Sympathy for the Devil
Sep. 16th, 2009 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenYou have Mick Jagger et al. to thank for this next bit of over-thought, over-involved meta. I guess that it is not for no reason that Don McLean called the man Satan.
I think I got a little too weighty for this otherwise mostly silly journal with that last meta. Let's go happier on this one. It has to with Supernatural. Specifically, the meat suits. All of this was inspired by one lyric: "I'm a man of wealth and taste."
Because if there's something that Mark Pellegrino (the actor playing the man now possessed by Lucifer) is not, it's a man of wealth or taste. At least, not in any of the shows I've seen him in to date--Dexter, Burn Notice, Lost. (Interesting to note that he previously has played someone with super human abilities before, however.) He's the guy you call in to play the "shady" guy, the one who looks like he slept off a bender on a public beach right next to some washed up hypodermic needles. No doubt he can clean up better, but it remains to be seen whether he cleans up good.
This is not to say he's not scruffily attractive, but he's not the same kind of inherently-pretty-underneath-the-stubble attractive as, say, Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Jensen Ackles. I'm getting off track, ahem.
Anyway, I was thinking about how insidiously vapid the Devil is in "Sympathy for the Devil"--the song, not the SPN episode. He's this untouchable, gloating presence of evil with a powerful sense of humor about making other people miserable because that's what he does. And how Mark Pellegrino, in other things that he's done, has been nowhere near that kind of suaveness, much less that indifferent intelligence. What he does do, however, is a kind of ferocious sanity and sympathy. Even as the lowest of low scum, he's still somewhat compelling. (Love to hate, that kind of deal.)
And then you have Lucifer coming to this actor, playing his character as a bottomless pit of self-inflicted misery, as an ethereal woman with an aching, long-suffering pain and slow-burn anger at God. Veeeeeery different from what The Stones would say Satan is like. And very effective. It's a common trope to make the bad guy sympathetic, or to show a villain make a bad choice from an understandable point of torment. Or, more cliche still, to have Satan make an offer that is just too good to pass up.
But is She-Satan, now Mark Pellegrino-Satan, really a villain at all? Satan is by most reckonings a cunning liar. It's entirely possible that She-Satan saying, "I don't lie because I don't have to" is telling yet another of those crazy half-truths that the better incarnations of the Devil always pull off with such panache. It's totally within the realm of probability that She-Satan presents herself as a sympathetic, beautiful woman in order to get that invite that is necessary before an angel (even a fallen one, apparently) can possess someone.
And yet? I find myself really questioning whether Lucifer is the Big Bad. This is helped along by two things. One, Lucifer, in the two seconds he existed as She-Satan, is easily the most sympathetic supernatural character to come along in a while. For an angel, he is surprisingly not dickish! That's really at the heart of my first argument: we know what the demons and the angels are like, and while the demons are brutal, the angels are merciless. Of the three, Lucifer seems like the nicest one so far. Sure, that could be a set-up for a big fall, but I'd love it if the mind-fuck stayed in place. What if Lucifer had a legitimate grudge with God?
The other thing encouraging my Lucifer-is-not-that-bad, really? From what I've seen, it's an open debate right now as to whether or not God or Lucifer himself saved Dean, Sam, and Castiel from their respective dooms. Archangels smote Castiel until his host vessel was a bunch of lumpy bits stuck in the Prophet Chuck's hair. (Poor the Prophet Chuck!) They did so on standing orders, not because they thought one way or another about murdering to pieces one of their own. That's pretty goddamned ('scuse the pun) disgusting for a bunch of divine creatures. It also makes God look as much the dick as Uriel and Zachariah put together.
Did God intervene to put Castiel to rights as he plucked Dean and Sam out of harm's way? Why would he do that when he has otherwise been so hands-off w/r/t this war as to let his own angels murder one another? I think it was Lucifer. Again, this could be saving up for a later, more awful conflict, but I'm not sure.
Regardless? I love that I don't know! Most of the time, no matter how appealing or sympathetic the package, Lucifer is always going to fuck you. Always. The Devil shows up, you're fucked, end of story. Maybe you're in the Bedazzled-type of story where you'll eventually get one over on Satan. But most of the time, you're going to try to get one over on him, and he's going to make the payback that much worse. But this time? With this show? And it's crazy mix-up of how Heaven and Hell play mean with each other? I'm honestly not sure that that's how it will go.
Of course, we're only one episode in, so all of that might be moot by tomorrow, and I will then be griping about how obvious it all was. For now, HAIL SATAN.
