Anonymous asked: I watched swan song and I still don't understand why cas didn't tell Dean he'd gotten his brother out since he was there when Sam was watching outside. I mean Dean was so upset he lost Sam and he let him think for a year that he was still in hell.
Hi, Nonnie!
To answer your ask, I have to talk about season 6 and I can’t talk about season
6 without talking about 6x20. In another ask, somebody asked me to write meta
about that specific episode, so I’m sorry for using your ask to combine both
things.
In Swan Song (5x22), we saw Sam watching
outside Lisa’s house, but we didn’t get to see Castiel. That was on purpose
because a cliffhanger was necessary. How did Sam escape from hell? Was that the
real Sam or not? The answers for those questions were going to be given in
season 6.
Why didn’t
Cas tell Dean he was the one who got Sam out of hell at the beginning of season
6? Why didn’t he say something when they realized Sam was soulless? If Cas had
done that, the whole purpose of season 6 would not even make sense. We just need to keep something in mind:
EVERYTHING CAS DID WAS FOR DEAN, BECAUSE OF DEAN.
It wasn’t
until The Man Who Would Be King
(6x20) that we learned Castiel was there when Sam was outside Lisa’s.
In that
episode, Castiel himself said that he had arrogantly thought he had freed Sam.
He had no idea he had left Sam’s soul behind. That’s why Cas said that Sam
walking away from Lisa’s should have been a warning for him [that something was
wrong], but it wasn’t. What I interpreted from that is that Castiel believed
Sam saw his brother “happy” and didn’t want to disturb that. Dean had finally
quit hunting. He had the white-picket-fence-life. Everything a normal man could
desire. In fact, soulless!Sam said that in 6x01: “You finally had what you wanted, Dean. […] You wanted a family. You
have for a long time, maybe the whole time. I know you. You only gave it up
because of the way we lived. But you had something, and you were building something.
Had I shown up, Dean, you would have just run off. I’m sorry. But it felt like
after everything, you deserved some regular life.”
This same
line of thought made Bobby hide the truth from Dean the whole year as well. When
Dean asked him why he never told him Sam was alive, Bobby said: “Because you got out, Dean! You walked away from the life. And I was so
damn grateful, you got no idea.” How can we blame Cas for not telling Dean
the truth when he saw that Dean’s closest family (Sam and Bobby) decided not to
tell him?
Up until
that point, Cas hid information from Dean because he thought we was just
protecting him. There was nothing wrong with that (or at least, that’s what he thought).
The problem began when Raphael wanted to bring the Apocalypse once more, and
Cas realized that he wasn’t strong enough to survive a straight fight. In 6x20,
Cas said this: “So I went to an old
friend for help. But watching him, I stopped. Everything he sacrificed, and I
was about to ask him for more.”
Sam, Dean’s
own brother, had preferred to walk away instead of pulling Dean back in the life. At that time, Castiel didn’t
know Sam was soulless, so he thought Sam did it out of love for his brother.
How could HE be the one to take Dean away from his new “family”? That’s when
Crowley showed up and took advantage of Cas’ desire not to disturb Dean’s life.
Crowley was the one who proposed a civil war in Heaven. He was the one who came
up with the Purgatory idea. He was the one who took advantage of Castiel’s pride and foolishness (as he said it
himself in 6x20).
However,
when Crowley suggested they use the help from the Winchester brothers, Cas said
this: “No. Not Dean. He’s retired, and
he’s to stay that way.” That’s when Crowley came up with the idea of
bringing Samuel Campbell back to life.
Castiel
still had his doubts. He didn’t really want to work with Crowley, but our King
of Hell has always been smarter than everybody. When he saw Cas watching Dean, and
when he heard Cas saying that Dean had to stay out of the war, he understood
that Castiel cared about Dean like he cared about nobody else. Castiel didn’t
complain when Crowley suggested using Sam or their long-dead grandfather. NOPE.
Cas’ biggest concern was Dean, and Crowley used that in his favor. That’s why
when Cas was hesitating, Crowley said: “It’s
either this or the Apocalypse all over again. Everything you’ve worked for –
everything that Sam and Dean have worked for – gone. You can save us, Castiel.
God chose you to save us. And I think… Deep down…You know that.”
Cas was
full or pride and full of desire to stop the second Apocalypse without
involving Dean this time. And that’s how season 6 began. Everything that
happened in the season, Samuel Campbell taking alpha monsters to Crowley, was
part of his plan with Cas. Crowley brought back Samuel and promised to bring
Mary back to life so that Samuel would work for him. Unfortunately, a djinn
went looking for Dean and that’s how Dean got pulled back in no matter how hard Castiel tried to keep him out.
In 6x01,
Sam said that Cas hadn’t been answering his prayers. Castiel didn’t have answers.
