Dicks with Wings

Oct 16, 2009 11:44

So Supernatural was on last night, which means time for the weekly round of "who's the biggest jerk and why, and who owes what to who..." Since I’ve been reading a lot about it, I'm going to say ...( why I think I think Castiel's transgressions coming to light is irrelevant. Possibly spoilers inside. )

meta, supernatural, tv

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Argh, trying this again ginzai October 16 2009, 23:58:48 UTC
I love it when I've got a nice, lengthy response and then FF crashes on me. It's my favorite. < /whining>

You raise some interesting points and if you've not read it yet, I recommend taking a look at this meta by ahania. She's got some interesting points about culpability as well ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again percysowner October 17 2009, 01:45:35 UTC
First, I agree wholeheartedly that I want Castiel to take responsibility for his actions in releasing Sam. I don't think that Dean thinks the Angels released Sam. The Devils Traps were tampered with and Sam was using a lot of powers that Dean did not know about. He has every reason to think that Sam erased the lines on the Devils Traps and Ruby released him. Even if Dean doesn't think it was Ruby and that the Angels released Sam, I have seen nothing to indicate that he thinks that CASTIEL released Sam. He could easily blame it on Zachariah or any of the higher Angels. Dean is treating Castiel as a friend and an ally. Unless he knows the full extent of what Castiel did in Levee, all of his trust is based on a lie. If Castiel fesses up and Dean accepts him, I won't like it, but I will accept it. Until Castiel does confess, any and all criticism of Sam by Castiel is rank hypocrisy and is the continuation of a lie.

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 17:58:38 UTC
To be honest, I don't think Dean has even had the time to really think through *how* Sam escaped. Right after it happened, he was 100% dedicated to tracking Sam down, then he was 100% lost in despair about how Sam might not actually be his Sam anymore, then he was 100% devoted to getting free to stop Sam, and so on. Even after things calmed down after Lucifer was actually released, I'm not sure he ever really sat down to consider what might have happened. IMHO, 4x21 was one of the worst days of his life, right up there with his own death and when demon!John was torturing him. Dean has a tendency to not like to think about things that really, really bother him and reminiscing on ANY part of 4x21 isn't something I can see him willing to do ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again percysowner October 17 2009, 18:48:21 UTC
This I very much disagree with. While I don't think it's necessarily fair that so much of the blame for the breaking of the seals goes to Sam and Dean (it's not like either of them did it on purpose, after all) IMHO, Castiel was less referring to the final seal here so much as Sam's choice to dabble in some very dark behaviors and mindsets. Sam might not have known that he'd be releasing Lucifer, but he DID know that drinking demon blood and trusting Ruby probably weren't the best of moral choices. Since canon has made it clear that Sam did so because he was seduced by the idea of having power and control as opposed to more positive motives, there's nothing wrong with calling Sam out on it, to my mind.,Yes Sam was warned against many things, but when Sam says "If we tell him the WHOLE truth then he may make the right decision." Castiel replies "You didn't". That is what I consider the hypocritical lie. Neither Sam nor Dean EVER knew the WHOLE truth, and on the last day Castiel released Sam knowing what the result would be and ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 19:47:19 UTC
Yes Sam was warned against many things, but when Sam says "If we tell him the WHOLE truth then he may make the right decision." Castiel replies "You didn't". That is what I consider the hypocritical lie.

You know, that's a good point. I'd argue though that the issue is once the kid knows the full truth, there's potentially no other chance to deal with him. It would be all or nothing at that point because once the kid was aware he could do anything, there was no stopping him. In the end though, I think it's significant that Sam's plan turned out to be the best - Dean wanted to take a middle path and tell him just enough of the truth to keep them from getting in trouble and the demon exposed them, Castiel wanted to kill him but even unaware of what he could do, the kid zapped him into a toy. Which left Sam's plan and means that Jesse remains a very, very dangerous wildcard.

I'm glad that they didn't kill the boy. I don't like the concept of anyone being so powerful in SPN, personally, which is why I hope we don't see him again ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again percysowner October 17 2009, 20:39:21 UTC
You're sort of turning this into Sam vs. Dean here and I'm sorry, but I've had waaay too much of that for my taste as of late. Forgive me if I'm brief as a result. Truly I was not trying to do that. My point was that for Dean to forgive an ally who had recently worked against him until quite recently and not forgive Sam who he has worked with for years and only betrayed him quite recently did not match my vision of Dean. If Bobby had screwed up and drunk demon blood, I would still expect Dean to forgive Bobby for that before forgiving Castiel for helping Bobby screw up. That was my only point, not that either brother is better than each other, but that to waive away what Castiel, an ally of only a year, did and continue to blame a person who he has been able to trust over the years
would be OOC for Dean.

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 21:18:38 UTC
I think that's an issue of how extremely deep the divide between Sam and Dean had become, though. It's not a single betrayal; it was several betrayals that happened day after day for half a year, with significant distance between them ever since Dean got back from Hell. IMHO, Dean could have (and indeed, has - look at Asylum, for instance) forgiven a single incident. A full year of it? That's a bit harder to swallow ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again percysowner October 17 2009, 21:28:06 UTC
I totally agree that Dean should have continuing issues with Sam. The hurt and betrayals were more ongoing and I expect to see more conflict before the brothers truly reconcile, if they ever do. I am going to agree to disagree about Castiel. We will simply have to see how the show handles the situation.

