Castiel and creator intentions: evil is not an option
9 Reasons The Writers Have Been Going About It Wrong...
If Kripke Has Been Planning To Screw Us Over All Along
A non-traditional meta of sorts, I guess you could call it - a compilation of interview evidence which shows why Castiel's loyalty is not an issue. No spoilers beyond aired episodes in Season 5 : )
Why Cas being a hidden evil double agent of doom is out of the question...
So, big Castiel fan here, probably to the extent where I could call myself a Cas-girl, heh...and I think the people here in this comm would feel pretty much exactly the way I do about the angel.
It's a given, for me, that Castiel is a good guy, and every episode only confirms it further. I don't believe his loyalty is even in question, and I don't believe there's anything within the show itself to support questionability. I'm not in doubt. Everything about his story screams that he's a hero in the tale.
However, lately there have been the old whispers - you know the ones - the ones which go something like:
"But Kripke could do anything!"
It shows up whether used as support for hater 'arguments' that Castiel should not be trusted at all costs, or just the natural, troubling doubt that comes from being a Cas fan surrounded with such 'theories' and supposedly confronted with a TV show that will and does do anything (I'd say that's exaggerated - but that's another post ;) ).
The idea that Kripke & Co. are waiting in the wings to 'screw us over' by taking a beloved character and changing his essence completely, making him something that he didn't at all appear to be - except to a select, insightful few - it seems to be an all-pervading fear.
But stopping to think about it - why? Because it would be an 'awesome' knockout 'twist'? No - all twists need real clues to make them supportable. Dreading it just because it would be 'unexpected' as a result of no clues in the story seems illogical at best. Such a 'reveal' of Castiel being evil all along wouldn't be smart, it wouldn't be awesome, and would be a real waste of a season or two of genuine character development.
This won't examine 'within the show' evidence about Cas because like I said, on that front there's nothing more to convince me and I'd guess most of you; rather, this focuses on the creators of the character themselves and why:
(1) Cas being a sleeper agent hasn't crossed their minds or been in their plans at all
(2) It would need a whole lot of ret-conning to undo something they put a lot of effort and thought into to achieve in the first place.
All quotes are taken from various interviews by the writers and Misha throughout Season 4, the break, and Season 5.
By the end I hope to have assuaged fears about Kripke & Co. going all wicked on us and making Castiel what would possibly be the Most Diabolical Undercover Villain in all of fictional history ; )
But enough foreplay, onto the reasons!
(1) People do not state hopes that their evil guys have funny and poignant character development.
They do not give them said funny and poignant development stories. They don't devote considerable time to these stories purely for audience deception.
If Ruby=Castiel, I guess I missed the episode where Ruby and Sam went to the movies and sipped milkshakes from a shared glass...
~~~EK : Cass returns to the show as a hunted fugitive. All of Heaven is out to kill him. Some of his powers are beginning to fade. In short, he’s totally boned. But on top of that, he has an interesting story arc. Now that he’s cut off from heaven, he’s learning more and more, how to be human. Which leads to stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and hopefully both. ~~~
(2) People do not transparently and extensively talk about a character's individual arc, a character's mission (that is in fact revealed exactly as promised), and a character's personality, while in fact being utterly deceptive about it the whole time.
People keep their evil, ambiguous guys' cards held close to their chests and avoid talking about them at all if possible...
~~~[Let’s talk about Castiel’s arc. What’s his status? Is he the same guy? Same abilities?]
Misha: ...He lost a bit of his angel mojo, he lost some friends, and has a very ambitious mission he’s on, it’ll be very satisfying for you.-he's emotionally cut off from heaven and a bit afraid.
