Supernatural S6: The Finale that broke Fandom
There are a lot of emotions running rampant at the moment, and for the most part, I totally feel you people. My initial sense of dread at the beginning of Episode 22, when Castiel tortures hot blonde purgatory chick (that reveal was kind of stupid, actually, totally retconing a character for plot purposes), and purposely breaks Sam's brain, all kind of just snowballed until the the last moment. I think the entire season, we've never seen Castiel do anything completely unforgivable. He's always toed the line, but never crossed it. I guess you could count killing Rachel, but we never had time to care about her before she was killed. But then, damn, knifing Balthazar in the back? That's cold.
There's all this crying about Castiel's character being ruined: well, maybe. Do I wish he was still the naive and ultimately good soldier he was at the end of Season 5? Hell yes. Do I also think his regrettable actions in season 6 were interesting and added to the complexity of his character? Of course. But it was kind of inevitable to lead to this, don't you think?
Okay, heres the thing.
Logically, after Cas gets resurrected with all his powers, perhaps even more powerful than he was, he became a narrative problem. He was TOO powerful, and he was on the Winchester's side. This entire show is about Sam and Dean, two ordinary humans against the world full of dark and scary monsters. If you have a supercharged angel on your side, where is the conflict? Season 5 took care of that by making Cas losing his powers, unable to help all the time. And that ended up with him human for a while. Perfect solution. Except that becomes moot when he's recharged again.
Enter the Raphael storyline. A pretty smart way of getting rid of that problem, I think. If Cas is occupied with a greater threat, he can't always be around to kill demons and save the Winchesters.
Except he kind of was. And the Raphael story can't last forever. So what we have now is, what do you do with Cas? You cant keep the Raphael story going forever, you cant have another heavenly threat take Cas's attention, and even if you do, he's still going to show up in the nick of time. You also cant just have him stick around forever saving Sam and Dean. You do that, there is no show.
Solution 1: Make him human again. If he's human, no instant get out of peril card. But, that already happened in Season 5.
Solution 2: Kill him. He wont be around so no saving anyone, but fandom will be pissed that there is no more Misha.
Solution 3: Make him the new threat. Misha gets to stick around, Cas no longer has the Winchester's back, and he has a new direction to grow as a character.
I cant really argue with that logic. I think it was fascinating, watching Castiel's complete unraveling. The way his pride begat his fall, watching how he has convinced himself that he has gone too far to turn back now. And then having his heart completely broken when not just Sam and Dean, but Balthazar too, his last friend, betrays him. He's not thinking straight, he has nobody, this is the only choice left to him. He cuts off any emotions he has learned, because he's an angel, and he cant deal with these things, he wasn't meant to. And he becomes something else entirely.
I love Cas, I love him more than the Winchesters (blasphemy, I know ;)). When Cas entered in Season 4, this show became something epic, something to really bite into. I liked seasons 1-3 fine, but it was forgettable to me. Something to half watch while doing homework. Cas, heaven, Lucifer, I love the shit out of that stuff. But you could already tell in season 5 that Cas's character was beginning to stagnate. They had to assign him the god hunt to keep him out of the way, they had to de-power him. There are only like two episodes that deal with Cas as a human, but then he quickly returns to how he used to be. I still think that's a bit of a cop-out.
Now, we have the potential to change Cas again. Explore a different side to him. I don't know if the writers will take advantage of this and not make Cas a two dimensional baddie the Winchesters have to take down. I hope not. His last line doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence, all "bow down to me or die". But maybe they can work with it, have a new threat that isn't all-together evil. Maybe Cas still has some part of him that is reachable. Maybe it wont be as black and white. Maybe some of his power will blow out, and he'll be f-ed up in the head, but weaker (sort of like Ilyria from Angel). I'm interested to see what they do. No, I'm not "quitting the show". Even when season 6 started, I said that Season 5 ended perfectly to me, and I didn't really care what happened from now on. I still feel that way. Season 5 was where it should have ended, but that doesn't mean I wont stop watching. Ben Edlund is still around, Eric Kripke is still around, so hey, I'm golden.
And you know people, this is exactly why we HAVE fandom. To write what we want to see. Didn't like how Cas went Godstiel? Fix it in fic! Thats the fun of it :D. I for one can't fault the direction they're going.
And like I had mentioned in vella_amor_dm's post, this whole thing reminds me a lot of Wesley's story arc on Angel. Its not exactly the same, but there are similar elements. Wes becomes convinced by the false prophecy planted by evil Wolfram & Hart that Angel is going to kill his son. Instead of go to any of his friends, he takes it upon himself to act, not wanting them involved. Wes is betrayed, and then rejected by his friends. He closes himself off emotionally, goes down some dark roads, changes as a character. When this first happened, I HATED it. I was so pissed at Whedon for ruining Wes, making everyone hate him. But it was riveting, and so interesting to see him change. Ultimately, Wes redeems himself, and Angel forgives him, but they go through a lot of rough patches before that happens. It made for some awesome TV.
I'm hoping the same thing happens with Cas. That he'll come out on the other side, changed but ultimately redeemed. I don't really know, though. The show is about Sam and Dean, not Dean and Cas, so I could be living in a pipe dream. Four months isn't that long, right......?