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tarod45So, I was rewatching The Monster at the End of This Book, and I'm having thoughts in regards to the final seal. In TMatEotB, Lilith tells Sam that she's "killed off, right before the good part." She then tries to make a deal in which she ditches the apocalypse in exchange for Sam and Dean's lives. At the time, the consensus was that Lilith was the final seal, and it was her death that freed Lucifer. Since then, for whatever reason, fandom at large seems to have changed its mind, so that Lilith will break the final seal. I'm not convinced.
If Lilith's death is the final seal, and Sam and/or Dean is the only one who can kill her, then demanding their deaths would make sense, as would her offer to call off the apocalypse. However, if she's looking to survive, and her death is an integral part of the grand design, then a) why did she start in the first place, and b) why, when she failed to acquire Sam and Dean's deaths, did she continue on with the breaking of seals? Could be she didn't know about the final seal when she started... but then why continue on? Could be survival isn't her aim -- she could just be very religious. Indeed, when you get right down to it, religion is likely the only reason she'd want to free Lucifer in the first place. She seems happy enough with the status quo ("all baby blood, all the time"), and with Lucifer loose, she'd no longer be head honcho. She does not, in fact, seem to have a lot of incentive to go through with all of this at all. So, if the apocalypse is her religious duty, and removed from any practical motivation, then why would she even offer to weasel out of it? Temporary second thoughts (Father, take this cup from me)? That would certainly offer... interesting parallels.
Let's review:
- Supernatural starts, and Azazel is apparently in charge of Hell. He has a plan involving kids infected with his blood, one of whom will open the Devil's Gate and lead the escaping demon army.
- Sam has visions -- just visions, with one incident of telekinesis in extremis.
- John Winchester sells his soul to Azazel to save Dean. It's kind of hard to say whether Azazel actually planned that, or if it was just a case of serendipity. On the other hand, Alastair says (and I believe Castiel tacitly confirmed) that John was meant to be the one to break the first seal. Keeping in mind that Azazel was alive for the entire duration of John's stay in Hell, then if the demons were actively trying to break him with the seal in mind, then the plan to start breaking seals was begun during Azazel's watch.
- Sam continues to have visions -- just visions.
- Dean sells his soul to save Sam. This was before John escaped through the Devil's Gate, meaning the demons weren't yet looking for a replacement for breaking the first seal. This jives with the crossroad demon saying that she really shouldn't make the deal.
- Sam wins the Demonic Survivor game when he kills Jake. This wins him a spot as the leader of the demonic army, and a destiny as the Boy King of Hell. This, unfortunately, is a plot point that seems to have disappeared this season.
- Dean kills Azazel, and supposedly, his plans die with him. The YED's comments about a secret endgame in In the Beginning would seem to indicate that that isn't the case.
- Sam no longer has any visions, and seems not to have access to any powers at all. Because Azazel's dead? Where did the visions come from in the first place? Azazel's blood from 23 years prior? Or were the psychic kids' powers separate from demon blood powers? All of them developed a single power twenty-odd years after being fed a few drops of Azazel's blood, and in several cases, those powers grew stronger without any additional blood. It's arguable that Ava and Jake might have been offered blood in return for accepting the demon, explaining their rapid expansion of powers... but what about Andy? He definitely hadn't been drinking demon blood, but he reported that his powers had gotten stronger. One wonders if we'll ever find out.
- We hear about Lilith for the first time as a "new leader rising in the west." Her goals in S3 seem to be getting the demons firmly under control, killing Sam, and making sure Dean goes to Hell. Obviously, she couldn't have done anything regarding the apocalypse before then, since Dean had yet to break the first seal. Still, Lilith seemed to regard Sam as a legitimate threat (rival?) in S3.
- Ruby shows up to "help" Sam and Dean. She is singularly ineffective in saving Dean. She makes an active effort to make Sam more ruthless, encouraging moral ambiguity in him. She does help Bobby repair the Colt... which eventually ends up in Lilith's hands.
