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is my favourite Agatha Christie book ever. It's psychological thriller themes and closed-off setting are timeless, providing the basis for all kinds of other media- P.D James' The Skull Beneath the Skin (which I didn't like, at all), Mindhunters, Harper's Island etc etc. It's more than the idea that you know the killer, it's the idea that it could be you, that underneath the exterior of human there's something dark and dangerous and twisted.

It's perfect for the world of Supernatural. Hunters, by their definition, are exactly this. They're human beings with a darkness (usually the memory of the loved one they lost that got them into the business) and they're highly dangerous. They're predators, a stone's throw away from serial killers, and it's only because we see their world, see how they love and see how hey justify, are intimate with their morals. We see the grey areas, like in The Benders, Bloodlust or with Samuel's death- what makes a monster a monster and what makes a human human and what the hell do you do when something doesn't fall neatly into a category.

The novel, And Then There Were None, is all about the hunt, and this episode emulated that perfectly. The characters are stalked, first by the little monster, (which I will get to in a minute) and then by each other. And the most interesting thing, that [livejournal.com profile] missyjack pointed out here is that our main characters kill someone who is a mirror to them:

Dean kills Gwen - she was the loyal soldier, following the patriarch trying to please him, not questioning too much - dean as he used to be with John?

Sam kills Samuel - his namesake, and a man who did dark things, although he had a soul when he did them. Of course this is particularly shocking - Sam isn't "possessed" and while he obviously thinks Samuel might be, the fact that he shoots him without hesitation gave me chills.

And of course Bobby kills Rufus, the man who made him a hunter, his mentor and friend, they were mirrors of each other, but also something of the role Bobby has with Sam and Dean
 
So essentially, though they're possessed by the monster, the characters are killing off parts of themselves, the part they hate the most. I think that while Dean misses his father and still looks up to him as a hunter, he's recognised that his father never really went about things the right way, both in raising children and in training hunters. Dean hates the part of him that responded without question, as we've seen through his anger and developing morals about the grey areas of hunting. Sam, no doubt, hates everything about his grandfather- it's evident that Samuel is a John parallel, and it was only due to Sam not having a soul that there were no arguements between them. Furthermore, at the end of season one, we saw a John who could apologise, who could show love and say that he was proud of his children. Samuel on the other hand (while I get that he was an absent figure and didn't really build any kind of bond with the boys) is completely cold toward Sam and Dean- he isn't regretful of his actions and he appears to not even have any intent to form any kind of relationship with them. He's everything Sam despises about hunting, the very thing he became while soulless, and he knows this, even if he can't remember all of it.

With Rufus and Bobby it's a little more sensitive. While Missy is correct in saying that Rufus was a mentor and friend, Rufus was also a loner, intentionally isolating himself, as [livejournal.com profile] flowers4ophelia  mentions here:
 
It's like all hunters put up these tough walls because they have to at least sometimes to deal with the things they face, and a lot of them claim that they work better alone and prefer it that way, and they don't tend to be the most pleasant kind of people in general. Yet under all this, the community they belong to can be a much stronger and more supportive family than you'd ever guess.

Also:
 
I keep remembering how when Rufus was first introduced, he seemed like the most unsociable, bitter, hardened bastard of all the hunters we'd ever seen and it was this unsettling moment when he told Dean, "I'm what you've got to look forward to if you survive."
 
Rufus is the epitomisation of a hunter. Bitter and ass-holey on the outside, but soft and a little squishy if it turns out they like you. But ultimately, he's alone. He was at the crime scene alone, and if he hadn't run into Bobby, would have worked it alone. He drops by when he needs a favour, like in Weekend at Bobby's, and it can certainly be said they're friends, but he doesn't stop by for drinks and a chat,to see how Bobby's doing. And Bobby? Well, if it weren't for the Winchesters, Bobby'd be alone too. Hell, when we met him, he was all by himself, and we know he was estranged from John. And from season three through season four and five we saw how Bobby clung to the Winchesters. They became his family, he became theirs, and he kept on living through the apocalypse because he had someone else to live for. Because someone else didn't want him to die. It's said many a time that hunters don't live long lives- and no wonder, if they don't have anyone (even a brother or a non-related family) to keep strong and fighting and alive for. Rufus didn't have that. For all that he was friends with Bobby, and respcted by Sam and Dean, he was still alone in the world. He would never have truly become family to the Winchesters because he doesn't know how to accept it.