EK: But yeah, it’s kind of an epic arc. He’s cut off from heaven and in full-on rebellion mode. But he goes through his own mythology arc and emotionally at that. Castiel must become human in a way, he’s not an ethereal angel anymore. One teaser title from an upcoming episode: Dean Takes Cas to a Whorehouse.~~~
~~~SG: Castiel has an amazing story this season. Misha Collins is with us as a series regular, and we have a lot planned for him, and I am very excited about that. ~~~
~~~BE: We're looking towards the most classic horror story of them all - it's called the Bible. That's what we've been looking at for a while now. It's like a dual-gender seminary, howling off and trying to figure out where God is. ~~~
(3) People do not out-and-out refer to their evil guys as heroes, pals, buddies, and allies.
~~~EK: Our band of hunters have resorted to living in the woods, protecting as many terrified survivors as they can. When we meet our heroes in the future, we’ll see that time has changed them. Especially Castiel. ~~~
~~~[Is Bobby their only ally or will others come in to help during the season?]
EK: When we first come back in the season opener, Castiel is dead, destroyed by the Archangel. So there’s some moments when we wonder if they’ll have the help of their old angel pal Cas. There’s always allies, sometimes in unlikely places. But it’s always the idea of this small scared sweaty group up against overwhelming forces, and that’s kind of where the heart of Supernatural lies. ~~~
(4) People do not bother hugely expanding on the situation of or expressing a fond desire to psychologically torture their evil and unsympathetic guys. And clearly by 'four good guys' against the universe, Kripke meant Sam, Dean, Bobby, and...Zachariah? ; )
~~~Can you expand at all on Castiel's decision at the end to be defiant [at the end of season four]?
EK: Castiel's totally, totally screwed in season five. You'll even see the clip at the panel. Things didn't end well with him and the archangel that came down. I can say that throughout episode one he is dead and exploded into gorey smithereens. And if you notice he's [right here], so I wouldn't sweat it too much. He's on the run, he's fallen, they're hunting him down, he's cut off from where he was, he's lost, alone and scared with the guys. Everyone's totally boned as they are trying to stop the apocalypse from happening. There's basically about four good guys against the universe, trying to stop the apocalypse.~~~
~~~SG: Supernatural's bread and butter is the psychological torture of the Winchester boys. And now we have Castiel on a fairly regular basis, and he is present in the boys' lives enough that we see a little of a humanizing of him. When an angel becomes more emotional and more human, then they become easier to psychologically torture as well. There's plenty of that to go around.~~~
(5) People do not out-and-out lie about what their characters feel, especially when discussing the reasons for following a specific path in regards to a character. Multiple times.
~~~SG: I doubt anyone needs me to point out that Misha is doing a great job. He's very sharp. As for the direction Castiel's going, I don't want to give away too much. In his relationship with Dean...Castiel genuinely likes Dean. And that is going to create difficulties for him.~~~
~~~SG: Being wrapped up with what’s going on with Sam and Dean is really dangerous for an angel like Castiel. He is getting to like Dean quite a bit...~~~
~~~SG: And it's interesting to me, by the way, that you call the angels "unfeeling" and "wrathful," because I don't see them that way. Castiel wrestles hard with his obedience. Turns out it's really hard for angels to walk among humans and not get kinda... involved. ~~~
(6) People do not turn the well-established techniques such as soliloquy and dramatic irony on their heads purely to deceive the audience.
Shows do not open from the point of view of an evil character and within that scene give unambiguous visual cues that they are intending to make the character a hero of the tale. (4.16)
~~~
4.07 --> Castiel and Uriel, by themselves, arguing.
4.10 --> Uriel, with disdain: “He [Castiel] likes you [Dean].”
4.16 --> Castiel, alone, agonising.
--> Castiel and Uriel, by themselves, fighting to the death.
4.21 --> Castiel, alone, agonising.
5.04 --> Castiel, alone, waiting.
--> Zachariah, alone: “Son of a *****!”
~~~
(7) People do not overtly praise their actors for conveying things that they were never intended to convey, or are not in fact conveying. People do not specifically direct their actors into conveying things that the evil guy is really not supposed to be conveying. People do not bring up their actor and their actor's choices time and time again if the character is a shady evil guy whose motives are ambiguous.
People do not have ALL their writers doing exactly the same thing.
