#spn + nihilism versus narrative vs fate

[shallowseeker]

Lucifer + war

I know that no one wants Lucifer takes, but...

I keep thinking about that funky, exhilarated smile Lucifer dons when Amara attacks Heaven.

For this brief time in season 11, Lucifer feels like Lucifer again.

He has a purpose. He's the impossible hope against The Great Evil, gearing up for the prize fight. He's not even alone. He's with a brother who gray-rock-tolerates him as comrade instead of actively trying to kill him.

For a second, he even starts becoming so used to being part of a team that he forgets who he is. But he's Lucifer, and that means he doesn't have to spare Sam. Hell, why should he want to? He ain't got no feelings! So, he keeps living up to the idea of Lucifer. He's evil, he's cunning, he's strong, he's a warrior...

He even gets to go back to Heaven, where they uneasily accept him as he tries to ape the charisma expected of God's finest. But he learns he's not so good at that part. So, he calls on his brother, Castiel (the more natural leader), to do the soldiering part. (From SPN 11x22 -> LUCIFER: And here I thought I had made real inroads with you guys. Welp, I came here to ask a good-faith favor of you folks, but as you are clearly less than kindly disposed, perhaps you'll, uh, lend an ear to my very own Jiminy Cricket. Hmm? CASTIEL: Hello, brothers. Sisters.)

And then, on the eve of battle, after doing everything they asked of him, Amara rips him away from his brother and his father, and he's brutally untethered after his first bout of security for eons. (Say what you will, I still stand by that Lucifer begrudgingly likes as much as he resents Cas and the security/safety he provides for his loved ones. He likes Gabriel, too.)

And he despairs.

///

In season 12, he seems to have been waiting for Castiel specifically:

Vince Vincente: Castiel. Took you long enough. Did you bring the rest of the Little Rascals?

Lucifer doesn't even wanna be Lucifer anymore. Playing him last season sucked. He went to war, was hated for it, and then he got horrifically tortured by Amara, and nobody cared.

Lucifer (Vince Vincente): Because it's fun. Because I can. And because being Lucifer? So much Judeo-Christian baggage. But Vince? He's famous. Everybody loves him. And I need love. I had a really jacked childhood.

And Lucifer is frustrated with Cas. As he fights him, his voice is unusually heavy with emotion:

Castiel: You think this is fun? Lucifer (Vince Vincente): Oh, I wouldn't expect you to understand. I was inside you. I know what a weak, duty-bound… Castiel attempts to attack again but he is swiftly knocked aside by Lucifer Lucifer (Vince Vincente): ...pleasureless dullard you are.

This whole scene, Lucifer is appealing to (and usually speaking directly to) Castiel, doing things to try and get a rise out of him and get his attention (killing innocents, beating up Crowley). Like many of the emotionally unhinged characters (Rowena, Crowley, pretty much all the demons), Lucifer is frustrated by Castiel's coping strategy, which is to withdraw and gray-rock him (i.e. "become as uninteresting and unengaged as possible so that the other person loses interest"). Getting a rise out of Cas is its own kind of Holy Grail.

But just like when they were roomies, Castiel won't grace Lucifer with a reaction, which triggers him pretty hard. This scene reads as incredibly emotionally charged, especially for Lucifer. That's because Lucifer wants Castiel to react...just like he wants Chuck to react.

(Everybody loves Cas, and he won't even bask in it. No one loves Lucifer.)

///

Lucifer doesn't even kill him. His last hit tosses Cas onto a couch, for Christ's sake. Lucifer chooses to take the majority of his violence out on the human and the demon. He says to Cas: "Stick around for the afterparty." He wants to see him hurt post-Sam and Dean deaths, most likely. (That'll surely get a reaction.)

///

Sam: You and God made up. You forgave him. What would he think? Lucifer (Vince Vincente): I'm not especially interested in his opinion. Dear old dad, he finally apologized for abandoning me. And what's the very next thing he does? [Voice breaks] He ditches me. [Laughs, openly crying] And you, too, by the way. His words, your words, they mean nothing. Don't you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, Hell, this world. If it ever meant anything, that moment is past. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void… they don't mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun. You know what my plan is? I don't have one. 

