Crowley: Canon vs Fanon (P5)

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this series, from Crowley’s career and powers to his identity and relationships. We’ve questioned his image, right to rule, and his attraction to heartbreak compared him to a pigeonholed genie, a lost, defective pearl, and Norman friggin’ Bates.

But there’s more to him than that. We see his actions and sometimes we know his values and motives, but there’s still an emotional and psychological side to him, a rich inner life that rarely makes it into the show’s main text.

But there’s subtext a-plenty.

The Wiring

Bobby: “Word on the street is that ever since Lucifer went to the pokey, you’re the big kahuna downstairs.” Crowley: “I see you’ve been reading the trades.” Bobby: “Trouble in Paradise?” Crowley: “Mate… you have no idea.” – “Weekend at Bobby’s”

We all know Crowley is lonely and longs for love and family, because it’s frequently been stated in so many words, by him or by the other characters. But most people are like that. Sam and Dean are like that. It isn’t enough to account for his unique personality – his quirks, his temperament.

And speaking of temperament, Crowley sometimes comes off as a volatile demon, doesn’t he? Shouting mid-sentence and making things explode, calling people morons and threatening them with death. But he’s not quick to anger. A fan once suggested he blows up because he can’t abide stupidity, but if that was true, he would’ve offed the planet by now.

Crowley’s default state is “surrounded by idiots,” that in and of itself doesn’t seem to piss him off. Insults bounce off him, he’s got a high threshold for abuse, and he’s clearly not moved by relative injustices – whichever side wins the battle between good and evil, Crowley assumes he can take advantage. And when someone finally manages to get under his skin, he reacts by calmly and quietly plotting their demise, frequently with a smile on his face.

So no, Crowley doesn’t have a short temper in that way, his anger on its own is not explosive. So why-for and whence all the tantrums? What causes Crowley to erupt in a fit of roaring verbal smack-downs and busted street lamps? Well, key to understanding his mental and emotional state is the knowledge that he suffers from towering anxiety.

Crowley had a neglectful, unreliable mother who abandoned him at a young age to a terrible life without so much as a goodbye – that alone is enough to hard-wire someone for eternal stress. But ever since he met the Winchesters, Crowley frequently finds himself in mortal peril, surrounded by so-called heroes who seem to want to screw things up and get everybody killed.

He spent six seasons commanding an army of hapless dicks who think he’s a coward and a traitor for steering Hell away from the rocks, a liability for having friends and family, and think Lucifer – the guy who wants to smite them all – is a dreamboat who’ll take them to Heaven on a fluffy, pink cloud.

There’s no calming influence in Crowley’s life, no comfort, security, love, or trust. Every kind of thing that exists in the SPN universe hates him, for being demonic but not demonic enough. He doesn’t have anyone competent helping him, all of his partnerships end in tears. He always seems to wind up alone, putting out fires while pretty much everyone plots to kill him.

Keeping that in mind might cast his meltdowns in a different light.

Self Medication

As a result of Crowley’s anxiety, we not only see him freak out from time to time, but we also see how he tries to manage it on his own, day-to-day. He doesn’t let out his pent-up emotions with violence like you’d expect a demon to – humans on the show seem more inclined to violence than Crowley. Instead, we see him, for lack of a better word, dawdling. With increased frequency.

Whenever he can, he finds a distraction. Junk food, sad movies, 60s pop, outings with mother, foosball with friends, group sex, electronic chess, liquor, spa days, Broadway – you name it, he’s ignored ruling Hell to enjoy it.

What do all these indulgences have in common? Are they just human things he’s drawn to? Then why did he bother with them before the Third Trial? And why didn’t Cas react to being essentially human in the same way? What is it about these things that draw Crowley in?

When Crowley plays hooky, he has a tendency to engage in (or at least try for) activities that release oxytocin.  As I’ve mentioned before, oxytocin is a handy little hormone that does many things, but chiefly important here, it helps combat cortisol, the hormone that stresses us out.

I’m not saying the writers thought about this in terms of biochemistry, but certain people with certain problems repeat certain patterns – you don’t have to be a chemist to know what it means when someone lives in their pajamas for weeks and self-medicates with pizza, booze, and Casablanca.

