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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 17:33:17 GMT -5
We just have to accept it, in this episode Mary is a bit of a duplicitous cow and put her boys lives on the line. LOL! at making you ranty. We know Lilith could be killed by the Spork because we know Alastair could be killed by the Spork. In their fight, Castiel stabs Alastair with the Spork and TK-twists it in the wound, creating sparks and glow. Alastair comments that it might have worked if Castiel had aimed better (i.e., gotten him in the heart or brain). We also see Lilith afraid of the Spork in "No Rest for the Wicked" and "The Monster at the End of This Book." It doesn't make sense for her to be afraid of it if she's not vulnerable to it. As far as the Princes, I know what kind of ridiculous retcon Perez was trying to do. That doesn't mean it makes any sense. You've got the Princes, who can be killed by any old powerful weapon, and you've got the Knights, who can only be killed by the First Blade (and maaaayyyybe an archangel smite, though that was never proven). An entire storyline was based on the fact that in addition to being super-powerful in their own right, the Knights could only be killed by a single, morally corrupting weapon that had to be wielded by someone very specific. No such moral dilemmas with killing either Azazel or Ramiel. In addition, Abaddon ran the Apocalypse Clock unchallenged until she disappeared. YED wasn't even able to contact Lucifer, let alone get things going again, until 15 years later. That tells me right there that Knights trump Princes every time in the hierarchy of Hell. It's basically like that rhyme about the Lords of Coucy: Roi ne suis, Ne prince ne duc ne comte aussi. Je suis le sire de Coucy. ("No king am I, nor prince nor duke nor count as well. I am the Lord of Coucy"). Titles are not everything. And unlike the boring Ramiel, Cain wasn't staying out of the fight because he didn't care. He was staying out because his losing control would have dire consequences. As we eventually found out. It made sense that Lucifer wouldn't touch him. Cain couldn't be killed and his having the Mark served a purpose. Lucifer feared him and left him alone. There was no reason for Lucifer to fear the YEDs, so why did he let them sit out the Apocalypse? It makes no sense. No argument that Mary is being duplicitous, or that she screwed up and kept it on the downlow. That makes her a Winchester. Just saying I like her that way. As for the comparison to John and Bobby, I'm not really interested in ranking them in awfulness so much as pointing out that they are deeply flawed characters who are also immensely (and justifiably) popular. It's not they're popular in spite of their flaws. Their flaws make them more interesting. I don't want to watch "nice" characters. I want to watch fun characters. John frequently pissed me off. So did Bobby (and Kripke and Gamble sadly ruined him by making him whiny from "Lucifer Rising" onward). But they didn't bore me. Well, Mary's flaws are interesting to me. Sure, I wish the writing for her arc were better. Sure, I wish they'd do more with her relationship with Dean (especially since she actually has one with Dean; it's debatable what she has with Sam right now). But I kinda like her High Plains Drifter/Bitch with No Name attitude. Beats Fridged Mommy in a Nightdress. Same thing with Rowena. What pissed me off about her initially wasn't that she was as much of a bitch as a witch. It was that she was a bit one-dimensional. That's all she was. There were no surprising glints of humanity, just total self-absorption. All strong characters need an arc. All strong characters need goals and setbacks. And, like it or not, all characters who stick around long enough have to be allied/connected with each in some way. Villains go stale much faster than any other type of character because they don't grow. Once you've seen their bag of tricks, their utility is done. So, to me, Rowena allying with the Brothers makes a lot of sense. They're a lot alike, only really separated by Dean's Old Testament-style moral compass and Sam's vengeful nature. And I think it would have been lousy writing for Rowena not to have had an epiphany from meeting the two divine principles that govern her universe and still stick around.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 16:59:52 GMT -5
But what happened to we are not going into the John being abusive roundabout? I think what Snow means, and what I hope, is some of the BS canon ignoring crap that CK would spew in her defense of John. I could be wrong though. I am not in Snow's mind.Yeah, this. Fanon's nice, but not when brought up in the defense of a liminal character and not when it actively contradicts canon. Also, some things are just facts. Why? Because the Show of them is unambiguous and because that Show is confirmed by meta-Tell by the showrunners. And there are a few things that have been confirmed in this way: John was an abusive and neglectful parent. Dean is an alcoholic. Dean is mentally ill. Sam was seduced to the darkside in seasons three and four by Ruby (who was evil). Sam was psychotic with Hellpain in season seven. Now, sure, we can argue the effectiveness of presentation and talk about stuff that didn't come through well, like the whole bit about Sam having to accept himself and Dean having to accept Sam in season five (which came from the horse's mouth), and we can certainly talk about John's motivations or how severe his treatment was, but these things are facts.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 8:46:29 GMT -5
Plus snow mod or not - when have you and I never been honest with each other? Heh. Just sayin'. As long as people follow the rules and don't make it personal, they can wank to their heart's content. If threads get too repetitive, we can always move 'em to the Dead Horse Discussion Agency board and let 'em continue there. Let's face it--people are most chatty when they're arguing, not agreeing with each other.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 8:42:36 GMT -5
Hmm, well...except for the part where John let his sons run interference and distraction for him--without telling them--for the better part of a year. That was a real dick move.
