Meta: Now is the ideal time to bring Bela back
Meta I posted on Tumblr last night that was inspired by this gifset, or Why S10 Is The Perfect Time To Bring Back Bela Talbot:
Okay but Bela Talbot was the most perfect foil Dean Winchester has ever had on the show:
- They both had abusive fathers whose abuse irrevocably shaped their lives.
- They both made demon deals for sympathetic reasons.
- They both died for their deals.
- They both worked outside the law and lived by their own moral codes.
- “You’re so damaged.” / “Takes one to know one.”
However, unlike Bela, of course, Dean was saved from the pit.
Bringing Bela back as a demon in S10 would make more sense than it ever has before because now she could again act as foil to demon!Dean:
- Dean became a demon not through lifetimes in Hell but because of his own hubris and a technicality. Bela would have become a demon because her soul was twisted over a millennium of torture and torturing others; she represents what Dean would have become had he not been saved.
- Dean is a Knight of Hell; he has the privilege of being in his own body, he’s already topside, and he’s automatically one of the most (if not the most) powerful demons in the universe. Bela would have had to claw her way to the top and fight tooth and nail to regain any semblance of power. Bela might also be a crossroads demon, in comparison to Dean’s Knight.
Taking wholly different routes after S3, both still ended up damned; however, their positions have switched now that Dean, the former blue collar, working class man, is in power and Bela, born into privilege, is one of the masses. With all these stark similarities and contrasts (and the potential for hot angry!sex), there would be no better time to bring Bela back than now, when Dean, too, is a demon.
Thinking of all the delicious narrative potential here and how it's going to be wasted makes me want to cry.
ETA: I just got the following message on Tumblr:
Hi, could you maybe tag your anti John Winchester posts (like the one about Bela in the Bela talbot tag) with something, like anti john? thanks.
And just, wow. I understand not tagging character hate, and I even understand tagging "anti-characters" if it's a major part of a post, but tagging "anti" in regards to a solitary reference to abusive behavior that is canonical? Just, wow.
All I can say is, I just reblogged some really excellent meta on "Bad Boys" about how the bruises on Dean's arms were probably made by John, and I tagged it "John Winchester" because it's fucking meta, and meta = / = hate, and if you think I'm going to go out of my way to protect the poor woobie feelings of apologists who identify as "pro john" (as this person's blog says), you are sadly mistaken.
/End rant, which I did here because I'm not going to respond to this person, 30% because I believe in taking the high ground and 70% because I am actually too appalled to even begin to know how to respond.