#bennyyy

Breaking Charlie’s Arm pt. 1: the first step towards going vengeful.

So Dean has his thing tying him to this world and not letting him move on: the ongoing never ending family business, and within that his rage button that can send him vengeful: his need to look after Sam and any threats to the tenuous stability that he finds in living out the endless pattern.

The back half of season 8 lays out how susceptible he is to going vengeful. (While I don't think they were planning the Mark of Cain arc so early they were clearly setting Dean up for a descent, so thematically the building blocks are there, and the particular details of the Mark of Cain arc are just the picture they put on top of these established playing pieces).

Just like on Bobby's arc, Dean's descent is marked by someone 'innocent' getting hurt along the way.

It’s time for Benny to die for the bro-dependency.

I was discussing with iwatchthepie about them cutting the little bit in Dean and Benny’s final conversation in 8x19 about Benny slipping up and drinking people again and I wonder if part of that omission was for the sake of storytelling, not characters, making Benny all ‘beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure’.

Benny sacrificing himself had to look at least on the surface (before you go delving into the deleted scenes and decide to accept it as canon because come on it’s way more interesting for the characters) like there was a clear argument Benny was somewhat undeserving of the fate and finding injustice that he had to die only because Dean needed to save Sam.

Though Benny is consistently written as not fitting in with the world any more pretty much immediately in his first proper episode, through the season up to this point it’s all angled towards sympathy and sadness on the thought that if Dean had spent more time with him and helped him consistently through the season instead of saying ‘Adios’ then it would never have come to it in the first place: because of Sam, Dean wasn’t there for Benny and his whole story is a failure from Dean’s side that would have probably lead to Benny’s death ANYWAY because of that. On the other hand making Dean the one to kill Benny to save Sam changes the dynamic enough that Benny has to be a clear victim in order to make him the more sympathetic one in order to highlight the toxic nature of what’s lead to this point.

As an aside, on Sam vs Benny:

I’m going to digress kind of for a second because an upcoming part of this takes a moment to talk about Gadreel, so I think this is important though perhaps not 100% relevant:

On Benny and Sam meeting for the first time there's an interesting visual parallel: Sam and Benny go to shake hands but it is framed to show you that even as they shake, Sam is reaching for a knife with his left hand.

The Dean vs Gadreel handshake in 9x22 is a very similar situation, but with key differences: Dean extends his left hand to shake and has every intention of killing Gadreel as he reaches for the blade with his right. The hostility is less clear between Sam and Benny though it was a nearly fatal handshake; it had a path out the whole time and Sam wasn't beyond reason unlike Dean in 9x22: he extends the normal hand for shaking.

(I have even heard vague ‘this is totally true’ facts somewhere about shaking right-handed to be BECAUSE it was the hand you’d hold a weapon in, so offering that one shows you don’t mean harm and was a sign of trust: Dean extending his left hand to Gadreel was a sign of zero trust and full intent to kill him unlike this situation with Sam and Benny).

Anyway Sam never goes to attack Benny because he looks to Dean first, who shakes his head no, but though they don’t meet again until Purgatory, it’s this dynamic that leads to Benny’s death. Sam doesn’t pull the knife and the death happens on Dean’s say-so, but he’s still kinda behind it. It’s not so much about Sam’s lack of trust in Benny - I was just interested that the scene gives us this moment where Dean judges Benny’s life to Sam in their first encounter, and then again for Sam in Taxi Driver.

Benny’s death is the first big internal fracture Dean causes in himself. He’s only trying to protect and save Sam, but this being expressed through Benny having to die is part and parcel with the isolation they BOTH force on themselves earlier in the season in the double Amelia - Benny break up, where even when Benny is living Dean has to pick a ‘dead to me’ option to keep his status quo with Sam.

Charlie is always a beam of sunshine:

On the heels of showing the first ‘innocent’ mown down on the path to revenge (equivalent to Bobby breaking Charlie’s arm accidentally in his first moment of ghost priorities being too simple and violent), Charlie herself pops back up to give Dean a lesson on letting go.

Pac Man Fever contains a circular loop of hunting vampires (the family business, and a callback to Benny dying for it the previous episode by the specific choice of the monsters they mindlessly mow down - look at 10x08 and Dean saying all vampires are scum end of story) which can only be broken by letting go of the thing tying you to this world.

CHARLIE Okay. How?

DEAN I think the only way to stop this is to... not play.

CHARLIE What?! No, no. We gotta save them. Nut up, Winchester.

...

CHARLIE See? You can't stop either.

(8x20)

It's exactly a vengeful ghost story, and Charlie herself manages to let go and show Dean the way (her episodes always seem to be a best case scenario: managing to bind her light and dark halves in 10x12, or making out with the Cas mirror in LARP and the Real Girl, which foreshadowed the Crypt Scene heavily in its dramatic conclusion, minus the making out).  

