Meta: The Nature of Death on Supernatural

[hells_half_acre]

The Nature of Death on Supernatural
(AKA: How my former love of the anime Bleach affects my Supernatural world-view)

Yesterday, I was talking to someone in comments on "To Being Half a Person" about S6. They expressed disappointment that God brought Cas back at the end of S5, but (so far) did not bring Gabriel back.

This got me thinking that I should post how *I* understand the way death works on Supernatural. To do so, I'm going to be using screen caps from this anime I used to watch called Bleach. You don't need to know anything about Bleach to understand though....

Basically, in my mind the Supernatural-universe looks like this:

Blue is the living/human souls. 

Brown is the dead/creatures/demons/etc. 

The space within the hourglass is made up of those places over which God has dominion. 

The space outside the hourglass is OUTSIDE God's dominion - It doesn't exist. It is outside the known universe. It is nothing.

When someone is killed by natural means, they are still WITHIN the hourglass. When Sam and Dean were in hell/heaven, they were still in the hourglass. Creatures in purgatory are still in the hourglass. Both times Cas was killed, he was exploded - they've never said where angels go when they are exploded, but it's my opinion that they are STILL IN THE HOURGLASS. 

 

Here, let me write all over this thing for you:

 

It's MY opinion that when something is killed by the Colt, the Knife, or Sam's Mind - they are taken OUT of the hourglass. They are cast into nothingness - they are immediately and irreversibly doomed to confirm the atheist's world-view, because they quite simply cease to be.

 

I believe that angels that are killed with the angel killing swords are also thrown out of the hourglass - they cease to be. God CANNOT bring them back.

 

So, basically you have this:

 

The brown liquid outside of the glass represents those beings that have been destroyed by the Colt, Knife, Angel Killing Sword, or Sam's Mind. God cannot bring those beings back to life. There is now a pocket of air where they once existed inside the hourglass.
 

Only, unlike in Bleach (whence this screencap comes) this does not destroy the world....or at least, not that we've been told so far.

 

But that, my friends, is why I don't believe Gabriel will ever come back....or Ruby, or Azazel, or Zachariah, or Alistair, or Lilith....they are simply gone. 

 

Mind you, the show could still prove me wrong - Supernatural has never liked following it's own rules after all - but I think personally, even though I dearly love Gabriel, I'd be disappointed if they did prove me wrong. In order for death to be a threat SOME death has to still be permanent and irreversible.

 

On a related note: Bleach is a pretty good anime for the first 38 episodes or so...then it falls into the common ongoing-anime trap and gets too convoluted and causes me to lose interest. Uryu Ishida is my favorite character. He is the one that can remove things from the hourglass and thus destroy the world....and he does it with the power of ARCHERY! What's not to love?!

 

But that's just my opinion...

 

Comments

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

Cool idea, with the hourglass.

So, if Dean and Sam behead a vampire or salt and burn a corpse to get rid of the ghost, they end up in Purgatory, but if the Colt was involved, or the knife, the "monster" would be kinda kicked out of the glass?

Huh.

Not sure if I see it the same way, I never put much thought into it - into God (except that I KNOW Chuck wasn't God, just... someone else.) in the SPN-universe.

But I completely agree that they should stick with keeping some people dead. It's cheating to bring them back, and sad as it is, Gabriel is one of them.

I can deal with them coming in form of Alternate Realities or dreams or Heaven (Ash) but that's it. I'm still mad that they resurrected Adam, though I think it could've been due to the fact that they needed base for a 6th season.

So yeah. "What's dead should stay dead" (except for Sam and Dean!)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

So, if Dean and Sam behead a vampire or salt and burn a corpse to get rid of the ghost, they end up in Purgatory, but if the Colt was involved, or the knife, the "monster" would be kinda kicked out of the glass?

Yup!

I like to think that Chuck was a prophet and nothing more. Prophets ascend to heaven when their job is complete - done and done.

But yeah, this is just how *I* see things. You don't have to subscribe to the same theories as me - this is just to let people know the SPN-world-view that informs my opinions/theories on the show.

I didn't mind so much when they brought Adam back, but I kind of wish they would get him out of the cage. Adams HORRIFICALLY tragic fate is so undeserved - he really needs to be pulled out of there somehow and tossed back into heaven. I don't necessarily want to see him again, I just wish Death had been like "Yeah, ok, I'll get Sam out...oh, and I'll toss Adam in heaven while I'm there."

But yeah, seeing dead people in Heaven is fine, and if burning a demons bones sends them to purgatory and doesn't kill them completely, than it's fine if we see Crowley again...but I don't want to see any of the Colt/Knife/Angel-Sword/Sam's-Mind victims coming back.

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

But yeah, this is just how *I* see things. You don't have to subscribe to the same theories as me - this is just to let people know the SPN-world-view that informs my opinions/theories on the show.
Well, I think my comment came out wrong. It's just that I never gave a thought to the universe they live in, and why some people come back and some don't. But reading your idea was very enlightening and even if I'm not sure if I'll adopt that theory, it gives me at least the desire to find one of my own.

