Anyone who’s been into internet culture has at some point heard of Supernatural, anyone who’s been into fandom culture has probably at some point recognized ‘destiel’ or its much worst brother ‘wincest’. All in all, Supernatural has been a big part of internet culture and the teenage era of many people and just a couple of months ago, the show finally came to an end with the last episode called ‘Carry On’.
And I have some thoughts I’ve decided are important enough that everyone needs to hear them, so I’ve decided to write them here.
First off, I wanna start by saying I was a big supernatural fan, in fact the show was my very first introduction to the idea of ‘fandom’ and was the very first reason that I made myself a Tumblr account. I saw it go from indie horror show that none of your friends watched to mainstream powerhouse for hot topic and CW.
But let’s start from the beginning.
Supernatural was a show created by Erik Kripke back in 2005 by what at the time was called the WB Channel. Its main leads were two young men, Sam and Dean Winchester, a pair of hot-blooded, classic rock loving, monster hunting brothers, played by the two young actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.
Now I’m not gonna get much into their own personal careers as for the fact I’ve never heard of them before this and also for the reason I simply don’t care, so let’s keep going.
The main idea of the show was that monsters where real and it took ‘hunters’ to kill them, ranging from classics such as vampires and demons to others much more interesting. It was a good pitch and great idea really, suddenly the monsters who hid in the dark where real and you could kill them!
As a personal experience, this was a very exciting thing for little 12-year-old me.
Allow me to explain.
I was raised catholic, in an extremely catholic home, and what no one tells you about this, is that growing up with all this imagery it’s terrifying. The idea of possession, demons, monsters that hide in the corners of the room and how the only way to ‘defeat them’ is by praying a rosary or just going to church every Sunday and hoping it doesn’t happen to you it’s absolutely scary. There were times growing up where I just couldn’t sleep because I was so afraid of being possessed by scary demons and having absolutely no choice about it.
But now I had two men whose entire job was to make sure that didn’t happen!
So needless to say, I was obsessed.
FANDOM CULTURE AND GROWING UP IS WEIRD
Supernatural was a funny thing for fandom culture, starting from the fact that it defined fandom culture as we now know it.
Don’t get me wrong, fandom culture has existed way before supernatural was even a thing, there’s Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter and other important old fandoms, but Supernatural was what defined modern fandom culture into what it is now, with profitable merch at hot topic, AO3 content through the roof and becoming such as thing as reaching higher into trending topic for twitter in one of the most stressful American elections of all time because ‘destiel became canon!!!111’
If you know what that means, it means you’re in the right place.
Tumblr was an interesting site for all of us, going from porn bots, to someone stealing bones, to someone lying about being a minority to promote their HIV/AIDS Hamilton fanfiction to someone admitting they own slaves.
It was a hellsite, but it was our hellsite.
And while all of this was happening, Supernatural reigned supreme as being one of the biggest fandoms in the site, along with Doctor Who and Sherlock.
(Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get into Superwholock today)
So, the tv show about some badass monster hunters who liked beer, boobs and gun have suddenly acquired an internet following of a bunch of horny teenage girls and gays. The problem with this is that it was not its main market, but that why it worked so well.
The first five seasons of the show are what most people know as ‘The Kripke Era’ which as the name says, the time where the creator of the show itself was heavily involved in the writing, directing and producing of the show.
I think one of the reasons why it quickly became so popular amongst a population that was not its main demographic was because it took religion and basically wrote it into blasphemy. This show took all the scary parts of religion and made them into dust and that to many kids growing up in oppressive religious homes was attractive and this included also lgbtq+ people.
It’s clear that the demographic of the show was your average white male in their 20’s and that’s how the show was written. No queer rep, no main female character, barely any character of color; we were not the main demographic, but in spite of that the story was consistent, the characters writing was stable and the building up to the end of season five was good.
Now not so say there weren’t problems or cringey moments from this era, the obvious fetishization of Asian women, the sexist moments, Becky the fangirl being a clear mockery of the fans. Yeah no, it had its moments.
But even with all these issues, I think as fans we can all agree this was the golden era for Supernatural. One thing I will always be thankful and might sound petty is the recognition, even in show, that shipping brothers is weird.
