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apocalypsosFor starters, somewhere between this episode and apiphile's finagling, at this rate I'm going to end up writing the hairy-legged cardigan-wearing never-gets-a-fabulous-pivotal-makeover-scene archivist who does all the investigative heavy lifting and telephonic alibi-providing for the stereotypically leather-pants-wearing gun-toting incredibly sexy heroes and heroines, who then has to turn around and grumble her way through saving the world. (This is always the way of the story ideas that actually work for me, I swear. Two good ideas leap at my head at once and suddenly, BAM! Heroine Addiction. BAM! The Monsters of Moosic. Etc., etc.)
Anyway.
The thing I like about this episode -- although I liked everything, quite frankly, but this was my favorite thing -- was how neatly it dismantles the Bobby Sue argument, in which people complain about Bobby being the tidy know-it-resource Dean and Sam go to instead of researching anymore. Which I feel I should point out isn't the actual definition of a Mary Sue, unless Bobby is prettier and a better hunter and more important than the Winchesters, and also somewhere along the line he falls in love with someone awesome, like ... fuck, I don't know, Gabriel or Ash or a suddenly resurrected Mary. Er, on second thought, I probably shouldn't have put the thought of a Mary/Bobby pairing in my head. *dodges plotbunny*
Um ... anyway, again.
If Bobby were any kind of a Gary Stu, he'd know this shit off the top of his head. But he doesn't, and he never has, which is why the boys never get an immediate answer out of him when they ask for him to look something up for them. If there's one thing fandom should and does know by now, it's how much effort one has to put into researching a subject before obtaining successful results. Whether it's a fanfic or a school thesis, we're all of an academic bent to a strong enough degree to sympathize with Bobby's day-to-day activities -- having to boost books he needs from the library (even if he has to drive three states away to get it), all-nighters of the sort usually only pulled off by med students prior to finals, running the phone bank while trying to run his own life at the same time. There's work involved, and it's no more less important than when he grabs up a shotgun and heads into the field.
I've avoided a large amount of the reaction posts out there so I'm not sure if anyone else cheered quite as loudly as I did when Bobby got both of the boys on the phone and verbally reamed them a new one. I do know that one of my major pet peeves in fandom is when someone gets offended any time any character has the audacity to call Sam and Dean on any of their bad behavior. They're not perfect, for heaven's sake, and while the audience may like them and excuse them for their faults, people in their own world will not. They're human, they make mistakes, and there's no sense of realism if they're not called on it, nor does it make any character who does so a terrible, mean person, nor does it make them wrong.
The thing is, the verbal reaming Sam and Dean got in this episode ties back in to the complaint that's seen a lot in fandom that Sam and Dean don't do as much of their own research as they did in seasons one and two, and tend to foist a lot of it off on Bobby. I have no problem with them doing that, aside from the fact that I do have a problem with them doing that on the face of it, for exactly the reasons that Bobby called them on it. But as we can see quite plainly in this episode, research takes a ludicrous amount of time, and the Dean and Sam of season one are not the same Dean and Sam of season six. Those Winchesters way back when had far more time to put into the research end of things, so the investigative part of the hunt and the fieldwork part sort of evened out timewise. In the ensuing years, what with angels and apocalypses and general angst and whatnot, some part of the hunt has had to be sacrificed, and unfortunately they've been -- for lack of a better term -- outsourcing that work to an outside contractor: Bobby.
Which leaves Bobby being taken for granted. A LOT.
So, yeah, I understand why they end up calling Bobby and saying, "Hey, can you look this up for us?" even though they certainly know how to do it themselves, and even though Bobby may have better things to do than their homework, AND even though Bobby has what looks like freakin' dial-up and Windows 95. (Aw, Bobby. I think I used that computer in my comp classes in ninth grade. Does it print on dot matrix paper, too?) I don't LIKE it, but I get why they do it.
That said, the talking-to he gave the boys was the ultimate FUCK YEAH moment, mostly because of what came before it: Dean doing what both boys have been guilty of on occasion which is, "While you're looking this up for me, let me talk to you about my feeeeeeeelings." Jesus, I tell my own brother to hold off for five minutes when I'm doing him a favor like making him mac and cheese or whatever and he interrupts me to complain to me about whatever girl he's currently dating or screwing or arguing with, so I can only imagine how irritating it must be to have those two calling you at all hours for research purposes AND sound relationship advice. It's like your boss coming up to you and saying, "I need this report done by five o'clock. Oh, and while you're doing that, I wanted to talk to you about my feelings about my upcoming divorce." What? No, fuck off, you just asked me to write a goddamn report in -- shit, four hours?! Go the fuck away.
... ahem.
