Supernatural: Houses of the Holy
Feb. 7th, 2007 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficWell, I promised I'd do a thinky post on "Houses of the Holy," so here ya go. Caveat lector: it's hard to talk about religion in a show without talking about, you know, religion, so be forewarned.
Last week I put up a poll asking when people thought Sam started praying. I was surprised to see that almost everyone picked when he was a kid. On rewatching the episode, I noticed that Sam actually says he's been praying for a "long time," so that's probably right.
I just have a hard time thinking of Sam praying at Stanford. Leaving for Stanford was an act of defiance for Sam—he's turning his back on his upbringing, in essence denying John's worldview. So is he prayering for God to protect his brother and his father? If he is, he's acknowledging daily that he has put them at risk by leaving. But if he isn't – then he's ignoring the very real danger that they're in. I just don't see him doing normal white-washed Protestant prayers knowing what he knows. I've always pictured him at Stanford as trying (perhaps not succesfully) to just not think about the life he left behind. But if he's praying he'd be actively confronting it every day.
The reason why I voted for the last option – he started praying when Dean told him the secret (which I realize does not actually work with what we know) – is just because it's the most interesting to me. People pray for a lot of reasons. If Sam only started praying then, it would mean he turned to God only when he was absolutely desperate. He'd be treating God like a wind-up doll (to steal Ian Anderson's metaphor). He needs something, so he prays for it. If he really has been praying for most of his life (in secret, which is just fascinating to me) then it probably comes more from faith than any immediate desires.
Dean, Dean, Dean. Dean, your worldview is completely inconsistent. I hope you know that.
Two things surprised me about Dean in this episode. The first is when he's talking to the priest and the priest quotes Luke at him. Dean looks completely baffled. The passage the priest is quoting is not an obscure one – it's from the nativity, when the angel appears to the shepherds. (Interesting that the next line of the passage that the priest didn't quote was "and the angel said unto them, 'Fear not.'") This bible passage is in Handel's Messiah. It's read at every Lessons and Carols service, and on every Christmas Eve. I hope I'm not making too many assumptions here, but I would think that even a Christian who just goes to church on Christmas and Easter would recognize this. The fact that Dean doesn't is telling. Dean fights demons—you would think that a working knowledge of the Bible would be one of the tools of the trade. So I'm forced to conclude that Dean has deliberately not read the Bible, even though it would be useful to him.
Which brings me to Dean's atheism. If you've watched the movie Constantine, you know that it's completely possible for a character to face concrete proof in God and the devil and still not have faith. Constantine's viewpoint is that God exists, but he's just "a kid with an antfarm." This is what I expected Dean's view on religion to be. But it's not.
Dean very clearly says that he doesn't believe in a higher power; he believes what they encounter is random acts of evil. If he were just facing spirits and wendigos and creatures like that, I could believe him. All of those things come out of the evil in human nature. You just need to believe in something beyond the laws of science to believe in those, you don't have to believe in a higher power.
But Dean's faced demons (what Dean calls pure manifestations of evil). He's even talked to a demon about hell, and nothing in that scene in "Crossroad Blues" implied to me that Dean didn't believe in hell. So Dean believes in manifestations of evil and in hell, but he doesn't believe in heaven or manifestations of good? Doesn't one imply the other? If demons flinch at the name of God, doesn't that imply that there is a God? It's like Dean believes in magnetic monopoles.
The fact that Dean says he believes in only what he experiences and his experiences clearly imply the existence of a God (of some sort) but Dean still refuses to believe in it—that I can only chalk up to cognitive dissonance. I think Dean's reasoning goes like this: If God exists, then God's will is at work in the world. If God's will is at work in the world, then God can save people. If anyone deserved to be saved, it was Dean's mother. Since she wasn't saved, God's will is not at work, so there is no God. Period.
This means that Dean tentatively accepting that he might have witnessed the will of God (and how much did I love that he phrased it that way instead of saying it was a miracle) means he has to accept that what happened to his mother and to his family was also the will of God.
