sam's destiny and dean's choices
Okay, so this is a meta addressing a few issues raised in 4.03: both the issue of fate vs. free will and the show's portrayal of time travel. Curiously enough, I think they're really the same issue. But before I begin, I need to give a few disclaimers.
I believe in God. I studied theology in college. And I'm Catholic, which is important for two reasons: although I did some comparative religions stuff, my background is largely in Catholic theology. And free will is a fundamental article of faith for me, right up there with the existence of God. All of these things are going to inform the perspective I'm about to offer.
Fate vs. Free Will
Castiel sent Dean back in time, apparently to change the past and save his family. Dean was unable to do so. Castiel then strongly implied that events are always going to happen the way they were 'destined' to happen and that nothing Dean does can change that.
This seems to be an unusual position for the show to take, considering that its fundamental conflicts up until now have been about the Winchesters' choices: Sam's choice between killing the demon and not killing his father, John's choice between revenge and protecting his family, Dean's choice between killing Sam and potentially watching him become a monster, Sam's choice between taking his place in the demon's plan by killing Jake and walking away to remain himself, Dean's choice to sacrifice his soul to save Sam, and so on. It's all been about choices, and each of those moments has been presented as a real choice -- it could have gone either way (except Dean killing Sam, because that was never going to happen).
Castiel's next line to Dean backs this up. Basically, Dean has to save Sam (stop Sam) or Castiel and co. will kill him. Putting that burden on Dean (again) strongly implies that his actions do matter, that he can determine which outcome will occur through the choices that he makes.
So is Castiel just toying with Dean, making him think he has a choice when really it's all going to happen the way it was 'meant' to happen? Do we have to choose to believe EITHER in destiny OR in choice?
I would argue no. The show has clearly shown, both in the previous three seasons and in the way Castiel framed his charge to Dean, that choices do matter. That human beings, in the SPNverse, do have free will, and that their actions can impact events. They are not merely puppets, dancing their way through a set of steps laid out for them, leading to a pre-determined endgame. They can polka instead of waltzing. They can switch partners. They can lead a revolt against the conductor and give the orchestra new music to play. Hell, knowing Dean, they can set the dance hall on fire and burn it to the ground. It's their choice. And those choices lead to consequences, and those consequences matter.
So what should we do with Dean's apparent failure to change the past with his actions and Castiel's assertion that he could never have affected the outcome anyway? Is it merely that the past has already happened so now it has to happen that way so the present can exist? Did Dean's choices and actions become meaningless against the inertia of history? And if so, what does that suggest about whether he is truly capable of acting meaningfully in the present?
I would suggest that the apparent contradiction here is not really a problem of choice and destiny, but a problem with the way we think about time.
The Problem of Time
As human beings, we are naturally inclined to think of time as linear. We live our lives in a single unbroken progression from beginning to end, so it's easy for us to believe that's how time works.
But time is really just another dimension. As human beings, we are bound in time just as we are bound in space; we can move through space in three dimensions (side to side, forwards and backwards, up and down) and through time in one (beginning to end). And one of the few things I managed to wrap my head around in physics is that our way of moving through time might not be the only way of moving through time.
We are bound in time and space. But let's posit a being who is NOT bound in time or space, who exists outside of both time and space and therefore is able to perceive all of time and space in a way we cannot from inside it (we could call this being 'God').
From our perspective, inside time, we are making choices, which have repercussions, which face us with new choices to make. We will continue on in this pattern until we die. And we are making all of these choices freely. They are real choices with outcomes that are equally real and are determined by the choices we make. That means our choices are meaningful.
From the perspective of a being outside time, all of our choices have already been made and all of the outcomes are already determined. For this being, the linear narrative of our lives is like a book would be for us. We can read it straight through from the beginning or we could skip to the end and find out what happens. The end isn't going to change while we're reading. It has already been written.