It does make me wonder how much the entire hunting community seems to take Bobby for granted, considering the damn phone bank. I do sort of love that we've known about the phone bank for years and yet I don't think I've ever seen one person mention anything about how it might be used by hunters other than Sam and Dean. It's kind of hilarious how so many fans are always on about how they want the show to go back to the days when it was just Sam and Dean and no one else in the world or whatever, but the thing is that it's always been like this -- other hunters, other stories, maybe even other apocalypses -- and we've just been over here with the Winchesters experiencing their rather insular hunting world, which has only just started opening up into a wider heritage and other hunters and whatnot in recent seasons. They're part of a much larger story going on, and I personally like that a great deal.
As for Crowley, I find myself admiring the son of a bitch even as I wanted to smack him upside the head for screwing with Bobby. Going from lousy two-bit small-dicked tailor to king of Hell in only four hundred years? Go, Crowley. Credit where credit is due ... that's some major political maneuvering right there.
As for Sam ... seriously, you guys, I think Dean wouldn't be able to function if he didn't get to spend a major amount of his free time worrying Sam may be off somewhere eating babies and seducing nuns when Dean's in the shower or taking a piss or whatever. I genuinely believe that if Sam were to be fixed tomorrow and went off and got married and had babies and a successful career and still hunted on the weekends, Dean would still be all, "No, honestly, because I went to Hell, and I know it hurts, and you've been acting strangely like that time you put ketchup in your chicken soup, AND I'M JUST REALLY CONCERNED YOU'RE POSSESSED BY SATAN. AGAIN. THERE, I SAID IT." And Sam would just smile and pat his wee little head and know that when Dean said, "I think there might be something really, really wrong with you that only an exorcism and a holy water enema could fix," what he actually meant was, "I love you."
However, I've been mentally discounting theories about Sam in my head for the last few days, and while I haven't yet put the Sam-lost-his-soul theory to bed just yet, I've crossed out the Sam-is-still-lugging-around-Lucifer-or-Michael-or-some-other-demon-around, because Castiel saw him and didn't say anything in that regard, so I'm discarding that theory with the understanding that Castiel could, of course, be entirely full of shit and conning us and Dean. I'm still debating with myself other theories I've read: God brought him up, Castiel brought him up, the amulet he snuck out of the trash when Dean tossed it and has kept on him ever since brought him up, etc. The lost soul theory is probably the correct one, of course, but it does raise an interesting question -- if he did lose it, who has it?
And on a final note, Crowley's made-up Bobby argument was fucking hilarious. The end. :)
apiphile's finagling, at this rate I'm going to end up writing the hairy-legged cardigan-wearing never-gets-a-fabulous-pivotal-makeover-scene archivist who does all the investigative heavy lifting and telephonic alibi-providing for the stereotypically leather-pants-wearing gun-toting incredibly sexy heroes and heroines, who then has to turn around and grumble her way through saving the world. (This is always the way of the story ideas that actually work for me, I swear. Two good ideas leap at my head at once and suddenly, BAM! Heroine Addiction. BAM! The Monsters of Moosic. Etc., etc.) Anyway.
The thing I like about this episode -- although I liked everything, quite frankly, but this was my favorite thing -- was how neatly it dismantles the Bobby Sue argument, in which people complain about Bobby being the tidy know-it-resource Dean and Sam go to instead of researching anymore. Which I feel I should point out isn't the actual definition of a Mary Sue, unless Bobby is prettier and a better hunter and more important than the Winchesters, and also somewhere along the line he falls in love with someone awesome, like ... fuck, I don't know, Gabriel or Ash or a suddenly resurrected Mary. Er, on second thought, I probably shouldn't have put the thought of a Mary/Bobby pairing in my head. *dodges plotbunny*
Um ... anyway, again.
If Bobby were any kind of a Gary Stu, he'd know this shit off the top of his head. But he doesn't, and he never has, which is why the boys never get an immediate answer out of him when they ask for him to look something up for them. If there's one thing fandom should and does know by now, it's how much effort one has to put into researching a subject before obtaining successful results. Whether it's a fanfic or a school thesis, we're all of an academic bent to a strong enough degree to sympathize with Bobby's day-to-day activities -- having to boost books he needs from the library (even if he has to drive three states away to get it), all-nighters of the sort usually only pulled off by med students prior to finals, running the phone bank while trying to run his own life at the same time. There's work involved, and it's no more less important than when he grabs up a shotgun and heads into the field.
I've avoided a large amount of the reaction posts out there so I'm not sure if anyone else cheered quite as loudly as I did when Bobby got both of the boys on the phone and verbally reamed them a new one. I do know that one of my major pet peeves in fandom is when someone gets offended any time any character has the audacity to call Sam and Dean on any of their bad behavior. They're not perfect, for heaven's sake, and while the audience may like them and excuse them for their faults, people in their own world will not. They're human, they make mistakes, and there's no sense of realism if they're not called on it, nor does it make any character who does so a terrible, mean person, nor does it make them wrong.
