#anyways. funny stuff aside. i think it's extremely interesting because it's yet another parallel to jinx-vi

[allegorism]

silco's appearances in s2 are sending me. this guy dies but he keeps making appearances and each of them show him as a perfectly adjusted individual who, actually!, isn't murderous and is forgiving, friendly even. as if that man hadn't been the most batshit insane and resentful guy zaun has ever seen. arcane vs arcane if silco went to therapy for real.

[your-ace-cousin-clover]

Anyway remember when I said I'd post more in depth Silicon Valley-Succession meta? Well, the time is now.

And honestly, I have to thank @tomwambsmilk for this because she understands Silicon Valley far better than me and we have had multiple conversations about this. I will probably end up making a prettier gif parallels post about this stuff, but this is the base stroke I wanna establish.

But essentially while I have been watching Silicon Valley, it's fascinating to me how some of the specifics are very similar to Succession. Like Brenna mentioned to me, some parallels and arc of certain characters closely resemble that of Succession.

Specifically, I was thinking of Dinesh x Gilfoyle (Dinfoyle) in regards to Tomgreg, and for me, it's about how DG close mirrors TG. Aside from one obvious difference where Tom has an obvious power dynamic over Greg and as a result, Dinesh has the position to retaliate more because Gilfoyle is his equal. There, however I would argue, is a subtle power dynamic that gets established between Dinesh and Gilfoyle in the early days where Gilfoyle is able to far easily able to outmatch Dinesh.

Also similarly, there is almost an instant pairing of both of these couples as soon as the show begins which lasts till the end of the show (for Succession, I obviously talk about the S3 ending) and funnily, none of these couples realise that they are part of a pair until it gets pointed to them by a third party.

("I think you're each other's best friend" vs "... a tom sundae with a greg cherry on top")

It essentially comes down to the fact that TG is borne from almost the same stuff that makes DG, but is worse somehow. They go through the same rounds to trust, betrayal and understanding and it's interesting to go through the curves.

(There's also the individual coding of characters in the ship as a duality of Tomgreg and it's funny to get into but I won't yet)

Another notable similarity is Richard and Kendall. (and Logan). For me, Richard is the more competent version of Kendall (as Brenna put it) where he has a specific vision for the company that gets closed to being bulldozed as he keeps changing over the seasons. In certain points, he turns into Gavin Belson despite vowing to start a company completely different from Hooli. That's extremely similar to the Loganifiction of Kendall. There's a ton of more meta that could be thought off when I'm not incredibly sleep deprived.

So that's it folks, two of my HBO shows are showing themes, symbolisms and motifs and they are interesting as heck.

(also if this does not make sense, I am sorry - I wrote this while being incredibly tired)

[mysterious-prophetess]

Age of Calamity feelings and thoughts

I did a review but this is going to be even more all over the place and full of speculation and theorizing. 

Tl:Dr about the review-I liked the game despite a few things here and there that frustrated me. Like the divine beast sections. 

So Feelings? The game did make me happy and I’ve had a really terrible setback in what I thought my life would be and that occurred two weeks before Age of Calamity was released. 

I failed my Comps and therefore was dismissed from my doctoral program. I used this game, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, and Hades to cope somewhat. 

So...if I’ve attached a little more of my emotions to this game, it’s because it’s helped me through this shitty time of my life. 

Anyway. This game really made my inner ZeLink shipper so very happy. Yes, I know they’re never really going to go as far as they did with Skyward Sword, but it was still enough to get my little shipper brain going. 

I also feel they made Revali more belligerent towards Link without him already starting as the Hylian Champion/Knight Who Wields the Sword that Seals the Darkness, and I think this is Revali’s own inferiority/superiority complex coming into play. 

From what I’ve read into this, it seems like Revali thinks Link is just a knight sworn to protect the Princess and therefore doesn’t even compare to Revali-who is the best Rito Archer, invented his own quasi magic technique (Revali’s Gale), and is the Rito Champion chosen to be Divine Beast Vah Medoh’s pilot. Yet, this nobody is in the thick of it and being trusted to do stuff that challenges Revali’s image of himself at the top of the pile.

Never mind the fact that one of his fellow Champions is the Chieftain of her people nor another is a Princess of hers, Revali sees Link��the Knight as a threat to his own perceived view of things where he-Revali-is top bird. 

