convictioncas:

Holy shit. holy shit.

Idk if anybody’s read my meta on Metatron as a symbol of Jeremy Carver/the changing authorship of Supernatural but I have new thoughts tied to that.

Ever notice how whenever Metatron is alone with someone, he tends to deliver this epic Breaking Speeches to the characters, almost like he’s trying to break them apart just to watch what will happen? He’s actually really cruel in that respect, pushing boundaries and pissing everyone off; Hannah and Dean, as some lesser examples, but especially Cas. 

The strangest part is, there’s always an element of truth in what he says. You get more dialogue-based insight into a character when Metatron is telling them why they suck than at any other point in the narrative. He’s rude and abrasive and infuriating, but he not only gives us the best view into the protagonists’ minds, but he also asks some of the Driving Questions of the story (are you an angel or a human? comes to mind) and is such an obvious source of exposition that he can spill on pretty much anything the main characters need him to, from the Mark of Cain to the Darkness. He’s functionally the author of the text interacting with the characters to push the plot in the directions necessary to get the story where it’s going.

Metatron is symbolically the writers of the show, pulling the strings (see all other meta analysis on references to puppeteering/puppetry in the show, especially as representing soullessness/demonness because now it’s a meta reference to the inanimate nature of the characters and how flimsy that inanimateness is) to get what he wants out of the other characters. He’s the ultimate Magnificent Bastard because he is unscrupulous and willing to use anyone in any possible way to get what he wants. However, in Our Little World, the manipulator is unable to manipulate Cas anymore. He’s degraded, devalued, and has little to no control over the events. At best, he’s still the Knowledge Broker, but his skills aren’t very valuable to the protags anymore and his only value is to spill the dirt on the backstory (i.e., decide things like “Amara is God’s Sister” and “The river ends at the source”).

This is a surprising metaphor to encounter at this point in the game, but maybe not; the whole Charlie fiasco was seen by the fans as the writers shoehorning senseless death into the narrative for contrived reasons as opposed to developing the plot organically, despite the writers claiming that “we go where the story takes us.” Maybe Metatron’s newfound destitution and background role is supposed to be indicative of a new approach in the writers’ room; one where they look at the characters and what they would do first, and demand the events of the plot second.