process? Body temperature topping lethal fever when he killed Lilith? Taking on the powers and aspects of the creatures whose blood he drinks?
Berserker.
A berserker is a warrior who harnesses heroic rage to attain superhuman power. Berserker cults were widespread in northern Europe. Initiation to berserkery is fairly simple as ancient cult initiation ordeals go-the novice must rise to a towering, irresistible fury that transcends the human condition, then kill a guy (or a wolf, or a bear) in single combat, preferably with his bare hands. Cuchulainn, the Irish hero, became a true warrior and berserker as a child, when he ripped through an entire fort of enemy soldiers like Mighty Mouse as directed by Quentin Tarantino. Soldiers from his own kingdom couldn’t get near him until a line of naked women stood in front of Cuchulainn, immobilizing him with embarrassment, and Cuchulainn could not be calmed until he’d been dunked into three barrels of water, which boiled away with the heat of his fury and the supernatural power that that fury had called down into him. Fearg turned a prepubescent boy into a nigh-unstoppable menace to foe and friend.
Cuchulain is to Irish warriors as Pecos Bill is to cowboys, but some elements of the story bear a closer look.
Berserkership is for the bold, the fearless, those with high pain tolerance, who will put up with crap like their mother sewing a shirt onto their skin and ripping it off (Signy’s test for little Sinfjotli, charming), and do things like, instead of shrieking and bolting out of the kitchen when they discover a snake hidden in the flour they’re supposed to bake bread with (Sigmund’s test), forging on as normal and kneading the snake to death. But tests aside, becoming a berserker, in the hero tales and in contemporary accounts, seems to be something you just do. The novice may take on the attributes of some beast of prey, like the wolf or the bear, but the moment of truth, the sole question of whether he’s a berserker or not, is whether he can go berserk. It’s nothing fancy.
The second point I’d like to extract from the Cuchulainn story is that the berserk rage produces literal heat, a lot of it. Heat is considered an indication of supernatural power all over the world, for example in India (fire-walking), and the Arctic (resistance to cold). In English, we say that love burns, that anger burns; in Indian tradition, yogis burn with piety, a heat described by the same word once used to describe the storm god Indra’s bloodlust. Heat is associated with transcendent, emotional, and supernatural experiences. Supernatural heat is a sign of conducting supernatural power.
Last, consider the origin of the word, berserker. Bear-sark, bear-shirt, one who wears a bearskin. A berserker in the Norse and Germanic traditions is not only seized by insane and irresistible battle rages, but harnesses the power and attributes of a terrible man-eating beast. If he killed a bear with his bare hands, you can bet he wears part of its skin or one of its teeth for the rest of his life. He becomes his enemy when he destroys it.
Sam.
What do we do with you?
Sam has the becoming-his-enemy part covered. Chuck helpfully informed us about how inhumanly hot Sam runs when he has a gallon of blood or two in him. And Sam has had the irresistible rage thing down for a while. Sam has yet to have a problem telling friend from foe, but consider the species. When bears and wolves get mad, they lash out in all directions. Demons? They can still plan.
Shamanism, on the other hand, gets fancy. Dean’s only half-way there. But what a half!
Shamanic initiation involves an out-of-body phase and an earthly instruction phase. In the out-of-body phase, the novice falls into a deep trance as his spirit wanders into other dimensions, where he will undergo ordeals and receive instruction. Siberian shamans describe descending into Hell and watching spirits dismember them and strip the flesh from their bones.
Actually being dead made this process easy for Dean. I’m sure Alistair got bored enough one day to boil him alive and count his bones in front of his own enucleated eyes.
Later the spirits would reconstruct the novice and teach him their secrets.
Done, and done.
Eventually the novice had to return from the spirit world, signifying his resurrection as a new being, consecrated and under the authority of the Divine.
Again, actually being dead makes this easier. And actually being reassembled by an angel for God’s work? Bonus!
But poor Dean has all the trauma and burden of being destroyed and reborn in the lands of the dead with none of the spiritual and magical completion that a shaman receives. Dean seems to have gained a sense of perspective where before he had none, which serves him about as well as plugging his brain into a piece of fairy cake some days. It’s what let him fight Zachariah the first time he tried to use Sam as a stick-and-carrot, but it also made him [raspy voice] dead inside.
A shaman who has passed through death uses his or her gifts and experience to sustain and unify their communities. This is easiest when the shaman majors in something useful, like healing, weatherworking, or tracking herds of caribou. Dean apparently finds some use for his training in 2014-but it’s not good.
Not only is Dean's extensive education useless in all civilized settings, it did nothing to better him as a person. A shaman is a healed healer; one of the reasons they are honored in their communities is that they have overcome some defect in health or sanity. Decent witchdoctors can heal themselves. But Dean never healed, not from the crazy from before Hell, not from what he endured, not from what he became, and not from losing Sam, which in 2014 leaves him scoured of almost all hope and morality, raging for oblivion, alone. After 5.22, he's only a little better.
A shaman is a healed healer. Dean’s not. No trances or healing powers for Dean.
Is there such a thing as crack!meta?
Dean may be half-way to becoming a shaman, but Sam is a berserker.
