In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural Page 27

  Federal marshals, FBI agents, priests, cops, reporters from Weekly World News, phone company reps-you name it, they’ve pretended to be it. In their own way, the Winchester brothers are con men, pulling “tricks” on unsuspecting humans so they can accomplish their own: taking out the demons and preternatural creatures. In addition to creating chaos in the demon ranks, they also bring chaos to the lives of those affected by Evil. Across the U.S., every small town that the Winchesters have visited over the past three years has changed in the brothers’ wake, usually for the better.

  In his essay “Mapping the Characteristics of Mythic Tricksters: A Heuristic Guide,” scholar William J. Hynes describes the activities of a Trickster as “usually outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out of bounds, and out of order”-a description that easily fits both Dean and Sam. By season two, both brothers were living outside mundane law, using whatever trickery they could to accomplish their goals. Like the shapeshifting Trickster, they take on whatever guise suits the occasion. They cross lines and boundaries, and embody the description of the Trickster given in a Grand Valley University course description: “the trickster is often a traveler, and he often breaks societal rules.”54

  The lesson Sam and Dean teaches never varies-don’t mess with humanity. Unlike the traditional Trickster figure, who gives comeuppance to the humans, the Winchesters’ lesson is always for the supernatural denizens and those that support them-the demons and evildoers threatening the lives of the innocent. Evil must, and does, pay attention when the Winchester brothers come calling.

  IT’S NOT SUCH A WONDERFUL LIFE

  Let’s take a look then at “Mystery Spot,” where our Trickster returned and the game grew considerably darker. Sam lived a Groundhog Day existence, watching his brother die hundreds of times on a Tuesday from Hell. In this episode, the Trickster upset the order of things-as-they-are in a sort of reverse It’s a Wonderful Life. By doing so, he made Sam-or at least those of us watching-realize two crucial things: Dean is Sam’s ultimate weakness (just as Sam is Dean’s), and that of the two brothers, Sam is more like their father-a relentless, single-minded hunter with a Purpose. The chaos here no longer lay in jokes played on others, aside for the off-screen comeuppance to the missing man, a professor who spent his life debunking urban legends (how’s that for meta!). The joke instead is on Sam Winchester. The gruesome and often hilarious deaths experienced by Dean became meaningless in themselves, a parody of horror, highlighting the randomness and quirkiness of the universe. Dean never died as a hero, but instead got shot accidentally, choked on a sausage, was electrocuted, etc. At no point in any of these deaths did his demise find meaning.

  This is the Trickster who is Raven, Crow, Coyote, his jokes and tricks taking on a more sinister cast. No longer the amusing Bugs Bunny, Captain Jack Sparrow, or Q, nor the more innocent Fool figure, the Trickster becomes a harsh lesson-giver (the ridiculous nature of Dean’s deaths notwithstanding). During the episode, Sam had to explain the time loop to Dean over and over again, and finally, when Dean clued in, he reinforced the strength of his belief in his Sam-completely contrary to the lesson the Trickster was trying to teach. “If you and I decide that I’m not going to die, then I’m not going to die,” Dean said-just before choking on a breakfast sausage. This was the crux of the matter: not the Trickster-induced deaths, but Dean’s absolute belief that Sam would win out in the end and Dean’s deal with the demon would be broken (a message unstated, but nevertheless understood). Dean’s conviction seemed to give Sam strength, to make him try harder to discover how to stop the loop. Once Sam cottoned on to the fact that the time loop was indeed the work of a Trickster, the brothers found and confronted him before Dean could die again. To their surprise, it was the same Trickster from “Tall Tales,” evidently not as easy to kill as they’d thought.

  SAM: So this is fun for you? Killing Dean over and over again?

  TRICKSTER: One: Yes, it’s fun. Two: This is not about killing Dean. This joke? Is on you, Sam. Watching your brother die, every day, forever… . How long will it take you to realize? You can’t save your brother … no matter what.

