Bedtime Stories: the Grimm Tale
Reading Supernatural metas is an inherently dangerous activity. Why? You may well ask. You risk serious injury from brain implosion. Seeds from ideas planted by our fellow fans that burst fully formed from our bodies like the alien in, well… uhm… Alien.
This happened to me after reading a number of metas on recent episodes, including bowtrunckle 's reflections on how the cases are embedded in and reflective of the boys' emotional journeys in recent episodes, yourlibrarian 's reflection on the feminine in Supernatural episode 3x05, and sadelyrate 's reflections on Mary as the Angel in the House and Mary and Roses.
These metas got me thinking. At first glance, the cases of Bedtime Stories and The Kids Are Alright seem to be something separate from the mytharc, but deeper examinations reveals that the two set of story arcs are parallel and embedded in each other. The cases reflect on aspects of Sam and Dean's emotional journey that are not immediately apparent. For example, the case in The Kids are Alright obviously seems to be reflective of Dean's emotional journey, but elements of it reflect Sam's emotional journey, too. (See bowtrunckle's analysis of fear, desperation and isolation.) Bedtime Stories at first glance seems to most obviously reflect Sam and Dean's emotional journey in their reactions to Dean's impending death. But, I think further examination of the symbolic use of color and flowers may reveal a deeper meaning for Sam and the path he is treading.
So, without further exposition and purple prose, I give you: The Idea That Ate My Brain.
A. On the Color Pink (White and Red), and the Rose
I think it has pretty well been established that pink is associated with Mary. (Credit here goes to sadelyrate for these observations.)
Pink roses are associated with Mary, and, curiously, as if pink roses weren't enough, so are red and white flowers.
Mary in WiaWSNB: Note: pink/red roses on the wallpaper, red roses on her robe, red and white flowers behind her
So, we've already had an instance in which pink and the combination of red and white have been associated with a feminine character, seen both in flower motifs and their wardrobe.
With the episodes of Season 3, it seems that Kripke et al. are elaborating on this association. All four episodes of the Magnificent Seven, The Kids Are Alright, Sin City and Bedtime Stories contain instances of association between women, the colors of pink and red and white combinations of clothing, and pink and red flowers.
To begin:
1. Magnificent Seven:
In Magnificent Seven, the woman who was murdered over those gawdawful-looking green shoes was dressed in a combination of red, white and pink.
Magnificent Seven: Note pink t-shirt, white trim and red shirt
2. Sin City
I also saw one instance pink in Sin City that I can recall, and that associated not with the Demon!Casey, but with the human woman she was possessing.
In human!Casey's apartment, Sin City: note pink, white, and red lingerie
3. The Kids Are Alright
This episode was replete with pink and red clothing and flowers.
Annette and her daughter Katie were associated with pink and red from their very entrance.
No Dad's Night, The Kids Are Alright: Note red flowers behind Annette and Katie in pink
At Ben's party, The Kids Are Alright: note pink flowers behind Annette
At Ben's party: The Kids Are Alright: note Katie in pink and Annette in red jacket and pinkish/purple shirt
"Mummy, I'm hungry": The Kids Are Alright: note Katie's pink shirt
In a second example, the unnamed mother of another changeling child was also associated with pink flowers and clothing.
Mother of changeling girl-2, The Kids Are Alright: note pink rosebushes, and purplish/pink shirt
Her changeling daughter wearing a splash of dark pink: The Kids Are Alright
And thirdly, prior to Ben being taken by the changeling, Lisa dressed in pale greens and blues and a winter white jacket, but after it is revealed that he has been replaced by a changeling, she is revealed to be dressed in a red top.
Lisa after Ben's reveal, The Kids Are Alright: Note pink flowers and red tank top
As if that weren't enough, there's also the brief glimpse of pink during the rescue from Mama Changeling, associated with a young girl.
Pink Anvils of Doom, The Kid's Are Alright: Note, pink PJ bottoms with red rosebuds
4. Bedtime Stories
Bedtime Stories, too, is filled with many instances of red and pink flowers. (I'm not going to even get into the red carpets decorated with flower motifs - ick… fugly things that they are, but they're everywhere as well.)
