#but their level of control over the extent to which they're an unreliable narrator is uh. wildly uneven! haha

[vaguely-concerned]

something so deeply garak core about lucanis' 'surviving at this point not so much because I actually want to live (lmao imagine!) but because I refuse to let any of you fuckers get a W out of me' deal

(with a side dish of the sisko 'but you exist here' agony. just for spice)

[mittensmorgul]

I think one of the things about SPN that is so interesting is... characters lie. All the time. And we aren't always given obvious reasons to suspect they're lying until later when they say something contradictory. I saw a post the other day about Rowena and how she'd mentioned Crowley was conceived during an orgy (something I'd forgotten) and it occurred to me with later information we had... that doesn't sound likely if she knew who the father was and was abandoned by him. (1/2)

This has a point that's relevant, sorry. What I was referring to is the post about Becky and how we don't know why she and Chuck broke up because there is conflicting info, so we have to make our best guess. In a weird way, "canon" isn't canon, because a surface text reading doesn't account for characters being disingenuous. We aren't told which is the lie and which is the truth every time, we kinda gotta figure it out for ourselves using what we make of the characters and additional context(2/2

Hi there! And if this isn’t a potentially loaded question, I don’t know what is. And it’s something that’s even been raised as a question in text on multiple occasions, which makes it a valid thing for us to question and carefully consider. You may have seen this old post I reblogged a little while ago with an addition about context:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162709800125/mittensmorgul-i-offer-this-up-as-a-metaphor-for

Congrats, you’re the anon I was referring to in the little blurb at the bottom of that post :D

I’ll start by saying that yes, we know the characters are capable of lying. In 6.03, Dean tells this to Ben in plain words:

Dean: Ben, I know you're lying... Because I lie professionally, that's how. Now tell your mom that you broke the damn thing and take it like a man. Okay? Okay.

He lies professionally. In 5.03, he explains why he lies to Cas, by lying about it:

Dean: Seriously? You're going to walk in there and tell him the truth?Castiel: Why not?Dean: Because we're humans. And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie.Castiel: Why?Dean: Because that's how you become President.

Dean’s explanation of why they were going to lie to the cops was also a lie. Walking into the police station and politely informing them the gas station explosion was caused by an archangel taking his vessel would’ve resulted in them being either laughed out of the police station or locked up on a 72 hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Yet Dean didn’t need to explain that to the audience, because we’re supposed to understand that fact. That’s where critical thinking skills come into play. We understand the humor of what he said to Cas anyway, without having to be led by the hand and told that Dean was joking there.

So I’d argue with your assertion that “Canon isn’t canon because characters lie sometimes.” It’s all still canon, because the characters DID say these things, but it’s up to us if we accept or reject the surface text reading as honestly intended dialogue, or sarcasm, or humor, or a misdirection, or a warning that there’s something deeper happening beneath the surface layer text. Sometimes the surface layer text sets off alarm bells because it directly contradicts other facts that have already been established, and in those moments we’re SUPPOSED to react by yelling out at the TV, questioning the character’s motives for saying something we already understand to be incorrect, you know?

It’s still incorrect to assume that EVERYTHING the characters say is a lie, or untrustworthy, or unreliable. Just because a character CAN be unreliable as a narrator doesn’t mean that they’re ALWAYS unreliable as a narrator.

It’s our jobs as viewers to apply critical thinking skills, combined with our previously established understanding of the characters, and the information we already have about the situation the characters are dealing with on screen, and then interpret the subtext and visual narrative cues the show has established over more than a decade of telling us this story, and not just make willy-nilly random assumptions about scenes, but incorporate ALL of that into an educated assessment of what’s most likely.

Because despite all of that ^^, and the fact that multiple interpretations are certainly possible, and character motivations and unverifiable statements (like Rowena’s story of how Crowley was conceived, or even Crowley’s story of having sold his soul for “an extra three inches below the belt” since that’s another character statement I’ve personally always doubted) are more open to potential interpretation than things like entire plotlines and situations that are directly contradicted by events we have seen or will see with our own eyes, not all interpretations of those larger events are equally probable.

