Isn’t it interesting that qareen!Amara told Dean she saw the love in his heart, but minutes later Dean (sincerely) talked about how he doesn’t feel love (nor desire) for Amara?
Isn’t it interesting that words like “pining”, “heart” and "feelings" have been associated with Dean recently - before Amara was even in the show?
Isn’t it interesting that the only textual pining we have recently seen was in 10x16, where Dean told us there are people and feelings he basically longs to “experience differently or even for the first time”?
Isn’t it interesting how in 11x13 it was underlined that what’s between Dean and Amara is something Dean thinks is NOT love, and in the next episode we’re (according to Carver) going to see a major turning point in the whole fight against the Darkness - and that turning point comes because Dean finds out about Cas?
I think it’s all very interesting, and I’m kinda freaking out.
ALSO pardon my rambling but I have THOUGHTS and I would like to share them
A looooooooot of past actions having consequences on the present, even actions that weren’t under your full control. After Sam’s apology last week for not looking for Dean in Purgatory, as well as his speech to Claire about monsters always being there but a normal life not, that definitely pings a lot of Sam radar. His past is certainly haunting him with Lucifer hitching a ride out of the cage and feeding devil-birds by playgrounds. But actions not under your control also is very much Dean- I mean hell, when we first met Alex was back when Dean was in his first Mark-fueled downward spiral, and full of lovely meta fodder for his descent.
It’s also made clear at the start of the episode that this family life Sam & Dean delivered Alex and Claire into is something they both desperately crave, if how they gulp down their home cooked meal is any indication. They want the stability that Alex seems to have carved out for herself. But they both also want to dive headlong into hunting the way that Claire is trying to (Sam jumps on the idea that Claire’s case is real, and Dean forces himself to enjoy his heart attack of a “hamburger”). But both options are equal in that they’re both hiding. Claire is hiding from her fear of opening herself up and being vulnerable when all her experience has told her that she’s just going to get hurt. Alex, on the other hand, is hiding from the things that she’s done in the past, the version of herself that doesn’t fit in her little utopia.
Last week’s ep gave us this same perspective for both boys as well. For Dean, 11x11 was where the banshee went after the person who was vulnerable and pining, according to Mildred. And where, just like Alex bared her soul to a boy who wasn’t who she thought, Dean bared his own vulnerabilities to a man (angel) who wasn’t who he thought either.
For Sam, the struggle is less defined but no less real. He’s always been torn between throwing himself fully into hunting, or burying his head in the sand, and unable to find a balance between the two. In 11x11 he was unable to conceive of living a long and happy life, of getting even close to retiring.
So if both Dean and Sam are mirrored in Claire and Alex, being pulled in opposing directions but unable to find an option that isn’t hiding, then the answer lies in Jody. Jody, who has apparently found a balance between being a parent, a sheriff, and a sometime hunter; she knows what goes bump in the night, and she does what she can, but it doesn’t consume her life. She puts her family first, not in a self-sacrificing unhealthy way, but so that they will all be safe and happy even while the endless war against the night goes on.
I find it interesting that Amara implied she’s seeking out specific characteristics in the souls she’s eating. She told the girl at the beginning that she wanted to be more like her, and then ate her soul, which leads me to believe that she’s gaining something more than pure energy from her diet.
Although the people she leaves soulless still have their memories, they lack the emotional content of those memories. I’m wondering if this is what Amara is absorbing into herself in her attempt to understand her brother’s creation.
**Side note: I definitely don’t believe that Amara and God are literally brother and sister born of the same parents. They are simply the first two entities that sprang from the initial burst of creation, which I keep comparing to the big bang theory, but which I’m now trying to mentally reconcile with the notion of cell division. They started off as one thing which split in half, which became the original duality. The show’s been pounding the notion into our heads for over a year that the only workable solution to a duality is reunification, but that’s been discussed ad infinitum so I’ll just mention it in passing here.**
With Amara’s template for humanity established as Dean Winchester, what about that girl drew Amara to her? All we learned about the girl was that her parents were very controlling, to the point she had to sneak out of the house to even enjoy a snack of junk food without feeling her mother’s judgment. She wasn’t allowed to date, except for a few months during the summer, so essentially she wasn’t allowed to form long-term or significant relationships.
