SPN question re: Dean/Castiel and violence

[rivkat]

I am fond of Dean/Castiel that deals fairly with Sam, and I like Castiel as a character a great deal. That said, anyone have a line on a story in which, post-apocalypse or post-apocalypse averted, Castiel makes a move and Dean decides that part of being a functional grown-up is not sleeping with people who beat you up when you anger them? (Along with not beating other people—Sam—up himself, of course. Dean hasn’t exactly covered himself with glory on the domestic violence front, but this is a season of change.) I mean, if Castiel’s model for human relationships is the Winchesters, I’d recommend therapy first, at least.

Comments

[aerye]

Y'know, it suddenly strikes me that if Dean challenged Castiel on what happened, Castiel could rejoin that everything he's learned about human behavior he's learned from Dean.

[rivkat]

Absolutely. But that might just mean that Dean & Castiel can't work it out. I recently read a great YA book, Split, which raises the question of what relationship a former abuser can ever morally have to his victim. So you know it's inexcusable and you've committed to behaving differently and we believe you: that may be redemption, but maybe some roads can't be traveled again, better this time.

[aerye]

I wonder if there's an issue of invitation versus request. That perhaps an abuser can never morally ask to be taken back but that he can accept when invited back in by the victim, when that invitation is freely given and with full knowledge. When I was working as an advocate, one of the first things we were taught was that we should never try to take the victim's autonomy away. Maybe that's something that would need to be factored in here, if the desire is to hold them accountable but to find a way to keep them together at the end. I think it would still make them the exception, place them in the minority, but it is something that happens and succeeds, if rarely.

I don't know – these are all good questions. Tough questions, but good ones. ::g::