Inhuman rages? Beheading a vampire with only razor wire, without slicing through all his own tendons in the process? Body temperature topping lethal fever when he killed Lilith? Taking on the powers and aspects of the creatures whose blood he drinks?
Berserker.
A berserker is a warrior who harnesses heroic rage to attain superhuman power. Berserker cults were widespread in northern Europe. Initiation to berserkery is fairly simple as ancient cult initiation ordeals go-the novice must rise to a towering, irresistible fury that transcends the human condition, then kill a guy (or a wolf, or a bear) in single combat, preferably with his bare hands. Cuchulainn, the Irish hero, became a true warrior and berserker as a child, when he ripped through an entire fort of enemy soldiers like Mighty Mouse as directed by Quentin Tarantino. Soldiers from his own kingdom couldn’t get near him until a line of naked women stood in front of Cuchulainn, immobilizing him with embarrassment, and Cuchulainn could not be calmed until he’d been dunked into three barrels of water, which boiled away with the heat of his fury and the supernatural power that that fury had called down into him. Fearg turned a prepubescent boy into a nigh-unstoppable menace to foe and friend.
Cuchulain is to Irish warriors as Pecos Bill is to cowboys, but some elements of the story bear a closer look.
Berserkership is for the bold, the fearless, those with high pain tolerance, who will put up with crap like their mother sewing a shirt onto their skin and ripping it off (Signy’s test for little Sinfjotli, charming), and do things like, instead of shrieking and bolting out of the kitchen when they discover a snake hidden in the flour they’re supposed to bake bread with (Sigmund’s test), forging on as normal and kneading the snake to death. But tests aside, becoming a berserker, in the hero tales and in contemporary accounts, seems to be something you just do. The novice may take on the attributes of some beast of prey, like the wolf or the bear, but the moment of truth, the sole question of whether he’s a berserker or not, is whether he can go berserk. It’s nothing fancy.
The second point I’d like to extract from the Cuchulainn story is that the berserk rage produces literal heat, a lot of it. Heat is considered an indication of supernatural power all over the world, for example in India (fire-walking), and the Arctic (resistance to cold). In English, we say that love burns, that anger burns; in Indian tradition, yogis burn with piety, a heat described by the same word once used to describe the storm god Indra’s bloodlust. Heat is associated with transcendent, emotional, and supernatural experiences. Supernatural heat is a sign of conducting supernatural power.
Last, consider the origin of the word, berserker. Bear-sark, bear-shirt, one who wears a bearskin. A berserker in the Norse and Germanic traditions is not only seized by insane and irresistible battle rages, but harnesses the power and attributes of a terrible man-eating beast. If he killed a bear with his bare hands, you can bet he wears part of its skin or one of its teeth for the rest of his life. He becomes his enemy when he destroys it.
Sam.
What do we do with you?
Sam has the becoming-his-enemy part covered. Chuck helpfully informed us about how inhumanly hot Sam runs when he has a gallon of blood or two in him. And Sam has had the irresistible rage thing down for a while. Sam has yet to have a problem telling friend from foe, but consider the species. When bears and wolves get mad, they lash out in all directions. Demons? They can still plan.
Shamanism, on the other hand, gets fancy. Dean’s only half-way there. But what a half!
Shamanic initiation involves an out-of-body phase and an earthly instruction phase. In the out-of-body phase, the novice falls into a deep trance as his spirit wanders into other dimensions, where he will undergo ordeals and receive instruction. Siberian shamans describe descending into Hell and watching spirits dismember them and strip the flesh from their bones.
Actually being dead made this process easy for Dean. I’m sure Alistair got bored enough one day to boil him alive and count his bones in front of his own enucleated eyes.
Later the spirits would reconstruct the novice and teach him their secrets.
Done, and done.
Eventually the novice had to return from the spirit world, signifying his resurrection as a new being, consecrated and under the authority of the Divine.
Again, actually being dead makes this easier. And actually being reassembled by an angel for God’s work? Bonus!
But poor Dean has all the trauma and burden of being destroyed and reborn in the lands of the dead with none of the spiritual and magical completion that a shaman receives. Dean seems to have gained a sense of perspective where before he had none, which serves him about as well as plugging his brain into a piece of fairy cake some days. It’s what let him fight Zachariah the first time he tried to use Sam as a stick-and-carrot, but it also made him [raspy voice] dead inside.
A shaman who has passed through death uses his or her gifts and experience to sustain and unify their communities. This is easiest when the shaman majors in something useful, like healing, weatherworking, or tracking herds of caribou. Dean apparently finds some use for his training in 2014-but it’s not good.
Not only is Dean's extensive education useless in all civilized settings, it did nothing to better him as a person. A shaman is a healed healer; one of the reasons they are honored in their communities is that they have overcome some defect in health or sanity. Decent witchdoctors can heal themselves. But Dean never healed, not from the crazy from before Hell, not from what he endured, not from what he became, and not from losing Sam, which in 2014 leaves him scoured of almost all hope and morality, raging for oblivion, alone. After 5.22, he's only a little better.
A shaman is a healed healer. Dean’s not. No trances or healing powers for Dean.