You do not see the honesty in a performance, fall in love with it, and think, on second thoughts, how awesome it would be to pervert this?! You do not see the object of fans' affections, be pleasantly surprised at his reception, and proceed to not retain the qualities that the fans saw in him in the first place...
~~~ Misha: [And Kripke said:] "Can you do it again with more of a quality of innocence and curiosity about how it is these humans behave.” And it was that naiveté about human beings in general that really informed how I play Castiel.~~~
~~~Singer: Once we cast Misha Collins [as Castiel] and saw him on film, we said, “Oh, this is really going to be great stuff.” ~~~
~~~EK: None of that would have meant anything if we hadn’t lucked into Misha, who just came in to audition, and [you see on the show] everything he does in that part - the way he kind of views humans as curious [creatures], that otherworldly thing. He’s alien-like; you can really feel that he doesn’t have a lot of interaction with humanity. He just brought all that to the role, and he just took off like a shot. You could tell from the minute we saw the dailies of the season opener last year, we just couldn’t believe how good he was and what presence he had and all the depth that he brought to it. And it was just so exciting to see. ~~~
~~~In that first confrontation scene between Dean and Castiel, Collin’s[sic] character has a very childlike innocent quality about him...that childlike quality seemed to be the pivotal thing that has endeared him to many fans.
I asked Misha Collins where the decision to play the character of Castiel this way came from.
“Eric Kripke told me that Castiel has never been up close with humans before, so he has an innocent curiosity about people...Most of my work is taken directly from Eric Kripke and the other writers’ work. They gave me very specific, fleshed out material to work with and that made it really easy.”~~~
(8) People do not lead their actors down the garden path, give them all sorts of false info, and warp that actor's choices to mean something he is not portraying - and the actors themselves are never that clueless or that deceptive. Yes, I know it's Misha Collins and he loves playing with fans, but you can tell when the man is joking! - and that's not here. :p
~~~Misha: “I got two kinds of direction before we actually shot. One was that Castiel hasn’t been around human beings for 2,000 years, so there’s a curiosity when he looks at people. ‘How do these strange beings behave?’ It’s fun to play, interacting with Dean and Sam, looking at them like, ‘What are you doing?’“ And the other one was that he is compassionate. At first brush, reading the first and second scripts, it looked like this guy is just tough, just mean, just bad-ass. But they wanted that (compassionate) aspect as well, the more angelic side, a little of both.”~~~
~~~Misha: Cas doesn't know how he came back. He has his suspicions. He thinks he knows how he came back, but he doesn't have any proof of it. He's trying to piece together how [it happened] and if it's what he thinks it is, it's quite amazing...When I read the script for the second episode, I was stunned by the mission that Cas is going on. It is epic beyond belief. It's the most ambitious conceivable mission and that is not hyperbole. ~~~
~~~Misha:...my angel did always seem somewhat beleaguered and certainly a bit bedraggled...Castiel is being put through the proverbial wringer now more than ever. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think the biggest challenge - aside from not laughing during takes - is taking something seemingly so fanciful as an angel with super-powers dressed as Columbo and making something real and empathetic about him. ~~~
~~~Misha: I'm helping them sort things out but I've also got a mission of my own, which is revealed in the second episode. I'm there helping them help sort stuff out, but we're also being collectively pursued by all of the forces of heaven and all of the forces of hell. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think my favorite thing about this character has been playing with discovering what it's like to be a human. His exposure to humanity is a learning process for him, and he's constantly learning new things about what it is to be human. That's the most fun. ~~~
~~~Misha: He has a conscience and he's trying to save the world. His motives are good. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think he’s got his own agenda which will be revealed in episode two. [finding God]~~~
(9) Finally, it does not matter that their names are Eric Kripke, or Misha Collins...owners of diabolical reputations, who are actually overwhelmingly honest in my opinion.
They can't possibly be that much of Brilliant And Sadistic Lying Liars Who Lie that they lie between their teeth every time they draw breath.