He didn’t want to tell Sam that he was the one who rescued him. It was even
worse when Crowley’s plan began, which we have to assume was very soon after
Cas returned to Heaven. Castiel knew about Samuel and about what they were
doing, and he probably didn’t want to have to lie straight to Sam’s face, so he
preferred not to answer his prayers. But what happened when Dean called him? Dean
who hadn’t prayed to Cas for a whole year? Dean who had lived a normal life for
that long was NOW calling Cas?
Castiel immediately answered his prayer and things got complicated from there
because now Dean knew about Samuel, because now they learned that Sam was
soulless, because now Dean was AGAIN
in the middle of everything goddamit. How could Cas tell Dean that he was the
one who rescued his brother now that he knew he left Sam’s soul behind? How
could Cas explain that he allowed Crowley to do everything he was doing because
they were working together? How could Cas come clean with Dean after Crowley
asked Dean and Sam to work for HIM if they wanted Sam’s soul back? The only
thing Cas could do was to keep his plans secret because he feared Dean’s
reaction. One lie led to another and another until we got to 6x20 and all the
truth was uncovered.
Dean’s
reaction was exactly what Cas probably expected. He was hurt. He was angry. Cas
tried to explain, and again he had his priority very clear: “I did it to protect you. I did it to protect all of you.” Yeah, he
clarified that he wanted to protect all of them (Sam and Bobby included), but…
Cas’ first thought was I DID IT TO
PROTECT YOU. All of season 6 doesn’t make any sense without 6x20. That’s
the episode that makes us see very clearly that Dean has a whole new level of
importance for Cas. There’s no way we can see that episode and not realize how
much Cas loves Dean.
In 6x20, we also had the heartbreaking conversation:
CASTIEL: I
had no choice.
DEAN: No,
you had a choice. You just made the wrong one.
CASTIEL:
You don’t understand. It’s complicated.
DEAN: No,
actually, it’s not, and you know that. Why else would you keep this whole thing
a secret, huh, unless you knew that it was wrong? When crap like this comes
around, we deal with it… Like we always have. What we don’t do is we don’t go
out and make another deal with the Devil!
CASTIEL: It
sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to
hear it?
DEAN: I was
there. Where were you? You should’ve come to us for help, Cas.
CASTIEL:
Maybe.
Castiel
knew that he went to Dean for help but couldn’t bring himself to ask for it
because he thought Dean was happy in his normal human life. Cas probably thought
he made the right choice when a whole year passed by and Dean didn’t pray to
him at all. Cas probably confirmed that he made the right choice when Dean
learned about the civil war in Heaven against Raphael and Dean couldn’t care
less. During all season 6, Dean called Cas only when he had problems. He wanted
Cas’ help, but he never offered his (just as he never offered to help Bobby recover
his soul). THAT’S WHY CAS SAID “WHERE
WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED TO HEAR IT?”
Dean, on
the other hand, didn’t realize that he failed as a friend. It took him a lot of
character development (throughout season 7) to understand that he was NOT there
for Cas. He actually believed that he was, so according to him, his question
was valid: “WHERE WERE YOU?” Because
Cas left without even saying goodbye after Dean had lost Sam (at the end of
5x22) and Dean didn’t hear from the angel again. Where was the angel when Dean
felt all alone and desperate to rescue Sam? Dean didn’t pray maybe because he
thought Cas would not come. He probably thought that once the Apocalypse was
over, an angel wouldn’t care about the petty problems of an ordinary human
being. How wrong he was! This whole mess started PRECISELY because said angel CARED
TOO MUCH about an ordinary human being, about Dean Humanity Winchester.
Castiel
went looking for Dean one last time. He wanted Dean to understand why he had
done all the things that had hurt Dean so much. And what did Castiel say? “I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing
this because of you.”
Dean didn’t
understand, of course. In fact, he wasn’t even willing to listen to Cas. He
basically said “stop because I say so”, but he didn’t offer any other solutions
to the war in Heaven. He wasn’t supportive. He wanted Castiel to trust him, but
he wasn’t willing to trust Cas. He even offered to do whatever he had to do to
stop Cas. That pretty much sounded like a threat. He was saying Cas was family,
but he was threatening Cas if he didn’t do what he wanted. So they kinda, sorta
broke up… their friendship.
After that,
Cas went to pray. He wanted God to give him a sign. He wanted some guidance,
but he knew it was already too late to stop. So he called all this “A TRAGEDY
from the human perspective” and continued with his plan for the lack of better
options. Why was this a tragedy? Because in trying to protect a beloved human,
Castiel lost him. He lost his human.
NO ONE can or should even try to deny Castiel’s love for Dean after season 6. People could say the love is platonic and I wouldn’t be OK with that, but I would accept it if Supernatural hadn’t used the exact same lines between Dean and Cas in Bloodlines (9x20). The fact that people hear the lines and think of a romantic tragedy just because the two people involved are a man and a woman (David and Violet) makes me angry. It’s a romantic tragedy even if it’s between two men dammit. IF IT SOUNDS ROMANTIC, AND IT FEELS ROMANTIC… MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE… IT. IS. ROMANTIC!!