And with that we pass unto the next part.
DESTIEL OR THE SHIPPING THAT BECAME KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE INTERNET
Castiel was and still is my favorite characters, I’m not even gonna deny it I might be little bit biased about him, but hear me out.
Castiel or later to be known as ‘Cas’ (even if the writers write it with two ‘s’ we know that’s a lie) was an angel of the lord who rescued Dean from hell and, as the famous quote goes, ‘raised him from perdition’.
Honestly, the writers should’ve seen this coming.
The idea of angels isn’t new to culture really and Cas won’t be the last either really, but the direction in which the writers took it and the chemistry between the actors was apparently enough to sell it to every single internet kid and it took the internet world by storm.
Angels in pop culture have always been described as either beautiful and powerful or plainly just not there. I think the closest idea I can get for a reference is Tilda Swinton playing Gabriel in the movie Constantine with Keanu Reeves.
The idea of an angel, going to hell to rescue one man and then denying his own family for him, to stay with him after his family disowns him, learns to become human with him and to later on sacrifice himself for said man countless times. How were the actors and writers surprised that this turned out to be as gay as the fandom made it be, is beyond me.
Now, legend has it, or more like I heard it somewhere but I don’t have the source, that Misha Collins wasn’t meant to be a regular, as in his character was gonna die after saving Dean and he was meant to fall for Anna (another angel character) and yet, because of the explosion of fans and charisma of the way the actor played Cas, he became a regular through the show.
This brought another set of problems for the show and the cast.
On one side you had the fandom and the main problem of this was that because we were not the main demographic and the channel didn’t know what to do with us, there was a huge disconnection between both parties.
At the time this was happening there was also the huge problem of the fetishization of mlm relationships, by what I mean, you had cis straight girls thinking shipping was a form of culturally defending gay rights and just being absolutely weird about it.
While the fetishization of mlm relationships is not by any means new, now you had a fresh new brand of straight women ready to write and draw it on the internet where everyone could see it and apparently some not knowing the difference between fiction and real life.
Rumors have always been part of a celebrity’s life, it’s not something that out of the ordinary but the way some of the people on this side of the internet defended it was insane. Fans making up rumors about the male cast fucking each other, about their real live wives being beards, fans also making death threats to said cast and wives. The main problem for this, as I’ve mentioned before was that clearly the channel didn’t know how to deal with these weirdos, so they didn’t.
And this, I think, made for a well expected shit storm.
The other side of this mess was the cast and crew themselves, clearly none of them had been cleared to deal with any of these situations and I think that made up for a lot of resentment and anger. I mean, if there were some weirdos making up rumors about my wife and kids being fake because I’m fucking my male co-star and then calling themselves my fans, I would be pretty pissed off too.
The issue of this was that these weirdos made it hard for actual lgbtq+ fans to talk about real situations or honest questions about the show, and cast and crew didn’t want to have a situation in hands that would make it uncomfortable for the rest in these conventions.
So, while understandable, it’s still a problem. The fact that the lack or horrible use of lgbtq+, female and poc representation was a big issue in supernatural and yet wasn’t properly discussed with the main guys I think made up for a lot of issues that are still discussed even to this day.
Not to say that the channel didn’t know how to use their newly found golden mine for their fans.
And so, CW said ‘let there be destiel!’ but with a no homo, you know, to not make it gay.
Queerbaiting isn’t something new either, for centuries there have been works that have used the ‘will they, won’t they’ to keep the audience entertained, but the biggest problem with this is that it uses the hope of actual proper lgbtq+ rep for actual fans only to crash it in way that only makes up to tell fans they were always deluded into thinking that was going to happen and that gay people don’t exist within this universe.
But with the channel still reaping of all the merch and fanfics and such, of course.
Even after Kripke left and CW kept the show on going, the use of queerbating and promise of better rep only to fall short on all this was obvious and made a lot of people leave the fandom and just stopped watching the show.
And so, as the quality of the writing declined either because Kripke left, various writers with different ideas all working on the same show or maybe just CW having shitty taste in final decisions the show kept on going. Not to say there weren’t good episodes after Kripke left, to be honest there are some golden episodes that I think are also one of the biggest reasons why a lot of people also kept on watching but destiel was really one of the main reasons on why the show still had rating.
