Angels, free will, and consent
[note: apparently nothing hasn't already been discussed somewhere in this fandom, which can be both wonderful and frustrating to a newbie. So these points are probably not new to vets, but they're new to me. Links to other discussions of the topic would be much appreciated.]
This clarified a bit for me in comments to another post, only tangentially related, and is influenced by meta by blubird_pie that discussed the sexual assault metaphor inherent in beings possessing other beings on the show (specifically the angels, but it holds true for the demons as well).
The question of angelic vessels and consent goes to the heart of the free will discussion in the series, and with the theme of coercion that seems to play out with all the angelic vessels:
Are the people consenting actually freely consenting, with full information about what they're consenting to? With Jimmy, this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, he's basically asked to give himself over because of his faith, to give himself unquestioningly.
Since Jimmy consented to becoming a vessel, did he therefore consent to anything that comes after that? Most likely, Jimmy was not aware that the faction Castiel worked for would attempt to bring about the apocalypse. Can he take his consent back when he discovers this, if it goes against what he believes in? If we're to believe Castiel in "The Rapture," because Jimmy was fatally injured, his second possession by Castiel is permanent. Can Jimmy later choose death rather than have his body used for things he wouldn't otherwise have agreed to?
Is it really free consent if Dean is blackmailed into saying yes to Michael, as when Zach threatened everyone Dean had left, as Michael himself seems to be pushing for, with more subtlety than Zach, but with the same sense of inevitability?
What does "consent" mean if one is destined to be a vessel? If one's parents have effectively been part of a heavenly breeding program?
Other people have discussed aspects of these questions, more eloquently than I have:
When I went back to get the URL for blubird_pie's meta, I found that she'd discussed Michael in the comments (emphasis mine):
Because Michael doesn't represent a rapist, so much as he’s the posterboy for rape culture. He’s city hall, he’s the patriarchy. Dean's life (and his consent) are irrelevant in the face of Micheael’s cosmic right to possess the body. Consent isn’t even an issue for Michael. Dean's resistance is just a childish inconvenience, because in Michael’s reasoning, Dean’s body already belongs to him; check the way he adjusts Dean’s coat before sending him back to 2010. So I think that in some ways, “destiny” here is code for powerful people having the right to make decisions about your body for you, while “free will” is the ability to make informed and meaningful consent.
And there's this post by chasingtides, found via comments in blubird-pie's discussion:
I think part of the terror is how easily Zachariah dehumanizes Dean. Dean isn't a person. His consent doesn't really matter (or, in Zachariah's words, the angels' god-given need for consent is "unfortunate"). Dean is an object - he is a receptacle and a vessel. Dean is empty until Michael fills him and uses him. Dean is nothing; he is empty until Michael rides him.
...The angels don't appear to take consent any more seriously than the demons do. If they have to torture a person into saying yes, into begging for death before being taken, then that's fine. That's... bothersome. It throws into relief the idea that humans are the only good guys - they're the only ones who seem to know what "No" and "Stop" mean.
The discussion of taking a vessel as a metaphor (and sometimes not even a metaphor) for sexual assault has been covered really well between these two posts. What I want to explore further is how this coercion ties into free will. And I meant to talk more about the human vessels in this post, but thoughts about the angels rather took over.
We're told the angels don't have free will. That for them to make a choice the way a human does is treason and leads to their fall. In season 4, this is what Castiel struggles with -- making his own decisions about his actions. He doesn't have any understanding that by following orders (whether they come from God or from his superiors) he is in a sense giving his consent to the aims of these orders and taking responsibility for the results -- whether this is asking Dean to torture or setting Sam free to release Lucifer. He doesn't have any conception of himself as anything but a cog in Heaven's machinery.
So it's probably not a surprise that he wouldn't see any reason to fully inform Jimmy of what giving consent to becoming an angelic vessel actually means. None of this fits Castiel's world view at that time. In Castiel's view, Jimmy's a soldier of God, just as Castiel is, and it's not like Castiel is making any kind of informed decision about anything; he obeys orders without question. Even the notion that it is possible for him to make a decision is alien.
