4.03

[tea_and_ink]

I has thoughts. And will have to go back to ep and re-watch it. Several times, possibly.

It makes sense, that it all started as a deal, not a CRD type of deal, but a very deceptive one, the terms of which were very specific in terms of informed consent, if you're selling your soul, you must know you are selling your soul, else the contract could be dismissed, right? But if you really won't miss what you're giving away, then... And had it not been for Mary walking in in the middle of the blood transaction, she may never have come to know about Sam and the blood thing. So, that pleases me because oh, HI ANSWER!

BUT. Destiny cannot be changed, according to Castiel, and so there was no way Dean could have changed things, they were meant to be and thus they were, if this is true, then what exactly is Dean gonna stop, if whatever is to happen will happen? ::scratches head:: see? this is exactly what had me all wary of this episode, how the time traveling part of time traveling was gonna be handled, technically there was no danger for Dean to do much damage and so it would be safe to give him a front row seat to witness the events and gain possible insight, but then again, how does something predetermined change? what can Dean do to stop it? Was his death and consequent "raising from perdition" also written down somewhere? Is that why Dean can actually do something? Because he was not supposed to be alive anymore which would make him even more of a wildcard than he usually is? Assuming that is true, wouldn't that qualify as tampering with timelines and predestined happenings?

While I appreciate the rising of further questions and the set-up for more discussion on free will vs. destiny, I am a bit put off by the way it was presented. Maybe we just need to see what Sam is up to. (Is it wrong that I didn't really miss Sam in this ep?)

NEW PET THEORY: ::jumps up and down:: Ruby is, somehow, Azazel's back-up plan, or maybe she took up the slack after he was off the map, just not out to lead the army, like others were, but through Azazel's plan's strongest point, the human leader. I'm thinking she saw the possibilities, how relatively easy it would be to swing Sam to her side, get him to use his powers, give him a taste of that control, that sheer power and then let Sam's human nature do the rest. This would assure her an important position without really getting her hands dirty. GOD! Ruby's mystery drives me bonkers!

And, um. Mary kissed her father!!! SQUICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! demon-possessed, but arguably already dead and, oh yeah, HER FATHER! Kripke, man.

This one also packed a serious emotional punch. Serious, I tell ya. What with Dean warning Mary not to get out of bed (and the Single Perfect Emo Tear of Manpain) the night she died, and Mary wanting normal and a family and then not getting it at all, how she believed, was convinced she'd get her happy ever after while the whole time we (and Dean) know it won't happen. Though I will admit to being annoyed at the ANVIL of her absolute worst case scenario being her children raised into that kind of life, that one broke my heart on behalf of John, that one was way below the belt (John's) and it made my heart clench because should John ever hear that...

On a more shallow note: HELLO GREEN SHIRT, MISSED YA! Now, wardrobe people, all you need to do is bring back the maroon shirt of awesome and all will be right with the world, 'k?.
There. I now will hit the bed for a little while. Catch y'all later, kids.

Comments

[maboheme.livejournal.com]

BUT. Destiny cannot be changed, according to Castiel, and so there was no way Dean could have changed things, they were meant to be and thus they were, if this is true, then what exactly is Dean gonna stop, if whatever is to happen will happen?

Yep, there needs to be more meta on the free will v. destiny angel in the SPN universe. But as presented, SPN seems to be a determinist universe, right? Dean couldn't change the past (and thus there was not much danger to him doing any damage, etc.), so one can only guess that means that Dean can't "change" the future. So this means in my head that Dean IS DESTINED to save SAM. That's all I'm saying :) So all of this was supposed to happen (man, okay I feel like a BSG tagline now....'all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again' destiny yadda yadda)

I love your theory on Ruby. Yes!

And haha. Kripke loves to play with his fans. They like incest? We'll just through some of that in there, lol :D This episode was absolute fanservice, and full of anvils and and shameless exposition and just full of complete awesome.

[penandnotebook]

Dean IS DESTINED to save SAM

Well, there's a thought! Quite possibly the whole thing is to lead Dean in that way, so as to avoid the greater damage Sam could do with his powers and his wrong-sided advisers (though still, any one with that kind of powers is dangerous, whatever side they bat for, methinks), and in this way build the future the way it's supposed to be.

Although it just occurred to me, wasn't Dean the one to bring Mary to YED's attention by, inadvertently, dragging her and her dad to the girl's house? That counts as meddling, and makes me wonder, was this supposed to have happened (Mary's deal) regardless of his intervention, or did it happen because of his intervention? I'm inclined to think it goes to tell that certain things in history cannot be changed and would have happened one way or the other, if for no other reason than because if Dean ever feels guilty over Mary there'll be no coming back for him, he'll sink so deep into self-loathing.

