Castiel, Anna, and Dean in Season 4: Part One
Here we go! My very first meta. This will be a 3 part series looking into the relationships between Cas and Anna, Dean and Anna, and how the two relationships parallel each other during Supernatural season 4. Quick thanks to @agusvedder for helping me with the single gif in this post, both creating it and also walking my helpless self through saving it. Also thanks to @theirprofoundbond for all the motivation and kind words of encouragement! All quotes are from the Supernatural wiki transcripts. I would love to get some feedback on this, so feel free to send me a message and let me know what you think!
The first hint we get at a previous relationship between Anna and Castiel is almost entirely visual. In 4x10 “Heaven and Hell” Anna and Dean kiss when the angels have come for her, right before the demons show up. A lot of people view this kiss as Castiel’s underlying feelings for Dean coming out in a look of jealousy of Anna for kissing Dean goodbye, essentially showing Castiel that they have since established a physical relationship. I don’t necessarily disagree with this reading, but I propose a different reading as well.
I do think that Cas’s budding feelings for Dean are at play here, I really do. But more than that, I think it’s indicative of a previous relationship between Anna and Cas. Yes there is a jealous undertone in Castiel’s look. But I think it’s more jealousy of Dean getting to kiss Anna than the other way around. At this point in the narrative, we are dealing with a freshly reprogrammed Castiel. There is a marked difference in his actions regarding Dean and company. His feelings and doubts have been temporarily squashed due to what we can assume from the narrative as a whole as Naomi’s doing. This is not the same angel as we saw last in 4x07, baring his proverbial soul to Dean on the park benches. This is Good Little Soldier Castiel.
Castiel’s reaction to the kiss reads as jealousy and confusion. I believe it is jealousy of Dean getting to say a proper farewell to Anna. Some confusion as well because subconsciously he is also jealous of Anna getting to kiss Dean at all. I believe his blossoming feelings for Dean are still there, just buried too deep for him to realize it. However, reading this nearly famous Destiel scene only really makes sense in this context in later episodes, after seeing more evidence of a previous Castiel/Anna relationship.
The very next scene we get plays out as follows:
CASTIEL: I’m sorry.
ANNA: No. You’re not. Not really. You don’t know the feeling.
CASTIEL: Still, we have a history. It’s just –
ANNA: Orders are orders. I know. Just make it quick.
At this point, we already know that Anna was previously Castiel’s superior officer. The textual reading of this scene is that commanding officer and subordinate relationship is the history Castiel is referring to. If you look at it through a different lens, Cas “served under her” in a different way entirely. I know its established that Anna is a virgin, but I don’t think that a lack of a sexual relationship can discredit a romantic undertone to their “history”. Now we all know Uriel is a scumbag, but he served under Anna all the same. So why is Cas given the spotlight during this scene? At this point, he isn’t a major character. He’s only had a bit more screen time than Uriel. I think this is to give the audience a feeling of Cas and Anna having a more invested relationship with the each other than she had with Uriel before she fell.
Another point to draw from this scene is Anna saying Cas doesn’t know the feeling. She has been gone from Heaven for just over 20 years at this point. SO even though we know Castiel has been experiencing emotions and doubts, Anna has no way of being privy to that information, assuming him to still be a Good Little Soldier. I’ll come back to this later.
NOW. Let’s jump forward a few episodes. In 4x16 “On the Head of a Pin” Anna and Castiel have a conversation alone, when Dean is preparing to torture Alastair for information on who has been killing angels. And there’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start with when she first shows up.
CASTIEL: You shouldn’t be here. We still have orders to kill you.
ANNA: Somehow I don’t think you’ll try. Where’s Uriel?
We have to ask ourselves WHY doesn’t she think he’ll try? The last interaction between the two of them makes it clear that she still thinks Cas is Heaven’s hammer, “Orders are orders, I know.” The viewer gets the benefit of being able to piggy back onto the previous conversation Cas and Dean had, where Cas confesses to Dean his superiors believed him to be experiencing emotions, the “doorway to doubts”. But last time we see Anna and Cas interact, we see that she doesn’t believe he can feel. So what can we draw from that? It has been established that they have history, which we all believe to be them working together. BUT would just working together cause Cas to disobey an order from Heaven? No. If anything, it would make it EASIER for him to follow through on the orders he was given to kill her, since she knows he has no choice but to comply. She had already made Cas aware that she knows he has no choice but to do Heaven’s bidding. This change in her, originally KNOWING Cas had no choice but to follow orders to now, where she doesn’t think he’ll even try begs the question, WHAT’S DIFFERENT? Cas had an audience. He had Uriel there, who would no doubt follow through if Cas couldn’t. Who would sell him out to his superiors if he couldn’t kill her or tried to let her go free. This is only further proven by her follow up question, inquiring Uriel’s whereabouts.
