Performing Dean, the AV Club, and Jack as varsity MVP
In Ouroboros, SPN 14x14, Dean makes this adorable quip to Cas & Jack, who mostly aren't bothered by Dean's masculine posturing.
"Him. He's AV club."
(@winchestergifs Image credit)
And yet, barring a handful of sports references to Jayhawks and The Cubs, Dean shows only a mild interest in sports, usually in passing or when he's posturing to Kevin Tran. He doesn't position himself into sports metaphors nearly as much as he does with his little movie references.
Fact is, he's a music, media, literature, and dance kinda guy. I'd even go so far as to say Dean is the ONLY character who could keep up with the "story mega-nerd," Metatron.
(Metatraon is perhaps coded as THE most AV Club guy ever in the history of Supernatural, even compared to Charlie. His whole arc is an extended Revenge of the Nerd arc.)
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Anyway, this is Dean's usual shtick: transference. Dean is the AV Club kid at heart:
(images LLA, Winnercast)
You know. Art—poetry—love. Human things. Humanity.
Dean bequeaths these interests to Jack, who gets most of his socializing through music and media. It's heavily implied later in the series that (outside of Cas), Jack is Dean's media buddy.
Jack is heavily into Dean's music (Jack's fave artist is "The Who"), and in SPN 14x16 Don't Go Into the Woods, Jack laments that he's watched Lost Boys (with Dean) at least thirty-six times.
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But what of Cas & sports metaphors?
Unlike Dean, Cas instinctually positions himself (and his skills) into sports metaphors, as a player.
In fact, there is some evidence that the rules and aggression inherent to sports would be embraced by battalion angels. In 12x10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, we see the angel Benjamin obsessively embracing the fighting game simulation in the video arcade.
Sports satisfy mock war games, and war is what angels do.
So, canonically we see Cas relate himself to tactical moves like Hail Mary (orig. football quarterback throwing a long, powerful pass) and also as the aggressive point guard in basketball, the "ball handler."
Cas simply doesn’t care about AV Club barbs or using female code names because he’s not threatened. Of note, Sam isn’t threatened either. In fact, if pressed, Sam views getting worked up about that kinda stuff as overcompensating.
And Cas? Cas's shame comes not from human gender but from the angel-human divide. That's where his complex seems to lie. "Female" is to men as "human" is to angels, perhaps.
Another funny thing to note is that Cas overexplains the sports terms to Dean here. As the audience, we know that Dean knows what these common phrases mean, so it's funny.
But consider this.
Because Cas is intimately familiar with Dean’s TV watching habits, he knows that sports and true crime do not feature much. And thus, he gives a thorough explanation of the sports thing to Dean, just to be on the safe side. Just in case Dean doesn't know. Lol. Thanks, Cas.
(image FamilyBusiness.com)
Jokes aside, when Cas thinks of sports, he's views himself as an aggressive type of player.
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Metatron as the Ultra-nerd
Metatron's got a bone to pick with Cas. He hates him as much as he hero worships him. Metatron is the odd duck to the rest of the angels. Even when Metatron "powers up," the other angels call him a nerd and choose "the popular guy," Cas. (Because Cas has always been "the angel's angel" among the soldier class, even when he epically fucks up.)
TYRUS: I like being an independent operator. And I hear you're losing. And I hate your face. METATRON: Well, I could get a new face. TYRUS: You'd still be you -- a nerd trying to be one of the popular kids. Mnh-mnh. METATRON: Okay. Time for the hard sell. TYRUS: Please. You knife me, and all my guys will go running to Castiel.
And Metatron is jealous as fuck. Transparently so.
Frequently in season 9, Metatron casts Castiel and Gadreel as the dumb soldier-jocks to his lovable lit-nerd. They’re brain-damaged puppies that girls go gaga over for no good reason, while he, Metatron, is The Nice Guy who’s totally gonna get the Good High-Paying Job and stick it to the jocks and the hot cheerleaders that disrespected him. He’s got a superior brain and he plays 3D chess and—
(Image TheFamilyBusiness.com)
Right. Moving on then.
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And Jack? What can I really say? Jack is a loveable doof, just like Cas. But Jack, symbolically and visually?
But Jack’s in varsity-level:
(Image LLA) - Jack in his little angelic varsity jacket.
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Jack's heavy burden is indeed due to his great power, and also because he's expected to live up to the angel of the house (Cas) immediately upon being born.
Everyone expects him to be as good as Cas immediately:
From 13x01 Lost and Found:
JACK: "My mother, she said Castiel, he would keep me safe. She said the world was a dangerous place. That’s─that’s why I couldn’t be a baby or a child. That’s why I had to grow up fast. That’s why I chose him to be my father.”
And 13x04 The Big Empty, Dean is keeping Jack at arms' length, ixnaying the possibility of getting too close to him:
DEAN: Look, you wanted the kid here, he’s here. All right? But I’m not gonna hold his hand and tuck him in at night. Pass. I’m not gonna be his mother, and neither are you.Â
A consistent theme in the Psalms is that the father is our refuge. He is our shield (Cas) and our shelter. He protects us from harm. Like a fireplace, he is the sentry that smites the enemy and wraps us up in winds of protection.
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There’s a terrible assumption in the modern world that if fathers aren’t there to temper the worst in our boys, they’ll grow up to be evil. Undisciplined, loose cannons.
Violent.
(That's why it's such a problem that Cas is missing.)
Within this dark viewpoint lies a fear that the violent boys will will turn on the weaker (in this case, human) members of the household as they grow into even more violent young men. At worst, they grow into adulthood and overpower the aging father. (SEE: The gas station scene at the end of season 13, where Jack throws Cas and moves to choke out the clerk in a fit of rage.) Then, they overpower everything else and unleash their violence outward, to society.
What’s the common history in the mass murderer, the school shooter, the serial killer? First, they kill their mothers. Oh Mary…Mary, Mary...
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After he grows to love him, Dean doesn't want to view Jack as Varsity. It's scary.
Due to Jack's superior strength, it's much more comfortable to position Jack as Loveable-Weirdo-Nerd.
There’s a reason Jack is parented very, very differently from everyone else in the series, and it reflects modern American anxieties related to boyhood. (Compare to Alex, Claire, or even Dark Kaia. Daughters.)
There's so much tension. This tension is very species- and power-dynamic specific. Because while Sam & Dean can be earthly fathers, they cannot be cosmic ones. That vacuum would only be filled either by Castiel...or Lucifer. :(
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Anyway, Jack is Varsity. He’s already lettered as a child-soldier during his stint on Michael's Apocalypse!World. When he loses his grace, Jack becomes very tense and agitated. He misses the competence, the power. He's used to being precocious. In the 14x01 script, he longs for the days of being able to kill 300 demons at once. Later, Sam has to remind him that he himself didn't even kill a demon until well into his 20s.
But even weak, Jack is persistent and driven. Maybe a wee bit obsessive. Overall, he pretty low fear and recklessly leaps into the fray to prove himself. It's no wonder that Harper Sayles Daphne-coded relatively quickly decides to replace Vance with Jack, who she views as virile, even without his powers! While depowered in season 14's Ouroboros, Jack kills Noah the Gorgon, a demigod.
(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)
