I am an Angel of the Lord who probably would do well in finance, and I don't like to do what people expect.
Thirty-four. White USian. Autistic, anxious depressive (with PTSD). Nonbinary/genderqueer (demigirl). She/they pronouns. Sex-indifferent pan gay greyromantic demisexual. INFP/ISFP. Survivor. Socialist. Feminist. Relativist. Agnostic atheist. Struggling college student (yes, still).
Honest misanthrope (because humans are works of art but humanity is tainted by its hatreds, conceits, and deceits), almost never neutral (because the status quo isn't), and unapologetic slasher 'til death do I stop.
I am things, I question things, I like things, I hate things, I watch things, I read things, I writethings, I say things, I do things. Things happen on this blog.
Just because they’ve inserted some representation at one point within TEN YEARS doesn’t mean that it’s enough. There is a lack of representation, not no representation. We don’t have nearly ENOUGH of people of colour and LGBTQIA+ representation.
This isn’t equality and it sounds so ignorant when you say it is.
castiel-knight-of-hell
This show has had more positive and varied LGBTQA representation than any other non-queer-centric show I’ve ever watched. And do you know what happened every damn time? They were dragged by people who felt that queer representation didn’t mean equality, it meant putting queer people into a perfect glass case and saying they deserve different treatment from straight characters. I’m only going to give a few examples because I’m short on time but there are more than this:
All Hell Breaks Loose 2.21 we had Lily, a female character who was one of Azazel’s kids and her super power was that she killed people when she touched them. She shared that she had accidentally touched her girlfriend and killed her. This was important for two reasons. #1 it was emotional for the audience and made us feel for her. #2 she was not presented as a queer character with super-powers, she was presented as a character with super-powers who was also queer.The reason this was important is because that’s how straight characters are introduced. Most shows would have presented Lily as a flag for queer representation but Supernatural didn’t, they presented her as a person with an emotional backstory who was also queer. This reminds me of season 1 of Torchwood. If you watch the dvd extras you’ll see that in Greeks Bearing Gifts 1.7 the love interest of Tosh was originally conceived as male. Someone suggested that it be played by a female actress and gay showrunner Russell T. Davies said yes but that they wouldn’t talk about the fact that Tosh was attracted to a female, they wouldn’t make a big deal about it, they would just present it as an accepted fact the same way straight attractions are presented in tv shows. Supernatural did the same thing. They gave us a female character who happened to be queer but was not defined by her queerness. Saying it like that sounds like it should be industry standard but it’s not, queer women are highly sexualized in mainstream media because it gets good ratings but Supernatural, a low budget show that was in dire need of a ratings spike, did not do that with Lily. They presented her as a relatable person who was also queer, not as a sexualized queer female. And yet I rarely see anyone in the fandom mention Lily or her heartbreaking backstory in a positive way. All I ever see are people dragging the show because Lily died, All of Azazel’s children died, including Sam. The only reason Sam came back to life is because he has a brother with the knowledge and willingness to sell his soul to hell. Saying that Lily should have lived when everyone else died isn’t equality, it’s saying that queer characters need to be given special treatment. In a show where death happens frequently, equality means that queer characters can also die as long as it’s a scenario that would have resulted in death if that character were straight. I’ve also seen the fandom claiming that they only made Lily a lesbian to feteshize f/f sex, despite the fact that there was nothing titillating about her scenes at all.