And I can imagine that Bobby would hate that. Would despise the part of himself that is alone and unloved. And Rufus is a reminder of what Bobby could become. Could still become, even with Sam and Dean hanging around. So I know that even though Rufus' death was not actually Bobby, but the little monster, it's still interesting to see what Rufus represents for Bobby.

Okay, moving on.

There's been a lot of speculation concerning the fact that the 'Mother of All' is wandering around with the name 'Eve' and what it's supposed to mean. There is of course the obvious conclusion of Eve from the Judeo-Christian theologies, and then there is, as [livejournal.com profile] flowers4ophelia  mentions, the fact that she may also be based on Tiamat, the babylonian goddess associated with dragons, which makes her raising a whole lot more significant. But we must remember that Supernatural loves to mix and match it's lore, and it's entiely plausible that they've taken the approach that Eve, as the MOTHER OF ALL is so ancient she's spawned all the various types of goddesses she may be associated with and so on and so forth. You get the idea. The writers could simply be saying that this character is intended to be the basis of all the possible legends.

Anyway.

I thought about it and thought about it and ended up back at square one- she is in fact Eve. At first I thought it was a joke of some kind- she clearly at odds with God, why not choose the name of His first female (and second-ever human)? And then I thought a little bit more. Eve, as the second ever human, was not created in full by God. Sure, He fashioned her, but more importantly, he fashioned her from Adam's rib. Adam, on the otherhand, was made purely from nothing by God. Eve is, essentially, a manipulation of what Adam was- so there's a small undercurrent there that suggests that Eve- isn't human in the way that Adam is. Then there's the fact that Eve (in the bible), as the first female, is the mother of all mankind. Let me repeat: THE MOTHER OF ALL mankind. NOW, this could still be a joke on Eve's (spn) part, or it could really be something more. She mentions that God abandoned humanity- and that she as a mother would never do that to her children. If Eve (as a being of both Bible and SPN) is meant to be the mother of humanity, it begs the question of why she's content to kill off humans. Still, she is at odds with God, and by biblical definition, humans are God's children (including Adam, who is not the father of mankind- so is that further proof that Eve was something more than just the second 'human' ever made?). Consider:

 

Eve: God doesn't care about you. Your Father made you and then abandoned you.... A Mother would never abandon her children like He did. You'll see.

 

If she doesn't see humanity as her children at all, but God's, (and if she is something different from Adam, then all the more reason) then there's no reason for her to be invested in humanity. What fascinates me most is how she separates herself from God. 'Your father', which suggests that she may not be the Eve of the garden, unless she really is something separate from human. 

This of course, is working under the most literal of assumptions that Eve is the Eve. 

Eve in the bible was the first to sin, tempted by Lucifer in the form of the snake, and which led to the rejection from God and being cast out of the garden of Eden. The sin, of course, being disobedient to God and rejecting God's command, which we've already seen is highly punishable if you're an angel. I haven't quite wrapped my thoughts around how this all fits together, but some part of me feels that it could be important. Like, if Eve is only a manipulation of human and not human in the way Adam is, then Lucifer's influence may have been more than simply a knowledgeable apple and a bit of disobedience. It's possible something in Eve's temptation led to the creation of monsters. Because while Eve was tempted by an angel, she herself had Adam follow her, not Lucifer. Why did Lucifer choose Eve and not Adam to tempt? Is it because Adam, being a 'pure' creation of God, was immune to Lucifer?

I don't even care if I'm a million miles off, I want to know why the Mother of All chose 'Eve'.

Finally, though I don't know how long I'll blather on for, there's the issue of the little monster, who Dean called a '12-inch harpy'. Sam, quite rightly, asks Dean why he's calling it a harpy, but most importantly, Dean doesn't have an answer for it. I'm not saying that some part of Dean does know, or if he's just calling it that off the top of his head, the fact that it is called 'harpy' intrigues me.

Harpies are from the Greek mythology, and are seen as the representations of the destructive nature of the wind (their mother was an air nymph). They are noted to be vicious, cruel and violent (just as the deaths were in this episode, and though our primary cast wasn't killed off in any gory fashion, the trucker's killings were especially violent) and are 'agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus' (thank you Wikipedia). Firstly- remember how it could be said that our primary cast killed those that mirrored a part of them they hated? The abduction of their bodies was used to 'punish' (and I use the word loosely, I mean more of a self-flagellation/I-hate-me-so-much-that-I-want-to-die 'punish') those parts by killing them.

