5.20 The Devil You Know meta - the thin wedge of morality just got even thinner
The line of the episode : "lovers in league against Satan" - Crowley
****************************
note: the use of inverted commas for 'Brady' distinguishes between the man and the demon possessing the man. I don't use these for Alastair, Ruby and Crowley because we were given the demon's names rather than the names belonging to the meatsuit.
When I watch an episode, I deliberately shut off all thoughts of meta etc and just enjoy the narrative as it unfolds, and my interest in the episode is based on where and how this latest addition to the SPN jigsaw puzzle fits in, in order to best enhance and illuminate the overall plot and the characterization.
Occasionally there can be episodes (notably 5.19) where my primary reaction can overwrite the above and I have to go and vent irritation, outrage, frustration, annoyance etc. before I can take a step back and reconstruct the puzzle - mostly, this happens because whatever happens in the episode upsets the careful overall picture that I'm constructing.
In this meta, I want to examine the morality or rather lack there of, in SPN as it pertains to Sam and Dean Winchester because right now, their refusal or particularly Dean's refusal to host Michael is becoming increasingly hollow in the light of who he is willing to deal with; Kali and the sundry Gods and now Crowley.
5.20 The Devil You Know meta - the thin wedge of morality just got even thinner
Who is the monster?
Dean (who does get the best lines), says to 'Brady' that all the angels and demons and the sundry MoWs just don't get that Winchesters are 'the ones you should be afraid of'.
While on the surface, the remark appears to be as per Dean's usual flippant display of bravado, there is a deeper meaning to the line that reveals the moral bankruptcy at the core of this show.
It's not God who is missing from the show - as I've said before, just based on the multiple resurrections alone I think we can conclude, yes there is a God - as so beautifully described by G'Kar from Babylon 5 that the presence of the light can be deduced from the size and shape of the shadow cast as much as from direct confirmation of the light itself, which can be detrimental to view directly.
(Sidebar: I always thought that the show that had most in common with SPN was Babylon 5, given that both shows' main themes are : Order vs Chaos; authoritarianism vs free will, War and peace, Religion, Sacrifice, Dream and Visions and Addiction - and the current battle between Angels and Demons are surprisingly reminiscent of the epic war between the Vorlons and the Shadows)
What has been missing, and lamentably so with corresponding excruciating emptiness reflected in the characters' struggles to find meaning in their actions and of themselves, is a moral core. The difference between right and wrong has become so blurred as to lose almost all meaning, leaving the characters to flounder in its wake as they try to pick a path, any path that leads to a resolution without irreparably destroying the one fragile foundation that is dictating their choices. To save people. Dean's mantra. Dean's raison d'etre.
And by 5.20. we see that Dean's morality has been eroded to a point that he steps past the slain guards with nothing more than a token expression of momentary shock. What happened to the man who stood up for the virgin sacrifice in 3.12? Or does it just not count if the single life being wasted in the cause is a nameless male instead of a sweet innocent virgin named Nancy? Either it's wrong to kill in the name of expediency or it isn't, you don't get to decry the immorality of sacrificing one life (who btw volunteered in Nancy's case, with knowledge, the guard was never given this chance) and then simply shrug off the killing as a deletion of an obstacle.
By 5.19, it was clear that despite Dean's dramatic declaration at the end of 5.18 that they were going to do it their way, he is still looking for help from the outside forces. His willingness to strike up an alliance of Kali was a foreshadowing of the ease with which he accepted Crowley's offer of assistance in 5.20. The problem with accepting help from Crowley is that help from a demon is inevitably tainted because that's what demons are, personification of evil and treachery. In other words, Dean does not believe that he and Sam can do this, stop the Apocalypse, by themselves.
Even though Sam was the one portrayed as out of control in 5.20, with multiple digs at his anger management issues by other characters, in this instant, he was operating from sounder moral principles as he refused to even consider an association with Crowley and started pursuing an option that did not rely on dubious guidance from a corrupt and corrupting source. His suggestion of exploring the limitations of possession was a valid proposition, particularly when considering the very real problem of the actual mechanics of how to get Lucifer into the cage, once the keys have been assembled.