One meta lead to another as I was thinking about how "Sympathy for the Devil" this show is not: vessels.
Specifically, I was thinking of Dean. I don't think that Dean was ever possessed on this show. Just about everyone he's ever spoken to for more than episode has been possessed by a demon--Daddy, Bobby, Sam--or turned into a monster at some point (like poor Gordon). Hell, Ellen and Jo are back next week, so odds are at least one of them's gonna end up possessed.
But not Dean. It's an important distinction that, to my memory, Dean has only ever been copied when he's been acting evil and stuff--shapeshifters and what not standing in as him. He got that crappy-ass (though hilarious) ghost sickness that one time, but possessed? Never. He had that uber-creepy vision of himself as a demon, but that was a nightmare. Dean's been himself or he's been sick, that's it.
And now it turns out he's a vessel for an angel, if Zachariah is to be believed. (I think he's telling the truth. He seemed too keen to make Dean say "yes" to be pretending.) This makes me do think-y stuff about how this show has--by intent or by sheer luck--avoided ever making an angelic host a demon meat-puppet. Granted, our selection size is small--we don't ever see Uriel or Zachariah's host bodies before they were taken. But we did see Castiel's, and we saw Jimmy's daughter, another potential vessel for Castiel. Notably, in a tiny family of three, the demon went for the one member who was not a suitable vessel.
Moreover, it seems like an overly complicated matter to go about possessing people who aren't your target. The demons that attacked Jimmy and his family could have jumped into his body at any point. There's no reason for them to go around him--thus setting up an overly-elaborate trap that was bound to bring in the Winchesters as was what happened--when they could just go through and directly to him. But they didn't. Ditto with Anna. Why bother kidnapping someone when you could just possess them and walk them to where you want to be?
Dean has never been possessed by a demon, and no demon has ever possessed an angelic vessel. Could these two issues be related? I am getting my think on!
The heritage issue of vessel suitability is also interesting. Because both John and Sam and Samuel were all possessed, clearly, this is not a dominant sort of trait in a family. The only ones we don't see possessed in the Winchester/Campbell family are Deanna, Mary, and Dean. Mary is another example of someone uncomfortably but not intimately involved with a demon interesting in possessing/controlling members of her family who is not, herself, ever possessed. (Murdered pointlessly, yes. Possessed, no.) I'm sure it's a fault of casting Mitch Pileggi as Grandpa Samuel that they went with Azazel possessing him, not Deanna, but it's interesting all the same that he was chosen and she was not. Somewhere on the maiden side of the Campbell line, this angelic host business might have gotten its start. Narratively, it's rather brilliant to have the feminized son be the one to carry on this attribute as well. (The feminization of Dean Winchester should be so obvious at this point that I can spare you all an essay on that.)
Long story short? It's waaaaaaaay too early in the goddamned season to start thinking so hard about this stuff. What I find most interesting in all this mind-dumping is that I thought the season premiere was rather lackluster for the most part. It was only in going back over it, sparked by a very silly sort of song sung about a fictional devil by the real musical one, that any of this had an impact on me. Curiouser and curiouser.
I think I got a little too weighty for this otherwise mostly silly journal with that last meta. Let's go happier on this one. It has to with Supernatural. Specifically, the meat suits. All of this was inspired by one lyric: "I'm a man of wealth and taste."
Because if there's something that Mark Pellegrino (the actor playing the man now possessed by Lucifer) is not, it's a man of wealth or taste. At least, not in any of the shows I've seen him in to date--Dexter, Burn Notice, Lost. (Interesting to note that he previously has played someone with super human abilities before, however.) He's the guy you call in to play the "shady" guy, the one who looks like he slept off a bender on a public beach right next to some washed up hypodermic needles. No doubt he can clean up better, but it remains to be seen whether he cleans up good.
This is not to say he's not scruffily attractive, but he's not the same kind of inherently-pretty-underneath-the-stubble attractive as, say, Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Jensen Ackles. I'm getting off track, ahem.
Anyway, I was thinking about how insidiously vapid the Devil is in "Sympathy for the Devil"--the song, not the SPN episode. He's this untouchable, gloating presence of evil with a powerful sense of humor about making other people miserable because that's what he does. And how Mark Pellegrino, in other things that he's done, has been nowhere near that kind of suaveness, much less that indifferent intelligence. What he does do, however, is a kind of ferocious sanity and sympathy. Even as the lowest of low scum, he's still somewhat compelling. (Love to hate, that kind of deal.)
