I’m just watching 10.05 Fan Fiction again, and at the VERY END when Maeve comes running down to the stage to tell Marie that the publisher’s ticket was claimed, THIS is her response:
MAEVE : The ticket you left for the publisher? Someone claimed it!
(We see the arm of a man. When Marie sees him, she’s shocked.)
MARIE : Oh my gosh! But wait… does that mean that– Calliope came for me or for–?
MAEVE : Who cares? Go, fangirl!So Marie’s very first thought on seeing Chuck, or Carver Edlund, is that maybe Calliope was there for him, because it had been his story first. But it was “Marie’s vision” they were writing and performing.
In the previous scene, though, she proved she really did understand that she was talking to “the real Dean” when she handed him the prop Samulet and told him to take it, calling him “jerk.” Dean reflex-replied “bitch,” and immediately realized how bad that must sound… But Marie just grins at him while Dean awkwardly shuffles away.
And it struck me funny, because when we see Chuck again at the end of s11, we see him repeatedly dodge claiming full responsibility for problems he’s directly responsible for. Beginning in 11.20 and running right up through the final scenes of 11.23, we see Chuck hiding out, writing a highly sanitized and self-glorifying version of his own story, foisting off the responsibility to clean up his own mess onto anyone and everyone else. He’s a hybrid slippery eel/weasel. He’s got an explanation and an excuse for everything. He’s the embodiment of obfuscation and denial whose solution to every problem is to lock it up and try to pretend it doesn’t exist.
While we’re here (and since it’s also a Robbie Thompson episode) I’ll also quickly bring up the scene in 11.04 where Sam is talking to “his dad” in his dream. I still think there’s a lot of evidence pointing to that not being Lucifer, but Chuck himself sending that particular vision to Sam.
And since 11.20 was also penned by Robbie, I think it’s only reasonable to tie a few things together for comparison’s sake. I think he was already setting up the culmination of Chuck’s story all the way back in 10.05, even if the full measure of Chuck (as God) wouldn’t finally unravel until the end of 11.23.
From 11.20:
Metatron: It’s not. But you helped the Winchesters before.
Chuck: Helped them? I’ve saved them! I’ve rebuilt Castiel more times than I can remember. Look where that got me.
Metatron: So you’re just gonna let Amara win?
Chuck: Eh, it’s her time to shine.First of all, can I point out that he used the word shine to describe The Darkness? The dark don’t shine on its own…
Okay, back to the point (hopefully!).Compare what he’s said to Metatron here, that he’s saved the Winchesters (including Castiel) over and over again, but John said this to Sam back in 11.04:
SAM: No, my father is dead.
JOHN: When has death ever stopped a Winchester?
SAM: Look, I don’t know what this is, but –
JOHN: What you said about relationships, wanting something more … I never wanted this for you boys. This life. Not really.
SAM: We turned out okay.
JOHN: You did, didn’t you? But that was on you boys. You did that, not me.
SAM: Well, you played your part.
JOHN: I did my best, anyway, for what it was worth.
SAM: This isn’t real.
JOHN: I never could fool you, could I?Let’s start with death never having stopped a Winchester. In 11.20 quoted above, Chuck claims responsibility for all the Winchester resurrections. Death hasn’t stopped them only because Chuck has repeatedly interfered to make it so. Chuck needed the Winchesters to keep doing his work for him. Sure, he complained about all the work resurrecting them again and again created for him, but he still got to hide out and take the back seat while they did all the really grueling work for him. He played his part, for what it was worth, i.e. kept the Winchesters in the game to keep doing his wetwork.
Back in 11.04, “John” tells Sam that how the boys turned out was all on them. This entire exchange works if “John” is really Chuck, as well. He goes on to say:
SAM: I prayed when I was in that church, and I saw … Something. And now, here you are, whoever you are, whatever you are. What the hell is this?
JOHN: Dream. Vision. Call it what you want. The message is still the same. The Darkness is coming … And only you boys can stop it.