Cas follows almost all his orders from Heaven, the only ones he disobeys or, at the least, disagrees with that we have seen thus far is when it involves Dean, someone he has a profound bond with. SO what if he has a different type of profound bond with Anna? Something a little less profound obviously, but a significant relationship all the same. Throughout the show, we only ever see Cas betraying Heaven for those he loves and cares for. His intentions are always pure, albeit overwhelmingly misguided. It can be argued that she is his sister, but I don’t think that really cuts it. I think in just this one scene, it could be viewed that way, but when you look at this show as a whole, it just isn’t enough.
After Anna brings up to Castiel that it might not be God calling the shots anymore we have this:
ANNA: The father you love. You think he wants this? You think he’d ask this of you? You think this is righteous?
CASTIEL can’t meet her eyes.
ANNA: What you’re feeling? It’s called doubt.
This is really only notable because of how much more qualified Anna is to make this observation than basically anyone because she herself has felt that. It is also her first acknowledgment that Castiel is beginning to feel things. It continues with this:
ANNA touches CASTIEL’s hand.
ANNA: These orders are wrong and you know it. But you can do the right thing. You’re afraid, Cas. I was too. But together, we can still-”
CASTIEL: Together?
CASTIEL yanks his hand away.
CASTIEL: I am nothing like you. You fell. Go.
ANNA: Cas.
CASTIEL: Go.
First of all, I will fight you if you think that hand touch is platonic. No way. Don’t believe you. Beyond that though, this whole exchange screams lovers’ quarrel to me. “You’re afraid, Cas” is Anna further acknowledging Castiel’s burgeoning feelings. “I was too” is calling back to her falling. She was scared to make the decision to rebel. The ultimate end to their relationship was Anna choosing to fall. Castiel pulls his hand away when she says “together” and that is the part he repeats and gets hung up on. He reacts as if her suggesting they do something together is almost a betrayal. Perhaps because the last time she suggested they do something together (like fall?) she didn’t wait for him. She did it on her own. He gets hung up on her word choice because he can’t believe they could do anything together again. This reading of the scene is furthered when we take into account what Anna says before Cas cuts her off. “We can still.” The writers allowing the word “still” to be said is IMPORTANT. If she had just said “we can”, the viewer can read into that a new beginning. Together, we can rebel. Together, we can change Heaven. BUT that “still”. That implies a conversation had countless times before. We can still do what we had planned to do. You can still what, Anna? Still fall together? Still rebel together? Still follow the plan you two had set up before you fell without him?
Now, Cas’s verbal response is just as important. “I am nothing like you. You fell.” speaks to their differences being that she took action, not that he doesn’t feel that way too. At this point, it has already been established that he DOES feel the same way as she does and did. And honestly, up until the “together, we can still” it seemed like she was gaining ground with our favorite angel. It was that reminder that there is no longer a “together” for them, the reminder that they can pick up where they left off, that she lost him. The reminder of their history is where their differences lie. They are just alike in their beliefs. Cas is nothing like her in the sense that he didn’t fall. That he didn’t do anything about how he feels/felt. The whole scene reads like a generically written past lovers fight where one person says “you left, not me” or “you changed, not me”, but in the context of the show we get “you fell, not me.”
Flash forward a couple of scenes. Cas has just learned that it is URIEL that is killing the angels. What an asshole, amirite? After learning this world shattering news, Cas calls for Anna.
CASTIEL: Anna. Anna, please.
The streetlight above CASTIEL flickers. He looks up, then turns around.
ANNA: Decided to kill me after all?
CASTIEL; I’m alone.
ANNA: What do you want from me, Castiel?
CASTIEL: I’m considering disobedience.
ANNA nods.
ANNA: Good.
CASTIEL: No, it isn’t. For the first time, I feel…
ANNA: It gets worse. Choosing your own course of action is confusing, terrifying.
ANNA puts her hand on CASTIEL’s shoulder. He looks at it; she drops it.
ANNA: That’s right. You’re too good for my help. I’m just trash. A walking blasphemy.
ANNA turns to walk away.
CASTIEL: Anna.
ANNA stops.
CASTIEL: I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what to do.
ANNA turns back.
ANNA: Like the old days? No. I’m sorry. It’s time to think for yourself.
ANNA vanishes.