DEAN Listen to me. This poison, it's designed to put your mind into an endless cycle, while your insides turn to mush, okay, and its fuel is fear. Now call me crazy, but I think the only way to break the cycle is to let go of the fear and stop playing the game.

...

CHARLIE Gonna go by the hospital. Gotta let go, right? What about you, you're gonna let it go?

DEAN Never.

In season 9, that fight in The Purge, Sam snaps and calls Dean out on keeping him alive at any cost saying specifically it’s because he’s scared to be alone. Not necessarily the whole truth: Dean’s biggest fear (at the time before himself being the one to potentially kill Sam is added to the mix) is revealed here. Sam’s death undermines the cycle he’s stuck in. Being able to let Sam go (in any respect) may be what breaks Dean out of the cycle, but hilariously the end of season 8 is now the light and easy version of this.

Going Vengeful

I did say this starts in season 9 but the obvious trigger is the events at the very end of 8x23.

Despite being given a path to take by Charlie which WOULD free him, Dean has already acknowledged what he'll do in 8x23 before it happens and before Charlie ever accidentally shows him the better path; killing Benny was the rage button trigger - Sam needed saving and someone got hurt. It was inevitable the sacrifice would not be for nothing.

Did someone say Sacrifice?

DEAN [...] But I can't do it without you.

SAM You can barely do it with me. I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?

SAM No, it's exactly what you meant. You want to know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I let you down. I can't do that again.

(8x23)

As I said about their conversation in 8x14, Sam keeps his side very bottled up, and aside from the slip up there, manages to soldier with constant assurances of how he’s absolutely fine while busy dying for the rest of the season up until this point.

SAM What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel, another -- another vampire? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother just –

DEAN Hold on, hold on! You seriously think that? Because none of it -- none of it -- is true. Listen, man, I know we've had our disagreements, okay? Hell, I know I've said some junk that set you back on your heels. But, Sammy...come on. I killed Benny to save you. I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed mom walk because of you. Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that. I'm begging you.

... TBH this part is mostly just me gathering evidence of Dean’s mindset and stuff which fits in. There’s a ton of meta to be found in here but all that really needs to be said is that this shows just how trapped the two of them are together, and this sequence of 8x23 - 9x01 has the first serious slant to how toxic this really is, as they collectively decide not to save the universe for each other - something they were once able to do at least in the moment that mattered in Swan Song.

SAM How do I stop?

DEAN Just let it go.

At the end of 8x20 Charlie cutely asks Dean if he’s going to let it go referring to letting Sam die. When we finally get to that point, he uses their conversation to stop Sam: it’s the same phrasing which kind of almost doesn’t make sense in the context except to act as a callback to that time when Charlie and Dean talked about this very moment, and Dean was way more aware when it was Charlie’s problem and not his own (yet, though he was obviously thinking it given the comatose Sam in that dream) of the importance of doing just that. Given he uses the same phrasing to achieve the absolute opposite effect...

Actually going vengeful in season 9

DEAN Sam, listen to me. I made you a promise in that church. You and me, come whatever. Well, hell, if this ain't whatever... But you got to let me in, man. You got to let me help. There ain't no me if there ain't no you.

(9x01)

Whether you believe this was figment!Dean based on Gadreel reading Sam and making up what he would need to hear, or actually Dean talking through Gadreel (I seriously lean towards Gadreel doing this but this is a totally different discussion :P) the intent is there: with a callback to the previous episode after the summer, we get this nice reminder of how horrendously tangled Sam and Dean are. In terms of ghost metaphors, once again we get the impression of Sam being the tether to Dean.

Given the wildly destructive to their relationship nature of what is occurring here, and how the consequences of this completely destroy Dean, this can't be seen as healthy if you're looking at the whole context and how this moment causes the spiral we’re still in.

The fallout of the Gadreel deception leads directly to Dean ending up on Cain's doorstep and so begins the saga of all his inner darkness being brought out.

The people hurt along the way (Benny’s death, Sam’s possession, human!Cas’s homelessness, in chronological order) are all accidental victims of the haunting.

Now, though, Dean is going to be enabled to go actually vengeful, and the parallel to Bobby ends and we move into every other vengeful ghost we meet after they’ve started their random but consistently patterned killing: Bobby was moved on before he could enact his vengeance: specifically stopped from getting a shot at what was motivating him, and never killed anyone as a ghost.

Dean begins piling up a body count and it’s the open-ended nature of his vengeance that makes this such a dangerous trap for him.

Crowley sells it as a revenge mission to Dean against Abbadon. She killed Henry which sets off his generic family-wide rage button so there's some actual vengeance there, yet Dean was already lost and looking for something to hurt before Crowley came to him and directed the anger.

