Timeline Fun: 8x18 and 8x19

[hells_half_acre]

I decided to timeline the previous two episodes of SPN this evening... and while I don't actually have any dates for them, I did discover some interesting information. And I thought, hey, might as well share now while it's still topical instead of waiting until the seasons over. (Plus, it's hiatus, and I miss chatting with your guys whenever there's a hiatus.)

Facts!

1. In 8x18 (Freaks and Geeks), when Dean and Sam tell us that they met Victor "years ago" in Spokane, WA, on a rugaru hunt - they are really telling us that they met Victor AFTER September 2008, because they did not know what a rugaru was until episode 4x04. (This is where it REALLY helps to know the "Knowledge Timeline" of the Winchesters and not just the temporal timeline, which the writers are always f*cking with anyway.)

2. Also in 8x18, Krissy informs us that Josephine and Aidan were of great help after her father was killed, just after Josephine has told us that her family was killed "3 months ago"... which means that Lee Chambers was killed 3 months ago OR LESS. Now, I don't actually know when this episode takes place, but odds are it's around late march sometime, which means Lee Chambers would have been killed in December or Early January. Merry Christmas, Krissy.

3, 8x19 (Taxi Driver), takes place largely in Missouri - however, Dean has to travel to Maine at one point, which is approx. a 25 hour drive. If we DON'T assume that the Impala has magical powers, that means that Sam and Bobby spend approx. 48 hours in Purgatory AFTER their scheduled meeting with the reaper. Some of those hours (probably around 12, would be my guess) are spent before Benny even shows up.

4. Another interesting 8x19 Sam fact - if we take the sequence of scenes as a chronology, then it took Sam ~7 hours to find the rabbit hole between Purgatory and Hell. If we assume it would also take him 7 hours to get back tot he meeting point, that means that Sam spent 10 hours in Hell, both looking for and then escaping with Bobby.

5. By the end of 8x19 (assuming Sam and Dean didn't stop to sleep on their way back from Maine), Dean hasn't slept for 72 hours (assuming he doesn't sleep while he waits for Benny to show up), and, if Sam didn't sleep in the car, then he would have been awake for 108 hours (I'm assuming, though, that after 84 hours of no sleep, 72 of which were spent in Purgatory/Hell, Sam probably slept the whole way back to Garth's boat after he and Dean had that little chat about Benny. That being said, maybe one doesn't get tired in Purgatory or Hell).

Now, of course, take all the Purgatory/Hell time reasoning with a grain of salt.  I'm measuring them here based on how much time is passing on earth - we don't actually know how time/space works in these locations; they seem to be fluid things that can change at whim.

Comments

[risenshine22.livejournal.com]

thank you for putting this together! interesting stuff!

btw, got a reply back from the Supernatural art department yesterday - they thanked me for the flower calendar I've sent them around Christmas last year. It was one for 2013 with a note stating, that SPN messed up the timeline again - and that we're back to 2013 ;)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Haha, well, at least you let them know that these things don't go unnoticed. ;)

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this is another "let' just pretend the Cage year and the Purgatory year didn't happen because we forgot" or if they could be actually explaining why it's 2013. Probably just poor continuity.

[risenshine22.livejournal.com]

I think they just ignored the year in hell and purgatory when it comes to dates in the current season. It's easier for them - plus they could insert puns about politicians or celebrities or refer to things happening right now!

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

I love you for figuring this all out!

And I bet you put way more thought into it than the show did :P But now we can all write fics to fill in the hours not shown on screen!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ha, can't say I disagree with you. :P

But that's why I do this - to find all the space that delicious canon-based fics can fit!

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

i think at some point show needs to deal with the boys' amphetamine use that powers those long no sleep/driving periods!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yet, they probably never will. :P

Or, we could guess that they took turns driving back! And maybe Dean slept while he waited for Benny to show up... I hadn't thought about that. Maybe he was only awake for 36-48 hours, because you know, that makes such a difference.

I think the longest I've ever been awake is around 24 hours straight, and yeah, at that point, I'm just walking back and forth muttering to myself and hoping I don't fall over. Mind you, I seem to require more sleep than the average bear.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

I have been awake for 30/36 hours a few times but that involved a shit-ton of pharmaceuticals!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I don't even drink coffee - so 24 hours is an amazing feat for me. :P

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

these days i am lucky to stay awake for 12 hours even with coffee!

[yalumesse]

Let's just hope for Sam's sake that time there isn't so fluid that he was back to spending months or years down there for every hour up here!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

No kidding!

I'm thinking though that "Hell time" is one the whim of the torturer. So, Dean was there for longer because they needed him to break before that much time had passed on earth. In which case, we don't really know how long Sam felt that he was in the cage, since, Lucifer and Michael would have controlled what time felt like in there.

[yalumesse]

Sam was probably in there for centuries :( Or, maybe Michael and Lucifer were too busy screaming at each other to notice the mortals who were in there with them. I hope so for Sam's sake (and Adam's! Everyone always forgets about Adam).

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I like to believe that Adam was kept somewhat protected (and still is) by Michael, and Michael's belief that he is on the side of good. Sam, he would have wanted to punish for rebelling, but Adam, as far as we know, was a good vessel.

[bard2003.livejournal.com]

my "recored" was 78-80 hours on 4 hours of sleep in the middle somewhere. and i was at work all this time! but, and it`s a big one... i was 20 then. now 28 hours with lots of coffie and sleep for 12 hours after. :(

also, dean never slept in purgatory or ate. may be it`s something that doesn`t need to be done there?

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

I remember that, so I'm guessing the Purgatory hours don't count for Sam, maybe the Hell hours don't either. It is a realm for spirits, so the rules for bodies can be different from earth. I'm guessing Sam didn't need to eat once he he Hell either, because I would be very leery of eating ANYTHING I found in Hell. That would explain why Sam's first words after releasing Bobby weren't food, water.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they probably didn't count. In which case, let's hope that Sam did some of the driving on the way back from Maine. ;)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Indeed. So, for Sam, he probably just felt like he had been awake for ~12 hours only the whole time he was there.

Also, YIKES! on your recorded time without sleep. I had a friend who went without sleep for 3 days once while we were traveling. He was hallucinating by the end of it (though still in good spirits). Of course, we found out later that he was schizophrenic, so that probably didn't help. :P

[bard2003.livejournal.com]

no, i am not schizophrenic. i am just insomniac. ;)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Haha, I wasn't suggesting that you were. My friend wasn't awake for 3 days because of the schizophrenia, I was just thinking that it probably contributed to the ensuing hallucinations a little bit. :P

[4422shini.livejournal.com]

omg i love you. so awesome.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

[sandymg.livejournal.com]

This is awesome as ever. You always bring a huge smile on my face with these. The bit about 'knowledge continuity' -- I wouldn't give the writer's all the much credit for that. But it's a great way to date things. To be fair, their better writers get the important things like emotional scenes and suspense sequences right.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of knowledge to keep track of, in all fairness. I was just noting that there are various methods I use to timeline and few of them actually involve dates. :P I think that for the most part, the writers do a really good job with continuity, especially with a show that's been running so long - not to mention that I don't think they have any writers anymore than have been there since S1, they've all come in late to the game and had to catch up.

Glad you enjoyed it!