With a big of a fandom as Supernatural, destiel made it even bigger, one of the ships with the biggest number of fanfics on AO3, with its own merch on Hot Topic, and how could we forget that night of the fifth of November of 2020 when it broke the internet.
Let’s talk about that because I’m an opinionated person and I love giving my unwanted opinion.
‘Remember remember the fifth of November’ were famous last words said by English revolutionary Guy Fawkes and to be honest, I don’t think he meant it as a reference to destiel apparently becoming a real thing.
But we can’t be sure anyways, so let’s use it.
The year of 2020 has been literal hell for a lot of people, a global pandemic coming into wrecking our daily lives taking down the economy and killing many, showing to a lot of people the huge lack of care and attention from government officials and corporations for its workers, leaving many people jobless, homeless and vulnerable. This year was also the last year of Trump’s presidency, this orange turd of a man has made it difficult to a lot of Americans, and because Americans love to insert themselves into everyone’s else’s government, it made it hard for the rest of the world too.
So, as it was, the night of the fifth of November of the year when the last votes of the most stressful American election where being counted, another bomb was dropped, and we know how much Americans love dropping bombs.
Episode eighteen of the last season of Supernatural was released and it made it for a shitstorm into the internet that easily surpassed the mishapocalypse in a way that no one, not even the people still watching, expected.
It was the episode where our favorite gay angel declared its love to the one and only mess for a human being, Dean Winchester.
Yes, exactly, you heard me, we finally have canonical gay angel Castiel. Oh, he also died right after declaring its love.
And then got sent to ‘The Empty’ aka by the internet as SuperHell™
It reads like a joke but I swear it’s real, it actually happened like this, the episode where we have one of out main leads being acknowledged as openly gay gets to die right in front of the man who he saved, who he stood by, who he learned with, who he’s fought with, yeah, he died right there and it was the most hilarious thing ever, we couldn’t even feel bad because it read like a bad joke.
Now if you’ve been as long of a fan of Supernatural as long as I have, you understand that no one on this show really dies, not even the main reason as to why this show started like Mary Winchester or as to one of the most hated characters in the series as John Winchester, but even with all that, this still leads into the horrible trope of ‘Burying your gays’.
I’m not gonna get into explaining that trope because it’s pretty much self-explained by its own title, but the stress of the elections, the fact that many more people were online because that’s the only way of communication in these hard days and the absolute clusterfuck of year created a shit storm on the internet that made it so it felt like a fever dream for many.
‘Destiel’ and ‘Supernatural’ trending higher than the news about the American elections, people absolutely losing it over apparent canon, other people absolutely losing it over the horrible trope and the rest of us just laughing at the terrible editing and hilarious memes that came out of the situation because what better way to deal with this than laughing about it.
Oh, also Putin apparently resign. He didn’t, but it made it funnier.
And so, it was that what no one expected to happen, happened, Castiel openly declared his love to Dean Winchester.
And then by the next episode they defeat GOD HIMSELF and then make their new kid ‘Jack’ the new god and then ride into the sunset. Which if we’re being honest, could’ve been a good ending, the brothers winning, the new god with promises of making this into a better world and a short edit of all the good characters we lost along the way, except for Cas who was still in Superhell ™, but having made the sacrifice to the love of his life and his brother to save the world.
It could’ve ended like that, but it didn’t.
Which if you think that was bad, you’re in for a surprise.
THE ENDING THAT NO ONE WANTED AND THE SHIT STORM THAT CAME AFTER THAT
As Chuck Shurley, or god himself, once said, ‘endings are hard’, but I don’t he meant this last episode that was, pardon my french, dumb as fuck.
We can all have personal taste and different opinions about many things, but let’s all agree on one thing. Killing a main character because ‘there’ll be peace when you are gone’ is a stupid way of ending a story.
I know this isn’t the first instance that this kind of endings exist, one of my favorite examples to use for this, is the ending of both the manga and anime of Banana Fish, the idea that a main character who has suffered so much all his life has to die so close after finally finding happiness, and as it happened in both instances with male queer subtext, is a terrible way to go.