We’ve seen flashbacks to Dean’s life as a teenager. He had to sneak out of the duties his father imposed on him in order to have a little fun playing a video game. He had one “summer of love” with Robin where he could finally experience what it’s like to be a “real boy” (yes another Pinocchio/puppet reference), but his father put an end to it by dragging him back for a hunt before the relationship really had a chance to really develop. We also know Dean has a very weird relationship with food, and always has. (and very long and excellent metas have been written on the subject, so again, not going into it here).
When Crowley capitulated and brought Amara a “snack,” she told him she wasn’t hungry. I’m betting that’s because she just didn’t have an interest in Crowley’s choice of food.
Amara at first feasted on caretakers: (Jenna who cared for her as an infant, the suburban family of three that Crowley lured her into the van with, her nanny who obviously understood Amara and her needs far better than Crowley did and provided her with much better reading material and care). She found Sydney first, someone who’d tried to show her care, and rewarded her for it until Sydney inadvertently pissed her off, which Amara was so insulted by that she ate her soul anyway. Then again, maybe whatever “bliss” Amara gave to Sydney just made her soul taste better, and her intent was to consume her all along?
Then she sought out Lizzie Borden, and people associated with her. I’m not sure if she did that because of the things she learned from eating Sydney’s soul, or because her original intent had been to learn more about Lizzie Borden herself, but it does seem worth mentioning given Sydney’s connection with the house and the people who owned it. Which is how she met Len almost by accident. Len was just there doing his SUPERFAN thing, and Amara found that interesting enough to want to experience his soul, too.
I don’t think she likes feeding indiscriminately. I think she prefers a particular flavor in the people she eats. (and here I have to mention how I can’t stop comparing this to iZombie, how Liv takes on the personality of the person whose brain she’s eaten most recently for a while. It’s actually a really good comparison to what I believe Amara is getting on a more internalized emotional level from the soul energy she’s eating).
Yes, she’s eaten her way through half of Crowley’s demon servants, but I think demons might provide her some sort of energy or sustenance, they lack that spark of humanity that she gets from eating pure, undemonized human souls. Demons have always been presented as lacking whatever it was that Crowley seemed to gain while he was addicted to human blood, and THAT is what Amara is actually craving.
Back to the “snack” that Crowley brought to Amara, and she rejected. He was wearing a postal service uniform. I think Crowley just yoinked their mailman off the street out of convenience. I know it’s not true, but the stereotype is that civil servants in general are rather soulless individuals who work through the daily grind of endless monotony. They aren’t generally known for their sense of rebellion or adventure. They are staid. They are buttoned down cogs in the big machine. **well, unless they snap and ‘go postal,’ as it were, but that’s another story, and possibly even implied here**
Regardless, I believe Amara is looking for highly specific souls to eat. She’s desperately trying to understand God’s creation, which for her is epitomized in the being of Dean Winchester, and is looking to consume souls that bear some resemblance to his own. She’s fascinated by it. She wants to dissect it and understand it so she can learn to wield it like a weapon against its creator. Dean is her template for the ideal weapon. In his very own words from 10.22, he does, after all, kill gods.
I just thought Amara meant “I want to be a teenager” when she said “I want to be like you” (since she needs to eat souls to age), but this is WAY more interesting :-p
I feel like I should add because this episode really made me feel like there was no way they could have discussed everything to be fine and move on, that this is probably Jensen’s interpretation of the scene and maybe even how Dean would feel as a result of the conversation but I just… after seeing that episode and having my heart bleed everywhere for Cas and seeing how un-ready Dean is for any emotional splurging, I really can’t believe this conversation would have been anything other than surface fine, and the issues left to bubble over again later anyway?
Like, I dunno, I actually thought I was going to be pissed at this but when the credits were rolling I couldn’t make myself believe we’d missed out on core emotional bonding moments?
Given the way they left Dean and Cas alone to follow Sam for his cage vision, and the fact that Berens says that a lot was cut by the editors, I’m guessing there actually was a scene that went a bit more into it at the end there that got cut. Fingers crossed for a deleted scene on the DVDs… (Although if it did then I’m super annoyed that that’s what they decided to cut.)