- We hear about Lucifer as a religious figure. Most demons have never seen him (just as most angels have never seen God).
- Dean dies, going to Hell. Lilith has apparently sent Ruby to Hell. She tries to kill Sam with her killer demon light show, but despite his total lack of training in his powers, he's immune, both to the light show, and to her subsequent attempts at telekinesis. She's freaked out by this, and when he advances on her with Ruby's knife, she flees the scene.
- Sam tries to sell his soul to get Dean out of Hell. The crossroad demon refuses. We know now that it was because the demons needed Dean to break the seal.
- Ruby arrives back on earth, claiming that Lilith had given her a chance to redeem herself by killing Sam. Ruby instead seemingly betrays Lilith, saving Sam. She quickly acquires both a new body and a new personality, and goes about the business of acquiring Sam's trust. She offers him training for his powers, and help in killing Lilith. She seduces him. Presumably, at some point during the summer, she starts giving him her blood.
- According to Castiel, the angels find out about Lilith's plan to break the first seal, and they lay siege to Hell to get him out, but not in time. Dean breaks, and so does the first seal. Castiel also explains that Dean's destiny is somehow wrapped up in the apocalypse, that he will have to "finish it." Which is singularly unclear. "Finish it," meaning kill Lilith? Meaning, stop the last seal from breaking? Meaning, clean up the mess once it's all over? We have experience from In the Beginning with angels' fondness for the ambiguous "it," and having it mean something other than what you thought they said.
- Dean returns to life. He learns from Castiel that he's been chosen help stop the apocalypse. Castiel soon tells him about the seals, and that Lilith is breaking them.
- The angels send Dean back in time to learn (not much) about the YED's plans.
- The angels express disapproval over Sam and his association with Ruby. They don't seem to know about the demon blood.
- Sam, disturbed after the events of Metamorphosis, presumably stops drinking the demon blood, and promises to stop using his powers.
- The angels test Dean, later saying that they'd been ordered to do as he says, but trying to pressure him into agreeing with them destroying the town to prevent Samhain's resurrection. Sam, disillusioned with the angels, starts to use his powers again, but not drinking demon blood. He's immune to Samhain's killer demonic light show, and is barely powerful enough to exorcise him.
- Anna shows up on the scene: a fallen angel who both Heaven and Hell would like to get their hands on. Heaven apparently just wants to get its hand on a renegade and neutralize the threat of hell getting her. Hell wants her to question. Alastair tortures Ruby to learn Anna's location, suggesting that she's not working openly or actively for Lilith.
- Lilith reaches the halfway mark on the seals. Sam decides to start drinking demon blood again.
- Alasair is sent break the seal involving killing two reapers. Sam is immune to Alistair's telekinesis, and is now powerful enough to use telekinesis on Alistair. Sam and Dean save the seal, and Alastair is captured by the angels.
- We learn that Anna is still on the outs with Heaven, and actively trying to entice Castiel to sedition. We learn that there is a faction of angels scattered throughout the hierarchy who support Lucifer and are distributing false orders from God. Sam is now powerful enough to kill Alastair.
- Lilith approaches Sam to make a deal. Sam is still immune to Lilith's powers, but is not yet powerful enough to affect her. Lilith reveals that she will die during the apocalypse, and offers to end all her efforts to bring it on in exchange for Sam offering up his own and Dean's lives. Chuck also tells Sam that the story of their lives seems to be heading towards "it all resting on [Sam's] shoulders." Again, whatever that means. Castiel continues to show a growing sympathy and fondness for Dean. Chuck foresees something unpleasant for the Winchesters, but is prevented from telling them
- Lilith continues breaking seals.
- Castiel tries to tell Dean something important. He is instead snatched back up to Heaven after a fight with other angels. When he returns, he's had some sort of attitude readjustment. No telling yet whether he was brainwashed, converted, thoroughly punished, or just playing along.