My second example is Damien and Barnes from The Real Ghostbusters 5.09. These were everyman characters, which means they were conceived to be relatable to most of the audience. An everyman character invites the audience to live vicariously through them, the entire point of making everyman characters is to let your audience identify with them. We spent an entire episode with these characters, being invited to identify with them on a personal level. We saw how brave and heroic they were even though they were normal people with no hunter training. Then, at the very end, we were told they were in a same gender relationship with each other. This means that everyone who engaged with that episode and lived vicariously through these everyman characters were told at the very end “BTW, they’re queer. That doesn’t entirely define them, they have many facets to their personalities as all queer people do, but the people you spent most of this episode identifying with do happen to bequeer. Just like many people you have positive encounters with on a daily basis happen to be queer. Because queer doesn’t where a uniform, we come in all shapes and sizes.” This was powerful. Many fans would have spent most of the episode identifying with those characters and were then confronted with the concept that “queer people are just like you.” And yet the feedback I always see about this episode is “The fandom is mostly female. They were being sexist by putting men in that role.” Or “They made a joke out of their gayness by waiting until the very end to reveal it.” I agree that there should have been more female fandom representation in that episode and I’m disappointed that the con audience was predominantly male, but if the roles of Damien and Barnes had been portrayed as females I think it would have resulted in the fandom accusing the show of fetishizing lesbians since they made that accusation with Lily despite her obviously not being fetishized. With Damien and Barnes, Supernatural did a fantastic job at representing a same gender couple in a non-stereotypical way that allowed the audience to identify with the characters on a personal level before knowing their sexualities. This is the ideal, this is what queer people want, we want to be real characters where our sexualities are a side-note rather than a defining feature. Supernatural gave us the exact kind of representation that I’d been advocating for since I was 15 and yet the fandom responded negatively to it. Why? Because they were male? Because they weren’t conventionally attractive? Because they were everymen heroes instead of all-powerful indestructible heroes?
There are other examples. I’m short on time but a couple quick references I can make are that in Sacrifice 8.23 a cupid, who gets her orders from heaven, fixed up a male couple. Castiel, an angel of the Lord, said he was utterly indifferent to sexual orientation when faced with an anti-gay church leader. The point is that they did not insert representation only once in ten years, they’ve done it multiple times. If they only representation you’re thinking of is Charlie then you have ignored years of canon representation on this show.
First of all, “the show is about two brothers and everyone else is CANNON FODDER, give up wanting living rep” suggests that the brothers are not allowed to be queer. So that’s oppressive and gross, right off, confessor.
Second of all, I’m with you, queenofthevaseline. Completely.
Third of all....
Fandom needs to stop listening to that last blogger’s defenses of the show just because they come off as superiorly knowledgeable. They really, really do, because this person really really isn’t.
You need to be quiet, CKOH, until you understand what many of the people you’re speaking for by saying “we” actually want.
People are angry at the show about its queer representation because everybody who lives and continues to be important is textually straight, and in a narrative universe where the protagonist gets to say “Dude, how gay are you” or wtfe to his brother about his brother knowing fairytales, that’s really homophobic.
People are angry because several recurring characters (Dean, Cas, Crowley, Ruby, and Lilith, especially, and somewhat Gabriel and Balthazar) have been ‘baited as queer, but none of them, especially the ones who aren’t being queercoded, have ever been given a queer orientation in text.
People are angry because Lily just HAD to exist in the episode where she died, the queer woman who is irritable and angry because she killed her girlfriend, SHE KILLED HER GIRLFRIEND, a dead queer woman before the episode even starts, had to exist in that situation and then die before she could be much else beyond queer and upset about her dead girlfriend--wow, such good rep, another tragic queer person who’s upset about their dead lover and then dies.
People are angry because Demian and Barnes are “Sam and Dean” and they are used as a reversal of the typical “haha Sam and Dean are queer lovers cos they’re two guys I don’t know with an intimate relationship, BUT WAIT THEY’RE ACTUALLY BROTHERS SO THAT’S NOT A THING” by waiting until the last moment to reveal that they’re a queer couple as a shock humor tactic to throw off the brothers who were literally watching these guys act out their relationship. This is after, several episodes ago, the show made very clear that Sam and Dean weren’t that at all, using the characters themselves as mouthpieces: it is a “haha gay” Wincest joke, to make the brother LARPers queer. (“Most people” WOULDN’T “have spent the whole episode identifying with these characters” because “most people” don’t walk around dressed up as brothers when they’re a couple, especially after the show’s been clear how said brothers feel about that. Most queer people, if they did identify with these characters earlier, before they knew, probably felt very weird and uncomfortable about the fact that an established queer couple were walking around roleplaying brothers, until they remembered that “wait, the show is probably making fun of us, as usual”.)
