Rewatch S6: The Man Who Would Be King (6.20)
Ok, now we get to Castiel. Let's see what he's been up to...
Some notes:
1)Clothing was easy for the Winchesters - the problem was remembering to pay attention to them. :P
2)Man, this episode is HORRIBLY DEPRESSING. I would offer to give Castiel a hug, but it'd be the most awkward hug ever...and I've had some pretty awkward hugs.
"I remember being at a shoreline, watching a little grey fish heave itself up on the beach, and an older brother saying 'Don't step on that fish Castiel, big plans for that fish.'"
- I like how Supernatural ties in both Adam and Eve AND evolution.
"I remember the tower of babel - all 37 feet of it which I suppose was impressive at the time. And when it fell, they howled, 'divine wrath', but come on, dry dung can only be stacked so high."
-Hahaha, oh humans - you're so silly. This does explain though why angels think humans are so stupid. :P
"And of course I remember the most remarkable event. Remarkable, because it never came to pass. It was averted by two boys, an old drunk, and a fallen angel. The grand story, and we ripped up the ending, and the rules, and destiny, leaving nothing but freedom and choice. Which is all well and good, except, what if I've made the wrong choice, how am I supposed to know..."
-Ok, bare with me for a second, but this reminds me of Harry Potter. Before you sigh and look away, let me explain...(and uh, spoilers for Harry Potter if you hadn't read)...when asked why she had Harry survive the books, Rowling said that it was much more fascinating to her to see how a hero handles the end of the war, rather than how they fight in it. Basically, she implied that the test of Harry's bravery wasn't facing Voldemort, but rather facing the broken world after the battle was over.
-Basically, I'm saying that freedom isn't the reward for the war, freedom IS the war - the battle was just a prelude.
"Let me tell you my story, let me tell you everything."
-I think if Supernatural ever wants to freak me the fuck out and make me uncomfortable, all they have to do is have Castiel stare into the camera lens. *deer caught in headlights*
"I'd come if I could..."
"No, I get it. No worries. But Cas, you'll call, right? If you get into real trouble."
- Dean is trying to reassure himself here, but he's also trying to give Cas an opening...a way to say, 'well, as a matter of fact...I kinda messed up...' and it's painful to watch Castiel not take it.
"You said Eve could open the door to Purgatory"
"I did, and I'm confident she could have, if she was STILL ALIVE!"
-Yeah, don't put the Winchesters on a hunt where you want the prey to be taken alive. It's a very bad idea.
"I thought we agreed, no more nights out with the boys"
"I needed to speak with Dean, I needed to know what they know."
"About what? About me, maybe? Because I happen to have it on good authority that your two little pets are currently trying to HUNT ME DOWN. Forgive me, but I think you might have a little conflict of interest here."
-Ever since Castiel says it in 7x01, I've been noticing that EVERYONE calls Sam and Dean his "pets."
"I still considered myself the Winchesters' guadian. After all they taught me how to stand up, what to stand for, and what generally happens to you when you do."
-Here we get shades of Sam in S4, trying desperately to save Dean (even though Dean had already been saved by Castiel and hadn't asked Sam to save him again). Cas is trying to save the Winchesters, even though they didn't ask him to, or letting them know that's what he's doing.
-Also, part of me wonders if the lesson of "what generally happens to you when you do" isn't part of the reason Cas doesn't see the warning signs. "When you stand up for what's right, you get shit on." So, therefore, when you are getting shit on, you must be doing what's right? It's false logic, and might not be the case, but it could be a small factor.
"We had won, we had stopped Armeggedon, but at a terrible cost. So, I knew, what I had to do next. Once again, I went to harrow Hell, so that I could free Sam from Lucifer's cage. It was nearly impossible, but I was so full of confidence, of mission, I see now that that was arrogance, hubris. Because of course, I hadn't truly raised Sam, not all of him. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to be given a warning. This should have been mine."
-So, originally, I thought that "we're lucky enough to be given a warning. This should have been mine" referred to a warning that Sam had come back soulless, and the warning should have been that Sam didn't go contact Dean. Now, I'm wondering if Castiel meant that accidentally raising Sam without a soul should have been his warning that Castiel's arrogance would be his downfall...in which case, he may actually have already known that Sam was soulless, and the soul-fisting he gave Sam in YCHTT was just for show. I'm sort of leaning towards my first interpretation, just because I don't want Castiel to be THAT much of a dick...but maybe it's the latter interpretation, in which case, maybe I'd just excuse if by saying that as a soulless creature, Castiel didn't understand the importance of a soul...and that maybe, him not telling the boys he was the one that raised Sam, was just him avoiding having to tell them that he wasn't powerful enough to do it properly.
-I do think though, that part of the reason he screwed up was because Sam, unlike Dean, went to Hell inside his body. There were essentially two Sam-type objects in the cage, and Castiel just made the mistake of grabbing only one.
