Colour Grading, Insincerity, and Loki is right and Gabriel is wrong; a Lokiel Meta
It’s the big gun, it’s the mother lode of me ripping apart Unfinished Business frame by frame to feed my shipping and laying out all my thoughts on the matter clearly as can be so maybe I can sway some people sitting on the fence or at least give some context to those who see my posts and go “wtf” because they’re not viewing this through the lens of my insanity. Want to know why these guys haunt me? Here;
Credit where credit is due, the one thing I’ve always really liked about supernatural is how they use colour grading to tell the story, and it’s not really all that secretive that the Gabriel episodes look aesthetically like some of the best episodes because they colour them very specifically to set the tone for them;
The three big tells that something trickster is afoot in the episode, (and I apologise for the scuffed quality on some of these, I’m skating the tumblr upload rules).
It tells us that whatever is currently happening typically feels very real to those experiencing it, but is actually not at all. This is make believe. It’s a figment of Gabriel’s imagination that he’s whipped up at his own convenience to tell the story he wishes to impart upon the narrative. While this is obvious in the earlier season when they’re still shooting on film and using the dark overlays to create a spooky ambiance, it still follows through to the end for Gabriel until he puts down the trickster label and picks back up the archangel one and officially joins the Winchesters bringing him into the same dark coloured world that we’re used to viewing. There’s a sadness in it, that Gabriel went from all these bright colours to essentially having his spirit snuffed out by Asmodeus, but it gives us a very clear point to reference when things are real and when they’re make believe.
Obviously Gabriel is a liar, we’ve all known that to be true since his very first appearance- but there’s one incident that I talk about often that bothers me deeply but I’ve never really explained why.
The hotel with the rest of the trickster gang.
Gabriel tells this story three times in a pretty short time span- short enough for Dean to remember and call him out on it in the moment, and every time he tells it the story is altered ever so slightly.
- I was alone with porn stars in Monte Carlo
- I was alone with Loki and Co in Monte Carlo
- I was with porn stars AND Loki n Co in Monte Carlo
He’s always been a very unreliable narrator, but this one was particularly on the nose and when it comes to “continuity errors” Gabriel is always aware of them, he does it on purpose because he wants to get caught. We should ask the question, why did it take you three attempts for us to hear this?
He tells his final iteration of the story in grand bright colours, telling feats of his sexual exploits and how good he is at cards, “and then everyone clapped and cheered for me” and then Loki Judas betrays him because Gabriel is so cool and his brothers are so tough and Loki was scared witless and hoping to avoid bloodshed blah blah blah…
Here’s what the real world looks like in comparison to Gabriel’s little fantasy he’s got running here-
This matches the rest of supernatural, this is a realistic portrayal of events through the eyes of Sam and Dean. This is the bitter reality Gabriel is avoiding with his fantastical little displays; he’s a broken little man who is hurt, injured, and scared.
So, Loki tells another variation of this story, yes? Gabriel was the betrayer here, not Loki. Gabriel ran out recklessly and while passing world saving information to the Winchesters, both saving the world AND the vast majority of Loki’s family, he cannot convince Odin to leave and he dies in battle (and like, he would’ve gone to Valhalla can we just unclench a little?). That is why Loki chooses to damn Gabriel to Hell with a very reckless move to attempt to take down an archangel, sell him to a demon, and then cross his fingers and pray his bestie- the 6th most powerful thing in all of creation ever- doesn’t break free from this pitiful demon eventually and come looking for him. But the environment tells another story, look;
It’s the return of the high vibrancy filter, because this room isn’t real, Loki isn’t real, and neither is the story he’s telling. What are the tricksters, if not liars and showboats?
There’s a huge lack in vulnerability which is what they’re both trying to paint over in these scenes to make themselves cool, to make themselves the victim, to make themselves untouchable. Loki tells a half cocked story about the archangel bastard who took his father, completely detached from any real sort of attachment to Gabriel or Odin- even says himself that he hates Odin! And in a story where we know the ending is Gabriel at the hands of Asmodeus he spends ninety nine percent of the story talking about pornstars. They cannot be vulnerable with these outsiders watching them, they also don’t seem to want to admit to themselves what the crux of the issue is here.
They both want to be the ultimate victim of the situation, they’re painting these half done stories trying to convince an audience (Sam and Dean) that doesn’t care that they are right and the other is wrong—
Until they meet each other;
You can lie to everyone, but you can’t lie to yourself.
We’re back, grounded in reality in this moment when they come face to face with each other, the lighting darkens and becomes gritty once more meaning all facades are down and what’s transpiring here between them is without tricks, and there’s an honor in that when it is a battle between two very clever tricksters who could make this endlessly complicated if they wanted to. When they fight, Gabriel is next to silent (listening, or trauma response? You can decide) and Loki does all his talking for Gabriel and Gabriel alone. They have no one to impress here, they sent the Winchesters on a fools errand to have this moment alone creating a tense intimacy where Loki shreds Gabriel’s facades and calls him out for what he truly is and lays out his deep rooted fears and secrets bare, letting us as the outside party they’re unaware of know that what the two of them were here wasn’t some ordinary friendship or half cocked deal out of desperation, but a real and honest bond between two beings terrified, alone, and looking for safety and someone to confide in. They’re each others secret keepers. Long time confidants. Their most trusted. The reason both of them ran to begin with, in a plan that would involve them wrapping themselves so tightly around the other they’d become one in all ways but physical, and promise to keep each other and that secret until death do them part.
