#the cas vs chuck battle royale theory

[shallowseeker]

I'm sorry to be dumb, but did I miss something? Who is Hokmah?

That was just a little detour Jack-rambling with a friend. :-)

For the little girl that appears in the Occultum garden in 15x13 Destiny's Child, I was trying to think of a cosmic force she could represent that isn't Eve, and I landed on a personification of Hokhmah/Hokmah/Chokmah, "Lady Wisdom."

You didn't miss anything. She's not called that in the show! @13x02 and I were just playing with the idea over here. :D

You'll get a decent condensed Western overview here on Cengage that I like pretty well, but "she's" a complicated theological point of interest if you wanna crawl through more academic scholarly sources.

I think you can shape her in a very positive way. Jack saw Wisdom! He regained his Soul!

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But on a darker note, I think a negative view of Lady Wisdom has enormously evil implications for the destruction of the Cas-Dean-Jack family unit in the finale, leaving only Sam's "pure, idealized, almost Noah-esque" family in its wake.

In terms of poetry, Lady Wisdom can signify the idea of a perfect woman and ideal mate. As a point of contrast, the non-ideal mate is depicted as "the path of the Strange Woman," who carries you into Folly."

Both the wife and Wisdom protect their mates from the dangerous "strange woman," who lures the unsuspecting man into sexual misadventure (Prv. 5:20–23, 7:5–23, cf. 2:26–19). Social commentary regarding proper family bonds finds expression here...

I think that's echoed in 15x17 Unity's horrific depiction of Seraphina and Adam, who make out incessantly, are stoned out of their minds, and obsessed with Revenge and Fate. Adam even gives birth to an unnatural "revenge-baby" whose intent is Destruction. It's God who's supposed to yank out ribs and do Divine Fatherhood, not angels.

Now, in actuality, there's noting wrong with a little PDA or getting high, but Adam and Seraphina's sudden intrusion into the story combined with Chuck's apparent knowledge of the rib-bomb ("Have fun watching him [Jack] die.") seems ominous.

I think the grotesque caricatures of Seraphina-Adam reveal what Chuck truly thinks about the Dean-Cas partnership. (Of course, Chuck takes no responsibility for driving Seraphina and Adam to their desperation either...)

Anyway, Seraphina is Folly. So is Cas. It's true that Cas and Dean are in a pretty negative feedback loop at this point in the story, but Chuck, as usual, is painting it in rip-roarin' 2D. With a dash of disrespectful disdain.

Other poems use the female imagery to constitute competing superhuman forces. The path of the strange woman, who appears as personified Folly in the concluding poem of Proverbs 1–9, leads to death: "her guests are in the depths of Sheol" (Prv. 9:18, cf. 2:18–19, 5:5–6, 5:23, 7:27). Wisdom, in contrast, offers life, an offer whose credibility is enhanced by the remarkable poem in Proverbs 8. 

So, here is Chuck's judgment, perhaps. Cas is a rival superhuman force that is unnaturally taking Dean away from Him. (Early in season 15, Lilith tells us that Chuck has "a pervy obsession" with Dean, so it's a very unsettling tug-of-war here.) Cas might even be aware of it, as he uses the alias Clarence Worley in 15x06, post-Chuck confrontation (and Cas has become pretty pop-culture savvy).

It's a power struggle. Chuck paints his rival-God sons as the "Strange Women" to His Own Divine Ultimate Fatherhood, the same way he brands Michael as "cuck." Chuck does not tolerate individualism from his sons, and so uses emasculating language. Furthermore, he does not value feminine three-dimensionality, as shown by how he treats Amara’s wisdom. She too is painted “Strange,” because his perspective of individuals rings hollow. Amara does not fit Chuck’s restrictive, mental stereotype of Hokmah.

In the finale, Dean is "Chuck-downgraded" from the masculine Adam to the Woman in the Gray Robe, and then, her tongue gets cut out. (Chuck’s “mirrors” usually favor Dean as the masculine Marlboro man.) It's...hmmm. Quite sadistic, really, what happens to Dean. It shows how 2D and hierarchical Chuck treats gender. Also, Dean loved Cas. If Dean didn't love Cas back, this death would have been more heroic and less...maudlin and back-stabby, I think. (There’d have been no need for bury your gays.)

In terms of modern society, Cas is actually more strange than Seraphina. He's a superhuman force in the shape of a man. He's diametrically opposed to Chuck's idea of Hokhmah, which is in fact the Idea of Blurry Wife. Chuck wants traditional, picture-perfect wives: he wants Lisa and Amelia and fake!Mary and Blurry Wife. Not strange women like Rowena or Eileen or worse—ursurper figures like Lucifer, Michael, Castiel, or Jack.

I clumsily talk about this idea of the Nephilim family unit in the tablet meta as well as the idea of joining/sundering Heaven and Earth in this forbidden love meta, but I think what I want to say is that Cas represents both the poetic specter of Strange Path/Folly and the Corrupt Idea of the Unnatural, Enochian Sire of a Nephilim.

