#is a horror that stems from our inability to understand and connect in a fundamental way

[yahargulian]

Trigun makes my brain go so crazy that I have, genuinely, been entertaining the thought of writing literature-degree-type essays on it for fun. Like cracking open books, going back into lit theory, references and everything. Just because I enjoy thinking about it and talking about it that much. Oh god

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Re: your tags on that jack/amara post. Now the show totally got me to like Jack rather instantly as well but I cant help but feel like it was too easy, his actions during s12 werent realy adressed imo, he didnt really earn the "family" TFW status to the degree the show is framing it for me and there wasnt the dubious moral complexity early in s13 like s12 was setting up. Idk does that make sense?

Yep, it makes total sense and I agree. When the first few episodes aired and Jack was obviously framed as a lovable innocent, I expected them to pull the rug under our feet at some point- not necessarily to make Jack ���evil’ (that was clearly not going to happen) but to question assumptions and, well, make both the viewers, the characters, Jack himself question his actions and his goals and everything. It’s sort of like season 12 was like ‘is this thing evil....?’ and the twist was ‘lol no!’ but the twist came in like 2 minutes into the premiere or so. In Kaia’s episode, the twist was again that he did not kill Derek the dreamwalker...

Jack’s ‘darkness’ were mistakes. He accidentally killed the security guard when trying to stop a robber. He accidentally got soldiers killed when he made the wrong tactical choice in the war against Michael (it was revealed as wrong because of the Kevin trap, and a trap by definition... is hard to spot before you fall in it). Other things were naivety, which is not exactly darkness (naivety/innocence are potential for darkness, but the show didn’t really go ultra deep in that).

Every other main character has been through actual ‘darkness’. The Carver era in a nutshell was that - Dean’s, Sam’s and Cas’ darkness explored. Cas’ self-loathing and depression stemmed from his inability to belong, Sam’s unhealthy attitudes towards himself (the trials) and his brother (*waves around*), Dean’s lack of self-worth that turn him into a tool-weapon/the lock to the literal Darkness (insert billions of words of meta here).

The Carver era was about them messing things up royally to the point that we were supposed to think, are these people righteous? are they right? At times we were supposed to be horrified by their choices. Some people grew actually uncomfortable with the show because the main characters were... unlikeable. Not heroes.

But that was supposed to be the foundation for a new journey upwards - the release of the Darkness (I’m not going into the topic of when exactly they decided to make the MoC the lock-and-key for the Darkness) was supposed to symbolize the externalization of their own darknesses to deal with them.

I think Carver’s mistake was primarily one: making the Darkness solely about Dean. Sam remained in a weird limbo for most of the season, and for Cas they had to bring Lucifer into the picture as the narrative tool to represent Cas’ issues (corollary mistake: Lucifer). I think they should have managed to make the Darkness about all of them, in a way or another (they almost did so by having Dean carry the Mark and Sam and Cas undo it, but that second part got dropped). Of course, I understand why they’d do that - having the Darkness as the dark, irrational, feminine, destructive principle of the cosmos inevitably means she is aligned to Dean. But then they should have developed things so that Dean-Darkness and Sam-God, but God was finally introduced when the season was almost over and things needed to happen and it was late.

Oh jeez, talk about digressing...

I think I never let go of my post-season 10 finale expectations, because boy, I was excited. The season only partly met my expectations. *screams into the showrunners’ direction* I’m still waiting for my big witchcraft storyline, guys!

So, Carver era, inner darkness, outer Darkness. Main characters who SCREW UP BIG TIME. I mean... it was a bad decision for extra-diegetical reasons, and executed poorly, but Charlie’s death did make sense in that perspective. What’s more rock bottom than getting Charlie killed? It was supposed to be the horrifying, ‘oh shit’ version of Benny’s sacrifice. Benny had reasons to die, they got a beautiful goodbye, all made sense. But it was a slippery slope- and now Charlie dies, and it’s bad, it’s ugly, it makes no sense.

If Dante had written me into the Divine Comedy he would’ve put me in the circle of hell for digressers.

Anyway. Carver era, darkness.

