i know supernatural is the show of missed opportunities but man. the trials really get to me - what a perfect way to reboot and reset this show that you're artificially extending for ratings. it could have been really, really good, actually
so the trials of god is a way for someone to gain the ability to seal the gates of hell and the gates of heaven
they have the translation for hell, they know that slamming the gates of hell shut means calling all the demons back home and locking the key. it's logical, then, to for them to believe the same is true of the one for heaven - that it calls all the angels back home and locks them away where they can't do any more damage
peace, for the people of earth, outside of the influence of angels and demons. that's got to be worth it, right?
so while sam is completing the hell trials, they get the angel tablet, kevin gets translating, to figure out the angel trials. or maybe metatron helps nudge them along to figuring it out, since him being the big bad here isn't really relevant and they are in a bit of time crunch
canon doesn't tell us what the heaven trials are, except that the first one involves a ritual using the heart of a nephilim. they make it sound like they're carving it from their chest, but what i would do is
have a nephilim offer you their heart from their chest (gain their loyalty in a binding ceremony)
create grace from freshwater (there is no rain that falls anywhere on earth that is safe to drink and god said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters)
find a human soul to guide you to heaven (babel fell but the stairway was built and those with wings have no need of stairs)
so sam is in the midst of the hell trials when dean sort of accidentally on purpose completes the first heaven trial and then the brothers are on parallel train tracks heading in the opposite direction
sam works to close the gates of hell
dean works to close the gates of heaven
demons and angels both working to stop them
sam completes the trials. he restores crowley's humanity and he dies and the gates of hell are closed
but that's not the end
metatron says they can close the gates if they're willing to pay the price. canon says the price is sam's death, but frankly that doesn't make any sense. what's the death of one human against the horrors of hell? and remember, metatron doesn't know the winchesters. maybe another angel would make this comment, knowing how the winchesters have weighed the safety of the world against their brother and left the world out to dry, would think this a price worth warning for. but metatron wouldn't bother, wouldn't even think of it, if that was the only price
the gates of hell close and malevolent spirits explode across the globe, evil spirits and angry ghosts causing death and destruction everywhere
hell serves a function and now the gates are closed and every evil human soul is forced to stay on earth, causing as much destruction as it can
that's the price for closing the gates of hell
except. except. aren't the hell trials interesting?
kill a hellhound. rescue an innocent soul and return it to heaven. purify a demon and restore their humanity.
the trials are not to prove if someone is worthy of closing the gates of hell. it's to prove they're capable of setting hell to rights
the trials are if things got too out of hand, if things were taken too far, and hell had to be put back in it's place. sam dies and ends up exactly where azazel wanted him - ruler of hell. all the demons and souls are trapped with him and what he has to do, while he has them all there, while they can't escape, is exactly what he did to get there
he kills the hellhounds, leaving only those meant to patrol hell. he releases every innocent soul bound there. he purifies the demons one by one, who he either releases as innocent souls or who to pledge to do their job as demons of hell - punishing evil, containing evil - in penance for what they did before (how do i even begin to make up for what i've done, crowley had asked, and this is the answer)
meanwhile, dean, heartbroken, completes the heaven trials and dies
and the gates of heaven slam shut and all the angels are stripped of their grace and expelled from heaven and dean finds himself in charge of an empty heaven
the trials are for when things have gone too far and heaven must be rebuilt, after all
good souls pile up, no one who dies able to truly leave earth, and given enough time they become twisted things that must be hunted along with the spirits of evil men and women who cause chaos from their last breath
dean has work to do. he has one angel - the nephilim whose loyalty he earned in the first trial - and this is what he has to do. he recruits more, to replace the ranks, he creates grace and hands it out judiciously. he sends them to guide the good souls home, using the stairway that the former angels wouldn't be able to use even if they wanted to, and each good act and deed earns them a little more grace. former angels throw themselves into the fight for humans, because they know it's the only way that dean will return their grace to them and lift them back into heaven
and in fighting for them, in living like them, they learn to love these creations of their father that they'd despised. they see what he saw and the thought of destroying this place in a civil war becomes unthinkable to them. they are once more the angels god intended them to be
in this, dean and sam fulfill their destiny as lucifer and michael's vessels. not in letting them in, but in pushing them out, in doing the work each was intended for but refused
only when there is only evil human souls being punished and caged, only once the demons are once more working to run hell and earn their release to heaven, does sam reopen the gates of hell
only when there's a full choir of angels once more, committed to their cause, only once there are souls working with reapers as it once always was, does dean reopen the gates of heaven
they're called the god trials for a reason. above and below, sam and dean act as god, putting things back in their intended places
they could stay. they should stay. keeping house, making sure it all goes smoothly, eternally keeping earth safe from angels and demons both
they're called the god trials for a reason. not even god could resist the paradise inbetween that he'd created
dean doesn't know if sam is going to return to earth. he might stay in hell, and if dean becomes human once more, then what's the point? he'll live and die a human, get stuck in heaven, and be forever separated from the brother he loves
sam doesn't know if dean is going to return to earth. he migh not be able to, might be stuck doing his work - sam assumes if the hell trials did this to him, then the heaven trials did the same to dean, and the idea that dean could have failed the heaven trials after he dies doesn't even cross mind. if he returns and dean's not there then he loses it all, he never again gets to see the brother he loves
but when, exactly, haven't they been willing to risk everything for each other?