Those who understand these hormones may be wondering, “What does Crowley slutting it up have to do with stress relief? Men don’t get oxytocin from sex with strangers, they get it from sleeping with someone they’ve bonded with.” And I’d agree with that. But Crowley goes to a lot of trouble to make sure the casual sex he has isn’t so casual.

Regardless of reality, Crowley seemed to think he had something going with Lola, even if it was just trusting her to take care of him when he needed it. You can draw your own conclusions about the weeks between season 9 and season 10, but sufficed to say, Crowley likes there to be some kind of bond.

And at the beginning of season 11, after Crowley escaped assassination attempts from Sam, Rowena, and Cas, the earth had cracked open to let out an eldritch abomination the likes of which he’d never seen, when he had to leave his meat suit (along with his powers) behind, he put the call that would return him to safety on hold and put down his only weapon, for these dorks:

Yes, they were complete strangers, and yes, Crowley’s a tart, but if that’s all there was to it, he was the King of Hell. He could’ve just made the call, been picked up by his minions, got his mighty powers and his todger back, and had any kind of orgy he wanted, with guests, possessed or otherwise. So what was it about these painfully square, middle-aged suburbanites he found worth the risk? Was it because he wanted to get with them, or because he had a shot at feeling like they wanted to get with him?

Maybe I’m looking a little too close at Crowley’s hoeing, but dagnabbit, he needs the attention. Anyway, whatever it is that he’s looking for with his dawdling, he hasn’t found a lasting fix yet. His YOLO incident didn’t pacify.

The Baggage

“See, problem with the old place was most of the inmates were masochists already. A lot of ‘thank you, sir, can I have another hot spike up the jacksie?’” – Crowley, “The Man Who Would Be King”

Brass tacks: I suspect Crowley might have a few wires crossed somewhere when it comes to violence and affection. And I don’t mean the way he flirts with anyone who threatens him. I’m talking fear of affection with a side of full-on situational masochism. Yes, masochism, not sadism.

While it’s very popular in fanon for Crowley to be portrayed as sadistic, actually inflicting pain seems to bore him more than his voicemail greeting would have us believe. He seems far more comfortable receiving pain than he does receiving affection. Contrast his reaction to Gavin coming at him for a hug (anxious) to Kevin coming at him with a sledgehammer (exited).

Was his excitement at coercing someone into hitting him caused by the enjoyment of pain or coercion? (50/50?) And if Crowley is indeed a masochist, is it a byproduct of being twisted by torture – like he longs for attention but mistrusts gentleness – or is it just another boring kink?

Would it have started with Crowley or Fergus? Was he telling the truth about most damned souls being masochistic before they get to Hell?

And is there some correlation or is it a coincidence? Maybe the Venn diagram of people who are masochists and people who impulse buy just happens to overlap in Hell. But if a grown man sells his immortal soul off to be tortured by demons for (he thinks) all eternity in exchange for ten years of cosmetic surgery, is it just poor judgment, or something deeper?

Raises an interesting question, too: can selling your soul for cheap be an ultimately masochistic act? And I don’t mean it in a technical way, (i.e. are they knowingly making a choice that will harm them) because if that was how masochists happen, everyone who ever drank Starbucks would be one.

I know, I’m over-analyzing again. Fergus was probably just another rube who didn’t believe in Hell and threw away his future for some fun in the present – if he’d been a modern man, he would’ve just racked up credit card debt. Maybe there’s nothing more to this. Maybe he was just dim.

“Fergus was bright. Walked before his first birthday.” – Rowena, “Alpha and Omega”

Maybe.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 7| |Part 8| |Part 9|

Crowley: Canon vs Fanon (P8)

I was planning on this being the conclusion of the series, (I know, I promised you guys a timeline) but the more I thought of topics to include, the more I realized there’s plenty more to say about our buddy Crowley. This one’s a shorty, as I’m sick and dizzy.

The whole point of CvF, aside from adding to the spartan Crowley tag, is examining the (at times) inexplicable gulf between who Crowley actually is and the truthiness of his image, in his own world and in ours. But I’ve mostly only focused on the what. For this installment, I’m honing in on the why.