And then you have Lucifer coming to this actor, playing his character as a bottomless pit of self-inflicted misery, as an ethereal woman with an aching, long-suffering pain and slow-burn anger at God. Veeeeeery different from what The Stones would say Satan is like. And very effective. It's a common trope to make the bad guy sympathetic, or to show a villain make a bad choice from an understandable point of torment. Or, more cliche still, to have Satan make an offer that is just too good to pass up.
But is She-Satan, now Mark Pellegrino-Satan, really a villain at all? Satan is by most reckonings a cunning liar. It's entirely possible that She-Satan saying, "I don't lie because I don't have to" is telling yet another of those crazy half-truths that the better incarnations of the Devil always pull off with such panache. It's totally within the realm of probability that She-Satan presents herself as a sympathetic, beautiful woman in order to get that invite that is necessary before an angel (even a fallen one, apparently) can possess someone.
And yet? I find myself really questioning whether Lucifer is the Big Bad. This is helped along by two things. One, Lucifer, in the two seconds he existed as She-Satan, is easily the most sympathetic supernatural character to come along in a while. For an angel, he is surprisingly not dickish! That's really at the heart of my first argument: we know what the demons and the angels are like, and while the demons are brutal, the angels are merciless. Of the three, Lucifer seems like the nicest one so far. Sure, that could be a set-up for a big fall, but I'd love it if the mind-fuck stayed in place. What if Lucifer had a legitimate grudge with God?
The other thing encouraging my Lucifer-is-not-that-bad, really? From what I've seen, it's an open debate right now as to whether or not God or Lucifer himself saved Dean, Sam, and Castiel from their respective dooms. Archangels smote Castiel until his host vessel was a bunch of lumpy bits stuck in the Prophet Chuck's hair. (Poor the Prophet Chuck!) They did so on standing orders, not because they thought one way or another about murdering to pieces one of their own. That's pretty goddamned ('scuse the pun) disgusting for a bunch of divine creatures. It also makes God look as much the dick as Uriel and Zachariah put together.
Did God intervene to put Castiel to rights as he plucked Dean and Sam out of harm's way? Why would he do that when he has otherwise been so hands-off w/r/t this war as to let his own angels murder one another? I think it was Lucifer. Again, this could be saving up for a later, more awful conflict, but I'm not sure.
Regardless? I love that I don't know! Most of the time, no matter how appealing or sympathetic the package, Lucifer is always going to fuck you. Always. The Devil shows up, you're fucked, end of story. Maybe you're in the Bedazzled-type of story where you'll eventually get one over on Satan. But most of the time, you're going to try to get one over on him, and he's going to make the payback that much worse. But this time? With this show? And it's crazy mix-up of how Heaven and Hell play mean with each other? I'm honestly not sure that that's how it will go.
Of course, we're only one episode in, so all of that might be moot by tomorrow, and I will then be griping about how obvious it all was. For now, HAIL SATAN.
One meta lead to another as I was thinking about how "Sympathy for the Devil" this show is not: vessels.
Specifically, I was thinking of Dean. I don't think that Dean was ever possessed on this show. Just about everyone he's ever spoken to for more than episode has been possessed by a demon--Daddy, Bobby, Sam--or turned into a monster at some point (like poor Gordon). Hell, Ellen and Jo are back next week, so odds are at least one of them's gonna end up possessed.
But not Dean. It's an important distinction that, to my memory, Dean has only ever been copied when he's been acting evil and stuff--shapeshifters and what not standing in as him. He got that crappy-ass (though hilarious) ghost sickness that one time, but possessed? Never. He had that uber-creepy vision of himself as a demon, but that was a nightmare. Dean's been himself or he's been sick, that's it.
And now it turns out he's a vessel for an angel, if Zachariah is to be believed. (I think he's telling the truth. He seemed too keen to make Dean say "yes" to be pretending.) This makes me do think-y stuff about how this show has--by intent or by sheer luck--avoided ever making an angelic host a demon meat-puppet. Granted, our selection size is small--we don't ever see Uriel or Zachariah's host bodies before they were taken. But we did see Castiel's, and we saw Jimmy's daughter, another potential vessel for Castiel. Notably, in a tiny family of three, the demon went for the one member who was not a suitable vessel.
Moreover, it seems like an overly complicated matter to go about possessing people who aren't your target. The demons that attacked Jimmy and his family could have jumped into his body at any point. There's no reason for them to go around him--thus setting up an overly-elaborate trap that was bound to bring in the Winchesters as was what happened--when they could just go through and directly to him. But they didn't. Ditto with Anna. Why bother kidnapping someone when you could just possess them and walk them to where you want to be?
