#advanced thanatology/romeo and juliet

[fallenangelblade]

visiting my bestie this weekend (who has never seen supernatural) so i made a powerpoint presentation to teach them about the widower arc

[thevioletcaptain]

once again i am thinking about the visual callback to baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet (1996) in advanced thanatology, the episode in which the audience is already aware that cas has been resurrected, but dean who doesn't yet know is so grief-stricken and bereft of hope that he kills himself on a run of the mill ghost hunt.

[dogearedheart]

Every devotion is a twisted rope with two ends. Think of a burial.

[despair, supernatural || eurydice, sarah ruhl || eurydice hurried back to the infernal regions, henry thomsom || unkown || orpheus mourning the death of eurydice, ary scheffer || euridice recedes into the underworld, enrico scuri || slaughterhouse-five, kurt vonnegut || all along the watchtower, supernatural || planet of love, richard siken || letters from medea, salma deera || romeo and juliet, william shakespeare || advanced thanatology, supernatural || the oresteia, aeschylus || orpheus and eurydice, carl goos || unkown || metamorphoses, ovid || carry on, supernatural || the death of orpheus, henry leopold levy || do not bring him water, caitlin scarano]

[ananke-xiii]

SPN Comparisons with novels, tragedies, myths and other stories that I don't totally vibe with:

"Widower arc" and Romeo and Juliet: I feel like this one is a slippery slope. As I've said, I see the theme and the movie reference but I've found out a more compelling way to see that arc, a way that's profoundly related to Dean and Castiel alone which I find more interesting. Cause if you agree with the Romeo and Juliet of it all in "Advanced Thanatology" then you will also see it in "Red Meat" where we even have Billie as a reaper to complete the death theme. Which means you either acknowledge that both Sam and Castiel serve as Juliets to Dean's Romeo and/or acknowledge that Dean's suicidal tendencies have nothing to do with a specific character per se but with the idea that Dean can't find meaning in himself without someone else. And I tend to agree with the latter because, for instance, "Regarding Dean" is, to me, precisely about that: everybody is regarding Dean but how does he regard himself? I don't see the episode as sad as many people do, I think it's actually hopeful in the sense that Dean accepts the fact that he needs to work on himself, takes responsibility for his past and decides he wants to move on. It's a rather positive episode although it is bittersweet like every moment of growth is.

Romeo and Juliet is pertinent to Crowley and Dean as well: Juliet's Crowley's pet just like Dean was the domesticated "Queen" Crowley wanted to rule Hell with. A queen whose death he had a hand in and who resurrected transformed into the Queen of the Underworld, a title which Dean rejects. This time the association is indeed sad, just as Crowley and Dean's summer of love is. If the comparison must be done, spn writers seem to say, it will not be about the commercialized, uncritical romantic idea of love associated with the play.

Finally I don't like the comparison because Cas, Sam and Juliet the Hellhound (lol) didn't fake-die voluntarily, not just straight-up died to avoid something or escape from something. They unfortunately succumbed to their opponent and this is no small detail that can be ignored, imo ( I love symbols and evocative images but I am also a very literal person, I know, I am a living contradiction, blame my sun squaring my moon).

Castiel as Don Quixote: if anything Metatron is the kind of guy Cervantes makes fun of in the Don Quixote. It's him who uses literature as escapism and it's him who wants to write a story where he is the hero because he wants to walk in Cas' trenchcoat. Metatron's windmills were a bit more real because Heaven did have a beef with him, still he had to go ahead with that, admittedly funny, "X" façade that literally nobody asked for. Metatron implicitly comparing Cas to Don Quixote in s10 revelas more about him than Cas (Metatron was, after all, the main character of "Meta fiction", an episode where he literally creates illusions for Cas to believe).

s6 Dean and Cas as Orpheus and Eurydice: I don't see it at all. Apart from that one shot where Dean turns and Cas is still in the holy fire cycle the parallels don't parallel like at all. It's visually nice because it shows how Dean is still conflicted after everything they've been through and the whole Godstiel's arc will indeed change his relationship with Cas forever. But, like, I don't see Orpheus's myth at play at all.

Sam and/or Dean as Christ figure and/or sacrificial lamb and/or scapegoat: now this is where I have to come out as born and raised Roman Catholic cause this is all about redemption and salvation and, from what I've gathered, Protestants have it worse. I still need time to process all this but I suspect there is something at play that doesn't add up. Christ, lamb and goat all have in common one thing among many: the concept of sin. Specifically the concept of humans as sinful creatures that must be redeemed. Now, this is not Christ's sin or the lamb's, they act as conduit for the salvation of others. So here's my problem with these symbols in SPN: what's the sin in this story? I mean, the original human sin that must be redeemed? It seems to me that both Sam and Dean don't redeem other people, don't really save other people but themselves. They sacrifice themselves to redeem themselves of what they think it's their sin. It's, again, the family business: hunting things and saving people which basically means killing monsters and save people from death and apocalypse but not sin. How can one character be a Christ figure if all they(try/want to) redeem is only their own (perceived) sin? And how does a Christ figure prevent the Apocalypse while Christ himself very much brings it about? Is Apocalypse the sin? But then it's the angels' or god's sin, not the people's. Christ and the apocalypse are very much connected by the concept of resurrection but characters like Sam and Dean very much stops at the symbolical crucifixion/sacrifice aspect of Christ story. They went very close in s13 with the Second Coming of Sam Winchester via Lucifer's grace in Apocalypse world (!!!!) but it really stopped there.

