Why? What is Robbie doing here?

Is it just simply a reference to the imprisoned feminine?

Piper in OITNB was imprisoned after she was enticed into crime because of being what she thought her lover wanted her to be. She then felt betrayed by her lover into an unjust imprisonment. The first season was all about her journey questioning who she thought she was, and perhaps concluding she wasn’t quite so innocent as she thought she was.

Or is he bringing Sam and the “imprisoned feminine” into association?

See butterflydm’s meta on the imprisoned feminine

So many themes of being hungry, worn out, and longing for more for Sam in this episode. Of experiencing intimacy, and feeling release and be succored by the encounter. But ultimately he wanted more than his partner wanted to give.

Why are there so many themes of perspective and POV these recent seasons? Why are we being drawn into feeling sympathy for The Darkness?

I keep thinking of Sam’s line about saving all of the people, even the ones who were killing because there was something wrong with them. This episode, too, was about saving the “monsters,” redeeming them and giving them peace.

Sleepsintheimpala points out that the need to break the chains that bind us, both literal and metaphorical, is an important theme this season.

Larinah pointed out that Sam was pictured flirting with yet another blonde woman at a cash register with key chains and poker chips All alluding to chains and keys and taking a gamble.

And so I wonder if we’re headed down a journey of the Winchesters trying to do things the old way. Fight the Big Bad of the season, but, ultimately, they learn to see things from The Darkness’ perspective.

And that the only solution isn’t about overpowering and imprisoning The Darkness, but the key to their problem is to take a risk, and save The Darkness, too.

Older than Souls

mittensmorgul:

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.

Keep reading

I’m of the same mind. 🙂

The River Shall End At Its Source: Amara and Mary, The Story Became the Story

The Darkness & the Imprisoned Feminine

butterflydm:

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.

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The River Shall End At Its Source: Amara and Mary, The Story Became the Story

Amara:

“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.”

I’ve said elsewhere that flowers are used in Supernatural as a means of hinting at secrets, at things that are yet to be revealed. Early in the story of Supernatural, flowers were strongly associated with Mary. She often wore pink or white or blue.

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?

Throughout season 9 and 10, we saw frequent visual motifs and narrative references to journeys. We had boats, airplanes, and cars, as well as stars and maps by which to guide them.

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.

savingpeoplegiffingthings:

Hey so, is this a thing?

Have people been talking about this and I missed it?

I was just trawling through 10×23 for some stills, and this caught my eye, and somehow I totally missed it before?

Just so we’re clear THERE’S AN ANGELLY-LOOKING THING COMING OUT OF THE DARKNESS. I don’t know what it means. But if anyone knows of any meta/discussions/ideas about this, can you send them my way? Because now I’m really curious!

I keep thinking about Pandora’s box. How the curious opened the box and let evil of all kinds into the world, and hope lay at the bottom of the box.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson

Source: savingpeoplegiffingthings