[Fandom: Ooooo...exciting SPN thoughts!]
As with everything, I keep going back and forth on this season of SPN. On the one hand, the whole soulless Sam thing kind of sucks, particularly because we don't have all that much time left with these characters. On the other hand, it leads to some really, really interesting meta. Which got me thinking about something. Lol, if you bother to read it, TELL ME IF I HAVE MADE SOME HORRENDOUS ERROR IN LOGIC/CANON FACT. Really, it's entirely possible my first question was answered last season and SPN'S booming new motto ("what happens in the Impala STAYS in the Impala!") just drowned it out.
We're all assuming that Sam's soul wouldn't be able to escape Lucifer's cage. Why? Lucifer was only exerting any influence over Sam on earth because he needed Sam's body - once in the cage with Michael, bodies wouldn't be necessary. Given that his main fight is with Michael, I suspect Lucifer would be fairly unconcerned with the soul of his earthly vessel. Death Takes a Holiday showed us that it is possible to create barriers that both human and demon souls can cross but not angel souls. I think it's entirely possible that Lucifer's cage would be created with this kind of barrier, mainly because why create a cage that can hold angels, demons and humans when you're just trying to contain an angel?
So Sam's soul escapes. Funny thing about Sam - it's hard to know exactly the state of his soul right now. We do know that some kinds of blood can apparently warp the human soul. If vampires are all human before they become vampires and just being a vampire means that their souls can't get into heaven the way human souls can, one must assume that the thing that transforms them into vampires is what changes the state of their soul. Vampires are turned using vampire blood.
Ruby told Sam at the end of season four that he never really needed her blood in order to use his powers, that it was just a trigger. And I believe her, mainly because of the thematic elements of the season. Sam had to believe he had fundamentally changed in order to do the things he needed to do that season and the blood was what allowed him to believe in that transformation. At the end of season four he told Ruby "I've changed" - at the beginning of season five, he admits that he hadn't actually changed, that he, Sam rather than Monster!Sam was the one making the choices all along. The blood, like Dumbo's feather, was just an excuse for Sam to do what he already was capable of. Going back even further, in the first episode of the series, Sam's baby mobile started turning by itself after everyone had left his room but before the YED showed up. Given that Sam was looking directly at it when it happened, I think you can assume that it was Sam that was doing it. When the YED did show up, he fed him blood just like Ruby did. He called it mother's milk, which is something that nourishes and strengthens but doesn't really create excessive abilities. Looked at that way, Sam's soul hasn't been human since he came out of the womb. This would also be congruent with the deal Mary made - we're still not entirely sure what it was that the YED did to her but we know it affected Sam since he was born 10 years to the day after she made that deal.
And it would gel nicely with Death Takes a Holiday as well. Sam wasn't as good as Dean or the kid at moving things. The assumption at the time was that it was the blood but prior to that, we'd only ever seen Dean's soul manipulate earthly objects (the Ouija board in In My Time of Dying), not Sam. So what if Sam's inabilities there were based on the fact that something about his soul wasn't human? That would work thematically with the season as well - there's something off about Sam, we assume it's the blood doing it but it's really just Sam himself.
Hmmm. So heaven chose John (Michael said that his ability to posses John and Dean lay in John's bloodline) and hell chose Mary (the YED said that he was picking specific women but didn't say why). And cupid brought them both together so that there could be this epic battle.
Of course, then the question is why Sam was able to go to heaven in season five. I wonder if it didn't have something to do with the fact that he and Dean are soul mates and Dean's soul is technically still human as far as we know. Though that was an almost throwaway comment by Ash, the whole premise of the episode rested on that claim because it was about Dean and Sam dealing with being in the same heaven but seeing different things. The conventional definition of soul mates is two halves of one whole. Sam and Dean have been dead at different times but only dead together the once - perhaps the halves can exist separately so long as one portion is part of a living being but must reunite when both bodies die? Perhaps one half can redeem the other? Either way, you end up with a situation where:
1) Sam is fundamentally not human, implying an issue with the soul rather than the physical body
2) Sam's soul was able to go to heaven despite Sam's not being human.