Cultural Shorthand

I previously mentioned fan-made character playlists have a tendency to lean toward recent music and the fan’s own preferences. This doesn’t so much suggest a bias or even extreme laziness, but a limited frame of reference. People don’t have to work hard to hear very recent, very popular, or highly publicized songs, and if you’re not kinda old or a music snob, when you pick out a song that reminds you of Crowley, it'll be from a sparse catalog.

Now let’s apply that thinking to stock characters. Think of a fictional lad or lassie that reminds you Crowley. Are they from a TV show, book, or movie from the last ten years? If not, are they from an accessible story most westerners alive right now know about (like Star Wars or Harry Potter)? Odds are very, very high the answer to at least one of those questions is yes.

Humans are weird, so when our frame of reference for a character is limited, the odds we’ll mentally shave off whatever part of them doesn’t fit the type is higher than most will admit. Don’t believe me? Then maybe you haven’t heard the top two justifications our fandom uses for screaming over Crowley’s softer side: “he’s a demon” and “the King of Hell should be evil”.

Besides the fact that, in reality, Crowley’s the only king of Hell we’ve ever seen operate on SPN, he never was evil, that’s how we know it’s not exactly compulsory. So why do people think it should be? What part of their experience insists that the only satisfying characterization for a dude with Crowley’s problems and powers is “well-dressed turd who hurts people for fun”?

We all know what comes next -- predictable cries of villain decay from people who weren't paying attention, and then me diagramming why it’s dumb and bitching about it. Let’s move forward this time, onto a couple of stock characters that may help us understand Crowley a little better.

The Showboater

Intelligence equals isolation, or so the story goes. We’re practically over-saturated with insufferable geniuses these days -- characters whose cleverness makes them unbearable company to us, or us to them, but people still have to put up with them. It’s kind of an egotistic fantasy for the audience (”the only reason I’m unpopular is because I’m too great!”) but being alone in your awesomeness is not as fun for the characters themselves.

Some live whole lives trapped inside their own heads, with no one around to coax them out. And while some of them are fine with that, others still do want out. They get lonely. Desperate, even. Sherlock Holmes, for example. He claims to solve crimes purely for the intellectual thrill of it, but that doesn’t account for his show-offy, drama queen tendencies.

But what other encouragement could someone like him hope for? Before meeting John, the reaction of everyone in Sherlock’s life to his massive intellect was at best “that’s nice” and at worst “fuck off”. And since he didn’t see any other traits in himself worthy of praise, the only thing he thought to do -- if it was as conscious a decision as to be inspired by thought -- was to showboat like crazy. The only reason he had to bother putting effort into anything he did was the slender hope someone would see it and be dazzled.

There’s a lot of Sherlock Holmes in Crowley. He knows demon laws and legalese backwards and forwards. He knows the history of Heaven better than the angels do. He reads and speaks several arcane languages, he can twist a no-win scenario into a battle of wits and triumph, and think his way out of the most dire situations if given the tiniest bit of wiggle room. 

And that’s just the brainy stuff -- he’s also dynamic, creative, charismatic, witty, stylish, persistent, generous, commanding, resilient, artistic, sexy, perceptive, ironically far more honest, honor-bound, and all-around genial than the heroes. And he’s cute as AF. He’ll do anything for the people he loves, even if he doesn’t understand their goals. Even if what they want hurts him.

Crowley’s amazing. And no one cares.

Good or evil , it’s a blue moon when anyone thanks him or compliments him, lets him know in any way that he’s done well, let alone that he’s anything but obnoxious. This is why it was so easy for Rowena to manipulate him with only the barest crumbs of affection and encouragement. He’s starved for it.

Re-watch “The Devil You Know” and “Two Minutes to Midnight” sometime and ask yourself why everything Crowley does is framed to be as dramatic as possible. Why pretend you’re abandoning the Winchesters to a hellhound if you’re just going to come back half a minute later with your own and save them? Why wait until you had an audience to heal Bobby’s paralysis?

And why explode the ex all over mummy’s civvies in “Lotus”?