SAM: Okay, fine. How? We need help, not visions of dead people.
JOHN: God helps those who help themselves.
SAM: Who are you?
Int. Impala: Sam wakes from his dream to find Dean has pulled over and is parked.Sam has seen through the illusion, he knows it’s not really his dad, and then immediately implies that Sam thinks this is the same entity who sent him the vision back in 11.02. “John” neither confirms nor denies this, but the message of the previous vision Sam got was DEFINITELY not “the same” as what he’s receiving now. His previous vision wasn’t about the Darkness coming and only Sam and Dean being able to stop it. This is distinctly new information for Sam.
The “God helps those who help themselves” line has always bugged me, because that’s really what Chuck has always done, at least as far as the Winchesters are concerned. His help has never been particularly helpful, other than keeping them in play on his giant game board.
Telling Sam that “only you boys can stop it,” well… we know full well after 11.23 that no, ONLY Chuck and Amara themselves can stop it. Only going all the way back to the river’s ugly source can they actually stop it, and that source was Chuck betraying Amara and locking her away in the first place.
So finally getting back to the original point here, way back in 10.05 where Marie sort of sees straight through to the heart of the issue (since Robbie has just shown us that she also saw through Dean’s mask, much the same way he showed us that Mildred saw through his mask in 11.11.. Robbie loves writing the Wise Women), and got it even just for a second that hey, maybe Calliope wasn’t there to eat HER, but because of CHUCK being there. She was just the “puppet” that stood in for the REAL AUTHOR OF THE STORY.
I think even just for a split second, Marie realized she might have been nothing more than a proxy, a stand-in stunt double, for a higher power. Because we know from 11.20-11.23 that that is exactly Chuck’s modus operandi when it comes to handling his problems.
It’s what he tried to convince Sam to do in 11.04. It’s what he tried to convince Metatron to do in 11.20. It’s what he tried to convince EVERYONE to do in 11.22. It’s the responsibility he tried one last time to foist off to Dean with the ridiculous Soul Bomb plan. And finally in 11.23, Amara refused to let the game continue and brought them face to face to finally hash out their issues themselves. No more proxies, no more puppets, no more hiding.
And it all started with this one little acknowledgement to Marie. When she asked him what he thought of her version of his story, he said, “Not bad.”
It was the first step in him acknowledging one of his proxies and validating their work. And it only comes full circle at the end of 11.23 when he basically says the same thing to Dean.
Ugh, reblobbed again because I left off one of the points I wanted to add here, and that’s the fact that Chuck himself was the one who reminded me of Sam’s 11.04 dream again in 11.21:
Chuck: You’re frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on – Real hands-on, for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created… would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being overinvolved is no longer parenting. It’s enabling.
Dean: But it didn’t get better.
Chuck: Wel,l, I’ve been mulling it over. And from where I sit, I think it has.
Dean: Well from where I sit, it feels like you left us and you’re trying to to justify.
Chuck: I know you had a complicated upbringing, Dean. But don’t confuse me with your dad.Don’t confuse me with your dad.
Is it one more deflection from Dean’s accusations? One more attempt for Chuck to shift the blame and avoid the real issue: that everything has been one long slippery slope we can trace all the way back to locking up the Darkness.
And that reminded me of this post I made a while ago about whose fault this whole mess really is.
Okay, I need to stop thinking about this for a while now. 😀
Tag: season 11
Hint: The Greens Dept at #Supernatural is very busy for the season 11 finale episode! @cw_spn #SPNFamily
Oh-kay! *cracks knuckles* Here we go.
A long, long time ago (season 2?), in a meta community far, far away (LJ), we had an explosion of speculation about flowers.
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.
I would argue that flowers are used as a visual motifs to hint at secrets, that there are things yet to be revealed.
~*~
Let me take you way, way back to the beginning.
~*~
Way back in season 1, I believe it was sadelyrate who pointed out the associate between Mary and roses.
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?
~*~
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.
~*~
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.)
