#spn the song remains the same

[spnwin-reader]

Prime Dean gives Alt John the tools to unlock the truth and decide for himself if he will hunt

Original run context: John's feelings of betrayal

In the original #SPNprime, John was not allowed to fight for or defend himself until it was already too late. This made the wound of Mary's death much, much deeper than it would have otherwise been.

Unlike with Sam keeping the truth from Jess out of shame, Mary's keeping the truth from John may stem from incredible fear, watching Azazel kill him in The Beginning.

(It's perhaps more akin to Dean symbolically blinding Lisa and Ben to the truth to keep them safe than how Sam was with Jess.)

But the in The Song Remains the Same, John (temporarily) learns the truth, and he is (rightfully) frustrated by having been kept in the dark. He feels intense betrayal. He feels like a child.

JOHN: Monsters. Monsters? MARY: Yes. JOHN: Monsters are real. MARY: I'm sorry, I didn't know how— JOHN: And you fight them? All of you? SAM: Yeah. JOHN: How long? MARY: All my life. John, just try to understand— DEAN: She didn't exactly have a choice— JOHN: Shut up, all of you! Look, not another word, or so help me, I will turn this car around! Silence falls.

/// LATER ///

JOHN: What? Y'all might have treated me like a fool, but I am not useless. I can draw a damn— (JOHN picks up the paper from next to a large knife.)—whatever it is—a sigil.

///

Original run context: Mary continued to hunt near/during the beginning of her marriage?

In Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox, we learn that it could've been Mary who created much of the tension in their marriage by potentially stepping out on John to hunt, calling into question if the fight shown between them in Dark Side of the Moon.

MARY: "No, John. We're not having this conversation again. Time to think? About what? You have two boys at home." DEAN: "I remember this. Mom and dad were fighting, and then he moved out for a couple of days." MARY: "Fine. Then don't. There's nothing more to talk about."

Now we wonder: Was this fight even John's fault to begin with? The stereotype of "angry husband" might lull you into thinking so, but it's equally possible that it was Mary that originated the fight--Mary who had a long, canon-supported history of lying. She's even the one shutting down the conversation here!

Mary would probably rather John think she's unfaithful than risk John being dragged into hunting, and she'd probably pivot to supporting their kids as an excuse to smooth things over. (Just as Cas would rather Dean assume anything so long as he's not dragged into the dangerous world of angelic Civil War).

Alternatively, the fight may have even been part of the normal ebb-and-flow of a marriage. It may have been that the fight looked a LOT bigger through the eyes of a sensitive four-year-old.

(A couple of days ain't even that long, but boy it sure does feel big when you're a kid. But just because their marriage wasn't "perfect" doesn't mean it wasn't good, and the Dean-Sam conversation completely misses on that front.)

//

One of the things post-season 12 in #SPNprime does so beautifully is calls into question everything we know about Mary, including the cartoonish idea of John as the root of all evil.

Mary's lies are given rich complexity, as is Dean's memory of her.

Everything in Dark Side of the Moon, from the idea of "Heaven" as the "perfect place you grow up" to being simplistically at peace with your siblings/"littermates" in the ideal childhood home forever is given more complexity by the narrative unfridging of Mary.

(It's why the gate to Heaven is always associated with a playground. "There's no place like home," is literal in SPN. Heaven can even be seen as the idealization of childhood, as sharing the same history.)

///

Dean helps John because Dean was also "locked out" during critical periods in his life, prevented from Danger "for his own good"

Dean feels this pain acutely in season 6, when Samuel Campbell, his brother Sam, and Bobby Singer keep him out of the larger hunting plot in order to "keep him at peace."

Despite their good intentions, this denied him the right to choose for himself if he'd meet The Fight head on.

Cas, too, does this with the angelic Civil War, with Kelly Kline, general "angel business," and The Empty deal, and Dean feels that as unintended rejection.

He feels, like John, coddled. Like a child. Not getting the chance to be an equal comrade or partner in the fight.

///

Here, prime Dean is giving John the key to discover the truth about monsters and Henry's Men of Letters heritage.

Certainly John has a lot of emotional baggage and childhood abandonment trauma to work through, but at least this time he'll have more agency ahead of time, and he'll get to choose which path to prepare for rather than having the world of monsters thrust upon him in the midst of a grief-spiral.

Dean has handed that power of Choice back to John.

Perhaps prime Dean too is wounded from being kept in the dark. Perhaps he longs for a world were he's known about Cas's The Empty deal instead of, like John, being blindsided and struck dumb by grief.

[shallowstories]

It was very easy to convince Anna to kill Sam Winchester. All we had to do was threaten to cast her human "parents" into Hell.