dean falls as lucifer fell, throwing himself towards earth
sam rises as michael did after the fall, pulling himself towards earth the same way michael once pulled himself to the top of heaven
what's the use of being a god without his brother, after all?
dean and sam are reunited on earth, human once more
no more angels, no more demons, heaven and hell functioning once more as they should. we're back to basics, a clean slate, all of the rest remade and set aside by their own hands (it's literal and a metaphor, the way the show could have remade itself with the trials, after setting aside kripke's plan while at the same time recognizing that the design of it - two brothers who love each other going across america and fighting evil - is the thing that made it worth watching to begin with) and now it's them again, brothers forged in blood and sacrifice and love, and a new appreciation for the humanity they gave up and returned to
and then we get my beloved monster of the week with no stupid too high stakes, convoluted bullshit involved, beyond the occasional angel who dean refused to reinstate and demon tracking down miscreant souls and, every once in a while, a person or creature or something in between squinting at them and going - weren't you two gods?
nah, they say, all corn fed grins and the dimples their momma gave them, we're brothers
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I've seen some folks saying that the reference to The Great Gatsby in TBOB was just a joke Alex didn't put deeper meaning into—which might be true, IDK the man's motives for choosing Gatsby specifically—and that there's no way the book has any deeper relevance to Bill's character beyond the eye doctor thing—which is totally wrong. Whether or not Alex intended parallels, there ARE parallels. So, for those of you who didn't read or didn't pay attention to The Great Gatsby:
the book's about a guy who started out as an unimportant loser with starry-eyed dreams, who very quickly gained a lot of power/gold and now presents himself as this dapper fancy well-dressed super important guy.
He constantly throws huge parties, he's got a reputation for being THE party host. But it's a sham, he's pouring all these resources into this party to make himself look so cool but he's living at the very edge of his means.
He lies about his history, lies about how he got his money (spoilers: he's a criminal), lies even in how he presents his personality—he's a con artist, he's always wearing a mask.
The reason he's doing all this—putting on the mask, making himself look so great—is because he's trying to reach across this very thin boundary to a better life he can see, JUST out of reach, so close but something he's never quite clever enough and rich enough and persuasive enough to reach. Every night at his parties he stares at his goal, he can LITERALLY SEE it, he just can't reach it himself.
The best he can do is briefly charm and dazzle someone on the other side of this social boundary, but he can never quite persuade that person to help him cross over; in fact no one on the other side of the boundary thinks he has a right to cross it.
He finds somebody—the guy narrating the book about him—who's very lonely, socially awkward, and disillusioned, whom he can easily awe with his stories and persuade to help him reach his goal, come on please, it'll be harmless! (It is not harmless.)
He loses control over the act he's putting on and over the people who only follow him around as long as he's still got the resources to keep them entertained and loyal.
It ends with him getting murdered by a guy he has LITERALLY never met before—by which point everyone has realized that he's a nobody making it all up as he goes along who was just desperately chasing the illusion of a good life and the admiration of everyone around him.
The narrator ends up disillusioned with him and the whole culture around him of grasping and clawing for a glitzy glamorous life at the expense of the regular people who are manipulated, trampled, and discarded in the process.
Now tell me that Gatsby doesn't have any parallels to Bill's character. And this is just based off reading the book a decade ago—there's probably tons of little details I don't even remember. The book may well have been chosen as a coincidence, it did recently hit the public domain. But if so, it's a VERY GOOD coincidence.
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