It reminds me of the scene in 2.14, after Sam-possessed-by-Meg told a very one-sided and hurtful version of the story of how her father had died, having been shot in the head by John Winchester, leaving room for Jo to doubt whether it had been an accident that her father could potentially have survived if John had tried to save him instead of shooting him. Meg was deliberately trying to upset Jo, and it worked, to an extent:

JO: I know demons lie, but ... do they ever tell the truth too?DEAN: Uh, um, yeah, sometimes, I guess. Especially if they know it'll mess with your head. (Another swig.) Why do you ask?

Thing is, your very first assumption there, that the characters lie all the time, is equally untenable. Because just as often as they lie, they DO tell the truth. Not everything they say is equally open to interpretation or doubt. For a random fun-fact, like the situation in which Crowley was conceived, didn’t affect the larger narrative. It only provided characterization for Rowena. This was how she CHOSE to present herself when we were first introduced to her, but then we watched her character develop over the next few seasons. We began to understand her, her history, her motivations.

We saw her less as a carefree villain and more as a woman who’d been used, abused, wronged, and who’d reinvented herself multiple times as she amassed the power to not only take back control over her own life, but in search of revenge against those who’d wronged her. In 11.09 we learned the painfully harsh truth about why she may have originally been so flippant about Crowley’s father. And again in 12.11 we learned yet more reasons why she’d carefully crafted her cool facade, during her conversation with the witch who’d once thought of Rowena as little more than a disposable sex toy. So understanding Rowena’s history with the benefit of later canon and context, it not only helps us understand that her original self-narrative was a lie in the first place, but it gives us the ability to understand why she would’ve told that particular lie about herself. This is how you write complex, three-dimensional characters with depth.

Now with the Chuck and Becky situation, we have learned many things over the years about both of those characters, as well. Ultimately it doesn’t matter to the narrative why they broke up, nor does it matter whether Becky was telling the truth about why. The only thing a varied interpretation on whether she was lying there could potentially change is how we feel about her as a character. Do we sympathize with her? Do we have a greater insight into her as a “person” and what her motivations in life may be? Does a varied interpretation also affect the way we view Chuck as a character, especially when taken through the lens of late s11 Chuck episodes where it’s confirmed not only that he was God all along, but also in 11.20 we see through Metatron’s questioning of him, his motivations, his entire autobiography, that Chuck was sort of veracity-impaired as well? Being able to question the veracity of Becky’s statements all those years before lends us a greater understanding of Chuck as a character, too. Especially once we understand the depth of his denial over the original act that made all of creation possible in the first place.

Ultimately it doesn’t affect the larger story, other than to support our understanding of the characters, and offer a depth to explore the characters more fully.

That’s just good writing. It forces us to question things, forces us to really think about things, and hits us on an emotional and sympathetic level that colors our interpretations.

If the narrative just came straight out and told us all these things, it would be boring. The characters wouldn’t be three dimensional. We wouldn’t be able to think about them as if they were real people. They’d just be paper cutouts with words written on them telling us exactly who they were and what their motives and intentions were. There’d be nothing to actively engage us in the narrative.

That said, this is why looking at isolated incidents out of context of the rest of the things we already know and understand about the characters will often lead to wonky interpretations that don’t really work when viewed in context with the rest of the narrative.

I think this kinda-sorta addresses your question? I hope? This is such a difficult topic to discuss, because it does introduce subjectivity into the narrative. The thing is (and this is partly where the concept of “meta” differs from “headcanon” or “speculation”), at least the way I approach it, meta is grounded in postmodern literary critique, and not just random commentary on random things without a foundational understanding of how stories are told.

Not everything is as open to interpretation as everything else. There are rules to this gig, and actual meta will at least acknowledge that those rules exist. :P