In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural

by Supernatural. tv,

  If, according to Supernatural, a demon is what one would see in the mirror once all pretensions of humanity were stripped away, then what exactly defines humanity on this show? Was Bela correct when she accused Sam and Dean of being merely a stone’s throw away from serial killers (“Red Sky at Morning,” 3-6)? Since the line between demon and human is so finely drawn, what is it that keeps that line in place? In one episode, the Trickster analyzed Sam and Dean from the demon perspective and told them that their weakness was that they kept sacrificing themselves for each other (“Mystery Spot,” 3-11). On this, he was quite wrong. Demons serve only themselves and their own interests, so they can only see the selflessness of the Winchester brothers as moral failure. Yet what looks like weakness from the demon perspective is in fact Sam and Dean’s greatest strength, because it is precisely that ability to act in the interests of others, to sacrifice oneself for another, that defines the essence of the human potential for good. It is the antidote to the poison of demon self-interestedness. It is what makes one human. This principle is best represented in the characters of Bela and Ruby.

  The third season of Supernatural saw the introduction of two female characters who, at first, appeared to be little more than potential love interests for Sam and Dean, but who quickly revealed themselves to be far more complex and interesting because they represented two separate paths: one moving toward humanity and one moving away from it. Bela is human, but you can’t always tell. She is a hunter like the Winchester brothers, but it’s not demons she hunts. She hunts treasure-artifacts and objects of supernatural significance that fetch a high price on some kind of supernatural eBay. Like the demons Sam and Dean hunt, Bela acts only in her own self-interest. She is a constant thorn in the side of Sam and Dean as she frequently steals out from under their noses the very item they need to save themselves or others. In “Red Sky at Morning,” individuals who saw a ghost ship on the water inevitably died shortly thereafter. When Sam and Dean attempted to save a man who’d seen the ship, Bela questioned why they would bother. Dean replied, “Yeah, well, see, we have souls so we’re gonna try.” Dean’s comment, for all its throwaway sarcasm, hinted at a deeper truth. By her lack of concern for others, Bela showed herself to have more in common with the demons than with her own kind. Of course once Bela herself saw the ghost ship, she quickly sang a different tune and selfishly begged Sam and Dean to save her. Eventually we learned that Bela had once made a deal with a demon to kill her parents. In order to get out of the deal, she then tried to kill Sam and Dean (“Time Is On My Side,” 3-15). Although Bela may have been human, she was certainly in touch with her inner demon. At the end of season three, Bela’s deal ran out and she seemingly met her fate, sent to Hell to become the demon she had essentially been living as anyway (“Time Is On My Side,” 3-15).

  In contrast Ruby, the self-professed “little fallen angel” on Sam’s shoulder, is a demon. She is, however, the only demon who wants Sam and Dean to win. She fights alongside them and aids them in their war against her own kind. Why?

  RUBY: Isn’t it obvious? I’m not like them. I don’t know why. I wish I was, but I’m not. I remember what it’s like.

  DEAN: What what’s like?

  RUBY: Being human. (“Malleus Maleficarum,” 3-9)

  If acting in the interests of others is a mark of humanity, then Ruby certainly has not forgotten what it’s like. Whereas Bela frequently ran from danger and had no interest in the Winchester brothers’ war against evil beyond how she could profit from it, Ruby regularly put herself in the line of fire in order to help Sam and Dean. When Sam and Dean found themselves trapped inside a police station and under siege by a horde of demons, Ruby came to the rescue by offering to perform a spell that would kill all demons within a mile radius. The catch? It would, of course, kill her as well. Her willingness to sacrifice herself for others betrayed her growing humanity-to a point. She failed to reveal, at first, that the spell would also require the sacrifice of a virgin, an act she was perfectly willing to perform (she is still a demon, after all) (“Jus in Bello,” 3-12). The characters of Bela and Ruby remind us of the dueling temptations within us all: to become more human or less human, to embrace the demon within or to fight against it.

  “NOBODY’S KILLING ANY VIRGINS!”

  Sam and Dean are brothers, but in some ways, they couldn’t be more different. During the first two seasons of the show, the contrast is starkly drawn. Sam is the stoic, quintessential good guy. Dean is the fun-loving bad boy who likes to live on the edge. Sam operates on faith that there is a force for good greater than himself. Consequently, he prays to God every day (“Houses of the Holy,” 2-13). Dean is a thorough-going skeptic with respect to any outside force for good. Despite all his experience with the supernatural, he refuses to believe in anything that he himself has not personally encountered. He has no faith, whether in God or in humanity. Whereas Sam always sees the potential for goodness in others, Dean is more likely to envision their potential for evil. These differences manifest in conflicting attitudes toward the killing of human beings. Sam is adamant that the killing of a human being is wrong in any and every circumstance. It is a violation of his moral code. Dean, however, is a pragmatist. He sees no moral dilemma in killing human beings if the situation calls for it, either because a person has devoted himself or herself to evil or because it will serve a greater good.