Princes of Hell are not higher-ranking or more powerful than Knights of Hell. I know the writers (Davy Perez, bless his heart, was not the one who should have been given this script; it was way above his pay grade) are playing with the new-and-shiny and didn't make this very clear, but the simple upshot is that Knights can *only* be killed by the First Blade and *maybe* an archangel smiting, and Cain had red-smiting power, whereas Princes are just souped-up BEDs. Lots of things can kill them--the Michael Lance, archangel blades, archangel smitings, the Colt, Amara, Sam hopped up on demon blood, probably angel blades, too. Even stabbing them enough times with the Spork might do it in a pinch.
The Colt couldn't kill Cain and probably couldn't kill Abaddon, either. It could kill Ramiel. WEDs weren't actually invulnerable to the Spork. You just had to get them exactly in the right spot. And the episode itself stated Princes were below WEDs.
Lilith didn't go through all that preparation because it was the only way she could be killed. She did it because it was necessary to make her the final Seal and because it put Sam at ground zero for where Lucifer came out. She was vulnerable at other times, too.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 7:57:47 GMT -5
Fyi, don't feel you can't disagree just because I'm a mod. I'm just putting forward the Team Mary side of the equation and you are welcome to argue Team John to your heart's content (though I'd prefer we not go down the whole "But it wasn't really abuse" rabbit hole).
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 7:51:45 GMT -5
I don't really see how John was any better than Mary and in, fact, I think he was far worse. He *said* he was staying away from his sons to protect them, but what it really looked like was ditching them except when he needed willing tools and then giving an absolute minimum of information necessary to get them to do what he wanted. And this isn't even comparing to Mary now she's back. I always thought he was like that and "Dead Man's Blood," the first episode where we get a real look at him and his modus operandi, is a true nadir for him.
At least Mary tried to find them when they went on radio silence for too long and Sam had to replace Dean's phone immediately so she wouldn't worry. Plus, not screaming at them or shoving them around is a major plus to me.
I also don't buy the comparison to her father. Samuel didn't just lie to them. He was openly contemptuous of Dean, trash-talked Sam behind Sam's back, and couldn't sell out his grandsons to Crowley fast enough. He also sucked at playing well with other Hunters, even before he died the first time, which Mary clearly isn't.
Mary may be a bit detached and ambivalent about how to deal with her sons on a day-to-day basis, but she made it pretty clear to Retch that she wouldn't brook anything bad being done to the Brothers or to Castiel, which is the exact opposite of how Samuel acted. She stated outright that the LoL harming her family, either by action or intentional inaction, was a deal-breaker. In fact, I don't think enough has been made in the fandom of the fact that Mary not only is more positive about Castiel than either Samuel was or John would have been, but she herself rescues Castiel from Ramiel after Ramiel stabs him. There's a reason why he considers her worth saving.
Pretty sure an angel blade would have worked just fine on Ramiel. He wasn't *that* special. As for not using the Colt (and I'll grant you that this should actually have been shown in the episode), according to Sam Smith, Mary didn't use it because it didn't have any bullets. And it's useless without special bullets.
Mary's spikey, and I'll certainly grant you she can be unlikeable, but she's her own brand of "difficult." She's not her father. And she's not a more manipulative version of her husband, either.