Now, I will be calling back to this scene in regards to the relationship Dean and Cas have, since this scene follows Sam and Cas talking at the hospital while Dean is injured. (Spoiler alert: the disobedience Cas is considering is to save Dean, big surprise, yeah?) But, its also important in regards to the Cas/Anna relationship as well. Cas calls for Anna because he knows she has felt all this before. He knows that if anyone can give him direction, its going to be someone that has experienced it all before. But once again, she tries to establish physical connection with him, and Cas is wholeheartedly NOT about it. The scenes from this episode between the two of them SCREAM old girlfriend trying to get back with her ex boy to me. As someone previously involved in a lengthy on again/off again relationship, maybe I’m reading too much of my own experiences into it, but I just really don’t think so. This is a bit too on the nose for that. Even Anna’s response feels like that to me. “I’m just trash. A walking blasphemy.” It’s her saying, oh I see, I forgot, you’re too good for me. Using self-deprecation to try and score some pity points. I see you, girl. I see what you’re trying to do. Cas steers the conversation back to what he originally called on her for, direction in regards to his feelings.
And Anna, little red-headed fire pistol that she is, fires back with some sass. “Like the old days? No. I’m sorry. It’s time to think for yourself.” Now, textually, we can view this as her referring to when she was his superior. But with all this evidence of a previous relationship, and the implications of their conversation when Dean was torturing Alastair (“we can still”) gives the subtextual reading of the “old days” referring to when they had likely begun talking/planning of rebelling and falling together.
Now if we view Anna as a past relationship of Castiel’s, it makes all of season 4 way more Destiel centered. Perpetuating the idea the Destiel was always intended. Granted, Castiel was only originally going to be in a handful of episodes. I think 3 tends to be what I’ve heard the most. Now if that’s the case, we can make the assumption that episode 7 was not originally going to have Cas, and neither was episode 10 or 11. Which makes the argument even more compelling, since, as you will see in the third installment, Anna and Dean’s relationship is basically Destiel up until that point smashed down in to a 2 episode arc. Stay tuned, kids!
Part 2 is now available here!
I have a suspicion that Cas and Anna worked together in their suspicions about heaven and doubts about their orders in the past millennia. Maybe it was even Cas who originally forced her out of her narrative to face the problems in heaven.
We know from Naomi that Cas has been brainwashed and his memories wiped repeatedly through the millennia. He might have been forced to forget Anna, with whom he planned to do something to help their brothers and sisters… but Naomi got to him first, wiped his brain, leaving her alone in the cold, distanced by her former ally.
“Feels like I’ve been on the run forever”
Ok but can we talk about how later in the same episode that Cas says this , Naomi tells Cas that he’s been rebelling against heaven and being tortured & brainwashed back into place for billions of years .
He really has been on the run forever .
Even though he doesn’t remember his past as “the spanner in the works” , it’s still engrained in his psyche and I think he still feels it . He must be so tired ...
Right?! He’s been rebelling against heaven’s agenda for him for millennia, rebelling against heaven’s actions, and each time gets brainwashed back to step zero, no memory of what caused him to question the narrative or that he had.
But they had to be watching him as a potential liability, the intelligence office and archangels. They had to see that he was a wild card in a heaven where that was simply not to be tolerated. So they sent him to Hell to grab a damned soul, and shockingly he not only lived, but he met the man who would take him away from heaven the next time he rebelled, giving Cas, finally, the knowledge of his own mind and memory. And the freedom to act without your mind being overtaken.
I know that canonically every angel who supported Raphael in the S6 angelic civil war was killed by Godstiel, leaving only those who backed Cas and free will to show up in the later seasons. Except it’s really, really hard to believe that all the later season angels backed Cas.
Naomi and the other intelligence angels are the most obvious. I’ve seen people headcanon and theorize some compelling ways they could have fleshed out the story and Naomi could take Cas’s side, but I feel like the S6/S8 we actually get just don’t work. Naomi hates him too much and Cas doesn’t know her enough. And Naomi is hardly the only one. Ishim and his flight, for example, have obvious history with Cas but zero vibes to suggest they supported him in a rebellion a few years back. Nor do nearly as many angels treat Cas like he betrayed them personally as you would expect if all of (surviving) Heaven followed him once and blame him for leading them to ruin.
I figure that there must have been more factions in the first angelic civil war than we were made aware of. Different rebellious groups with different reasons for not wanting the apocalypse back on. Maybe even different factions who wanted to complete God’s plan but fought over how? Perhaps Naomi saw a chance to oust the archangels from power once and for all? Godstiel would have only killed the Raphael faction (because that’s who he was mad at pre-altered-state).
My thought on the completely shallow, random reactions the angels have with each other is that they’ve been brainwashed by Naomi’s group on Michael’s orders for millennia. Memories erased. False memories implanted. Relationships re-written.
The angels became a mass of beings who should have known one another very well, deeply, with rich histories. None of them have that. It was all… wiped away to keep them pliant.
