ratherastory | One thing about 6.04

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One thing about 6.04

Okay, so I was squicked by this, and am wondering why, after everything else, Show appears to be glossing over it.

So Bobby tortured a demon in his basement, then casually torched her bones and ended her.

1- Hasn't Show gone out of its way to show us that TORTURE IS BAD?

See Dean in 5.04: "Oh, man, something is broken in you!" & "Oh, we're torturing again. Oh, yeah, that's classy."

Also, Dean tortured under duress every time: after breaking in hell, after being manipulated and jerked around by angels, and in 5.04 when Lucifer and the Colt were at stake. Not only that, but each time it was CLEARLY represented as being wrong-wrong-wrong. Morally repugnant, even.

In contrast to this, Bobby is torturing for his own personal benefit. He also has TEN YEARS to get the information he wants (okay, nine). Are such drastic measures truly necessary right this moment?

I was also pretty appalled at how casual he was about the whole business.

2- What about the demon's meat suit? Bobby knows how to perform an exorcism, so are we meant to believe that he was just testing his theory?

Between that and last year's demon-blood-bath, are we meant to believe now that the meat suits are just collateral damage and no one cares about them anymore?

Seriously, Show, WTF?

Anyone? Thoughts?

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Dean (or Sam) doesn't know what Bobby did in the basement (yet). And while they do gloss over some things, we also don't know if it doesn't come up later.

Having said that, I think it was done to show how *desperate* Bobby was to get out of his contract, to find a way to regain his soul, and to show us that without a soul, people are capable of anything.

Doesn't mean I like what he did, but it did parallel nicely that something is wrong with Sam (and Bobby) and juxtaposed with how Bobby used to be, how he used to care, and how Dean is the *only* one seeing that something isn't right.

I wondered about that as well, but when he first torched the bones if you looked at his face you saw him grimace when he saw the damage to the meatsuit so maybe he cares but he just REALLY needed the information. I mean, if I was going to hell I'd test out the theory as soon as I figured it out if it meant helping me get my soul back. But, I agree. I kind of wonder how that works out.

Bothered me as well.

And though maybe I could get behind the idea of Bobby and Sam (if that is what is up with Sam) being damaged by soul-lack, that hasn't been how soul deals have worked before. Dean in s3 had some massive denial, but he showed no signs that all or part of his soul was missing because he'd made the deal. And even if things have changed with the new soul economy, Bobby's deal was made before that, and the kid Aaron in 6.3 might have had a faulty moral compass, but he wasn't emotionally shut down the way Sam has been.

But Bobby also shot Ruby in her vessel just to test the Colt way back in s3; show can just be very, very inconsistent about its demon vessel issues.

Not to hijack

ratherastory's lj, but I don't think Sam sold/lost his soul, although it's possible (we know he's not possessed since he still has the tat). Dean had accepted the terms of his deal. Bobby's deal turned out to not be the deal he had made: he was switch-and-baited.

And with Ruby, didn't she ask him to shoot her?

Yes, that bothered me a lot. Bobby, of all people, should know the difference between a person and the demon possessing them. But they've always been pretty inconsistent on when the meatusit matters and when it doesn't.

Also, it didn't really make sense to me that the meatsuit was damaged in the process. I mean, if a demon is just a spirit, the spirit is the only part that should be destroyed, no? Maybe Bobby didn't realise it would kill the vessel as well.

An exorcism just sends the demon back to hell, it doesn't kill him, so there is a difference in the result.
And I think after everything the boys have gotten more accepting of collataral damage by now. Something, which I think a lot of hunters do.
Usually it was Sam questioning it, but that ended often enough in him getting screwed. Now it's Dean holding up the moral compass, because the others somehow can't anymore.
Season one Dean's world was also a lot more black&white. Remember the Lenore-story, where he ended up realizing that there might be a lot of grey-area in between those two? Before that. Supernatural = evil = should be killed.
But I think, demons are just the weak spot of all of them. The thing where they don't think of right and wrong anymore and only see the evil.

The only thing that lets me excuse Bobby in this episode? He knows what Dean went through in hell. He can't count on having an escape ticket. If he goes to hell, he will break, he will torture who knows how many people. If torturing this one person and this one demon lets him get out of that...

Hijack away! I love this sort of discussion. :)

I was also bothered by Bobby's apparently casual use of torture on the demon, particularly in contrast with last week's issue of Cas torturing the little boy.

I get it, but is it so desperate he's willing to do it eight or nine years ahead of schedule? Before exhausting his other options? I dunno. It just doesn't sit well with me.

Oh, Bobby. :(

Exactly! I mean, it's bad if you're torturing kids, but if the person is possessed suddenly it's okay?

After trying to save Dean, he knows how few options he's got.

Yeah, I hear you. Show has repeatedly demonstrated to the boys that showing mercy gets them killed or worse.