The thing is, the verbal reaming Sam and Dean got in this episode ties back in to the complaint that's seen a lot in fandom that Sam and Dean don't do as much of their own research as they did in seasons one and two, and tend to foist a lot of it off on Bobby. I have no problem with them doing that, aside from the fact that I do have a problem with them doing that on the face of it, for exactly the reasons that Bobby called them on it. But as we can see quite plainly in this episode, research takes a ludicrous amount of time, and the Dean and Sam of season one are not the same Dean and Sam of season six. Those Winchesters way back when had far more time to put into the research end of things, so the investigative part of the hunt and the fieldwork part sort of evened out timewise. In the ensuing years, what with angels and apocalypses and general angst and whatnot, some part of the hunt has had to be sacrificed, and unfortunately they've been -- for lack of a better term -- outsourcing that work to an outside contractor: Bobby.
Which leaves Bobby being taken for granted. A LOT.
So, yeah, I understand why they end up calling Bobby and saying, "Hey, can you look this up for us?" even though they certainly know how to do it themselves, and even though Bobby may have better things to do than their homework, AND even though Bobby has what looks like freakin' dial-up and Windows 95. (Aw, Bobby. I think I used that computer in my comp classes in ninth grade. Does it print on dot matrix paper, too?) I don't LIKE it, but I get why they do it.
That said, the talking-to he gave the boys was the ultimate FUCK YEAH moment, mostly because of what came before it: Dean doing what both boys have been guilty of on occasion which is, "While you're looking this up for me, let me talk to you about my feeeeeeeelings." Jesus, I tell my own brother to hold off for five minutes when I'm doing him a favor like making him mac and cheese or whatever and he interrupts me to complain to me about whatever girl he's currently dating or screwing or arguing with, so I can only imagine how irritating it must be to have those two calling you at all hours for research purposes AND sound relationship advice. It's like your boss coming up to you and saying, "I need this report done by five o'clock. Oh, and while you're doing that, I wanted to talk to you about my feelings about my upcoming divorce." What? No, fuck off, you just asked me to write a goddamn report in -- shit, four hours?! Go the fuck away.
... ahem.
It does make me wonder how much the entire hunting community seems to take Bobby for granted, considering the damn phone bank. I do sort of love that we've known about the phone bank for years and yet I don't think I've ever seen one person mention anything about how it might be used by hunters other than Sam and Dean. It's kind of hilarious how so many fans are always on about how they want the show to go back to the days when it was just Sam and Dean and no one else in the world or whatever, but the thing is that it's always been like this -- other hunters, other stories, maybe even other apocalypses -- and we've just been over here with the Winchesters experiencing their rather insular hunting world, which has only just started opening up into a wider heritage and other hunters and whatnot in recent seasons. They're part of a much larger story going on, and I personally like that a great deal.
As for Crowley, I find myself admiring the son of a bitch even as I wanted to smack him upside the head for screwing with Bobby. Going from lousy two-bit small-dicked tailor to king of Hell in only four hundred years? Go, Crowley. Credit where credit is due ... that's some major political maneuvering right there.
As for Sam ... seriously, you guys, I think Dean wouldn't be able to function if he didn't get to spend a major amount of his free time worrying Sam may be off somewhere eating babies and seducing nuns when Dean's in the shower or taking a piss or whatever. I genuinely believe that if Sam were to be fixed tomorrow and went off and got married and had babies and a successful career and still hunted on the weekends, Dean would still be all, "No, honestly, because I went to Hell, and I know it hurts, and you've been acting strangely like that time you put ketchup in your chicken soup, AND I'M JUST REALLY CONCERNED YOU'RE POSSESSED BY SATAN. AGAIN. THERE, I SAID IT." And Sam would just smile and pat his wee little head and know that when Dean said, "I think there might be something really, really wrong with you that only an exorcism and a holy water enema could fix," what he actually meant was, "I love you."
However, I've been mentally discounting theories about Sam in my head for the last few days, and while I haven't yet put the Sam-lost-his-soul theory to bed just yet, I've crossed out the Sam-is-still-lugging-around-Lucifer-or-Michael-or-some-other-demon-around, because Castiel saw him and didn't say anything in that regard, so I'm discarding that theory with the understanding that Castiel could, of course, be entirely full of shit and conning us and Dean. I'm still debating with myself other theories I've read: God brought him up, Castiel brought him up, the amulet he snuck out of the trash when Dean tossed it and has kept on him ever since brought him up, etc. The lost soul theory is probably the correct one, of course, but it does raise an interesting question -- if he did lose it, who has it?
And on a final note, Crowley's made-up Bobby argument was fucking hilarious. The end. :)
