been thinking about this post on the, what, seven year anniversary of 10x22? and like the thing is the purpose of cas is kind of to absorb violence from dean, throughout the series. but why this is true changes. in the beginning, it's a way for dean to express his emotions, in fact, to show how powerless dean is. in lucifer rising (that anniversary is tomorrow, by the by) dean attempts to exert an impact on his environment by punching cas in the face, and it's pointless, because of course when he connects there is a metallic clang and dean only hurts himself, while cas just continues to stare, unaffected. it's almost parental. dean is a child ineffectually beating his fists against a parent in protest. cas isn't really a person. we don't see his perspective. he's an object in the environment.
but skip to six years later, 10x22, and dean can beat cas senseless. now we do see cas' perspective. cas is a point of view character. and he's still a sponge for violence but now it's out of love. he can't be affected (or perhaps more accurately, believes he can't be; we see him have a traumatic flashback to the fight later on) because he simply Loves Dean Too Much. and before when he was invincible it was still out of love, out of a kind of condescending omnibenevolence. like that's why it never bothered him that dean tried to attack him. but once he's dragged down in the dirt he still tries to elevate himself above the situation he's in with devotion. with i can still love himism. earlier, i saw @minor-mendings tag a gifset with "the colettification of a seraph." yeah. spn your gender politics are simply diabolical.