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 21:54:53 UTC
That works for me. :) I do want Sam and Dean to eventually reconcile and I've got a lot of hope that when they really do, they'll have a much stronger relationship than they did before. As for Castiel, I think you've got the right idea of it in waiting to see where canon takes us!

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Re: Argh, trying this again sistermagpie October 17 2009, 18:52:57 UTC
I think that's why I always get pulled up by the idea that Dean's relationship with Castiel was based on trust because from where I sat it was never built on trust. How could it be? Dean knew Castiel was allied with the angels, that his loyalty wasn't with Dean. In the angel room Castiel's actively telling him that they're working to get Sam to release Lucifer, that he's known this for a while and didn't tell Dean. Dean doesn't trust Castiel in any general way, imo, until after Castiel lets him out. Before that I think he knew that Castiel liked him and let's say he didn't trust Castiel to intentionally hurt him, but that's about it. The betrayal of opening the panic room happened, iirc, after Castiel snapped at Dean after he came back from the reeduction session--I forget exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of "I'm an angel of the lord and I don't work for you."

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 19:56:57 UTC
I think that Dean had started to trust Castiel before 4x22, but it was sort of a reserved form of trust. He seemed betrayed by Castiel in 4x09, which wouldn't have happened without some measure of trust there. However, it seems significant to me that Dean trusted Castiel so much more in 4x15, when apparently there had been no contact between them since 4x10 and Castiel admitted that he'd sent Dean and Sam to protect the seal under false pretenses. By 4x16, we're back to full on betrayal when Castiel and Uriel force him to torture Alistair and he believes Castiel fully when he confirms that Dean had broken the first seal ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again sistermagpie October 17 2009, 20:32:41 UTC
I always took it that Dean trusted Castiel personally, but did not trust the people he worked for, which wasn't completely wrong. And I also think he was probably sucked into the thinking a lot of viewers are, that if Castiel shows signs of being a good guy (so human) he can be understood as such. So he can be puzzled, confused, betrayed and hurt, when he does something that's blatantly not that. But I agree that the thing that pushed him over the line into being one of Dean's people was 4x22. Which doesn't mean he's always right or that he'd choose him over Sam. But his actions in 4x22 seem to have meant something to Dean--maybe because, as you say, Dean was a person who was able to understand Castiel's mindset ( ... )

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Re: Argh, trying this again ginzai October 17 2009, 20:55:54 UTC
I imagine there's something significant to the fact that Sam has clearly identified with monstrous characters several times (but doesn't want to be a monster) whereas Dean keeps identifying with angels (but dislikes most angels).

I'd argue almost that Dean seems to get that Castiel isn't human more often than most other characters do. He demands that Castiel react from a human-centric mindset often enough, but he didn't hold it against Castiel that he was willing to slaughter an entire town in ITGP,SW, after all. Likewise, Castiel proved to him exactly how inhuman he could be in 4x02 when he threatened to send Dean back to Hell - and he didn't seem to have any issues (outwardly, at least) with Uriel threatening to do the same in 4x10.

That was S4, though, and before Dean counted Castiel among his own. Makes me wonder if that perspective has changed now that we're in S5!

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mimblexwimble October 17 2009, 19:06:21 UTC
Castiel was less referring to the final seal here so much as Sam's choice to dabble in some very dark behaviors and mindsets. Sam might not have known that he'd be releasing Lucifer, but he DID know that drinking demon blood and trusting Ruby probably weren't the best of moral choices. Since canon has made it clear that Sam did so because he was seduced by the idea of having power and control as opposed to more positive motives, there's nothing wrong with calling Sam out on it, to my mind.

Calling Sam out on it isn't wrong - calling Sam out on it while advocating the murder of an innocent child at the same time, though, is pretty pocritical. The difference between Sam and Castiel now is that Sam hasn't once tried to blame anyone else for his mistakes, and that's all Castiel's doing right now.

I want Castiel to be held culpabale - however, it's going to take a while to get there. He's not human and we can't expect him to think like us. He's also not Anna, who lived a life as a human and learned how to think like one. He's an infant ( ... )

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sistermagpie October 17 2009, 19:25:22 UTC

Calling Sam out on it isn't wrong - calling Sam out on it while advocating the murder of an innocent child at the same time, though, is pretty pocritical.

I don't see how what he said was hypocritical there. It thought he was just using the practical example of just hoping that somebody will make the right decision. Sam knew his powers were demonic but it didn't lead to him listening to Dean rather than Ruby, so it's better to just take out the threat of this kid with super powers. Could Sam say for sure that if he was in Jesse's position he'd surely make the right choice? Of course not. Sam knows other things can come into play. It's not like Castiel is saying Sam is immoral while advocating something immoral himself. Sam thinks they should let Jesse make his own choice, Castiel's saying they shouldn't risk him choosing against them.

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esorlehcar October 17 2009, 19:31:52 UTC
Calling Sam out on it isn't wrong - calling Sam out on it while advocating the murder of an innocent child at the same time, though, is pretty pocritical. The difference between Sam and Castiel now is that Sam hasn't once tried to blame anyone else for his mistakes, and that's all Castiel's doing right now

I'd go a little further--I have a huge problem with him calling Sam out at all when he could have made sure Sam's choices did not have disastrous consequences with a single sentence, but repeatedly chose not to. But the the part where he was castigating Sam for doing exactly the same thing he was at that moment doing adds a special layer of hypocrisy, certainly.

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