Also, her working with the LoL doesn't actually make John's side of the family look better. The Men of Letters *are* his side of the family and as we've seen, they are treacherous, incestuously self-absorbed, bigoted dicks. The Campbell side of the family is the wild-card Hunters.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 18, 2017 2:30:01 GMT -5
Agree.
I also happen to like Mary. I find her storyline interesting, and like that she is as fallible as everyone else on this show. I wish the show would actually integrate her more as well as more effectively. Instead it seems, to me, they are relegating the character to just be used for conflict and as fodder for the other storylines Dabb seems determined to push full steam ahead on, the BMoL and Luci & his spawn, which I couldn't be less interested in. SMH *Shrug*
Yeah, this. I find her an interesting character who gels well with TFW. When the writers have bothered to do anything between her and her sons, Castiel and even Crowley, she brings some new material and a spark, especially with Castiel. And I agree that it's frustrating to see them waste so much of that on pointless wangst and the worst storylines of the season like the LoL and that stupid "devil baby mama drama," as Dean put it last week. I'd rather see her bonding with Dean and getting less arm's-length with Sam, or hunting with Castiel. Mind you, I get why people don't like Mary as a person. She's emotionally distant, cold, wary, and independent almost to the point of sociopathy. But that's accurate for someone who was raised in the Life. Her becoming a mother didn't mean she could completely change her nature. I'll bet that if she'd lived longer the first time round, this is what she'd have been like by the time the Brothers were teens (can you imagine Dean sneaking out after her and discovering hunting that way? Whoo). I just wanted to point out that John and Bobby were pretty unlikeable as people, too, but they were still fun characters who added to the story and were interesting to watch. And there are fans who are Team John or Team Bobby. There's a lot more to a character than being likeable, but unfortunately, female characters usually get stuck in box if they're not antagonists, which is only one reason why high-riding bitch characters are so often a good time had by many audience members. I guess you could say I was always more Team Mary and hoped they would bring her back and explore her as a Hunter. Even with her faults, she's a huge step up from both John and Bobby in that at least she's not abusive. Neglectful, maybe, and distant, but not intentionally mean. And I think with a little better writing (as happened with Rowena, from "The Werther Project" onward), she would make a good permanent addition since it means they can return to a "Bobby" or "John" character without reducing the Brothers to "boys" again. I don't want them to get rid of her. I just want them to improve the writing for her. Every single recurring female character they've ever had got a rocky intro and only improved later. It's not different for Mary.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 22:17:06 GMT -5
Eh, I disagree about John being better than Mary on this subject, especially regarding the Colt. Daniel Elkins' blood wasn't even dry before John was cheerfully going after the Colt and John basically admitted he would have stolen it off Elkins if he'd thought he could get away with it. John was a pretty cold, hard bastard when it came to going after what he wanted. And as much as I liked Henry and wish he could come back, he could be pretty cold and hard, too. I am not sure if this will format right as I'm not sure how to do the quote this board. But I disagree with you Snow. I admit John could be a hard cold ruthless bastard and could see Henry being the same if push came to shove. But even with the colt we never saw that John kept information from his sons with regard to the jobs they were on. He expected them to do as they were told but when hunting with John they knew what they were hunting and what the objective was even if they didn't know why it was the objective. John acted as a cold hard ass Sergeant, but Mary just acted like a incompetent field officer and she blamed Ketch for it when it was her own damn fault. With Elkins and the colt, the brothers knew that John wanted them to go after vampires to get the colt. With this demon, Mary may have never knew the details of the demon itself but she manipulated her sons into the mission by using Wally without telling what they were after. If she had it would have probably caused them to alter their tactics and could have made Sam and Dean suggest that Wally just sit it out if it was just what was in the safe was the aim. Because if it is only the safe that is important why not simply go into the house when Ramiel was fishing? If they had done that then Wally wouldn't have died, Cas would have been less likely to be hurt and the brothers and Cas would have been better able to prepare. Also when push came to shove John used that gun to save Sam against a vamp. Mary knowing that only five things in creation couldn't be killed by that colt didn't use it to save her children. Because really if Ramiel hadn't brought the lance what exactly was her plan for them to get out of that barn