The writers can't all possibly be keeping up such a consistent sham that they talk about so apparently openly.
I don't think Dan Brown wants to write a book about them.
Lying consistently for over a year when it is very easy to just be coy with information?
Taking a lot of effort to set up a character as a round character, an individual, a hero - acknowledging that he is widely loved and acting accordingly - before revealing that he was one gigantic plot device?
Breaking all sorts of writer conventions and narrative rules along the way?
They're doing that?
All for the sake of slyly screwing over a bunch of fans?
Somehow, I really don't think so :)
Sometimes it's easy to forget that the creators can care about their characters as much as we do - if we would be upset at something which to us goes against all the integrity of Castiel, there's little to say that the writers would be 'delighted' to turn things upside down, especially when it strongly, strongly appears that we're seeing exactly what they are intending to show.
To have all this intriguing, intricate characterisation - everything we know of Castiel - be false? It's just too entirely far-fetched. And it's what is required if these 'untrustworthy' and 'well-played evil' labels are to hold. If what we've been watching throughout seasons 4 and 5 is the real Castiel - and there's no reason to believe that it isn't, what with the enormous depth they have created with the character - then there's no reason to worry.
In the end, it is still technically true that they can do whatever they darn well want. But the question remains: when they have made this beautiful, compelling, sympathetic character with an individual arc, given us - for all intents and purposes - his doubts, fears, hopes, dreams, motivations, a meaningful relationship with Dean, and resounding inner struggles - why would they want to change this? Why would they want to render it all completely useless when they have devoted good time to it?
Quite simply, they wouldn't. The old catch-cry of "But Kripke could do anything!" just doesn't gel here as The Unbeatable Argument and shouldn't be A Hovering Fear. We all might have felt that this was so but I thought it could help to try and put a finger on why.
So I hope I've done something to reassure fellow Cas fans that our beautiful angel is exactly what he appears to be. Castiel is his own character, with his own journey - one we've been seeing unfold on screen, and more importantly in this case, one that the character's creators have been intending for us to enjoy. ~~ Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
If Kripke Has Been Planning To Screw Us Over All Along
A non-traditional meta of sorts, I guess you could call it - a compilation of interview evidence which shows why Castiel's loyalty is not an issue. No spoilers beyond aired episodes in Season 5 : )
Why Cas being a hidden evil double agent of doom is out of the question...
So, big Castiel fan here, probably to the extent where I could call myself a Cas-girl, heh...and I think the people here in this comm would feel pretty much exactly the way I do about the angel.
It's a given, for me, that Castiel is a good guy, and every episode only confirms it further. I don't believe his loyalty is even in question, and I don't believe there's anything within the show itself to support questionability. I'm not in doubt. Everything about his story screams that he's a hero in the tale.
However, lately there have been the old whispers - you know the ones - the ones which go something like:
"But Kripke could do anything!"
It shows up whether used as support for hater 'arguments' that Castiel should not be trusted at all costs, or just the natural, troubling doubt that comes from being a Cas fan surrounded with such 'theories' and supposedly confronted with a TV show that will and does do anything (I'd say that's exaggerated - but that's another post ;) ).
The idea that Kripke & Co. are waiting in the wings to 'screw us over' by taking a beloved character and changing his essence completely, making him something that he didn't at all appear to be - except to a select, insightful few - it seems to be an all-pervading fear.
But stopping to think about it - why? Because it would be an 'awesome' knockout 'twist'? No - all twists need real clues to make them supportable. Dreading it just because it would be 'unexpected' as a result of no clues in the story seems illogical at best. Such a 'reveal' of Castiel being evil all along wouldn't be smart, it wouldn't be awesome, and would be a real waste of a season or two of genuine character development.
This won't examine 'within the show' evidence about Cas because like I said, on that front there's nothing more to convince me and I'd guess most of you; rather, this focuses on the creators of the character themselves and why:
(1) Cas being a sleeper agent hasn't crossed their minds or been in their plans at all
(2) It would need a whole lot of ret-conning to undo something they put a lot of effort and thought into to achieve in the first place.