It is bloody, and messy, and Loki has no real way of winning this fight because he cannot hurt Gabriel in any way that matters because he’s an archangel and whether he takes damage or not he will live because of the way he was made, only one of them is killable here and only one of them has any intention of killing the other and it’s not Loki. It’s never been Loki. Ever faithful Loki.
They made a vow, and maybe it was childish and unrealistic but that’s what the two of them are by nature are they not? Fickle, childish, and endlessly devoted. To their families, to their lovers, to their fathers, to each other.
Loki should run at this point, if he has any intention of wanting to live. He’s not stupid, he knows Gabriel better than anyone else in the world and Gabriel acknowledges this by how hurt he is emotionally by the way Loki talks about him and the secrets they’ve passed over the thousands of years they’ve known one another. He’s smart enough to know sentiment won’t save him here, it didn’t save his sons, Sleipnir tried that already and it failed spectacularly. Gabriel is here to kill him, and when you take into consideration the wild power imbalance here in this battle what Loki is doing is essentially laying his head down on the chopping block for Gabriel. He’s a smart creature to survive this long, he could be gone if he really wanted to be just like the many times we watched Gabriel disappear.
To me, the crux of their story here is abandonment. You left me. Gabriel made the choice to break his vows, and chase after a family he left behind and even though YES it was for a noble reason that is still nothing when it was a personal stab in the back to Loki who also left his family behind to run away with Gabriel and didn’t go for Odin even though the call was put out to Loki to join the gods for the evening.
Loki didn’t go for his family, but Gabriel did.
Loki didn’t go to save his father in an event they were both invited to, Loki had the opportunity to go and save Odin and he chose his bond to Gabriel over saving him. Gabriel discarded his vow and went anyway, and Odin died.
Gabriel betrays Loki, and it’s not that Odin died, it’s that Loki was willing to sacrifice the opportunity to save him and Gabriel couldn’t say the same for his own family. Odin died for nothing, when Loki could’ve been there the whole time to come get him, and he was robbed of that opportunity while Gabriel went behind his back to do exactly that for his family.
Loki was faithful to his own detriment, and Gabriel was not.
Gabriel is punished fairly in Loki’s eyes because this isn’t just about some deadbeat dad (who chained Loki in a cave to torture him). This is a slight of a much more intimate nature. This was a betrayal of the worst kind.
Everyone knows that Asmodeus is the demon Prince of lust, but in a little more detail that’s not entirely what makes him up. The cardinal sins are the worst because they are what you inflict upon others, an upon your very soul. Lust is something inherent to the condition of just being alive, but the sin is in the act of hurting others and yourself, so the vast majority of what Asmodeus is imagined ruling over is the adulterer, he is most often the one depicted punishing the unfaithful. Loki wasn’t just looking for a way to hurt Gabriel for the sake of inflicting pain, the trickster is never like that. The trickster doesn’t strike just to maim. Loki is sending a very explicit message to Gabriel by giving him to Asmodeus of all people;
— Okay, maybe it’s wrong to say that Loki had every right to do what he did because it was definitely still A LOT to do to someone, but it’s far more understandable when the emotional weight of Gabriel’s crime is made clearer. You probably shouldn’t torture anyone ever for any reason— I’m avidly anti-torture— but dick move Gabriel…
And look, yeah they both sleep around and invite porn stars and hookers to the hotel rooms and what not and I certainly will not hang my ‘Gabriel is a bad person here’ hat on the human morality of monogamy because I think it’s shallow and a disservice to the kind of bond the two of them actually have, but there’s an extra added pain in it that Gabriel also turns up for his ex girlfriend in this situation who is willing to betray him for basically a can of pop but not for Loki who will let Odin die to protect Gabriel.
Gabriel comes back, and he offers no apologies because he isn’t capable of learning his lesson, he is selfish by nature (Also the inherent message of the nature of Hell and torture being one that is wholly unnecessary and cruel, punishment never breeds change internal or societal, you can’t change and reform under immense duress it just further traumatises and keeps you locked in the cycle, the system of Hell shouldn’t exist period). Instead, Gabriel comes to kill Loki’s boys so he can watch them struggle and die first before Gabriel delivers the final blow to the man himself. Would you want to live after all of that either, entirely alone without your family or the one who loved and understood you the most- or so you thought?
And could Gabriel live with it either, knowing the punishment didn’t fit the crime but that Loki had a point (see script) and he wasn’t innocent either and it’s cost him everything because now he gets to look at what it was he saved and it’s a brother who seeks him out in the dark just to torment him about his abuse?
And the story ends circular here, devastating me personally even further by twisting the knife.
Gabriel ran away because his family was so horribly broken, and Loki took off with him to escape his torture. Together they made the plan to become one and Gabriel could use Loki’s face and name to hide among the pagans, and his archangel might to take all the hits being thrown Loki’s way and keep him hidden, because no one’s going to fuck with the god who has the freaky new upgrade and just escaped the slammer. Slowly over time what was Gabriel and what was Loki had melded into two very similar personalities, a little different based on their life experiences, but still so the same they were indistinguishable to everyone but each other.
The core difference between them is their life experiences.
Until Gabriel comes back, tail between his knees and asks Loki to please take him back and let him resume playing the ‘Loki’ character, and Loki says sure, and he binds him and and subjects him to torture at the hands of Gabriel’s very own snake in the cave. Mouth stitched shut. “Be me, then,” He says. “Be me in my entirety.”
And Gabriel comes back after this, bitter and angry and he picks up a weapon and he starts knocking Loki’s family down piece by piece, stalking them through the night no matter how far they run, to make sure Loki’s family is as broken as his own before he delivers the final blow to end his life.
Loki’s family as shattered as Gabriel’s, Gabriel as shattered as Loki himself. Fully one in death.