I think it’s because Link can used any weapon he come across, including the bow, with proficiency. Revali can’t stand Link because he thinks Link is a threat to his own perceived idea he is the BEST. In canon BotW, at least he could take solace in the fact that Link was a fellow Champion from the start and therefore, while not as exceptions as himself (from Revali’s perspective), he at least was the Hylian Champion. In Age of Calamity? Revali doesn’t even have that much for half the story.

Daruk doesn’t get much of an expansion beyond what we learned in the Champion’s Ballad. He’s steady and willing to indulge in some sassing at Revali whenever the Riot Archer’s arrogance gets to be a bit much. 

My favorite moment was  in the story Mission “Freeing the Korok Forest” when he made the comment “If only there was someone who could fly ahead and scout it out.” in the midst of Revali’s bitching. 

His interactions with Yunobo were cute too. Honestly both Gorons got the short stick in this as far as their characterizations were concerned. 

Doesn’t help that of all the Future Champions, Yunobo is my least favorite to play, tied with Teba. So, I was less inclined to do much with him. 

On the other end of the scale, we get Mipha and Sidon. Mipha’s interactions with Daruk helped flesh out her crush on Link more as well as her own motivations for helping others AND seeing both baby Sidon and the adult he was in BotW was interesting too. It’s not often we get to see that in a game. Sidon’s desire to save his big sister resonated with me a bit more than the two descendants- Riju and Yunobo- saving ancestors they’d likely never have met regardless of them dying then or dying of natural causes later. Sidon, on the other hand, as a Zora is part of a very long lived race and knew her and this adult Sidon has lived longer mourning his sister’s death than with her alive. Mourning her and wishing he’d been bigger or stronger to save her. Seeing them together made me so happy because I’d always wished he’d gotten closure, even if all he’d seen was her ghost from a distance. 

Teba? Aside from being tied with Yunobo as my least favorite future champion to play as, he only showed that he grew up idolizing Revali and was shocked to see Revali was a bit of a jerk. I remarked to my friend that it was sad to me that the only legacy Revali seemed to have was his flight range, but now with Teba’s hero-worship (and shock that Revali is a jerk), perhaps the legacy was also the legend of a fantastic archer and hero of his people too. 

Teba does seem to understand Revali isn’t what he portrays himself to be, and that is what I think he means by “seeing the face behind the Champion.” He sees through all of that posturing to see Revali as he is: deep down a hero who does care about others and not just himself and his own glory but also has an image he likes to project (which is why I think he has both an inferiority and superiority complex a la Bakugo of BnHA). 

Now to the character I have the most feelings about: 

King Rhoam Bospharmus Hyrule.

Learning he married into the royal family, and therefore, is not of the blood of Hylia does make his lack of knowledge of how to raise an heiress to the golden power make a lot more sense. This was something I gleamed from across the two games and the DLC. If Zelda’s mother had the golden power, she is the blood of Hylia, ergo, Rhoam isn’t and married into the family. 

I’ll go one step further. I think that despite being the “Kingdom” of Hyrule, the bloodline of Hylia is matrilineal and therefore only daughters of the royal family can inherit this power. Though, for some reason it’s still a patriarchal society. 

Zelda’s dead mom died before she could start to teach Zelda, and therefore Rhoam ever saw the external stuff that his wife might have done. He also seemed to have little patience for the metaphysical despite knowing a lot of that was real (at least when he was alive). 

His approach to it was wrong and it damaged Zelda to the point that her powers awakened too late to stop them. 

Also, Rhoam was trying to be too clever by half. In trying to just replicate what their ancestors did, he missed the point that the ancestors had a full understanding of what it was they were up against and what they’d created. Rhoam thought Calamity Ganon was just this beastial force and that underestimation was why he had all his plans blow-up in his face and the collective faces of Hyrule. 

This is where my theories come into play. 

After playing as him in Age of Calamity and finding his move set surprisingly effective, I’ve come up with a theory: The Magical Queens of Hyrule tend to choose men with extremely good Martial Skills as their husbands to create a balanced pair to reflect the first Zelda and Link who were Goddess incarnate and her Knight. 

No, this isn’t just my Zelink shipper talking. Ok it IS partly but it would make sense. From a traditional standpoint (and Hyrule is steeped in tradition), the pairing of Goddess and Warrior being reflected in the Queen and her consort King makes sense. 