Both Sam and Dean say in this episode that all they see is evil. What surprises me about this is that they are discounting their own actions. Dean in particular doesn't believe in good because he's never seen it—even though he fights the good fight. Van Helsing was an execrable movie, but it did have one good idea—that Van Helsing was a soldier of God, even though he didn't know that's what he was. I like this idea for Dean. He is a soldier for good though he struggles with it every day. Back in "Faith," the faith healer says that God directed him to save Dean; maybe this is true. Maybe some part of Dean believes that if what he were doing was God's will it would be easy and that's why he won't see himself as a force for good. But if you listen closely in this episode, what does the woman he saves from the date from hell say when he pulls her from the car? "Thank God."
Then there's Sammy's apparent loss of faith. I find it interesting that he quickly accepts that if what appeared to him is the spirit of a dead priest, it can't be the will of God. Dean set up this dichotomy, but it's not a necessary one. This ghost is doing things we've never seen a ghost before do. He communicates articulately from beyond the veil—something we were told in "The Usual Suspects" is impossible for spirits to do. He "knows everything." We've seen that Bloody Mary can learn the secrets of people, but only within fairly strict limitations (if they walk in front of a mirror she has been called to). This ghost doesn't seem to have these restrictions. And he infuses people he appears to with a sense of peace and well-being—he releases a hooker and an alcoholic from their burdens. That's something we've never seen a spirit do.
That this spirit is put to rest by the reading of the last rites again implies the existence of a God.
Supernatural has done two episodes on religion and knocked it out of the park both times. Good show. Have a biscuit.
Last week I put up a poll asking when people thought Sam started praying. I was surprised to see that almost everyone picked when he was a kid. On rewatching the episode, I noticed that Sam actually says he's been praying for a "long time," so that's probably right.
I just have a hard time thinking of Sam praying at Stanford. Leaving for Stanford was an act of defiance for Sam—he's turning his back on his upbringing, in essence denying John's worldview. So is he prayering for God to protect his brother and his father? If he is, he's acknowledging daily that he has put them at risk by leaving. But if he isn't – then he's ignoring the very real danger that they're in. I just don't see him doing normal white-washed Protestant prayers knowing what he knows. I've always pictured him at Stanford as trying (perhaps not succesfully) to just not think about the life he left behind. But if he's praying he'd be actively confronting it every day.
The reason why I voted for the last option – he started praying when Dean told him the secret (which I realize does not actually work with what we know) – is just because it's the most interesting to me. People pray for a lot of reasons. If Sam only started praying then, it would mean he turned to God only when he was absolutely desperate. He'd be treating God like a wind-up doll (to steal Ian Anderson's metaphor). He needs something, so he prays for it. If he really has been praying for most of his life (in secret, which is just fascinating to me) then it probably comes more from faith than any immediate desires.
Dean, Dean, Dean. Dean, your worldview is completely inconsistent. I hope you know that.
Two things surprised me about Dean in this episode. The first is when he's talking to the priest and the priest quotes Luke at him. Dean looks completely baffled. The passage the priest is quoting is not an obscure one – it's from the nativity, when the angel appears to the shepherds. (Interesting that the next line of the passage that the priest didn't quote was "and the angel said unto them, 'Fear not.'") This bible passage is in Handel's Messiah. It's read at every Lessons and Carols service, and on every Christmas Eve. I hope I'm not making too many assumptions here, but I would think that even a Christian who just goes to church on Christmas and Easter would recognize this. The fact that Dean doesn't is telling. Dean fights demons—you would think that a working knowledge of the Bible would be one of the tools of the trade. So I'm forced to conclude that Dean has deliberately not read the Bible, even though it would be useful to him.
Which brings me to Dean's atheism. If you've watched the movie Constantine, you know that it's completely possible for a character to face concrete proof in God and the devil and still not have faith. Constantine's viewpoint is that God exists, but he's just "a kid with an antfarm." This is what I expected Dean's view on religion to be. But it's not.
Dean very clearly says that he doesn't believe in a higher power; he believes what they encounter is random acts of evil. If he were just facing spirits and wendigos and creatures like that, I could believe him. All of those things come out of the evil in human nature. You just need to believe in something beyond the laws of science to believe in those, you don't have to believe in a higher power.
