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

[smilla]

I've thought about this a lot and ranted at lenght about it [although I feel like I have to challenge your affirmation that Dean is an abuser in the family for, I suppose, the two times he's hit Sam in anger/fear what have you. Because in those cases the text has at least told me that they were wrong actions as in having the character who commited the wrong apologize specifically for acting like that. I'd also say that Dean has a history of being the subject of emotional abuse and the text has been pretty clear under that aspect.]

Anyway, back to your point, what I see when I watch Sam or Castiel in super-powered mode beat Dean down mercylessly and then never hear a single thing about it later - Sam has never said 'sorry for that time I drank demon's blood and beat you up and chocked you' and Castiel has never said 'sorry I used my superior angel's strength to convince you that you were wrong and to vent my frustration with my father' - what I see, is the show telling me that that violence is forgettable, done for dramatic purposes, it has no consequences. In the context of family and the relationships these people have it is absolutely unsettling.

Both Sam and Castiel had personal reasons to act in violence and I understood where they came from in both cases, but the message remains uncomfortable. Even more so, because Dean doesn't draw a line, has not said, remember when you did this? I understand that you were not you, you were angry ir whatever, but that was unacceptable.

This said, I think that Castiel is emotionally immature, obviously, because he's not used to experience emotions. Someone described him as a two-years old with superpowers and I tend to agree. I hope we get to see his journey toward emotional maturity next season. Also I'm kind of confused when I see Dean described as immature, because I think that Dean accepting the beating and the reasons behind it, and then excusing them, while says many things about Dean and his ability to draw a line, shows quite a bit more of maturity than both Sam and Castiel have. But that's probably just me.

Sorry for the text dump. I have strong feelings wrt this!

[rivkat]

Strong feelings are totally justified! Though I think that, yes, those incidents were domestic violence incidents; at the same time, the text is much clearer that Dean was in the wrong than that Castiel was in the wrong.

I'm a little confused by your second point about drawing a line. I'm not sure Dean accepting the beating shows maturity. It makes total sense not to refuse any relationship with Castiel given that they need him and that Dean still has strong feelings--whatever those might be--for him. But without actually bringing it up, like you said, it seems more like Dean just accepts beatings as a natural consequence of anger. (I do think that Sam has shown a lot of maturity this season, though the characterization has been wobbly, especially when it comes to what other people blame him for.)

[geekturnedvamp]

Given how Dean and Sam were raised--and who knows what Castiel's deal was, but I think it's fair to say all three of them were raised to be soldiers--the Winchesters probably have a casual acceptance of physical violence that even now goes largely unexamined (by them). And I do think they just accept beatings as a natural consequence of anger, and possibly other things; they may even see it as a form of intimacy, on some level.

So I don't think Dean would take Castiel or Sam beating him up as the biggest clue that hey, maybe there are some unhealthy aspects to these relationships... kind of like what I said about the incubus story about Dean as a soldier and his body as a tool and his relationship to violence--I just don't think it would register for him that he and Castiel shouldn't be together simply because Castiel beat him up in and of itself, because Dean has spent his whole life beating people up and getting beaten himself. Just because he didn't beat Castiel up (leaving aside the stabbing and all the emotional crap those two have put each other through in canon) doesn't mean Dean would ever see himself as the victim and Castiel as the perpetrator in their relationship, because they both act out in the same way. In other words, it's the sadomasochism that's the issue, not who happened to be inflicting the pain.

In fact, their relationship wouldn't even be the main issue; that would be Dean's own relationship with violence and all the emotional sadomasochism and abuse. I feel like it would take someone he cared about getting upset with Dean hurting them and calling him on it--or at least, Dean would need to be able to have a truly intimate relationship with someone who didn't hurt him, for the first time--for Dean to undergo the kind of shift in his awareness where he might realize that not only is it not okay for him to do that to others, it's not okay for Castiel or whoever to do it to him either.

However, I think that kind of change is very difficult and complicated and you'd have to really sell it to me in the story... just like quitting drinking or whatever, I don't think those realizations happen simply because people decide they want to be functional grown-ups now. And Castiel is still barely a human at all, so I think he'd have his own journey to go on before he and Dean could be together after Dean started examining all this shit. Which isn't to say that it couldn't happen, just that it would be epic and they'd both have to change before it could.