It would also explain why Rhoam is so very military minded in attempting to get things done. I think he was nobleman who was either a general or captain or something similar. Which is why he’s so focused on training and getting rid of “distractions” from Zelda’s training (even if she’s a FUCKING CHILD and you shouldn’t do that to a kid who isn’t ready for such a regimented lifestyle). 

Now, I don’t know that they were a love match or not, but either way, I think his prowess as a warrior was part of what drew Zelda’s Mom to him. 

I’m saying it outright: I think Hylia, her incarnations, and her female descendants have a type and it’s men who kick serious ass. 

Now I touched on this in my review of Age of Calamity but the story was very AU because in Creating a Champion it was revealed Link was TWELVE or THIRTEEN years old when he pulled the Master Sword free of its pedestal in the official canon BotW timeline and Link being around eighteen during the events of 100 years before and Age of Calamity, therefore should have had that sword but didn’t. It’s on page 376 btw. 

Ergo, something affected this timeline and Link didn’t go into the Lost Woods and pull the sword. 

In my review I speculated that this might have still been in part of Zelda’s wish that helped the little guardian go back in time. It might have had a ripple effect that allowed Link more time as just a knight and not THE Knight Chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness.

It also allowed them to have a much better relationship without Zelda’s resentment of Link achieving his destiny so much faster, and easier, than she was with her training amounting to nothing. 

I also think after she and Link grew closer in BotW and she found out how much bearing the Master Sword for so long affected how Link viewed himself, she might have also wanted to grant him more time as another knight without the pressures that come with his destiny. (not that Age of Calamity really played that up).

Not going to lie, I loved the parallels between their awakenings in Age of Calamity. His with silvery-white light and hers with golden light. Both reaching for the other because they care....ah, that pleased the shipper in me. 

I know Link doesn’t talk because reasons but I almost wish he did because I’d have loved to have seen a scene where the Future Champions all talk to him and he’s like “Uh.....do I know you?” or even some sort of silent version of that scene to preserve the lack of speech on his part.

The time travelers present a lot of funny moments of them speaking about stuff BotW Link did that his HWAoC counterpart didn’t. 

The Future Champions, on the other hand, also present an avenue for angst. They’re from what is essentially the darker timeline. Their predecessors died lonely deaths and were trapped as ghosts for a century while Link awakened alone, without memories or his sword and Zelda lingered in divine form keeping Calamity Ganon at bay. They have to go back to that darker timeline after having gotten a moment to meet those they’d have-likely-never met or really knew well, with the exception of Sidon and Mipha. 

It’ll hurt worse for Sidon knowing a version of him will get to have his big sister and all he has is some closure in knowing that in a version of events she got to live and he saved her. Sidon is a blinding beacon of positivity after all. 

Plus, how would that conversation go down in the future?

“Hey, we’re back. We time traveled and saved our predecessors in a different timeline.” That just seems like a way to rub salt in the wounds of Link and/or Zelda depending from when they were pulled from into the past. Post-Game or just before Link defeats Calamity Ganon. 

Again, there is potential here with this. It’s just not the angst a lot were expecting since we all thought this would be a prequel to BotW, major character deaths and all. 

Instead it was an AU Time Travel Fix-it Fic full of everyone lives, no one dies except the bad guys. 

Considering my personal circumstances, I needed a story like this where the past can be changed for the better even if it is in an alternate timeline.

Also, this being an AU Time Travel Fix-it Fic gave them more wiggle room than just following the events of 100 years pre-BotW. There they’d have to had either made the build up to the Calamity longer (and less fun) or just had a much shorter story. What they did instead was what was needed for a full game. 

Maybe when I get some inspiration, I might play with these ideas in fic form. 

Maybe I won’t. Either way, this game gave me a lot to work with.

[mittensmorgul]

The Right Thing vs The Greater Good

I’ve been rewatching the middle bits of s11 on the TNT loop today (11.14-17), and throwing in 11.10 for Dabb putting his fingerprints all over the mytharc for s11, it really feels like this chunk of episodes is really when Dabb started exerting his influence all over the major themes of the series. And this group of episodes really clearly shows the sorts of themes that s12 is addressing in another way, especially since it seems like Dabb had been in cahoots with Bobo, and still is… :D

(pffft another way)

I included some of my chattybubble thoughts to Lizbob for both clarification and some just for funsies because I think I’m hilarious. :D

There’s the extremely surface level stuff about the MoL involvement in Europe in the past, and bringing that plot to the surface (heh because those events culminated in the sinking of a submarine, I crack myself up).