When it comes to upper management angels such as Zachariah and Raphael and Michael (and Lucifer), they don't have this excuse. These angels are fully capable of making their own decisions about how events should progress: they want to bring about the fight between heaven and hell for their own reasons, not because God has ordered it to be so. They've taken matters into their own hands. They're the ones giving orders.
To them, the notion that humans have any kind of free will is irrelevant. They believe in destiny because it serves their purposes.
So in a critique of consent from outside the story, I don't excuse Castiel's treatment of Jimmy (or Claire); but I think within the story it carries a certain logic of characterization, in that Castiel is basically an uninformed foot soldier himself, compared to his superiors. And the fact that Anna, who did question orders and started making decisions for herself, was a leader in the angelic ranks, is significant: she's already going to be in a better informed position than someone like Castiel. And Anna, significantly, is her own vessel: she was (re)born with a human body, and so when she regains her angelic grace, she is in a sense possessing herself.
I get the impression that the idea that angels have no free will and are unable to make their own decisions is propaganda from the Senior Partners like Zach and Michael: it's convenient to their own plans for the foot soldiers to unquestioningly obey them. Angels can in fact make their own choices: Anna and Lucifer did; Castiel himself did eventually; Uriel did; Zach certainly does. There's a difference between truly being unable to make any decisions for oneself and being punished if one does so: Lucifer and Anna are both punished for making their own choices, and Castiel is cut off from heaven for defying Zachariah.
Which plays back into the notion of consent and free will. Angels are clearly able to withdraw their support, their consent, from The Plan by making their own choices -- Castiel was able to do so. They are just punished for defying orders, just as Zach tries to punish Dean for resisting Michael.
Basically, Castiel is given the same choice by Uriel (and later, it is implied, by the Senior Partners) as Dean is given by Zach: join us or die. Consent to our plans for you or suffer the consequences.
Which, as chasingtides and others have pointed out, isn't really a freely given choice at all and can't truly be called consent.
So it's back to two interlocking questions: is it really Yes, is it really consent, if one is given no other choice? And does one really have Free Will if Heaven has done everything in its power to make sure of your destiny?
This clarified a bit for me in comments to another post, only tangentially related, and is influenced by meta by blubird_pie that discussed the sexual assault metaphor inherent in beings possessing other beings on the show (specifically the angels, but it holds true for the demons as well).
The question of angelic vessels and consent goes to the heart of the free will discussion in the series, and with the theme of coercion that seems to play out with all the angelic vessels:
Are the people consenting actually freely consenting, with full information about what they're consenting to? With Jimmy, this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, he's basically asked to give himself over because of his faith, to give himself unquestioningly.
Since Jimmy consented to becoming a vessel, did he therefore consent to anything that comes after that? Most likely, Jimmy was not aware that the faction Castiel worked for would attempt to bring about the apocalypse. Can he take his consent back when he discovers this, if it goes against what he believes in? If we're to believe Castiel in "The Rapture," because Jimmy was fatally injured, his second possession by Castiel is permanent. Can Jimmy later choose death rather than have his body used for things he wouldn't otherwise have agreed to?
Is it really free consent if Dean is blackmailed into saying yes to Michael, as when Zach threatened everyone Dean had left, as Michael himself seems to be pushing for, with more subtlety than Zach, but with the same sense of inevitability?
What does "consent" mean if one is destined to be a vessel? If one's parents have effectively been part of a heavenly breeding program?
Other people have discussed aspects of these questions, more eloquently than I have:
When I went back to get the URL for blubird_pie's meta, I found that she'd discussed Michael in the comments (emphasis mine):
Because Michael doesn't represent a rapist, so much as he’s the posterboy for rape culture. He’s city hall, he’s the patriarchy. Dean's life (and his consent) are irrelevant in the face of Micheael’s cosmic right to possess the body. Consent isn’t even an issue for Michael. Dean's resistance is just a childish inconvenience, because in Michael’s reasoning, Dean’s body already belongs to him; check the way he adjusts Dean’s coat before sending him back to 2010. So I think that in some ways, “destiny” here is code for powerful people having the right to make decisions about your body for you, while “free will” is the ability to make informed and meaningful consent.
