Wait….does that mean there’s a little bit of God in Donatello? And God can’t really be killed because there’s just a little bit of his “soul” somewhere else? You know, horcrux style?
sam: meets castiel, an angel, a real angel. sam: super excited and bashful and adorable, despite his absolute shitshow of a life so far castiel: oh yes you’re the demon blood guy sam: 😦
sam: meets god, like actual god he’s been praying to for his whole life sam: super excited and bashful and adorable, wonders if his prayers ‘got lost’, no blame for anything despite his even worse shitshow of a life right now god: why’d you let lucifer out of the cage again huh?? sam: *suffered unimaginably to put lucifer back IN the cage* sam: *really did not let him back out* sam: 😦
That’s a great question. I don’t know that I’d use the word “suffers”… but then again, maybe that is the right word for Supernatural. 🙂
The short answer to your question is yes, of course. Think about it: the central conceit of the show is that they are secret hunters of supernatural creatures that “normal” people don’t know about. For that reason alone, the show’s morality is tied to the protagonists, because if we don’t believe they’re really fighting monsters and there’s some justification for it, then… they’re really serial killers hallucinating people as monsters as they rampage across the country?
There’s a reason that’s a trope in fanfic.
The longer answer is that the show has tended to privilege Dean’s opinions of people and events over the years. His attitudes are nearly always borne out. I’m too tired right now to collect a bunch of caps to illustrate this, but Ruby for instance. She was really convincing, but Dean was never convinced.
The text is more likely to paint Sam as wrong in comparison – the way God called out Sam for instance in 11×20.
The way Sam and Dean are contrasted in this regard is a definite textual bias, used for dramatic effect. It ups the stakes of the conflicts between the brothers.
All of that said, the show has started to shift on that a bit lately. In Red Meat, for instance, Dean was definitely coded as wrong to take those drugs, and Sam was coded as righteous and kick-ass.
I think this shift in morality is linked to the arc about undoing their co-dependency. But that progress is in fits and starts, and sometimes there are setbacks, so it’s not yet as obvious as the pattern of Dean usually being right that existed throughout the earlier seasons and still lingers to the current season.
The reason it reminds you of a Renaissance paintings is because of how the people’s gestures and gazes direct your eye between each other and ultimately toward the central motif of the Beib getting choked.
It’s also the colour scheme and the lighting. The deep red and the pale greens, the lighting so dark that some figures are obscured but the others stand out with brighter lighting. Even the circular pattern in the back references halos or other decorative features meant to draw attention. 10/10 good Renaissance art.
And I enjoy the subject matter too.
And some of the hoodies and T shirts look like robes at first glance…?
Okay, so maybe the film guide says he was born in TA 87, but looking at clues from HOME and the Silmariilion, he’s at the very most a bit over 2000 years old at time of The Fellowship of the Ring. He’s the youngest elf that we know about in that time period. ARWEN is older than him. He’s creeped out by Fangorn being so old but he calls all mortals children because he’s a little shit.
Tolkien would get super pissed off when Legolas was shown in illustrations as “pretty or lady-like” and insisted that he was the biggest, roughest, toughest of the elves and the most hardcore of the Fellowship. Legolas is like the freaking Schwarzenegger of the elves, nbd.
Best friend is a dwarf whose father was literally imprisoned by Legolas’ father and yet he still brought him to the Undying Lands for the most awkward family reunion because screw you Thranduil. And let me remind you that a) Gimli is the only, only dwarf who got to make the trip and Legolas invited him. Other people had to get permission from like the literal Valar and Legolas was like I want to bring my mortal bff yeah he wasn’t a ringbearer but whatevs. Also b) most of the people who left in TA 3201 went on like these fleets of beautiful vessels with a master shipbuilder but Legolas was like nope, going to build one myself, never built one before but it can’t be that hard, right?
While Sindarin is the most common Elvish language by the time Legolas is alive, it’s considered really ugly and and unrefined, but here Legolas is running around probably not even able to speak the language of his ancestors, and I imagine him super proud of what must sound like an awful accent to his people.
Also super explains how useless he was at Moira trying to decipher the door because he doesn’t have time to deal with those snobs.
All the Fellowship got useful gifts or ones with spiritual meaning but instead Galadriel was like no, Legolas, I’m going to give you this big ass bow that’s bigger than the Mirkwood ones and it’s going to be so sick yeah it’s like taller than you are BUT ITS GOING TO LOOK SO SWEET.
are you telling me that Legolas is like… the baby gay dudebro redneck of the elves?
yes my friend, that is exactly what I am telling you
“Quests? Suck. Trust me. They’re all dead
ends.”
