Tag: spn 12×21

@fantasygeek replied to your post “For the Salty Asks: 14, 19, and 23?”

I want Ketch to be another Crowley! How he’s a bad guy at first but sticks around because he’s handy and eventually gets better and everyone gets attached. His character development last episode was one of the only redeeming thing imo (though the bad guy monologue at the end was just bad writing). Plus I kinda love dhj.

I have so many thoughts about Ketch. But nothing would make me happier. 

Like, okay, he’s totally a bad guy and he enjoys what he does there’s no doubt about that, but there are things he says every once in a while that make me wonder. Things like referring to himself and Mick as “survivors” and that whole “other end of the blade” comment about torture.  Plus the look he gets sometimes, like after he killed Mick andthe way he looked at Mary when she was asking him to kill her. There’s something more going on there and I want t know if he can be an ally. It would, imo, be the best redemption arc. Afterall, this season has been all about “humans are the real monsters” and if Ketch can be redeemed who can’t? 

The thing is, the way the BMoL arc is set up, you need a turncoat. You need someone who is going to take on the Old Men, take them out, and reorder the organization  otherwise you have the same problem. You can kill Toni, Ketch, and Hess, but you still have an entire organization ready to kill all American hunters and show no mercy towards monsters who just live peacefully. The organization needs to be reformed from the inside or completely destroyed without survivors, otherwise this will happen again. Ketch is currently the best hope they have for that. He’s the only BMoL member with a relationship with anyone who could change his mind. He’s the only one who’s had enough time to develop. If Toni becomes a turncoat it’s way too quick to mean anything. (imo) 

The bond villain speech was so OOC. Ketch is efficient (brutal, but efficient) and leaving the Winchesters in a tomb long enough to find their way out of it is not efficient. That was just dumb. 

But, I absolutely would not complain if Ketch became an ally and we got to keep DHJ. He’s percious and I love him. 

idontneedasymbol:

This is a tangential response to @dorkilysoulless‘s post: https://idontneedasymbol.tumblr.com/post/160670608286/seven-sober-things-about-supernatural-12×21

which I’m separating out because it’s only responding to a single point:

   And at the end of the day, I’m choosing to accept [Eileen’s] death narratively, because I understand the machinery that made it happen well enough to say okay, I get why the writers made this choice

Which I’ve seen several fans express, and I don’t get it. What narrative purpose did Eileen’s death serve besides a moment of shock in the opening, and a couple scenes of grief from Sam?

Charlie’s death – which I hate, and it burns me to defend it – but it serves a plot purpose; vengeance sends Dean further down the MoC’s dark path. It’s blatant fridging, but that motivation wouldn’t have worked if it hadn’t been someone close to them.

But if Eileen had been a previously unmentioned hunter acquaintance (like Mary’s friend), who died suspiciously and then the boys learned that he or she had been paranoid about having been bugged – how would the plot have progressed any differently at all? What would the Winchesters have done differently? They would’ve looked less sad, but how would that change the story?

Sam’s grief was nicely played, but is it going to have any impact after this? Will it change his character in any way? He’s mad at the BMOL, of course, but while he says he wants to punch something, he makes no decisions driven by that grief, instead acting as rationally as if Eileen were an innocent victim that they didn’t know personally. And anything he might have felt over Eileen is overwhelmed now by what the BMOL did to Mary.

Maybe I’m wrong and it will have an effect on Sam’s character; maybe he’ll be more likely to reach for the next opportunity for connection he gets, or less likely. But I think it unlikely; Eileen wasn’t really in the show enough yet to be that significant. I doubt we’ll get a mention of her again (maybe one reference next episode?). In the end, her only point in the overall story was to make the BMOL more detestable and make Sam look briefly sorrowful. And I have a hard time accepting that limited value was worth losing a character who provided unique representation, who was generally well-liked and offered further story opportunities (putting aside her developing relationship with Sam, she was the only other American MoL legacy the boys have met).

Okay, I’m just gonna let it all out. You all are mad and I am too, so I’m just gonna get it out. This season is a wandering train wreck. 

I had actual hopes that some of the interesting things they’d planted we’re going to really be played with (the whole “who knows what about who” thing and the misinformation and misdirection) because, hey, that’s not too much to ask for is it? 

I’d hoped we’d see genuine character development from Mary and at least one member of the BMoL that lead to an ally-ship. (Mick, for instance, if he didn’t die, and no, even if Toni is the one who turns around I don’t think that counts because she’s really had fuck all time and/or relationship with anyone to make that meaningful.) I wanted to see Mary make mistakes and learn all about the shit her sons had gone through and I wanted an attempt at healing. The BMoL arc was enough to fill an entire season with intense interpersonal drama. 

BUT that stupid Lucifer plot showed up. Look, I really dislike this whole thing and I really dislike that it’s put Lucifer as a driving force. He’s lost so much of what made him interesting and intimidating. They could have the nephil plot without him (if Crowley hadn’t done a huge dumb). But whatever. 

The issue is that they’re playing with huge themes (truth v dogma, what truth even is, morality, understanding, trauam) with the BMoL arc and big themes with the nephil (nature v nurture, bodily autonomy, what’s really “good” when there is potential for so much bad) and just one of those is needed for a season. Only one of those needed to be the big climax, but apparently we’re getting two and both are half-assed. 

And as far as the bloodbath element, honestly, it’s crap. It would be different if they didn’t feel the need to purge all kinds of good recurring characters all the damn time but they do. And these awesome characters are rarely given the weight their deaths would deserve. It’s like watching somone get kicked in the teeth over and over and over again. Angst is fun, constantly seeing interesting characters die is not fun. 

See, this is the problem I see with both killing off good characters and half-assing action-y plots. Supernatural’s strength is that they create a wonderful world full of potential. There are thousands of monsters, hundreds of hunters and each of them has a story. We get to see these stories, we get to love these characters, and we get to find our view of the world challenged over and over because some monsters are good and some humans are terrible. The lines between friend and foe get blurry and we get to see the height of human triumph and the lows of beastial depravity. That’s what makes the world of Supernatural so much fun. It’s not about two brothers, it’s about two brothers, the world they live in, the politics of heaven and hell and the friends they make along the way. It’s a rich world and apparently that’s just too much for the powers that be to handle because they keep trying to shrink that world down by making it as action-y and focused on two people as they can. I realize that the show’s world revolves around Sam and Dean, but that world is massive and complex and doesn’t need to be stuffed in a box until the need arises to dangle interesting characters and plots in our face just to torpedo them. 

It’s really tired. 

One of spn’s strengths for the very beginning was to tell the story of ther people through the lenses of Sam and Dean. It’s strength was to mirror internal and external drama. No amount of grenade launchers or shoot-em-up scenes or manpain is going to replace that. You wanna get attention and pull things out of your viewer’s show? Show us how the complex world is reflected in complex characters, don’t just half-ass plots and deaths because you think anger and tears are the same thing as understanding and heartache.