"I'm begging you Castiel, just kill the Winchesters."
"Fine, then I'll kill them myself."
"If you kill them, I'll just bring them back again."
-Poor Winchesters. They cannot die, because Castiel LOVES THEM TOO MUCH.
"Don't worry about them."
"Don't worry about them? What, like Lucifer didn't worry? Or Michael, or Lilith, or Azazel didn't worry? Am I the only game piece on the board that doesn't underestimate those denim clad nightmares!?"
- In my opinion, this is what makes Crowley such an intriguing and compelling character - he really doesn't underestimate the Winchesters. He doesn't arrogantly monologue, and when he does, it's lies to manipulate...and he is operates under the knowledge that at any moment, if he let's his guard down, the Winchesters COULD very well successfully kill him. It's a shame they gave up the bones.
"You know he's our friend, and we are lying to him through our teeth."
"Dean"
"So he burnt the wrong bones, so Crowley tricked him-"
"He's an angel"
"He's the Balki Bartokumus of angels. He can make a mistake."
-First off, I was a huge fan of Perfect Strangers when I was a kid, so this reference was awesome.
-Secondly, it really does break your heart to see Dean defending Castiel - especially when he is so forgiving about it.
"You think that Cas is in with Crowley. Crowley?"
"I'm saying I don't know. I hate myself for thinking it, but I don't know."
"Look, Dean, He's our friend too, and I'd die for him, I would, but- I'm praying we're wrong here."
-Sam always hides these lines in with other stuff, but they are important: "I'd die for him", or "you're my brother, and I'd die for you..." It's not a flippant remark, it never is with Sam. Cas, inevitably, betrays Sam even more than he betrays Dean, and that makes 7x01 so much more inspiring when it comes to Sam...but then, I'm getting ahead of myself.
"But if we ain't, if there's a snowball of a snowball's chance here, it means we're dealing with a Superman whose gone darkside...[...]"
"This makes you Lois Lane"
"One problem at a time, here."
-Haha, but why is Sam Lois Lane? I am confused. Who is Dean? That little photographer kid?
"And the worst part was Dean trying so hard to be loyal, every instinct telling him otherwise."
-Yes, I agree, that IS the worst part.
"If there was a demon counterpart of Bobby Singer, Elsworth would be it."
-This is a nice gag on Deadwood...which I own, but have yet to watch.
"Hey hey hey, not in here you friggin' Yeti! Out back."
-I like how this sort of evil-alternate Bobby, has an evil-alternate to the Sasquatch.
Cas attack! I do love it when Cas is a badass angel.
"I had no choice. I did it to protect the boys, or to portect myself. I don't know anymore."
- I think this can be said for EVERYTHING that he is doing.
"After supposedly saving Sam, I finally returned to Heaven. Of course, there isn't one Heaven, each soul generates it's own paradise. I favour the eternal Tuesday afternoon of an Autistic man who drowned in a bathtub in 1953."
-Dean constantly calls Castiel a child, but I don't think he is wrong. Castiel's favoured heaven seems to be that of a Man-Child from the 1950s - an era of pretty much forced simplicity.
"It was God, wasn't it."
"No, it was the Winchesters. They brought down the apocalypse."
- What do you do when you accidentally replace your God with fallible vulnerable humans, who are not omniscient?
"No, no one leads us anymore, we're all free to make our own choices and to choose our own fates."
"What does God want?"
"God wants you to have freedom."
"What does he want us to do with it?"
"If I knew then what I know now, I'd say, 'it's simple: Freedom is a length of rope, God wants you to hang yourself with it.'"
-It's like Castiel graduated university and tried to get a job. HAHAHA....I kid because life sucks,and I have debts to pay.
-Seriously though, this highlights the fault in angels...as Crowley says later, they were built to follow, not lead, and not to have freedom.
"I still question his admittance here"
"He's devote, trumps everything."
-Yeah, I don't want to go to heaven anymore. It's a good thing I'm an atheist and will just cease to exist when I die.
"Me, Castiel, allegience to me."
"You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking."
"You never look like you're joking."
-Ok, 1)this is hilarious. 2)I love Cas's disappointed face when he says that last line. 3)I think joking is a way that humans show affection, and I think that the very lack of affection among angels is one of the main reasons that Castiel loves the Winchesters so much - basically, he loves them, because they love him.
"Raphael, no. The apocalypse doesn't have to be fought."
"Of course it does. It's God's will."
"How can you say that?"
"Because it's what I want."
-So, here's the other conundrum. Let's say you follow a leader for years - you feel as though he favours you, he loves you for being his soldier. Then that leader stops giving orders...but you've been following him for years, and his orders have never gone against your own wishes and desires. What do you do? Do you cease making actions, or do you take actions based on your own opinions and desires and assume that it is what the leader wants?
