spn 7.03 spoilers
Oct. 8th, 2011 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fannishlissOkay, so here is the thing about monsters for me.
Suppose you have a human being who is a killer. As humans, we can lock that killer away for life if we think he or she will kill again -- many killers have mental compulsions that make it very likely that they will in fact kill again, and you can't just let them run around on the street. I personally don't believe in capital punishment, but life in prison does make sense for some dangerous killers.
Now suppose you are Dean, and you're faced with a dangerous killer. Remember the Benders -- human beings who killed for sport and ate other humans. He could have executed those folks -- but he let the law handle it. In Family Matters, if I remember rightly, he killed the brother and sister in self-defense -- as they were in the midst of attacking him.
Okay, so where does Amy fit in with this? She is named as a Kitsune -- which apparently are Japanese fox monsters. She is not a human being -- she is a predator. My son and I just watched the XFiles ep Tooms -- one of the scariest tv eps ever imho. Mulder and Scully are charged with bringing Tooms to justice -- not to kill him -- but Mulder does kill him -- in self defense -- and also because Mulder knows Tooms will kill again.
As a sentient being, Amy made choices about her life. She chose to become a mortician so she wouldn't have to kill. She chose to raise her son as a "corpsatarian" -- and then when he began to die, she hunted criminals (right?) It doesn't mean that she's a likely recidivist or that killing is in her nature: she literally needed live pituitary to save her son's life. Her devotion to her son trumps her moral stance at not killing humans. Humans are her food source. It's the old "starving man steals a loaf of bread" story.
When a tiger learns to eat humans, the tiger is designated as a maneater and killed. It's presumed that the tiger will learn that humans are weak prey and it won't go back to working at killing deer to survive. The killing of the tiger is justified because it's not a sentient being that can make a moral choice not to kill again. The maneater doesn't justify killing all tigers either.
Dean ignored the gray areas in Amy's story. He's fallen back onto his black and white "kill all monsters" rule. This is a huge step backward for him that we saw hinted at with the Phoenix killing. (With the Phoenix, you know, at least it was staged as a duel; also, the Phoenix had less moral highground because he was in the process of revenge killing.)
By killing Amy, Dean becomes the monster. He kills the mother in front of the son -- replaying his own tragic origins. And, he lied to Sam about trusting him, when Dean himself has been insisting on honesty.
It was a beautiful ep in terms of revealing more of Sam's understanding of the moral potential of predators who are dubbed "monsters". But it was sad because it shows that Dean really has begun to define himself not just as a Hunter, but as a Killer. He is judge, jury and executioner in this ep.... he doesn't believe in fair play any more.
I hope this will play out more in next week's episode.
Suppose you have a human being who is a killer. As humans, we can lock that killer away for life if we think he or she will kill again -- many killers have mental compulsions that make it very likely that they will in fact kill again, and you can't just let them run around on the street. I personally don't believe in capital punishment, but life in prison does make sense for some dangerous killers.
Now suppose you are Dean, and you're faced with a dangerous killer. Remember the Benders -- human beings who killed for sport and ate other humans. He could have executed those folks -- but he let the law handle it. In Family Matters, if I remember rightly, he killed the brother and sister in self-defense -- as they were in the midst of attacking him.
Okay, so where does Amy fit in with this? She is named as a Kitsune -- which apparently are Japanese fox monsters. She is not a human being -- she is a predator. My son and I just watched the XFiles ep Tooms -- one of the scariest tv eps ever imho. Mulder and Scully are charged with bringing Tooms to justice -- not to kill him -- but Mulder does kill him -- in self defense -- and also because Mulder knows Tooms will kill again.
As a sentient being, Amy made choices about her life. She chose to become a mortician so she wouldn't have to kill. She chose to raise her son as a "corpsatarian" -- and then when he began to die, she hunted criminals (right?) It doesn't mean that she's a likely recidivist or that killing is in her nature: she literally needed live pituitary to save her son's life. Her devotion to her son trumps her moral stance at not killing humans. Humans are her food source. It's the old "starving man steals a loaf of bread" story.
When a tiger learns to eat humans, the tiger is designated as a maneater and killed. It's presumed that the tiger will learn that humans are weak prey and it won't go back to working at killing deer to survive. The killing of the tiger is justified because it's not a sentient being that can make a moral choice not to kill again. The maneater doesn't justify killing all tigers either.
Dean ignored the gray areas in Amy's story. He's fallen back onto his black and white "kill all monsters" rule. This is a huge step backward for him that we saw hinted at with the Phoenix killing. (With the Phoenix, you know, at least it was staged as a duel; also, the Phoenix had less moral highground because he was in the process of revenge killing.)
By killing Amy, Dean becomes the monster. He kills the mother in front of the son -- replaying his own tragic origins. And, he lied to Sam about trusting him, when Dean himself has been insisting on honesty.
It was a beautiful ep in terms of revealing more of Sam's understanding of the moral potential of predators who are dubbed "monsters". But it was sad because it shows that Dean really has begun to define himself not just as a Hunter, but as a Killer. He is judge, jury and executioner in this ep.... he doesn't believe in fair play any more.
I hope this will play out more in next week's episode.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 02:35 pm (UTC)I hope us fans are not reading more into this than show will give us...
no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 01:56 pm (UTC)Do you watch Doctor Who at all? I know you've said your primary fandom was Star Trek.... I found the Russell T Davies Who series to be really good watching, especially Eccleston as Nine. He is a very Dean-like guy. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 10:17 am (UTC)I wish datenshi were doing ep codas again this year. I really enjoyed her work last year. The most recent ep was certainly thought-provoking!! but I'm not really ficcing for spn right now. I'm hoping a good spn bunny will bite sometime soon! meanwhile here I am trying to buy a sonic screwdriver to complete my Who outfit (as a teacher I am low on cash over the summer, so I dragged my feet, and now sonics are out of stock!) and I'm working on an 11,000 word epic fic present for one of my new who friends, who are very sweet folks of our ilk. It's such a fun, simpatico crowd, which is one reason I like it so much!