Secondly, there's the issue of Tartarus. Tartarus (and I'm using Wikipedia here) is both a deity and a place. Tartarus is a place lower than Hades primarily used for torture, very much akin to the Christian Hell, and can be also found in Roman mythology, the Christian Old Testament (and corresponding Jewish literature) and a bastardisation of the term exists in the Christian New Testament. Tartarus as a deity is the 'unbounded, first-existing entity from which the Light and the cosmos are born'. Very God-like, no?

But I digress. Because what I'm trying to get at is where the Mother of All came from- where was she raised from. Now it's possible this was mentioned in Like A Virgin, and I completely missed it, so please tell me if I did. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure she wasn't being raised from Hell, but from some other place, and why could it not it be Tartarus (which is Hell-like) and thus fits into the whole something happened between Eve and Lucifer reasoning I had. (Edit: It is in fact Purgatory. The Waiting Place.)
 
And because I'm exceptionally tired, I'm going to leave now, and hope to hell that this makes some kind of sense, and hopefully doesn't end too abruptly. No doubt I'll think of something else tomorrow.



Edit: It's come to my attention that Dean calls it a 'herpe' as in herpes, so even though I've watched that scene several times and still hear 'harpy', the last half this must be disregarded. I'm not going to delete it though.

Edit 2: I also forgot to mention that the parasite leading them to kill others was a kind of 'damnation'- noting that it's a sin to commit murder, the act of killing off their friends/family etc would essentially damn them- to hell, or in this case, Tartarus. However, it can be noted that, unless anybody affected was socio/psychopathic, the act of killing their friends/family etc is filled with remorse, and guilt and so on, the very emotions needed to be forgiven. But until they ARE forgiven in the eyes of God, upon their passing they would essentially be sent to Purgatory to await judgement, which is you know, where the Mother was raised from. 
 
 

#2

Date: 2011-03-10 10:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] no-ones-sleep.livejournal.com
May I ask one more question? I don´t know if you like one of the boys better (I do, but I know that they only function as a unit, that they define each other and one is lost- well, sort of- without the other), so maybe it´s easier for you to analyze that one- but I would like to hear what you think about Dean being broken? Is he? And what does that mean to you? The episode that upset me in ways I cannot describe is “My bloody Valentine”, when Hunger explains that Dean is already dead. That was the point when I thought “Yes. Dean is broken. And this cannot be fixed.” And that scares me to my soul. His alcoholism, the increasing cynicism, the absence of light in his eyes or smile- I really feared S5 would be his end. (And part of me still wishes it had been because the two brothers fighting each other would have been so… biblical and meaningful.) But he still goes on, and now in S6 he is changed again, not healed, but with rejuvenated inner strength. (Which confuses me a bit? “Yay, Sam is back, let´s go hunting.” Maybe we are full circle here now- Dean’s way of dealing is hunting…) But what does this “brokenness” mean, how does it affect him- or isn´t he broken? I hope I don´t bother you with these questions, it´s just that they really occupy my mind and I would love to hear your take on this one. If you don´t have the time, I completely understand!

#1

Date: 2011-03-10 02:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lemanya.livejournal.com
Oh, thank you, you're so kind.

He knows exactly what he does (and sometimes even why he does it... And maybe that makes Dean the (slightly!) better hunter
I would certainly agree, to a extent. Dean lernt from a very early age to sacrifice things for his family, and part of doing that is the need to turn off his emotions for the good of the job. I honestly don't believe he perceives emotions as a weakness (like he appears to every time he mocks Sam for his chick flick moments), I think he jut believes there is a time and a place for all the heartfelt stuff, and it's not in the middle of hunting. He needs to not be distracted by his emotions or he runs the risk of missing something, and it could mean life or death for Sam (or anyone else he's hunting with/cares about).

