I’ve had several inquiries about Flox No. 9, so in the interest of fairness I’m officially announcing that he will be going up for sale on Etsy at 3pm eastern tomorrow, which is Monday the 15th!
Flox No. 9 is complete and ready to dash off through the snow to his new home! Perhaps I’m exaggerating, since we don’t have any snow here yet, but you get the picture—this gorgeous one of a kind winter Flox is now available with time to ship for Christmas, Yule, or before the end of Hanukkah.
This doll is SOLD!
Once this Flox is sold there will never be another like him, but you can always check out my commission page to get one made just for you.
Perhaps, or perhaps not. I think you got to the meat of the matter in your meta without it, that you need to look deeper and that there are multiple layers hidden here beneath the flower imagery. And I like what you say about errors the authors make as informed by their flawed and limited interpretation of the narrative and that many things, including subtext, may also be true. I’m afraid I’m not familiar enough with Adaptation and The Orchid Thief to comment with anything specific about what you’ve said beyond that. 🙂
I’ve seen Supernatural do that before, use both flowers in general but a certain flower type in specific to evoke certain themes. Once was back in Season 4 with the Siren in Sex and Violence. The flower they used then was hyacinths, which were strategically placed to 1) throw you off the scent and on the surface imply that the doctor was the Siren but 2) below that to both imply that something was secret and yet to be revealed and 3) evoke the myth of Hyacinth.
Hyacinth was a youth who was loved and killed out of jealousy by the greek gods. Which fits with the Siren’s goal to force people to kill that which they love the most. I think he was jealous of their love and attention in the sense that he wanted it ALL for his own, for it to be proven to him.
What I also thought was interesting was that the writers’ entwined that theme with all the Disney character names as the aliases assumed by the Siren. Jasmine, Belle, Aurora, Ariel – all children’s fantasies of the grown up world. The Siren promised relationships in which only the lovers’ needs mattered, in which they liked the same music, cars, way time is spent together, etc. The Siren promised the first blush of love that Dr. Cara referred to, that is a fantasy of the relationship, rather than a mature and fully adult relationship.
I’ve seen several people mention the tattoo, but I haven’t seen much analysis on it.
The star part does bring to mind all the other starswe’ve seen this season. I’m thinking they mean more than one thing: shining stars as guiding lights, fallen stars as poorly chosen paths, hope, destiny, the renewal and rebuilding of Heaven and angels, even something to do with the Americana/patriotism/civil war stuff. As the season progresses, maybe they’ll coalesce into a tighter meaning, but for now I’m keeping all those ideas on the table. There’s also the very real possibility that they go along with all the sun and moon stuff happening in the last couple of seasons.
The rose part is an interesting addition. thevioletcaptain wrote a very nice meta about Cas and his connection with flowers (which I can’t find the link for at the moment).
Roses, in particular though, have shown up several times that I can recall off the top of my head, especially this season. Rowena had an orange rose near her when we first saw her.
The guy in the roadhouse in Paper Moon had a red rose on his jacket.
Colette the maid fell into a bowl of white roses when Olivia killed her.
A couple of times I can remember in past seasons are that Mary had red roses embroidered on her shirt when Dean went back to the past, and Cas used a red rose to cut his hand so he could make a sigil to get rid of Ephraim.
I honestly don’t know what to make of all these roses showing up all of the sudden in different colors and associated with very different people, victims, friends of victims, and villains. This is the first time I can recall that the stars and the roses have been presented together.
So….uh….I guess at the moment, I got nothing. I do think you’re right that they are very relevant to the story, though. If anyone has any ideas or interpretations they’d like to add, please feel free!!
White is often strongly associated with death in the Supernatural visual lexicon. Think Death and his white carriage and white stone in his ring, and all the way back to the Woman in White and Mary and Jess in their white nightgowns. And so white roses around the murdered Collete visually emphasize her death and the theme of death in the episode.
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Hmm, the guy in the roadhouse with the red rose. I have to admit I had to go back and watch his scene again because I didn’t remember him specifically. Turns out he’s an interesting one:
Guy: Yeah, Barker and I have been raising hell and chasing tail and riding for a long time.
Sound like a set of brothers that we know?
Guy: Part of him always knew when his clock ran out it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Yeah, that’s sounding a lot like Dean’s pronouncements of it ending “with a gun in [his] hand” or “bloody and sad.”