I’d like to point out that 11.14 and 11.16 BOTH deal with time travel, or stories that play with time in interesting ways, THIS is how you do time travel episodes. And the consequences of 11.14 are similar to the consequences of traveling to the past in the entire history of this show (4.03, 5.13, 6.18, 7.12…) WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DREADED BUCKLEMMING TIME TRAVEL FIASCOES. Ugh. Okay. Sorry. Just had to say that.

Most of my thoughts on 11.15 and 11.16 ended up tidily summarized in our chats, so here, have a transcript of those, followed by my runthrough of the MAJOR INPORTINT THEMES in 11.17 that are still playing out mid s12. Under a cut, because I still haven’t learned the meaning of the word “brevity.” At least I’m still funny:

(edited for readability, and focus in on the main points. Y’all don’t need to hear such bits of this as me musing over the dozens of robins roosting in my birch tree or that Lizbob went out for a walk at one point...I bolded some key things if you’d prefer to just sorta skim this...)

Mittensmorgul: oh gosh mel's texting me, and I had to tell her that I'd rewound the "travel back in time" episode, she's like "ooh wrestling ep in 4 minutes!" and I had to tell her I'm "not caught up to real time yet." I hate time travel :P

Elizabethrobertajones: hahaha you're in a time loop. amazing :P are you up to the wrestling yet? Does it look any different from a Dabb vs performing Dean hindsight?

Mittensmorgul: It's a bit like an early "ghost of john winchester" preview to s12

Mittensmorgul: Heck I feel really bad for Harley, He believed in himself, turned down a demon deal, and ended up tortured and dead because of it :(

Elizabethrobertajones: yeah :< he was a Dean mirror at the time, right? I can't remember why

Mittensmorgul: He'd spent the first half grumpy at the "old guys." He was almost killed accidentally by the hangman's noose in the ring. the one whose funeral started everything. he was a suspect at first, they thought he was the demon for a bit. he was accusing gunner of being on drugs (he saw his dealer... er. demon). He was a hothead supposedly starting trouble, but really he was standing up for the "honor" (not the right word but whatever) of what they do, working for next to nothing night after night on the road. Ends up having his soul stolen by a demon against his will anyway

Elizabethrobertajones: right, he was a worst case scenario about souls being snatched, which we were worried about at the time

Mittensmorgul: and then in the end, after all Harley's yelling at Gunner about being dirty (via drugs, or via whatever...) Dean finally breaks through to Gunner with reason, with words\ Like Dean was an older and wiser version of Harley. Harley could never have guessed that GUnner's problem wasn't "drugs" but a demon... But Dean not only understood, he empathized, and talked Gunner into choosing another way

Elizabethrobertajones: heeey that sounds familiar :P

Mittensmorgul: honesty, accepting your responsibility, "It's never too late to do the right thing." ack gunner "I look in the mirror and I hate the face looking back at me. I got this coming." That hasn't been Dean in a while now

HELLHOUNDS

and oh my... Dean's "It's never too late to do the right thing" which he believes because "I have to." Because at the beginning his SOLE mission was finding a way to save Cas from having said YEs to Luci

And Sam's like, "If he even wants to be saved"

Dean says "He does, even if he doesn't know it yet"

RUFUS! I've been wanting to see this episode again since reading something about the parallel between Dean and Rufus via Ketch's arrival at the bunker

It's like Bobo, Dabb, and Robbie had all conspired to this theme of "fixing the past" via actions taken in the present by finding another better way

It’s literally it's the entire point of this episode

Where Dean's "better" spell doesn't just trap the soul eater, it KILLS it and frees everyone who's stuck "outside of time and space" in its nest

[we had a rambling discussion of just how much this foreshadowed everything that happened in 11.23]

Elizabethrobertajones: so Dean walked in and walked out And clapped eyes on a long-lost parental figure on the way out :P

Mittensmorgul: BUT in doing so he ALSO frees Bobby's soul, and the trapped kids from the past

Elizabethrobertajones: freeing the things from the past. yikes :P Like Mary was freed from the past

Mittensmorgul: This is literally the theme of s12… Having better tools, better info, a more complete plan for saving everything, healing the past so everyone can move forward

I remember seeing something about how 12.15 paralleled Dean to Rufus... and some of 11.16 does... literally putting Dean into Rufus's exact position as they switch back and forth between past and present. BUT THEN IT'S BOBBY WHO GOES INTO THE SOUL EATER'S NEST WITH DEAN Like Sam and Dean have flipped roles here. Or that they're interchangeably both bobby and rufus...

