[fanmix] The Way Down [Supernatural, Ruby and her religion]

[vanitashaze]

For Tuesday, whom I understand has been feeling rather under the weather. It's not your Sweet Charity fic, but it is Ruby! Religious Ruby, at that, and actually the converse to an earlier Castiel fanmix.

Oh God this is so tl;dr.

CASEY: Some demons lie. But some are true believers.
DEAN: Believers in what?
CASEY: You think humans have an

Comments

[vanitashaze]

I agree with you in that there doesn't seem to be any canon evidence of a "religion", per se; however, I don't think they ever specifically said that they didn't have one, either, which makes it interesting to play around with the possibilities. vinylroad's Prayer of St. Francis is one fic that does this, and pretty well. I don't agree with all her points, especially Ruby being "called" by the priesthood - but the idea of a demon priesthood (a certain class/type of demon devoted to the faith) is fascinating. After all, though demons are agents of chaos, they do actually have some structure. As shown by Azazel, they have hierarchies, and the crossroads demons (as well as Alistair and the "disaster demon" of one of the earliest episodes) show that some, if not all, follow very specific roles and perform very specific duties. Also, demons use magic - not just Ruby does this, but Meg, too - which has a great deal of its root in imposing an order onto the chaotic, random world. Coupled with the fact that all of the demons were once humans (religion/belief systems being close to a human universal), and I'd say it wouldn't be too far a leap to a religious order, though it would probably be less a religion as Westerners - and maybe humans in general - would understand it. Closer to a mystic order, perhaps.

Then, of course, is the fact that there don't seem to be many "true believers" around, just as there didn't use to be a lot of demons walking aboveground. So it's possible that Ruby is a leftover of a bygone age, where demons' efforts were more concentrated to the salvation of Lucifer. (Which, if you think about it, is somewhat of a weird concept. I mean, imagine a religion that posits that your Creator has been locked in a hole somewhere. It's a strange blend of power and powerlessness.)

VERY VERY GREAT. I too have been listening to it on repeat, and I'm very thankful to that Firefly vid for bringing them to my attention.

I look forward to your non-broyay-breakin'-bitch Ruby!

[airspaniel]

Man, I've been a fan of the Blind Boys of Alabame for a while, and when my boyfriend gave me that album a few months back, I nearly died. There was a Firefly vid?

...link pls?

And I see what you're saying, and I think mystic order is closer to what I was thinking. As for the hierarchy and structure, I've always thought of Hell as a bureaucracy, with most demons the lowly peons and IT guys and so forth, with a dozen middle managers hanging over their heads, and a dozen managers over those managers, and so on in that fashion through some kind of infernal corporation, with Lucifer himself the estranged chairman of the board or something like that.

...It just now occurs to me that that is a strange way of looking at it. 0_o My vision of Hell is apparently a lot less Dante and a lot more Office Space.

But the use of magic and rites definitely indicates a much more arcane system of communication and worship. It's really interesting to think about. Thanks for the heads up on the fic. I haven't poked around in fandom too much, so it's always good to know where the interesting stuff is. ^_^