Shadowless Dreams

"It also just continues to bring up the kind of stupidity of this turf war between them because obviously they work best together. Obviously. It's just like these preconceived notions about what is the more righteous way of helping people or honorable way of helping people when the honest answer is both ways. You need the knowledge in order to do the hunting."

okay, i think at least one of my thoughts on this episode is beginning to congeal into something… Gabriel

and I’m gonna call him Gabriel for the sake of expediency, because I do think that’s who it is. let me explain.

first off, they name checked Tall Tales in a bit of throwaway dialogue. but I heard it. (i’ll rewatch tomorrow when it’s on the cw app and get the exact quote, but it was just weird enough as dialogue that it felt deliberately inserted there)

then there’s what we DO know about Gabriel’s timeline, mostly from things he himself said in canon. in 5.08:

I always believed he was referencing the ORIGINAL fight between Michael and Lucifer here, when Luci ended up crammed in the cage. That’s what he ran from. At the beginning of Humanity on Earth. And he’d been playing Loki for… look let’s call it at least thousands of years. And Loki? in 13.20:

So both of them were out and about. even if they were both staying off grid as it were. And I always assumed that Loki only came back out after he heard of Gabriel’s “outing” and “death”– and Odin’s actual death– in 5.19.

But circling back around to the Tall Tales reference… it took me a while to see how it could be Gabriel. He had two modes: hoist the deserving upon their own petard, and teach people he actually finds interesting lessons they need to learn. And weirdly… this turned out to be the latter. And it feels even more like an Important Lesson that needed to be learned with Chuck literally sitting in the backup band. Even if that was just supposed to be some random musical group, you know? In a meta way, that’s still Chuck.

(and the role even fit’s Chuck’s known history, thanks Robbie… playing all sorts of music clubs, just having relationships, etc., but that’s all really beside the point to this)

Gabriel… was playing pretty much the same game he did on Sam and Dean way back in 2.15. Like… exactly the game he’s always played on them right up until they finally caught him in 5.08.

And that feels like the EXACT reason he would’ve taken an interest in Sam and Dean’s parents, too.

But also in all the episodes of spn that dealt with Trickster lore, and actual Loki lore, there was never a mention of a mirror. Or of being able to kill any of them with a shiny blade covered in blood and whatever spell they did. It was always a special stake. And Gabriel actually did eventually kill Loki… with a special wooden sword. Not a shiny blade.

So, why the deviation in lore? I know we’ve been asking this throughout The Winchesters, but this feels really important here, as well as having a potential explanation immediately to hand: that Gabriel set up all of it. He just wanted to play up close and personal with the Winchesters, maybe pass off a little lesson if he could. But also, regardless, it’s another nod to an angel in the series, and those are really beginning to pile up without actually showing us a real angel. And I’m entirely bemused by that on its own.

sorry about all the random glitches in these but *screams forever and ever*