And yet the way this scene was presented undercut Sam's credibility severely because it was staged with him talking to Bobby with a bottle in his hand and his theory regarding the possibility of overcoming possession, dismissed without due consideration by Bobby who also had bottle in front of him (and given the slurred voice, appear to have been drinking longer) and who obviously decided that the reason behind Sam's suggestion was nothing more than a suicidal impulse.
Bobby asks Sam, 'how are you going to control the devil when you can't even control yourself?' in order to dissuade Sam from pursuing this further, but maybe that was the answer to how you can break free from being possessed, being a complete control freak, which might explain why John was able to free himself from YED briefly and Bobby was able to free himself to a greater degree from a lesser demon.
SPN is filled with such random, abortive discussions which contain enormous potential for deeper exploration of the main themes and issues but is handled irrelevantly or dismissively within the story. This is one of the reasons why I think the meta for this show is becoming increasing sophisticated and complex, as the fans instinctively feel and respond to the gaps in the narrative.
By guaranteeing that Sam and Dean Winchester would be 'resurrected' in 5.16 - the pivotal point for me in God's message to Joshua was that there was no mention that this would be the 'last' resurrection, a point further reinforced in 5.19 where apparently this is now a commonly accepted knowledge by the Gods - the show has effectively 'killed' the impact and meaning of death as relates to those two characters.
This has now been followed by such 'cheats' as insinuating that Dean will survive becoming Michael without becoming a vegetable, thus considerably draining the dramatic impact from his sacrifice when he agrees to become Michael's vessel in 5.18 and now in 5.20, by Crowley's offer to 'temporarily' buy Bobby's soul.
The real corruption in morality occurs when the consequences for the action taken become diluted or negated. By this stage, SPN has become in terms of game-playing, so riddled with cheats that the play has lost most if not all meaning. This will ensure that when Kripke wraps up the Angel/Demon arc, the viewers should turn back with relief to the original formula of the MoWs linked by the eternal road trip that he envisioned at the show's conception.
On the other hand, maybe SPN will surprise me and play out the current mythic arc to its devastating conclusion but I'm strongly doubtful. The thing is, if you promise an apocalypse, somehow, anything less than an actual apocalypse is always going to feel wanting (re 'Heroes', they so should have blown up New York at the end of Season 2, the show never recovered from backing out of that). SPN has already shown how hollow the satisfaction of taking the moral stance is in 5.04, where Dean was given a 'preview' (created view more likely though) by Zachariah of the world where he did not say yes to Michael.
What hasn't yet been explicitly stated in the show, which does prefer 'show' rather than tell method of storytelling is that for the first time in the SPN story, Dean's moral center is beginning to crumble. And 5.20 is the real 'point of no return' for Dean, who has finally acknowledged that he and his brother are in fact better 'monsters' than the MoWs.
SPN has hinted at but never actualized a discussion within the narrative on what makes a monster, a monster. And with each and every abortive attempt, the morality of the Winchesters continue to derail further and further from any moral center as the abnormal become increasingly established the norm. From making a deal to bring a dead brother back to life(Dean) to considering becoming a zombie to avoid going to Hell (Sam), to going to hell and coming back (Dean), to consorting with demons and becoming addicted to drinking demon blood (Sam), the boundary between what can be done and what shouldn't be done has become so blurred that no one, including the actual characters are able to tell when they are encountering one. (Agreeing to ally with Crowley is a big boundary in case anyone missed my point)
From Lenore, who first raised the question of whether it is the form or the action which defined the monster, to Jack, who succumbed unwillingly to his biology, Sam and Dean were faced with, but refused to discuss whether the determining factors in the creation of a monster were due to circumstances or force of biology/destiny or personal choice. And it was a discussion that they ought to have had, because all those factors affected them, just as much as they did the MoW. And because then this would have allowed the crucial next stage in discussion, which would have been, that the focus should not be on what defines a monster or what causes a monster into becoming but rather on what to do about the monster and whether and how it might be possible to negotiate a concurrent state of existence with monsters. Because the paradox implicit in SPN is that in order to kill monsters, one has to become the monster (since the action is monstrous, by definition anyone capable of killing monsters is a monster), and then be left with suicide as the only final solution, or to continue engendering further monsters simply by existing.