~*~
Mary isn’t the only character with whom flowers were associated. Mary’s flowers may have been pink and red, but bowtrunckle pointed out that blue roses were associated with Ava.
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.
~*~
bowtrunckle then pointed out that Sam and the other children were associated with flowers the color of Azazel’s eyes
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.
~*~
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.
Read more about flowers as a visual motif in Supernatural
Now, here we have Season 11 and a nice intro to Amara/The Darkness that involves, you guessed it, more flowers.
Yellow (yellow=supernatural) and purple flowers (purple = perspective/POV/The Story that became the story), no less. And yes, she’s a supernatural being that definitely has a different perspective, a different angle on the story of creation than has been told so far.
The association between The Darkness and flowers didn’t end there, either. Here she is as the infant Amara.
At that point, I speculated that an association was being drawn between Amara and Mary, most likely tinged with the theme of sacrifice.
I thought that once we learned who The Darkness was, the association with flowers would end. And it has…. but, we’re still seeing young girls/infants associated with pink, blue and white flowers. (Zoe in Just My Imagination, baby Eileen in Into the Mystic, Kat in Safe House)
The feminine, the vulnerable, threatened by the supernatural, who survive and cope/fight/thrive in their own way.
And now we have Jim Michaels teasing lots of red (danger/demons), yellow (supernatural), orange (temptation/perhaps we stared into the abyss too long), and blue (sacrifice) flowers for the season finale. All very interesting.
Has anyone poured in a ton of thought to the ongoing reverse Cain prophecy dealio? It’s still working backwards in chronological order for Dean’s life vs his except I think we’ve kind of run out of backwards prophecy happening with the opposite effect at this point? (it was firmly established that Cain was Half Right about it all as in the order existed but the end result of the action was “reverse” to what he did as well – since Cain killed Abel to save him from Lucifer, Dean spared Sam and he… did the thing)
Or is there a speculation for how this would work carrying on in reverse effect from the point of subversion that just happened?? Like, following on backwards from Cain’s story??? I’m just wondering if anyone’s put any energy into exploring this since I haven’t even tried thinking it through yet and that’s a lot of threads to gather together and I can hold maybe 2 potato in my thoughts right now…
I was just kind of thinking about that, because now we’ve zipped on past “I killed my brother” to “My brother was talking to Lucifer, not God” and does this end with the gates of Eden being opened back up, and if you take it back far enough the undoing of Creation? that’s a little trippy.
Ah! Yes! Because I’ve been wondering about Amara vs Creation. She seemed kind of… content with the actual making of the world and it was just the metaphysics of souls and Heaven and God’s interaction with it that she’s currently got umbrage with. But she also seems to be veering dangerously close to someone who could and would unravel the whole thing out of spite to God? Like, I am concerned she’d want to unravel it and she definitely has the means to.
If we’re working backwards though from Cain and Abel that does mean we’re working backwards through the book of Genesis right? It’s all in that one book? (look who never had to study the Bible for anything ever and knows it mostly by hearsay :P)
@larinah I (assume) was talking about how the darkness and light were at the start of the Bible? I can’t remember or figure out how to find those posts on my blog right now. 😛 But I am pretty sure there was something about the light being split from the darkness and if the speculation that Amara and God need to smush back together into one cosmic entity to settle this dispute is worth anything, that will literally be running through to the start??
I don’t know why you would assume it was me talking about the bible. I hardly ever talk about the bible. (*Pretends that she didn’t used to teach Sunday School and lead a Bible Study group for years before becoming an atheist*)
But, yeah, I was. 😛
I was also a couple of years ago talking about Metatron pushing a big ‘restart’ button up there along with all his cosmic levers, because I’d bet money that was his original storyline before everything got accordioned out. And then I was thinking that that was the story that perhaps got moved over to THE DARKNESS as the show keeps getting renewed. I was thinking of it as Metatron making the big wheel in the sky spin around again for a do-over with him as the creator, but it’s interesting to think of it as THE DARKNESS spinning the wheel around in reverse for an undo instead.
She did say something about God thinking he could create better than she could, so she must have had some designs way back in the beginning herself.
Hmmm, so then does that mean that Mary and John are going to have to undress as Mary spits out an apple. Mary is reduced to a rib, which leaps into John’s chest. He unnames all the animals and when done, lays down to dissolve into the mud?
I don’t know, but that last bit there is a pretty Bokononist thing to say!!
(Which would be surprisingly fitting for all of this!)
And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can
see what We have done.” And God created every living creature that now
moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close
as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is
the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.
“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.
“Certainly,” said man.
“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God.
And He went away.——
God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait…
To find out for certain what my wampeter was…
And who was in my karass…
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.
“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.
“Certainly,” said man.
“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God.
And He went away.
Excellent! I love it. I need to read more Vonnegut. I’m ashamed I haven’t so far in my life.
Hmmm. Making me think, here. Amara’s certainly all about the bliss of submission and abnegation of the self. I wonder if the fact that humans giving the world meaning and free will only being possible if God goes away is the lesson that she needs to learn. Not a new lesson in SPN.
Has anyone poured in a ton of thought to the ongoing reverse Cain prophecy dealio? It’s still working backwards in chronological order for Dean’s life vs his except I think we’ve kind of run out of backwards prophecy happening with the opposite effect at this point? (it was firmly established that Cain was Half Right about it all as in the order existed but the end result of the action was “reverse” to what he did as well – since Cain killed Abel to save him from Lucifer, Dean spared Sam and he… did the thing)
Or is there a speculation for how this would work carrying on in reverse effect from the point of subversion that just happened?? Like, following on backwards from Cain’s story??? I’m just wondering if anyone’s put any energy into exploring this since I haven’t even tried thinking it through yet and that’s a lot of threads to gather together and I can hold maybe 2 potato in my thoughts right now…
I was just kind of thinking about that, because now we’ve zipped on past “I killed my brother” to “My brother was talking to Lucifer, not God” and does this end with the gates of Eden being opened back up, and if you take it back far enough the undoing of Creation? that’s a little trippy.
Ah! Yes! Because I’ve been wondering about Amara vs Creation. She seemed kind of… content with the actual making of the world and it was just the metaphysics of souls and Heaven and God’s interaction with it that she’s currently got umbrage with. But she also seems to be veering dangerously close to someone who could and would unravel the whole thing out of spite to God? Like, I am concerned she’d want to unravel it and she definitely has the means to.
If we’re working backwards though from Cain and Abel that does mean we’re working backwards through the book of Genesis right? It’s all in that one book? (look who never had to study the Bible for anything ever and knows it mostly by hearsay :P)
@larinah I (assume) was talking about how the darkness and light were at the start of the Bible? I can’t remember or figure out how to find those posts on my blog right now. 😛 But I am pretty sure there was something about the light being split from the darkness and if the speculation that Amara and God need to smush back together into one cosmic entity to settle this dispute is worth anything, that will literally be running through to the start??
I don’t know why you would assume it was me talking about the bible. I hardly ever talk about the bible. (*Pretends that she didn’t used to teach Sunday School and lead a Bible Study group for years before becoming an atheist*)
But, yeah, I was. 😛
I was also a couple of years ago talking about Metatron pushing a big ‘restart’ button up there along with all his cosmic levers, because I’d bet money that was his original storyline before everything got accordioned out. And then I was thinking that that was the story that perhaps got moved over to THE DARKNESS as the show keeps getting renewed. I was thinking of it as Metatron making the big wheel in the sky spin around again for a do-over with him as the creator, but it’s interesting to think of it as THE DARKNESS spinning the wheel around in reverse for an undo instead.
She did say something about God thinking he could create better than she could, so she must have had some designs way back in the beginning herself.
Hmmm, so then does that mean that Mary and John are going to have to undress as Mary spits out an apple. Mary is reduced to a rib, which leaps into John’s chest. He unnames all the animals and when done, lays down to dissolve into the mud?
It was JUST my iMAGiNAtion, (once again), RUNNin’ away with MEEE, yeah…. Oh… Sully was there to run away with Sam (once again).
Me. (*facepalm*) I’m really slow sometimes.
The state of the soul, whose hand’s on the wheel?
I’ve seen lots of speculation about the state of Dean’s soul. What does the bond with The Darkness mean who’s in the driver seat of his destiny. Like Castiel and the Attack Dog curse, he is a “puppet” under someone else’s control? I have to wonder if no soul among the members of Team Free Will is untouched.
We saw this:
and then this:
Souls escaping from a cage, huh? We’re definitely being teased with something. There’s the definitely the threat of Lucifer and Michael escaping from the imprisonment.
But I had to ask myself, when was the last time we saw snarky Sam, without a filter?
Was it here?
When was the last time we saw Sam indulge in a one-night stand?
Numbers were exchanged, or at least the attempt was made.
So, whose chain is being yanked, and who is doing the yanking?
Eat or be eaten.
I still think it’s interesting that Amara (who could be considered a human incarnation of THE DARKNESS) eats souls, while Jesus (who many consider to be the human incarnation of YAHWEH) offered his body and blood for others to eat for the nourishment of their souls. (Not that he’s the only divine one to do that.)
Like, he’s considered a sin-eater while she’s a soul-eater. He took on the burden of sin for those who believe it, and she seems to be taking on some of the burden of having a soul (even though some people like Len consider that to be a bad thing while others like Sydney thought it was good). Part of the burden of having a soul is the burden of sin…so maybe in a very twisted way these cousins are doing the same thing through opposite actions?
I guess it depends on what’s happening to the souls Amara eats. Do they disappear upon ‘digestion’ or is there still something of them left? Are they going somewhere like when reapers usher the souls of the dead on to Heaven/Hell/The Veil, or are they completely broken down and gone forever?
(Am I going anywhere with this? I dunno. :P)
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.
Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner
Who’s in the driver’s seat?
The Impala is often a stand-in for Dean’s soul, and I’m not the first person to draw this parallel between the bloody handprint on the car’s window and the scar on Dean’s shoulder.
I’m also not the first person to comment that every driver in this episode reflects something about Dean.
What I would like to comment on is that each driver reflect on the journey taken by Dean’s soul and who has had the charge of directing its course.
Here we have young, joy riding Jessie. The soul is not hers. But her job is to ferry it to a place where it rests and waits, and she expects to be paid for her efforts.
Dean’s soul has not just seen it’s share of reapers, but a monster has been behind the wheel, as well. Is he a man? Is he a monster? When he looks in the mirror, what will he see?
And here the most poignant of all.
John Winchester in the driver’s seat, directing any and all choices Dean made. He did his best, “anyway, for what it was worth.” But still, his legacy is still played out today. He “played [his] part” in setting them on the path that takes Sam and Dean to this point.
Dean, the man that John Winchester made and then sent out into the world.
What choices will Dean make? Who will be in the driver’s seat? Will Sam still be “Sam,” not “Samuel” and not John’s “son”?
We’re all in the car. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat, Dad’s sitting shotgun. But there aren’t any shotguns. There’s no monsters. There’s no hunting. There’s none of that. It’s just… He’s teaching me how to drive. And, uh, I’m not little like when he actually taught me how to drive. I’m 16, and he’s helping me get my learner’s permit. Of course, you’re in the backseat, just begging to take a turn. We pull up to the house, the family house, and I park in the driveway, and he looks over and he says, “Perfect landing, son.”
The dream isn’t just about having a home and something more, it’s also about the longing for what wasn’t. It’s about grieving the fantasy of the family that you wish you had had, the one you needed. The one that let you be in the driver’s seat of your destiny, but was there with you, guiding, mentoring, and giving you praise for a job well done. It’s about letting it go, and taking a firm grasp of the wheel and setting your own path.
Hearseeno 