bloodied with the spirit of a god
Season 4 is over, and I am going to have to wait until September for season 5, which I'm sure will just do wonders for my sanity. The last couple of episodes (well, to be honest, this whole season) have left my mind is such a turmoil that I do not know what to think. I am and always have been a Deangirl, so it doesn't come as such a shock that Sam's "I'm sorry" at the end of Lucifer Rising means shit to me. Throughout this whole season, the rift between the brothers have grown, and I love it. Not in the evil, I-want-Dean-for-myself way, but because it's so believable, so in character, and so painful and, well, I trust Kripke with everything. He has not disappointed me so far.
And now, not only am I a Deangirl, but I am utterly obsessed with Castiel. I proudly admit that I am so in love with Dean/Castiel, and what makes it even better is that I love the characters so much seperately as well (and I have yet to come down from the Dean/Cas kiss I dreamt about last week). Still, though, as much as I love Cas (and hate Anna), I have to admit that I love to hate Uriel and Zachariah. :D
One thing I just have to point out is that I am so sick of others boo-hooing Dean's pain. First Sam back Asylum and Scarecrow, then Sam again (I cannot believe he pushed Dean to talk about Hell just to throw it back in his face), then Zachariah and finally fucking Bobby (seriously, Kripke, Bobby? it was like a cruel parody of the love that is 2.22). And you know what? Sam actually needs to do a metric truckload more than just say he’s sorry next season - it may seem callous, but I want to see him made to pay for what he’s done for the first time in his life. People have been practically lining up to smack Dean for being occasionally depressed and hopeless about spending 40 years in Hell and coming back to find that his brother hates his guts and wishes he was back there. Meanwhile, good old Sam has been screwing a demon, drinking blood, lying, murdering and unleashing Lucifer on the world and no one says a word to him. I want to see a bit of payback for the imbalance. Anyway, this whole season, he only one who never put Dean down like that is Castiel (yeah yeah, I'm grinning like an idiot).
Speaking of Castiel, when I first saw the end of The Rapture and after that When the Levee Breaks, it just broke my heart to see Castiel so cold and dismissive towards Dean. Of course, I realized even then that something had happened in Heaven, and maybe he just couldn't display his loyalty to Dean openly anymore, but it hurt nonetheless. And oh my fucking god, Cas just totally rocked in Lucifer Rising. I don't think I've ever seen him so animated before. Best of all, he didn't join in with Zachariah because of political gain; he clearly did it because of Dean: he wants Dean to be at peace, which he clearly would be in Paradise. There are sooo many Dean/Castiel moments in Lucifer Rising that I didn't know what to do with myself when I first saw them. I'm so glad that Cas finally sided with Dean: banished Zachariah and even holding off a fucking archangel so that Dean could stop Sam (which, sadly, Dean did not succeed with).
Before I go ranting about Sam and the end of this whole season, I just have to comment on Sam's hallunications when he was going through withdrawals in When the Levee Breaks. Alastair, his younger self and Mary/Ruby was like a unholy trinity, and then Dean came along and just laid him bare (I still think John should've been the one doing it, shame they couldn't get a hold of JDM).
Dean's final confrontation with Sam at the end of When the Levee Breaks (which just broke my heart, btw) demonstrated yet again that he's lost trust in his brother. His point in the whole episode, the point that Sam refused even to see, much less concede, was that he couldn't in conscience trust Sam's judgment because he had no way to tell how much of that judgment was Sam's and how much may have been unconsciously, unknowingly influenced by the quantity of demon blood he'd drunk. It had nothing to do with judging Sam and everything to do with not putting the world's car keys into the hands of a seemingly lucid potential drunk who wouldn't and couldn't realize how affected and impaired he was - right up until Sam insisted that, contrary to Dean's belief, he did know exactly what he was doing, and intended to do it. That made it immeasurably worse, because he was telling Dean he was speaking, not the blood, and he needed Ruby and didn't need Dean. He wanted Dean, but he needed Ruby; that meant a demon was more important than his brother. They don't need you; not like you need them. Azazel's shot had hit Dean straight in the heart in Devil's Trap; Sam's words hammered that bolt home.