[ananke-xiii]

Mary's "angels are watching over you" is a great line that makes full use of dramatic irony. We, the audience, know that having angels "watching over" you is NOT a good thing. So from our perspective "watching over" takes the meaning of "keeping under survellaince" and it's not pretty: it reminds us that angels are soldiers, they have a plan and a war to win. However, Mary doesn't know that when she says it, for her "watching over" means "protecting, taking care" and it's associated with the image of angels as guardians and protectors. What's even better is the fact tha later in the series, the show will strongly associate the "watching over" part with Castiel. And honestly? It works SO well 'cause the dramatic irony still works. Cas still doesn't incarnate the preconcevied notion of "guardian angel" and, at the same time, he stil sees himself as a solider. He shapes his own way of caring and protecting in a military fashion rather than a family-oriented one. It's not a "I'm here for you", more like "I'll go to battle so you won't have to". And this basically sums up the BIG issue he has in his relationship with Dean but that's for another story. Anyway, I'm just so fascinated with some lines in this show, I'll take the good ones when I can, lol!

[caranfindel]

Thinking about The Song Remains the Same, when Sam and Dean are trying to convince Past!Mary to leave John so they won’t be born, and she says it’s too late because she’s already pregnant with Dean, and Dean’s just, okay, she’s right, nothing we can do, like it doesn’t even occur to him that she could still prevent Sam from being born, it’s just, if I’m here, Sam has to be here, there’s no other option. Yep, I’m thinking about that.

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean and Cas every day not often enough -- 17/?

Supernatural 5x13//The Song Remains the Same

[littlebluejaydraws]

All these centuries and you're underestimating me now? 5x13: The Song Remains the Same

ID: Two images of the same digital drawing showing Cas and Anna from episode 5x13 of Supernatural. They are shown in profile, standing back to back in a large, dark room. They are positioned to the right of the image, with the shapes of a door, pipes, and shelves are visible in the background. Cas is facing into the room with his head tilted up, light from above illuminating his face. Anna is standing behind him with her head turned down and her hair falling forward to hide her face. Each of them holds an angel blade by their sides and a halo behind their heads. There is a quote from the episode written over the image, reading: "You've changed." "Maybe too late, but I have.". End ID.

[idjits-areus]

Dean: "Well...this is it."

Sam: "This is what?"

Dean: "Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. It's awesome."

Sam: "It's not funny."

Dean: "I'm not laughing."

5x13 | The Song Remains the Same

[supernaturalkickparty]

I took care of him in a way most people could never understand?!

yesssss it's from The Song Remains the Same, season 5 episode 13

the trasncript from spn wiki for you.

MICHAEL I just want you to understand what you and I have to do.

DEAN Oh, I get it. You got beef with your brother. Well, get some therapy, pal. Don't take it out on my planet!

MICHAEL You're wrong. Lucifer defied our father, and he betrayed me. But still...I don't want this any more than you would want to kill Sam.

MICHAEL turns away.

MICHAEL You know, my brother, I practically raised him. I took care of him in a way most people could never understand, and I still love him.

MICHAEL turns back.

MICHAEL But I am going to kill him because it is right and I have to.

DEAN Oh, because God says so?

MICHAEL Yes. From the beginning, he knew this was how it was going to end.

DEAN And you're just gonna do whatever God says.

MICHAEL Yes, because I am a good son.

the whole scene gives me brain worms

[thebeautyofspn]

5x13 The Song Remains The Same

[the-girl-lost-in-fandoms]

no but the best possible explanation for 'angels are watching over you' would've been mary witnessing castiel save dean from anna and uriel and then subconsciously remembering it

[killlthelovers]

crazy how in 5x13 they so casually mention that dean and sam are direct descendants of cain and abel. crazy.

[quietwingsinthesky]

it just drives me insane. she got out!! anna got out!!! more than any other angel, she severed herself off so completely and so violently that she had nothing left of what she originally was. she built herself back up from the ground up. but that existence in of itself was so much of a threat to heaven’s tenuous hold on it’s power structures that it needed her dead before any other angels started getting ideas. hell, not just dead, it needed her understood as the worst thing any angel could be. (anna’s even internalized that view of herself to some extent.)

[arcanespillo]

the holy trinity

[420technoblazeit]

i forgot how incredibly fucked up the terms of mary and azazel's deal were. he shows up in the body of her dead dad and murders john in front of her. and then he taunts her with it, tells her she can never live a normal life unless she makes a deal with him

and he doesn't even tell her the cost, just that she'll pay the price if she interrupts him when he comes to collect. how was she supposed to know he'd be standing over sam's crib ten years from then? she had a split second and by the time she realized it was already too late

mary winchester was so desperate to be free that she cursed her boys to suffer the fate she gave everything to escape. led to her death by angels and demons alike. and she never even knew it

[onespncap]

s05e13 -- "The Song Remains the Same"

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean Winchester every day -- 95/326

Supernatural 5x13//The Song Remains the Same