Supernatural.
Oct. 25th, 2008 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomlingEvery time I think I have a handle on what Supernatural is all about, it surprises me.
It's a surprisingly thinky show. From the few episodes I'd seen before embarking on my actual watching-in-order, I had expected standard monster-of-the-week fare. Lots of shooting stuff, eye candy and flashlights in the dark. And, it's true, Supernatural provides that. But it's also full of interesting commentary on the nature of life, death and the universe, and that I didn't expect.
It's not something that I managed to pick out just watching the occasional individual episode, but watching the show one episode after another, the morality of the show becomes very clear. The lines are drawn very obviously between what is and isn't okay, and for the first season and some of the second, the show was very careful to keep the boys firmly on the right side of "is okay". But as Season Two progresses, the boys are running across more and more grey areas, having to make more and more judgement calls, and the waters are beginning to get muddied. And at the same time, we are finding out more and more about Sam and his supposed destiny, his struggle to be a good person despite the evil that is apparently being planned for him.
It goes like this.
If it's supernatural, and killing people, it deserves to die, and it's okay to kill it. Our boys do more than their fair share of this type of execution, which is perfectly okay by the show's morality, and the job that the Winchesters have taken upon themselves.
If it's supernatural and not killing people, then it doesn't deserve to die. We've seen hunters (well, Gordon Walker) take the opposite view, that supernatural means it deserves to die no matter what, and we've set up Sam and to some extent Dean too in opposition to that. (The show casts Sam as our "beacon of shining light and perfect morality", which is interesting as all hell, considering what may be happening to him.)
If it's human and killing people, then it deserves to die, but it's not okay to actually kill it. Almost all the human villains in the show are dead rather than locked up by the end of the episode; Sam and Dean don't do any of this killing, leaving this to "normal people", suicide, or some random act of God.
And the further the show progresses, the more we see of these blurred lines. What about humans who may or may not have a demonic virus that will turn them into evil killing machines? What about the human psychics marked out for an evil destiny by the yellow-eyed demon? What about ordinary human serial killers, murderers, paedophiles and rapists? I'm impressed with the show because it asks these questions and doesn't always fall over itself to provide easy answers. (The misguided spirit that thought it was an angel, sending hookers and drunkards to kill people who had committed or would commit terrible crimes against others? The spirit is laid to rest, but the boys don't come up with a quick answer about whether God's will was involved or not. Sam's faith in God is tested; so is Dean's faith in nothing. We end the episode not knowing for sure.)
I like that Dean has a blind faith in his brother's essential goodness that won't let him really believe that Sam will turn out to be a demonic soldier. I also like that Sam doesn't have that blind faith, and has turned to religious faith as a way of trying to cling onto the goodness that he does have. I like the little mention that their mother was religious, though their father quite clearly wasn't - and the hints that, while Dean is so like his father, personality-wise, Sam takes after the mother he never knew. I like that the show is playing with matches - real, honest-to-God themes about life and death and evil and good and the nature of justice - and doing a damn good job of it.
I'm so fascinated to find out what happens next. And yes, I know I'm two years behind the rest of the world on this (shut up - I'm having fun). What the nature of Sam's destiny is really, and how far Dean will go to protect him (though I think? I am spoiled for what Dean does at the end of this season).
It intrigues me that those "psychic children" are dropping like flies (three so far in two years!) and the demon doesn't seem to care. Are there lots of them, so many that if a handful die, he's not that bothered? What happened to Ava? Sam doesn't get messages from the yellow-eyed demon, though at least two of them have on the same time-scale: what's that about? (And the two we know for sure that the demon "contacted" directly are dead. Really. If I was the demon, I'd be pissed.)
This show is so awesome. I had not expected it to be this awesome. Really.
It's a surprisingly thinky show. From the few episodes I'd seen before embarking on my actual watching-in-order, I had expected standard monster-of-the-week fare. Lots of shooting stuff, eye candy and flashlights in the dark. And, it's true, Supernatural provides that. But it's also full of interesting commentary on the nature of life, death and the universe, and that I didn't expect.
It's not something that I managed to pick out just watching the occasional individual episode, but watching the show one episode after another, the morality of the show becomes very clear. The lines are drawn very obviously between what is and isn't okay, and for the first season and some of the second, the show was very careful to keep the boys firmly on the right side of "is okay". But as Season Two progresses, the boys are running across more and more grey areas, having to make more and more judgement calls, and the waters are beginning to get muddied. And at the same time, we are finding out more and more about Sam and his supposed destiny, his struggle to be a good person despite the evil that is apparently being planned for him.
It goes like this.
If it's supernatural, and killing people, it deserves to die, and it's okay to kill it. Our boys do more than their fair share of this type of execution, which is perfectly okay by the show's morality, and the job that the Winchesters have taken upon themselves.
If it's supernatural and not killing people, then it doesn't deserve to die. We've seen hunters (well, Gordon Walker) take the opposite view, that supernatural means it deserves to die no matter what, and we've set up Sam and to some extent Dean too in opposition to that. (The show casts Sam as our "beacon of shining light and perfect morality", which is interesting as all hell, considering what may be happening to him.)
If it's human and killing people, then it deserves to die, but it's not okay to actually kill it. Almost all the human villains in the show are dead rather than locked up by the end of the episode; Sam and Dean don't do any of this killing, leaving this to "normal people", suicide, or some random act of God.
And the further the show progresses, the more we see of these blurred lines. What about humans who may or may not have a demonic virus that will turn them into evil killing machines? What about the human psychics marked out for an evil destiny by the yellow-eyed demon? What about ordinary human serial killers, murderers, paedophiles and rapists? I'm impressed with the show because it asks these questions and doesn't always fall over itself to provide easy answers. (The misguided spirit that thought it was an angel, sending hookers and drunkards to kill people who had committed or would commit terrible crimes against others? The spirit is laid to rest, but the boys don't come up with a quick answer about whether God's will was involved or not. Sam's faith in God is tested; so is Dean's faith in nothing. We end the episode not knowing for sure.)
I like that Dean has a blind faith in his brother's essential goodness that won't let him really believe that Sam will turn out to be a demonic soldier. I also like that Sam doesn't have that blind faith, and has turned to religious faith as a way of trying to cling onto the goodness that he does have. I like the little mention that their mother was religious, though their father quite clearly wasn't - and the hints that, while Dean is so like his father, personality-wise, Sam takes after the mother he never knew. I like that the show is playing with matches - real, honest-to-God themes about life and death and evil and good and the nature of justice - and doing a damn good job of it.
I'm so fascinated to find out what happens next. And yes, I know I'm two years behind the rest of the world on this (shut up - I'm having fun). What the nature of Sam's destiny is really, and how far Dean will go to protect him (though I think? I am spoiled for what Dean does at the end of this season).
It intrigues me that those "psychic children" are dropping like flies (three so far in two years!) and the demon doesn't seem to care. Are there lots of them, so many that if a handful die, he's not that bothered? What happened to Ava? Sam doesn't get messages from the yellow-eyed demon, though at least two of them have on the same time-scale: what's that about? (And the two we know for sure that the demon "contacted" directly are dead. Really. If I was the demon, I'd be pissed.)
This show is so awesome. I had not expected it to be this awesome. Really.