Guy: To go out like that? By some animal? Just ain’t right.
So if flowers hint at something hidden and yet to be revealed, and red is commonly associated with demons and danger, and a character who is wearing the flower is talking about a bloody and sad death for a character who parallels Dean… well, shit.
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Rowena is also interesting. An orange flower was associated with her.
Orange has been associated with temptation into evil and/or the monster hunter becoming monstrous in Supernatural. I first noticed it when orange flowers started showing up around Sam in Season 3 once Ruby started him off on his path. And the who pops up wearing orange (who has never worn orange before) but Bobby, on the very episode that Ruby shows up and teaches him how to rebuild The Colt.
Rowena has been manipulating and attempting to tempt people into alliances that would no doubt lead them on a slow slide down into something evil. I’ve read some speculation that she may target Sam in his vulnerability and desperation to save Dean. I also find it interesting that the narrative made a point of differentiating witches with “natural abilities” versus those who have sold their souls for power or those who can pick up a few things under guidance. It reminds me of the speculation way back before we knew about the angelic bloodlines that the YED targeted Sam because of some innate abilities that he had that the demon wanted to enhance.
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And then flowers and Claire: I did a bit of screencapping of that scene in Randy’s house and boy, once you lighten the images, they are EVERYwhere.
So, yes, here in the room with Claire, there are red/pink roses, but there are yellow roses as well.
That wallpaper in the background has red and yellow roses taking into account how orange the lighting is. I’m betting those lace curtains have flowers on them too, but I can’t tell from this pic.
And there are red and yellow flowers on that area rug under Salinger.
Someone noted (I wish I could remember who), that his blood seems to be black where the others’ was dark red.
I find it really interesting that, sure red flowers presage danger, but also demons?
Yellow flowers were initially associated with the psychic children, but have gone on to be associated with supernatural beings more in general.
Then we have the character name “Salinger,” whose most famous work is a story all about someone who loses it in the midst of an identity crisis.
And then we have the fact that this all came down because Randy made a deal, which has all kinds of history in Supernatural.
I wonder if this whole thing with Randy and Claire wasn’t a setup, that there isn’t some supernatural element to what happened there. Hmmmmm, I wonder what Crowley has been up to lately?
This is Trish, our lovely escapist demon. She used to be trapped in Hell, she hated it, and craved the freedom the Earth could offer. She made some dealings with some other shady demon, and she got smuggled up to Earth. For a while she enjoyed that freedom, made use of it, and also got her hands bloody when the shady demon asked her to. But then she was brought back from that, back to the cage she so had wished to escape from, back to what she new, what she was used to, what she couldn’t succesfully escape.
Just because she failed the first time, though, doesn’t mean she didn’t want to try again. Her new opportunity arises when Rowena tells her to lie for her, and then she’ll help her out. It’s clear then, lying is what makes you free.
But then it turns out Rowena had been lying too, and Trish is left behind. She had convinced herself lying would set her free, but the only thing it achieved was to keep her trapped, and this time, alone.
Who else do we know who is trapped in a cage of their own making? A cage with strong bars made of all their issues? Somebody who experienced a seeming freedom from that psychological cage for a little while, with the help of some shady demon he got his hands bloody for, but who is now trapped back in that vicious cycle. Somebody who keeps convincing himself that lying and pretending to be alright will actually make him alright. Somebody who needs to get with the program, and understand that lying will only thicken the walls of his prison, and drive all company away.
You have no idea how much the people who love you want to see you stop lying and freeing yourself from that cage, Dean.
Flowers unfold. As buds, their inner parts are hidden, secret, until they come to their full bloom and reach their peak of potential. Supernatural uses many, many visual motifs to reinforce its narrative. Flowers are one of them.
They were first introduced subtly in Home. First on the wallpaper of Sari’s room, where it was later revealed that Mary had been residing in the closet.
In Home, we learned that Mary’s death was even more complicated than we had known before. But that just introduced more of a mystery. Why had she hung around after her death? Why did she tell Sam that she was sorry?
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Once we reached What Is and What Shall Never Be, roses were found everywhere in the Winchester family home. Mary is the only family member still living there.
Everywhere Mary went, pink and red flowers followed.
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Their last appearance associated with Mary was in In The Beginning.