This is one more for my ongoing file of editing and PR (paratext-y) decisions that make me think that there are two Supernatural canons. There’s the one the dedicated fans are watching, and there’s the one the casual viewers are seeing when they tune in without any paratextual context. Dedicated fans know there was supposed to be a conversation and what it was supposed to be about; they knew that Berens was supposed to write it, and had a rough idea of how Berens handles dialogue and their dynamic; if it was filmed and edited out (which it seems to have been, given Berens’ tweets) they will eventually watch it on the DVD. Casual viewers? Nope.
eta: Also, Jensen – Cas is very much not okay. So, alternately, was Jensen just being totally sarcastic and throwing shade at the lack of conversation, here? I don’t even know anymore.
Well, if he had just read the script, he may not have known about the flashbacks that are the most obvious evidence of Castiel not being alright. Of course there’s a lot more, but it’s only the last scene – which may have contained their conversation – that they shot together.
But you’re definitely onto something with this paracanon. We get the queer text but the mainstream audience is getting a heteronormative text.
It depends on if the flashbacks were scripted.
Dean didn’t say he or Cas were fine individually, he was saying they were fine in their relationship, meaning came to an understanding and on the same page. Of course no one in Supernatural is ever fine, Jensen knows that. That being said, he might think being okay is relative.
Depends on what you mean by mainstream. I know we’ve all heard stories from shippers whose friends and family have watched the show and, often with out prompting from the shipper, see that Dean and Cas’ relationship isn’t entirely platonic. Not every non slash shipper chants “no homo” while watching the show.
Oh, I’m certain the general audience – or at least portions of it – is able to appreciate subtext and see the chemistry between the actors. By the paracanon I’m referring to scenes like the textual “I love you“ that was cut from Goodbye Stranger or the scripted naked Dean Winchesters in Castiel’s heaven in Stairway to Heaven. The general audience will never have heard of these. But there’s an increasing amount of material we know was scripted, sometimes even shot, that they ended up cutting from the product that airs only to be added as DVD extras for the true believers. And this results in two stories being told.
I’d say they lay side by side verse being two different stories or rather they’re two different interpretations of the same story. Usually those cuts or changes are made for good reason. I think that Dean wouldn’t have said “I love you,” and it was more in character for the scene to be scripted the way it was.
Either way, I just don’t think the scene Jensen was talking about would have fit in this episode. That finale scene was all tense and Sam and Cas wondering if Dean was lying. It would be a huge shift in emotional tone for Cas and Dean to agree to forgive each other for beating the other one up under the influence of dark forces. It wouldn’t have fit. If their conversation was after that scene then it was in fact cut for a good reason. The episode had a weird flow to it already, but that would have been too much.
I have to say I think the conversation would have fit just fine. Not only that, it was clearly supposed to be there, and the fact that it wasn’t threw the ending and the whole episode off kilter. It’s not like SPN is afraid of breakneck mood changes – see Dean going from telling Sam “this is a dictatorship” to giving Cas mellow reassurances seconds later, while Sam was still within earshot. (End of season 9.)
And I also think that there are two stories being told. When the season 10 DVD came out with the unaired scenes from that season – the boyfriend convo between Cas and Crowley, Dean seeing Cas in his dream – I wasn’t the only one who felt like season 10 made a lot more sense with those scenes.
There was never any kind of confirmation that it would be in this episode. Jensen mentioned in an interview that they had just filmed a Dean/Cas talk, later a post went around with a fan saying they thought it would be 11.06 based on how they predicted the filming timeline might have gone. Filming schedule timelines can be hard to predict. Some episodes take two full weeks to film, others might only get a week and a day. We haven’t had any sources on when tonight’s episode was filmed, fans could have been way off in their estimated timeline. It doesn’t look like Cas will be in 11.07 but there’s always a chance he’ll make a short appearance or that Jensen interview may have taken place while 11.08was filming. It’s possible that the scene was meant for tonight’s episode and got cut but I suspect Jensen was talking about a different episode.
The impala is looking nice as hell so I think it’s safe to assume more than 1 week has passed since baby which means Cas has been living at the bunker for a long time
Guys. I think Dean is soulless. And I think he has been since the first episode of season 11.
11x05 had Sam pointing out that people without souls respond differently, reminding Dean (again) that he had to save people and not kill them, had Dean tell Sam he was “better” with empathy, and had him tell a soulless man that as long as he still had a piece of a conscience there was hope.
And we don’t know what happened after this scene back in 11x01…what if Amara sucked out his soul?