Mostly because it feeds into the idea that gay people have no happy endings, which also reinforces the ‘bury your gays’ trope and demonizes the importance of an abused person finally being mentally healthy and leaving with the idea that the only way an abused person can find ‘real peace’ is by death.
So over all, it’s not good. But somehow, this show managed to make it even worse.
Please, allow me to paint you a picture.
They finally saved the world, so they decide to go for some pay, Sam says he misses Cas, who just declared his undying love two episodes ago and has yet to be acknowledged, to which Dean, while stuffing his face full of cheap pie, simply says we should all move on and try and live their best because of his sacrifice.
This is the same man that had an emotional breakdown and tried to kill a kid with enough power to kill god himself last time Cas died, literally a season ago.
And then went and got himself killed by some rusty bar in a shed while killing some vampires.
Like, a day after he said this.
So now, not only has Castiel’s confession yet to be even recognized, but his sacrifice was almost worthless. Sure, you can say that he still saved Sam and still saved the world and all that, but his emotional send off to Dean as he sacrificed himself in front of him, as he finally gave himself permission to be happy by confessing his love to Dean Winchester, not by the desire to save the world, but to the man he loved.
And now that’s worthless because this man was stupid enough to get himself killed like a dumbass after some monsters that he has killed hundreds of times over.
Then we got a somewhat emotional talk to his brother for about twenty minutes which could’ve been used to call 911 to get his bleeding brother help. But he chose to let Dean die as he bleed out, go back to the men of letters bunker, take all his shit and go. Then marry a woman we’ve never met before, have some kid named Dean and then die and meet him again in heaven.
So, like, a fucking waste of forty minutes of my life.
This has two big problems, the first one is that when Dean gets to heaven, the only reference we get of Cas surviving the Empty is that when Dean talks to Bobby and he tells him ‘Cas helped’ and that’s it.
Then he hops into his beloved Impala, because a car gets to go to heaven but not the fruity angel, rides into the sunset until Sam dies and then they meet on a bridge and that its. That’s the ending.
And then the other problem is Sam’s blurry wife or mainly the lack of Eileen, who was his love interest for the entirety of the last season. Literal love interest with amazing chemistry with Jared’s Sam and yet she just disappears one day saying she has to find herself and we never know anything about her again. All the emotional build up for nothing, when she was an amazing character, who was also a MOL Legacy and great deaf representation, just forgotten as quickly as that.
So yeah, all that character development of the brothers leaving their toxic codependency behind, of finding each other not just as hunters but as people too, all the development of found family and all that, erased just like that.
And then came Destielgate.
DESTIELGATE AND THE ROGUE TRANSLATOR
The thing about internet conspiracies is that they’re always inspired on something that was true but quickly develops into something absolutely insane that is just hilarious for everyone outside of said fandom.
This all started right after the end of the series, people quickly attacking the writer of the episode, said writers mocking fans right back, the account of spn_cw literally blocking hate and people with actual reasonable comments about how horrible that ending was.
Then came the Spanish translation or the ‘y yo a ti cas’
Apparently the latam wb team decided to translate the last part of episode eighteen with a ‘me too cas’ which was not written into the original script, so the fans took is some sort of proof that destiel was ‘endgame’ and CW was just covering their asses. It got to the point that Misha Collins himself had to talk about it and called it about how it was a ‘rogue translator’ and after that it just spiral out of control until the original script was released and the latam voice actors and directors themselves came out to say that they thought that even if it wasn’t into the original script, it was the obvious choice.
Then you had crew and actor saying it was canon, then that it wasn’t, that many actors that were supposed to be in the end weren’t even invited or that the original script was supposed to have the actual band KANSAS playing in heaven.
But even with all this, the main thing was that Cas was never supposed to be in heaven, his sacrifice was always meant to be just what it was, a waste of one of the most important characters of the series along with another main lead dying just because the writers believed that the only way he could find peace is in death even if he sacrificed everything into making the world a better place and the other lead playing the forgotten grieving brother with some cheap ass party wig with a blurry wife we never even knew.
So, in the end, Supernatural never changed, never grew, the story is stuck being about two brothers and the rest of the road was just dust.