It seems like all of the above was just so he could treasure the look of slack-jawed, dumb-assed surprise on their faces. To prove to people who would never tell him so that he’s something special. So on the rare occasions that he actually gets appreciated, he doesn’t ever seem to see it coming.

The Tragic Criminal

There’s no one actor whose discography can give you a perfect handle on Crowley, but Petter Lorre comes pretty damn close. While he was pigeonholed into villainous roles, he was lauded as one of the greatest actors in the world, and so directors frequently gave him the leeway to imbue some of his characters with charm, vulnerability, humor, and even heroic virtues at a time when audiences were rarely treated to that kind of complexity.

As a result, while most Supernatural fans are too young to be familiar with his work, they’re almost undoubtedly acquainted with the stock character of the heartsick devil he made insanely popular. Sure, there’s been plenty of sympathetic creeps and crooks that date back to Lucifer, but they’re always a bit on the lofty, untouchable side.

Meanwhile, there’s something about Lorre’s sad-eyed monsters that calls out to audiences. Despite not being heroic or even sane, they have human pain, human motives. Regrets, hopes, and that spark that says they care about someone, even if they don’t realize it. There’s a little pleading whatsit in their eyes asking for mercy or guidance, and we see that same whatsit in Crowley.

One of Lorre’s characters, Raskolnikov from 1935′s loose adaption of Crime and Punishment, feels awfully familiar.

In the film, Lorre played a man (fittingly renamed “Roderick”) who was convinced he could get away with murdering his terrible pawnbroker -- not because he assumed he was too smart to get caught, but because he thought he was too rational to feel guilt. In case you’re wondering how rational he turned out to be, the answer is “not remotely”.

I don’t think it’s about where we set the bar -- we want to believe there’s darkness in the good and goodness in the dark. It’s relatable and satisfying. The story of Crime and Punishment wouldn’t be anything but lurid if it wasn’t about a man finding out he’s not half as ruthless as he imagines.

And likewise, where could we go with Crowley’s story if he was pure evil? It would just be a gory ride-along with a serial killer until someone laid him out -- and what kind of audience would be interested in that?

Okay, the slasher flick fandom, but if you’re a true horror groupie, you’ve always thought Crowley was safe as a kitten. The point is, through a monster’s softer side, we get to explore stories that Sam, Dean, and Cas just can’t. Feel things Team Free Will can’t make us feel.

And also, when heroes fail to live up to their designated moral alignment, it’s not just that they chose poorly. It comes after years of bragging, talking shit about other characters, or lecturing them on the choices they’ve made.

When it comes to the grand hypocrisy of these characters, a self-righteous hero giving into hubris or wrath comes off as a little less endearing than Crowley finding out that, deep down, he'd like a pet on the head.

Some fans get annoyed with the idea that under Crowley’s hard exterior, there’s a creamy nougat. They think the two halves are incompatible and only one can be real, because you can’t be both horrible and adorable. (These people have clearly never gotten a gruesome a present from their cat.) But if getting to know Dean has taught us anything, it’s that no one is that black and white. That both sides can exist without one being a lie.

Crowley’s still a flesh-eating torture beast on the cusp of madness. A cute flesh-eating torture beast who brought you cupcakes because he loves you, but a flesh-eating torture beast nonetheless.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 7| |Part 8| |Part 9|

Crowley: Canon vs Fanon (P6)

No, you’re not off the hook yet. There's a lot about this guy that gets ignored in favor of what’s merely convenient. But how can this still be the problem? How can his image in the fandom cause this much confusion, to the point where the answer to every single misconception about Crowley comes down to tl;dr?

Satisfaction, dear hearts. Putting gray-area characters into convenient boxes isn’t just easier. For some people, it feels good. But not for me. I’ll keep making these insanely long posts dissecting a bitty goth until you all cry uncle. I’m still seeing people talk about “the old Crowley” and if I don’t get this out of my system, everybody burns.

And, you know, let’s have fun, too.

His Taste

We’ve talked a little about Crowley’s affected evil style, but not about the things he keeps mostly to himself -- things that don’t fit his image, and that fans don’t seem to notice. There haven’t been many opportunities in the show to display Crowley’s taste outside of “expensive” and “spooky” but they manage to get something across. One of the most glaring examples is his taste in music. 

