#Ned Stark is a sheriff because what else did you expect

[dr3adlady]

I'm working on a new fic which I'm going to name "born to burn", and it's going to be a western. I always loved the genre, and Sandor is one of those characters who look like they have just walked out of a duel alive, so it was just a matter of time till I made such an au :))) I'm very excited about it, and the first chapter will be released soon.

[awed-frog]

The Memory Remains/Carthago Delenda

On the whole, I think I really liked this episode? It certainly felt very old school, in the best possible sense. There were a couple of moments I was actually worried, and considering that I know perfectly well both Sam and Dean will always be fine, that’s quite something. 

I sort of liked the mythology, and I liked the class thing, and as for Dean hooking up with a waitress - look, first - this is the writer who practically wrote Dean as bi in Beyond the Mat, his only other Supernatural episode. I know they didn’t quite go there, but by paralleling a young Sam jerking off to some picture of Rio (sorry to be coarse, but that’s exactly what it was and it was confirmed both by dialogue and by Sam’s embarrassed stammering) with Dean’s obsession for Gunnar, well, kudos for the effort. And Jensen, of course, went with it, like he always does, and made the whole thing very obvious. So there’s that, and second - this is what Dean does. He’s a kisser and a hugger and all about touching and be touched, and sex with strangers was the only thing that, growing up, gave him that physical intimacy he craved and nobody else was capable to share with him. We know Mary was dead, of course, and John was not the hugging type, and Sam - my headcanon (which I use liberally in my fics, and sue me) is that he was an expansive child and Dean secretly loved it, but at some point John told both of them to just cut it out already, ‘cause you’re too old for this shit now. So that was that, and from then on, touch that actually matters has been in short supply for Dean - and, unlike Sam, whom I read as more reserved, Dean craves to be touched and held. It’s just who he is. So, whatever - he’s worried sick about Cas, and that’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and there’s a million other things going through his head and now that stupid sheriff’s brought half of them up again by talking about a kid who grew up with an abusive father as though that’s nothing and what can you do (I actually went back and looked three times at that scene, at how the sheriff says, “Guess who gets to take care of him?” because something was bugging me and yeah, there it was - Sam visibly makes an effort to react to the conversation because it’s what’s expected from him, but Dean just looks up - up and to the left, that is, which is what happens when you remember past experiences; and I don’t want this person who reads a lot into every detail, but these are basic biology things an actor would do without even realizing, and also it’s beyond canon, by this point, that Dean took care of John more than once, because that’s what happens when you’ve got an alcoholic parent) - and, sorry, here’s the end of the sentence - it looks perfectly reasonable to me that Dean would want some comfort, and I do believe he slept with that woman and that it was great and that it cheered him up a bit in some bittersweet way and what can you do?

Honestly, all that I’m upset about is that the straight stuff is always out in the open and for the queer one you need to stop your video and squint at the scene and the paintings and the colours and yeah, that BS smack on Dean and the waitress could be nothing -

(Also, that girl is not his type at all. She was just there, and she liked him, and, as he’s told us himself, he likes waitresses because they smell like food and it’s not easy to get them - if that doesn’t sound like comfort and a need for validation to you, I don’t know what does.)

Moving away from Destiel-related content, I really liked how seamlessly the different parts of the episode moved into one another. From that woman reading the text of the Fourth Amendment on the radio at the very beginning (the one which makes it illegal to search a house without a warrant or probable cause, that is), to Ketch and his men walking around in Sam and Dean’s lives as they themselves are in the outside world, living them - that was very well done.

Also well done: the whole social commentary on class and money. 

Industrial benefactors are sometimes seen as a good thing, because they normally provide houses for their workers and schools for their workers’ kids and therefore create and enrich a whole community, but personally I’ve always hated the concept (which is not as outdated as one would expect, and ew) and I was happy to see our writer didn’t give them an inch. Yes, sure, the town did prosper, but that factory was creepy and unpleasant in itself (even if you eat meat, you gotta admit that the meat industry and meat factories are about as bleak and morally ambiguous as you can get) and, more importantly, it was only held together by human sacrifice. The idea that it could, in fact, be considered acceptable to lose a kid every year so that the rest of the village can get by was never even suggested, and thank God. Instead, the whole episode read like some old-fashioned Quaker or Socialist leaflet: money corrupts (look at our first victim, lured to his death by a backpack full of dollar bills), creates division and resentment (the tale of the two brothers may have read like a bad Dynasty episode, but these things happen every day), generally comes from blood (the entire god story and the sacrifices) and it’s always better to be honest and poor than rich and tainted (I really liked the sheriff, poor guy).

