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I just skipped back to the start of Supernatural season five to refresh my memory about how Nick/Lucifer's arc began. Accidentally landed on the scene in the hospital where Castiel, having picked his side at the end of S4, complains that he "killed two angels this week". Oh, bby.
The show's never delved deeply into that aspect of Castiel's storyline. He's feared and loathed by other angels but we've seen little of how he feels about that. Few characters can get a rise out of him under any provocation, so we just get occasional glimpses of his fear and anger when one of the Winchesters goes recklessly suicidal and makes Cas afraid his sacrifices are in vain and his faith misplaced. He needs to feel that it's been worth it and panics when that gets hard. He's killed so many of his own kind, both in combat and when he went nuclear at the start of S7. He's been significantly responsible for the genocide and near extinction of the angels, both through personal kills and through his epic hubris in seasons 6, 7, and 9.
He feels the guilt and shame, he undergoes atonement, and he learns to do and be better - but he keeps on killing angels when he needs to. All that slaughter, yet I truly believed him when he told Nick that it's the personal, human tragedy of Jimmy Novak and family - the unintended consequence of his ignorance and blind faith, his angelic innocence - that, metaphorically speaking, keeps Cas awake at night. That was just raw for him and Nick touched a nerve, while the fate of Heaven, in which he's taken a conscious part, is a dull burden that Cas carries and owns without outward displays of overwhelming emotion.
It ought to come over as a terrible, terrifying zealotry on Castiel's part - the kind that tips the balance from hero to antihero/villain, and the kind of cold absolutism he consciously walked away from at the end of S4 when Dean challenged him to choose between right and wrong instead of relying on blind faith, but it doesn't read that way. His self-doubt is infinitely more dangerous to bystanders - to his friends - than his righteous certainty.
When he succumbs to a dangerous anger in his private trauma, he has the insight to isolate himself, and when that fails, he has the self-awareness to stop short of beating the helpless Metatron to death because he can still draw a clear distinction between an enemy and a threat. He knows how dangerous he is and warns people when it's viable to do so. He does everything in his power to see that he's safely restrained when Rowena's slavering-killer spell overtakes him, when he knows the choice is going to be taken out of his hands. The rest of the time his self-control is epic. Even the tired, kind and caring dad!Cas of season 13/14 is first and foremost a soldier making a soldier's choices with a soldier's strategy, a defender rather than an aggressor. Somehow, even with the shocking death toll he's racked up, he's a protector figure, not something out of a nightmare. Just like the Winchesters.
It's like he's helpless to prevent his part in harming Heaven, even as he's the one stabbing and exploding his siblings all over the place. Mind you, the other angels never learn. They keep coming at him with pointy things and/or threatening the Winchesters, and when they do occasionally manage to take him off the board, Chuck puts him right back. As of S14, even Naomi seems to have grasped that making Castiel choose between his own kind and his adopted family isn't a survival strategy. I'm not optimistic that any of the angels (bar semi-angelic Jack, I guess) will be left standing by the series finale. The shape of the story seems to demand that they move over to make way for a better tomorrow - along with God. But if God's the one writing the story, it's unlikely to be that simple!
Poor (killy stabby fallen fratricidal) Castiel.
The show's never delved deeply into that aspect of Castiel's storyline. He's feared and loathed by other angels but we've seen little of how he feels about that. Few characters can get a rise out of him under any provocation, so we just get occasional glimpses of his fear and anger when one of the Winchesters goes recklessly suicidal and makes Cas afraid his sacrifices are in vain and his faith misplaced. He needs to feel that it's been worth it and panics when that gets hard. He's killed so many of his own kind, both in combat and when he went nuclear at the start of S7. He's been significantly responsible for the genocide and near extinction of the angels, both through personal kills and through his epic hubris in seasons 6, 7, and 9.
He feels the guilt and shame, he undergoes atonement, and he learns to do and be better - but he keeps on killing angels when he needs to. All that slaughter, yet I truly believed him when he told Nick that it's the personal, human tragedy of Jimmy Novak and family - the unintended consequence of his ignorance and blind faith, his angelic innocence - that, metaphorically speaking, keeps Cas awake at night. That was just raw for him and Nick touched a nerve, while the fate of Heaven, in which he's taken a conscious part, is a dull burden that Cas carries and owns without outward displays of overwhelming emotion.
It ought to come over as a terrible, terrifying zealotry on Castiel's part - the kind that tips the balance from hero to antihero/villain, and the kind of cold absolutism he consciously walked away from at the end of S4 when Dean challenged him to choose between right and wrong instead of relying on blind faith, but it doesn't read that way. His self-doubt is infinitely more dangerous to bystanders - to his friends - than his righteous certainty.
When he succumbs to a dangerous anger in his private trauma, he has the insight to isolate himself, and when that fails, he has the self-awareness to stop short of beating the helpless Metatron to death because he can still draw a clear distinction between an enemy and a threat. He knows how dangerous he is and warns people when it's viable to do so. He does everything in his power to see that he's safely restrained when Rowena's slavering-killer spell overtakes him, when he knows the choice is going to be taken out of his hands. The rest of the time his self-control is epic. Even the tired, kind and caring dad!Cas of season 13/14 is first and foremost a soldier making a soldier's choices with a soldier's strategy, a defender rather than an aggressor. Somehow, even with the shocking death toll he's racked up, he's a protector figure, not something out of a nightmare. Just like the Winchesters.
It's like he's helpless to prevent his part in harming Heaven, even as he's the one stabbing and exploding his siblings all over the place. Mind you, the other angels never learn. They keep coming at him with pointy things and/or threatening the Winchesters, and when they do occasionally manage to take him off the board, Chuck puts him right back. As of S14, even Naomi seems to have grasped that making Castiel choose between his own kind and his adopted family isn't a survival strategy. I'm not optimistic that any of the angels (bar semi-angelic Jack, I guess) will be left standing by the series finale. The shape of the story seems to demand that they move over to make way for a better tomorrow - along with God. But if God's the one writing the story, it's unlikely to be that simple!
Poor (killy stabby fallen fratricidal) Castiel.
