add that to the hits package

[musesfool]

Wow, the NFL really got Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to agree to be the Super Bowl half-time show this year (well, technically next year)? I mean, I knew they were talking about it, but Bob Costas just announced it, and wow. WOW

Comments

Re: yeah that makes a lot of sense

[musesfool]

Right. Given how his life was ripped apart when he was 4, I can't see why he wouldn't be skeptical.

[melayneseahawk]

Totally agree.

And that would explain Dean getting bitchy at Sam's belief. He understands what faith is about, but he just can't do it (anymore) and he doesn't get why Sam can. And then this angel shows up and tells him he's "chosen", and it goes against everything he's decided to put his faith in (Sam and salt and the absence of angels and his own failure) and it throws him for a loop.

...and that was either poetic or pathetic, and since I can't tell I'm going to bed.

[musesfool]

No, I get what you mean. And I think the reason Sam can believe is that he can't remember Mary, whereas for Dean, he's never forgiven God for taking her away.

[thelastgoodname]

Rooting for the laundry, right?

[musesfool]

Yes. Did I get it wrong?

[thelastgoodname]

No! It's just, the venue can change, the players do change, the owners change, even the actual laundry changes, but the connection to the team stays. It makes no sense whatsoever, but it's incredibly powerful.

But it doesn't work like that for anything else in our lives: if everything about your job, or your city, or your car changed, you'd be forgiven (expected, even) to change your feelings about it. If everything (substantial, not cosmetic) about your partner changes, a lot of the time you're forgiven.

[musesfool]

It's very true. Only in sports are you reviled for shifting loyalties even after everything you've been loyal to has gone/changed. And yet, I can't give up my teams. I'll root for other teams if mine are out of it, but it's not the same.

It's really weird when you think about it.

[kitsune13]

I totally take your point, and think you're spot-on about Dean's sense of his own place in the universe.

What's frustrating me is that the Problem of Evil as articulated in 4.02 is pretty much limited to the Western monotheisms -- the ones that conceive of their god as singular, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. In systems that don't conceive of their god(s) that way, the existence of evil does not cause that particular philosophical conundrum. Dean's issues are with a bug specific to omnigod monotheisms -- and the SPN universe is one where other gods demonstrably exist. I'm just really rather tired of Christian* mythology being treated as the One True Organizing Principle of the Universe; other systems are referenced only to be relegated to the kiddie table.

*Given the primacy of Revelations, and, well, the fact that this is American pop culture, Christianity is almost certainly their referential paradigm, rather than any of the other monotheisms (or monotheism in general).

[ratcreature]

But isn't that just a nomenclature thing? I mean, obviously Dean has no problem to believe in all kinds of supernatural phenomena, including really powerful entities like the Trickster. So he just can't ever be an atheist in the sense many RL atheists are, who reject all supernatural as something lacking evidence, because in SPN you don't actually lack that evidence what with all the critters, malicious spirits, demons, proven afterlife and so on

[musesfool]

Well, I think part of it is that SPN is a little-watched show on a second-rate network on American TV, so of course it's going to have a Christian framework. On the other hand, given that it is a little-watched show on a second-rate network, possibly Kripke can get away with a little more complexity in dealing with the subject than, say, Seventh Heaven, which was the CW's highest-rated show for a long time.

I think Dean's arguments make some sense, though I think they could have been framed to fit better with, as you say, a universe where other gods do exist, and he has, in fact, had a hand in killing them.

[musesfool]

I believe you did, and we also talked about it right after the episode. I was just hoping people wouldn't go there in their posts, but they did.

[musesfool]

True, true. I mean, it is even mixed in with what Castiel says in 4.01, so I can see why people would do it, but I just don't think that's where this is coming from. At least, like you, I hope it's not.