It's no wonder then that Sam has tried more than once to raise the spectre of what it meant to be one of the YED's children, since he is the only character who has shown awareness of the need to move the dialogue from the first position which is defining monsters to the second, whether co-existence with monsters was possible, only to have all his attempts dismissed and/or diverted with loud reassurances or empty promises. I'm not surprised Sam has anger management issues. I had anger management issues when the people nearest and dearest to me refused to engage in a discussion of my problems in a similar way, I dealt with it a little bit differently though having a few more members of the family than Sam. I'm now closer than ever with the person who agreed to stay and try to work it out and no longer close with the ones who didn't (or couldn't, it doesn't matter in the end). The point is, Sam doesn't have that luxury. He has Dean or he doesn't have Dean. And Sam really can't afford to not have Dean.
Sam has gone through a terrible and difficult road to redemption in season 5, mostly struggling alone as he tried to figure out how he could atone and repair the damage that he had done but at least his journey has led him to restoring the one certainty in his life, that he could trust Dean to be his big brother. However, that in itself is not sufficient in reconciling all their differences as demonstrated by his actions in locking Dean in the bathroom in 5.19 - though mind, this was after Dean ditched him for Crowley, the one action inevitably led to the other.
Unlike Dean, Sam has never established a strong moral core to his identity because majority of his identify is based on negation, as shown by his refusal to be bound to the life of hunting, his ongoing refusal to be bound by Dean's expectations, not to mention his refusal to be bound by the YED's expectations. He's been so busy fighting against all that he did not want to be, that he refused to be forced into being, that he's had very little time to focus on what he should be fighting for. Add to which he now carries the additional burden of crushing guilt over freeing Lucifer, and when guilt becomes overly oppressing, then it inevitably turns to resentment which brings anger and there goes his anger management.
Although I've never accepted the link between poor anger management and inclination towards saying yes to Lucifer. In fact, I've always suspected that the one person least likely to yield to the argument of inevitability was Sam and therefore was not impressed by Lucifer's first attempt at 'seducing' Sam in5.03. He responds far more strongly when tempted by all that he could be or should be, as was evidenced by Ruby's success in corrupting his will. For father of lies, Lucifer came across as surprisingly clumsy at persuasive techniques (you never win a debate by declaring that you have won the debate) and appeared to have missed the effectiveness of flattery against Sam.
If Dean has been served a never ending diet of lack of confidence and poor self image in SPN, then Sam has also been forced to subsist on a never ending feast of frustration and self loathing.
And now the morality of the two characters have been pared down to the point where it has become difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the rightness of their actions in comparison to the actions of the MoWs on the show. And the only real morality left is that of Crowley's extemporizing explanation that he was 'invested, currently' to explain his shifting loyalties.
After all, what was the point of Sam killing 'Brady' in 5.04? To show that he can kill? We know that. The real impact of that came in 4.16 when Sam killed Alastair (without the special knife). Yes, he has killed many demons and yes, according to Sam, all demons have to die - not so much Dean because he did hesitate with 'Casey' - but why 'Brady' and why at that point? The story just established that 'Brady' had no choice except to co-operate with Crowley and the Winchesters so killing him wasn't about eliminating a future threat, at least not at that stage, and since he was the battered kidnap victim, there wasn't another human life at stake either. Especially since Brady was going to also be killed when 'Brady' was killed instead of exorcised - which was an alternative that wasn't even raised. There is also a question as to whether 'Brady' would have been able to return to the company to continue the work on the Croatian virus since it was implied that he was going to have to be on the run, alongside Crowley. So barring elimination of real or potential threat that leaves only personal vengeance as justification. That and Crowley's aside that he was doing 'Brady' a favor since presumably he won't have to worry about suffering for all eternity.