And holy cow, am I enjoying watching basically every Eccleston movie ever. He has done some really fantastic work. :) I am looking forward to Jensen's film career..... I hope he is like the next Clint Eastwood. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 05:09 pm (UTC)And hey! I only missed ep 1! I did coda ep 2 and I have 2 days before Friday... :D
*shifty eyes*
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 05:49 pm (UTC)Go back and do ep 1!!!
:P
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 04:00 pm (UTC)a. Dean is in a very bad place to begin with from Cas's betrayal and then "death", and from the fact that Sam is "broken" and he doesn't know how to fix it. Pieces of Dean's world are crumbling apart, he feels helpless to do anything, so he falls back on being John, the one fixed point in his world before he grew up and grew his own moral center.
b. It's happening now because this is something Dean has to deal with Soon(tm) and it's going to (damn quickly) come to a head next episode.
I don't know number B for a facvt of course, just wildly speculating.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 11:18 pm (UTC)If I'm remembering right, I don't think Sam told Dean about her killing to save her son. I'm not sure that would have made any difference given Dean's mindset, but I think it's important.
Honestly, I thought they did a great job of showing the grey area when a creature could be considered a monster or a moral being feeding only from necessity and on the bottom feeders (although she looked like she was going for the guy with the flat tire when Sam stopped her, so...).
Her devotion to her son trumps her moral stance at not killing humans. Humans are her food source.
Is her son never going to get sick and need living human pituitaries again though? Do creatures have the right to live if they only kill out of necessity? As Hunters, is their job to save humans from creatures who would feed on them, to kill creatures that feed on humans pure and simple, or make moral judgments about whether the creatures are killing people who are "ok" to eat/killing out of hunger?
With Lenore, they decided that even though she was a vamp, she was the vegan version of a vamp and wasn't going to eat people - and that her decision was solid enough not to doubt her. Yet when Eve rose and the Alphas caused their breed to act out of character, Lenore killed again. She asked to be killed, but if she hadn't - what would they have done? She was no longer in control.
Amy is even more precarious because she wasn't saying she would never ever eat a living human again, she was saying she wouldn't so long as her son was ok, basically. That's not nearly as solid as Lenore's moral conviction. So - she decides she must kill again for her son. Should they as Hunters shrug and say it's ok because she's not morally bankrupt? What is their job goal?? I honestly don't know the answer, but as of last night, Sam and Dean are not on the same page at all in answer to the question. I think it's an interesting philosophical question, rather than Dean being a monster for being on one side of it.
That said, I'm much more upset about him lying to Sam and thus not having that discussion. And I definitely think that Dean is in a very bad place emotionally right now. The repeated comment about waiting for the other shoe to drop - he believes everything goes downhill, there is no hope. Whereas somehow in coming back from Hell, Sam has refound his hope. I definitely think the show is going somewhere with Dean on this, although I don't know where.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 02:14 pm (UTC)I do think show has done a great job putting monsters in this morally gray area. That's why I love it so much! It's much more interesting to have all this to think about, and to have Dean really struggle with the decisions he's put in a position to make.
You say " Do creatures have the right to live if they only kill out of necessity? As Hunters, is their job to save humans from creatures who would feed on them, to kill creatures that feed on humans pure and simple, or make moral judgments about whether the creatures are killing people who are "ok" to eat/killing out of hunger? "
This is a really good set of questions. Is Dean's job to save humans? yes. Is Dean's job to kill creatures that eat humans? yes. But is he also required to make moral judgments? I think yes. By assuming the role of Hunter, when he was young, he was taught by John that black and white all monsters must die. But over time I think Dean came to realize the vexed moral position being a Hunter put him in.
As Hunters, Dean represents Humanity. Humans do have the right to defend themselves, and Dean is their representative (by heredity), so he's assumed that terrible responsibility of being a killer and killing things that need killing. I honestly think this question goes all the way back to the roots of the series in eps like the skinwalker that took Dean's shape or the one about the changelings. Monsters are not humans. Their fight is for survival in a hostile world. Just like the kitsune, the changeling lived on human brain product -- it's essentially a wolf or a tiger amongst humans as sheep, and Dean is the guard dog. He's been set to tear out the throat of any wolf that starts culling the flock.
This ep was more disturbing because the wolf tried to explain herself, and because her track record is good. She's a wolf, not a human being -- so Dean doesn't owe her anything -- but at the same time, she doesn't owe anything to humans either. As her natural prey, humans aren't there to be apologized to. I might thank a deer if I kill it to eat, but I don't really apologize. Ethical vegetarians (of which I'm not one) make the decision that they don't have to eat meat, and that eating meat only increases the amount of suffering in the world. Therefore they abstain. Few people would condemn them for fixing a bowl of beef stew if their child went anemic. Yet Dean condemns the kitsune mother.
It may be an ethical standoff. Since the two species are naturally at odds, perhaps neither side loses moral ground for killing the other. I'm not a very linear thinker, so I tend to flipflop seeing the view from both sides. But I do really appreciate that show has given us such a compelling narrative from the monster's point of view -- enough so that many people have questioned Dean's moral compass for killing her.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!