A hopefully one day conclusive study of these assholes, hopefully told as briefly as I can.
Written for the people in the fandom who care but sometimes need a pick me up on this, and not written to prove a point to anyone who doesn’t already care. ❤
Cas returns to see Dean in private – next episode they’ll find out he stole that book from Bobby to get into Purgatory, but I like to think that he only did it after this conversation >.> I think he wanted a one last chance appeal to Dean, because of course they have the greater connection. Of course it’s personal between them in a way it isn’t to anyone else. Of course Dean’s trust and say so is the defining message as they all turn to him as the natural leader of the group in many instances. And what Cas gets is this:
DEAN You’re a freakin’ child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want!
CASTIEL I know what I’m doing, Dean.
DEAN I’m not gonna logic you, okay? I’m saying don’t…Just ‘cause. I’m asking you not to. That’s it.
CASTIEL I don’t understand.
DEAN Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family – that you are like a brother to me. So, if I’m asking you not to do something… You got to trust me, man.
We have Dean’s (angry, broken) appeal for trust to mirror the one Cas asked him for, and once again we have the back and forth – and that neither will give ground to the other. While Dean’s trust in Cas has been shattered, Cas’s certainty in what he is doing is overriding his chances to trust Dean, to trust in the message of family and that throwing yourself into a dark and terrible cause to protect them is worse than just taking the horrible consquences head on but morally reassured and side-by-side with loved ones. Because he sees a bigger picture than Dean, sees the destruction Raphael will bring, and sees no way to confront it without taking on the terrible burden himself, with or without Dean’s approval but ultimately FOR Dean’s sake. And that the desperation on that point is enough to make him do it.
And with Crowley’s last message in his head:
CROWLEY You know the difference between you and me? I know what I am. What are you, Castiel? What exactly are you willing to do?
And the ring of fire confrontation, his family’s refusal to listen to him, give him a chance, and work with him to let them protect him (as he sees it) he is immune to Dean’s appeal, and instead heading down the awful path of necessity and the “long road of good intentions”
Dean argues from the heart, hoping one last time to appeal to Cas as family, dropping the biggest declaration of what Cas means to him for a long long time in the show, and it’s despair that none of this is getting through to Cas – he sees Cas as having learned from him the wrong message of freedom to do what he wants to consequences Dean can’t fathom, and justifying it in ways that scare Dean – Cas’s intensity about how it is for Dean is mirroring 5×02 where he declares he rebelled entirely for Dean. And in 4×22 when he’s doing it and 5×02 when he says that, Dean seems to be scared at the enormity of what he’s done to Cas; now it comes crashing down that his is how he has shaped Cas, what Cas has learned from him without seeming to grasp nuances which might have made him share the truth sooner (from Dean’s perspective Cas is learning all this human stuff and still struggling with it, although it’s far more debatable how much Cas truly does or doesn’t get here, considering we have his wry internal monologue to guide us on how he feels) and in general the confrontation comes to the philosophical difference between them that I mentioned at the end of 5×22 – the “peace or freedom” debate that they didn’t even know they were having.
So, Cas goes dark, and says, “Or what” to Dean stopping him, and Dean reacts in horror, seeing really for the first time how FAR Cas has gone – how, yep, he’s making this call and I don’t even know about the raking leaves thing but if I did that was the last time I could have reasoned with him – and threatens he could take Cas down, should he need to protect the world from him. Should he have to place him in the same category as Crowley. And Cas says the final line which severs them – “You can’t, Dean. You’re just a man. I’m an angel.” Seeming to seal their fate and carrying a weight beyond just Cas’s declaration that Dean can’t stop him. And so their final words are bitter apologies seeming to mark the end of their friendship for good.
Cas returns the narration to the park bench, showing his story bracketed either side with Dean first reaching out to him without knowing, and finally begging him to stop when he did know what was up. Cas tries bargaining with himself to ignore Dean’s warning, saying the “Human perspective” is limited – and Dean stands in for humanity. And Cas asks for a sign from God, when all along the message is implied to be the one from Dean that he has ignored, and we end on the darkest irony of Cas losing his relationship with Dean over trying to protect him, and the choices he made to do so. So ends Edlund’s dark, miserable, supposed farewell to Cas’s character from the show; his defining emotional arc being that Dean had meant so much to him he self-destructed in order to protect that feeling. And broke Dean’s heart in the process.
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