ACK the soul eater telling Sam "Your brother wants to go to the Darkness, NEEDS to go, but I can keep him here safe, forever." but... they ended up finding a better way through words and balance

Elizabethrobertajones: it's the only time they've seen each other since Bobby died, and Bobby's still technically alive on HIS end, so Dean STILL has never interacted with him, unlike Sam who has twice plus a dream

Mittensmorgul: We're picking at the ghost of John this season, but Bobby's a big part of "father figures" for Dean, and he's been there subtly all season too

ACK the bottle Sam and Jody found in 7.12. And the first call Bobby gets when he's free is from Dean... in the past... They're talking about Bobby maybe having been there "outside of space and time" and that Bobby had never written up his notes about that case... when Dean says "Let's get drunk and never think about this again.” Which is probably what bobby did.

AND THEN THE SAME SONG IS PLAYING ON THEIR RADIO THAT PLAYED ON BOBBY'S AS THEY LEFT

Okay, that was the end of our chat because we had to run off and do other things for a bit, but I did go on to watch 11.17 again as well. And that just neatly tied everything back together again, and there were some things there I believe are KEY to what s12 is focusing on. Back in s11 all of these topics were being dealt with “externally,” applied to situations beyond just Sam, Dean, Cas, etc. Yeah, Dean was central to the Chuck and Amara stuff (pffft as the firewall between light and dark), but now all these big themes are being applied to the Winchester family directly in a sort of  “As above, so below” sort of way.

A LOT has changed since 11.15 when Dean needed to take a break from research to clear his mind, because he’d been “spinning his wheels” trying to find a way to save Cas from Lucifer. But now in 11.17 it’s Sam who’s brought him this new case. Dean’s no longer spinning his wheels even if he hasn’t gotten any traction on solving the Casifer problem yet, but his drive to succeed has taken on the KEEP GRINDING motto. He doesn’t want or need to distract himself with this werewolf case, but Sam thinks it’s time for another “clear our heads” break.

Dean drags his heels, but relents.

Like many of the other “civilians” they encounter in s11, Michelle readily accepts the supernatural. Corbin had originally “rejected” the idea that these could be “monsters”-- specifically werewolves, and in the end he’d become the monster himself.

One of the big themes of 11.17 is miscommunication. Everything from Corbin questioning why they needed a landline phone (Don’t you have a cell phone?) because there was no signal service way out there in the woods, to Corbin lying about the extent of his own injuries and making Michelle doubt the evidence of her own eyes.

Michelle: Are you okay? I thought yesterday... Corbin: Just a couple scratches.

She’d seen him bitten, but he dismissed her concerns over and over again, even dismissing her “outlandish” claims when she’s finally at the hospital being interviewed by the sheriff.

Here’s another lovely pair of themes from s12 illustrated very concisely:

Corbin: I... look. Hey, Michelle's real sick, but she's got a chance. Him... he's slowing us down. And if they find us... Dean: We saved you, okay? We saved both of you. Corbin: It's three lives versus one.

Both the “you vs ALL of you” and the theme of “the greater good.” Compare that to I love you, I love all of you, and >.>. But also that last line, “three lives versus one.” That’s The Greater Good reduced to a simple math problem, which Corbin had rigged in his favor by “killing” Sam. 