All quotes are taken from various interviews by the writers and Misha throughout Season 4, the break, and Season 5.
By the end I hope to have assuaged fears about Kripke & Co. going all wicked on us and making Castiel what would possibly be the Most Diabolical Undercover Villain in all of fictional history ; )
But enough foreplay, onto the reasons!
(1) People do not state hopes that their evil guys have funny and poignant character development.
They do not give them said funny and poignant development stories. They don't devote considerable time to these stories purely for audience deception.
If Ruby=Castiel, I guess I missed the episode where Ruby and Sam went to the movies and sipped milkshakes from a shared glass...
~~~EK : Cass returns to the show as a hunted fugitive. All of Heaven is out to kill him. Some of his powers are beginning to fade. In short, he’s totally boned. But on top of that, he has an interesting story arc. Now that he’s cut off from heaven, he’s learning more and more, how to be human. Which leads to stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and hopefully both. ~~~
(2) People do not transparently and extensively talk about a character's individual arc, a character's mission (that is in fact revealed exactly as promised), and a character's personality, while in fact being utterly deceptive about it the whole time.
People keep their evil, ambiguous guys' cards held close to their chests and avoid talking about them at all if possible...
~~~[Let’s talk about Castiel’s arc. What’s his status? Is he the same guy? Same abilities?]
Misha: ...He lost a bit of his angel mojo, he lost some friends, and has a very ambitious mission he’s on, it’ll be very satisfying for you.-he's emotionally cut off from heaven and a bit afraid.
EK: But yeah, it’s kind of an epic arc. He’s cut off from heaven and in full-on rebellion mode. But he goes through his own mythology arc and emotionally at that. Castiel must become human in a way, he’s not an ethereal angel anymore. One teaser title from an upcoming episode: Dean Takes Cas to a Whorehouse.~~~
~~~SG: Castiel has an amazing story this season. Misha Collins is with us as a series regular, and we have a lot planned for him, and I am very excited about that. ~~~
~~~BE: We're looking towards the most classic horror story of them all - it's called the Bible. That's what we've been looking at for a while now. It's like a dual-gender seminary, howling off and trying to figure out where God is. ~~~
(3) People do not out-and-out refer to their evil guys as heroes, pals, buddies, and allies.
~~~EK: Our band of hunters have resorted to living in the woods, protecting as many terrified survivors as they can. When we meet our heroes in the future, we’ll see that time has changed them. Especially Castiel. ~~~
~~~[Is Bobby their only ally or will others come in to help during the season?]
EK: When we first come back in the season opener, Castiel is dead, destroyed by the Archangel. So there’s some moments when we wonder if they’ll have the help of their old angel pal Cas. There’s always allies, sometimes in unlikely places. But it’s always the idea of this small scared sweaty group up against overwhelming forces, and that’s kind of where the heart of Supernatural lies. ~~~
(4) People do not bother hugely expanding on the situation of or expressing a fond desire to psychologically torture their evil and unsympathetic guys. And clearly by 'four good guys' against the universe, Kripke meant Sam, Dean, Bobby, and...Zachariah? ; )
~~~Can you expand at all on Castiel's decision at the end to be defiant [at the end of season four]?
EK: Castiel's totally, totally screwed in season five. You'll even see the clip at the panel. Things didn't end well with him and the archangel that came down. I can say that throughout episode one he is dead and exploded into gorey smithereens. And if you notice he's [right here], so I wouldn't sweat it too much. He's on the run, he's fallen, they're hunting him down, he's cut off from where he was, he's lost, alone and scared with the guys. Everyone's totally boned as they are trying to stop the apocalypse from happening. There's basically about four good guys against the universe, trying to stop the apocalypse.~~~
~~~SG: Supernatural's bread and butter is the psychological torture of the Winchester boys. And now we have Castiel on a fairly regular basis, and he is present in the boys' lives enough that we see a little of a humanizing of him. When an angel becomes more emotional and more human, then they become easier to psychologically torture as well. There's plenty of that to go around.~~~
(5) People do not out-and-out lie about what their characters feel, especially when discussing the reasons for following a specific path in regards to a character. Multiple times.
