... further developed thoughts on why 5.19 bothered me
No idea whether anyone still cares at this point, but I went and commented all over missyjack's interesting meta post so I might as well post it here, and my previous comments were just initial reactions. So I guess this is just for completeness.
I've read various interpretations of what the episode was intending to do, including missyjack's thesis that it was a commentary on how non-judeo-christian religions are viewed in America, and others that riff on the American Gods influence.
It's possible that this is what the show intended. Like I said in my running comments on the episode, I could see the hints of a really intriguing concept that got overwhelmed and undermined by the treatment of the gods and the crappy storytelling.
However I do think there is a valid critique of how the show executed its ideas in this ep, especially when it comes to having the "pagan" gods brutally slaughter hotel residents for a meal.
Perhaps they were intending to portray all religions as destructive, the way they have portrayed the angels, but when they take minority religions in America -- such as European paganism and Hinduism-- and frame them as cannibals, I do have a problem.
There is context. Historically western culture, and especially Christianity, has demonized both European pagan beliefs as well as non-western religion like Hinduism as primitive, savage, and even as cannibalistic -- and it's worse for me when you have primarily white western writers portraying a primarily non-white, non-western religion this way.
I assume they did it as a shortcut in order to make the other gods seem as problematic as they've spent two seasons making the angels. However, even at their most brutal, when the angels such as Uriel speak of smiting a town because of one individual that poses a threat, it's not wanton violence for the sake of violence, but to serve an end of some sort. Even when Zach is torturing Adam in the Green Room in 5.18, and it's clear that most of his motivation is because he enjoys it, he has been given the complexity of characterization to explains his behavior -- Zach has been established as petty, as loving power, and as using any means to achieve his goal. In addition, we know that the angels are bigoted towards human beings, and we know that Zach has reached the end of his rope in terms of sealing the deal, so to speak.
We're not given anything like this to explain the pagan gods' motivation for killing and eating people. In fact, given Kali's speech, we're given two completely contradictory visions. They attempted to make Kali seem sympathetic and a possible ally against the angel's planned apocalypse; but they'd already established her as pro-eating-people. So ... majorly undermined point, there, guys.
The show chose a lazy path to establishing the pagan gods were as corrupt as the angels, and by doing so tripped over a bunch of tropes about how primitive and savage non-christian religions are. I doubt they intended it, but that's what was onscreen. And that's what counts.
We're just supposed to accept that of course "pagan" gods eat people, with no explanation in this case. At least in the other MoTW episodes with pagan gods we were given a reason why the gods demanded sacrifices or were killing people -- the scarecrow gave his worshipers fertile crops, the Paris Hilton god did it for survival, etc. There was no reason given in this episode for the slaughter, it was circular logic: they are pagan therefore they eat people; they eat people therefore they are pagan. It's not only problematic, it's crappy storytelling.
Of course we're supposed to be horrified by the angels' behavior, but they are not portrayed as horror movie monsters. The body count was only there for shock value and to allow Sam and Dean to rescue someone.
So yes, I find that problematic.
There is a very big difference to me between the depictions of the angels as major dicks and the depictions throughout the series of all non-judeochristian figures as monster movie monsters that eat people. For one, we get sympathetic portrayals of Christian believers alongside the less sympathetic portrayals (Layla and Sam, for example, are decent people of Christian faith, even if the show doubts that faith). We also have at least ambiguous, if not positive, depictions of angels such as Castiel and Anna and Gabriel to contrast with Zach and Uriel and the rest. We don't have anything remotely like that for the "pagan" religions the show has depicted. Any believers we have been shown, such as in "Scarecrow," are complicit in the murder of other people for their own benefit. And like I said, for all her sympathetic stance, Kali was totally for killing and eating a bunch of people for apparently no reason.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the intent was as missyjack suggests to comment on how non-judeochristian religions are viewed by American Christianity rather than a straight representation of the gods, there is a very fine line between making this comment and doing a representation. And I felt the episode was rather shoddily constructed overall, full of plot holes and contradictions, and that this line between comment and representation was made very, very blurry if not erased altogether, and that especially when you're dealing with the third largest faith in the world, one that is not western and dominated by non-white people, you better be damn sure your message gets across clearly.
Bottom line to me is that the episode felt to me like it was written exquisite-corpse style: by a couple of different people who didn't share what they had written with one another or make any attempt to reconcile the different ideas floating through the script.
icarus_chained approaches the critique from a different angle in comments here and is worth a read.