  Once again, we were back to the Trickster as jokester, but this time, the lesson was cruel. Sam discovered just how cruel when, after the confrontation, Tuesday finally became Wednesday and the time loop was over. Except, to Sam’s surprise and agony, the lesson wasn’t. Dean walked out into the parking lot and was shot by a thief; this time his death was permanent. There was no coming back, because Dean was truly dead. As a result, Sam became an echo of his father John. We saw the future, in a parallel to George Bailey’s experience with his own Trickster, Clarence. Sam without Dean was a man on a mission: dark, uncaring, unfeeling. He was Justice personified, untempered by compassion or love. His only goal: revenge-finding the Trickster and getting Dean back. It was an obsession that controlled him, burned inside of him, and fueled his every action. This was Dark!Sam, all humanity, everything that made him a person, seared away by the fires of obsession, just as the fires of Hell burn away all that is human, creating demons from those unfortunate enough to land there. What we knew of Sam was gone, replaced by someone whose life had only one direction, one purpose.

  But it was not until Bobby tricked (there’s that word again) Sam into coming to visit that we saw how far Sam Winchester had fallen. Supernatural Woman observed, “Sam has been Dean’s voice of conscience because Sam has been the champion of humanity and avoiding having to kill a human, but we’ve never considered what a world without Dean would be for Sam. We’ve assumed that Dean’s been the constant needy one. Oh and how this DeanGirl loves the idea that Dean, too, has been a voice for Sam, keeping him on track somehow, maybe not so much about sparing humanity, but more the presence that has never left him for most of his life, except when he left for Stanford”-a chilling prophecy for, and a likely foreshadowing of, season four. True to the lesson, no matter how hard they tried, Sam couldn’t save Dean, couldn’t break the contract with Lilith, and ended up losing him.

  SAM: Look… . Dean, you’re leaving, right? And I gotta stay here in this crap hole of a world. Alone. So the way I see it, if I’m gonna make it, if I’m gonna fight this war when you’re gone … then I gotta change.

  DEAN: Change into what?

  SAM: Into you. I’ve gotta be more like you. (“Malleus Maleficarum,” 3-9)

  From the pilot, where Dean sought Sam out at Stanford, through season two and beyond, we saw Dean’s need for his brother, the imbalance never so obvious as in the episodes where Sam took off on his own, momentarily disgusted with the nature of their lives. Dean’s entire raison d’être was to “Take care of Sammy,” an edict uttered by John Winchester as Dean grew up. Never, until “Mystery Spot,” did we see the reverse. Careful, confident, conservative Sam became an amalgam of his father and brother, blood vengeance his goal. He had to bring Dean back; he had to reverse the Trickster’s trick. In order to do so, he would do whatever it took, without remorse.

  Like Mary’s death changed John, like Jessica’s death in the pilot changed Sam, like their father’s death changed Sam and Dean, Dean’s death, we saw, changed Sam-forced Sam to become the opposite of what he desired so much in the pilot. Instead of becoming a lawyer, an upright normal citizen, Sam transformed into an obsessive Hunter, determined to either wreak vengeance or find a way to get Dean back. It’s a transformation that on the surface seems surprising, but the foreshadowing had been there from the beginning:

  DEAN: Since when are you all shoot first and ask questions later?

  SAM: Since now. (“Wendigo,” 1-2)

  SAM: Dean, no. I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica’s killer. It’s the only thing I can think about. (“Wendigo”)

  The Sam of the latter third of “Mystery Spot” was focused, determined, ruthless, his need to find the Trickster obscuring his humanity and compassion-the parts of him that balanced out Dean’s focus on hunting and killing evil. Like John, who abandoned his life as a mechanic to go after Mary’s killer, Sam sloug
hed off the veneer of normality he so frantically tried to keep in the first season. Like Clark Kent’s pretense of a normal human life is sheared away when he strips off his mundane glasses and suit, Sam Winchester’s own façade peeled off after Dean’s true death. Sam lived, as Dean did, for the moment, knowing that nothing mattered but the goal. In a parallel to John’s path in season one, Sam’s obsession lead to what ultimately was the Trickster’s final test: Would Sam sacrifice everything, including people he loved?