As for the lore itself - I’m slightly less happy with it, mostly because I would expect both Sam and Dean to know perfectly well what a satyr is (and no, they don’t eat human flesh - those were the women who danced with Dionysos, totally different stuff) and because Moloch has been maligned plenty enough, but I did appreciate the casual horror of it all - a starved and tortured god locked in your cellar, people dressing as animals to capture an unwilling sacrifice - very gothic and compelling.

Since we’re now talking about pagan stuff, maybe Sam and Dean’s discussion about their legacy and mortality made sense, but it was still hard to watch. What happened to the wary hope of S11? To the idea it’s not too late to find a partner, perhaps even to have kids? With that mournful discussion and by carving their initials in the Bunker’s table, Sam and Dean have somehow closed the circle. Their story, this is what they seem to think, is not going anywhere, is not leaving any memory behind. The thing was so sweet and sad, I’m actually comforted by the fact this is not the last season, because there it was - the perfect foundation to end this story in a burst of flames. The reminder to their childhood, the belated acknowledgement that it wasn’t, in the end, as bad as it could have been (“Next time you hear me say that our family is messed up, remind me that we could be psycho goat people,” Dean says, and man, now I can’t wait for that confrontation with Mary we know is coming), the quiet acceptance about their importance in history (non-existent), in people’s lives (often significant) and in their own consciences (“We left the world better than we found it, you know.”) - the knowledge that one day they’ll both die, and they’ll be forgotten, and someone else will live in the Bunker, fight on - it was heartbreaking, but also - also, after all these years of anger and torment and hurt, it looks like Sam and Dean are very close to being okay with everything - their family, their jobs, their place in the world, and even each other - and that’s -

- yeah.

We'll eventually fade away, too.

Just in case someone is wondering: Moloch was the god of Carthage, a city which used to be roughly where Tunis is now. At one point, it was Rome’s main rival - mostly because Carthaginians were better educated and smarter and had a longer and richer civilisation behind them - so Rome started a brutal campaign against them which included a few wars and also liberal amounts of bullshit propaganda. What Moloch is generally associated with is child sacrifice, which ties in nicely with our two victims in The Memory Remains, and I’m not saying that never happened at all, but still - it’s very likely it didn’t happen with the alarming frequency described by some of the more vitriolic Roman politicians. Plus, you know - human sacrifice is a thing in every culture, and it makes perfect sense. A human life, and especially a child’s life, is the most precious thing a community has to offer, right up there with other very precious things, like a good stallion or a fertile bull, so when things start to go really bad, you have up up the ante a bit. Gods are not stupid, and no god is going to show up and save your stupid city in exchange for a loaf of bread and two rabbits. That’s just the way it goes, and everyone knows it. Even the Romans used to perform human sacrifices in times of trouble, so they can just shut it (as you can see, since I’m an archaeologist I’m approaching history in a calm, academic fashion, without taking sides, because that would be both unprofessional and pointless).

Oh, and this is a statue of Moloch which was created for some movie and ended up in someone’s garden in New Jersey, because why not.

Random thoughts: 

I so wish this was on HBO, because Jesus, stoned!Dean must be quite something and that’s clearly something he does, or used to do, a lot and uuugh, where’s my spinoff on those four years he spent without Sam?

Ketch is definitely coded as bisexual - what kind of man notices another man’s hair or clothes? - but at the moment I’m more interested in him stealing Mary’s picture and what he thinks about it.

Which Stark was Sam supposed to be? Who would appeal to him the most? Since Dean was Oberyn, I’m guessing we’re not looking for Tony, but for a random member of the Stark family - Ned, perhaps? Or Bran?

As for Dean picking Oberyn, lol. Bisexual guy who gets into fights to protect his family and is in love with an unpredictable ‘I’m as strong as you and can look after myself, thank you very much’ partner - it’s okay, sweetie, we’ve got you.

If this isn’t going anywhere, Wanek needs to take a chill pill - look at the ships and the puppies and the trench coats and oh my God, that BS sign - what the hell, man?