Some believe the fallen angels who sired the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6) (Greek Enoch 20:2), a place of "total darkness."

Sounds a lot like the Empty, huh?

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Is Blurry Wife Chuck's approved idea of Hokmah? Perhaps. Seems like The Perfect Sam-Fam is network-approved!

It's a twisted idea, isn't it? That the "impure" Nephilim family was Washed Away leaving only this bizarrely cookie-cutter, picturesque one in its wake. Jack was born on Washaway beach, and Dean and Cas became increasingly paired with flood and water motifs as the relationship escalated.

So anyway, this negative view of Lady Wisdom can in fact carry us all the way through the finale and the destruction of the human-angel Nephilim family unit. Because of this, the finale echoes on a homophobic note that reverberates through most who see it, even when they can't put their finger on why it feels that way.

Cas, Jack, and Dean are buried.

Cas is thrown into the Empty/Darkness, like the legendary Fallen Sires of the Nephilim. (He even exits through a punishment symbol, a pair of handcuffs.) Jack becomes like the Nephilim before him, a cursed untethered spirit, barred from existing in an earthly body. Then, there's Dean, the human partner, who is stabbed in the back in a brutal Execution and cursed to wander in search of the connection he is disallowed from having (that's what The Winchesters feels like, no?).

It's wicked.

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Further reading:

This has a nice chapter on Hokhman, which goes into some of the root words used in the poems themselves. (It's chapter 6.)

Above excerpt from "Ḥokhmah ." Encyclopedia of Religion.  Encyclopedia.com. 22 Aug. 2023 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>

[shallowseeker]

SAM: But, you know, we fell for him 'cause he had a good heart and a good soul. Then he didn't.

14x18 Absence

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Interesting word choice, because:

Many suggested interpretations of Nephilim and its root words are precarious. Based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root n-p-l (נ־פ־ל) "fall." Robert Baker Girdlestone argued in 1871 the word comes from the hif'il causative stem, implying that the Nephilim are to be perceived as 'those that cause others to fall down.'

It was not until Jack that Chuck truly began to feel that Sam and Dean (and Cas) were "broken," "stubborn," and "completely turned against Him."

[shallowseeker]

Sons overtake fathers.

That’s natural when you’re mortal. The dad gets older. He retires.

He dies.

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But for immortal families? Nobody gets older, and nobody dies.

It’s not natural.

Family members become a threat to be defeated, not protected.

[shallowseeker]

Mostly, I agree with this. I have a few expansions because it revved up my brain:

I 100% agree with what everyone said about the Equalizer. Dean wouldn't have survived killing Jack. You don't get much more direct comparison to one another than that! Choosing to spare Jack is also Dean choosing to spare himself.

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==Unity is so extra, extra complicated==

And although I agree that they understand one another and get each other, I think in Unity it’s very clear that Jack’s motivations are more wrapped up in being forgiven for Mary’s death than aligning perfectly with Dean’s desperation to annihilate Chuck and gain “freedom” (also, the bloodlust for revenge in his conversation with Cas cannot be ignored).

Yes, Dean is in the throes of existential crisis. Undeniably, Dean is treating Jack as an extension of himself, just as John treated Dean in the quest for revenge against Azazel, the demon that catapulted John into his own nihilism and fatalism.

Instead of apologizing, Dean even expresses thankfulness to Jack here; it’s uncomfortably sacrificial. It almost reads like, “Our wars failed, and you as war-son are buying our generation’s freedom with your death.” Jack is the substitute sacrifice to get to a false notion of freedom. It’s so…American war propaganda, really. Chuck told Dean he wasn’t free…and Dean believed him.

And though Jack understands Dean’s emotions, as Dean empathized with John’s pain, I do think Jack would eventually come due for a crisis point that he didn’t deserve what Dean put on him in this moment (or for that matter, the burdens of destiny and universe-hopping that Kelly, Cas, and Sam put on him).

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==On Dean coming to his senses==

I think Dean technically fails in Unity. It was too much for him, for anyone. He comes to his senses too late. So, he snaps out of his crisis and kills Death with her own scythe. But ultimately, his quest killed his son, just as John’s quest killed Dean. John was grief-stricken and horrified at what he’d wrought, and so, he made the demon deal to save Dean. Here, Dean kills Billie to save Jack, setting up the chain reaction that would have led to his own death, had Cas not intervened.

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==On Cas coming to his senses==

I think it is actually Cas who gets Jack best in this era. That’s why his speech about Jack needing no absolution from anyone is so powerful at the beginning of Despair. Cas finally lets go of that notion of Jack fitting into a Big Destiny, but like with Dean’s quest, Cas is also too late. With the bomb already detonated, Jack’s Destiny as a power vacuum has already been set into motion.

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==Chuck made fun of Dean & Cas==

I view Seraphina and Adam's presence as Chuck literally making fun of Dean and Cas’s respective folly. Adam brags that Sera kept him alive to accomplish his revenge, and Sera waxes poetic about Big Destiny and Fate.