~~~SG: I doubt anyone needs me to point out that Misha is doing a great job. He's very sharp. As for the direction Castiel's going, I don't want to give away too much. In his relationship with Dean...Castiel genuinely likes Dean. And that is going to create difficulties for him.~~~
~~~SG: Being wrapped up with what’s going on with Sam and Dean is really dangerous for an angel like Castiel. He is getting to like Dean quite a bit...~~~
~~~SG: And it's interesting to me, by the way, that you call the angels "unfeeling" and "wrathful," because I don't see them that way. Castiel wrestles hard with his obedience. Turns out it's really hard for angels to walk among humans and not get kinda... involved. ~~~
(6) People do not turn the well-established techniques such as soliloquy and dramatic irony on their heads purely to deceive the audience.
Shows do not open from the point of view of an evil character and within that scene give unambiguous visual cues that they are intending to make the character a hero of the tale. (4.16)
~~~
4.07 --> Castiel and Uriel, by themselves, arguing.
4.10 --> Uriel, with disdain: “He [Castiel] likes you [Dean].”
4.16 --> Castiel, alone, agonising.
--> Castiel and Uriel, by themselves, fighting to the death.
4.21 --> Castiel, alone, agonising.
5.04 --> Castiel, alone, waiting.
--> Zachariah, alone: “Son of a *****!”
~~~
(7) People do not overtly praise their actors for conveying things that they were never intended to convey, or are not in fact conveying. People do not specifically direct their actors into conveying things that the evil guy is really not supposed to be conveying. People do not bring up their actor and their actor's choices time and time again if the character is a shady evil guy whose motives are ambiguous.
People do not have ALL their writers doing exactly the same thing.
You do not see the honesty in a performance, fall in love with it, and think, on second thoughts, how awesome it would be to pervert this?! You do not see the object of fans' affections, be pleasantly surprised at his reception, and proceed to not retain the qualities that the fans saw in him in the first place...
~~~ Misha: [And Kripke said:] "Can you do it again with more of a quality of innocence and curiosity about how it is these humans behave.” And it was that naiveté about human beings in general that really informed how I play Castiel.~~~
~~~Singer: Once we cast Misha Collins [as Castiel] and saw him on film, we said, “Oh, this is really going to be great stuff.” ~~~
~~~EK: None of that would have meant anything if we hadn’t lucked into Misha, who just came in to audition, and [you see on the show] everything he does in that part - the way he kind of views humans as curious [creatures], that otherworldly thing. He’s alien-like; you can really feel that he doesn’t have a lot of interaction with humanity. He just brought all that to the role, and he just took off like a shot. You could tell from the minute we saw the dailies of the season opener last year, we just couldn’t believe how good he was and what presence he had and all the depth that he brought to it. And it was just so exciting to see. ~~~
~~~In that first confrontation scene between Dean and Castiel, Collin’s[sic] character has a very childlike innocent quality about him...that childlike quality seemed to be the pivotal thing that has endeared him to many fans.
I asked Misha Collins where the decision to play the character of Castiel this way came from.
