“Ipreski was Prince Kassardis’ last and oldest wife, though barely by a few years. Despite her relative youth, however, her hair had already become white as snow. Some gossiped about how it was a curse from a vengeful sorcerer, for the offenses of the princess Ipreski’s family were broad, and no less horrible for their breadth.
Ipreski kept her white hair long, and bound up in coils that wrapped around her waist five times. She was exceedingly lazy, and would rather order one of her numerous and weary servants to fetch something than walk a mere five paces. She was pampered and fond of food and wine, and complained loudly if there was no place for her to lounge about.
This laziness of hers was a clever mask, for Ipreski kept all her energy coiled up inside of her like a spring. She was a master swordswoman, in the old tradition of her family, and her muscles were like steel cables. Such was her skill that she could kill a man and sheathe her sword before the first drop of his blood hit the ground. She had no need to pursue her opponents, for they could not touch her, and was instead content to wait until they came to their slaughter. This was the source and secret of her arrogance. She loudly mocked Kassardis’ other wives, especially the large and slow Littari, for she believed there was no chance they could beat her in open combat – and it was true.
It was only fitting, therefore, that the languid Ipreski was the last to set out in pursuit of the young prince in her palanquin, with her full retinue trailing after her.”
I’ve been trying NOT to have this blog turn into another “supernatural fanart only” blog…but my friends aren’t helping much.
These are little 2.5 by 3.5 in. art trading cards for my dear friend phrixion’sSupernatural themed card swap. Copic marker, colored pencil and acrylic paint, I’m trying something new so the quality varied wildly on me.
Mostly posting these just so she can see I’m not slacking off o_0
It’s the end of the run here—the final recap of Supernatural. I’ve been off lost in the Canadian Rockies – even staying at one point in a cabin in the woods in British Columbia without road access, electricity or running water, which probably was the premise of a Supernatural opening scene at least once. But I’m back, and I’m here to talk to you about love. Filial love, fiery angelic god-granted love, fated love, unspoken like-a-brother-to-me love, blind date desperate-for-connection love, strapped-to-a-chair-wailing-you-deserve-to-be-loved love. And to recap the last episode in series eight, ‘Sacrifice.’
This episode is about what it means to say ‘love’ in conjunction with ‘sacrifice’ and a whole other mess of things, like bodies and dictates and rituals and brutality and trust, how we trust and have that trust turn out to be misplaced. And how love is always that sort of sacrifice, of the self’s self-containment, of the body’s pretend-impermeable boundaries, in favour of something else, something more complicated and potently, potentially, always greater than each of us.
O LOVES, SPOILERS:
Castiel and the schlubby scribe of God’s word Metatron are building a spell together. One that will seal shut the doors of heaven, and keep pesky angels from interfering with mortals for a good long time. Castiel’s off acquiring a bow of a Cupid, while Sam, inescapably aligned with the demonic as he is, prepares to complete the last demon tablet trial in order to seal the gates of Hell with all of Hades’ wicked little monkeys inside. Nice parallels here. For this, he needs to ‘cure a demon’. And the suavest, most nefarious and neatly-suited demon of them all is Crowley.
What cures a demon? What does that even mean, first off? To cure a puff of black or red smoke – Crowley, once king of the crossroads, is oxblood red when out of his human host – It seems a herculean task, that is, totally doable within an accommodating narrative structure. But first of all, Crowley needs to be at his absolute worst. And he is, within the first few minutes luring lonely Sherriff Mills on a blind date, bonding with her, then holding her ability to breathe ransom in order to get Dean and Sam to stop with their Hell-closure plans. Surprisingly, they acquiesce, and will exchange their demon tablet which Kevin previously buried for safe keeping for the angel tablet. It’s good they can all agree that the holy beings of light are the real enemies here. Of course, it’s all a Winchester Brothers scam, one of the usual wonky kind that may or may not come off – and this time does. Crowley, cuffed.
On the heavenly project, Castiel and Metatron run into a bit of a speed bump with Cupid when Metatron is forced to depart with the season’s supposed baddie, Naomi the angel of paperwork and torture.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean have lugged Crowley to a suitably atmospheric ruined church where he can be purified with Sam’s blood. Yes, the same veins that were once tainted with demonic blood can now be used to save a demon.The idea of forgiveness is at the heart of this – Sam is clean, has been for years. Even so, he has to confess his sins, whispering them to the ever-absent God, before he can go about giving jabs of blood to Crowley.
Castiel shows up to take Dean out to a bar – ostensibly to help capture the cupid, but who is anyone kidding with this?With an important task at hand, no one has to speak of their feelings – they have to keep their eyes peeled, after all, who knows who the victims of love are going to be? So feelings come out in the spaces between the TV and the foaming beer. Look, it’s not a heterosexual couple, it’s the two manly guys, a bartender and a customer who just look like they’ve been friends for years. Huh. And for Dean and Castiel, love is subtext, love is merely one part of a spell – time to get cupid to hand over her bow. She looks at them, no problem, take it. It’s the smallness of the bow that’s really significant. A tiny mark on the palm of her hand, which passes love on with gentle contact – as with the men in the bar – and presumably, has to be gouged out of her vessel’s flesh with an angel blade. A metaphor, yes?