Sam, on the otherhand, is much more open with his feelings, and this is probably because he's alwas had Dean there to look out for him- Sam's never needed to harden up and sacrifice in the way that Dean has. And it's this that lets him down as a hunter. In the earlier seasons, Dean was always in front, taking point and keeping Sam as safe as he could- unless Sam hunted a lttle by himself, he didn't develop his skills to the same degree that dean would have. Note that when Dean went to hell, and Sam started training with Ruby, he was only able to become a hunter when he shut off the emotional part of himself.

Also, while he provides a valuable point of reasoning and morals to counter Dean's shoot-first-questions-later approach (though not so much in recent seasons) Sam doesn't see hunting in the way that Dean does. Even though he no longer sees it a a chore, I don't believe he sees it as his life. While I do think he's given up on Standford and normality, hunting is the way that he can be with his brother, who is his life, and he knows he's good at hunting, so he's content to stay in the life.

But it is Sam's soul that makes all the difference. Knowing how he hunted at the beginning of season six was downright formidable and scary. Makes you wonder what Dean would be like without a soul. *shivers*

I think it was Crowley that brought Samuel back, in order to collect the Alphas. And no, I don't blame him for that, or for turning over the boys to Crowley (as much as I didn't like the fact he did it). However, I can't see that as an excuse for everything. Neither do I see Mary as an excuse. I don't doubt that Samuel probably loves and misses her, and is probably willing to get her back- but there's something about the way he used Mary's name that made me think he was using it to be manipulative. And it's happened a couple of times now, where he's mentioned Mary. And besides, Sam and Dean are the last traces of Mary on Earth. I would imagine that if he truly loved her so much that he would work for a demon in an attempt to get her back, that he'd be a little more willing to build some kind of relationship with the boys. But he doesn't. Instead he brings her up every time he wants Dean (and Sam) to back off and drop the questions. Like the mere mention of her name is enough to say "hey, I'm family" and the Winchesters will go "well, okay then, because family is most important!". But, as Dean points out, family is earned. The only person who breaks this rule is Sam (and for good reason!).

And maybe it's got to do with wherever he was before Crowley brought him back. When Dean made the deal for Sam, the demon asked him if he was sure that it was Sam that was brought back (and lets be honest, Sam hardened up a little after he came back), and we saw how Hell destroyed Dean when he came back from it- Crowley called himself the king of Hell, so surely that's where Samuel was residing. Maybe Hell darkened him in the same kind of way.

He didn´t convince me by doing bad things but by conveying the impression he would be perfectly capable of doing them- without regret, in cold blood.
I totally agree with this about Lucifer, and it's what I was trying to get at before. There was this calmness to him that was so opposite to what we knew he was capable of. And part of what we knew he was capable of was the word of mouth of "Lucifer's so terrible". But we haven't had a chance to have that with Eve, so yes, let's wait and see :)
Edited Date: 2011-03-10 02:40 pm (UTC)

#2

Date: 2011-03-10 02:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lemanya.livejournal.com
May I ask one more question? Of course you may :) I don´t know if you like one of the boys better I admit I'm a Dean girl, but like you, I recognise that they come as a unit, practically entwined with each other, and Dean wouldn't be Dean without Sam, and Sam wouldn't be Sam without Dean, so yeah.
But anyway.

but I would like to hear what you think about Dean being broken? Is he? And what does that mean to you?
I think he was, but he isn't anymore. I think, and this is particularly concerned with season five and My Bloody Valentine and so on, that he felt like he was at the end of everything. He's lost his mother, lost his father, lost his brother, been to Hell, he's socially isolated and never saw himself as anything important (which can be attributed to many things, but mainly, I believe, his life as a hunter, because it requires him to be in the background, and he can't get the kind of social validation and sense of being needed that humans strive for) and here he is suddenly pulled from Hell on the orders of God, and they've told him that he's going to win the apocalypse. The angels told him that Sam, the only person who ever saw Dean as something more, and the only person to love him unconditionally (with I suppose, the exception of John)- that Sam is public enemy number one and needs to be left behind. Dean says it himself in season two- his most important job is to keep Sam safe.