Returning *cough* to Dean and Cas...seriously, could Castiel be any more in love with him? "We have been through much together," Cas tells him, but is so on the fence and he needs Dean's words to knock him off. I actually MISSED THAT PART WTF because my brother chose that moment to walk in and bug me. Am I pissed? Yes. Will I rewatch that scene endlessly, picking it apart for nuance? Why, yes. Yes, I will. Why do you ask such things? And that look Dean gave him when he told Chuck, "yeah, well, we're making it up as we go," like Cas has finally realized he and his loyalty - his belief in God, and even (faltering as it is, what happened to 4.07, Kripke?) his belief in the goodness of God's creation - have been used to yank him around, to destroy what he was sworn to protect...that, my friends, was awesome, Dean realizing that finally he has a committed ally. And did you see him getting ready to hold off a fucking archangel? I MEAN, DID YOU? COME ON, HOW IS THAT NOT LOVE? What was fucking freaky, though, is that after having watched When the Levee Breaks I wrote a little AUish something (copied and pasted it below) and when Cas cut himself with Ruby's knife I was like OMG it's coming true!! It wasn't, of course, but if it had I would've proclaimed myself the next Chuck the Prophet. ^_^
As for the ending of Lucifer Rising, I think it was genius. I knew Ruby was evil all along, and her gloating was just so in character, especially for a double agent who had all the demons out for her blood. And Sam tries to blame it all on her, every little bad choice he made by saying it was all in the demon blood she "fed" him, how it was poison, but then Ruby (and fuck if I don't love her here) says that the blood has nothing to do with it: it was Sam and his choices. She just provided the options and he chose the right path every single time. So when Dean finally kills her and you can see Lucifer rising and Sam just turns to look at his brother and says "I'm sorry", I laughed. He acted like a little brother for the first time this whole season and he thinks an apology will undo raising fucking Lucifer and treating his brother like shit? Color me incredulous.
As for the things that sucks in this ep: Bobby is that petty and vindictive and apparently doesn't understand Dean or know the first thing about his history? Sam suddenly grows a conscience because it took him a year to remember that the demons are hosted by human bodies? Azazel's epic end game was that generic? Blah.
Anyway. I'm not sure they can fix this. I have no doubt Kripke will try, but considering the show's rocky history with emotional fall-outs (seriously, 4.17 following 4.16, and let's not forget 2.15 following 2.14, oh and 1.17 following 1.16), I'm not holding my breath. Cause, you know, since Dean couldn't still be in Hell, Sam has very kindly brought Hell to earth for him. What a thoughtful brother he is.
And this is what I want for season 5: Sam apologizing to Dean without hearing Dean's apology first; Bobby apologizing do Dean for being an ass, but mostly, I'd love for Dean to just realize that he really is the better man between the three. Then I want Dean and Cas to have a heart to heart and more eye-fucking. *_*
And that was my two cents of the day.
bloodied with the spirit of a god
ἰχώρ. Cas says, staring intently at the stream dripping down his forearm into the plastic hotel cup. Dean wants to say it's blood, looking at the vibrant, living red, but blood doesn't quite touch it, nor the other words that flow under it, words Dean can hear even without Cas speaking them: breathspiritlife-thatwhichislikegrace.
"Looks good," Dean manages. His head hurts with the pressure of words, his lungs burn with ozone. He wants to close his eyes because Cas is dangerous, for the flickers of the brilliance of his true form, the shadows of his wings that sweep against the walls and break like waves on the bed. This close, the two of them standing at the cheap plywood table as though an altar, Dean's skin almost burns.
Sam, Castiel sighs, still staring down into the cup. Oddly, Dean's relieved Cas isn't paying attention to him; he doesn't know yet if he can do what he's already agreed to do.
Sam. They're coming to the end of it, to a choice Dean's pretty sure Sam's made already. There's no way for Dean to stop him, not Hell-broken as he is, no way for Cas to do it short of killing him. They know now how Sam's been working his bit of the Dark Side, how it's that Sith-bitch Ruby doing it to him.
"This war..." Castiel presses the blade to his forearm once more, tone thick with regret, thick as the blood that wells, shot with gold from the lamps and silver with Cas's grace, from the cut. "On my own, I'm not enough to help you. I can't save you and save my garrison from its own destruction; I can't outmatch the forces against us, not on my own. I am not adequate to the work anymore." And it's not just work, Dean registers mission-keepSammysafe-yourexistenceISthistask, how Dean has suddenly, inexplicably, become more important than the garrison, than Eden, than Cas's orders simply to keep an eye on a servant of God who doesn't like his servitude.
"You can take this up as you would take up any other weapon." Castiel doesn't bother with the band-aid Dean had offered to get from the first-aid kit, and his blood drips slowly down his arm even as the wound heals. It twines around his wrist and falls to the floor; Dean wonders if they're walking on holy ground now. "I know you agreed, but..."
He looks at Dean, looks, with the same eyes that saw him in Hell, and the same eyes that see his dreams, and his sins, and his failures, and every shortcoming.
"I would not force you to take it," Cas adds after a moment, voice small, diminished under the weight of light, shadow, and too many eons of knowing.
"I'll take it," Dean says, and feels calm with the inevitability.
Castiel dips two fingers into the cup - the freaking plastic cup - and presses them to Dean's forehead. And Dean can't say if it's Castiel touching him, or the blood, or the insanity of what he's doing, but energy rushes through him, a shiver of light that starts out like ice and finishes off with the slow burn of whiskey. As he stands there, Castiel lifts the cup in both hands, as though lifting a chalice, fingers cupping it delicately. Durable, Dean remembers, and remembers thinking it had been a weird word to apply to a slender, wiry body and blue eyes as wide and searching as that.