Sam is busy being dutiful and drawing his blood to put into the king of Hell. Wily Crowley bites him, then uses his blood to call for help, but no love there from his minions, it’s his not-at-all-friend Abbadon. There’s a nice bit of snarling, then she’s up in flames (just despatched like that – though SPOILERS for CHEERS she will return next season).
AND THEN perhaps my favourite moment from the entirety of Supernatural happens. Crowley starts to regain his humanity.
He’s had his body pumped with human blood, but we get the sense at least it’s not blood alone that’s doing it. Love don’t end with blood. It’s in Sam’s patience, his loyalty to humanity in carrying out this task – as we’ve seen in other episodes, a task which takes a terrible physical toll. He’s likely unfixable; going to subsume himself for the sake of the task. Crowley, though? He’s always seemed to like Sam more, to banter with him, call him silly teasing names. Now he’s bound to the boy by strange God-given magic, and, as he starts to try to joke more, to cover his discomfort, to gain some kind of upper hand – he can’t. He starts off quoting from Girls and winds up yelling I deserve to be loved at his confused tormentor.And then he asks the ultimate question, how can he begin to be forgiven for everything he’s done, as a demon?
Forgiveness of a demon who has led souls down to Hell for centuries. That’s radical. But in phrasing the question, we hear the beginnings of it being answered. It doesn’t matter at this stage whether the answer is yes or no. It marks instead the beginning of atonement. And maybe I’m too soft, but it seems to me, if you can ask that brave, open, vulnerable question, how can I be forgiven, surely the answer cannot be a stone-built you can’t.
After all, Sam has been forgiven. That’s former blood-drinking Lucifer-freeingdemon-shagging Sam (as Dean reminds him in this episode before his confession). If you’re human, there is hope for redemption. Kind of a scary thought, really, in the immensity of what it means. What’s the worse thing you’ve ever done? No, really. You don’t have to say to anyone but yourself. Maybe you didn’t tell someone what they needed you to. That’s Sam’s thought, anyway. When Dean returns, Sam’ll tear up and let his big brother know that everything he confessed was connected to how he’d let his brother down.
Ah, good old angsty bottle-your-feelings-til-they-can’t-be-bottled-no-more Winchester love.
Still more love twinned round the plot twists: Castiel has his showdown with Naomi, who, as it turns out, was a bad person but maybe, just maybe not the most deceptive. That award goes to Metatron, scribe of God, shruggy little schemer. He’s not trying to seal up the gates of Heaven, Naomi insists. Woops, what was it then? Castiel goes up to sort this out. And Metatron pins him, slices his blue-white Grace right from out his throat. The Grace is the syrupy ether which makes Castiel angelic. Without it, he is human. Metatron exhorts his surprised dupe to live as a human, fall in love, get married, have babies, die, and say hello again when they meet again in heaven.
In this episode, even theft comes with the message, go love.
Where’s our angel, wonder the boys, as they prep Crowley for the last dose of blood, the one that will return him to his full humanity – whatever that might mean. A question that after all will not be answered. Dean can’t let Sam complete his trial, not after the teary confession of confessions. He can’t let his little brother sacrifice himself for what seems like only him. Even if it means demons (many of which they themselves let out in an earlier season) will walk the earth forever. And Crowley won’t get all the way along to being a real little boy. And to say nothing of all those souls still riding the flumes down to Hell after they die. Who forgives them? Was this the biggest cruelty committed for the sake of one person’s life in the entire show? Yes probably. And given the flexibility of death when it comes to the Winchesters, kind of hard to sympathise with. But sometimes love is blind.
Sometimes duty is too. Why did Metatron dupe the growly-voiced beloved angel of the lord Castiel and then steal his Grace? Why, to expel all the angels from heaven. To start over with a clean slate. Hey, angels, Metatron is saying. It’s not me, it’s you. Time for a long fall to earth.
Time for the series to end. Sam, collapsed in pain, though saved. Cradled by his big sappy brother. Castiel, lost, wet-eyed, alone, human. And in the sky the sight of thousands of angels falling, like comets, like stars burning out in the velvety blue. Ah, I nearly yelp in my chair at the magnificence. The epic inhuman arcing, shattering, above the tiny, suffering, feeling bodies of men.
And what happens now? Now that desire for the mechanisms of forgiveness have been whispered. Love affirmed. Humanity – the ability, after all, to love – forced upon one and a half entities.
Now that my recaps are over.
What happens?
The show runs on. Series nine has started. A black car dotted with dew speeds down a black highway. Lights comb against the interior. America outside, full of lost souls, lost and shimmering presences. It’s only a TV show, it’s not always right, not always as brilliant as it should be, but it’s given us all these questions. It’s given us ways to think, grasp, shift into kindness despite all the door-kicking and gore. It’s given us a vision of some times of masculinity. Outdoors, hunting. Indoors, poking through old books, stirring soup. It’s given us men being in love and talking only in stares and glimpses, or bursts of emotion. It’s given us cheese, discomfort, fear, eye-rolls, admiration. It’s given us a landscape that’s a narrative in itself. It’s given us the place beyond the real. The supernatural. That’s not a bad amount, all told.