  But a funny thing happened over the course of this show’s first three seasons. Sam and Dean gradually swapped places, each becoming more like the other. That Sam has been devolving has long been recognized by fans. The Sam of season three is a darker, more corrupted version of season one Sam. One could perhaps attribute this to the common assertion that the Sam who returned from death at the end of season two came back different, that he brought a touch of the demonic back with him. Perhaps, but Sam’s devolution began earlier than that. By season two, Sam’s experiences were increasingly leaving him disillusioned. In season one, Sam counseled Dean about the importance of having faith (“Faith”). Then in season two, when Sam discovered that what he had thought was a real angel was in fact a vengeful spirit, he adopted Dean’s view that it is better to operate on sight rather than faith (“Houses of the Holy”). By season three, the Sam who always argued strongly against the killing of humans for any reason adopted an us-or-them mentality in the war against demons and a willingness to accept human collateral damage if necessary. He suggested killing fellow demon-hunter Gordon when he turned against them (“Fresh Blood,” 3-7) and murdering a coven of humans dabbling in witchcraft (“Malleus Maleficarum”). Likewise, when Ruby offered to perform the spell that required the sacrifice of a virgin, Sam sided with her, coming to the conclusion that the death of one innocent girl was worth it to save the lives of other innocents (“Jus in Bello”). To put it bluntly, the Sam of season one would have a hard time recognizing the Sam of season three. Sam is a man of faith who wants to believe in the goodness of others, but life experiences, such as confrontations with the human potential for evil and situations that call into question the existence of a supernatural force for good, keep getting in his way.

  Dean, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. What is often overlooked is that, just as Sam is devolving, Dean is evolving. As one goes down, the other goes up. At first, Dean is a religious skeptic with a faith in nothing beyond himself, yet life experiences keep getting in his way too. Dean’s evolution can best be charted by a close look at three episodes, one from each season. In the first season episode “Faith,” Sam and Dean investigated a faith healer named Roy. Sam was characteristically open to the possibility that the man was genuine, while Dean was characteristically dismissive.

  SAM: Maybe it’s time to have a little faith, Dean.

  DEAN: You know what I got faith in? Reality. Knowin’ what’s really going on.

  SAM: How can you be a skeptic with the things we see every day?

  DEAN: Exactly. We see them. We know they’re real.

  Once Sam and Dean realize
d that for every person Roy healed, another person died at the exact same moment, Dean suggested that they kill Roy. The murder of a human being was a viable option for Dean because human evil could be seen and thus definitively dealt with. Roy, however, turned out to be innocent. What Dean saw had deceived him. That message was hammered home to him through the character of Layla, a young woman who was dying and had faith that Roy could heal her. When it became clear that her healing would not happen, Dean believed she would become as disillusioned as he was. Layla, however, informed him that faith is about believing not only when miracles happen, but even when they don’t. The episode concluded with the following exchange:

  DEAN: So, what now?

  LAYLA: (smiling) God works in mysterious ways.

  DEAN: I’m not much of a prayin’ type, but I’m gonna pray for you.

  LAYLA: Well, there’s a miracle right there.

  It’s a small step for Dean and one that initially does not seem to have moved him very far.

  By the time we come to the second season episode “Houses of the Holy,” Dean appears to have changed little. When individuals began killing seemingly upstanding citizens and claiming that angels ordered them to do it, Dean reiterated his belief that relying on anything other than what one could see was irrational and futile. Although he was willing to accept that this was the work of a demon or spirit, he found the suggestion of angels to be ludicrous, no more persuasive than arguments for unicorns. The reason Dean gave was that he had never seen one; yet, in a moment of uncharacteristic openness, Dean revealed that the truth of his anger and skepticism cut much deeper. The last thing his mother said to him before she was killed by a demon was that angels were watching over him. No angels protected her, however, so Dean concluded, “There is no higher power. There is no God. I mean, there’s just chaos and violence. Random, unpredictable evil that comes out of nowhere and rips you to shreds. So you want me to believe in this stuff? I’m gonna need to see some hard proof.”

  What Dean failed to recognize was that faith is a different kind of seeing. The killers in this episode were killing people like Carl Gulley who, based on sight, appeared to be an upstanding citizen. But when Sam and Dean entered his basement, they found the remains of murdered college students. The other victims likewise harbored similarly dark secrets. The message to Dean was clear: one’s eyes do not always point to the reality of things.

  Dean, still adamant that God and angels are not in the picture, especially after they proved that the “angel” ordering these murders was merely the spirit of a deceased priest, pursued a man whom the deceased priest ordered killed. When the man attempted to murder a girl, Dean intervened and saved her. The woman responded by saying, “Thank God,” not “Thank you.” What normally might seem a perfunctory exclamation of relief here took on a deeper meaning. Was Dean unwittingly acting as an agent of the divine? When a freak accident then caused the improbable death of the attempted murderer, Dean, who witnessed the event, responded with his own, albeit less noble, exclamation: “Holy-” Dean did not finish the exclamation, and that was just as well, because by tossing out the word “Holy,” Dean unknowingly acknowledged that what he just saw with his eyes betrayed a larger vision of reality than he was perhaps ready to accept. Shaken by the experience, Dean made a startling confession:

  DEAN: The way he died, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I never would have believed it. I mean, I don’t know what to call it.