That they actively make out while stabbing each other, kowtowing to destiny, and birthing Adam’s “rib-baby” is hideous. Chuck is painting their romantic attraction to one another disgustingly as he can: "This revenge is our baby." Sera even brags about Jack’s eating of hearts to make his vessel strong, a nod to Cas’s odd decision to go along with Jack’s heart-eating.

Chuck planted these two in the story, alongside the bomb trap, because he thought it was over-the-top and hilarious. On rewatch, it seems like a disrespectful reveling in his own sadism.

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==Sam & the human sacrifice==

For what it’s worth, despite Dean and Cas’s fatal mistakes, I think Sam was the least effective member of TFW in the end, despite his moral compass being pointed “in the right direction," and his impassioned plea to pull Dean back from the edge in Unity.

On the whole, he suffered a loss of hope and analysis-paralysis, and so, Sam ultimately defaulted to his usual MO of human sacrifice. (To be fair, they tried to sacrifice themselves first.) Despair is full of substitute sacrifices, from Cas to Jack to the cold, cruel sacrifice of Michael to his abusive father.

And ultimately, Sam was mostly okay with that, as Sam tends to be.

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==But Dean died quick==

Dean died six months later and was clearly struggling much, much more with all of it, from the state of his room to the lack of focus during the hunt.

Despite Sam talking about Cas and Jack, he was pretty "peppy" in his day-to-day. On the other hand, Dean’s day-to-day looked in disarray, in shambles. Sam paid grief a dissociative lip service and did his usual MO of throwing himself into work/another case. (He even does that after Dean dies--straight to another case; not even a funeral or wake with friends, as Dean did for Mary!)

But Dean was the one actively grieving. He was in no shape to hunt, just as he was in the weeks after Cas’s death in All Along the Watchtower, where he died or nearly died on every hunt he undertook.

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==Jack may have been able to see through Dean's act==

I spiraled off from the Dean-Jack parallel, but I agree with everyone pointing to Jack and Dean's similarities being heavy. I think it's very possible that Jack even knew that Dean was putting up a stoic front in Unity, just as he recognized Dean was putting up a front in Unhuman Nature.

DEAN: Listen, Jack, I don't know what you heard back there, but...

JACK: You don't have to say anything. And... you don't need to be sorry. I'm not like Sam or Cas. I... I understand.

[Dean doesn't have a reply, other than mild horror, and they resume their awkward silence

And Jack isn’t like Cas or Sam. He’s like Dean. "We're not like them. We're expendable."

Nevertheless, Dean's caring can't help but leak out:

DEAN: Hey, w-w-wait, wait. Where you taking him?

ADAM: Oh, just a little private pop quiz. Can't hand out the "spark of the divine" to just anyone.

JACK: Dean, I'm okay.

And the crux of the problem is Dean’s fatalism, as was pointed out in 15x06. Dean's perceived powerlessness overrides his natural care for Jack. It's painful. We've seen Sam give up and Cas give up, but Dean is supposed to resist Destiny. He always has! (But he's just a man!)

[Dean looks uncomfortable with notion that any of this was "fated," but does nothing to stop it. Meanwhile, in the back room, Jack selects one of the stones...]

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[Jack opens the bag and dumps the rib into his hand while Dean watches on intently. Jacks eyes glow gold and the rib disintegrates in his hand, while Dean watches with horror, and a bit of fear and regret]

Dean made a fatal mistake, and he knows it. It sucks. I hate it for him. Again, like I said above, with the help of his family he did come to his senses. Team Free Will is and always has been a group effort, a game of Connect Four.

By all appearances, Dean is actually caring to Jack in Inherit the Earth. Sometimes, to love yourself, someone else has to love you first. Cas loves Dean, and so Dean loves himself, and so he allows himself to love Jack...but it's too late.

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On the whole, they got disconnected. It even seems like Dean played right into Chuck's hands. (Adam and Seraphina as Chuck's gloating; the rib-bomb as something Chuck seems fully aware of and seems to have planned.) It's certainly a strike in the "Chuck won," column. I want a short-order season 16 to deal with its fallout so badly!

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Disclaimer: I do mean it when I say it was really is too much for anyone to bear. It's shown in season 15 that Eileen cannot resist Chuck at all. She becomes like a puppet in the casino, something that completely devastates her. And Garth, the holy beacon of masculinity, was easily overcome by Michael in season 14. Resisting Chuck is not easy, and that'd bolded and underlined.

My fave thing about Jack on rewatch was realizing how internally unlike Sam he is, despite the symbolic, structural blocks of being a “gifted kid.” Emotionally? Nah.

Not if you’re paying attention.

I feel like @dawg-motif really helped me puzzle that out re: Jack’s valuation of blunt honesty and need for space and processing. And after that, it’s like Jack’s entire arc clicked into place for my brain.

There is such a temptation in fandom to assume he’s a copy-pasta of Sam because of his “doomed child” motif, or that he’s like Cas because of his literal-mindedness and sass. But emotionally? Not even close.

Or worse, there can be as assumption that his “performing!Jack” is how how he actually feels about things... Falling for Jack’s sunshiney ditzy act is like falling for Dean’s mythical Marlboro man act.