All the pink and red flowers around Mary disappeared once it was revealed just how she came to be linked to the mytharc through the Yellow-Eyed Demon. ( After that, she started showing up in blue with white flowers or white with blue flowers. White=death, blue=sacrifice.)
When we first meet Ava here in Hunted, she seemed one thing, but then she disappeared without a trace. Where she had gone and why were a mystery. When we met her again, she was something else entirely.
Once the narrative started focusing on the mystery of Azazel’s children, yellow flowers showed up around Sam. Note the bedspread in The Kids Are All Right. It’s yellow damask. Damask is a fabric weave which is strongly associated with roses.
Note also that this is the episode in which Ruby truly entered Sam’s life and started Sam on the path that would ultimately end with him opening the Cage. At this point, orange and red flowers entered the mix. Red on Supernatural is usually associated with danger and demons. Orange in Supernatural is usually associated with temptation or something akin to what happens to you when you look to long into the abyss, going along with the theme that when you hunt monsters you run the danger of becoming monstrous yourself. But that’s a meta for another day.
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They appeared in front of Dean at his first visit to a crossroads in Crossroad Blues.
There they hinted that something was yet to be revealed regarding the fate that would bring Dean directly into the mytharc associated with Sam and the YED’s children.
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Red, blue, and yellow roses are associated with Mary, Ava, and Sam, respectively. The commonality between all of these three characters is that something was hidden, secret, yet to come to full bloom. Secrets surrounded Mary. How did she know the Yellow Eyed Demon? Just what was she? Much about her was hidden and not revealed until the 4th season. Ava had a hidden potential, too. Who knew that that sweet and quirky secretary from Peoria would develop into a manipulative, cold-blooded murderer. Sam, too, had his hidden aspect, that deep mystery that ran through the first five seasons of what had Azazel done to Sam and why.
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At first flowers followed along behind characters. Then they started appearing along the key points of the mysteries associated with the primary mytharc of the narrative.
For example, in the early scenes in Croatoan, where they appeared before the reveal of the virus and Sam’s immunity.
A red rosebush made an incongruous appearance in the window behind both Sam and Dean in Lazarus Rising, where both brothers had something they were hiding.
They appeared in Changing Channels. Once Dr. Sexy morphed into The Trickster and we learned his agenda related to the main mytharc, we didn’t see them again.
Flowers appeared in Jump the Shark prior to the reveal that Adam and his mother were long dead. Later, Adam too entered the mytharc by virtue of being John’s son.
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Once season 5 ended Kripke’s grand mytharc, flowers still make their appearance and signal that things aren’t quite what they seem, that something is yet to be revealed.
For example, they appear in the last scene when Dean and Sam part ways in Exile on Main Street, presaging that reveal that was Soulless Sam in season 6.
Blue and yellow (angelic) and orange (temptation to a long slow fall) flowers appear around Castiel once the story of Season 6 hints at just what’s been going on in heaven. At the very point in The Man Who Would Be King that Castiel expresses grave doubts, their presence hints at more happening than meets the eye.
Even Crowley gets in on the act. Here he is in First Born putting the first step of his hidden agenda into play, tempting Dean to follow him to Cain.
White (death) and red (demons, danger) flowers litter the mansion in Ask Jeeves, an episode all about fakers and liars and the things that they hide.
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Even now, flowers hint at more to come:
Here we have Claire in Things We Left Behind and her tattoo. The red (demons, danger) rose, on the same arm as Dean’s Mark, and first presented in an episode in which Claire is clearly placed in parallel to Dean lay down some pretty strong hints that there is much more to be revealed about the role that she will play.
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And here I shall leave you with the now infamous scene from Things We Left Behind in which Dean and Sam tell a tall tale in which the shadow of their father looms large.
I can only wonder what next is to be revealed about John Winchester and the effects of his parenting.
We can guess the promo is for the next three eps, or at least next two. The only…
I like that it’s not a knife like Dean’s usual blades of choice. Which means that it’s distinct from prior weapons in that it’s literally a double-edged sword. *grin*
*squints* I’m betting that’s a tornado through a doorway in the bunker, given the Oz elements that are likely to be in play when Charlie makes her return.
And is that a rifle? or very short oar? Cricket bat? Some type of “blunt object.”
Hearseeno 