Meta on Reapers: What we Know

[fannishliss]

Reapers: What we know about them and why they are not necessarily being "Retconned"
Huge thanks of course to to supernatural wiki which allows one to easily gather up this information.

We first met Reapers the ep with Layla, when they looked like creepy old undertakers.  (1.12 Faith)  In Faith we learn that Reapers can be harnessed and controlled.

Then we meet Tessa, who first appears as a bodiless wraith hovering over the dying  -- but she took on a human appearance and pretexted to Dean that she was a dying or dead woman. (2.1 IMTOD) In IMTOD we learn that Azazel, as a demon, can possess a Reaper, even though it is against the rules.

Tessa reappears in 4.15 Death Takes a Holiday and 6.11 Appointment in Samarra.  4.15 shows that it's possible to capture Reapers in a trap and slay them.  6.11  shows that Dean, even though he is still fully human, can voluntarily go out of body and work with Tessa as a Reaper, under Death's watch.

In 5.10, Abandon all Hope,  we see the creepy town full of old men reapers just standing around waiting for folks to die, and Lucifer summons Death.   In 5.15 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Death raises the dead at Lucifer's behest.   Crowley reports a similar situation in 5.21 Two Minutes til Midnight, when Death comes to Chicago to destroy it, again under Lucifer's orders.    In 5.21 is when we first meet Death in person. Death himself is not a reaper, but rather, one of the Four Horsemen. He believes that he is eternal and that he will eventually reap God. Death created reapers, and he sees himself as part of a Natural Order.  In 6.11 Death is able to retrieve Sam's soul from the Cage in Hell and restore it to Sam.

I think 7.01 Meet the New Boss, is very important, because Crowley is shown to know how to bind Death.  So not just Lucifer, with huge ceremonies and special implements, but anyone can bind Death.

Bobby's reaper appears to him in 7.10 Death's Door. Like Tessa, he appears as a regular guy instead of creepy old man, but he is only in Bobby's head.

8.19 Taxi Driver first introduces the idea of rogue reapers.  I think that their going rogue may be due to two factors:  a, Sam and Dean have upset the natural order, so that the reapers that Death created are going off to do whatever they want; and b, Crowley is making offers to them, which is what he does, so that is giving them ideas and causing them to go rogue.  Why not? They have agency and volition.  I don't know why Ajay has a mortal vessel -- unlike Tessa or Bobby's reaper who have only appeared on the other side of the veil -- but probably due to the influence of Crowley.  We find out in this ep that Crowley bribed a reaper to bring Bobby's soul to hell -- so -- Crowley is giving the reapers big ideas, and with the Natural Order gone askew, nothing is to stop them.  Death seems to be annoyed but has a more hands-off approach than to micromanage all his reapers.

In 9.01 I'm not convinced that Death is real.  There is no evidence that he is any more real in Sam's head than Dean or Bobby.

By the time of 9.03, it seems like reapers see the advantage of taking human bodies like Angels or Demons do, and they are attempting to profit from doing the bidding of Angels as well as Demons.

Comments

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

It does seem to be a vexing question why a Reaper would want to take a vessel -- what it would gain by doing so. The only thing I can see that they gain, is the ability to converse with the living, who otherwise, couldn't see them. As a rogue reaper, Ajay for example was dealing with the living, connecting them to the dead. This has always been big business amongst humans. Previously, reapers didn't seem to care where souls went, as long as they didn't stick around on earth as spirits. Now, as the routes to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are susceptible to highway robbery, Reapers seem to feel they have a stake among the living. Not sure yet what that is. Maybe they are being lured in by "the power of souls."