Now I enter a story pov not a religious one but there is the whole "willingness" towards sacrifice that must be studied, really, cause no lamb or goat actually wanted to get killed (I personally would argue Christ too with the whole "my god why have you forsaken me"). They got CHOSEN and here we are again with the "destiny vs free will". Grrrr.

It seems to me that there's a certain "cult of death" at play throughout all 15 seasons of SPN which makes me think that I really need to get my hands on Eco's essays about heroism and fascism.

Okay my brain hurts now but I'm sure I've got more somewhere.

[kellyscabin]

see… the thing is. the thing is with the romeo and juliet big blue advanced thanatology cross is that when dean killed himself cas was ALIVE.. he was alive and crawling his way home and dean almost missed it..

[m1zumono]

first, what the hell is this??

first pic is dean looking at cas in 13x06 ‘tombstone’, finding out he is alive. before this point, we know that cas has been brought back but dean doesn’t, so we’re watching him grieve while knowing it’s essentially for nothing. at the end of the previous ep, 13x05 ‘advanced thanatology’, dean killed himself to save others, and while it isn’t explicitly said, we know that he would have been more hesitant to do this if he had known that cas was alive.

second pic is romeo looking at juliet’s ‘dead’ body at the end of the baz luhrmann romeo and juliet. we know that juliet is not truly dead and will be brought back, and romeo does not know this, and he then kills himself to be with her (with poison, may i add, which is similar to how dean kills himself).

about the pics themselves, what the fuck? blue light-up crosses and orange lighting, even the lighting itself and the shapes being pretty similar - in what world is that not intentional?

also adding that when romeo and juliet first meet in the baz luhrmann film, juliet is dressed as an angel and romeo as a soldier. juliet is also linked to angels constantly, and it isn’t subtle - she has angels all around her room. i could go into the imagery behind this and the parallels other than the obvious, but to keep it relatively brief - angels are usually regarded as symbols of peace, but juliet’s angel brings conflict as she falls in love with romeo, and we see especially in 4x01 ‘lazarus rising’ that castiel also does not bring peace (also in 4x02 ‘are you there god? it’s me, dean winchester’ - ‘i thought angels were supposed to be guardians. fluffy wings, halos, y’know, michael landon. not dicks.’ ‘read the bible. angels are warriors of god. i’m a soldier.’)

to repeat, in what world is that not intentional?

what’s with the destiel romeo and juliet imagery??

[bloodydeanwinchester]

he's thinking about the fact that he gets to see dean again here

[casgirldykery4ever]

pregaming advanced thanatology by watching the entirety of romeo + juliet

[donnasweett]

i know we be saying this literally all the time but has anyone ever thought about how advanced thanatology is romeo + juliet

[deanmarywinchester]

absolutely insane post marinating in my brain about romeo and juliet and the gendering of the weapons of their love suicide (knives as male symbolism and poison as female symbolism) and the way dean killed himself in Advanced Thanatology when he thought Cas was dead by using a poisoned syringe (somehow both knife and poison). dean really Does have more than enough gender to go around.

[the-angel-of-destiel-blog]

The fact that Romeo and Juliet is considered an “older movie” makes me feel damn near ancient. It’s a feeling I get often on tumblr.

That being said, that scene in SPN immediately reminded me of R&J (and Baz’s version is by far the best, and I will brook no argument to the contrary!). It always was one of my favourite movies. I remember seeing it in theatre and loved it.

I figured something out y'all.

So I was just watching some older movies, one of them being Romeo and Juliet.

And the last scene starts.

The one where Romeo sees the love of his life. And he thinks she’s dead, but it turns out she’s not (why am I explaining this everyone knows how the story goes)

Anyways guys, DO YOU SEE THIS?!

Wtf???

I’m not a meta person, so I don’t know what to conclude. Can someone help please?

@mittensmorgul @tinkdw @elizabethrobertajones

[bloodydeanwinchester]

#spn 13x04#the big empty#oh widower arc we're really in it now#i just realized that the entirety of advanced thanatology takes place after cas woke up which means#dean killed himself after cas had already woken up#which HELLO romeo and juliet parallels????#also the beginning of the next episode???? it literally has thee r+j visual scene??? did they do that shit on purpose or...?

just gonna put my tags here because i am really curious if anyone else has any opinions on this??

he's thinking about the fact that he gets to see dean again here