  Bobby told Sam that in order to summon the Trickster, they needed about a gallon of blood-fresh blood. Sam didn’t falter, didn’t hesitate. He knew what it meant. Sam had to sacrifice an innocent to bring Dean back. Would he do it? Sam had to make a sacrifice, just as Dean had to in “All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 2)” (2-22). And in the world of this Sam Winchester, no sacrifice was too large. Bobby then offered himself, protesting that if it were going to be done, ’twere best done by family, and quickly. Sam obliged, but at this point, he knew-so he thought-that “Bobby” was actually the Trickster. A beat, two, three later, and for a gut-wrenching moment, Sam Winchester appeared to have lost everything. Bobby lay still, his life seeping away. Then, as Sam’s doubt (and that of the viewers), reached the inevitable conclusion, there was a metaphorical “tah-dah” as the Trickster’s form replaced Bobby’s. Getting up, the Trickster immediately commented, “Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one? Has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands.”

  Finally Sammy learned the truth of the matter. It wasn’t about Dean at all. It was all about Sam. “Dean’s your weakness,” the Trickster explained. “The bad guys know it, too. It’s going to be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes, you just gotta let people go.” Sam is less willing to accept death, less comfortable with the truth of what they do, then Dean, who is old friends with the reaper-both metaphorically and actually. His own near death and his father’s sacrifice in “In My Time of Dying” (2-1) only served to underscore that connection. Dean was old enough to remember his mother, and grew up mourning her death. So letting people go is a lesson Dean should already know-but when it comes to Sam, Dean hasn’t really learned it. His need to keep Sam safe has led him to his own dark places, and resulted in the Crossroads deal. So is it really surprising that Sam’s reaction to losing Dean is as extreme? Sam has only had to cope with loss over the past couple of years, since he was an infant when his mother died. First, he lost Jess, then reconnected with Dean and their father only to lose John just when they’d begun mending their differences. Over the several episodes just prior to “Mystery Spot,” Sam had to face some rough truths, including the fact that sometimes, they (as the heroes) and we (as the viewers) don’t always win.

  Richard Pulfer, on popsyndicate.com’s review of the episode, describes “Mystery Spot” thusly: “Quintessential with a capital ‘Q,’ the Trickster has managed to re-affirm Sam Winchester much in the same way dream-walking did for Dean in the last episode.”55 In “Dream a Little Dream of Me” (3-10), Dean was confronted by a Demon!Dean doppelganger, forcing him to acknowledge that his acceptance of the inevitable had only been a cover. In reality, Dean Winchester didn’t want to go to Hell and didn’t want to accept the terms of the contract. He wanted to be saved. The Trickster served the same role in “Mystery Spot” for Sam, confirming Sam’s need to be Dean’s savior-something Sam had, granted, been more open with about all along. What “Mystery Spot” did was show us how far Sam was willing to go.

  The events set into motion by the Trickster revealed the core essence of each of the brothers. But would the Trickster’s lesson, at last, be learned? Dean has lived with death all his life, Sam, only recently, but at the center of it all is their mutual need to keep the other safe, at the expense of their own lives-exactly contrary to what the Trickster keeps trying to pound into their heads.

  WHAT’S UP NEXT, DOC?

  Although we didn’t see the Trickster again in season three, the lesson he taught informed everything that followed … yet, it hadn’t actually been learned. Three episodes later, Sam was still just as set on saving Dean, and Dean was just as willing to let him:

  DEAN: I can’t expect Dad to show up with some miracle last minute. I can’t expect anybody to. The only person going to get me out of this is me.

  SAM: And me. (“Long Distance Call,” 3-14)

  And in the final episode of season three, despite Dean’s protestations that they couldn’t keep sacrificing themselves for each other, both boys are still fighting, still trying to find a way to win. Yet despite all their efforts, in the final scene of the final episode, Dean was left hanging on meat hooks, calling out for Sam, and Sam was alone, stunned by the fact that Lilith, überdemon and holder of Dean’s contract (and all other contracts, according to Ruby), couldn’t kill him. In his “Peat and Repeat” article in Trickster’s Way, noted Trickster scholar C.W. Spinks tells us, “the fracturing edge of Trickster cleft will move us in directions we yet do not understand.”56 At the time of this writing, at the end of the third season, Sam Winchester’s path is about to head in those murky directions.

