I wonder...
May. 3rd, 2013 02:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ramblin_rosieThis may be way off base, but the spoiler is that 8.23 involves some major twist that nobody's going to see coming, right? And a good chunk of fandom's been speculating that the point of the War Games references in "Pac-Man Fever" ("the only way to win is not to play") and of Metatron's telling Dean to count the cost is that Sam and Dean are going to get all the way up to the brink of completing the last trial and then somehow choose not to go through with it.
But what if that's a red herring? After all, there's been a lot of "Stand your ground"/"No more running"/"Be who you were born to be, not what the principalities and powers want you to be" running through this season as well, and we haven't really seen that pay off yet. And it doesn't make sense that they'd refuse to complete the final trial because Sam's health is depending on going through with it.
So what if the boys do go through with the final trial but the gates of Hell don't necessarily close--because the trials were never intended to work as advertised?
What if this is an Isaac moment for both Sam and Dean? What if the point is, and always has been, that a human can be willing to undertake such a momentous task and put his all on the altar, explicitly in God's name, not for the sake of the power but because it's the right thing to do? And what if the problem that needs to be resolved is not the external evil contained in and spurred on by Hell but the evil that lies within the hearts of fallen humans?
What if Sam's purification is the true purpose of the trials, and it causes shockwaves of its own that we can't see coming, much as we couldn't anticipate that killing Dick Roman would suck Dean and Cas into Purgatory?
See, the Grail quest didn't save the Round Table. It couldn't. Too many of the knights were impure of heart; they got distracted running after the things of this world, and they'd rested on their laurels for far too long. Only Galahad, Percival, and Bors undertook the quest wholeheartedly for the sake of doing God's will, and only they were vouchsafed the full sight of the Grail. (And keep in mind that Galahad was born out of wedlock!) Galahad died; Percival became the Grail King; and Bors went back to Camelot for a time, became a monk with Lancelot after Camelot fell, and eventually died on Crusade after Lancelot's death. The failure of all the other knights, including Lancelot, marked the beginning of the end for the Round Table--especially given Guinevere and Lancelot's inability to break off their affair. (Malory makes Guinevere the one who won't let it go, but Lancelot isn't exactly blameless, either.) But it seems that the quest and the ultimate collapse of Camelot combined make up the clue-by-four that was needed to awaken the survivors to their spiritual need.
Now, I doubt the writers are going for an exact one-to-one parallel between Team Free Will and the Grail Knights where ultimate fates are concerned (Sam = Galahad, Dean = Percival, Cas = Bors). At least, I hope for Dean's sake that Sam doesn't die, and that wouldn't fit with the pattern of season finales to date. It's also a mite too obvious. But if the whole purpose of the Apocalypse-that-wasn't was to test Sam and Dean's free will and, through their choices, to teach a lesson to the angels, who's to say that these trials aren't more of the same?
And if that's so, what implications does that have for the content of the angel tablet? That might be where "the only way to win is not to play" applies--if it applies anywhere at all. (Honestly, though, if I'm right, I think the point of that exchange is that Dean, like Abraham, has to let go and be willing to sacrifice Sam. Not that he hasn't proven that willingness already--he did so in "Swan Song"--but that was at least partly out of understanding Sam's desire to clean up his own mess. Sam's innocent this time, as Isaac was.)
But what if that's a red herring? After all, there's been a lot of "Stand your ground"/"No more running"/"Be who you were born to be, not what the principalities and powers want you to be" running through this season as well, and we haven't really seen that pay off yet. And it doesn't make sense that they'd refuse to complete the final trial because Sam's health is depending on going through with it.
So what if the boys do go through with the final trial but the gates of Hell don't necessarily close--because the trials were never intended to work as advertised?
What if this is an Isaac moment for both Sam and Dean? What if the point is, and always has been, that a human can be willing to undertake such a momentous task and put his all on the altar, explicitly in God's name, not for the sake of the power but because it's the right thing to do? And what if the problem that needs to be resolved is not the external evil contained in and spurred on by Hell but the evil that lies within the hearts of fallen humans?
What if Sam's purification is the true purpose of the trials, and it causes shockwaves of its own that we can't see coming, much as we couldn't anticipate that killing Dick Roman would suck Dean and Cas into Purgatory?
See, the Grail quest didn't save the Round Table. It couldn't. Too many of the knights were impure of heart; they got distracted running after the things of this world, and they'd rested on their laurels for far too long. Only Galahad, Percival, and Bors undertook the quest wholeheartedly for the sake of doing God's will, and only they were vouchsafed the full sight of the Grail. (And keep in mind that Galahad was born out of wedlock!) Galahad died; Percival became the Grail King; and Bors went back to Camelot for a time, became a monk with Lancelot after Camelot fell, and eventually died on Crusade after Lancelot's death. The failure of all the other knights, including Lancelot, marked the beginning of the end for the Round Table--especially given Guinevere and Lancelot's inability to break off their affair. (Malory makes Guinevere the one who won't let it go, but Lancelot isn't exactly blameless, either.) But it seems that the quest and the ultimate collapse of Camelot combined make up the clue-by-four that was needed to awaken the survivors to their spiritual need.
Now, I doubt the writers are going for an exact one-to-one parallel between Team Free Will and the Grail Knights where ultimate fates are concerned (Sam = Galahad, Dean = Percival, Cas = Bors). At least, I hope for Dean's sake that Sam doesn't die, and that wouldn't fit with the pattern of season finales to date. It's also a mite too obvious. But if the whole purpose of the Apocalypse-that-wasn't was to test Sam and Dean's free will and, through their choices, to teach a lesson to the angels, who's to say that these trials aren't more of the same?
And if that's so, what implications does that have for the content of the angel tablet? That might be where "the only way to win is not to play" applies--if it applies anywhere at all. (Honestly, though, if I'm right, I think the point of that exchange is that Dean, like Abraham, has to let go and be willing to sacrifice Sam. Not that he hasn't proven that willingness already--he did so in "Swan Song"--but that was at least partly out of understanding Sam's desire to clean up his own mess. Sam's innocent this time, as Isaac was.)