I just wish that, even once, taking the moral high road would end up not screwing them over, because I am really uncomfortable with the message that everyone who's possessed is collateral damage unless it's a Winchester or one of their close friends. :(

I dunno. I certainly hope he didn't realize it, but the grimace as he torched the bones certainly indicates he might have suspected. :(

I really hope they'll address it again later. Bobby had nine more years to figure it out, and what he did was little short of murdering that meatsuit. I am uncomfortable, to say the least.

Sam is the only one who didn't actually make a deal for his soul, though. At least, none that we saw. I'm willing to go with the theory that all/part of his soul is still in hell, or somehow otherwise inaccessible to him. That's one plausible explanation for why he's so off. Not the only one, certainly, but definitely one I'd be interested to see them explore.

Except that Dean only had a year, they didn't know until three weeks before the name of the demon who had his contract, and there was the added threat of Sam dropping dead if Dean tried to renege on his deal. Somehow, this situation doesn't seem to have that many parallels, apart from the obvious.

I'm not saying you're wrong in terms of Bobby's motivations, I'm just disappointed that he was able to rationalize his way into torturing and killing a demon (inside an innocent woman's body) THAT quickly, and with apparently few qualms.

I don't remember Ruby asking him to shoot her. I just remember her daring him to do it and then being annoyed that he ruined her shirt.

Like I was saying to

de_nugis above, though, I am interested to see if the theory of Sam's soul being still in hell/otherwise inaccessible to him pans out.

True, but you'd expect that that would mean that Sam would act in one way and Bobby and Dean (and Aaron and Bela and all the folks in Crossroads Blues) would act differently -- which I think is indeed the case -- but it wouldn't support soulless or partly soulless Bobby as an explanation for the demon torture.

I really don't know whether any of that little encounter with Crowley in Scotland was meant to suggest that Sam had any sort of deal going, but if he did it would have to be an unusual one anyway, since it would have been negotiated within hell. I'd much rather it were soul damage than soul deal, though; I want Sam to be telling the truth when he says he doesn't know how he got out.

No, but then I never thought Bobby's soullessness (is that even a word?) was the explanation for the demon torture. I think his issue and Sam's are completely separate.

Whatever is going on with Sam, it took place in the Cage proper (hence why he's acting so cagey, I guess... har har har), and I'm leaning toward involuntary damage of some kind. I mean, it would remove ALL meaning to his sacrifice if he then did some wheeling-and-dealing in hell to get right back out again. It would cheapen the whole thing, and I do NOT want my beautiful redemption plot to be torpedoed like that after I waited for it for two whole season, dammit!

I like the notion of Sam being so far removed from human emotion that he's kind of approaching it like a logic puzzle. "Honouring your deals is the right thing to do, even if it's with a demon." (Or maybe he just knows what a bad idea it is to renege on a deal with the king of hell)

Way way back when Sam and Dean were looking for John, Bobby got after Dean for knocking Meg around, because there was a real girl in there. I guess he must have forgotten.

Exactly! Back in Season 1, when they all apparently still had consciences. :P

Bobby of ALL people should remember this, since he had to kill his own wife while she was possessed. Feh.

We were speculating over at my LJ last night that especially with his law background Sam in his current state would find contractual and legal models of ethics very appealing, because they are ways of conceptualizing rules of behaviour that he can grasp abstractly when he isn't really getting stuff emotionally, so he can use them as a kind of bridge to the normal, human stuff he's lost the feel for.

But, yes, could also just be that if they'd burned the bones he suspected Crowley would have time to do something nasty to them or Bobby before going up in smoke.

Reeeaaaallllly want damaged!Sam, not skanky!Sam, though there could be some form of dealing that wasn't just bargaining his way out of hell for his own selfish benefit, I guess. We shall see.

Yes. *joins you on the damaged!Sam bandwagon*

I was super unimpressed with the whole hooker thing, especially since the writers decided to go with the whole unappetizing cliché. Blick. I'm only hoping it's because Sam is so freakin' damaged he doesn't know how to forge ordinary human connections anymore. Bah.

GIVE ME BACK MY SAMMY, SHOW!

I hated the hooker thing, too, but it would sort of fit contractual Sam; he doesn't right now see human relationships (except maybe with Dean) as a matter of personal connection, but as an abstract set of negotiations. But it was just unkind of them to give us such negative associations with pull-up!Sam. I feel they sullied some beautiful ideal.

I could be either really, really happy or really, really angry at where they are going with the Sam stuff, depending. But they've sure got me interested.

cordelia_gray did a wonderful soul-damaged Sam meta last week that did much to make me feel better about the hooker scene and canon!Sam in general.

It was like fangirl aversion-therapy!

