#fxmuldr

i am always in awe of your sam meta posts and (if it’s not too much trouble!) i was wondering on your thoughts of a take that’s been floating around in my head for a while.

that if crowley somehow lived post s12, would he have tried to give hell’s throne to sam? how would -that- play out? would sam accept it there in early s13 and try to make a ‘better’ hell or would he be like s14 and abolish the position entirely?

sorry for the ramble, many thoughts head full 😅

Thank you!

Hmm, so we have two perspectives here: would Crowley do this, and would Sam agree. To which I would answer in brief, maybe, and absolutely not.

So first of all, would Crowley try to cede the throne to Sam? He says in 12.23 he doesn’t like his job, but I’m honestly not sure how to take that: despite his kvetching, I don’t think he’s in the kind of position where he actually wants to be disempowered. He’d like a break from the responsibilities while still enjoying the power, the perks, the security. So in that sense, Sam isn’t a terrible option. Despite Sam’s consistently expressed disgust for him, Crowley has a weird amount of fondness and trust in Sam. Sam, with his reputation and pedigree, could be a fairly safe place for Crowley to vest his power while he goes off to retire in Aruba.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think a s12 Crowley would kind of enjoy having Sam as his functionary/steward/successor the way he’d dreamed of using Dean as an brute enforcer in s10. Leave Sam to do the heavy lifting and make the big sweeping moral decisions and stay on top of the paperwork and intimidate demons into line with his name alone.

Crowley’s self-proclaimed goal in 12.23 is, if he survives, to close the gates of Hell, and certainly that would require Sam’s cooperation, possibly even his death, if we’re going the Trials route: perhaps Crowley could even view the crown in Hell as Sam’s destination after this, a la Rowena. [Incidentally, Rowena TOTALLY used the cachet of her relationship with Sam to win her crown.]

I can, if I squint, envision a possibility where Crowley pushes Sam to accept the mantle of King and Sam accepts only for the sake of destroying and denying it a la 14.01, and locking the gates of Hell forever.

But something I don’t think would ever be on the table in late seasons is Sam trying to reform Hell, himself, personally, as a ruler. Far too slippery a slope, far too much intrinsic evil. He’d turn down any offer that would mean he had the position with any permanence. I think he’s far, far too sick of how Hell’s politics have impacted him personally for him to be involved in any capacity beyond shutting the whole machine down. Part of this is self-protective, but part of it is still grounded in the fear of touching his own inhumanity with a ten-foot pole. Sam is happy to say that any potential demon lord had better not start shit, but he’s definitely not going to think of himself as anything like a demon lord. Sam in s13 and Sam in s14 have really similar perspectives on Hell, I think.