The important difference is, of course, that our lives aren't being 'written' by some external author; we're writing them ourselves through the choices we make and the results of those choices. But for the observer outside of time, we are finished writing the narrative of our lives in the same way that an author has finished writing a book by the time it arrives in our hands.
So free will and destiny can exist together. We freely choose to take action and then make further choices based on the results of those actions. Yet from a perspective outside of time, those choices are already made and those outcomes are already determined. Our ultimate destiny is already set -- set by our own choices, but set nonetheless.
Time Travel
Time is not a straight line. We only think it is. And through the direct intervention of a being who is not bound in time in the same way we are, Dean was moved backwards in time to a point before he existed. He made choices and took action and apparently his actions had no effect at all.
Except they did. Because time is not a straight line. So because Dean was in 1973 - because he was always in 1973 - John never bought a VW van instead of the Impala. Mary always knew Azazel and always made a deal with him. Her parents always died. And she always knew what she was risking when she ran back to Sam's nursery and she always did it anyway.
I think it's easier to think of it in the Terminator story: John Connor was born because in the future he sends Kyle Reese back to meet his mother and become his father. The only way John Connor could ever exist is because he did and will do this. He always does it.
In the same way, Dean's life as he has always known it -- the Campbells dead, Sam marked by the demon, Mary killed, John's quest for vengeance -- is the result of actions that he took as a 29-year-old six years before he was even born. And it's only a paradox from his perspective; from our perspective outside the story, it has always happened that way.
If we think of time this way, SPN got it almost exactly right. There's only one thing that bugs me -- that has always bugged me. Why doesn't Azazel ever see Dean as a threat? In "Devil's Trap" he clearly knows that Dean is the key to attacking his family, yet he never seems to take the threat that Dean represents seriously. He even brings Dean back to life in order to remove John, who he does consider a serious threat, from the playing field! Yet Dean seems to threaten Azazel and his plan on every level: he stabilizes Sam and ties him to the world at least as much as Jess; he shows up at Cold Oak to interfere in Azazel's game; he sells his soul to bring Sam back, leading to the death of Jake, Azazel's chosen instrument; he figures out where the gate to hell is so they're all there to stop it from opening; and, oh yeah, he shoots Azazel with the Colt and kills him.
Yet we're supposed to believe that Azazel never took the threat that Dean represents seriously? Even though we now know that Azazel also knew that Dean traveled through time to come kill him? And that Dean strongly implied that he had already killed Azazel in the future?
So, yes, that piece still doesn't fit. But it's never made a whole lot of sense anyway, so *throws up hands*.
Dean's Choices and Sam's Destiny
Castiel is the wild card in all of this. He moved Dean back in time. He re-delivers John's ultimatum that Dean will have to save Sam or kill him (or in this case, watch him be killed by angels). And this is where it all gets really headache-y. Because things are all relatively straightforward when you're positing an observer who exists outside of time. But once you introduce the idea of God, and to a lesser extent the idea of angels, then you get an observer who is outside of time but who can also act within time.
Because of their choices, Dean and Mary got Sam involved with Azazel. Sam rejected Azazel's plans for him, but the demonic connection had already been forced on him as a six-month-old infant. He has superpowers, which may or may not be of demonic origin. His desperation after Dean's death led him to choose to develop those powers.
Sam doesn't have a destiny. He has potential. He is the potential Antichrist. He is the potential head of a demonic army. He is, potentially, the reason the world is going to end. But that potential only exists because of the choices that Azazel, Mary and Dean made. And that potential won't become anything else unless Sam himself chooses to fulfill it.
The path he's on right now seems to be the path Azazel originally intended for him. The path that John was afraid of when he told Dean to save Sam or kill him. And based on the fact that God apparently sent Castiel to stop him, I'm guessing that the outcome of the choices Sam's making wouldn't be pretty.
But Dean has choices too. And if there's one thing we know about Dean -- one thing that Castiel also now knows about Dean -- it's that he's always going to choose to save his family.