Except.. and here's the trick about resurrection. If Lucifer can resurrect humans ad infinitum as God apparently already has with the Winchesters, then why can't he resurrect demons?
And again, I ask, what about the real Brady? I can accept having the kill the meatsuits in battle because there isn't the luxury of time to cast a proper exorcism but I'm having trouble accepting that killing Brady was an acceptable choice when there was ample opportunity to exorcise the demon.
This is what makes Crowley such an insidious threat (that and his very charming accent and dimples).
He is really good at presenting an offer of a choice while masking the true intent and cost of the action.
Crowley lures Bobby with the promise that selling his soul would be a 'temporary loan' and that he'll 'give it back' and that Bobby should trust him because the 'enemy of my enemy' is my friend. But historically, what we've always seen is that any alliance with an enemy, against a common enemy, only leaves you open to further exploitation or destruction by the very enemy at your side - re WWII, which led into the Cold War as both sides deepened their hostilities afterward). And anyone who realize the inherent contradiction in the belief that the selling of a soul is an action that can magically be reversed - if you sell yourself, you've already damned yourself, regardless of whether this leads you directly into hell or not because the whole point is that a soul is not an object which can be sold.
This meta was about discussing the issues raised by and inherent in the story presented in the show and is not a reaction to the show nor an evaluation of the show's worth.
Because the reason I keep watching this show and the reason I love the Winchesters is that I see them as truly admirable characters. Characters who despite the blistering lack of approbation from all, including each other and themselves, are managing to find the strength to continue in their endeavors. The flaws in their characters are very human flaws and in discussing their flaws, it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of what makes them special. So special that so many of us are thinking about them and sharing our thoughts by writing about them. Somehow, in a story filled with despair, surrounded by amoral and immoral beings, faced against insurmountable foes, beset by problems both external and internal, the one thing the two brothers have in common is that they are not giving up. They are not giving up fighting and they are not giving up on each other. Isn't that what hope is all about? Not giving up?
As long as they don't give up, I'm not giving up on them (or the show).
And also because I like to laugh and SPN, especially Dean, has always provided me with lots reasons to laugh.
****************************
note: the use of inverted commas for 'Brady' distinguishes between the man and the demon possessing the man. I don't use these for Alastair, Ruby and Crowley because we were given the demon's names rather than the names belonging to the meatsuit.
When I watch an episode, I deliberately shut off all thoughts of meta etc and just enjoy the narrative as it unfolds, and my interest in the episode is based on where and how this latest addition to the SPN jigsaw puzzle fits in, in order to best enhance and illuminate the overall plot and the characterization.
Occasionally there can be episodes (notably 5.19) where my primary reaction can overwrite the above and I have to go and vent irritation, outrage, frustration, annoyance etc. before I can take a step back and reconstruct the puzzle - mostly, this happens because whatever happens in the episode upsets the careful overall picture that I'm constructing.
In this meta, I want to examine the morality or rather lack there of, in SPN as it pertains to Sam and Dean Winchester because right now, their refusal or particularly Dean's refusal to host Michael is becoming increasingly hollow in the light of who he is willing to deal with; Kali and the sundry Gods and now Crowley.
5.20 The Devil You Know meta - the thin wedge of morality just got even thinner
Who is the monster?
Dean (who does get the best lines), says to 'Brady' that all the angels and demons and the sundry MoWs just don't get that Winchesters are 'the ones you should be afraid of'.
While on the surface, the remark appears to be as per Dean's usual flippant display of bravado, there is a deeper meaning to the line that reveals the moral bankruptcy at the core of this show.
It's not God who is missing from the show - as I've said before, just based on the multiple resurrections alone I think we can conclude, yes there is a God - as so beautifully described by G'Kar from Babylon 5 that the presence of the light can be deduced from the size and shape of the shadow cast as much as from direct confirmation of the light itself, which can be detrimental to view directly.
