larinah:

hearseeno:

I was thinking about what yarnyfan was saying about the screen as a visual callback to the punch card, evoking the theme of angelic programming.  Here it’s disused, abandoned.  

And then we also have the red, white and blue combo that appears when episodes have heavy themes of choice and exerting free will.  

I wish I remember who started talking about stars.  Was it you, larinah?  Given that Hannah keeps getting lost in this episode and Cas counsels her to not “lose her way” in terms of her priorities, she seems to be on the verge of questioning what it means to be an angel.  So, I keep thinking of stars as those things that guide.  Of all things, they are relatively steady in the heavens and have been used for navigation when we have nothing else to give us direction.  

I talked about stars here and here, but I think some other people have been talking about them, too.

All this is actually making me think back to one of the books Metatron had in his apartment.  The one titled Pied Piper.  I’m going to pull out a section of what I wrote there because it ties in both the stars and maybe the flags we’ve been seeing, too:

The boat sails out and it is a rough journey.  Most of the children are seasick, but Pierre, the little French boy, loves sailing and wants to help steer.  The owner of the boat shows him how to sail by saying:

Put it this way.  So.  Keep her at that, and look always at your star.

When Howard asks Pierre how he is doing, Pierre says:

He said to sail at those square stars up there.  (He means the Big Dipper.)  That is where we are going to, m’sieur.  That is the way to America, under those stars.  There is so much food there that you can give some to a dog and have him for your friend.  Mademoiselle Nicole told me so.

(In this book, America sounds very much like a land of milk and honey.)  They make it and Howard ends up sending all of the children on to his daughter in America where they are very happy.  (The German girl, Anna, goes on to her uncle in Minnesota.)  But Howard stays in London and eventually tells this story to the book’s narrator during an air raid.

In that post I was comparing Cas to Howard and the rest of the angels to the little kids he saves from the Nazis.  I think that still holds this season.  (Howard is also a fisherman, which makes me think of Daniel and Cas talking about fishing.)

I’m actually re-reading that book right now for my book club because I like picking books I’ve already read so I don’t accidentally choose a stinker to discuss.  I may be back with more thoughts on it if anything new hits me on this second reading.

That’s very interesting.  I confess I’m not all that well-read.  I blame graduate school. It soured me on reading for a good ol’ long time.  I completely understand your desire to pick books you’ve already read instead of investing so much time into a “stinker.” I kinda feel that way about movies these days, too.

Well Metatron certainly thinks that angels require their own Pied Piper.  Luckily with stars you can choose your own course.  I would really like it if we could get some forward moment on the angel story instead of retreading the old themes.