Ask anyone what Crowley’s song is and they’ll say “Mr. Crowley.” Ask what sort of music you’d find on his playlist and you’ll get everything from death metal to Mumford & Sons -- artists that line up with stereotypes, or with a person’s own tastes. But what kind of music does Crowley listen to in canon?

Whether it’s because these artists are easy to license and make jokes with, or someone at SPN just loves them, Crowley’s taste in music seems to mostly be made up of stuff you’d never guess by looking at him: 60s pop and seventies soul. Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, and The Main Ingredient. But none of that really adds up to anything. Not on it’s own.

We also know Crowley seems to take an interest in characters he thinks are unjustly maligned, like Elphaba from Wicked, or dejected, like Hannah Horvath from Girls. We see him crying over Casablanca, reading Little Women as he waits for a traitor’s return, and he named one of his hell hounds Juliet.

Once you lay it out end to end, it’s clear: Crowley likes love stories, and his heart goes out to the lonely and unlucky in love.

Thanks to "Sacrifice”, no one would be surprised that he’s interested in songs, movies, and books about the second-hand emotion, but for some reason, I never see this reflected in fanon. Everything that doesn’t fit his image is discarded. One might wonder what’s the point in Crowley being represented in fanon at all if he’s not allowed to be himself, but he’s so frequently passed over, I’m sure most fans don’t wonder at all.

His Purpose

Again and again, fans have claimed Crowley’s outlived his function, that he needs to be evil or die and “make room” for another villain. So I’ll say this again, in big old letters:

Crowley was never a villain.

Not as a demon and not in the narrative. And when your definition of a villain includes the word “function”, you can’t weasel out of this narrative talk. But if he’s not the bad guy and he isn’t a hero, then WTF?

Well, right from the beginning Crowley’s been offering help the boys, but by trading it to them, usually for protection. No, Crowley’s not as cheap a date as his tarty Ted Baker suits would have you believe. And the boys don’t like that, because you’re already helping yourself when you help them, right? It’s for the greater good, even if they think you can’t be good.

Crowley: “Fascinating. The utter contempt, when I’m in the midst of saving the Winchester’s bacon. Again.” Sam: “The point of this is to save everyone’s bacon. Including yours.” -- "O Brother Where Art Thou?”

As far as the story’s concerned, by making his help conditional, Crowley’s flipping the boys inside out. Letting us see the parts of them they work so hard to hide with platitudes and posturing, giving us a window in. Dean accepted Mark of Cain, Cas took all the Purgatory souls, and Bobby wished for the location of Death. Did they do these things because they thought it was right, or because they were feeling powerless?

Crowley can’t make you sell out, and he isn’t doing it for sadistic reasons -- unless you bruise his ego, he could care less how you feel about making a deal. For him, trading favors isn’t just a way of life, it’s the only way.

“The gold from the calf? Well, let's just say I'll be hanged under certain sexual-deviancy laws if I ever show my face in Jordan again.” -- Crowley, “Brother's Keeper”

He’s sold so much of himself -- his body, his soul, his dignity -- that this idea, that anyone is too good to compromise, sounds like vanity and BS. Especially when you’re just going to buckle eventually. Especially if you’re buckling right in from of him and have the nerve to pretend otherwise.

It’s the very definition of hypocrisy: the boys (and subsequently, the audience) see Crowley as a villain for doing something the boys always do, even when they’re doing it right now. They’re talking down to Crowley for trying to sell them on a moral gray area while they’re buying it.

Crowley may not be the hero, but he’s not the guy lowering the damsel into the shark tank, either. He’s not even the shark. So who is he?

Performing and Presenting

In case you haven’t noticed, Crowley has this... tick.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” -- “Meet The New Boss”

“Just between us girls....” -- “Mother’s Little Helper”

His tendency to... what would you call this? Affecting Ladyness? The point is, at least in his dialogue, Crowley’s pretty far from macho. This is roundly ignored by fandom in general -- I’ve never seen it in fic or fanart, and headcanons about him really seem determined to butch him up.