seeing how she refused to admit she stole the thing even when an unstoppable Prince of Hell was threatening to basically wipe everyone out? Also did she not hand over the colt because she had promised it to the MoL and knew if the boys saw it they'd want to keep it? John used the Colt to test it out. Remember that Dean knew John was possessed in "Devil's Trap" because he knew for a fact John would have been furious that Dean had used the Colt to save Sam from Tom. Also, the only reason John told them about the Colt was because the Brothers put their heads together and ganged up on him, refusing to go any further with the hunt until he told them what he was up to. Up to that point, he'd been lying to them for decades and, in show time, all season. This is also the guy who couldn't be arsed to show up when Dean was dying in "Faith" or help in "Home." And who, yes, made a deal to trade his life, soul and the Colt for Dean's life--but then just couldn't resist whispering a last bit of vengeful poison in his eldest's ear. John's a great character to watch, but he's also vicious bastard. Mary is downright cuddly in comparison. I don't think John would have come looking for them if his sons had disappeared for three weeks. He was perfectly fine with Dean getting locked up in juvie. Mary is doing what every other Winchester and Campbell we've met (including the Brothers) has done--engaging in Secreth and Lieth. If we're going to have the Brothers be honest with each other, somebody else in the family unit's gotta be lying. That's just the way this show rolls. And c'mon, Mary was *always* lying to her family, from the Pilot teaser onward. While I think lying about the Colt wasn't the most brilliant thing ever, it wasn't even close to the nadir for anything a Winchester/Campbell has done, and I do think Mary would have done things differently if she'd known. Keep in mind that she is under the impression that the LoL are some hot stuff, who might actually threaten her sons if she doesn't play the game right, so she can't just disengage now. But she can deliver a stinging warning to Retch for giving her crap info that got Redshirt Hunter (we hardly knew ye, dude) killed and nearly got her kids killed. Which she did.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 22:05:18 GMT -5
SK, hon, is there any way we (or I) can change the quote text so that it automatically comes up different from the new text? It's very confusing as is. I know that TwoP did a similar format to this one and they did distinguish between the two. So, it ought to be possible if we can just figure it out. Anyone else remember? Is this better? Yes! Now if only I can make sure not to post inside the quoted part....
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 22:00:04 GMT -5
The thing is that Tell is cheap, while Show is a commitment to the story. Dean dropping his hand, despite being furious with Castiel, despite it being his best chance by far of surviving Ishim's attack, let alone winning the fight, in front of Castiel, is significant. It changes that relationship.
Castiel making some weird deathbed speech need be no more permanent than his being mortally wounded was. And it's on-the-nose dialogue, which is flat and lacks subtext, and insults the audience.
There's a part of the audience (often the same part that reads all sorts of odd shippy things into the story that really aren't there) that doesn't believe something is going on unless it's spelled out and underlined in dialogue. Even then, they see it as subject to interpretation. I realized a while back that this part of the audience doesn't respond to anything *but* these overt declarations of feeling, however empty and not followed up they might be in later story.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 15:31:18 GMT -5
Oh and if they do some sort of shitty age-jump thing with Luciferms baby where it's born and then all of a sudden it's Mark Pellegrino and we have to believe Lucifer is inhabiting his own son I will hit the roof! Oh, hon, you just know that's gonna happen. After all, they can't kill him (or her, but it'll probably be a him) off until they've aged him up.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 15:24:57 GMT -5
SK, hon, is there any way we (or I) can change the quote text so that it automatically comes up different from the new text? It's very confusing as is. I know that TwoP did a similar format to this one and they did distinguish between the two. So, it ought to be possible if we can just figure it out. Anyone else remember?
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 17, 2017 15:11:48 GMT -5
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 16, 2017 22:25:56 GMT -5
I tend to go green when I post for the most part, if I don't go a color, I'm using my tablet.
So, it's automatically green? Like Kermit?
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Post by thesnowleopard on Feb 16, 2017 21:45:38 GMT -5
It was a bad episode. Some of the ideas were good, but the writing was laughably poor. The jumping around was incoherent rather than edgy. The LoL are as underwhelming as ever. The new YED guy was poorly cast. And the infodump about how there are actually other YEDs and yadda-yadda-yadda was unimpressive.
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