Cain blatantly makes it personal with his kindred spirits thing and along with his combat challenge it does seem to be a lot more about unlocking something much larger in Dean. The whole fratricide thing plays into it from the start although Cain (as argued by charlie-minion here and here) is actually on exactly the same warpath against Abbadon as Dean is and she's the last on his list and not actually on Dean’s at all, whatever vague last-season motivation he might have had for killing her.

Gadreel is so important you guys.

Each season of Carver Era in particular has a character who rolls into town just to emphasise the themes. It was Benny in season 8, it’s Cole in season 10. And Gadreel is the designated Season 9 Thematic Fall Guy. (I am wildly optimistic for Cole’s survival though, yay!)

Gadreel was described a lot in meta at the time (I got into fandom after 9x18 so this stands out) as a strong Dean mirror. Links like his car, some of the stuff he says to Dean along the way, most IMPORTANTLY his understanding of Dean’s emotional mindset and an empathy with it that he uses against him in Meta Fiction (hey remember when I said I thought the ‘ain’t no me’ Dean was a figment created by Gadreel?).

It all seals Dean and Gadreel together, especially with their lash out and wait to die moments. The entire season is Dean lashing out and waiting to die (remember what I wrote about him looking to burn out fast in 8x14 - at the end of the season his problem is more that it’s making him something he doesn’t want to be than the actual death - again in 10x09 Dean tells Cas it has to be death over a repeat of demon!Dean).

Gadreel is being influenced by Metatron like Crowley was to Dean, tying him to a cause he didn't believe in: compare Gadreel bitchface to demon!Dean's sass at Crowley in 10x01/02 (or generally any Dean looking at Crowley ever tbh).

(Also interesting to me after 10x14, is that Metatron was giving Gadreel an actual list of people to kill.

METATRON Here's the first name on your to-do list.

(9x09)

This is way removed from any speculation on Cain’s list to Dean but it is worth noting that Gadreel was told to go kill someone there’s been serious speculation he was romantically linked to. I dunno, it’s a wild stretch but the point is Gadreel was both killing because he had been told to and lashing out wildly - compare the room of dead angels in Meta Fiction to the room of dead humans in 10x09. People were getting hurt on his mission - he was misguided and seeking personal redemption with the same level of intensity as a revenge mission. Him agreeing to work with Metatron can be paralleled to Dean taking the Mark.)

So how does Gadreel tie into this?

Cas corners Sam and asks him about Gadreel in 9x21 and we get SUPER INTERESTING language used about him:

SAM He didn't possess me completely -- more like we, uh... shared housing. I was still me.

CASTIEL Did you ever sense a presence?

SAM I don't really know what I felt. I mean, maybe that I wasn't completely alone.

CASTIEL Did you ever feel threatened?

SAM No. More that he... wasn't at rest, l-like he had unfinished business. Now that we know more about him, I-I'd say he felt misunderstood.

(This one exchange set me off on this whole train of thought at the time of airing *claws face at how long it’s taken me to get to this*)

Every line Sam says blatantly paints Gadreel in the common sort of language used to talk about ghosts. It's almost as overt as the parallel made of Dean being a vengeful ghost in 10x13, so I would say for BOTH characters the link is fairly explicit. The fact there are other links making Gadreel a mirror to Dean is just that much more interesting that they get hit with the same metaphor.

What is Gadreel's unfinished business/tether? Though in Road Trip we learn about his backstory from two approaches (both his Biblical backstory and the show’s interpretation of it and a more recent emotional (romantic?) tie - hey I’m not looking at paralleling him to Cain or anything as well, shush) his arc is all about trying to redeem himself for, well, as Cas puts it, ruining the universe for everyone else. (Something Cas also seriously relates to, given Metatron got him in the exact same way in 8x22.)

Within the story, I think it’s more relevant emotionally about Sam. Gadreel haunts Sam and it’s not a coincidence that this language was used by Sam about him. Gadreel is angel possession and a valid link to Lucifer. Sam once again has to forcibly take control back from an angel that’s been let into him. It’s not just that Dean betrayed Sam’s consent or trust with the Zeke thing - it is that is mirrors the worst thing that ever happened to Sam - it takes him two whole seasons after the event to be clear of it, and season 8 is his first season without the knock on effect from being possessed by Lucifer factoring as a major influence on his life. And then in season 9 it’s happening all over again.

I swore this would not turn into a Gadreel meta so this is me biting my lip and forcing myself to stop writing about my favourite angel now I’ve laid out the very basic Gadreel as a vengeful ghost stuff. He stretches back into earlier seasons to bring the haunting specifically to Sam, and imagery associated with him relates to Dean after he takes the Mark and stretches into season 10.