I definitely like the thought that "God" is only one of many, just the strongest around right now. I'm a huge Terry Pratchett - fan, and his explanation (I think it's similar to Neil Gaiman?) is that the gods are as strong as the belief their followers have in them. So, some god that's based on some indigenous tribe in South Africa has only limited power in the world, but a lot over those who believe in him, while some god who's worshiped all over the globe has an enormous amount of power, just from the amount of people that follow him. If you will allow the Christian, Jewish and maybe even Muslim God to be one God, then I guess it makes sense that He is right now the greatest force in the universe. BUT - and here I agree - there is too much space out there with non-believing things (like rocks, if you don't believe in aliens) that there HAS to be a limit to his power.

So yeah, I like that analogy.

Oh, Adam... He is a rather tragic figure, and that's one more reason I didn't like him to be resurrected. He was just a puppet for the angels, and he was doomed the minute he crawled out of the grave. He never got to meet Sam and Dean, and he had no choice but to agree to Zacharias ploy. Because really? Who would think angels were such dicks...

I don't know if you remember, but Dean TRIED to get Adam out of there. Not as much as he tried to save Sam, but he asked Death to get him out. Death refused, though, and made Dean choose. Which, if it's ever mentioned again, would've messed Dean up a bit, but I guess since he never knew him, only in the way it'd mess him up if he'd have to leave some other innocent person/soul in there. Maybe God will do something about that? Or is the Cage somewhere outside his power-range?

Huh... Maybe the cage is like an attachment to the hourglass, where God has no dominion? Or not??

Argh, it's so confusing!

Anyway. Yes. Poor Adam.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Well, I think my comment came out wrong.

Oh, your comment was fine, it was probably just me being defensive. Some of the commenters before you, I think, thought that I was saying that the hourglass was HOW IT IS NO ARGUMENTS, instead of just "how I personally see it, yet to be confirmed or denied by the show."

Yeah, a lot of people who watch SPN seem to subscribe to the Gaiman/Pratchett God-view. Personally, I don't think that's the case though...seeing as how the boys have dealt with pagan gods that are still powerful even though no one believes in them anymore. I think a lot of people get confused (and angry - *cough*Hammer of the Gods*cough*) when they try to turn SPN into a purely Gaiman/Pratchett world, rather than a completely separate world that has just been influenced by Gaiman/Pratchett.

My world-view happily avoids that! :P

And yes, I was happy that Dean thought of Adam in that episode...and it makes sense. Something HAD to be done about Sam. If Dean left Sam soulless (because Sam CHOOSE to jump in the pit) SoullessSam would have caused destruction etc everywhere he went and killed more people. So, Dean either had to kill Soulless!Sam or shove Sam's soul back in there. But yeah, he has to feel pretty damn horrible about Adam - so has Sam, for that matter.

Personally, I think the cage is within God's domain. I see Death and God as equals in SPN, and if Death can go to the cage and pull Sam's soul out easy as pie, than God could do the same. So, in that respect, I think that God is an ass for leaving Adam there.

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I wouldn't dream of thinking that. After all, you SAID so in your post.

Well, in my eyes, the gods wouldn't ever lose all their power, even if there are no people left who believe in them. There'd be some residue of might in them, and then there is the possibility of them actually encouraging belief.

But I already noticed that even though we see some resemblance with the Gaiman/Pratchett books (I never get where the man has his 'a'...), Supernatural IS something of its own and it'd never really BE something, just be comparable to it.

I personally liked "Hammer of Gods", BECAUSE it was a salute to Gaiman, as well as Crowley was to both authors. I loved that, but it doesn't mean that Kripke took EVERYTHING from that books.

Well, I think no matter what kind of power god has, Death will still be around when he's long gone. First of all, he said so, and then... if Death is gone? That'd be impossible.
I just wonder... who reaps monsters? Are there special reapers out there??

Ah, God... I think God decided to let humanity run free. Let them choose, let them be un-blemished by Fate and Destiny and well, while he's at it, he decided to give his always-complaining-angels a nudge towards free choices. And now that he nudged them (or kicked), he's keeping out of it, making his angels SEE that humanity isn't weak and pathetic, because obviously they never believed that.

And sadly, some things have to die horribly that way. You can't always control everything, that way, it'd be worse than before.

As for leaving him in the Cage... maybe he got him out already? I dunno. Maybe not, but after all, he resurrected Cas with a snip.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked Hammer of the Gods too - or at least, I wasn't horribly confused like some people seemed to be about how the gods work on SPN. Like you said, it's a tribute, but not a copy. SPN is its own universe.

I don't know who reaps monsters...that's an interesting thought.

Maybe you are right about God. He's left humanity to their own devices - even if that includes sad-times for Adam.

I sort of pictured that as God=Life, and Death=Death. When Death reaps God, there will be no more life, and therefore no more Death...so I never pictured Death as being immortal in SPN either. Whether or not that makes sense, though, I haven't really thought about.