And there's this post by chasingtides, found via comments in blubird-pie's discussion:
I think part of the terror is how easily Zachariah dehumanizes Dean. Dean isn't a person. His consent doesn't really matter (or, in Zachariah's words, the angels' god-given need for consent is "unfortunate"). Dean is an object - he is a receptacle and a vessel. Dean is empty until Michael fills him and uses him. Dean is nothing; he is empty until Michael rides him.
...The angels don't appear to take consent any more seriously than the demons do. If they have to torture a person into saying yes, into begging for death before being taken, then that's fine. That's... bothersome. It throws into relief the idea that humans are the only good guys - they're the only ones who seem to know what "No" and "Stop" mean.
The discussion of taking a vessel as a metaphor (and sometimes not even a metaphor) for sexual assault has been covered really well between these two posts. What I want to explore further is how this coercion ties into free will. And I meant to talk more about the human vessels in this post, but thoughts about the angels rather took over.
We're told the angels don't have free will. That for them to make a choice the way a human does is treason and leads to their fall. In season 4, this is what Castiel struggles with -- making his own decisions about his actions. He doesn't have any understanding that by following orders (whether they come from God or from his superiors) he is in a sense giving his consent to the aims of these orders and taking responsibility for the results -- whether this is asking Dean to torture or setting Sam free to release Lucifer. He doesn't have any conception of himself as anything but a cog in Heaven's machinery.
So it's probably not a surprise that he wouldn't see any reason to fully inform Jimmy of what giving consent to becoming an angelic vessel actually means. None of this fits Castiel's world view at that time. In Castiel's view, Jimmy's a soldier of God, just as Castiel is, and it's not like Castiel is making any kind of informed decision about anything; he obeys orders without question. Even the notion that it is possible for him to make a decision is alien.
When it comes to upper management angels such as Zachariah and Raphael and Michael (and Lucifer), they don't have this excuse. These angels are fully capable of making their own decisions about how events should progress: they want to bring about the fight between heaven and hell for their own reasons, not because God has ordered it to be so. They've taken matters into their own hands. They're the ones giving orders.
To them, the notion that humans have any kind of free will is irrelevant. They believe in destiny because it serves their purposes.
So in a critique of consent from outside the story, I don't excuse Castiel's treatment of Jimmy (or Claire); but I think within the story it carries a certain logic of characterization, in that Castiel is basically an uninformed foot soldier himself, compared to his superiors. And the fact that Anna, who did question orders and started making decisions for herself, was a leader in the angelic ranks, is significant: she's already going to be in a better informed position than someone like Castiel. And Anna, significantly, is her own vessel: she was (re)born with a human body, and so when she regains her angelic grace, she is in a sense possessing herself.
I get the impression that the idea that angels have no free will and are unable to make their own decisions is propaganda from the Senior Partners like Zach and Michael: it's convenient to their own plans for the foot soldiers to unquestioningly obey them. Angels can in fact make their own choices: Anna and Lucifer did; Castiel himself did eventually; Uriel did; Zach certainly does. There's a difference between truly being unable to make any decisions for oneself and being punished if one does so: Lucifer and Anna are both punished for making their own choices, and Castiel is cut off from heaven for defying Zachariah.
Which plays back into the notion of consent and free will. Angels are clearly able to withdraw their support, their consent, from The Plan by making their own choices -- Castiel was able to do so. They are just punished for defying orders, just as Zach tries to punish Dean for resisting Michael.
Basically, Castiel is given the same choice by Uriel (and later, it is implied, by the Senior Partners) as Dean is given by Zach: join us or die. Consent to our plans for you or suffer the consequences.
Which, as chasingtides and others have pointed out, isn't really a freely given choice at all and can't truly be called consent.
So it's back to two interlocking questions: is it really Yes, is it really consent, if one is given no other choice? And does one really have Free Will if Heaven has done everything in its power to make sure of your destiny?