Melody, Gloucester, Pegasus

and the same dynamic is repeated in ahbl with sam once again pinned to the wall and forced to watch dean get brutalized at the altar of his destiny.

a year later he's back against that wall helplessly watching dean get dragged to hell by hellhounds but interestingly lilith gets much more "personal" with sam than azazel did. he is, after all, her competition, not chosen champion.

bonus: claws in both 1x22 and 3x16.

This frame…. This fucking frame…. This is it, this is the Supernatural scene ever…. Supernatural thesis statement, incest thesis statement. The way this ties back to everything. The way every single foundational character is present here, if not physically then in essence. The way this scene is what shaped the Winchesters’ lives, the ultimate act of incest that tainted their blood, that doomed them all, Mary to her death, Sam to his birth, ruining the Winchester family, ruining their blood.

The way this scene happened because Dean saved a girl and brought Azazel’s attention to Mary, dooming her and their family. How this is how it’s always been, the Winchesters saving others and dooming themselves. Mary saves John and dooms herself, but she dooms John too, and startsnthe cycle of making deals to save the one you love, not accepting death as the end (S5 ending, despite its tragedy, breaks that cycle; S15 enforces it)

And just… look at this scene. Azazel possessing the body of Mary’s father just like he will (has? This episode’s use of cyclical time mirrors the cycle the Winchesters are stuck in, the cycle that begins here….) possess John. John himself, dead but present, oblivious yet complicit; this scene is about him, about who he will become, because Azazel is Samuel but also Azazel is Samuel is John. Already his relationship with Mary juxtaposes the one with her father, marriage as a power fantasy, marriage as an escape, John as the vehicle which will take her away, that will save her from the fate of having children who grow up in this life (this is the episode he buys the Impala, the Winchesters’ true home).

Samuel is Azazel is John; This is an act of sexual intercourse and conception, the conception of Sam, the ultimate symbol of incest. Azazel came looking for children to make his, the kiss with Mary is the solidification of Sam as his son, the familial taking physical form of Samuel’s body against the sexual intent and language of Azazel, the familial and the sexual in coexistence (the way Mary will name him Samuel after the father who she kissed). But this is also an act of murder, Mary’s murder (their family’s murder). Sam’s (re)birth is Mary’s death. This sexually charged act with incestuous overtones is the direct cause of another; that of Azazel bleeding into Sam’s mouth, feeding him his fluid, tainting Sam’s blood with his own. The way Mary mistakes Azazel for John and JDM plays Azazel in the Pilot.

i can never go home

- john winchester at the crossroads

for bb discord motw prompt week