People are angry because:
Why couldn’t Lily exist in an episode that focused on her struggle without killing her at the end of it? Why couldn’t the queer couple, Demian and Barnes, start to be affectionate before the last second freak-Bros-out moment? Like when one of them nearly died???? Where was their couple-y affection; do queer dudes only get to ever be friendly unless straight guys are around for those prime reaction shots? And why couldn’t they have roleplayed NON-brothers, like Ash and Dean, or Cas and Dean, real queerbaited pairs, instead of been framed as a Wincest “haha these fake brothers are lovers for REAL” gag? Why do queer people only get to be queer and then die, or be jokes or discomforts for the "straight” [cough jilted lover cough army wife cough more profound bond cough love of my life actually cough he’s in love] protagonists?
Why does “gay love pierce the veil and save the day” but the character who “pierced the veil” wasn’t actually textually queer, just a poor beleaguered straight boy pitying a dead sweetheart with a crush on him and “being gay for that poor dead intern” so said sweetheart would wake up and save all the straight people? WHY is the only time we’ve seen dudes kiss consensually two unnamed “twinks” in a satirical vampire bar for a Bros reaction shot? Even the CUPID-INDUCED HEAVEN-BLESSED TRUE LOVE DIDN’T GET A KISS? Just, yep, another “straight” boy reaction shot, bam, BURLY QUEER MEN EXIST AND FALL IN LOVE TOO, WOW, HE HAD NO IDEA!
Corbett was in one episode. Lily was. The Chief. The siren. The “twinks”. Demian and Barnes. Dwight and Rod. Kristen and Siobhan. Susan, if she counts, implied as being in love with Maggie Stark. Jeffrey, in love with a male demon. Gilda, of the faerie. The queer elf in 8x11. Aaron Bass, who, lol, wasn’t really a “gay thing”, haha, he was tailing him! How funny, right? #Sarcasm. Does he, like Susan, even count? Either way, all one-episode characters. Dorothy? Another love interest for Charlie? A stable one, built on friendship? Nah. Not on this show. Let us just cut that part, where Charlie talks about that in Oz, right out.
Charlie Bradbury is a token. And I love her so much, she’s a wonderful token, one who is extremely well-written and believable and complex, but she’s a token queer character. All the others either A) revolve around her, B) are one-ep, aka forgettable if you’re not STARVING for queer people on TV, and p. much always unsatisfying (evil, jokes, unrequited, largely sidelined etc.) and/or exist for queerbaiting the “straight” protagonists, and/or C) are dead. And Charlie joined C) recently, leaving us with no rep at all. None.
Castiel saying, as “God”, that he doesn’t care about sexual orientation, doesn’t actually tell us he is queer. It’s a smokescreen, an appeasement, after all the queerbaiting they’ve done, especially with him. Ditto with Mark!Dean saying “I don’t judge” to the Styne. Even if it did fall into the category of the subtext queering either of them, it is again queercoding.
Tbh, saying this show’s queer representation is enough cos some of the characters in one episode are queer and mildly acceptable, is like saying this show’s representation of women is enough cos there really are some good women, who showed up in one episode.
But then, CKOH, I hear you do that kind of thing too, claiming the show’s so feminist, and so mistreated by its oh-so-sexist fans, so I’m not surprised.
Here’s what I want you to do, O All-Knowing God of What Equality Means:
Count how many thus far textually “straight” people still live who have been in more than one episode.
Now count how many textually queer people are both.
Oh, wait. I’m sorry, no NEED. There’s none, because the one “we” had is dead.
Yet six textually “straight” men, and four textually “straight” women, are alive.
...And that’s just counting those from this season.
Even the villainous “straight” ones outlived the one queer woman who recurred.
Now look everybody you’re “disappointed with” or whatever, everybody reading your barely-veiled apologist scorn in this post, in the face and say that’s equality.
