phiesel:

I think it’s not a question if but rather how Castiel will come back to life in season 13. Problem is, the whole reviving things after they died is never without consequences. Unless it’s Chuck who is doing the revival it never is considered a good thing. After twelve years of this show this should be clear to everyone. The last episode that makes a point of this is 12×20 Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes.

Max loses both, his mother and his sister to the Burrower Witch. She then offers him her powers and with it a way to bring them back to life. Seeing as witches of that kind are in league with demons and accepting that offer means selling your soul it’s not surprising that Dean tries to get through to Max to save him from making a big mistake at this point. The Banes Family mirrors the Winchester’s in so many ways that the moment Dean expresses his stance against reviving the dead to Max it is clear that Dean refers to his and Sam’s own experiences in that matter. It is a bad thing to revive the dead under any circumstances, no matter how much you love them and fear being without them. That’s 12 years of experience and many more years of unhealthy co-dependency talking. 

When Sam and Dean released the Darkness into the world by killing Death they almost brought the world to its knees with it. After that they agreed that they had to stop doing this, that tearing at the fabric of the whole world to save one life is in every way contrary to what they considered their family business to be and that they had to get back to their roots where people’s lives mattered. They had once started out as soldiers in a war against the supernatural, saving people, hunting things, and making sure that people could sleep at night without knowing what is out there in the dark (probably trying to kill them). But somewhere along the way they have lost this and their focus shifted more and more to keeping themselves alive no matter the cost. Season 8 finale makes this very clear when Dean choses Sam’s life over sealing all of Hell because he cannot stand the thought of living without his brother.    

As I see it, the more the focus shifted from ‘every life matters’ to ‘I cannot be without my family’ the more Dean loses his way of being the Righteous Man. His moral compass is still good, but it’s spinning madly when it comes to family and this has to end. That’s why I can only reluctantly agree that Dean’s arc has come to an end in season 12 finale when he allowed Mary a glance behind his facade towards her and when he stepped back behind Sam to give him the lead, letting go. Those are important steps on the right way, yes, but they are not the end of it. He is far from it. Seeing Cas die in front of him is like the universe challenging him to stay true to his believe that what is dead should stay dead – as he has told Max – or to give in once more probably leading to a new round of consequences. 

It’s a tough decision and I for myself want to see Cas alive, everyone does, I guess. But looking at it from a righteous position, everyone should also know by now that it’s wrong. Right? And there is yet another reason why it’s a tough decision. This time it’s not a human life that’s lying at Dean’s feet, it’s an Angel of the Lord, it’s a being of cosmic powers. If Chuck comes to the rescue and brings back one of his creations, fine. But I have the feeling he won’t. Chuck left, again. So the highest probability that Cas gets revived will be through the Nephilim’s powers, and this bodes ill on so many levels (presuming that Jack isn’t pure light reborn). One, there is the close association of the nephilim with evil, so if Jack will be the one reviving Cas this resembles resurrection through demonic powers as it was the case with the Burrower Witch. Two, it forces Dean to decide if he can live with Cas being resurrected by this or not. As I tried to make clear this is an internal struggle at Dean’s very core of morality that’s still not fully resolved. And three, this will post a loyalty problem between Sam and Dean, which I will explain further in another post.           

So, what do you think? How important is righteousness for Dean and what does this mean for the dead angel at his feet? Do you see him leaving that part of himself behind?  

(hope other meta-writers don’t mind me tagging them here, I’d die to hear your thoughts, @mittensmorgul, @tinkdw, @amwritingmeta, @postmodernmulticoloredcloak, @elizabethrobertajones )