Starting off with the first story, the Kindly Old Woman In the Middle of Nowhere, prior to her reveal as the Cannabalistic Old Woman In the Middle of Nowhere, was surrounded by pink and red rose motifs. (Does it scare anyone else that she is the perfect picture of grandmotherly warmth with that soft cloud of white hair, soft pale skin, and apple-pinked cheeks and yet was so GLEEFUL when wielding that kitchen knife? She looks almost like she's poking holes in the top crust of an apple pie to let the steam out. *blink*)
Pssssst. C'mere. Uhm… closer.
*Whispers* Did you notice the little piece of white wooden ornamentation just under the peak of the roof of her house? It's a kind of ornamentation commonly found on Victorian era homes, called … wait for it… gingerbread. *G* gingerbread ornamentation
Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House: Bedtime Stories
Okay, carry on. Where were we? Oh yeah. The Cannabilistic Old Woman In the Gingerbread House.
Here she is, warm and inviting and in pink.
Grandmotherly woman before the reveal, Bedtime Stories: note pink roses on housedress
In the Gingerbread house before the reveal, Bedtime Stories: Note the red roses on the tea service
When she "turned", she was then surrounded by other colors, most notably the yellow flowers, as well as orange and green colors (more to come in a later meta about those particular colors).
At the point of the reveal, Bedtime Stories: note yellow flowers decorating the plates
Later Gretel is shown in the hospital. This time she's the one associated with red/pink flowers.
Gretel in the hospital: Bedtime Stories: Note bright pink flowers on bedside table
Cinderella, too, is associated with red/pink flowers.
In Cinderella's kitchen, Bedtime Stories: note red flowers behind Sam and Dean helping Cinderella
And then there's Callie and her Snow-white persona.
Snow White in Cinderella's house prior to her reveal as the source of the deaths, Bedtime Stories: Note red rose trim along the hem of her skirt
Just as the grandmotherly old woman was then associated with yellow flowers and orange colors when her dark side was revealed, so was Callie.
In Callie's hospital room, Bedtime Stories: Note red rose on chest of drawers and yellow/orange flowers on the wall.
*sigh* Okay, so I lied. I am going to have to get into the red carpets with their flower motifs after all. Dagnabit. This one is in Little Red Riding Hoods' House. I don't have another example of flowers at her house. There was another rug like it in Cinderella's house, too. *grumblemutter*
5. Heart
And then, finally, my last example, taken from Season 2 of all places. This one's a kicker and breaks my heart just thinking about it.
Madison's kitchen prior to Sam pulling the trigger, Heart: Note red flowers on the wall
(That's all I came up with, but if anyone else remembers instances of pink or red/white flowers associated with women in other episodes, I'd love to hear about them.)
6. What's it all mean, jelly-bean?
So, here we have many examples of women associated with pink, red and white both in their clothing and in the flowers and flower motifs around them. What do they have in common? More broadly, it seems to me that they all represent the feminine in its warmth and comfort - not a demon in sight. More specifically, they all represent women associated with death and danger. Notably, when the danger is to others, the red/pink flowers are then also associated with yellow/orange flowers, but when the danger is to themselves, this extra association is absent. So, it seems that red/white and pink are associated with the idealized feminine in jeopardy.
B. On Snow-white, No, the Other Snow-white
From this point on we're going to get into an area of speculation where my thoughts are going to leap fairly far from the concrete, anecdotal data. Although I found a few intriguing associations between Supernatural and a fairy-tale, they're very circumstantial and so really just provide a jumping off point, a way to structure the exploration of the themes of Supernatural. That's the power of myth that I find so intriguing, that it encapsulates the human experience in such rich ways. You now are the victim recipient of that love.
That said, I always thought it was curious that Mary was associated with white and red flowers as well as pink roses. Why were the additional motifs deemed necessary? I could easily argue that red and white together make pink, I suppose, but it always stuck in mind and niggled at me. I knew all that time I spent reading the variously colored Fairy Tales books back in early childhood would eventually pay off.
Let me take you back to Cinderella's house.
Snow-white in Cinderella's House, Bedtime Stories: Pause to appreciate just how beautiful a child she is (I find her coloring and wide plaintive blue eyes breath-taking) and then note where she's standing
In Cinderella's House, Bedtime Stories: Pause to appreciate just how beautiful of a man Dean is………
...........