Kind of wild that Chuck doesn’t see himself as evil, and he wouldn’t see himself as good either. Which is super interesting because of season 11 where we learned it was: Chuck — good, Amara — evil. Really, they were adversaries. Maybe that turns it into a moral dilemma for the story, for drama, and it certainly does for a human. But for a cosmic entity? Hell, he just didn’t want his toys smashed up. And even in the last season, he’s the big bad. He’s always been the big bad. And maybe part of him knows that or he’s playing along because even in season 4 he claimed he was “a cruel, and capricious god.” But what are those standards to him? He creates. He destroys. He makes everything (almost everything, Jack and the Empty are definitely wild cards) the way he wants it. If he wants something to be seen as immoral. Bam, he’ll create it. Morals? He’ll create those to. But to be able to understand both sides of the coin, and frankly, the coin as a whole, he would technically have to be neutral. And not just neutral but just existing. God’s not the villain in his own story. He’s not the hero in his own story. He’s just the guy enjoying his own creativity.
That follows as long as the characters Chuck creates in his stories follow their scripts, allowing the action of the world to play out as designed by the creator of the world.
What we find out about Castiel from Naomi, however, changes that. It’s no longer an author with carte Blanche to write any kind of horrible little story, because, as we learn from Naomi, at least one character Chuck wrote into existence— Castiel— keeps deviating from the script. He’s rejecting the narrative presented to him and seeking out reality, choice, morality, relationships.
At the point where you create characters who sometimes spontaneously evolve into real people, the world and characters you created are no longer just yours to play with as you like. You created the kind of sentient life that is capable of authoring their own life.
Basically God created true life in Castiel, not just the acting out of it. So he created another entity on par with himself and Amara in that they write their own stories.
SPN should have done more with Dean rewriting his memory after Purgatory. Bits and pieces of his childhood (especially his relationship with John)? Rewritten. Memories of Hell? Rewritten. After Bobby was shot, Sam should have said something about him being dead, and Dean should have said "what the hell are you talking about, man?" Maybe he rewrote his memory of Emma being his daughter. Or maybe he rewrote his history with Lee. This man has so much trauma, and he's so good at repression, it only makes sense his brain's default setting is dissasociative amnesia and impaired memories.
Love this idea. Especially the Dean/Cas parallel after we learn he spent millennia having his mind wiped and history rewritten by Naomi.
Memory turned out to be a huge plot point in this series, what various characters remember, what they don’t, and why.
god i love season 4 cas. like that guy was so insane. he meets dean and then just 8 episodes later he’s already admitting out loud that he is feeling things and considering disobedience. all it took was one season for him to rebel from heaven. he really was shattered at the altar of a winchester right from the start wasn’t he??
I thought it made very little sense until seasons later when Naomi revealed she’d been wiping Castiel’s memories and brainwashing him back into the angel status quo for millennia. Dean wasn’t the cause of Castiel’s rebellion— he was an ally to him during his latest rebellion, allowing Cas to finally flee heaven mentally intact instead of taken prisoner to be reset yet again.
Cas was a known spanner in the works, according to Naomi, but allying with Dean gave him resources and purpose, plus an escape hatch and place of respite.
From the tv tropes forum for Supernatural
I’d interested in a spin-off looking back at all the angel brainwashing that was going on through the millennia, all the angels who rebelled, the corruption of heaven. I want to know what caused Cas’s initial rebellions. Wonder if it’s why he was sent into Hell for Dean originally instead of Michael— in the hopes the defective angel would die following orders.
Or a Wayward Sisters spinoff was a solid idea.
Ok so today I was on the bus with another trans guy and we were talking about how hard it is to get testosterone. The waiting lists, the price, all the doctors you have to go to, that kind of stuff. Except, we were calling it ’T’, like you do when you’re both closeted and in public.
Then suddenly the elderly lady sitting behind us was like ‘young men, either I’m going crazy or you both have never heard of supermarkets, they have shelves full of tea there! Do you need directions to one?’
To which my buddy starts to explain, because why not. ‘Well you see, we’re both trans, and… ’
The lady didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. ‘Oh no, I don’t mind that at all! Now do you want to know how to get to a place that sells tea? I’m actually heading there right now!’
We let her take us to the supermarket. We let her show us, excitedly, where the tea was. We both bought loads.
This is beautiful
Franz Wright “Baptism” (via awake-osleeper)
Franz Wright, “East Boston, 1996” (via factorypoems-blog)
Franz Wright (‘The Balance’, Wheeling Motel)
from “Wheeling Motel” by Franz Wright (via ueou)
from: “Alcohol” by Franz Wright (via learningfromthehands-blog)
Franz Wright (via mythologyofblue)