“Eric Kripke told me that Castiel has never been up close with humans before, so he has an innocent curiosity about people...Most of my work is taken directly from Eric Kripke and the other writers’ work. They gave me very specific, fleshed out material to work with and that made it really easy.”~~~
(8) People do not lead their actors down the garden path, give them all sorts of false info, and warp that actor's choices to mean something he is not portraying - and the actors themselves are never that clueless or that deceptive. Yes, I know it's Misha Collins and he loves playing with fans, but you can tell when the man is joking! - and that's not here. :p
~~~Misha: “I got two kinds of direction before we actually shot. One was that Castiel hasn’t been around human beings for 2,000 years, so there’s a curiosity when he looks at people. ‘How do these strange beings behave?’ It’s fun to play, interacting with Dean and Sam, looking at them like, ‘What are you doing?’“ And the other one was that he is compassionate. At first brush, reading the first and second scripts, it looked like this guy is just tough, just mean, just bad-ass. But they wanted that (compassionate) aspect as well, the more angelic side, a little of both.”~~~
~~~Misha: Cas doesn't know how he came back. He has his suspicions. He thinks he knows how he came back, but he doesn't have any proof of it. He's trying to piece together how [it happened] and if it's what he thinks it is, it's quite amazing...When I read the script for the second episode, I was stunned by the mission that Cas is going on. It is epic beyond belief. It's the most ambitious conceivable mission and that is not hyperbole. ~~~
~~~Misha:...my angel did always seem somewhat beleaguered and certainly a bit bedraggled...Castiel is being put through the proverbial wringer now more than ever. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think the biggest challenge - aside from not laughing during takes - is taking something seemingly so fanciful as an angel with super-powers dressed as Columbo and making something real and empathetic about him. ~~~
~~~Misha: I'm helping them sort things out but I've also got a mission of my own, which is revealed in the second episode. I'm there helping them help sort stuff out, but we're also being collectively pursued by all of the forces of heaven and all of the forces of hell. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think my favorite thing about this character has been playing with discovering what it's like to be a human. His exposure to humanity is a learning process for him, and he's constantly learning new things about what it is to be human. That's the most fun. ~~~
~~~Misha: He has a conscience and he's trying to save the world. His motives are good. ~~~
~~~Misha: I think he’s got his own agenda which will be revealed in episode two. [finding God]~~~
(9) Finally, it does not matter that their names are Eric Kripke, or Misha Collins...owners of diabolical reputations, who are actually overwhelmingly honest in my opinion.
They can't possibly be that much of Brilliant And Sadistic Lying Liars Who Lie that they lie between their teeth every time they draw breath.
The writers can't all possibly be keeping up such a consistent sham that they talk about so apparently openly.
I don't think Dan Brown wants to write a book about them.
Lying consistently for over a year when it is very easy to just be coy with information?
Taking a lot of effort to set up a character as a round character, an individual, a hero - acknowledging that he is widely loved and acting accordingly - before revealing that he was one gigantic plot device?
Breaking all sorts of writer conventions and narrative rules along the way?
They're doing that?
All for the sake of slyly screwing over a bunch of fans?
Somehow, I really don't think so :)
Sometimes it's easy to forget that the creators can care about their characters as much as we do - if we would be upset at something which to us goes against all the integrity of Castiel, there's little to say that the writers would be 'delighted' to turn things upside down, especially when it strongly, strongly appears that we're seeing exactly what they are intending to show.
To have all this intriguing, intricate characterisation - everything we know of Castiel - be false? It's just too entirely far-fetched. And it's what is required if these 'untrustworthy' and 'well-played evil' labels are to hold. If what we've been watching throughout seasons 4 and 5 is the real Castiel - and there's no reason to believe that it isn't, what with the enormous depth they have created with the character - then there's no reason to worry.
In the end, it is still technically true that they can do whatever they darn well want. But the question remains: when they have made this beautiful, compelling, sympathetic character with an individual arc, given us - for all intents and purposes - his doubts, fears, hopes, dreams, motivations, a meaningful relationship with Dean, and resounding inner struggles - why would they want to change this? Why would they want to render it all completely useless when they have devoted good time to it?
Quite simply, they wouldn't. The old catch-cry of "But Kripke could do anything!" just doesn't gel here as The Unbeatable Argument and shouldn't be A Hovering Fear. We all might have felt that this was so but I thought it could help to try and put a finger on why.
So I hope I've done something to reassure fellow Cas fans that our beautiful angel is exactly what he appears to be. Castiel is his own character, with his own journey - one we've been seeing unfold on screen, and more importantly in this case, one that the character's creators have been intending for us to enjoy. ~~ Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts.