#spn 3.12

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

[scoobydoodean]

[deancasforcutie]

SPN(win) + "15 Years" synchronicity

For the coming-of-age of this marvelous epic story full of love, life, death, resurrection, redemption, family, and... love 💚💙

[lower-the-volume]

jus in bello

[moishecampbell]

is it okay to post this over half a year after we were doing these. Yes (top 4 episodes letterbox'd after maze @/clairewolf's text post<3)

[ballsdeepinturbohell]

SPN 3.12 - Jus in Bello

They deserved better :,)

[castiellesbian]

Robert Berens:

9.06 Heaven Can't Wait

9.14 Captives

9.19 Alex Annie Alexis Ann

10.07 Girls, Girls, Girls

10.14 The Executioner's Song

10.19 The Werther Project

11.06 Our Little World

11.14 The Vessel

11.17 Red Meat (with Andrew Dabb)

11.22 We Happy Few

12.03 The Foundry

12.07 Rock Never Dies

12.14 The Raid

12.19 The Future (with Meredith Glynn)

12.22 Who We Are

13.03 Patience

13.09 The Bad Place

13.10 Wayward Sisters (with Andrew Dabb)

13.21 Beat the Devil

14.03 The Scar

14.09 The Spear

14.18 Absence

15.03 The Rupture

15.09 The Trap

15.12 Galaxy Brain

15.18 Despair

Sera Gamble:

1.03 Dead in the Water (with Raelle Tucker)

1.12 Faith (with Raelle Tucker)

1.14 Nightmare (with Raelle Tucker)

1.21 Salvation (with Raelle Tucker)

2.03 Bloodlust

2.08 Crossroad Blues

2.13 Houses of the Holy

2.17 Heart

2.21 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part One

3.02 The Kids Are Alright

3.07 Fresh Blood

3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me

3.12 Jus in Bello

3.15 Time Is on My Side

4.02 Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester

4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer

4.17 It's a Terrible Life

4.21 When the Levee Breaks

5.02 Good God, Y'All

5.07 The Curious Case of Dean Winchester

5.13 The Song Remains the Same (with Nancy Weiner)

5.21 Two Minutes to Midnight

6.01 Exile on Main St.

6.11 Appointment in Samarra

6.21 Let It Bleed

7.01 Meet the New Boss

7.10 Death's Door

7.17 The Born-Again Identity

7.23 Survival of the Fittest

[spngeorg]

Episode 56: 3.12 Jus in Bello

Justice in war... the code of ethics that judges actions on the battlefield. On the surface, this episode makes us question what is right, cuts off almost every choice Sam and Dean could’ve made, and backs them so far into a corner they’re literally shackled together and shoved in a cage. It was a situation that we won’t find out for most of an entire additional season of the show that was specifically engineered to shove this exact pressure point to see what would happen.

It’s incredibly easy to watch this episode from that surface level and come to the conclusion that Ruby was right, that they should’ve listened to her and done her (morally questionable) spell-- sacrificing an innocent to save everyone’s lives. It’s easy to judge Dean for his refusal to cooperate with that plan without the later proof that he’d been 100% right all along.

But there are cues even within this episode that should at least cast doubt on that interpretation, starting with the title begging us to examine the morality of their choices. This is why I chose that tagline for the weekly graphic: “If that’s how you win wars, then I don’t want to win.”

Because Ruby does present this from the outset as “war.” As a battle that must be won. But it was ALL a manipulation-- at the time it was written, perhaps a more immediate manipulation intended to drive Sam to his original fate to corrupt himself in order to save Dean from going to Hell, but folded into a far larger narrative that would eventually unfold throughout s4 because the writer’s strike made it impossible to complete this arc over the four episodes they had left to work with in s3, and no guarantee that the show would even be picked up for s4 yet.

She berates them at the end of the episode for their failure to save everyone, but seven of those people they mourned were dead before Sam and Dean were even released from their shackles, and the thirty people Ruby’s plan would’ve saved also walked away safe and sound because of Dean’s plan. Only, he didn’t have to murder an innocent to make that happen. Only Lilith’s choices after the fact cost the lives of the three additional people who were killed. That had nothing to do with Dean’s plan being one with a “body count,” as Ruby put it. They were played, their emotions manipulated, and Sam was just a little more compromised morally because of it.

Okay, I think I summed up the entire episode, but I have FEELINGS about this one. It’s the intro to morality and manipulation in SPN, and I love it for that.

Referenced in this week’s episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

But especially these linked posts focusing on the morality and free will aspects of this episode, and this one about the sexual innuendo of Dean and Victor’s comments

a flickr album of behind the scenes photos from this ep and 3.11

casting sides for Deputy Amici, Nancy, and Sheriff Dodd

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

[peach-coke]

➤ Supernatural Hiatus Creations Week Four || Favorite Objects

[foxthefanboi]

3x12 - Jus in Bello

Sam disapproves of Dean’s inappropriately timed jokes

[mittensmorgul]

For the sake of argument, let's say that they let Nancy make her choice in 3.12 and she sacrificed herself to save everyone like Ruby wanted. I think that she or Lilith would have manipulated it into a loss anyway, but some people believe everyone would have been spared and so Sam and Dean should have gone along with it. Do you have an opinion on this?

Yep... I 100% believe that if they had “respected Nancy’s wishes” to sacrifice herself, the result would’ve been even BETTER for Ruby and Lilith’s grand plans. It would’ve meant that Dean had given up, for lack of a better term, and compromised his morals. It probably would’ve escalated Sam’s fall into what became of him by the end of s4, you know? It would’ve been easier for him to trust Ruby’s shady advice that pushed him down the path of all the choices that led to his eventual complete downfall.

