no one bound to be so holy, part 2
A character analysis of Anna, hooked into the visuals from her appearances over S4. This meta-and-picspam got pretty big while I was putting it all together, so this is the 2nd of 3 parts.
In case you missed it, Part 1.
The same thanks apply: hugs and cupcakes to my patient, excellent, and thoughtful initial readers; Screencaps are all thanks to the hard work of the kind people at Screencap Paradise.
Lyrics are from Richard Schindell's gorgeous On a Sea of Fleur-de-Lis
I adore thee Mother Mary
But would you change me back to a witch
As a witch would I love you more than any man
So give a wink, give a nod, but give a damn
Be a sport, Mary, and dont tell Dad
He need never know how Hes been had
And never you mind about those seven seals
Daddy was a one shot deal
Getting back to Heaven and Hell; Pamela comes over, a whole lot of sparks fly, and we find out the truth of Anna. And lots of ironies become clear: she fell in order to sink into the human experience, and yet seems to have lived a good, clean life instead of reveling in excess; she's convinced Heaven wants her dead, yet the one place she feels safe is in a church (self-destructive much? No wonder she likes Dean); the grace she chose to abandon is the one thing that can save her.
As soon as she gets her memories back, her sweet innocence is lost and she becomes much more take-charge. Contrast how she waited patiently in the cabin with Ruby for someone to come along and tell her what to do next. . .
. . .and how she addresses the troops once she knows who she is.
The echo of St. Joan is obvious as soon as we learn that Anna was actually some kind of warrior-commander or leader in the angels' hierarchy. I have to say, it's to her credit that in this scene she does not go after Dean for patronizing her. Though if she called him on his "look at you" and "little power ranger" crap, the episode would have ended very differently. Anyway, because I notice these things, I saw here that her jacket has a military flair (olive green, lots of pockets) blended with a cute and sweet lining of little flowers--everything we've learned about Anna so far, in jacket form. Oh, show. I love stuff like that.
From then on, she's more assured in her actions and never seems to regret her decision to fall, even though I suspect she feels very much alone. Again in Heaven and Hell, and after she has her memories back, we see her with her eyes cast upwards, stargazing outside Bobby's place.
Once they've made it clear that yes, Heaven is up and Anna's Fall was literal, her stargazing takes on a new dimension. (She says her fall would have looked like a comet, or a shooting star. For what it’s worth, Jimmy Novack will later describe to Sam and Dean that the experience of being possessed by Castiel is like "being chained to a comet.")
In this next scene with Dean, she sounds a little more like a rebellious teenager than a warrior angel. The way she tells Dean he could never understand what she was going through, for example, made it seem like she decided a long time ago that no one would ever understand. The fact that Dean gets what it's like to have a distant and unknowable father takes her by surprise, and I wish that conversation hadn't come off as heavy-handed as it did. The leaden exposition meant the attempt to spark some connection between her and Dean fell flat for me, and it's important to the episode that the audience buy it. Plus, it makes John-as-God (disappointingly) explicit (again). Please stop hanging a lampshade on that one, show. Seriously. We get it.
Anyway, Anna is a mix of strong will, innocence, and impulse. When she decides what she wants, she goes to get it though I'm not sure she thinks about the consequences. She definitely knows what she wants when she goes out to talk to Dean, when she thinks she only has a few hours left:
Look at the way she positions herself between Dean and whatever he'd been fussing with, the way she leans in to talk to him. She's got her mission, but I think it's not entirely about Dean. It's about Anna.
Let me back up. I think it is about Dean, but Dean as the chosen son of Heaven. His name was the first thing she heard when her angel awareness came back, she had been hearing all this chatter about him on the angel network, she'd been sort of fangirlie when the boys appeared at the church. The show doesn't convince me it's love at first sight, and I'm not sure it's supposed to be. I think Anna both wants the experience of having hot sex with this hot guy, and I feel she especially wants to have sex with THE Dean Winchester, who had been gripped up and raised from perdition.
I also think she's into the idea of touching something of her former life-wants to touch something of the angels and all that she once had. (My shippy little heart has a whole Anna/Cas meta for this scene, even though she's sleeping with Dean. Crazy? Yes! Yes, it is. But I cannot get it out of my brain.) To capture a sense of connection and belonging one last time before the heavenly hit men come to find them. (Uriel's wallet? Is totally the one that says bad mutherf*cker.)
Or maybe she's doing something even more calculated in seducing Dean, but I'm not sure that's what's going on. On the one hand, she's too smart to engage in a direct fight with someone like Uriel, who kicks Castiel's ass but who she bests twice by waiting for an opportunity. On the other hand, she's often earnest and caring to the point where it becomes a little foolish (surprising Dean when he's at the wheel, for example, when she shows up to tell the boys they have to help Jimmy).
If it was a calculated move, it doesn't work, though, and Anna is betrayed (the first of two betrayals, this one possibly intended to foreshadow the next) by Dean, who is willing to give her up to save Sam. This, she seems to forgive.
[EDIT: monnified kindly pointed out that this is actually a false betrayal, a set up in order to outfox both the angels and the demons. I must have misremembered, having not seen the episode for a while. Anyway, now I hope this false betrayal really does foreshadow the next as similarly false. Grrr, September is too far away.]
In the scuffle that ensues when the demons show up, the return of her grace seems to immolate her in light, destroying her body. St. Joan's body was burned and burned again until there was nothing but ash; I hope we aren't being given a hint of Anna's fate.