And then seasons 12 and 13. They’re growing, so their mistakes are not as big and destructive as before. In fact, other people mess up more. Sam goes along with the BMoL because Mary made the mistake, and he just wants to connect with his Mom. Cas is trying to make up for letting Lucifer free and fails, because Crowley makes the mistake of keeping Lucifer around. Dean is there doing his best and getting slaps in the face, because his life sucks. His prayer to God in 13x01 is GOOD STUFF. Anyway. They still struggle with themselves and their traumas that prevent them from having healthy relationships (I’m not saying the Dabb era is bad, I am really enjoying things). Insert more meta here.

Now enters Jack, who is supposed to be a mirror of Dean, Sam and Cas. Where’s the darkness? WHERE’S THE FUNDAMENTAL POINT OF HORROR ABOUT HIS EXISTENCE aka his ambiguous and scary relationship with free will? Dean, Sam and Cas’ struggle is with FREE WILL. Always has been. Genuine choice against the determination caused by their traumas even before by external forces. Dean telling Amara and Chuck to reconcile represented that - refusing to go along with the determinism of their essences (creation and destruction) and choose their own path.

Jack... we’re technically told that he refuses to go along the determinism of his Satanic heritage, but that’s... not really true. He is much more framed as a blank slate than a creature with an evil essence in him. That’s what he fears, others fear (or hope in Lucifer’s case), but he’s never tempted by his own inner darkness. Lucifer almost tricks him eventually for a moment, but it’s a trick, something he achieves with lies and manipulation, not really reaching to Jack’s inner evil potential.

There was potential to make his story a horror story without making him evil or bad. Look at season 12 and the way he ambiguously uses people for, well, good purposes - saving Kelly, saving Cas. There was potential there! He has good intentions, and does things with good outcomes, but at the cost of messing up with people’s free will in an ambiguous, eerie way.

That’s it, he could have been EERIE. Sinister and terrifying because he’s lovable and has the best intentions... but also does disturbing things. Technically it sort of happened, but wasn’t really explored properly - see the analyses we made after 13x09 but that were never proved right or wrong. In fact, there was an element that rang bells at the end of the season - when he forces the truth about Maggie’s murder out of Lucifer. That was the final proof that Jack is perfectly able to annul someone’s free will completely. But what about the entire season prior, and even the time as a fetus? It just stays something in the mouth of a Dean whose grief is used to make him unreliable.

I guess the mistake here is not making Jack a new Amara, instead. As @awed-frog eloquently said, the two had a lot in common in their narratives, but then a lot completely divergent. Jack should have been about free will like Amara was, and how season 12 almost hinted at - like Amara made Dean’s free will compass go haywire, it seemed that proximity to Jack made Cas’ free will compass go haywire. But then Cas was dead and even when he came back, Jack’s story had been written in a complete different direction. They could have structured season 13 so that Jack was Sam’s Amara instead (it would have made sense to have Sam not deal with sexually-coded manipulation from a woman, since he already has that with Ruby in the past, and instead be something new and fresh for his character), if they wanted to make Jack and Sam’s narratives close, but at some point they’ve just made the decision to have Sam be the Real Dad in contrast to Lucifer’s biological fatherhood.

Basically, I think, they realized that they had to give Sam a strong narrative that placed him as the antagonist of Lucifer, so they kind of shoved Cas out of Jack’s narrative (with awkward results - um we’re supposed to be son and father but err what) and made the fatherhood narrative about Sam. With awkward results. Narratively, Sam And Cas Are A Kid’s Dads is... not really a brilliant idea.

Maybe Michael Dean is the result of the showrunners realizing that on paper giving narratives to Sam and Cas and not only to Dean (like Carver tended to do at times) is good, but in reality the show works best when things are about Dean, so now Let’s Have A Dean Centric Arc. I guess?

I haven’t really talked about the extradiegetic aspect of the strong pushing of Jack/Alex Calvert, but I don’t think there’s much to say about it. Fan reception was immediately super positive, and 28 year old Misha Collins clone is sort of a safe bet, you know? The network seems to believe that fans want young pretty white boys, and it’s not reaaaally like they got that idea out of their hat, you know?