But that’s beside the point. Because the point wasn’t their ability to save all those people, which they still effectively did. THEY didn’t kill all those people. Their actions and choices didn’t kill all those people.

LILITH killed all those people.

To “prove” Ruby’s point to them. To make Sam doubt. To further their agenda.

Would those people have lived otherwise? Possibly. But that’s secondary to the point.

I mean, we saw a redux of this scenario of sorts in 12.09. All those soldiers that Sam and Dean had spared, when they could’ve killed them, died anyway because Ketch went back and did a “clean up” mission on them all. Could Sam and Dean have saved them by sacrificing one of them? Doubt it. But THEIR morality hasn’t been compromised. It only proved to us how IMMORAL Ketch’s actions were by contrast. Same with Lilith’s actions after the fact in 3.12.

I think, in no moral way, should Sam and Dean have agreed to let Nancy die to save the rest of them. Because THERE IS A MASSIVE DIFFERENCE here. “Honoring her choice to die” was the “false promise of morality.” And how hard has the show worked over the years to show us the futility of sacrificing to save each other? And isn’t this LITERALLY Chuck-- aka THE FINAL BOSS BIG BAD-- is this not LITERALLY HIS HOPED-FOR ENDGAME?!

So, literally THE WRONGEST POSSIBLE CHOICE?

I feel a bit sick just imagining them having let her die, and what that means in any moral argument about the message of this show, and who the characters are.

[sensitivehandsomeactionman]

Dean | SPN 3.12 | dedicated to @rizlow1

[scoobydoodean]

Thinking about angels 🤝 demons 🤝 "testing" what Sam and Dean are willing to do early on in ways that predict their ultimate goals. In 4.07, Cas and Uriel show up, and they tell Dean that the raising of Samhain will break one of the 66 seals, and that this must be stopped no matter what the cost—the most sure and efficient way to prevent the seal breaking is to raze the town to the ground. Of course, Dean refuses (Sam backing him up), and he stands his ground against Uriel and Cas about it, who are saying this is heaven's will. But we later learn from Cas:

CASTIEL: Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever you told us to do. DEAN: Your orders were to follow my orders? CASTIEL: It was a test, to see how you would perform under... battlefield conditions, you might say.

And even though Cas doesn't actually know what heaven's will truly was, we can easily infer that Dean failed their test by not being willing to sacrifice the town. Because accepting collateral damage on a massive scale is where they are trying to lead Dean. They want Dean to say "Yes" to Michael and accept what it'll do to the world, and this is a little mini test to see if Dean is "ready" to accept something like that.

This immediately brought me back to 3.12 "Jus In Bello", where (if you reflect on it in hindsight) Ruby and Lilith orchestrate an assault on the police station, and Ruby's role is to get inside and perform her own test to see how Sam will perform under battlefield conditions. Namely, she wants Sam to be willing to kill two people: herself and Nancy... for a spell that will wipe out all of the demons. And if we then look to the season finale, 3.16, we can see that Jus In Bello predicts exactly what Ruby would have asked Sam to do, had Dean not interrupted her.

In 4.22, we learn that, to be strong enough to face someone on Lilith's level, Sam needs to drink gallons of blood, and in 3.16, Ruby talks about urgency—she says,

Suck it up because we've got a lot of ground to cover, and we've gotta do it fast. But we can do it.

Is there enough time to find a random demon for Sam to bleed dry? Probably not. But reflecting on 3.12, it seems very likely that Ruby was going to tell Sam to bleed her dry to be strong enough to face Lilith, and she isn't wearing a corpse.

[sammyblep]

as an episode i love jus in bello but also... dean your logic is so fucking flawed here like i understand it but also are you forgetting that the demons you are fighting still have human bodies and souls in them

like i get it i don’t want ella-lopez-turned-cute-secretary to die either but this is not the way to be all or nothing!!

[winsyncspn]

Breathing in sync!

[criticlog]

SPN S3E12 - Jus in Bello

Bela, I hate you so damn much

Oh hi agent Henriksen, how have you been

Jeez ma’am you thing you have enough religious memorabilia?

Lmao you tied them together? 

Henriksen, why are you antagonizing them? Just leave them be with your surf n’ turf

This FBI dude is gonna be a demon, bet

Called it!

Guess the demons don’t want to have to deal with busting Sam out of prison

Henriksen omfg!! Don’t brandish your gun around! Who taught you gun safety??

What the hell was that Sam?? Jinks Dean

They made holy water out of toilet water?? lmaooo nice

Got that joke. I started singing the song in my head before he freaking said it

I guess having him be possessed is one way of getting Henriksen to believe you

Oh damn we got some smoke budget for this episode boys!

The tattoos! They just get them like that? No ceremony, nothing? Whaaa???

I feel like Henriksen is gonna die. Please don’t kill him. Please have him go back to the FBI so there’s an actual reason for the FBI to not be on their ass after this

Oh damn Lilith just got name dropped! 

Actually yeah, why didn’t you tell Dean you had demon competition, Sam? Why wasn’t that something you felt like sharing? You’re already in this together and he already knows about the whole army thing so what gives?

Wait… what the hell is the plan now?? Cause I feel like y’all are gonna kill way more people this way. I know those have salt shells but they’re shooting them people at point blank range

uh oh one got away

Goddamnit they killed them all. Spn really is allergic to having other characters exist in their world. I had a feeling Henriksen was gonna bite it but damn. Tbf though, this does make sense with Ruby’s plan is to push Sam more and more. Having their “humane” plan not work out is exactly what she would want and she would have probably called Lilith herself to get the job done if it came to that. But still! You don’t need to kill everyone all the time spn!