For a half-second, he loved them and wanted their love, too. He had war companions in Sam and Dean. He had a brother in Cas. But Lucifer has gone from being too faithful in The Cause to having no plan at all. And with that, he, too, has fallen to the ultimate SPN bad guy: NIHILISM.

Thus, Jack.

He doesn't go to kill Cas until after Jack is secured. It's as he tells Sam, "I don't need you anymore!" (Because now he has Jack. The thing that will make his life "meaningful.")

[shallowseeker]

Speak your own individual desires aloud and doom God to kill them. (Better to make it a collective; strength in anonymity and numbers; happiness as a smokescreen)

No, listen Dean had EVERYTHING HE EVER WANTED in season 12. It's even got some strange echoes in common with 2x20 What is and Should Never Be.

HIS MOM ALIVE, HIS DAD DEAD, SAM capable of being safe on his own, the world mostly safe, and and AND--something unconditional with someone of his very own

DEAN: Dad's dead? And the thing that killed him was a... MARY: A stroke. He died in his sleep. You know that. DEAN: That's great. MARY: Excuse me? /// DEAN: I'm really glad you're happy. SAM: looks a little puzzled at DEAN's intensity. /// DEAN: All of them. Everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved. They're all dead...It's like my old life is, is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn't want me to be happy. Course I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball but... "So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people's lives, no contest. Right?" /// DEAN: (shaking his head) I'll die. (voice breaking) The Djinn'll... drain the life out of me in a couple of days. MARY: But in here, with us, it'll feel like years. Like a lifetime. (DEAN looks over at SAM who half-smiles and nods to him) I promise. (She takes his chin in her hand, and he looks down on her) No more pain. (strokes his cheek) Or fear. Just love and comfort. And safety. Dean, stay with us. (strokes his other cheek and he leans into her hand, closing his eyes) Get some rest. JESSICA: You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. (DEAN looks over at her) You get to watch him live a full life. MARY steps away, and CARMEN walks up to him, taking his face in her hands, kissing him.

In season 12, Dean is coming to terms with the fact that family isn't perfect, and it will let you down, and it isn't forever, and the world isn't safe. But it's real. You fight for it.

(And no matter how hard you fight, sometimes it still all goes so wrong. You see, it's much more devastating to actively fight for something and lose, as compared to a halfsies-fighting. It's not like a bargaining phase, where you leave a crack in the door that you never intend to open. No, with this scenario, Dean lost. Soundly. Utterly. 💔)

No wonder Dean had an unusual reaction to the end of season 12. Because it was really real and because he actively fought to keep it, it was more devastating than usual. He did not proceed to the Bargaining phase of grief at all. There were no cracked doors, no hopes, no solutions, no deals. This time, Dean completely lost his faith. He went straight to despair.

He didn't even look for Mary, or to a possible future, because he lost his faith IN the future. It became meaningless, and he didn't even matter. He was at a completely different crossroads and mindset compared to the other losses in his life, so the grief looked a lot different than usual. It smoldered and did not proceed forward. Sadly, it seemed to spiral in on itself.

These ideas of daily life and living in the future--of Sam's future and of Dean's future--are revisited in the terminal seasons.

Dean + "Everything we've always wanted"

Hello, scripted All Along the Watchtower line:

Ah, yes. Everything Dean's we've always wanted. This comes shortly after meeting Max & Alicia Banes on 12x20, who also use "We" to cloak their individual wants and needs, like a shield. So what are the requirements for this everything-I've-always-wanted?

Mary (a flawed-but-Loving Parent-Hero; the symbolic road to accepting Our Imperfect Selves)

Cas ("Flawed Father Material" who is Brave, Dutiful, and Devoted; the One Who Carries Your Burden-Halved; the symbolic road to de-Romanticizing White Picket Fence & Apple Pie Life)

Sammy (the child who finally Grew into Leadership; circa season 12; The one who leads the American hunters against The British Men of Letters; the one who elevates the Family Legacy; the symbolic road to dealing with The Moral Gray of life)

///

We also get this aired line from 12x22:

DEAN: (dejectedly) Yeah. You know, it wasn't long ago, I thought we had it made. We saved the world. We got Cas back. We had Mom back. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but still, we had 'em.

It wasn't perfect. Like I was thinking in this season 8 post, this represents the acceptance of De-Romanticizing the Apple Pie Life.