- Ruby hasn't been answering her phone, and Sam is going into withdrawal from her blood. His powers are significantly weaker, to the point that he can't even exorcise a run-of-the-mill henchman demon.
- Dean finds out about Sam drinking demon blood, and tries to force Sam into detox. Sam repeats his firm belief that only he can kill Lilith, and he has to do so in order to stop the apocalypse.
- Castiel rather ambiguously implies that if Dean sells his soul to Heaven, then Sam will be freed from the necessity of killing Lilith. He once again states that Dean will "stop it." Dean swears to serve Heaven "as swiftly and obediently as [his] own father." This wording possibly offers a loophole, in that, towards the end, Dean wasn't actually all that obedient. In Dead Man's Blood, Dean disobeys John by going back to rescue him from the vampires. In Devil's Trap, he countermands John's order to Sam to kill him. Posthumously, Dean has been resisting left, right, and center John's order to kill Sam. So. Yes, there is a slight possibility of a loophole there.
- Castiel releases Sam from the panic room, allowing him to return to Ruby for more blood and continue in his quest to kill Lilith. Whether this means that Heaven wants Sam continuing down his road to damnation or not depends entirely on who got ahold of Castiel and delivered his attitude readjustment. If it was his superiors in Heaven, then presumably Sam is the one who will kill Lilith, who must not, herself, be the last seal. Dean's role, then, in "stopping it" would likely be to kill Sam, who, by drinking enough blood to kill Lilith, would have become the next big bad. If, on the other hand, Castiel was taken by the rogue angels, then presumably, Lilith is the final seal, and the "it" that Dean is supposed to stop refers to something other than the apocalypse.
- Anna is horrified to learn that Castiel released Sam. She's captured by other angels and taken back to Heaven. Again, there's no telling whether it was the legitimate Heavenly hierarchy, or the rogue angels who took her. Also, it's unclear whether Castiel sold her out, or if Anna was merely spotted when she arrived to speak with him.
As for the rest, we'll learn next Thursday. I am very tired, now. I'll try and think about any conclusions that can be drawn from all of this tomorrow. By then, hopefully I'll be thinking more clearly, and I won't have to backspace over every other word I type.
If Lilith's death is the final seal, and Sam and/or Dean is the only one who can kill her, then demanding their deaths would make sense, as would her offer to call off the apocalypse. However, if she's looking to survive, and her death is an integral part of the grand design, then a) why did she start in the first place, and b) why, when she failed to acquire Sam and Dean's deaths, did she continue on with the breaking of seals? Could be she didn't know about the final seal when she started... but then why continue on? Could be survival isn't her aim -- she could just be very religious. Indeed, when you get right down to it, religion is likely the only reason she'd want to free Lucifer in the first place. She seems happy enough with the status quo ("all baby blood, all the time"), and with Lucifer loose, she'd no longer be head honcho. She does not, in fact, seem to have a lot of incentive to go through with all of this at all. So, if the apocalypse is her religious duty, and removed from any practical motivation, then why would she even offer to weasel out of it? Temporary second thoughts (Father, take this cup from me)? That would certainly offer... interesting parallels.
Let's review:
- Supernatural starts, and Azazel is apparently in charge of Hell. He has a plan involving kids infected with his blood, one of whom will open the Devil's Gate and lead the escaping demon army.
- Sam has visions -- just visions, with one incident of telekinesis in extremis.
- John Winchester sells his soul to Azazel to save Dean. It's kind of hard to say whether Azazel actually planned that, or if it was just a case of serendipity. On the other hand, Alastair says (and I believe Castiel tacitly confirmed) that John was meant to be the one to break the first seal. Keeping in mind that Azazel was alive for the entire duration of John's stay in Hell, then if the demons were actively trying to break him with the seal in mind, then the plan to start breaking seals was begun during Azazel's watch.
- Sam continues to have visions -- just visions.