(Sidebar: I always thought that the show that had most in common with SPN was Babylon 5, given that both shows' main themes are : Order vs Chaos; authoritarianism vs free will, War and peace, Religion, Sacrifice, Dream and Visions and Addiction - and the current battle between Angels and Demons are surprisingly reminiscent of the epic war between the Vorlons and the Shadows)
What has been missing, and lamentably so with corresponding excruciating emptiness reflected in the characters' struggles to find meaning in their actions and of themselves, is a moral core. The difference between right and wrong has become so blurred as to lose almost all meaning, leaving the characters to flounder in its wake as they try to pick a path, any path that leads to a resolution without irreparably destroying the one fragile foundation that is dictating their choices. To save people. Dean's mantra. Dean's raison d'etre.
And by 5.20. we see that Dean's morality has been eroded to a point that he steps past the slain guards with nothing more than a token expression of momentary shock. What happened to the man who stood up for the virgin sacrifice in 3.12? Or does it just not count if the single life being wasted in the cause is a nameless male instead of a sweet innocent virgin named Nancy? Either it's wrong to kill in the name of expediency or it isn't, you don't get to decry the immorality of sacrificing one life (who btw volunteered in Nancy's case, with knowledge, the guard was never given this chance) and then simply shrug off the killing as a deletion of an obstacle.
By 5.19, it was clear that despite Dean's dramatic declaration at the end of 5.18 that they were going to do it their way, he is still looking for help from the outside forces. His willingness to strike up an alliance of Kali was a foreshadowing of the ease with which he accepted Crowley's offer of assistance in 5.20. The problem with accepting help from Crowley is that help from a demon is inevitably tainted because that's what demons are, personification of evil and treachery. In other words, Dean does not believe that he and Sam can do this, stop the Apocalypse, by themselves.
Even though Sam was the one portrayed as out of control in 5.20, with multiple digs at his anger management issues by other characters, in this instant, he was operating from sounder moral principles as he refused to even consider an association with Crowley and started pursuing an option that did not rely on dubious guidance from a corrupt and corrupting source. His suggestion of exploring the limitations of possession was a valid proposition, particularly when considering the very real problem of the actual mechanics of how to get Lucifer into the cage, once the keys have been assembled.
And yet the way this scene was presented undercut Sam's credibility severely because it was staged with him talking to Bobby with a bottle in his hand and his theory regarding the possibility of overcoming possession, dismissed without due consideration by Bobby who also had bottle in front of him (and given the slurred voice, appear to have been drinking longer) and who obviously decided that the reason behind Sam's suggestion was nothing more than a suicidal impulse.
Bobby asks Sam, 'how are you going to control the devil when you can't even control yourself?' in order to dissuade Sam from pursuing this further, but maybe that was the answer to how you can break free from being possessed, being a complete control freak, which might explain why John was able to free himself from YED briefly and Bobby was able to free himself to a greater degree from a lesser demon.
SPN is filled with such random, abortive discussions which contain enormous potential for deeper exploration of the main themes and issues but is handled irrelevantly or dismissively within the story. This is one of the reasons why I think the meta for this show is becoming increasing sophisticated and complex, as the fans instinctively feel and respond to the gaps in the narrative.
By guaranteeing that Sam and Dean Winchester would be 'resurrected' in 5.16 - the pivotal point for me in God's message to Joshua was that there was no mention that this would be the 'last' resurrection, a point further reinforced in 5.19 where apparently this is now a commonly accepted knowledge by the Gods - the show has effectively 'killed' the impact and meaning of death as relates to those two characters.
This has now been followed by such 'cheats' as insinuating that Dean will survive becoming Michael without becoming a vegetable, thus considerably draining the dramatic impact from his sacrifice when he agrees to become Michael's vessel in 5.18 and now in 5.20, by Crowley's offer to 'temporarily' buy Bobby's soul.
The real corruption in morality occurs when the consequences for the action taken become diluted or negated. By this stage, SPN has become in terms of game-playing, so riddled with cheats that the play has lost most if not all meaning. This will ensure that when Kripke wraps up the Angel/Demon arc, the viewers should turn back with relief to the original formula of the MoWs linked by the eternal road trip that he envisioned at the show's conception.
