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.