Done yet? No? Okay. Uhm. I'll just be over… uhm… here. Uhm. Waiting. ……
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Okay? Done? Alright... eyes on me.
and note the red rose where Snow-white is no longer standing
Don't you find that juxtaposition curiously deliberate? It's almost as if instead of finding Snow-white, Dean turns the corner to find a red rose in her place.
Snow-white of the Seven Dwarves fame is not the only Snow-white among the Brothers' Grimm tales. There's also Snow-white of Snow-white and Rose-red.
You can find the whole story here:
SurLaLune: The Annotated Snow White and Rose Red. October, 2000. Heidi Anne Heiner. The annotations accompanying the text are interesting, too.
An analysis of the symbolism of the story can be found here. Also interesting.
Kready, Laura Fry. (1916). A Study of Fairy Tales. Houghton Mifflin Company. Pages 282-286.
Remember that quote I put at the beginning of this meta? Let me repeat it.
A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of it, in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses and the other red. She had two children, who were just like the two rose trees; one was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red.
I remembered about this when Snow-white disappeared to reveal a red rose in Bedtime Stories and wondered about the story's association with Mary and her white and red flowers and where that might lead.
a. Point of parallel #1: The illustration of the feminine ideal
Snow-White and Rose-red is one of the few fairy tales whose dynamic is NOT based upon jealousy and competition for male attention among related women. Thank all that is holy, there is at least one fairy tale out there in which the women support and nurture each other. The widowed mother of the story is described as accepting of her daughter's disparate personalities, nurturing them and encouraging their attachment to each other and willingness to share equally what they have despite the limitations of their resources. She is also portrayed as willing to trust and share what she has with others outside her small family and is rewarded for it in the end. Snow-white is the feminine ideal in all its innocence and purity. She is described as mild-tempered, generous and quick to look out for others, doing small things for others to provide them with comfort. Rose-red is described as passionate and spontaneous, quick to explore the world and play. All three women are portrayed in a positive light and their differing contributions to their domestic felicity equally valued. Just as Mary serves to represent the feminine ideal in Supernatural, so do the widowed mother and her daughters, Snow-White and Rose-red.
b. Point of parallel#2: red and white flowers
Not much explanation needed here: Mary and red and white flowers = Snow-white and Rose-red and their respective rose bushes in their mother's garden.
c. Point of parallel #3: angels to watch over you
This quote from Snow-White and Rose-red struck me: And when they told their mother of their adventure, she said what they had seen must have been the angel that guards good children. It called to mind Mary's bed-time admonition to her son that angels were watching over him.
d. Point of parallel #4: Red and white roses and the feminine in jeopardy
As in most fairy-tales, at some point, the women or girls in the tale are put in jeopardy. 'Nuff said there, I imagine. I think I've already been the demise of that particular horse and I refuse to beat it any further.
2. The role of choice in Snow-white and Rose-red
Both the male and female characters in Snow-white and Rose-red are faced with choices. It's a moral tale as are many fairy-tales.
The mother is faced with the choice of whether or not to trust the Beast at the door (the Bear) and to provide him with shelter against the harsh winter outside their home. She chooses to trust him, and is rewarded in the end when her daughters lift the curse that binds him and he reveals himself as a King's son.
The Beast, too, had choices to make. The two girls tease him mercilessly, eventually beating upon him with sticks. He could choose a response based upon his bestial nature and lash out in return, but instead, he admonishes them kindly and tolerates their less violent pranks. He is eventually rewarded with the lifting of the curse and return of his treasure.
Another character whom I have not mentioned previously is the dwarf. The dwarf is cantankerous and perceives all things in a bad light. He falls repeatedly into jeopardy and the two girls save him. Unfortunately, they have to sacrifice part of his beard in order to spare him his fate. He has a choice in how to respond and on what aspect of the experience to focus (I'm alive versus my beard's a little shorter.. .hmmm…), but he chooses to reward them only with abuse and eventually tries to offer them up in his place when the Beast threatens him. He is rewarded with death. Funny how that works.
Snow-white and Rose-red also are faced with choices. The ones that struck me the strongest were their choice to continue helping the dwarf even though he was ungrateful, abused them for it and then eventually betrayed them. They kept at it, cheerfully too. They were rewarded with their lives, the lifting of the Beast's curse, sharing in the King's son's riches and marriage to him and his brother.