â€â€¦the qualities which Slytherin prized in his students included resourcefulness, cleverness, determination and a certain disregard for the rules,…â€
"What was I doing with this vermin?"...As if I didn't already know the answer.Raphael was stronger than me. I wouldn't survive a straight fight.”
Castiel, being of survivalism, and cunning, and fierce loyalty to those who’ve chosen him, and those he chooses.
“I killed two angels this week. My brothers. I'm hunted. I rebelled. And I did it, all of it, for you, and you failed. You and your brother destroyed the world and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep your opinions to yourself.”
Not the kind of loyalty that always sits down and shuts up for the sake of kindness, or the kind that has no contingencies, especially if it starts to seem counterproductive.
“I'm renegotiating our terms. ...You think I'm handing all that power to the king of Hell? I'm neither stupid nor wicked.”
Mr. Ambition, Mr. Get Things Done, whether it’s for traditionalist reasons, for the angels, or for revolutionary ones, for the humans.
“No, I'm not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.”
Castiel, who lives by his own principles, grey as they sometimes are.
“You don't understand. It's complicated.”
Castiel, who protects his own above almost all, except sometimes his ambition.
“I've tried to make you understand. You won't listen. So let me make this simple. Please, go home and let me stop Raphael. I won't ask again.”
Castiel, who often doesn’t know what to do without somethingto do.
“Well, it's the 11th hour, and I am useless. All I have is this [waving a shotgun]. ...What am I even supposed to do with it?”
Castiel, who used any means to achieve his ends.
“...if you don't...I'm gonna ju-- I'm gonna do whatever I... Whatever I must.”
Listen to me. Listen, I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you… please. I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, and now I’ve lost Sam.
I wonder why you call Cas a slytherpuff or dean gryffinpuff and so forth like the combination i mean. I thought thats just how it always works. Cas is IMO a Huffelpuff isn't it just normal to also have qualities from of the other houses? I cant imagine most students are literally ONLY the house they live in (srly these seperation is so weird anyways wtf rowling).one doesnt rule out other defining house qualities for me. (btw does anyone have that post about the similar of puffs and slyths?)
Because the Houses are way too boxed in, in the books, to fit fleshed out characters/people. To call someone only one House usually leaves out a big part of who they are. People are not actually archetypes. Characters who are so well-written they develop personhood are not archetypes. Castiel and Dean are both core-deep defined by loyalty and hard work, but Dean is defined by heroism as a never-ending moral imperative formed by his loyalty, even when he can't do it, and,
Castiel is defined by getting shit done that sometimes is morally fueled but is often loyalty fueled, that's his most evident trait, that when he wants shit done, he gets it done (that's what AMBITION MEANS), he goes desperate and mentally beats the crap out of himself when he can't: not because he's not doing right, but because he's not doing anything: the only time this changes is when Castiel literally cannot do anything, as in, neuroatypicality-related inertia prevents him.
Even when it's past the point of being able to believe he's right, Castiel continues the S6 goal because he has to stop Raphael: "if we can beat Raphael, we can end this." That's how he puts it: not "I have to save the world because it's the right thing to do" (except when he's talking to Gryffindors) but "I have to do this specific thing, which by the way will help you too". Castiel may, on the surface, have Gryffindorishness (I have toyed with the idea of him being a Slytherdor at best) especially when he's "doing things because of Dean", but when push comes to shove he's Slytherpuff. Slytherin and Hufflepuff, the latter only marginally more than the former.
Let me put it even further. Castiel's "Am I doing it the right way? What if I'm wrong?" was put to God, to whom he is still loyal enough to want to please Him with what he does, with the righteousness he believed for millennia that God expected of him, if he can't please Dean. The person who says "you're worried about them figuring out you're not righteous" is Crowley, who does not have the kind of understanding of non-selfish reasons to keep what Castiel is keeping from the Winchesters to understand that that's not the reason, who thinks the only reason has to be worry for his reputation. Even when Crowley talks about "his little pets", he does it in a mocking way, as though the boys can't possibly really affect Cas except by matter of utility. And when Crowley challenges him like that, "if they believe it, you get to believe it" his response is "Don't touch them or I'll tear it down" because his ambition is only equaled by his chosen loyalties.