I've read various interpretations of what the episode was intending to do, including missyjack's thesis that it was a commentary on how non-judeo-christian religions are viewed in America, and others that riff on the American Gods influence.
It's possible that this is what the show intended. Like I said in my running comments on the episode, I could see the hints of a really intriguing concept that got overwhelmed and undermined by the treatment of the gods and the crappy storytelling.
However I do think there is a valid critique of how the show executed its ideas in this ep, especially when it comes to having the "pagan" gods brutally slaughter hotel residents for a meal.
Perhaps they were intending to portray all religions as destructive, the way they have portrayed the angels, but when they take minority religions in America -- such as European paganism and Hinduism-- and frame them as cannibals, I do have a problem.
There is context. Historically western culture, and especially Christianity, has demonized both European pagan beliefs as well as non-western religion like Hinduism as primitive, savage, and even as cannibalistic -- and it's worse for me when you have primarily white western writers portraying a primarily non-white, non-western religion this way.
I assume they did it as a shortcut in order to make the other gods seem as problematic as they've spent two seasons making the angels. However, even at their most brutal, when the angels such as Uriel speak of smiting a town because of one individual that poses a threat, it's not wanton violence for the sake of violence, but to serve an end of some sort. Even when Zach is torturing Adam in the Green Room in 5.18, and it's clear that most of his motivation is because he enjoys it, he has been given the complexity of characterization to explains his behavior -- Zach has been established as petty, as loving power, and as using any means to achieve his goal. In addition, we know that the angels are bigoted towards human beings, and we know that Zach has reached the end of his rope in terms of sealing the deal, so to speak.
We're not given anything like this to explain the pagan gods' motivation for killing and eating people. In fact, given Kali's speech, we're given two completely contradictory visions. They attempted to make Kali seem sympathetic and a possible ally against the angel's planned apocalypse; but they'd already established her as pro-eating-people. So ... majorly undermined point, there, guys.
The show chose a lazy path to establishing the pagan gods were as corrupt as the angels, and by doing so tripped over a bunch of tropes about how primitive and savage non-christian religions are. I doubt they intended it, but that's what was onscreen. And that's what counts.
We're just supposed to accept that of course "pagan" gods eat people, with no explanation in this case. At least in the other MoTW episodes with pagan gods we were given a reason why the gods demanded sacrifices or were killing people -- the scarecrow gave his worshipers fertile crops, the Paris Hilton god did it for survival, etc. There was no reason given in this episode for the slaughter, it was circular logic: they are pagan therefore they eat people; they eat people therefore they are pagan. It's not only problematic, it's crappy storytelling.
Of course we're supposed to be horrified by the angels' behavior, but they are not portrayed as horror movie monsters. The body count was only there for shock value and to allow Sam and Dean to rescue someone.
So yes, I find that problematic.
There is a very big difference to me between the depictions of the angels as major dicks and the depictions throughout the series of all non-judeochristian figures as monster movie monsters that eat people. For one, we get sympathetic portrayals of Christian believers alongside the less sympathetic portrayals (Layla and Sam, for example, are decent people of Christian faith, even if the show doubts that faith). We also have at least ambiguous, if not positive, depictions of angels such as Castiel and Anna and Gabriel to contrast with Zach and Uriel and the rest. We don't have anything remotely like that for the "pagan" religions the show has depicted. Any believers we have been shown, such as in "Scarecrow," are complicit in the murder of other people for their own benefit. And like I said, for all her sympathetic stance, Kali was totally for killing and eating a bunch of people for apparently no reason.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the intent was as missyjack suggests to comment on how non-judeochristian religions are viewed by American Christianity rather than a straight representation of the gods, there is a very fine line between making this comment and doing a representation. And I felt the episode was rather shoddily constructed overall, full of plot holes and contradictions, and that this line between comment and representation was made very, very blurry if not erased altogether, and that especially when you're dealing with the third largest faith in the world, one that is not western and dominated by non-white people, you better be damn sure your message gets across clearly.
Bottom line to me is that the episode felt to me like it was written exquisite-corpse style: by a couple of different people who didn't share what they had written with one another or make any attempt to reconcile the different ideas floating through the script.
icarus_chained approaches the critique from a different angle in comments here and is worth a read.