- Dean sells his soul to save Sam. This was before John escaped through the Devil's Gate, meaning the demons weren't yet looking for a replacement for breaking the first seal. This jives with the crossroad demon saying that she really shouldn't make the deal.
- Sam wins the Demonic Survivor game when he kills Jake. This wins him a spot as the leader of the demonic army, and a destiny as the Boy King of Hell. This, unfortunately, is a plot point that seems to have disappeared this season.
- Dean kills Azazel, and supposedly, his plans die with him. The YED's comments about a secret endgame in In the Beginning would seem to indicate that that isn't the case.
- Sam no longer has any visions, and seems not to have access to any powers at all. Because Azazel's dead? Where did the visions come from in the first place? Azazel's blood from 23 years prior? Or were the psychic kids' powers separate from demon blood powers? All of them developed a single power twenty-odd years after being fed a few drops of Azazel's blood, and in several cases, those powers grew stronger without any additional blood. It's arguable that Ava and Jake might have been offered blood in return for accepting the demon, explaining their rapid expansion of powers... but what about Andy? He definitely hadn't been drinking demon blood, but he reported that his powers had gotten stronger. One wonders if we'll ever find out.
- We hear about Lilith for the first time as a "new leader rising in the west." Her goals in S3 seem to be getting the demons firmly under control, killing Sam, and making sure Dean goes to Hell. Obviously, she couldn't have done anything regarding the apocalypse before then, since Dean had yet to break the first seal. Still, Lilith seemed to regard Sam as a legitimate threat (rival?) in S3.
- Ruby shows up to "help" Sam and Dean. She is singularly ineffective in saving Dean. She makes an active effort to make Sam more ruthless, encouraging moral ambiguity in him. She does help Bobby repair the Colt... which eventually ends up in Lilith's hands.
- We hear about Lucifer as a religious figure. Most demons have never seen him (just as most angels have never seen God).
- Dean dies, going to Hell. Lilith has apparently sent Ruby to Hell. She tries to kill Sam with her killer demon light show, but despite his total lack of training in his powers, he's immune, both to the light show, and to her subsequent attempts at telekinesis. She's freaked out by this, and when he advances on her with Ruby's knife, she flees the scene.
- Sam tries to sell his soul to get Dean out of Hell. The crossroad demon refuses. We know now that it was because the demons needed Dean to break the seal.
- Ruby arrives back on earth, claiming that Lilith had given her a chance to redeem herself by killing Sam. Ruby instead seemingly betrays Lilith, saving Sam. She quickly acquires both a new body and a new personality, and goes about the business of acquiring Sam's trust. She offers him training for his powers, and help in killing Lilith. She seduces him. Presumably, at some point during the summer, she starts giving him her blood.
- According to Castiel, the angels find out about Lilith's plan to break the first seal, and they lay siege to Hell to get him out, but not in time. Dean breaks, and so does the first seal. Castiel also explains that Dean's destiny is somehow wrapped up in the apocalypse, that he will have to "finish it." Which is singularly unclear. "Finish it," meaning kill Lilith? Meaning, stop the last seal from breaking? Meaning, clean up the mess once it's all over? We have experience from In the Beginning with angels' fondness for the ambiguous "it," and having it mean something other than what you thought they said.
- Dean returns to life. He learns from Castiel that he's been chosen help stop the apocalypse. Castiel soon tells him about the seals, and that Lilith is breaking them.
- The angels send Dean back in time to learn (not much) about the YED's plans.
- The angels express disapproval over Sam and his association with Ruby. They don't seem to know about the demon blood.
- Sam, disturbed after the events of Metamorphosis, presumably stops drinking the demon blood, and promises to stop using his powers.
- The angels test Dean, later saying that they'd been ordered to do as he says, but trying to pressure him into agreeing with them destroying the town to prevent Samhain's resurrection. Sam, disillusioned with the angels, starts to use his powers again, but not drinking demon blood. He's immune to Samhain's killer demonic light show, and is barely powerful enough to exorcise him.