Hey, what do you think Castiel's part in all this is? Do you think there's some kind of ulterior motive? As I see it, there is, just not as potentially shady as Ruby's, I'm thinking its actually pretty innocent in origin, maybe he just wants to know, maybe he was just sent to this realm because he had to save Dean and help him along the road to... wherever, but that's all he knows, maybe he doesn't know why, maybe he doesn't understand, and maybe this wouldn't have bothered him at all when he was all angelic and nothing but a soldier, but now he has a human body and is surrounded by humans and maybe some of our natural curiosity is contagious and Castiel just wants to know. If you think about it (as maybe I've been doing too much, lately) this could fall into place with the whole free will vs destiny thing, he's choosing to learn things, instead of just sticking to his job and let things happen... or something.

Maybe I need to develop this theory further...

[merykey.livejournal.com]

When Castiel said that Destiny can't be changed, I think he was talking more about the past; the past can't be changed. If you think about it, what happened was destined to happen because it happened. Remember that DarkAngel episode, with Brain. He said: "You know what are the chances of you and me, hiding behind this desk in a police department office, me with a sprang ankle, you dressed like this? %100. We're here, aren't we?" Not exact quotation but you remember that bit?? I think it's the same. The Past CAN'T be changed. It's the passed, it happened. It was destined to happen.

When he said: "You have to stop it", I think he was referring to YED's plan: Sam going to the dark side. This would be linked to his warning of: If you don't stop him, we will.

I like your Ruby-theory. Yeah, her mystery annoys me too, but I looooorve. I was SO happy that she's back. I'm still not confortable with Ruby 2.0; the new girl looks far too vulnerable to play ball-breaking, ass-kicking Ruby... *sigh* but, oh, well. It's what we get!

[penandnotebook]

Yeah, I can see that (and also remember the ep because, yeah, we're geeky that way!), my thing with it is that in order for time travel to be possible at all, and in fact Castiel says so himself, is if time is something fluid, relative, in which case past and future aren't really so and if you get philosophical enough it could even be argued they don't exist. The reason why I can't really go for that is that if it is indeed predestined because it happened, then why couldn't Castiel send Dean as a mere spectator, though if it is as you say, then DEAN himself was meant to step in and affect things, which would bring a nice shade to Castiel's possible motivations (be them individual or part of a bigger plan)... that does look good, but still I struggle with theoretical conceptions and really, I watch Dr Who, you'd think I'd been cured from this, but there ya go!

VULNERABLE! OMG that's the word! It's not that she can't act, because she can, I just think she doesn't really know where the writers are taking Ruby (remember the whole Jo thing, where Alona didn't know for sure what was to become of Jo because no one had told her and so she played her one way and then when new scripts arrived she had to change that to accommodate them?) and so all she has to work with is Sam's reticency to let Dean know what he's been up to and the fact that Ruby seems scared of angels... maybe later on she'll grow into the character and Ruby's, uh, Rubyness will come back? ::hopes really hard::

[mijmeraar.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, HER FATHER! Kripke, man.

aahaha, I said the same thing on this. TRUST KRIPKE.

Also, re:Sam's destiny. I don't know, I always think people overanalyse stuff, but mostly it's me having so little original thought on the supernatural. I took Castiel's last speil to mean it is destined for Sam to be stopped, but HOW he is, is up to Dean [and has not been written]. If Dean cannot do it, he, they will.

[penandnotebook]

it's me having so little original thought on the supernatural.

Y'know, in some cultures that whole HOW-over-IF would come across as meta-y in some capacity. So I'd be real careful with that if I were you. ::shifty eyes:: hee!

That is another possibility (how much am I loving this? TOO MUCH) and maybe the one Kripke is gonna go with? Maybe Sam was allowed to get this far because of free will rules but when it comes a point when he could become too dangerous then it's necessary to make sure he's on the right side, so maybe it's not so much as stopping Sam from going dark side per se, as it is stopping Sam from, inadvertently, aiding in the freeing of Lucifer. Or maybe Sam would have some use for Lucifer, should he be freed, and this cannot be allowed because the consequences would be dire???

Also? I just woke up, so there may be some incoherence in the above paragraph. Though I will spell check it for you, so take that in consideration when you laugh at my nonsensicalities (totally a word, dood)