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

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

This is a great post, and although I was really put off by Taxi Driver for many reasons, I did start to think about ways in which rogue reapers in particular make a certain amount of sense. I think rogue reapers, angels going into business for themselves, demons going into business for themselves, demons vying for control of Hell, Death making Dean a temporary reaper by giving him the ring, supernatural beings in general acting out of character and outside the boundaries of laws that previously guided them—it's all part of a supernatural landscape where chaos reigns because of God going AWOL, Lucifer and Michael being locked in the cage, and Sam and Dean taking the escape clause on the Apocalypse.

In reference to your comment about Death being real in 9.01, I agree that we have no proof either way, but I tend to think he was really there. My reasoning: the doctor said Sam was in a coma and near death. If that was true, Sam should have had a reaper. The fact that he didn't means to me that either Death was real, or Sam's reaper took the likeness of Death, which would be... I don't know, disrespectful in the extreme? I kind of think if it were a real reaper who was doing his or her job, Death would not approve those kind of shenanigans.

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

I can see this as a possibility.

Just, they make the fans works awfully hard to make the shifts in canon make sense...

[tabaqui]

In my mind, anything with agency and power can and will start to think for itself. Reaper have been doing nothing *but* reaping for time out of mind.

Suddenly, people are dead and alive and dead and alive, the Apocalypse is on/off/on/off. The Devil's offering deals, and the angel's are, too....

What *shouldn't* Reaper's go rogue and try to take advantage like every other being is?

In the Layla ep, Sam said that binding the Reaper was like 'putting a leash on a great white' - so it seems more than likely to me that they'd break out, here and there, and do their own thing.

[antrazi.livejournal.com]

I don't actually have a problem with the rogue Reaper. Angels, demons, why not reapers as well. They have a monotone job and it won't change for eternity, why not enjoy their existence a bit. I can also see Death being absolutely aware of it and either allowing it for one reason or another or planing something there. It's not as if he didn't have all the time he wanted.
I'm taken back by this sudden move of a Reaper taking a vessel. What reason would they have in using them? Just to be seen by other non-reapers? Angels can see them without a body so other than being visible and corporal for humans and supernatural beings that can't see them I don't get the motivation

[morganlucas41.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted this because I've been wanting to discuss the aspect of the episode that bothered me the most: reapers being harmed by angel blades. We see not one but two reapers harmed, and in fact killed, by angel blades, just like angels. We saw that with Ajay in Taxi Driver, too.

I was surprised by reapers taking vessels, but I understand your reasoning of how that might be possible. However, what I don't get is how an angel blade would hurt them. The boys have often said "you can't kill death" referring not to the entity Death, but to reapers. I believe it's said both in Faith and in Death's Door. I thought only something like Death's scythe could kill a reaper. Now, we see them being killed by run-of-the-mill angel swords? That was the one part of the ep that didn't make sense to me at all.

[bowtrunckle.livejournal.com]

Well, when you lay it out like that, it just doesn't seem like such an issue. :) Honestly, I didn't get up in arms about the rogue reapers this episode. I was more bhuz with reapers taking "vessels" (which strangely didn't bother me in "Taxi Driver" but probably bec. I was distracted by other issues I had with that episode) and the fate of the human soul that was in the body or was once in the body. I'd like to know how reaper possession works and if it's similar or different from angel and demon possession.

[desertport]

Interesting stuff! I still need to see this week's ep, but I had forgotten some of the reapers' appearances in the later seasons (is it weird I have perfect recall of most of S1-3 but only spotty memories of the rest, including last season?).

[kalliel]

I'm not a huge fan of 8x19, but I think my opinions of its "retcon" qualities vs. the fact that SPN's world is a dynamic system is much more charitable than others. And I felt like the return of the rogue reapers in 9x03 was actually recuperative for that particular addition to the mythology, rather than further retcon. So thanks so much for this post, and putting it all out there with the info to back it up!

Because I love the idea that everyone is adapting and co-opting new modes of existence--demons have discovered Kevlar and assault rifles, angels have hopped on the social media bandwagon, and reapers are experimenting with human vessels. In that sense, even with Hell kingless/queenless, and Heaven empty, it's Earth that's been overrun by imperial invasions. And when the supernatural does "takeover" they mean take over in every sense of the word, all at once. O_o;;

[kisahawklin]

Fascinating post. I don't think Death was there, myself. Why would he bother with a bacterium, even a Sam Winchester-type bacterium? I also have thought that maybe Bobby was actually a reaper (a reaper that took on Bobby's form, not Bobby himself being a reaper, though that's a possibility too, I suppose).

I saw someone or other from the show or the network on twitter saying that reapers ARE angels, and that they always were (ha!). It makes no sense according to what we know of reapers so far. I'm still annoyed with the whole taking vessels thing - if a reaper can warp reality to their whim there is no reason for them to take a vessel. But then again, Tessa was taken over by a demon, so who knows, man. It's all mixed up in there.