On the other hand, maybe SPN will surprise me and play out the current mythic arc to its devastating conclusion but I'm strongly doubtful. The thing is, if you promise an apocalypse, somehow, anything less than an actual apocalypse is always going to feel wanting (re 'Heroes', they so should have blown up New York at the end of Season 2, the show never recovered from backing out of that). SPN has already shown how hollow the satisfaction of taking the moral stance is in 5.04, where Dean was given a 'preview' (created view more likely though) by Zachariah of the world where he did not say yes to Michael.
What hasn't yet been explicitly stated in the show, which does prefer 'show' rather than tell method of storytelling is that for the first time in the SPN story, Dean's moral center is beginning to crumble. And 5.20 is the real 'point of no return' for Dean, who has finally acknowledged that he and his brother are in fact better 'monsters' than the MoWs.
SPN has hinted at but never actualized a discussion within the narrative on what makes a monster, a monster. And with each and every abortive attempt, the morality of the Winchesters continue to derail further and further from any moral center as the abnormal become increasingly established the norm. From making a deal to bring a dead brother back to life(Dean) to considering becoming a zombie to avoid going to Hell (Sam), to going to hell and coming back (Dean), to consorting with demons and becoming addicted to drinking demon blood (Sam), the boundary between what can be done and what shouldn't be done has become so blurred that no one, including the actual characters are able to tell when they are encountering one. (Agreeing to ally with Crowley is a big boundary in case anyone missed my point)
From Lenore, who first raised the question of whether it is the form or the action which defined the monster, to Jack, who succumbed unwillingly to his biology, Sam and Dean were faced with, but refused to discuss whether the determining factors in the creation of a monster were due to circumstances or force of biology/destiny or personal choice. And it was a discussion that they ought to have had, because all those factors affected them, just as much as they did the MoW. And because then this would have allowed the crucial next stage in discussion, which would have been, that the focus should not be on what defines a monster or what causes a monster into becoming but rather on what to do about the monster and whether and how it might be possible to negotiate a concurrent state of existence with monsters. Because the paradox implicit in SPN is that in order to kill monsters, one has to become the monster (since the action is monstrous, by definition anyone capable of killing monsters is a monster), and then be left with suicide as the only final solution, or to continue engendering further monsters simply by existing.
It's no wonder then that Sam has tried more than once to raise the spectre of what it meant to be one of the YED's children, since he is the only character who has shown awareness of the need to move the dialogue from the first position which is defining monsters to the second, whether co-existence with monsters was possible, only to have all his attempts dismissed and/or diverted with loud reassurances or empty promises. I'm not surprised Sam has anger management issues. I had anger management issues when the people nearest and dearest to me refused to engage in a discussion of my problems in a similar way, I dealt with it a little bit differently though having a few more members of the family than Sam. I'm now closer than ever with the person who agreed to stay and try to work it out and no longer close with the ones who didn't (or couldn't, it doesn't matter in the end). The point is, Sam doesn't have that luxury. He has Dean or he doesn't have Dean. And Sam really can't afford to not have Dean.
Sam has gone through a terrible and difficult road to redemption in season 5, mostly struggling alone as he tried to figure out how he could atone and repair the damage that he had done but at least his journey has led him to restoring the one certainty in his life, that he could trust Dean to be his big brother. However, that in itself is not sufficient in reconciling all their differences as demonstrated by his actions in locking Dean in the bathroom in 5.19 - though mind, this was after Dean ditched him for Crowley, the one action inevitably led to the other.
Unlike Dean, Sam has never established a strong moral core to his identity because majority of his identify is based on negation, as shown by his refusal to be bound to the life of hunting, his ongoing refusal to be bound by Dean's expectations, not to mention his refusal to be bound by the YED's expectations. He's been so busy fighting against all that he did not want to be, that he refused to be forced into being, that he's had very little time to focus on what he should be fighting for. Add to which he now carries the additional burden of crushing guilt over freeing Lucifer, and when guilt becomes overly oppressing, then it inevitably turns to resentment which brings anger and there goes his anger management.