  We’ve already seen how Sam deals with the death of his brother, and the emergence of his preternatural powers may very well be what lets him figure out a way to bring Dean out of Hell. But at what cost? I believe that Sam’s transformation is as inevitable as Dean being dragged off to Hell, both outcomes foreshadowed again and again throughout the series, and given voice in the Trickster lessons. The sacrifices Dean and Sam have made for each other will change them, will be the “death” of them … the death of who they thought they were.

  In a fan Q&A at the convention Salute to Supernatural, Eric Kripke stated, “They keep presenting themselves as targets because they are so obsessed about saving each other; they take self-sacrifice to this pathological level. It actually serves as a character flaw. What they are willing to do for each other is both a strength and a character flaw. And with each occurrence they keep turning further and further against nature.”57 Kripke continues this thought in a TVGuide.com interview, talking about season two: “Sam promised Dean right before Dean [almost] died [in “In My Time of Dying”] that he wasn’t going to pursue any of his powers in terms of discovering his potential. Upon Dean’s return, Sam tells him, ‘I promised I wouldn’t head down that road because you made me promise,’ but we begin to wonder if indeed that is the truth.”58 How then is this situation any different? It’s been two years and now Dean, although not exactly dead, is in Hell. And a return from Hell will no doubt require an even stronger sacrifice than before. Sam must indeed turn to the dark side-or at least away from the side of lightin order to go after his brother: a modern-day Orpheus and Eurydice. Let’s just hope that Sam can avoid looking behind him.

  MARIA LIMA writes dead people … no, really. Author of Matters of the Blood and Blood Bargain (Juno Books), and an Agatha-nominated short story, “The Butler Didn’t Do It” (Chesapeake Crimes), Maria keeps one foot in the real world and the other in make-believe. Her role models include Tanya Huff, Joss Whedon, Christopher Golden, and Russell T. Davies. She has a soft spot for both the Trickster and Dean and Sam Winchester. Like Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, Maria also hails from Texas, but now lives elsewhere. Visit her at www.thelima.com.

  Urban legends, campfire stories, myths, fairy tales-these are the bedrock of Supernatural’s storytelling, and Eric Kripke’s original inspiration for the show. The Trickster, Bloody Mary, the Hook Man, the Woman in White-all of these and more have been given the Supernatural treatment, demonstrating how each of these tales or legends has stood the test of time, lending themselves to successful reinterpretation for a new generation.

  Here, Shanna Swendson examines the origins of many of Supernatural’s myths and legends, and demonstrates how the unique spin the show has put on each ensures the moral of the story remains relevant to a modern audience.

  SHANNA SWENDSON

  KEEPERS OF THE LORE

  Once upon a time, before the advent of television or radi
o, before electric lighting made it possible to get things done after the sun went down, people had to create their own entertainment, and so they told stories. They sat by the fire and told tales meant to amuse, entertain, frighten, inform, and explain the world around them. A wealth of valuable advice is hidden in those stories: be kind to old beggar women and small forest creatures (you never know when you might need their help), don’t take apples from strange women, think about the exact wording of an offer before you agree to it, stealing from giants can get you in trouble, there are dangerous things lurking in the woods, and the king won’t be thrilled about his daughter marrying the foolish youngest son of a woodsman, so be prepared for treachery on the eve of the wedding.

  We may not sit around the fire when we tell stories today, except perhaps at camp or during a blackout when there’s nothing else to do for fun, but we do still tell stories. They’re just more likely to be passed around the Internet as events that happened to a friend’s mother’s cousin. And there is that flickering box we sit around that tells us stories.

  Some of the stories on that flickering box are about two brothers who travel the country. They’re the keepers of the lore, the ones who remember what others have forgotten or who believe in what others scoff at as old wives’ tales or urban legends. The Brothers Grimm nearly two centuries ago collected the old tales before the oral tradition died out; the Brothers Winchester face the truth behind tales that many of us have forgotten. Because they remember the lore and believe, they can take action against things the rest of us don’t suspect, because the fantastic doesn’t fit in our modern worldview or else because we’ve grown too cynical to believe a story that sounds too weird to be true.