Edit: Two thirds of the way there! Still with me? Then you'll love Part Three.
In case you missed it, Part 1.
The same thanks apply: hugs and cupcakes to my patient, excellent, and thoughtful initial readers; Screencaps are all thanks to the hard work of the kind people at Screencap Paradise.
Lyrics are from Richard Schindell's gorgeous On a Sea of Fleur-de-Lis
I adore thee Mother Mary
But would you change me back to a witch
As a witch would I love you more than any man
So give a wink, give a nod, but give a damn
Be a sport, Mary, and dont tell Dad
He need never know how Hes been had
And never you mind about those seven seals
Daddy was a one shot deal
Getting back to Heaven and Hell; Pamela comes over, a whole lot of sparks fly, and we find out the truth of Anna. And lots of ironies become clear: she fell in order to sink into the human experience, and yet seems to have lived a good, clean life instead of reveling in excess; she's convinced Heaven wants her dead, yet the one place she feels safe is in a church (self-destructive much? No wonder she likes Dean); the grace she chose to abandon is the one thing that can save her.
As soon as she gets her memories back, her sweet innocence is lost and she becomes much more take-charge. Contrast how she waited patiently in the cabin with Ruby for someone to come along and tell her what to do next. . .
. . .and how she addresses the troops once she knows who she is.
The echo of St. Joan is obvious as soon as we learn that Anna was actually some kind of warrior-commander or leader in the angels' hierarchy. I have to say, it's to her credit that in this scene she does not go after Dean for patronizing her. Though if she called him on his "look at you" and "little power ranger" crap, the episode would have ended very differently. Anyway, because I notice these things, I saw here that her jacket has a military flair (olive green, lots of pockets) blended with a cute and sweet lining of little flowers--everything we've learned about Anna so far, in jacket form. Oh, show. I love stuff like that.
From then on, she's more assured in her actions and never seems to regret her decision to fall, even though I suspect she feels very much alone. Again in Heaven and Hell, and after she has her memories back, we see her with her eyes cast upwards, stargazing outside Bobby's place.
Once they've made it clear that yes, Heaven is up and Anna's Fall was literal, her stargazing takes on a new dimension. (She says her fall would have looked like a comet, or a shooting star. For what it’s worth, Jimmy Novack will later describe to Sam and Dean that the experience of being possessed by Castiel is like "being chained to a comet.")
In this next scene with Dean, she sounds a little more like a rebellious teenager than a warrior angel. The way she tells Dean he could never understand what she was going through, for example, made it seem like she decided a long time ago that no one would ever understand. The fact that Dean gets what it's like to have a distant and unknowable father takes her by surprise, and I wish that conversation hadn't come off as heavy-handed as it did. The leaden exposition meant the attempt to spark some connection between her and Dean fell flat for me, and it's important to the episode that the audience buy it. Plus, it makes John-as-God (disappointingly) explicit (again). Please stop hanging a lampshade on that one, show. Seriously. We get it.
Anyway, Anna is a mix of strong will, innocence, and impulse. When she decides what she wants, she goes to get it though I'm not sure she thinks about the consequences. She definitely knows what she wants when she goes out to talk to Dean, when she thinks she only has a few hours left:
Look at the way she positions herself between Dean and whatever he'd been fussing with, the way she leans in to talk to him. She's got her mission, but I think it's not entirely about Dean. It's about Anna.
Let me back up. I think it is about Dean, but Dean as the chosen son of Heaven. His name was the first thing she heard when her angel awareness came back, she had been hearing all this chatter about him on the angel network, she'd been sort of fangirlie when the boys appeared at the church. The show doesn't convince me it's love at first sight, and I'm not sure it's supposed to be. I think Anna both wants the experience of having hot sex with this hot guy, and I feel she especially wants to have sex with THE Dean Winchester, who had been gripped up and raised from perdition.
I also think she's into the idea of touching something of her former life-wants to touch something of the angels and all that she once had. (My shippy little heart has a whole Anna/Cas meta for this scene, even though she's sleeping with Dean. Crazy? Yes! Yes, it is. But I cannot get it out of my brain.) To capture a sense of connection and belonging one last time before the heavenly hit men come to find them. (Uriel's wallet? Is totally the one that says bad mutherf*cker.)
Or maybe she's doing something even more calculated in seducing Dean, but I'm not sure that's what's going on. On the one hand, she's too smart to engage in a direct fight with someone like Uriel, who kicks Castiel's ass but who she bests twice by waiting for an opportunity. On the other hand, she's often earnest and caring to the point where it becomes a little foolish (surprising Dean when he's at the wheel, for example, when she shows up to tell the boys they have to help Jimmy).
If it was a calculated move, it doesn't work, though, and Anna is betrayed (the first of two betrayals, this one possibly intended to foreshadow the next) by Dean, who is willing to give her up to save Sam. This, she seems to forgive.
[EDIT: monnified kindly pointed out that this is actually a false betrayal, a set up in order to outfox both the angels and the demons. I must have misremembered, having not seen the episode for a while. Anyway, now I hope this false betrayal really does foreshadow the next as similarly false. Grrr, September is too far away.]
In the scuffle that ensues when the demons show up, the return of her grace seems to immolate her in light, destroying her body. St. Joan's body was burned and burned again until there was nothing but ash; I hope we aren't being given a hint of Anna's fate.
Edit: Two thirds of the way there! Still with me? Then you'll love Part Three.