C. Implications for Mary
Okay, now we get to the payoff. Hopefully the price of getting here was worth it.
There's been a lot of speculation about Mary, her nature and history. There is much we do not know about who she is and why she was murdered. Speculation has run from her being a psykid from a prior generation as intimated (but, importantly, not baldly stated) by the YED, to being impregnated with Sam by the YED, and to being a demon herself. But with all the imagery of Mary as the idealized feminine, both in how she has been portrayed and in the (admittedly weak) associations with the symbolism of red and white roses as illustrated in Snow-white and Rose-red, I have to wonder. As has been protested elsewhere (and I'm sorry I don't recall who said it), "We've seen so much of Evil, where is Good in Supernatural?" Mary has been so consistently associated with the positive aspects of the idealized feminine. Why? Are we being prepared to take a nasty fall along with Dean and Sam? Sam is obviously is already wondering about the nature of her hidden aspects. Or will Mary turn out to be aligned with Good, despite it all.
sadelyrate wondered if Mary was the Angel of the House. It's a very compelling image and consistent with her persistent portrayal as all things good in a mother and wife. Given the lesson of choice illustrated by Snow-white and Rose-red, was her death, then, the result of a choice she made that came out of her compassionate nature rather than that of evil influence? Did she, like the widowed mother and her daughters, choose to trust out of sympathy and compassion for distress and danger when she should not have? Is that how she knew the YED? Was the YED the parallel to the dwarf, rewarding kindness with abuse? Was Mary, because of her compassion, rewarded with death?
D. Implications for Sam and Dean
1. The Kids Are Alright
I think this episode has been meta'd so brilliantly that I'm not sure I have anything original to say. The implications for Dean are pretty obvious. He's on the outside of the warmth, love, safety and security represented by the life built by the women in this episode, the reward for the feminine ideal. In his own words, it's not his life. As well, bowtrunckle did a wonderful job pulling out the parallels between the women's experience and Sam's, their fear, desperation and isolation when faced with the harm to the one's they love. (Go read! Go read!)
The only thing I will say here is to highlight the fact that this has been about idealized femininity. It's a fantasy that's being presented here in Mary in her pink and white and red, much like the fairy-tale versions of her rose counterparts. The only way to idealize the feminine is to achieve emotional distance from the actual, day to day feminine. Yes, women present with true depths of warmth and compassion and build homes and nurturing lives for the ones they love. Admirable goals. But what can I say? We're human, and as such present each other with the complexities of fully-realized contradictions and conundrums of the good and the bad. *g* Being raised by their father in relative isolation, Sam and Dean have had very little experience with this and as such, I'm sure it colors their perceptions. Like the Beast, they are only visitors into the world of the feminine. Until the curse is lifted, they can only take their temporary rest at the hearth, not fully become a part of the household.
I wonder, then, if Dean got a sudden taste of the fullness of what he was being offered when Lisa invited him to stay and if it was wake-up call. Not that I think that the difficulties of being in a relationship scared him off, but it suddenly presented as very REAL, not a fantasy in his head, not the fairy-tale "they lived happily ever after", and he had to make a real-life decision that considered the consequences for all involved. Kudos to him that he sucked it up and made the hard choice yet again.
2. Bedtime Stories
bowtrunckle observed the embedded and interdependent nature of the "stand-alone case" story of The Kids Are Alright and Sam's emotional journey. Each was better understood reflected in the mirror of the other. I think this is also true of Bedtime Stories. For me, the theme of choice resonates.
One of the main themes of Snow-white and Rose-red is choice. To trust or to not trust. To give or to not give. To receive aid, or to repudiate it. To react to provocation with violence, or to hold back. I would argue, then, that one of the main themes in Bedtime Stories is also about choice, about the role of free-will.
Choice and free-will seem to be one of the major themes of Season 3. I think it was no coincidence that the "then" highlights included Dean shooting werewolf!Glen, whose free-will was subverted when he turned. I think it was no coincidence that Sin City came before Bedtime Stories. Demons of Season 3 make it clear that they perceive us as fatally flawed. They hold up a dark mirror in which to see our own reflections. They quickly perceive our imperfections and failings and scorn us for it. As such, their primary weapons are to turn our darker natures against us, to lead us into despair. In Sin City, Demon!Casey made it very clear that the humans turned of their own free will. We have free will, and just what we do with it is ultimately up to us, regardless the provocation.