  SAM: What? Dean, what’d you see?

  DEAN: Maybe (pause) God’s will.

  Dean’s experiences in “Faith” and “Houses of the Holy” shaped his evolution. In the season three episode “Sin City,” Dean made a proclamation that would have shamed the Dean of season one. A demon asked him, “Do you believe in God, Dean?” Dean sincerely answered, “I don’t know. I’d like to.” It’s not a ringing endorsement, but for one so initially antagonistic to the very idea of faith, Dean’s come a long way. Whereas the Sam of season three began to act a lot more like Dean, the Dean of season three began to act more like Sam. In an exact role reversal near the end of season three, we actually heard Sam demanding “hard proof,” while accusing Dean of operating on “blind faith” (“Long-Distance Call,” 3-14). Likewise, when Dean told Gordon that it was an inviolate rule that demon hunters do not kill innocent people, we viewers had to do a double-take to make sure that wasn’t Sam talking (“Fresh Blood”). When Sam wanted to kill the coven of witches, it was Dean who protested that they couldn’t kill humans despite whatever evil actions they may have committed (“Malleus Maleficarum”). Similarly, when Sam and Ruby were willing to sacrifice an innocent girl to save the lives of many others, it was Dean who shouted out, “Stop! Stop! Nobody’s killing any virgins!” The pragmatist Dean who was always willing to bend any rule in the interest of victory now proclaimed, “It doesn’t mean that we throw away the rule book and stop acting like humans… . I mean, look, if that’s how you win wars, then I don’t want to win” (“Jus in Bello”). Because of Dean’s refusal to let them sacrifice the virgin, several innocent people died, including the virgin girl herself. The demon Ruby threw this back in Dean’s face as proof that he in fact did not know how to win a war. But Dean won the battle that mattered most. By refusing to sacrifice the girl, he refused to sacrifice his humanity.

  These opposite journeys of Sam and Dean are about more than just the evolution or devolution of a character. They are about the potential for such a journey being taken by each one of us. Sam and Dean are fighting a war against demons, but it’s a war that’s really being waged within themselves. Sam is fighting against his own potential for evil, while Dean fights for something to believe in beyond himself and what he can see. As such, Sam and Dean represent the never-ending war that all humans fight as we battle for and against the competing impulses to better ourselves or to give in to our darker side. For all its supernatural bluster, the show Supernatural is ultimately more about the natural.

  Supernatural stands within the grand tradition of horror shows that hold a mirror to ourselves and our world. Sam and Dean may face off against vampires, angry spirits, and demonic Santa clones, but that’s nothing compared to the evil that human beings perpetuate against themselves: terrorism, child predators, children shooting up middle schools. That is the real horror show. By taking our society’s horrors and reflecting them back to us as demons and monsters, what Supernatural does is remind us of humanity’s potential to act in demonic and monstrous ways. But it also reminds us of our potential to fight against the demons within. Like Sam and Dean, we all have to decide how to take up that battle. I, for one, think it’s best if we don’t kill any virgins.

  DR. GREGORY STEVENSON is Professor of Religion and Greek at Rochester College in Michigan, although his favorite classes to teach are those on religion and popular culture because he gets to watch television and call it research. His current “research” project is an article on the influence of the Book of Revelation on comic books. Some of his musings on popular culture can be found at http://caritas2.blogspot.com.

  Supernatural is a dark show, in both tone and content. Much of it is shot at night, using muted colors and moody lighting, and the heroes travel to dark places, both physically and emotionally, to investigate evil things that should never see the light of day.

  So in all this darkness, in all this evil, where can we find the light? Evil exists in the Supernatural world as a matter of fact, but can we say the same of good?

  Avril Hannah-Jones looks at the origins of good and evil in the Supernatural world, at choice and at destiny, at demons and at angels.

  AVRIL HANNAH-JONES

  GOOD AND EVIL IN THE WORLD OF SUPERNATURAL

  One of the roles of religion is to answer questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? How should we behave on the journey? And among the most troubling and significant, how can evil exist in a world created and loved by a benevolent God? Classical Judeo-Christian answers have relied on free will; God gave huma
ns the gift of choice, and sometimes human choices lead to evil.5

  Popular culture, too, can offer answers to questions about the meaning of life. Alongside all the action and emotion and fun of Supernatural are a suggested explanation for the existence of evil and a proposal for how humanity should respond to it. At the core of Supernatural is the belief that good and evil are both profoundly “natural,” the result of human choice. The philosophy of Supernatural agrees with Judeo-Christian theology that the line between good and evil lies within the human heart.

  “OF COURSE YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID OF THE DARK”: EVIL ON SUPERNATURAL