The majority of Supernatural fans are female, why do most of them prefer to hype-up Crowley’s machismo, disassociate him from their gender? On the one hand, many of the fans who gravitate toward him do so for the image, the powerful, dominant, masculine figure, and focusing at all on Crowley’s feminine language or qualities might break the illusion.

But on the other hand, as we’ve discussed, Canon Crowley is a weirdly relatable character. Maybe some people can’t stand having the abyss look back at them, even when it looks like Mark Sheppard. If your reality is rough and you use fandom to escape it, seeing Crowley fight with his awful mom or get rejected by the jerks he’s crushing on might strike a nerve.

Meanwhile, Crowley seems to have the tiniest bit of self-awareness that he’s a fictional character, enough to try to change the card he’s been dealt. But instead of shooting for the moon -- like Metatron and his bid to become a protagonist God -- Crowley reached for a lower star.

Sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally, and increasingly since season 9, Crowley sometimes twists himself to fit more traditionally female roles, like “femme fatale” and “damsel in distress”, usually both at the same time. But what does he stand to gain from this?

I think Crowley’s insistence on snatching up these particular roles is an effort at rebranding himself. The boys' lives are complicated and frustrating, and some part of them wants it black and white. “Work with the bad guy to get the worse guy” is plain degrading for self-styled heroes, but what could be more heartening than acting out a classic hero story? And if getting your white hat ya-yas out saves Crowley’s delicate ass, everybody wins.

It’s also a lot more glamorous for Crowley. If he played his designated role straightforwardly, he’d be the group’s token sociopath, there to do the dirty work so the boys can keep their pretty hands clean, and feel good about themselves when they later cast him aside. (Fuck, that even feels thankless and insulting to type.) Compared to that, being their part-time bad girl who they occasionally have to rescue is a serious upgrade.

But repeatedly putting himself in danger and leaving his fate in the hands of people who've made it clear they wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire? Doesn't that seem like the opposite of a good idea? What happens when the time comes to either save Crowley or let him die?

Oh. Well, shit.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 7| |Part 8| |Part 9|

Crowley: Canon vs Fanon (P4)

If you’ve been following along in this series, or read pretty much any of my other metas, you might have noticed my subtle attempts to hammer home one point above all others: the narrative of a well-written show is not always stated. Just because characters say something is so, doesn’t mean it is. Especially if said characters are self-deluding, confused, or in a position to gain by deceit. 

Crowley is all of the above, exceedingly so.

I used to be -- and occasionally still am -- part of an odd cycle in the Crowley tag that repeats the more screen time he gets.

Stage 1.) An episode comes out that highlights how Crowley’s mantle as the king of rotten runs against his more human qualities. Maybe he was sweet or cute in the episode. Someone beat him in a fight or some other humiliation. Whatever the case, he was less than victorious, perfect, and cruel.

Stage 2.) One of his stans inevitably complains that his characterization has changed for the worse, calling the writers morons or even biased against him. 

Stage 3.) I point out old episodes, quotes, and scenes (you know, canon?) that show how he’s actually stayed the same, and is only focused on with more depth and sympathy, showing the writers have actually favored him.

Stage 4.) Then, feeling betrayed by Crowley’s alluring but ultimately false image of evil, they say something like this:

“Don’t you think that the King of Hell should be more demonic?”

But... what makes us so sure Crowley was King of Hell in the first place? Oh, right. Because Crowley told us he was.

His Rule

Ask yourself this: how often did you hear the phrase “King of Hell” used on Supernatural before Crowley revealed he ascended the throne in “Weekend at Bobby’s”? Go ahead, do a search, I’ll wait...

...Never? Huh. That’s weird, right?

Before Crowley, the acting leader of Hell was always a general or a knight, some kind of soldier or servant, while Lucifer remained their imprisoned, impotent god, waiting to be released. But so what? What’s the difference?

Well...

Before Crowley came along, Hell was a theocracy.

Lucifer was God the Father and his will was considered law. He wasn’t a politician or descendant of someone, he didn’t win anything. He created demons to serve him and so they must. Only outliers longed for more. 

Such a ruler (by dint of being real) can be overthrown by one his subjects, but never replaced. Only the system of government could. 