“It’s hard letting go of a story, a mission.”
“That [life’s mission] was your story…. I got one of those, too… but those
stories that we tell to keep us going? Man, sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places.”
Most people know Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a
Thousand Faces,” which uses a blend of mythology and psychology to
describe a supposed “archetypal” male heroic quest story. Historically/culturally
accurate or not, the stages of the Hero’s Journey have become very well-known
and very influential for writers—Eric Kripke included, btw.
The Heroine’s Journey, written by
Campbell’s student Maureen Murdock, is a similar thing, except that instead of focusing
on the archetypal hero, it focuses on the archetypal heroine. (Not everyone who goes on a heroine’s journey is a woman,
though; nor does the heroine’s journey necessarily apply to all women. Looking at it from a writing perspective, it’s just
another way of structuring a plot/character arc… one that’s a little
different from the usual fare.)
We’re smack in the middle of a heroine’s journey
right now. And that is really, really
interesting.
Because at its most
basic, the heroine’s journey is about turning away from the expected path (i.e.
the heroic quest, the road of trials, Campbell’s hero’s journey) because the
expected path is harmful—physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It’s about
going your own way and achieving autonomy. It’s about accepting
the entirety of yourself—particularly
the aspects that have been repressed or rejected. It’s
about using that newfound sense of self-acceptance to affect the entire world.
And it’s about arriving at a balancing of opposites and becoming whole. All
the emphasis on duality and the merging of opposites in s10 and s11 so far? That’s
the heroine’s journey all over.
This is the best online summary I’ve been
able to find. I recommend Murdock’s book, too, if you can find it—it’s
interesting and goes into much more detail. It’s a little dated, maybe… But
so’s Campbell, really, if you actually read his book–so much more Freudian than I’d
expected :p Still a solid story structure.
The hero and heroine’s journeys begin similarly,
with a heroic quest, but they diverge after that: once the heroine has achieved
the goal of their quest, they realize that their attempt to fulfill the hero’s journey has left them missing
something or feeling like an incomplete person, maybe falling ill—and they realize that they
need to go on a further journey in order to become whole. Once the heroine has
achieved balance, they can finally live freely.
All three members of Team Free Will started
their main Carver-era story arcs by trying their very, very hardest to break
themselves permanently in two.
Reblogging this now, after the latest episode (Don’t Call Me Shurley).
Through visual motifs, Amara has been brought into parallel with Mary Winchester and themes of sacrifice. It would certain fulfill the imperative that the river shall end at its source” that Chuck and Amara were once one and the same, and that the only way out of this current situation is a sacrifice that leads to their reunion.
God divided himself in half because His “darkness,” His aspect of nothingness, was destroying His every creation. His failure to make peace with that part of Himself reverberates through the ages via Lucifer’s rebellion and his subsequent corruption of humanity. Lucifer was tasked with carrying the burden of the key – the seed of betrayal and discontent. And it was Lucifer who corrupted Lillith and Cain, and who tempted Gadreel from his role as guardian. Per Chuck, Lucifer was not the villain. Instead, Lucifer himself was corrupted by God’s initial betrayal. Lucifer was God’s first failure and because He didn’t embrace Himself as a whole, He, too, rejects the darkness in humanity.
“It’s not an infection. She says it’s a mirror. She’s showing us all the truth. The light was just a lie.” (”Don’t Call Me Shurley” 11×20)
Mirroring between dark and light also occurs strongly in Robbie T’s earlier episode 10×11 “There’s No Place Like Home”, when Charlie is split into Dark Charlie and Light Charlie.
The solution was a merge.
Charlie (speaking of the Wizard in 10×11)
“He used the inner key of Oz. It opens a door to your soul and lets the darkness out. Uh, we’re still connected physically.”
On a cosmic level, Dean has surely become the key, thanks to him being the last bearer of the Mark of Cain. Removal of the Mark from Dean resulted in the release of the Darkness, to whom he is now “bound” in some fashion.
Which would be why Amara intends to spare Dean amongst all the beings of creation.
Question is – can a merge between God and the Darkness (which I really hope proves to be the solution) take place without the destruction of the key?
“We’ve announced the next 9 movies, 10 counting Civil War, through
the end of 2019. Where we’ll go beyond that are ongoing discussions that
we’ll focus on in the next few years because we have a lot to do before
then. Of the characters that you’ve just mentioned I would say
certainly that the one we’re creatively and emotionally committed to doing is Black Widow.
We think she’s an amazing character. We think Scarlett Johansson’s
portrayal of her is amazing. She’s a lead Avenger and has amazing
stories to tell in her own right to tell that we think would be fun to
turn into a stand alone franchise”
Hearseeno 