- Anna shows up on the scene: a fallen angel who both Heaven and Hell would like to get their hands on. Heaven apparently just wants to get its hand on a renegade and neutralize the threat of hell getting her. Hell wants her to question. Alastair tortures Ruby to learn Anna's location, suggesting that she's not working openly or actively for Lilith.
- Lilith reaches the halfway mark on the seals. Sam decides to start drinking demon blood again.
- Alasair is sent break the seal involving killing two reapers. Sam is immune to Alistair's telekinesis, and is now powerful enough to use telekinesis on Alistair. Sam and Dean save the seal, and Alastair is captured by the angels.
- We learn that Anna is still on the outs with Heaven, and actively trying to entice Castiel to sedition. We learn that there is a faction of angels scattered throughout the hierarchy who support Lucifer and are distributing false orders from God. Sam is now powerful enough to kill Alastair.
- Lilith approaches Sam to make a deal. Sam is still immune to Lilith's powers, but is not yet powerful enough to affect her. Lilith reveals that she will die during the apocalypse, and offers to end all her efforts to bring it on in exchange for Sam offering up his own and Dean's lives. Chuck also tells Sam that the story of their lives seems to be heading towards "it all resting on [Sam's] shoulders." Again, whatever that means. Castiel continues to show a growing sympathy and fondness for Dean. Chuck foresees something unpleasant for the Winchesters, but is prevented from telling them
- Lilith continues breaking seals.
- Castiel tries to tell Dean something important. He is instead snatched back up to Heaven after a fight with other angels. When he returns, he's had some sort of attitude readjustment. No telling yet whether he was brainwashed, converted, thoroughly punished, or just playing along.
- Ruby hasn't been answering her phone, and Sam is going into withdrawal from her blood. His powers are significantly weaker, to the point that he can't even exorcise a run-of-the-mill henchman demon.
- Dean finds out about Sam drinking demon blood, and tries to force Sam into detox. Sam repeats his firm belief that only he can kill Lilith, and he has to do so in order to stop the apocalypse.
- Castiel rather ambiguously implies that if Dean sells his soul to Heaven, then Sam will be freed from the necessity of killing Lilith. He once again states that Dean will "stop it." Dean swears to serve Heaven "as swiftly and obediently as [his] own father." This wording possibly offers a loophole, in that, towards the end, Dean wasn't actually all that obedient. In Dead Man's Blood, Dean disobeys John by going back to rescue him from the vampires. In Devil's Trap, he countermands John's order to Sam to kill him. Posthumously, Dean has been resisting left, right, and center John's order to kill Sam. So. Yes, there is a slight possibility of a loophole there.
- Castiel releases Sam from the panic room, allowing him to return to Ruby for more blood and continue in his quest to kill Lilith. Whether this means that Heaven wants Sam continuing down his road to damnation or not depends entirely on who got ahold of Castiel and delivered his attitude readjustment. If it was his superiors in Heaven, then presumably Sam is the one who will kill Lilith, who must not, herself, be the last seal. Dean's role, then, in "stopping it" would likely be to kill Sam, who, by drinking enough blood to kill Lilith, would have become the next big bad. If, on the other hand, Castiel was taken by the rogue angels, then presumably, Lilith is the final seal, and the "it" that Dean is supposed to stop refers to something other than the apocalypse.
- Anna is horrified to learn that Castiel released Sam. She's captured by other angels and taken back to Heaven. Again, there's no telling whether it was the legitimate Heavenly hierarchy, or the rogue angels who took her. Also, it's unclear whether Castiel sold her out, or if Anna was merely spotted when she arrived to speak with him.
As for the rest, we'll learn next Thursday. I am very tired, now. I'll try and think about any conclusions that can be drawn from all of this tomorrow. By then, hopefully I'll be thinking more clearly, and I won't have to backspace over every other word I type.