"Well the other angels won't let you."
"Are you sure, you know better than anyone Castiel, they're soldiers [...] they were built to follow."
-Again, angels are built to follow. Castiel can't guarantee that they will follow him. If it's a matter of influence...if it's a matter of who was closer to the former leader (God), well, an arch-angel has Castiel beat in terms of rank.
Raphael has a scar on his chin the same place I do. I wonder if he also fell on a hockey rink as a child.
"But I didn't go to them, because I knew they would have questions I couldn't answer. Because I was afraid."
"Cas is busy."
"That's alright, we are too, come on..." *pats Dean on the shoulder*
-The subtle but noticeable extra care that Sam is taking with Dean in this episode is also a little heart breaking... and touching.
Cas attack!
"For a brief moment, I was me again."
-Also, heartbreaking. Castiel defines himself by his ability to save his friends, to be a powerful kick-ass angel.
"I'm glad I found you. I come with news"
"Yeah? What?"
"I firmly believe, Crowley is alive."
"Yeah, you think, Kojak?"
-Castiel is really bad at lying...mainly, because he underestimates the intelligence of the people he is lying to.
"Wonders never cease, they trusted me again. But it was just another lie."
-This is interesting, because Castiel feels that them NOT calling him out right away is them lying to him...except lying is a betrayal of trust, usually....and well, Castiel really isn't a position to get disappointed in them for it, yet he seems to.
"it is a little absurd though."
"I know, I know"
"Superman going to the darkside. I'm still just Castiel"
"I guess we can put away the Kryptonite, right?"
"Exactly."
-God, you can SEE Dean's heart breaking. Ugh, the pain...it's almost as though I too have a heart that has been betrayed.
"You sent demons after them!"
"You killed my hunters, why can't I kill yours?"
"They're my friends."
"You can't have friends, not any more."
- I wrote this down because it reminds me of S1, with Dean telling Sam that he can't have any friends. And yes, I know the context is COMPLETELY different...but I think, in essence, it's saying "the life you had, you must leave. The life you are trying to save, you can never have again."
"Yeah, you're the very picture of mental health. Come on, you really think I don't know what this is all about?"
"Enlighten me."
"The big lie. The Winchesters still buy it. The good Cas, the righteous Cas, and as long as they still believe it, you get to believe it. Well, I've got news for you kitten, a whore is a whore is a whore."
- Crowley hits the nail on the head here about the lie, sadly.
"I'm going to say this once, if you touch a hair on their heads, I'll tear it all down, our arrangement, everything. I'm still an angel, and I will bury you."
- 'I'm still an angel' is not something you need to say unless there is doubt.
"Castiel, angel of Thursday. It's just not your day is it?"
- I like this line because it's very meta. The show moves to Fridays, and suddenly Castiel isn't having that great a time of it.
"You want to make a deal? With me? I'm an angel, you ass; I don't have a soul to sell."
-I wonder if angels ever want souls...I guess that's part of why Anna fell.
"...You've got what they call sex appeal."
"Thank you, get to the point."
-Haha
"Please, Lucifer was a petulent child with Daddy issues. Cas, you love God. God loves you. He brought you back. Did it occur to you that maybe He did this so that you could be the new Sheriff upstairs?"
-Again, we get to the problem of the absent army commander. How do you interpret his actions? Really, this is a problem with religion itself - how do you determine the wishes of a leader who doesn't speak to you? Castiel's multiple resurrections are like words in a bible...they're there, they're supposedly the work of God, yet, how do you interpret them? (Actually, they're slightly clearer than the words in the bible, because they haven't been rewritten by men for centuries.) The answer, of course, is that you interpret them to suit your own wishes and desires best...it's why Al Qaeda and the sane/peaceful followers of Islam can have the same holy book, yet behave vastly different. It's why gay people can be burned by members of one church, and married by a minister inside of another church.
-What I'm saying is that Crowley knows just what to say to get what he wants....
"Just half."
"Half?"
"My position isn't all that stable, ducky."
-We take a break from my serious ramblings to squee over the use of the word "ducky!" which I LOVE.
"...50,000 souls from the pit. You can take them up to heaven, it'd be quite the showing. It's either this, or the apocalypse all over again - everything you worked for, everything SAM and DEAN have worked for, gone. You could save us, Castiel. God, chose you to save us, and I think deep down, you know that."
-See, this is why Crowley gets what he wants. He knows where to put the emphasis. God and the Winchesters. They are basically the Father and Mother to Castiel - they are his everything. Not only does he get to save the Winchesters, but God WANTS him too.
"You know who spies on people, Cas? Spies."
-Oh Dean, I love you.
"You gotta look at me man. You gotta level with me and tell me what's going on. Look me in the eye and tell me that you're not working with Crowley."