[watching the last three of S6 for posterity]:
"I was so full of confidence, of mission" > rewarded loyalty by God as he'd been brought back, and ambition, "it was nearly impossible" to retrieve Sam. The anger he feels at himself for not actually succeeding in his ambition is palpable in the way he talks about his "arrogance...hubris".
"If you don't, we will both die, again and again, until the end of time." > Self-preservation.
"And the worst part was Dean, trying so hard to be loyal, every instinct telling him otherwise." > Castiel valuing loyalty in the one he's chosen to be loyal to and feeling it like a blow that he's unworthy of it.
"I had no choice. I did it to protect the boys. Or to protect myself. I don't know anymore." > More self-preservation and loyalty as important.
"No. No one leads us anymore. We're all free to make our own choices, and to choose our own fates." "God wants you to have freedom." Ambition: to free the angels of enslavement through obligation and abuse. Method: undiscovered.
"Then I won't let you." > His ambition's method, which ultimately becomes the ambition itself. His goal. To kill Raphael, free himself from his control, and free the angels and humans as well.
"But I didn't go to them. Because I knew they would have questions I couldn't answer. Because I was afraid." > More self-preservation.
"But on the other hand, they were my friends." "For a brief moment, I was me again." "Wonder never cease, they trusted me again. But it was just another lie."
"If you touch a HAIR on their heads, I will tear it all down, our arrangement, everything." Crisis. of. loyalties.
"What was I doing with this vermin? As if I didn't already know the answer. Raphael was stronger than me; I wouldn't survive a straight fight." > TELL ME AGAIN, FRIENDS, THAT THIS WASN'T AT ALL ABOUT SELF-PRESERVATION.
"I'm talking about happy endings for all of us. With all entendres intended." Crowley says, as in "everybody you're loyal to".
"What can I do but submit or die?" "I'm not strong enough and you know it." "You're asking me to be the next Lucifer." And Crowley uses God's love as the reason why Castiel is not. Not "you're better than he is" but "God loves you."
"This is ridiculous. The amount of power it would take to mount a war..."
"No, not Dean. He's retired and he's to stay that way." LOYALTY.
"This is pointless. Your plan would take months, and I need help now." Never forget Castiel had a day. And note how Castiel doesn't refuse the plan based on its immorality, but because it's not going to do what he wants it to fast enough.
Also, Crowley uses the words "everything you've worked for, everything Sam and Dean have, gone" to manipulate Castiel: undoing his success.
Castiel knows the plan is likely not right anymore: however he must do what is necessary, no matter what, "I had no choice". "So went the road of good intentions...the one that led me here."
"I did it to protect you. I did it to protect all of you." Loyalty. "To get the souls. I can stop Raphael." The ends justify the means.
"You don't understand. It's complicated." Moral greyness is necessary. To do what is necessary, he can't pay attention to "should".
"You should have come to us for help, Cas." "Maybe. It's too late now. I can't turn back now. I can't." Ambition at. any. cost. Castiel has reasons why he wants to accomplish his ambition, but said ambition is clear: get the power and kill Raphael. Beyond whether it's right or wrong, he has to do what's necessary.
"I know what I'm doing, Dean." "You're the one who taught me that freedom and Free Will--" and there's the reason, right there, for his ambition. His loyalty to his family, to Dean's cause, and to his Father. His goal to kill Raphael, to give Free Will to everyone.
"If you don't give me a sign (that this is right), I'm going to do whatever I must." Castiel's ambitions will still be accomplished, whether they're right or not. They're necessary.
---
"It's a means to an end." "To win the war."
"All i ask is this one thing." "To trust your plan?" "I've earned that, Dean."
---
"Enough. I don't care what you think. I've tried to make you understand, and you won't listen. So just, please, go home and let me stop Raphael. I won't ask again." Ambition over loyalty.
"I wish it hadn't come to this. Well, rest assured, when this is all over, I will save Sam, but only if you stand down." Loyalty warring with ambition. An ultimatum made that if you betray him, his loyalty is burned.