I think by the time My Blood Valentine rolled around, Dean was tired and depressed. He broke the first seal and started the apocalypse, he's having trouble building his relationship with Sam back up, Michael and the rest of heaven are after him, the deadline of Detroit is coming closer (where he'd lose Sam)and he's only one little human. But I don't believe that he was dead inside, as Famine suggested. I think he believed he was dead inside. The fact that he kept fighting says it all. He knows that if he tries to kill himself, the angels will just bring him back, but he didn't take himself out of the game. He kept fighting, alongside his brother, and hoping that he could fix things with Sam. I think by that stage, he gave up on the apocalypse, gave up on everything but the chance to make peace with Sam before he loses him to Lucifer. And I think this is why Famine couldn't touch him. Dean honestly didn't care about anything else. And what he did care about, he cared about so strongly it was immune to Famine. Also, it's a bit of an abstract concept, and I'm not sure that Famine could touch something like that, not like he could feed off Sam's addiction or the sexual gratifcation of the couple at the beginning of the episode. So Famine used the "dead" line in an attempt to mess with Dean, get inside his head and stir up all those thoughts and keep Dean occupied by wallowing in his own misery. Because at that point, with no drive to distract Dean with, Dean was the only person in the room who could attack Famine. Yes, I think Famine was referring to real feelings (or no feelings) that Dean had, but no, I don't believe Dean was "dead" in the way that Famine was saying.

Edited Date: 2011-03-10 02:40 pm (UTC)

#3

Date: 2011-03-10 02:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lemanya.livejournal.com
I believe that Dean was most afraid of not making peace with Sam before Detroit. The end of season five was all about Dean saying "I'm sorry, please forgive me, know that I love you" in the only way he knew how, by trusting Sam, and giving Sam that trust, even knowing he would most likely lose him. And when that happened, Dean healed a little bit, could forgive himself. Even with the despair and loss he must have felt at Sam jumping into the cage, he managed to achieve his peace with Sam. And that went a long way in helping his decision to keep living and go back to Lisa. I think, if Dean was truly as broken and depressed as everyone was saying he was, a promise to Sam would not have been enough to stop him from committing suicide. He lost everything with Sam, he lost the last of who he was into Lucifer's cage- the only way he could have survived that was through that little bit of healing he underwent in the final few episodes of season five. Because in those talks with Sam, working things out, he was able to get back some of what he lost over the course of seasons four and five.

And furthermore, I think his time with Lisa and Ben helped that continue. Being in a situation where he was important for the little reasons and being loved without needing to prove himself allowed him to build back some of that confidence and self-worth that he lost. Lisa and Ben didn't require anything more than he be there for them. relationship like that is one of the basic needs in human survival. I agree that he didn't heal completely, and unless he has a life like he did with Lisa AND has Sam and hunting, he'll never be a complete and psycologically satisfied person. But he did become stronger, not just emotionally from the trauma that was the apocalypse, but stronger in general. He was ready to go back to the isolation of the hunting world, because he knows now that there's more to life (and more to his life) than what he had before. He's learnt how to take loss and work with it, keep going despite it, whereas before it consumed him and taunted his sense of self worth and importance.

And finally, I think he missed hunting. It's the one thing he knows he can do, and it's all he's had in his life. His father, his brother, the hunt. Everything else came and went, including Lisa and Ben. Yes, he does use it to escape things, but I don't think that's why he went back to it. After all, he did tell Sam at the beginning of season six that he didn't want to hunt anymore because he liked the life he had with Lisa and Ben. If he was running from that, we never would have seen them past episode one. But I think he likes the adrenaline. And besides, we know he's smart, so the challenge grabs his attention- how to approach it, which strategies to use. And regardless of his lack of self worth, there's still a pride achieved at the end of a successful hunt, knowing you've saved lives and are acting as the protectors of humanity. Even if Dean feels that's all he has to define himself by (that and Sam), it's a pretty powerful definition.
Edited Date: 2011-03-10 02:43 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-03-11 04:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] no-ones-sleep.livejournal.com
This is in no way a decent reply. I just wanted to let you know that I was really touched by what you wrote (actually I cried), and I need a bit to figure out what is going on here- there is something working in me, and right now I'm a bit confused (well- quite a bit), so please let me get back to you when I know what my subconscious means to tell me.

I am very, very thankful; you helped me a lot here, though you don't even know me. That much I can tell you already. :-) So just... THANK YOU.

Date: 2011-03-15 07:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lemanya.livejournal.com
It's my pleasure. I'm unbelievably flattered that my thoughts could have such an impact (on anyone really), it really is a compliment of the highest regard.

Please, take all the time you need, there's absolutely no rush. I'm grateful I could help. :)

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