"Look! Semi-nekkid!Sam!" BZZZZT!!! "BAD FANGIRLS!"

So sad. :(

Also, the cliché guy-is-so-good-the-hooker-won't-make-him-pay thing made me see red.

The contractual thing makes a lot of sense. I just wish they hadn't shoved in the extra skeevy cliché.

I am interested too. I am hopeful that they will do something cool with it and eventually bring back the Sammy I know and love, even if he is a changed by his experiences in the cage.

Cool.

I keep reading the wrong metas/episode reactions, and so I've stopped reading them entirely because the amount of bile being spewed just depresses me. It's like some of the "veteran" fans not only don't like the show anymore, but are determined to find reasons not to like even the parts they enjoyed.

I don't want to be an embittered fan, so I've had to stop reading. Sometimes even when the post itself is positive, the comments are all vitriol. So. :(

I'm anti damaged!sam. Extreme emotional damage takes time to solve! Missing souls, shards of ice in hearts, imply solutions, and thus definite actions to take to solve the problem.

Hm. I think we may have a nomenclature issue. "Damage" to me doesn't necessarily imply emotional trauma (though that can certainly be a factor). It can also be the result of outside influences. I'm hoping for a shard-of-ice type of solution, because frankly after the way Show didn't deal all that well with Dean's PTSD, I have to desire to revisit that particular kind of story arc. Let them do something different with Sam, please.

I just read it, and she and I were apparently on the same wavelength about that entire episode. It's scary in places, actually. ;)

I just hope the writers are on the same wavelength! Or some equally cool one we just haven't thought of yet.

Whether she asked or dared, the permission was given and thus she must have (subconsciously) known it would do her little or no damage. Seriously playing them all from the start.

My wonder is - and this is just fantastical thinking -- if Sam didn't become the cage. If he has Lucifer's (or Michael's) soul in his innards, whether his own has been taken out or hijacked, then why don't demons/angels know? Their communications networks stink.

Oh, that would be cool, but I think you're right: the angels/demons would certainly know. Or at least some of them. Crowley for sure, and since Castiel is all new and improved, I would have thought he'd know too!

Can you imagine if he had BOTH Michael and Lucifer in there? (And maybe Adam for good measure...)

Yes, as I just said somewhere else: "My only problem was that Bobby's burning of the demon's bones seemed to be seriously hurting the meatsuit and at the end of it the meatsuit was well and truly crispy. I hope Bobby made sure there wasn't an innocent girl like Meg still in there, or in his attempt to not be damned he may have damned himself anyway."

Apart from that I loved this and want a spin-off comic of Rufus and Bobby's Grumpy Old Hunter adventures, but Bobby did seem to have lost all sense of proportion in his quest to save his soul. He did have another nine years to do it in! I hope Show isn't suggesting that there are no rules when it's a matter of self-defence (or saving one's soul) because the part of me that did a law degree knows that that's just not true.

When finding out that Crowley was originally a McLeod, did anyone else's mind go to the Highlander franchise?

Me! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

I forgot it in my recap. Oops. :D

Although I'd really like to know how he then acquired a British accent. /o\

Bobby totally lost all sense of proportion there. I really hope Show addresses this at some point.

Although I'd really like to know how he then acquired a British accent. /o\

I'm so hoping that Show didn't just think that we'd accept English = Scottish. Maybe Crowley changed accents because he's a pretentious git? Or maybe it's his meatsuit's accent?

Well, it's Mark Sheppard's real accent, but then why ret-con him into a Scott?

I sincerely hope it's not that Show figured we wouldn't notice...

Not that it makes it any less cliché or any less skeevy, but I think the purpose of that was to show that, I think, the reason Sam threw away her (personal) number was that she had made that offer. (She struck me as a call girl rather than a streetwalker. I'm sure he still had the escort service number and I think he might otherwise have considered hiring her again. Crumpling and tossing the paper was symbolically a blanket rejection.) He was completely unwilling to form a connection or let one form.

I also found it interesting that she gave him her personal number and made that offer only after he stopped her from leaving without her payment. Maybe she was testing him (and would've reminded him at the last second) and didn't want him if he would take an easy opportunity to evade paying her. As for wanting him personally under any circumstances (which I do agree is realistically ludicrous, and offensive), I think it was more his air of mystery that she commented on than his being good in bed or whatever.

Jackie

Maybe Crowley changed accents because he's a pretentious git?
I would bet you anything. It suits everything else about him.

Or maybe it's his meatsuit's accent?
Also entirely plausible.

Jackie

So, I don't know, I may be in the minority here, but for me, SPN has been on a steady decline since season 4. I haven't actually seen this episode you're puzzling about (stopped watching after the premiere), but when I read your questions the one that went through my mind was 'what, you're going to start expecting accountability from this show NOW?!'

But maybe that's just me. *shrug*

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