(also bizarre aside, are trees out to get Dean? Here he has a fight with a tree, and in 12.11 the spell that made him lose his memories was carved into a tree and Rowena described the spell as written in “the Language of Trees.” Not to mention the bloody handprint on the tree that spurred him to giddily remember that their best friend’s an angel… okay, end random tree-related digression)

(no I’m reopening the random tree-related digression to postulate that ALL of this is down to the Vanir’s apple tree Dean burned way back in 1.11. I swear, that apple pie was probably freaking worth it... between scarecrows,pie, apples and orchards-- thinking of 7.05 here too-- and just trees in general, I think it wasn’t the broken mirrors from 1.05 that have haunted them all these years, but that dumbass scarecrow... okay, moving on for realsies now)

First it’s Sam’s turn to try and convince Corbin and Michelle to go, to run, to save themselves and leave him behind. Corbin sees the truth of it, though. He knows Dean won’t leave Sam there to die alone. So he makes the executive (possibly influenced by his loss of humanity, that he’s already becoming a “monster”) to suffocate Sam so that Dean will have a reason to leave.

For the greater good…

And at that point, Dean still needed to be convinced to leave Sam behind, but he promised to come back. He went along with the “greater good” of saving the “innocent people” since he didn’t know that one of them was literally and figuratively a monster.

This also neatly captures all the duality subtext in s12, as well. Nephilim, MoL vs hunters, people as monsters, monsters as people, angels as humans, angels living in harmony with a human soul, angels trapped in human bodies… there’s just a lot of this in s12. There’s also the lengths someone will go to in the name of “love,” however monstrous or misguided or even unwanted by the object of that love. More on that later.

Again, like 12.12 that told the story in a non-linear fashion, 11.17 employs a similar “messing with time” storytelling device, only revealing the past through the events of the present. We only understand how the story got to this point via small glimpses of “revisiting the past” through the events of the present. This was a HUGE theme of s11 (most clearly demonstrated in 11.14 and 11.16, as described above), considering the end result of s11 was a resolution of the original “problem” that resulted from the creation of the universe. S12 is doing almost the exact same thing, but instead of being framed around the Darkness being released and eventually reuniting with God, Mary has been released, bringing that universal conflict down to a human scale.

Back to the miscommunication…

Rather than explaining that there was another injured member of their party he needed to get back to attend to, Dean fights against the sheriff and ends up tasered and arrested. If he’d just used his words, the sheriff probably would’ve let him run back to help Sam, but then Corbin would’ve likely killed/turned Michelle without Dean there to intervene at the hospital, and he may have killed many others, as well.

Over and over, cell phones either don’t work in this episode, or they’re only working well enough to get a word or two through.

MISCOMMUNICATION IS THE EVOLEST VILLAIN.

Or maybe it’s actually this:

Corbin: I saved us. Look, you're hurt bad and... and I love you, Michelle. I can't lose you. I did what I had to do.

Seriously, if you hear I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO and don’t simultaneously hear Kill Bill sirens… you should be hearing Kill Bill sirens...

Meanwhile, Corbin knows exactly what bit him, and when asked directly by the doctor, he only tells her “I’m good.” He lies, he refuses to answer, he downplays the truth when someone else speaks it, even to the point of dismissing Michelle’s point of view entirely.

In the worst rendition of “unsuccessful communication,” the sheriff is unable to contact Charlie the Ranger for assistance because he’s already been killed by the monsters.

In another example of miscommunication, even between two people who are actively trying to help one another, Dean refers to Billie as a “Scary, crazy death machine,” and Michelle repeats back “Crazy, evil death machine.” She reinterpreted Dean’s words, and replaced “scary” with “evil,” and those words just aren’t synonyms, you know? Just because something’s scary doesn’t mean it’s evil. Proof that even when two people are essentially on the same page, they might very well have VASTLY DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS of the situation at hand.

*coughRashomonEffectcough*

And… poor Michelle:

Michelle: Corbin? Corbin: Hey, baby. Please, don't be scared of me. I didn't want this. Okay, any of this, but... it's happened and it feels so... you'll see. [Michelle whimpers.] We'll be together. Michelle: No. Please. Corbin: Forever. Michelle: No! 

Forced love, or forced life, overriding someone else’s will, and yet Michelle decides what she wants for herself.

And then, a theme that’s been sort of haunting the narrative since the pilot episode, and has now been resurrected right along with Mary:

Michelle: They said I could leave... [she sighs] an hour ago. But... where am I even supposed to go? After everything we survived together... [turning back to Dean] I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that.

This is what happened to John Winchester. He watched the woman he loved die, and there was never any normal after that. Now Mary is back, without John, and there’s never going to be any normal for her either. But that doesn’t mean there can never be anything worth living for again.