Dean has never been possessed by a demon, and no demon has ever possessed an angelic vessel. Could these two issues be related? I am getting my think on!
The heritage issue of vessel suitability is also interesting. Because both John and Sam and Samuel were all possessed, clearly, this is not a dominant sort of trait in a family. The only ones we don't see possessed in the Winchester/Campbell family are Deanna, Mary, and Dean. Mary is another example of someone uncomfortably but not intimately involved with a demon interesting in possessing/controlling members of her family who is not, herself, ever possessed. (Murdered pointlessly, yes. Possessed, no.) I'm sure it's a fault of casting Mitch Pileggi as Grandpa Samuel that they went with Azazel possessing him, not Deanna, but it's interesting all the same that he was chosen and she was not. Somewhere on the maiden side of the Campbell line, this angelic host business might have gotten its start. Narratively, it's rather brilliant to have the feminized son be the one to carry on this attribute as well. (The feminization of Dean Winchester should be so obvious at this point that I can spare you all an essay on that.)
Long story short? It's waaaaaaaay too early in the goddamned season to start thinking so hard about this stuff. What I find most interesting in all this mind-dumping is that I thought the season premiere was rather lackluster for the most part. It was only in going back over it, sparked by a very silly sort of song sung about a fictional devil by the real musical one, that any of this had an impact on me. Curiouser and curiouser.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-16 08:40 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how much I'd like that (my gut reaction is "not at all, Dean has to be human!" -- which is usually NEVER my reaction but for some reason with Dean it seems right that he stay human) but it would be interesting.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-16 08:53 pm (UTC)Whatever the situation, I don't believe Dean isn't human. I believe that all the flashbacks and memories that everyone has of him and that he has of everyone else from growing up are all true-life events. I don't think he's Dawn Summers, if you follow me. But I can't prove it, and obviously, as Zachariah proved, you can rewrite Dean's past (and present, and future, and body chemistry) pretty easily.
This is partly a problem of the show not being sure of itself on all levels. Anna and Castiel, with whom we've spent the most time, appear to be highly unusual angels. So it's hard to get a fix on what angel-to-vessel interactions are meant to be. Angels are supposed to have predetermined vessels (Lucifer, Castiel), but they can also trade (Castiel), and some can become human for all intents and purposes (Anna). It's a little confusing.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-16 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-16 09:06 pm (UTC)Speaking of, yes, Jimmy was Castiel's vessel. I thought he was really sweet, but, again, dumber than a rock.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 02:17 pm (UTC)I agree that it was probably Lucifer who saved Dean and Sam. Not sure about Castiel, though--that one might have been God.
Yes, I think Dean is human. And I agree, your theory about demonic/angelic possession makes sense--you can be grabbed by one or the other but not both. I also think that Dean is a very special vessel, because most humans would not survive contact with Michael. Castiel's a lesser angel (than Michael, at least, even though they've screwed the traditional hierarchy), so he can use any angelic vessel.
I don't know if they'll do the whole "Lucifer is simply misunderstood" thing. I don't think so. I think they'll just play the "he's a surprisingly honorable opponent" card instead. In the end, he's still out to cause the end of the world, and the death of all humanity.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 02:56 pm (UTC)Not knowing angel hierarchies, I will have to take your word for that. I recognize the biggies--Michael, Gabriel, even Uriel, but that's mostly because of movies like The Prophecy. Anyway, I think you're right, I think Michael is still a big to-do up in Heaven.
What interests me is that he's not shown up. Castiel tried to talk to Dean before taking on his vessel, but we see that Castiel stalked and possessed his vessel for some time before he went to Dean with it. Lucifer did the same. Where is Michael? Why hasn't he ever contacted Dean? Is it because, until he met Castiel, Dean didn't believe in angels? Is it because he's so powerful, he's being saved for the confrontation with Lucifer? (Way to go waiting until the last minute again, Team Heaven!)
These two points are related to my mind:
I agree that it was probably Lucifer who saved Dean and Sam. Not sure about Castiel, though--that one might have been God.
and
I don't know if they'll do the whole "Lucifer is simply misunderstood" thing. I don't think so. I think they'll just play the "he's a surprisingly honorable opponent" card instead. In the end, he's still out to cause the end of the world, and the death of all humanity.
Given Zachariah's reaction to a returned Castiel, someone big is behind Castiel's resurrection. Castiel has, until lately, been firmly on the side of the angels (if you'll pardon the pun there). He refused to join Uriel, but it turns out that the angels aren't even really on the right side, per se--if the right side is that of God's favorite beings: humans. Castiel seems to be rogue at this point, but he's got some power now that he didn't have over Zachariah. Castiel has never been a fighter, not really, but suddenly he's slaying (he did kill those angel-bots with Zachariah, right?) angels and scaring his boss into retreating. Yeah, that could be God.