But Dean's faced demons (what Dean calls pure manifestations of evil). He's even talked to a demon about hell, and nothing in that scene in "Crossroad Blues" implied to me that Dean didn't believe in hell. So Dean believes in manifestations of evil and in hell, but he doesn't believe in heaven or manifestations of good? Doesn't one imply the other? If demons flinch at the name of God, doesn't that imply that there is a God? It's like Dean believes in magnetic monopoles.
The fact that Dean says he believes in only what he experiences and his experiences clearly imply the existence of a God (of some sort) but Dean still refuses to believe in it—that I can only chalk up to cognitive dissonance. I think Dean's reasoning goes like this: If God exists, then God's will is at work in the world. If God's will is at work in the world, then God can save people. If anyone deserved to be saved, it was Dean's mother. Since she wasn't saved, God's will is not at work, so there is no God. Period.
This means that Dean tentatively accepting that he might have witnessed the will of God (and how much did I love that he phrased it that way instead of saying it was a miracle) means he has to accept that what happened to his mother and to his family was also the will of God.
Both Sam and Dean say in this episode that all they see is evil. What surprises me about this is that they are discounting their own actions. Dean in particular doesn't believe in good because he's never seen it—even though he fights the good fight. Van Helsing was an execrable movie, but it did have one good idea—that Van Helsing was a soldier of God, even though he didn't know that's what he was. I like this idea for Dean. He is a soldier for good though he struggles with it every day. Back in "Faith," the faith healer says that God directed him to save Dean; maybe this is true. Maybe some part of Dean believes that if what he were doing was God's will it would be easy and that's why he won't see himself as a force for good. But if you listen closely in this episode, what does the woman he saves from the date from hell say when he pulls her from the car? "Thank God."
Then there's Sammy's apparent loss of faith. I find it interesting that he quickly accepts that if what appeared to him is the spirit of a dead priest, it can't be the will of God. Dean set up this dichotomy, but it's not a necessary one. This ghost is doing things we've never seen a ghost before do. He communicates articulately from beyond the veil—something we were told in "The Usual Suspects" is impossible for spirits to do. He "knows everything." We've seen that Bloody Mary can learn the secrets of people, but only within fairly strict limitations (if they walk in front of a mirror she has been called to). This ghost doesn't seem to have these restrictions. And he infuses people he appears to with a sense of peace and well-being—he releases a hooker and an alcoholic from their burdens. That's something we've never seen a spirit do.
That this spirit is put to rest by the reading of the last rites again implies the existence of a God.
Supernatural has done two episodes on religion and knocked it out of the park both times. Good show. Have a biscuit.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 04:19 pm (UTC)I also love that Dean is so surprised by finding out that Sam prays -- it's
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 04:25 pm (UTC)Those two instances, from Faith and IMToD, make me think that his angry denial of God's existence has at least as much to do with his dad's death as his mom's, and also with the idea that he's supposed to kill Sam. Like, maybe he had a lot of doubts before, and a troubled relationship with God, but only these last few months has he decided that he can't accept even the existence of God in a world where his dad died for him, Sam is a monster, and Dean has to kill him. The illogic of his insistence that God doesn't exist works a lot better for me if it's part and parcel of the intense denial he's been in since ELaC.
I love that, too, about Sam and Dean and the things they still don't know about each other. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 04:56 pm (UTC)I think he brought up his mom, and focused his lack of faith on her, because he's processed that already. He probably struggled long and hard over the idea of a higher power because of what happened to his mom, and finally reached the detente we saw in Faith -- God and I don't really talk, but I understand why other people need him, and more power to them. But since IMToD and everything that's happened since, he's too emotional about it to think rationally. He's at, fuck you, God, and don't even fucking talk to me about God. But he can't talk about that with any kind of persuasive rationality, so he talks about his mom instead. (JMO, YMMV, etc!)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 06:49 pm (UTC)That attitude came through loud and clear when he was talking Sammy about his faith. His whole little "that's great that you have faith, I'm happy for you" speech, with that tone of voice -- what a load of bull. I've heard that argument many times from atheists. What they're really saying is, "your life has no meaning but if you're too weak to face reality and need to believe in a bunch of shit to make yourself feel better, you go ahead and do that." Dean is being so condescending.