The plastic rim bumps at his lips and Dean inhales: copper, heat, a smell he can't name except it lives way back in his head, in the place where he thinks of Cas and foreign words like rest.
"I don't..." He pushes the cup aside. "Not like this."
Ignoring Castiel's soft sound of surprise, Dean takes the cup and sets it in the table. He picks up the knife, smooth sickle-shaped steel, and sets it to the curve of Castiel's inner arm. The blade is wickedly fine and draws blood with the barest pressure. Cas's face is unreadable despite the fierce light in his eyes.
"This way," Dean whispers, and bends to lick across warm and bloody skin.
The Riddle of Tom Bombadil
I mean, Tom is most definitely not a Man, a Hobbit, a Dwarf, or indeed of any mortal kind, and it can also be taken for granted, for obvious reasons, that he is not an Orc, a Troll, a Goblin, an Ent, a Dragon or an Eagle.
So, is Tom an Elf? His capering, his wisdom, his great age and his love of song undoubtedly give him a certainly 'Elvish' quality. This possibility though, is easily disproved by the following (coming from Tom himself); 'When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already...' This is, accidently, proof of Tom's great age - the Elves 'passed westward' in the Great Journey some six Ages before Tom spoke these words.
Okay, not an Elf then. Is Tom a Maia? That would not make sense, one of the main reasons being that the Ring had no effect on him. There were other mighty Maiar in Middle-earth at the time of the War of the Ring, especially Sauron, Saruman and Gandalf, and all of these were in some sense under the power of the Ring. Yet Tom is unaffected by its power of invisibility, nor does he feel any desire to keep it (he hands it back to Frodo 'with a smile').
Probably not a Maia, then. Is Tom a Vala? The last of Tolkien's named races (using the term loosely) that might include Tom is that of the Valar, the Powers of the World. However, we know the names of all the Valar, and Tom isn't among them. This doesn't hold water, though, because we're specifically told that the Valar had many different names among the different races and cultures of Middle-earth, while of Tom himself it is said, '[Bombadil] was not then his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been given by other folk...' So it isn't inconceivable that Tom is one of the fourteen known Valar. However, one of the most significant difficult with this is Tom saying, 'Eldest, that's what I am... Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.' All of the beings who became Valar existed before Arda was made, so any of them could with justification claim the title 'Eldest'. But Tom says he 'knew the dark under the stars' (that is, he was in the World, not outside it) 'before the Dark Lord came from Outside'. The term 'Dark Lord' is uncertain here - it might apply to either Melkor or Sauron, and both originally came from 'Outside' the World. If he means Melkor, then this is very significant: consider this description of the entry of the Valar into the World, from the original conception of the Silmarillion: 'Now swiftly as they fared, Melkor was there before them...' 'They' here refers to Manwë and Varda, who were explicitly the first Valar to enter Arda apart from Melkor. In Silmarillion, Melkor was the first being from 'Outside' to enter the World, and yet Tom suggests that he was already here when Melkor arrived!
Admittedly Tom may be referring to Sauron, who must have come into Arda after these great ones, but the phrase 'before the Dark Lord came from Outside' seems to make more sense if he means Melkor, the first Dark Lord (that is, he is referring to an event of cosmic significance, and a specific point in the World's history, which isn't the case with Sauron). This is only one of the objections to the Vala theory. Another, for example, is that characters who we would expect to recognize a Vala living in their midst (especially Gandalf) don't apparently do so.
A Vala can be ruled out, then. Now for the most startling one: is Tom Ilúvatar Himself? Tom's powers are apparently limitless, at least within his own domain, and this led me to thinking that he might be none other than Eru Ilúvatar himself. There are certainly several hints in the text of The Lord of the Rings that this might be the case; he is called 'Master', and 'Eldest', and Goldberry says of him simply; 'He is.' All of these points might suggest that Tom and Ilúvatar are in some sense the same being. However, then I clearly remembered that this point is touched several times in Tolkien's letters, and each time he makes it clear that Tom and Eru should not be confused.
Damn, that was my favorite theory. Not Ilúvatar then. Perhaps Tom is a representation of Arda itself? I like that theory, as well.
I, for one, is satisfied to leave Tom as the enigma he is. Part of the wonder of Tolkien's world is its depth and detail, but it needs its mysteries and unknowns too: if we knew everything about the World of Arda and its inhabitants, there would be no joy of exploration and discovery. If nothing else, Tom Bombadil stands proudly as a symbol of the mysterious, and I am glad that he does.
Fucking hell, this almost turned into an essay! If you read it all without having yawned once, you can give yourself a cookie.
Also, hehe, I'd completely forgotten how many twins there are in Tolkien's world. My favorite pair is Elladan & Elrohir, followed by Elrond & Elros. So many twins I can play around with because, like Evan Rosier said, twins are the most delightful of toys. (And I just realized that that's not a canon quote. Oh well, I always loved L's Rosier while JKR hardly dedicated a sentence to him.)
