inmyriadbits: oranges on blue (spncarheadlights)
[personal profile] inmyriadbits
Hahaha, I totally just wrote waaaaay too much about this show.

SPOILERS regarding last night's SPN premiere:

Becky the Fangirl

I was feeling sort of weird about it -- but not embarrassment-squicky, which is what I expected -- until, oddly enough, I thought about The West Wing. I was re-watching S5-7 with Katie recently, is why. Anyway, you know when they occasionally have the main cast meet Those People With Crazy Political Beliefs? I'm talking Big Block of Cheese Day, or the caucus leaders in King Corn, or any of a hundred other instances in the series.

And then I realized oh, we ARE those people in this case. Like, if someone watching TWW really believed what one of those characters did, this is how they would've felt. And Kripke & Co. are being far kinder than Sorkin was to the subjects of his jokes. It just feels uncomfortable because they're poking fun at something we really do love; being forced to face the foibles of something you care about is never easy.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this well. The thing is, we're an inevitable part of the process, just like those outlier political advocates are. What I don't mind about the SPN writers' mocking is that they clearly love the process -- all of it, even us weirdos (and we ARE weirdos, guys). While they aren't above making fun of us, they just as readily make fun of themselves (the Prophet Chuck, people), and they respect the place of fans in the whole scheme of things enough to actually write us into their show. That's actually very cool.

Becky was very much a caricature, and I wasn't really comfortable when she was on screen, but she wasn't a bad portrayal. She was clearly intended as a comedic depiction; Chuck contacts her because she's "his biggest fan"; i.e., the only person crazy enough to believe that Sam and Dean and demons and angels and all that stuff are real. We in fandom are especially wary of outsider depictions because we've all been burned. Just look at the whole Survey!Fail situation; people see what they want to see about our community and then tell the rest of the world that their opinion is gospel (heh) truth. The writers were obviously making her the far end of a spectrum, but they didn't take away her humanity or her agency. Yeah, she writes fic, and yeah, she sent Chuck marzipan, but she didn't like, bow and scrape to anyone just because she was their fan. She had her own stuff she was getting out of the situation, and it was funny not because she was a freak of nature, but because of the juxtaposition of what she considers important with what the Winchesters do. (She was with them on the important stuff, like saving the world and all, but the little things were hilarious.)

My favorite moment is when Sam asks her to stop touching him and she says "No." I'm not sure why -- it easily could've read terribly, a disrespect for boundaries or something (and it was, to an extent), but instead I just saw a girl who was going for something she wanted and not being passive or submissive about getting it, nor was she particularly interested in putting everyone else's agenda or opinion above her own. Rock on, Becky. :)

In another vein, someone on my flist (sorry, can't remember who) mentioned Becky in the context of the Winchester Gospel. I'd never thought about it before, but with every religious gospel, there are the faithful. IMO, it's pretty hilarious that the show is equating religious fanatics with internet fangirls. The Bible is, in fact, one of the greatest stories ever told, and they're really playing with what that means in a modern setting. I LOVE it.

Also, her line about the addition of angels to the mythology was pretty brilliant. <3 Story nerds!

Winchesters On A Plane (and that Angel Dude)

The whole act-of-God (literally, it appears) is very intriguing. The fact that Dean was saved is kind of obvious -- too obvious, even, considering the Michael Sword thing. The fact that God also saved Sam and Cas makes me doubt that's the reason. Saving Cas? Okay, sure, he helped Dean/The Michael Sword, but he split with the angels, and Dean would've been kept safe for possession if he'd stayed in the Green Room. But saving Sam? If it was about Dean being special, what reason is there to save Sam? Keeping him around because Dean would be even more recalcitrant if Sam died is all I can think of, but that's kind of weak. And it still doesn't explain Cas.

As I see it, the one unifying factor for all three is that they are all on the side of humanity. It's like Dean's line in the hospital room about the angels and demons getting their own planet -- we (fans AND the boys) have been defaulting to thinking of it in the dichotomy of 1) Heaven and 2) Hell. Sam went in the Hell direction, teaming up with Ruby, and Dean went in the Heaven direction, working with Cas and the angels. But we all forgot -- there's us in the mix, too. Sure, Dean and Sam were working with angels and demons, but at the heart of what they were doing? They were on the side of the humans. Neither of them wanted either heaven OR hell on Earth -- which IS the goal of the angels and demons, respectively, not saving humanity. But like Dean said, whether he meant it or not, we can kick both sides back into their corners and keep on keepin' on. I've been wondering how Kripke originally planned to do this war before he thought of bringing in angels, and this is it. Humanity is going to win the world back for ourselves -- not Heaven, and certainly not Hell.