...except? No one seems to have any direct line with God. Not the archangels that smote Castiel in the first place (they were running on autopilot--mess with the Prophet Chuck, get smote), not Uriel or Zachariah. In fact, the only angel we can verify has seen God is Lucifer (and possibly Anna). It has been a long time in both cases, but yeah, they're the ones who've seen God. That makes them pretty powerful, too. With Lucifer rising, he could have extended that power to resurrect Castiel. Why, I can't say, and I doubt that Castiel is in favor of being in Lucifer's debt if that's the case. But I just can't see it being God. Third party?
As for Lucifer, I hope they make sure to show that he's got a legit grudge with God in some way as opposed to just going the "misunderstood" route. It seems that, unlike previous versions of Lucifer, this one hasn't been running Hell. Lucifer turned Lilith, the first demon, and then he's been awful quiet ever since. Man still blamed him for evil, but it appears that he's had no direct influence on souls. (It's not the fact that his #2 did all his dirty work absolves him, just that he isn't the one killing people horribly, demons are.) He's still very much an angel like that then, asking for permission, tempting with consent. I'd like to see more of that.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 03:08 pm (UTC)Trust me, you don’t want to get me started on why a “day angel” should be bottom-rung. :)
“What interests me is that he's not shown up.”
I can see two reasons for that:
1. He’s so powerful, he can’t walk the Earth without drawing attention. And they couldn’t risk that until the battle had begun.
2. There were restrictions preventing him from descending until the Final Battle.
Castiel did definitely kill those angel-bots, and he has been pumped up. My guess is that it was God who saved him, and he’s basically been given a field promotion. If those archangels went after him again, they might be in for a surprise.
I think God is taking a hand here. I think He rescued Castiel because C. was the only angel to show that he’s still loyal. He made a conscious choice to follow God and not his own bosses.
“It seems that, unlike previous versions of Lucifer, this one hasn't been running Hell.”
I’m not sure where you’re getting that.
Lucifer has been unable to return to EARTH all this time. That doesn’t mean he’s been inactive. If he wasn’t here, presumably he was there, in Hell. Ruling. So no, I think he’s been very much in charge, and orchestrating everything down the line. But yes, he’s a fallen angel (as opposed to most demons), which makes him different from them. And I’d like to see that played up, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 03:18 pm (UTC)This would be first time that's ever happened in fiction that I've consumed. That's not to say it can't happen, but in all the angels vs demons battles, God is never around. Angels are acting according to their design, or, occasionally, their own wishes, always claiming God is on their side by dint of being his divine soldiers. But God never actually involves himself. The one exception I can think of is Dogma. God there, though, was the literal Deus ex machina to stop the bad angels when no one else was left. I just feel like it's too soon to bring him in just to save Castiel, but like I've said, I can't prove it.
Lucifer has been unable to return to EARTH all this time. That doesn’t mean he’s been inactive. If he wasn’t here, presumably he was there, in Hell. Ruling. So no, I think he’s been very much in charge, and orchestrating everything down the line. But yes, he’s a fallen angel (as opposed to most demons), which makes him different from them. And I’d like to see that played up, too.not doing those things. Like, Lilith was not turning over souls to him, she just dragged them to Hell.
I guess it was all the talk about "freeing Lucifer" that made me think he wasn't a player in all this as much as the demons were. That he was sort of like Cthulhu, you know? Waiting to be woken.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 09:13 pm (UTC)It's always a question how much brilliance is inherent, intended, or accidental in a work of fiction. (Heroes, for example, is a great example of something that was inherently cool but accidentally awesome...until they undid the accident.) I would like to give Kripke the benefit of the doubt here just because he's proven to be pretty good at looking far ahead and making call backs that have been consistent. It's entirely possible that he lucked into this, but by being pretty tight with details on the show as a whole, he's probably in a better position for such happy coincidences.
After all, "then the person wanders off" does not make a good episode, while "and then they set a trap and we find out their actually a demon" does.
Honestly, I'd love to see them wander off and have the reveal be "Oh, yeah, possessed." Usually, it just means they're under the sway of a ghost or being psychosomatically controlled. I think it would be hilarious to have had someone essential like Jimmy or Anna just wander off in the middle of somethign and then have everyone go, "WTF?" then find out they were demonized. But I'm weird like that.