Supernatural

[norwich36]

This episode was entirely made of awesome.



Things I completely loved about this episode:

1. BOBBY! I can't decide which part I loved the most: all his hilarious-but-true advice to Sam and Dean (my favorite line had to be "If you're going to shoot, shoot, don't talk", but I also loved him calling them chuckleheads when they were having the theological debate); the fact that we got to see precisely how networked into the hunting community he actually is (And oh, Olivia, I knew you were a goner the moment we saw you being a kickass female hunter in the teaser); the fact that we got another snippet of his past with the creepy little girls; or the fact that he has a ghost-proof panic room. I loved it all.

2. Sam! I loved the character continuity that he actually doesn't have a problem believing in God and angels, even if he is perhaps calling on demonic powers to fight demons himself. And is it weird that I loved that he forgot the pie?

3. Dean!!! I love that Dean has his priorities so in order (Don't forget the pie!) that he's overcome the bad associations of sending Sam out alone for pie. More seriously, though, all his theological questioning was so in keeping with his whole attitude toward life from Houses of the Holy on forward, and he is asking the basic questions of theodicy, so it's not like there are any easy answers. I also really liked the fact that he doesn't actually think of himself as a hero, just an ordinary guy whose saving people is balanced, morally, by his stealing and ditching girls.

4. The plot: I really liked how the witnesses themselves underscore the theodicy question: how can a God of love exist and yet allow a world so full of evil? Because really, Meg and the little girls and Henriksen and, um, Nightshifter dude whose name I don't remember all really did get extremely bad breaks in their lives. And hearing Meg and Henriksen in particular talk about their torture by demons, and why does Dean get another chance when they didn't--OUCH. That resonates so well with the survivor guilt Dean is feeling right now.

Oh, Henriksen. I SO wish they had found a way to bring you back that didn't involve your actual death.

5. Ruby. I think it's really interesting what we found out from her and about her in this episode. From her: angels are badasses who kill first and ask questions later, and they probably don't think demons can be helpful, by definition. (Sam, you'd better watch out! Some angels may think a little demon blood + a little demonic power=someone asking to be smitten by an angel of the Lord, and not in that good Dean/Castiel way, either.) And about her: she's been going through hosts "for fun," and I think Sam must feel some guilt about associating with her because of that, because the witnesses seemed to focus their accusations on actual guilty feelings of the person they were talking to.

6. APOCALYPSE! But we can't follow Revelation as a map, because the version that's circulating is "the tourists version." Ok, not only is that explanation fun and in keeping with the "true apocalyptic texts are full of hidden secrets" kind of way, but it also gives the SPN writing crew license to do whatever the hell they want--which should be fun to watch. I mean, 66 seals instead of 7? That seems like an auspicious beginning of a plot arc to me.

oh yeah, and

7. LUCIFER will be unleashed. (Someone, I'm sure, is already writing the story where Lucifer is in fact "caged" somehow inside of Sam, right?) I love the continuity from last season--Dean asking wasn't Lucifer just a story in demon Sunday school--but I also loved Castiel's response.

And speaking of which,

8. CASTIEL being all badass and "we're fighting a war against demons with limited resources, so boohoo so sorry I can't hold your hand, and you better be a little more respectful, motherfucker, or I'll toss your disrespectful ass back in the pit" was pretty damn awesome, I thought.

My only complaint was that by mentioning angels hadn't been on earth for 2000 years, the show was leaning a LEETLE too close to specific Christian mythology for my comfort zone. At least if they just stick to God and angels you've got Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism still in play.

And OMG

9. THE PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK! SQUEE TIMES A BILLION! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

Comments

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

There is a strain of apocalyptic (in terms of battles between Good and Evil and possibly an end-of-times blow out) in Judaism, which survives in the Book of Daniel and in kabbalah, but it's not really part of the main tradition of the religion. It's been played down in recent millenia, unless times are REALLY bad. So it's something I suspect only scholars of the subject would know about. And I don't see the producers of SPN as any sort of scholars. (Although I'm sure that's the origin of the Christian beliefs.)

I avoided watching the Christmas episode, but from the posts I read, I gathered that the non-Christian gods were presented in a very bad light, as they have done in the past.

I have to say, I regard most horror universes as essentially Christian in nature - other than the Golem (itself originating in an early 19th/late 18th C fantasy story), there are few horror tropes in Judaism.

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'm an eclectic pagan, and I really enjoyed the Christmas episode and the Trickter episodes very much. Though, I'm sure that since dealing with pagans is like herding cats, there are likely a variety of reactions. The only episode that really bothered me was the one where the "witches" had sold their souls to a demon, because it was so stereotypical, and imho, misogynist.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I try to avoid Christmas episodes and Christmas issues of comics, unless I can't for plot/arc issues, or they spring it on me in February (I'm looking at you, House.)

But the witches episode is a case in point - they're not straying from mainstream (ie, Christian) views of the universe. That would really alienate their viewership.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I'm aware that most apocalypticism in the Jewish tradition dates from 200 B.C.E.--100 C.E. or so, and that it was really most prevalent in Jewish communities that died out (there's some interesting recent scholarship on Enochian (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Enochian+Judaism&x=0&y=0) Judaism (http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Angels-History-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0521853788/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222459715&sr=8-2), for example, but I agree with you that that is definitely beyond the purview of the SPN writers). And you are correct, early Christians borrowed the whole idea of apocalypticism from Judaism, just as (at least some scholars think, though it is disputed) a lot of ideas expressed in ancient apocalyptic Judaism were probably influenced by Zoroastrianism. But even without being scholars, I think the SPN writers could, in theory, have drawn on the shared idea of angels as heavenly warriors without necessarily using an explicitly Christian framework; that was my point.

Not all the non-Christian gods in SPN have been presented in an exclusively negative light; the Trickster clearly was trying to teach Sam something, for example. But the fact that there are other gods in this universe at all de-stabilized the Christian paradigm a little bit, and I liked that aspect of the show.

I already acknowledged the dominance of Christian themes in horror in the comment above, but even though I wouldn't say horror is a major theme in Jewish literature, considering that there is a lot of speculation that Mary Shelley was influenced by stories about golems, that's a fairly substantial line of influence. (Wasn't there a golem in some X-files episode, or am I misremembering?) And there are also stories about dybbuks, though I don't know how influential they are. (I seem to recall watching a Yiddish horror called "The Dybbuk" a while back when a friend of mine was doing a project on Yiddish films, though I realize this is not really a story that has had much influence in Hollywood.)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

They probably *could* have used a less explicitly Christian framework, but then they'd have to do angels very differently (Angels have no free will in Judaism, for example, which doesn't fit with the plot needs of this arc.)

The Golem is...*sigh*.

Most evidence for the Golem is that it originated in a late 18th C fantasy story - there is no mention of such a being earlier.

(And if you want a bunch of religious Jewish fans to start laughing hysterically, bring up the XF Golem episode. There wasn't much they got right. My husband is especially amused by the book used in the episode. We have several copies, including one in translation. None of them have ever caught fire...)

Dybbuks - possession. Yes. There are Yiddish stories about them, and there's even rumors of exorcisms taking place in Israel. We do have demons, after all, but they're just NOT in the same position as those in Christianity. After all, they're NOT fallen angels, since beings without free will can't revolt.