Regardingthat postofcrossroadscastiel’s that I just reblogged, I have a little exercise that people can do if they want to see for themselves what signs and symbols can mean within the greater story.
Get ahold of the movie “I Am Legend” with Will Smith. Make sure you have access to both of the endings. First watch the ending that was released in the theaters. Pay attention to all the images and mentions of butterflies throughout the film. When you get to the end of the film, what do you think the butterflies mean? Kind of nothing, right? Maybe they imply hope if you really stretch it. But basically, they’re just weird repeating symbols all throughout the film without ever making sense in the end.
Next, watch it again with the alternate ending. The one that I’m pretty sure was intended by the makers of the film all along but the studio thought audiences wouldn’t like it. Now what do you think all the butterflies mean? Oh! The butterflies are a hint to the ultimate message of the film. A huge change has taken place. A metamorphosis or evolutionary step sped along by the scientific efforts of humans. It turns out the protagonist may have been doing really bad things the whole time in the name of saving everyone. He’s been trying to make all the butterflies turn back into caterpillars instead of recognizing that perhaps there is some merit in being a butterfly.
So, while each individual is free to decide which version they like best, it seems pretty clear that all those butterflies meant something to the people who put them all in the film. In the theater ending they just seem odd. But in the alternate ending they make perfect sense.
The question then for any movie or tv show is which ending are you going to get? The one made to please the greatest amount of people and make the most money? Or the one that all the signs and symbols lead to?
With a story that has had as many people telling it as SPN has, there are certainly more than two possible endings. Some signs and symbols may have had meaning when they were placed in the story, but years later as the ending gets pushed further and further out their meaning got obscured or left behind. New signs and symbols get introduced by new story tellers and they lead to different possible endings. Sometimes they only become obvious in hindsight. And sometimes they only become obvious if the ending they were pointing to was the one you got. If you got a different ending, that doesn’t mean those signs and symbols never meant anything at all.