And then he betrays Crowley. "You think I'm handing all that power to the King of Hell? I'm neither stupid nor wicked." "You either flee, or you die." Giving Crowley a chance, being fair, but also making it clear that his attachment to Crowley was not loyalty, Crowley was a means to an end like the rest: to achieve his ambition of killing Raphael and winning the war.
He kills his ally, a "good friend", when Balthazar betrays him.
Also "What should we do?" about Dean Winchester being on his way, "I'll handle him myself."
When Crowley comes back, Castiel tries to smite him.
"Consorting with demons. i thought that was beneath you." he says to Raphael. Beneath you, not us. After all, Crowley was a means to an end.
"You fool. Raphael will deceive and destroy you at the speed of thought." Hmm, I'm really not seeing how this isn't self-preservation, in large part. (Though not the kind of Meg and Crowley, where they recruit anyone, with or without force or abuse, in order to save themselves.)
"So you see. I saved you." "You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along." "You're just saying that because I won, because you're afraid." Good Christ, Godstiel is very much what can happen to a Slytherin with dark power working their brain and without loyalty still strong to people who can keep them grounded. "You need a firm hand." he says later in 7x01, to the angels, once he's gone Dark Slytherpuff. Not what is right, but what is necessary. "I'm not finished yet." He has more shit he must get done. Ambition again outweighing loyalty, despite Dean's hopes.
(I also feel that it should be noted that, contrary to Castiel's inner monologue, which is mostly appealing to God for help and instruction--not actual "is this moral?" but more "Daddy, tell me what to do"--but also partially just working through his shit, he is socially adept enough [if not much] to justify himself in loyalty and righteousness and Dean's cause to Dean, in utility to Balthazar, in necessity to other angels beyond Balthazar [whom it must be noted don't care about his ambition's aim to get them Free Will so must be appealed to differently], in intimidation to Crowley. But to stop Raphael and win the war is always the goal.)
Andhere, havesomemore about how I view the Houses and why Cas is a fucking Slytherpuff even when he hits anti-villain status, and Dean is a Gryffinpuff. Like, okay, I may not know much, but I know my own. And Castiel is my own. Slytherpuff. Slytherin and/or Hufflepuff.
what d o you speculate hannahs storyline on the show's going to be? and what is the journey cas is going to on through hannah that carver teases about?
I think it’s already begun. Hannah is learning from humanity while basically having to be around them and think about them, because Castiel loves them, and about an angel’s understanding of being human (mentored by Cas in how they’re wonderful I promise) and treating humans well, and I think by the end of this season or possibly halfway through the next, she’ll end up as a more humanized angelic leader, a Godstiel 3.0 (Metatron was 2.0) that finally turns out well for Heaven and Earth, when she calls for Castiel to and he refuses (because fuck wearing the coat of loneliness she draped over him any longer).
Either that, or (in the usual sexist vein of the show) she’ll end up, as Crowley might for Dean’s demonhood, dead as a representation of Castiel’s last vestiges of conflict between being an angel or being a human (think, Tessa in 9x22, as a representation of Dean’s desperation to commit #suicide to escape the internal torment but inability to really go through with it himself; women [and secondary characters in general] often die to express the death of a part of the protagonists’ lives, and though I don’t want that to happen to Hannah, I’m not invested enough to care much yet and I am always prepared for the possibility).
The “journey” Cas is going to go on, to me, seems fairly plainly that, after an establishment that, despite the past of how angels treated Cas, there is a part of Heaven that would benefit him to stick with, that feel “unangelic feelings” and wouldn’t abuse him like the rest have/do, a loving sister there who actually cares about him instead of just about his leadership or his loyalty or his obedience—and will eventually care about the things he does in humanity and himself, as well, so will seemingly provide a place for him in Heaven if he can get his Grace back and stick there, he will choose humanity in the sense of being human, and being with Dean (and his friend Sam), no matter how cushy his spot upstairs seems to be. (That, too, has already begun to be foreshadowed.)
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