It's interesting. I'm not quite sure what to think. But my claim, going off the meta I linked to (yes, you have to read that as well) is that perhaps Sam's soul not-quite-human-not-quite-monster-not-quite-demon soul made it to purgatory but couldn't quite breach heaven without Dean's. This would satisfy the Dante folks (given that Dante's purgatory is sort of a waiting area for penitent souls on their way to heaven) and SPN's mythology (purgatory is sort of an area where monster souls are kept permanently). IDK, THESE ARE JUST THOUGHTS.
We're all assuming that Sam's soul wouldn't be able to escape Lucifer's cage. Why? Lucifer was only exerting any influence over Sam on earth because he needed Sam's body - once in the cage with Michael, bodies wouldn't be necessary. Given that his main fight is with Michael, I suspect Lucifer would be fairly unconcerned with the soul of his earthly vessel. Death Takes a Holiday showed us that it is possible to create barriers that both human and demon souls can cross but not angel souls. I think it's entirely possible that Lucifer's cage would be created with this kind of barrier, mainly because why create a cage that can hold angels, demons and humans when you're just trying to contain an angel?
So Sam's soul escapes. Funny thing about Sam - it's hard to know exactly the state of his soul right now. We do know that some kinds of blood can apparently warp the human soul. If vampires are all human before they become vampires and just being a vampire means that their souls can't get into heaven the way human souls can, one must assume that the thing that transforms them into vampires is what changes the state of their soul. Vampires are turned using vampire blood.
Ruby told Sam at the end of season four that he never really needed her blood in order to use his powers, that it was just a trigger. And I believe her, mainly because of the thematic elements of the season. Sam had to believe he had fundamentally changed in order to do the things he needed to do that season and the blood was what allowed him to believe in that transformation. At the end of season four he told Ruby "I've changed" - at the beginning of season five, he admits that he hadn't actually changed, that he, Sam rather than Monster!Sam was the one making the choices all along. The blood, like Dumbo's feather, was just an excuse for Sam to do what he already was capable of. Going back even further, in the first episode of the series, Sam's baby mobile started turning by itself after everyone had left his room but before the YED showed up. Given that Sam was looking directly at it when it happened, I think you can assume that it was Sam that was doing it. When the YED did show up, he fed him blood just like Ruby did. He called it mother's milk, which is something that nourishes and strengthens but doesn't really create excessive abilities. Looked at that way, Sam's soul hasn't been human since he came out of the womb. This would also be congruent with the deal Mary made - we're still not entirely sure what it was that the YED did to her but we know it affected Sam since he was born 10 years to the day after she made that deal.
And it would gel nicely with Death Takes a Holiday as well. Sam wasn't as good as Dean or the kid at moving things. The assumption at the time was that it was the blood but prior to that, we'd only ever seen Dean's soul manipulate earthly objects (the Ouija board in In My Time of Dying), not Sam. So what if Sam's inabilities there were based on the fact that something about his soul wasn't human? That would work thematically with the season as well - there's something off about Sam, we assume it's the blood doing it but it's really just Sam himself.
Hmmm. So heaven chose John (Michael said that his ability to posses John and Dean lay in John's bloodline) and hell chose Mary (the YED said that he was picking specific women but didn't say why). And cupid brought them both together so that there could be this epic battle.
Of course, then the question is why Sam was able to go to heaven in season five. I wonder if it didn't have something to do with the fact that he and Dean are soul mates and Dean's soul is technically still human as far as we know. Though that was an almost throwaway comment by Ash, the whole premise of the episode rested on that claim because it was about Dean and Sam dealing with being in the same heaven but seeing different things. The conventional definition of soul mates is two halves of one whole. Sam and Dean have been dead at different times but only dead together the once - perhaps the halves can exist separately so long as one portion is part of a living being but must reunite when both bodies die? Perhaps one half can redeem the other? Either way, you end up with a situation where:
1) Sam is fundamentally not human, implying an issue with the soul rather than the physical body
2) Sam's soul was able to go to heaven despite Sam's not being human.
It's interesting. I'm not quite sure what to think. But my claim, going off the meta I linked to (yes, you have to read that as well) is that perhaps Sam's soul not-quite-human-not-quite-monster-not-quite-demon soul made it to purgatory but couldn't quite breach heaven without Dean's. This would satisfy the Dante folks (given that Dante's purgatory is sort of a waiting area for penitent souls on their way to heaven) and SPN's mythology (purgatory is sort of an area where monster souls are kept permanently). IDK, THESE ARE JUST THOUGHTS.