Although I've never accepted the link between poor anger management and inclination towards saying yes to Lucifer. In fact, I've always suspected that the one person least likely to yield to the argument of inevitability was Sam and therefore was not impressed by Lucifer's first attempt at 'seducing' Sam in5.03. He responds far more strongly when tempted by all that he could be or should be, as was evidenced by Ruby's success in corrupting his will. For father of lies, Lucifer came across as surprisingly clumsy at persuasive techniques (you never win a debate by declaring that you have won the debate) and appeared to have missed the effectiveness of flattery against Sam.
If Dean has been served a never ending diet of lack of confidence and poor self image in SPN, then Sam has also been forced to subsist on a never ending feast of frustration and self loathing.
And now the morality of the two characters have been pared down to the point where it has become difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the rightness of their actions in comparison to the actions of the MoWs on the show. And the only real morality left is that of Crowley's extemporizing explanation that he was 'invested, currently' to explain his shifting loyalties.
After all, what was the point of Sam killing 'Brady' in 5.04? To show that he can kill? We know that. The real impact of that came in 4.16 when Sam killed Alastair (without the special knife). Yes, he has killed many demons and yes, according to Sam, all demons have to die - not so much Dean because he did hesitate with 'Casey' - but why 'Brady' and why at that point? The story just established that 'Brady' had no choice except to co-operate with Crowley and the Winchesters so killing him wasn't about eliminating a future threat, at least not at that stage, and since he was the battered kidnap victim, there wasn't another human life at stake either. Especially since Brady was going to also be killed when 'Brady' was killed instead of exorcised - which was an alternative that wasn't even raised. There is also a question as to whether 'Brady' would have been able to return to the company to continue the work on the Croatian virus since it was implied that he was going to have to be on the run, alongside Crowley. So barring elimination of real or potential threat that leaves only personal vengeance as justification. That and Crowley's aside that he was doing 'Brady' a favor since presumably he won't have to worry about suffering for all eternity.
Except.. and here's the trick about resurrection. If Lucifer can resurrect humans ad infinitum as God apparently already has with the Winchesters, then why can't he resurrect demons?
And again, I ask, what about the real Brady? I can accept having the kill the meatsuits in battle because there isn't the luxury of time to cast a proper exorcism but I'm having trouble accepting that killing Brady was an acceptable choice when there was ample opportunity to exorcise the demon.
This is what makes Crowley such an insidious threat (that and his very charming accent and dimples).
He is really good at presenting an offer of a choice while masking the true intent and cost of the action.
Crowley lures Bobby with the promise that selling his soul would be a 'temporary loan' and that he'll 'give it back' and that Bobby should trust him because the 'enemy of my enemy' is my friend. But historically, what we've always seen is that any alliance with an enemy, against a common enemy, only leaves you open to further exploitation or destruction by the very enemy at your side - re WWII, which led into the Cold War as both sides deepened their hostilities afterward). And anyone who realize the inherent contradiction in the belief that the selling of a soul is an action that can magically be reversed - if you sell yourself, you've already damned yourself, regardless of whether this leads you directly into hell or not because the whole point is that a soul is not an object which can be sold.
This meta was about discussing the issues raised by and inherent in the story presented in the show and is not a reaction to the show nor an evaluation of the show's worth.
Because the reason I keep watching this show and the reason I love the Winchesters is that I see them as truly admirable characters. Characters who despite the blistering lack of approbation from all, including each other and themselves, are managing to find the strength to continue in their endeavors. The flaws in their characters are very human flaws and in discussing their flaws, it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of what makes them special. So special that so many of us are thinking about them and sharing our thoughts by writing about them. Somehow, in a story filled with despair, surrounded by amoral and immoral beings, faced against insurmountable foes, beset by problems both external and internal, the one thing the two brothers have in common is that they are not giving up. They are not giving up fighting and they are not giving up on each other. Isn't that what hope is all about? Not giving up?
As long as they don't give up, I'm not giving up on them (or the show).
And also because I like to laugh and SPN, especially Dean, has always provided me with lots reasons to laugh.