Unlike the citizens of Sin City, the Wolf, Old Woman and Stepmother in Bedtime Stories had no choice whether or not to commit the horrific acts they perpetrated. They were entranced, a simple fleshly tool serving Callie's purposes. For all their lack of free will they might as well have been possessed. Their lack of free will, I think, only serves to highlight Sam's full possession of it. His choice in perpetrating the murder of the innocent woman possessed by the Crossroad Demon was made in full knowledge of its meaning (he, too, once knew what it was to be possessed and the helplessness and horror of it) and its consequences. The manner in which Sam committed the act was deliberate. Just as the Crossroad Demon pointed out, "Your brother's an adult. He made that deal with his own free will, fair and square," so was Sam's decision to shoot her, killing both the demon and the woman she possessed.
Like Callie, Sam made his decision out of desperation. It was Sam himself who pointed out that "She's [Callie's] angry, and she's desperate, and no one will listen to her," just as Sam is angry and desperate and Dean's not listening to him. But did Callie's actions really justify the end it achieved? Will Sam's? Will Dean's? Sadly, the parallels between Callie and Sam make me wonder what other options Sam might have considered if only Dean wasn't shutting the conversation down.
Unlike Callie, Sam, like Dean, is an adult. His decisions come with the weight of full capacity to comprehend the meaning and consequences of his actions. Callie required the intervention of her father to set her back upon a moral path. Who does Sam have? If Dean is shutting down the conversation, who now is Sam's emotional and moral grounding force? Ruby? Bobby? But what's going on in Bobby's head? Do we know? I want to trust Bobby, but he, like Sam, has also made an ally of Ruby, if only temporarily and with much reservation. I'm not sure Sam has a resource who is untainted.
We aren't shown the consequences of the actions of the perpetrators in Bedtime Stories. We don't know if "the Wolf" will be charged in the brutal slayings of the two "Pigs" and "Little Red Riding Hood"'s grandmother. We never even saw Cinderella's stepmother. Gretel specifically noted that she was unsure whether or not the old woman survived. These leave rather large plot-holes that are perhaps the victim of a 40-some minute story-telling time limit. Or perhaps it was deliberate. Shall the end justify the means by which Sam achieved it? Will an essential part of Sam die because of the choices he is making? What the heck is Dean going to make of what Sam did and what is that going to do to their relationship? We certainly don't know what the consequences of Sam's actions are. Yet.
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ETA: cleaning up grammar, adding a paragraph about the difference between Callie and Sam and its implication, and to throw up my hands in disgust at the random html font changes.
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Thanks go to Oxoniensis of Oxoniensis Art and Marishna of Summer Skin for the screencaps. You ladies are made of awesome. This meta wouldn't be possible without your diligent efforts.
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LI'L RED RIDING HOOD (Ronald Blackwell)
Owoooooooo!
Who's that I see walkin' in these woods?
Why, it's Little Red Riding Hood.
Hey there Little Red Riding Hood,
You sure are looking good.
You're everything a big bad wolf could want.
Listen to me.
Little Red Riding Hood
I don't think little big girls should
Go walking in these spooky old woods alone.
Owoooooooo!
What big eyes you have,
The kind of eyes that drive wolves mad.
So just to see that you don't get chased
I think I ought to walk with you for a ways.
What full lips you have.
They're sure to lure someone bad.
So until you get to grandma's place
I think you ought to walk with me and be safe.
I'm gonna keep my sheep suit on
Until I'm sure that you've been shown
That I can be trusted walking with you alone.
Owoooooooo!
Little Red Riding Hood
I'd like to hold you if I could
But you might think I'm a big bad wolf so I won't.
Owoooooooo!
What a big heart I have-the better to love you with.
Little Red Riding Hood
Even bad wolves can be good.
I'll try to be satisfied just to walk close by your side.
Maybe you'll see things my way before we get to grandma's place.
Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are looking good
You're everything that a big bad wolf could want.
Owoooooooo! I mean baaaaaa! Baaa?