*Castiel actually loses a staring match*
"Son of a bitch."
- I remember when I was around 8 or 9, I discovered that it WAS possible to lie to my mother while looking directly at her. I was AMAZED with my new POWER. I now realize that I really should have felt remorse...apparently, as a child, I was a sociopath. This is why you should never trust children.
- Here, at least, Castiel feels remorse.
"To get the souls. I can stop Raphael. Please, you have to trust me."
"Trust you? How in the hell are we supposed to trust you now?"
"I'm still me. I'm still your friend. Sam, I am the one who raised you from perdition."
"What? Well, no offense, but you did a pretty piss poor job of it. Wait! Did you bring me back soulless on purpose?"
"How could you think that?"
"Well, I'm thinking a lot of things right now, Cas."
- I thought it too, when I watched these episodes for the first time. Once someone does one thing to betray you, or lie to you, it calls into question everything else...it's why couples have such a hard time mending the relationship after an affair. Which, really, is basically what this is.
"...I had no choice."
"No, you had a choice, you just made the wrong one."
"You don't understand, it's complicated."
"No, actually, it's not, and you know that. Why else would you keep it a secret, huh? Unless you knew it was wrong. When crap like this comes around, we deal with it. Like we always have. What we don't do is we don't go out and make another deal with the devil."
"It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?"
"I was there. Where were you? You should have come to us for help, Cas."
- I think, at this point, had Crowley not come, the Winchesters COULD have mended the relationship somewhat. Castiel DOES know that he made a mistake, deep down, he just isn't read for the hit to his pride that will come with admitting it.
"It's too late now, I can't turn back from this now. I can't."
"Dammit Cas, we can fix this."
"Dean! It's not broken!"
- It is. Oh, it is. But much like Dean's alcoholism...unless Cas admits that he has a problem, there's nothing much you can do for him.
"You know the difference between you and me. I know what I am. What are you, Castiel? What exactly are you willing to do."
- 'What a peculiar thing you are' - Lucifer said to Castiel when they first met, and Lucifer spoke the truth. Castiel is different from all other angels, including Lucifer, and no one, not even Castiel, knows what that means.
"You're the one that taught me, freedom and free-will-"
"You're a friggin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!"
-As someone, and man, I forget who now, sorry, pointed out in the comments of a previous rewatch post - this is the fundamental problem with Angels and freewill. Raphael said it back in 5x03. With God gone, they can do whatever they want....and they don't have souls, which, on Supernatural, basically stands in for a moral compass. Castiel, up until (and I'd argue, including) this point was the exception. And maybe that's what Castiel is - an angel with a soul, or at the very least, the morality that comes with a soul.
"I'm saying don't, just cause. I'm asking you not to. That's it."
"I don't understand-"
"Next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest thing I have to family, that you are like a brother to me, so if I'm asking you not to do something, you got to trust me, man."
-Castiel's face when Dean calls him a brother...oh man, I sometimes wonder if things would be different if Castiel had known that before...
"Or what?"
"Or I'll have to do what I've got to do to stop you."
"You can't Dean, you're just a man, I'm an angel."
-This is repeated to Bobby by Dr. Visjak in the finale..well, the "you're just a man" part. Here, it's Castiel asserting his power. As he has done with Dean before, in 4x02 (which was much harsher back then.) I wonder what answer Castiel was looking for though? Was he wondering if he would cease to be Dean's family?
"I don't know, I've taken some pretty big fish."
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"Well, I'm sorry too then."
- I like the use of the term 'big fish' it ties the episode back to the beginning with the grey-fish coming out of the ocean.
"So, that's everything. I believe it's what you would call a tragedy from the human perspective, but maybe the human perspective is limited, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you Father, one last time, am I doing the right thing?"
- Me and franztastisch were having a great discussion about Angels and Men in comments of my rewatch post for Mommy Dearest - about how the problem is that the Winchesters don't understand angels, and angels don't understand men. Here, we see Castiel vocalize that problem - is the human perspective too limited to understand the angel's plan, and that's why they don't approve? or are they correct, and Castiel can't see it because he is not human? Is it humans that are the children - the fish building towers out of dry dung and being surprised when they fall - or are the angels children, because like teens heading off to uni and away from home for the first time, they don't know how to handle their new found freedom?
"Give me a sign. Because if you don't, I'm going to ch-, if you don't, I'm going to do whatever I...whatever I must."-Must, or want? Also, I'll say it again, a good sign is the fact that none of your friends think you are doing the right thing.
Ok! So, that was a heavy episode to take on....
Tonight I'm going to a Halloween party. I'm going to watch Supernatural on the east coast feed first, but then I'm going to go to the party - which means that I'll still be typing up my quick reaction around midnight, but the episode won't be as fresh in my head. So, we'll see how it goes!