The radio silence is very frustrating/mysterious/ineffable/WHATEVER, but God seems to be coming down on the side of the humans -- not the angels, apparently, and certainly not the demons. Us. Humans, and those who like us. People like Sam and Dean and Cas. I keep thinking about someone's analysis (again, sorry, no idea who anymore) of the moment last season when Dean swears obedience to God and his angels. Their argument was that Dean swears to "God and you guys," which provides wiggle room. If God's defining "his" angels as those who are on his side rather than any angel at all (which, technically, would include Lucifer, wouldn't it? there were angels that fought on Lucifer's side back in the day, and I'm pretty sure those wouldn't count either), then apparently angels like Cas -- and Anna, one assumes -- who stand apart from other angels in their love for Earth and humanity, are "his angels" far more so than Zachariah or Uriel, who privilege Heaven over everything else. The Cas-Zachariah exchange made it pretty clear that Cas, at least, has figured this out. I'm pretty sure he's not actually talked to God, considering his avoid-the-question teleportation act, but he's put the puzzle pieces together.

It's not about human supremacy, exactly, but about balance. I think that's the distinguishing characteristic between Cas and Anna, for example. Both disobeyed and chose humanity over the angels, but Anna tore out her grace in an act of self-interested curiosity. Cas did it because he believed the angels were screwing over the humans for their own purposes rather than God's. Anna's choice privileged humanity over heaven and her own nature; Cas's choice was trying to restore balance when the angels started interfering too much in the human world, for the wrong reasons, with the intent of going even farther (kicking off apocalypse to let heaven take over the earth). I want Anna to show up again to see where she's at now; I think getting back her grace is a bit of a reset, and she's now roughly equivalent to where Cas is, because of her choices. (I like to think God is big on the importance of choices.)

The one thing missing from the setup, however, is a sympathetic demon -- like Crowley in Good Omens. Crowley wants to save the world because he's fond of living in it. He likes humans, and tea, and ducks, and hanging out with Aziraphale. I thought we might have that element in Ruby, albeit much darker than the Gaiman/Pratchett conception, but not so much. I love what they did with her, but I was disappointed in that regard. I'm not sure it's fair to paint all the demons with the same brush. Unlike the angels, they were all human once. Now they're just really fucking broken. Even Dean was susceptible, and well on his way to becoming a demon himself. So I want to see the writers explore some of the grey areas, there.

On A Shallower Note

- I love love love the new title card. Very cool-looking. I do wonder how blood will play into things, though. I mean, wings meant angels, perhaps including Lucifer (S4), fire meant Dean going to hell (S3), iron meant the Devil's Gate (S2), and the lightning/shifty thing (S1) was about demon signs and ghosts, perhaps including Mary winchester. But blood? I'm guessing it will play into the themes of physicality that I keep seeing. Angels and demons are intangible -- they can only influence the earthly world through possession of a human, and since they can only fight each other in the earthly world, that becomes very important. The growing references to "special" people who can play host to angels is a fascinating connection to this as well. Demons don't seem restrained in the same way. I'm hoping it will play into the whole heaven-hell-humanity triad (holy trinity, even) that I see forming.

- I felt just awful for Nick. What a poor, broken man. The writers and the actress who was Lucifer played that very well. Despite knowing what he was doing, even I was tempted to feel sorry for the devil. Very nicely done. The whole "I don't lie" thing was GREAT, too. That's the creepiest thing about Lucifer; the guy believes everything he's saying, so he's not lying, just manipulating. The bleeding crib, though? Totally going to give me nightmares. Thanks, Kripke. :P

- Can I get a "HELL YEAH, MISHA COLLINS"? Because seriously, that guy gets the best entrances. Even if apparently God gave Cas some new fighting mojo along with saving his life. <3 And how cool was his casual carving-sigils-into-ribs thing? Yeah, I'm totally down with that. I can't wait to see more of him this season, but I think he was in the premiere just the right amount.

- OH BOYS. It broke my heart, but they're good at pasting it back together at this point. The fight needed to happen, and it's good it happened sooner rather than later. As we know, letting things fester unsaid between them? Doesn't turn out so well. *gives them both hugs anyway*

Okay, I probably have more to say, but I've got work to do (see previous post and OMG PLEASE HELP ME OUT) and not much time to do it. So that's it.

October 2017

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