destiel's traumatic bookends
May. 21st, 2015 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflySo, crypt scene and reverse!crypt scene. Both bloody, violent, agonizing affairs. Dean is being pushed by the MoC, while Cas was trained and brainwashed by Naomi.
From Dean’s point of view, the 8x17 crypt scene doesn’t do much. Sure, he stops Cas from killing him, barely, and Cas heals him and apologizes, but then Cas still leaves, still doesn’t trust him. And instead of trusting Dean, Cas ends up barreling right into another bad call, going along with Metatron’s plan (which included killing an innocent young woman) and Metatron’s plan eventually ends up killing Dean in 9x23.
From Cas’s point of view, this 10x22 scene doesn’t do much. Sure, he stops Dean from killing him, barely, and Dean leaves with a warning and not a death blow, but he still leaves, and now Dean feels betrayed and doesn’t trust him. Instead, Dean tries to continue his own personal mission (keep hunting until he can’t do any more good in the world) alone before he gives up and finally decides to call in Death to try to end it all.
How much does a hesitation mean?
The 8x17 scene was a bloody capper to a season that came across to many people as unrequited love from Dean’s side. The 10x22 scene was a bloody capper to two seasons that came across to many people as unrequited love from Cas’s side. 8x17 was not a romantically triumphant moment for Dean, not from Dean’s perspective – it was a failure. He told Cas, flat-out, that he needed him, and Cas left anyway. Because Cas wanted to protect the angel tablet from him (the angel tablet that, in one season’s time, Cas will destroy in an attempt to save Dean). Dean was left understandably bitter by the experience for several episodes and, in 8x23, we see him essentially saying goodbye to Cas, slowly beginning the process of trying to let him go. A process that continued into S9.
Dean’s death at the end of S9 seems to be a similar wake-up call to Cas that being in Purgatory was for Dean. He missed Dean deeply and was willing to admit as much. But just like being with Sam re-ignited Dean’s toxic bond with him, being around Hannah re-ignited Cas’s guilt and need to ‘fix’ the problems of Heaven. Cas then spent much of S10 flitting around trying to figure out where he belonged – with Hannah, helping the angels; with Claire, relieving his guilt over what he did to Jimmy’s family; trying to recover his grace; trying to save Dean. He always came running to help out with Dean’s stuff when needed but then would immediately run away again, like a scalded cat. As soon as he felt like he wasn’t needed, he was gone.
And much like 8x17 was a failure from Dean’s perspective, 10x22 is a failure from Cas’s. Neither of them are able to stop the other person from leaving. In 10x23, Cas heals himself up and goes back to Sam, argues briefly about the consequences of the spell but gives in, because this is Sam’s arena. Cas has generally yielded Sam & Dean problems to Sam and Dean (despite their truly terrible track record) and he’s been treating the MoC as a ‘Sam & Dean’ problem pretty much from the start. Cas then makes the same mistakes here that he made with Metatron back in 8x22/8x23, but now for a much less grand purpose – a single man, rather than all of Heaven. The terrible things he was willing to do for Heaven are also the terrible things he’s willing to do for Dean (this is not me endorsing it as a good thing; just pointing it out).
So, now Cas is in the place that Dean was post-8x17. The “I wish he felt the same way” place. Cas is willing to do anything to save Dean but, from his perspective, Dean neither wants nor needs him around anymore.
And now, a word on pacing. I watch The Vampire Diaries in addition to SPN. This season was the last season for my wonderful Elena Gilbert as a main character. The endgame pairing that Elena is a part of – Damon/Elena aka Delena – is one that I’ve compared to Destiel before (basically: we see the same kind of privacy desires & missing you scenes with both, only with Delena as a heterosexual couple, it gets to be overtly textually romantic and sexual, while Destiel’s scenes have been subtextual). For a lot of this season, things were being very drawn out about the two of them getting back together as a couple – first Damon was ‘dead’, then Elena had erased her memories of him because it was hurting too much to miss him, etc. Many obstacles. But then, all of a sudden, it was like a dam broke as we got all the scenes we’d ever wanted with them – kisses and love declarations and dancing and what amounted to a proposal. Significantly, this would have begun to be written right around when the writers knew for sure that Elena’s actress was not re-signing for S7. When they still thought they had a chance of having Elena in S7, they drew out the pacing of the love story, but once they knew the end was coming for her character as a regular, the pace quickened. That’s just how TV works.
So, we’ve had the pace slowed twice on SPN, in general, during the Carver seasons. First when they found out they were going to be renewed for S9, and then when they found out about S11 (iirc, they never acted like they believed S9 would be the last season, so I think they were pretty sure they’d get S10 no matter what at that point). Now, Destiel is a subtextual romance at this point, rather than an overt textual one like Delena, but I still see the telltale signs of the big slow-down when it comes to their interactions – how they’ve been few and far between this season but always impactful when they happen, and how many obstacles have been thrown between them.
We’ve seen those same signs when it comes to the breaking of the toxic bond of the brothers – slow down, add more complications, make it take longer because we’ve got plenty of time. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on a viewer’s personal preferences, I think, tbh. It can definitely lead to wondering if anything will ever happen at all, which can be a big issue! But, generally, if you see something (anything in general, but especially relationship-related stuff) get significantly slowed down after a renewal would have been known, then it probably is an important endgame element, otherwise they’d just burn through it at a normal pace. It’s the endgame stuff that you don’t want to use up before you reach endgame. Of course, this can mean that if you do get cancelled without warning, then you might end up without your endgame at all. But that’s television, too. There’s always a chance you get cut off before you get to make the big speech.Original Post: destiel's traumatic bookends