So, the Reaper Billie was introduced to us singing
nothing satisfies me but your soul
in the same episode we find out that Amara eats souls. I wonder if one of the unintended consequences of Dean killing (old) Death is that we will get desertion in the ranks among the Reapers. Billie seems the most likely candidate to actually be the new Death, but Reapers have always been tricky characters on the show, particularly under Carver. And what would serve Amara better than to have Reapers bring her souls by the bucketload. So, I wonder if Billie is indeed the new Death if she is not going to have to eat her words to Sam and align herself with the Winchesters to keep her Reapers from serving Amara.
note: a significant part of this meta is actually spec.
In Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire, Sam made a passionate speech about the need for both Winchesters to change. As has been the topic of fandom meta almost from the moment Carver took over the reigns and deliberately started setting it up, the brothers’ bond as it currently exists will need to be broken and cleansed into a healthier one. Since then the bonds with Crowley and Castiel have been explored as extensively, particularly their links with humanity, for both mainly in the form of Dean. There too, the ties that bound them were unhealthily balanced and in dire need of a redefinition. And by the looks of it, season 11 might finally do this. Breaking the bonds that exist, bonds that have become chains tying people down, looks to be season 11′s emotional and plot arc.
What stood out more than anything for me visually was the sheer number of times we saw people literally bound in chains, and figuratively bound to the Darkness. And while certainly part of this meta should be considered spec, there is little doubt in my mind why we were presented with this sheer volume of chain symbolism representing the unhealthy bonds between characters, and how these chains need to be broken if, like Sam said in the previous episode, they truly want to change.
Firstly, there is Sam, who is most heavily associated with chains this episode. Form and Void begins with him desperately searching for a means to bind one possessed by the Darkness yet bonded to him through what courses through his veins. Symbolically, it isn’t a big leap to see this as a parallel to his and Dean’s predicament.
It was Sam who spent the entirety of last season desperately trying to hold on to his brother. So, when we track through the store with Sam now, we see his hands first clutch wires that he can cut. From bonds that can be broken to those less easily severed but simultaneously are associated with captivity. He discards the first option for heavy duty chains to tie up a rabid whose words are eerily reminiscent of Dean’s in Brother’s Keeper:
Well, I started adding a comment on to THIS POST, but I realized I was writing a novel that was only peripherally related to it… So I decided to start a new post rather than totally corrupt that other one. Pffft.
Anyway, this sort of went off on a really broad tangent, so I’m putting it under a cut because nobody probably wants to read my thinky thoughts about the origins of all the energy in the universe, and what happens to monster souls when they die in Purgatory, and God as Scarface. Okay. I should call this my Grand Unification Theory of Supernatural. It’s about 90% crap, but I like it anyway.
The first time we hear about the Darkness directly, it’s from Charlie’s research into the Book of the Damned (10×18).
Okay, here’s what I’ve learned so far. About 700 years ago, a
nun locked herself away after having visions of darkness. After a few
decades squirrelled away by herself, she emerged with this. Each page is made out of slices of
her own skin written in her blood. I told you, it’s eekish. According to the notes I found, it’s been owned and
used by cults, covens, and the Vatican had it for a while. There’s a
spell inside that thing for everything. Talking some black mass, dark
magic, end-of-times nastiness. As far as what language it’s written in,
I’m thinking it’s some kind of…uh…
The first time we hear of the darkness, it’s already being associated with women. The Book of the Damned, which would open the key that had locked the Darkness up, was written by a woman who, most likely, had spent much of her life solely with other women.
I also noticed that the book is made out of self-sacrifice. The nun didn’t kill someone else to make the book – instead, she took the time (decades) to do it using her own skin, her own blood. She must have done it a page at a time, then waited until her body was healed enough to do the next page. It was a slow, painful process of dedicating her life to this, not anything quick or easy. The key that opened the lock to the Mark of Cain was made out of self-sacrifice. And, potentially like the Darkness herself, the Book was said to be indestructible (and, so far, that appears to be true).
This self-sacrifice is emphasized again in the next episode. We see that Sam is required to bleed into the lock holding the Codex that will translate the Book. We also learn that the person who wrote the Codex that can translate the Book was a woman – Nadya, a grand coven witch who was murdered by the Men of Letters, her works stolen.
Susie, the reluctant and semi-unknowing guardian of the Codex’s current lockbox, is killed during Sam’s retrieval of the Codex. The next episode, one woman is sacrificed for the cause while yet another has been imprisoned. In season 10, Sam appeared to follow closely in the footsteps of the Men of Letters – women do the majority of the work, but then a man reaps the reward.
“Strong, attractive, stylish, and multicultural this name is also the Esperanto form of Mary… But Amara is also a Sanskrit name meaning immortal and a Mongolian name meaning peaceful, and is the Italian word for bitter (same root as Maryam and Miriam) occasionally used as a first name in the Latin countries.”
Over the first few seasons the secrets of just how Mary was the source of the Winchester family’s narrative was revealed. She was revered mother, lost wife, hunter, and daughter. She was both loved partner and abandoned wife. She was the first to set off the chain of Winchester sacrificial deals. She was trained to be a hunter but desired only a safe and normal life. The audience’s and her sons’ perception of her changed over time as her story was revealed.
And here we have Amara, drawn into clear parallel with Mary by both her name and the visual motifs surrounding her.
Amara, too, is a woman of mystery and her story is a matter of perception, reinforced by both her forceful rejection of Death’s point of view and the distinctly purple tint (Purple is perception).
Here, now we have Amara, whose name has many meanings. She is immortal. She is peaceful. She is bitter. And she is Mary.
What is the aim of drawing these parallels between Amara and Mary, then?
Now, however, we seem to have come to a “stop.” The end of the road.
When asked how to get rid of The Mark, the scribe of God said, “The river shall end at its source.” Have we reached the source? The end of the journey?
Mary was the “source” of the Winchester pain and dysfunctional patterns. Is the Darkness then the “source?” Did all things begin with her? And to end we have to return to her?
Why do the people the Darkness touches have an expiry date? Within hours, they die. If they are driven to “infect” others, why then do they die within hours.
I have to wonder if they are being called “home.” The darkness is calling what is hers home to her? She existed before God and Death. God said let there be Light, and the Darkness was banished.
Is the Darkness the source of humanity’s souls? Did God plunder her power and use it to create humanity, and then put her behind a lock that engenders bitterness at unfairness of your treatment and the belief that you have the right to claim others’ lives? A lock that is fed by the splitting of another’s soul from their body?
If so, then I predict that the story of the Darkness, her sacrifice, and her bond with Dean will parallel Sam and Dean’s desire to sacrifice everything to save the other. At some point, because of his bond with the Darkness, will have to directly choose between Amara and Sam. At some point, Sam’s tendency to sacrifice himself will be brought into parallel with the Darkness’ sacrifice to preserve humanity. And so, I predict that story of the Darkness will be the vehicle by which the Winchesters examine their dysfunctional patterns that have their source in Mary.
The Darkness personified is distinctly purple. Contrast Sam’s POV inside the Darkness versus Dean’s in the opening scenes of Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire.
Supernatural makes vigorous use of visual imagery, including thematic use of color. Purple didn’t show up often in the early seasons, but it’s use has become more and more marked.
Here we have the infamous purple nurples in Tall Tales. If ever there was an episode about the power of point of view, this one was it. Was Starla “just trying to keep her liquor down?” Or was she a “class act?” I supposed it depends on who’s telling the story.
In Season 9′s Bad Boys, “the story became the story.” First love’s kiss or just another “bad boy?” “Delinquent” or a young boy desperate to feed his little brother? What was the story? Dean was away on a hunt?
And then we have Season 10′s Fan Fiction, in which “I have my story and you have yours.”
Sam takes a very purple point of view looking at his newly returned brother in Paper Moon. Everything’s all right here, right? We’re back to normal? Two brothers kicking back and enjoying the life?
But sometimes what we see is an illusion. A figment of magic and willful perception. (Executioner’s Song)
So, what is being hidden here? What is yet to be revealed?
The story became the story, a tale told by Death. The victor gets to tell the tale. But what story might the vanquished tell if she were given a voice again?
No Exit:
Exit signs have been used to hint at a character’s death before. I first noticed them in Season 2, In My Time of Dying, hinting at the fact that Dean was between worlds. His death loomed behind him. So did it appear behind Dean off and on early in Season 10, after his death and resurrection.
Now, here they are again, looming behind Sam presaging his sacrifice and imminent death in Season 11.1.
The episode “Goodbye Stranger” got me thinking. That fabulous old Supertramp song was featured in a scene of the movie “Magnolia”. Like I said in this post many of the themes of the movie are very similar to the long-running themes of Supernatural. I rewatched the movie last night and I realized it’s more than that. I think the entirety of season 8 has been pulling elements from the movie.
Here are the similar elements I saw:
-Every scene in movie has flowers or pictures of flowers in it. I think every episode of season 8 has a theosophical symbol in it. (I’m not positive about that as I didn’t notice until halfway through the season that there were many shots that lingered just a little too long on a symbol, I’ll have to go back and watch the first five or six episodes to be sure.) We’ve had the pin of the werewolf professor in “Bitten”, the Men of Letters aquarian star symbol, the tree symbol that showed up on the doomed LARPers, the symbol on the bar the witches frequent and on and on.
-In the first episode of the season we saw a mysterious hooded man outside Sam and Amelia’s house and still haven’t gotten any confirmation as to whom that was. In the movie there is a man wearing a hooded coat who we only ever see from behind. He’s referred to as “the Worm” and he’s guilty of a murder another woman has been arrested for committing.
-In the movie there is a super-smart child who is often pictured surrounded by books and is being pressured to perform well on a game-show by his father. He’s also a prophet who many people think represents Moses. In season 8, we have advanced-placement prophet Kevin Tran who is being pressured to read the word of the Lord.
-There are repeated references to Freemasonry in the movie, from symbols in the background to a character quoting their greeting as stated in Kipling’s “the Man Who Would Be King”. In season 8, we were presented with the Men of Letters, which appears to be very similar to the Masons as secret societies. (Also, as stated above, there are many theosophical symbols placed around the background of season 8.)
-People have made connections between the title of the movie and the word “Magonia” which has been described as a “purgatory in the sky to which creatures and objects inexplicably disappear and then occasionally fall back to earth”. Cas was in purgatory and then inexplicably reappeared. We know (or assume) that Naomi got him out, but to Dean and Sam this has been a mystery for most of the season. (If you’ve seen the movie, you know some things inexplicably fall from the sky. So help me, if the Colt shows back up, I’m gonna scream!!)
-There is also a movie called “Magonia” which is about a less-than-fully-sane father telling his son stories where all the characters curiously resemble people living near the father. In season 8, we’ve seen many instances of recasting of actors from prior seasons in different roles, nearly every episode.
-In the movie, reality is in question because it has decayed in the characters memories. They’re not quite sure if things in the past really happened or not and some of them have created different versions of the past from what ultimately is the truth. Dean did this with his memories of leaving Cas in Purgatory. Some people also thought that Dean’s defense of his father was odd considering that he seemed to be acknowledging that his father certainly had his faults earlier.
-In the movie, a line from the book “The Natural History of Nonsense”, which debunks superstitious belief and paranormal activity, is quoted twice. The line is “We might be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.” In season 8, we saw Sam and Dean’s paternal grandfather show up out of their motel closet (sort of like dropping inexplicably out of the sky) and completely change their knowledge of what happened in their own pasts. They had written the guy off as having abandoned their father, but instead it turns out he saves them.
-The movie pits children (some of them now grown-up, but still in the children’s camp) against adults. The kids have been compared to the Israelites and the adults to the Egyptians. All the children have been abused (physically or psychologically) or neglected by their parents, especially their fathers, and those who have grown up are miserable because of their fathers’ past deeds. Even the non-parents look down on and ignore the wisdom of the children. At one point a character says “It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels” to which one of the grown up children yells that it is not a dangerous thing to do. (Jim Beaver happens to be sitting at the bar in this scene, by the way. Also, this is the setting where “Goodbye Stranger” is playing on the jukebox.) The whole run of Supernatural has dealt with father/child issues, but I think this season they’re also dealing with the slave/master issue much like the Israelite/Egyptian theme. The humans want the supernatural entities to leave them alone…to let them go. That’s what closing the gates of both Heaven and Hell presumably means to the people.
-At the end of the movie Aimee Mann’s “Save Me” plays. The lyrics to that song are a perfect representation of Sam and Amelia’s relationship.
There were a few other little odd and ends I noticed, but this is already pretty long so I’ll stop here. Magnolia is a fabulous movie and I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it, though boy oh boy is it loaded with profanity! This season has many little puzzles and possible mis-directs and red herrings just like the movie. It’s narrated by Ricky Jay, who is noted for his mastery of slight-of-hand. I’m really interested to see if that’s what Carver has been up to as well.
ETA after season 8 finale: The bar scene in Sacrifice is very reminiscent of the bar scenes in Magnolia, and the angels falling from the sky as a climax mirrors the frogs falling from the sky in Magnolia. Also, Crowley saying that he didn’t know where to begin asking for forgiveness and Sam confessing that his biggest sin was repeatedly letting Dean down were very much like the death-bed confession of the dying father admitting that he failed his wife and son.
“So help me, if the Colt shows back up, I’m gonna scream!!”
Okay, I gotta ask for more about what you’re thinking. Funny you would say that, because I’ve been wondering when THIS will come into play:
Hearseeno 