We’ve recently learned that Crowley sought out Ramiel, a Prince of Hell, to take control after Lucifer was re-caged. It was very important to him, for obvious reasons, that Hell have a ruler, but Ramiel wasn’t interested. He believed his own royal-sounding title was meaningless (he was just a general, after all, not the son of Lucifer) and so off-handedly “abdicated” and tossed the crown to Crowley.

It could’ve just as easily been the demon standing next to him.

So Crowley became a king, but not the god of demon kind, nor the strongest, nor Lucifer’s chosen proxy. He will never be seen as his true successor or conqueror. He ruled Hell, but not by strength or lineage, or divine right. 

He was a dictator, and probably should’ve ran Hell as one. But he didn’t. He saw himself as the rightful ruler and offered power and opportunity to any and all who’d be of loyal service to him, be they demons, monsters, witches, or humans. And they betrayed him whenever they got the chance, because to them, he has no more right to rule than they do.

His Résumé

It makes sense that demons with this mindset would back Abaddon over Crowley. She was so much stronger than he was, was a hell of a lot more evil, but most of all, she had an infinitely more impressive pedigree. As a Knight of Hell, Abaddon was handpicked and trained by Cain to serve Lucifer and lead armies, and once she became Queen, they knew she would’ve either sought to release him or followed in his footsteps.

Abaddon hated humanity as much as Lucifer did, and like him, she felt her natural strength entitled her to souls and a position of authority. She meant to conquer all realms, not just Hell, and refused to compromise by giving anyone else anything.

Meanwhile, Crowley is a crossroads demon.

To a human, there’s either no real value distinction between kinds of demons, or the crossroads kind are cool and intriguing. Crowley tricks people out of their souls! He corrupts people! He has magic and can vanish into thin air! There’s blues songs and hell hounds and make-outs! So dark!

But to a demon? Crowley was built to serve humans. He compromised with and waited on them on a nightly bases. He came when called, kept people happy, charmed them, even kissed them on the lips.

Sorry, that’s reductive. Jeannie was a magical servant known for her hotness, obsessive love of a mortal man, her association with colorful smoke and I’m really not making a case for how that’s different, am I?

Let’s start over.

All demons are Lucifer’s servants. None of them should have any agency, any ability to chose outside of their urge to serve him and destroy In His Name, but the ones with the most value and authority are the warriors, the knights and generals who could win battles for him through sheer brute force. 

The crossroads class, for all their glamor, are basically just the french maids of Hell. Sexy and useful, but ultimately a joke. To a demon, the notion of Crowley breaking out of that box is just... laughable. The mere idea that a salesman had become king was offensive enough to set Abaddon on her quest to usurp him -- she had no interest in ruling before that. So she wasn’t just driven by ambition and sadism, it was also patriotism.

Crowley has no right to rule, no strength to defend his crown against an arch angel, no ground to stand on, and gets no respect. He’s rebelling against every fiber of his being. But again, does that make him less scary or more?

His Values

“You second rate bean counter! You wanted my throne. You plotted to replace me! As if ambition and posturing were the same as majesty!” -- Lucifer, “Hell's Angel”

“It may look like bean counting to you, it may lack a certain adolescent flair, but my way works!” -- Crowley, “Heaven Can't Wait”

So, if Crowley isn’t like the other demons, if he doesn’t love Lucifer, what does he stand for? How does he see the world? Is he all self-interest with no personal ethos? No virtues he sets above any others? Not quite.

Crowley’s too egotistical a character to not love his own unique strengths, the traits that set him apart from other demons, and while we see him talk of evil and violence with casual glee, in the end, he rewards and admires hard work, cunning and imagination, courage, common sense, and education. In short, he values the traits that helped him work his way to the top.

Crowley has no love for sycophantic demons and witches trying to curry favor with him. He laughs at angels in general -- what good is all that strength if they’re all so goddamn stupid? But we see him squee at the realization that his son is secretly shrewd. He has faith that the Winchesters will take out anyone in their path. And his twisted affection for Kevin Tran, no matter how many times the kid screwed him over, did him no favors.

But there’s more to Crowley than the job, and that’s his biggest problem.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 8| |Part 9|