You know, it's sort of funny, this concept of Castiel falling and how it's evolved. I joined fandom right after Heaven and Hell aired and it was written into canon that SPN angels could fall, so of course the majority of fics being written around that time were about Castiel falling and getting his happy ending with Dean that way.
I kind of thought then, like you do now, that he almost had to fall in order to be happy, because there was no way he could go back to heaven and pretend to not have experienced all these emotions and be happy there in the company of his emotionless brothers who he doubts. And even if he was allowed to stay on earth with both Dean and his grace intact, Dean would eventually grow old and die and leave him in the dust. I mean, I guess once Dean died Castiel could follow him to heaven and continue to be with him there, still as an angel, but I dunno, that feels slightly contrived and just, in general, too good to be true. Or, if he still doesn't like how heaven works, not good enough. So, I was all about him having to fall.
Fast forward to The End, where Castiel has fallen and it's an absolute disaster. I got a really interesting comment on one of my very earliest fics, titled "the one in which Castiel doesn't fall" or something, that ended angstily because Castiel didn't fall and choose Dean. The (admittedly lame-ass) title was meant to be a warning that it wouldn't end happily, and this much more recent comment said something like, "the title made me think it would end happily." Like the commenter, I think I've started subconsciously associating falling with some pretty negative implications for Castiel.
But when I think about it, all of those negative implications are temporary ones. Castiel can get used to all these inconvenient human things, he can get over feeling useless, etc., as long as Dean is a good enough friend to him and Castiel can still contribute to the world-saving thing, right? It certainly won't be an easy road for him, but in the end, I still think he can be happy as a human, like he is in this fic. So no, even though I had to reevaluate, I don't really think my views have changed.
The only way I see him being happy without falling (and this is also a view I've had for a long time) is if there's a massive overhaul of the management upstairs. If he finds God, Zach kicks the bucket, and the angels start doing the right thing again, I think Castiel could be happy with that. (And he could wait out the rest of Dean's life up in Heaven, and then they could be together forever after all.)
Wow, this got wordy. IN CONCLUSION, here are the two post-apocalypse happy ending scenarios I've more or less always had:
1) Castiel falls and stays with Dean AND THERE IS LOTS OF SEX and when he dies, his human soul goes to heaven along with Dean's and he still doesn't have to worry about any of that angel crap when he gets back. Or maybe he even gets snuffed out, I don't know.
2) Massive overhaul in heaven, Castiel returns there to wait for Dean to die and join him AND THERE IS LOTS OF SEX (even though they won't have bodies, whatever, minor detail).
I prefer option 1 because the massive overhaul in heaven also seems contrived.
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Date: 2010-02-03 02:35 am (UTC)I kind of thought then, like you do now, that he almost had to fall in order to be happy, because there was no way he could go back to heaven and pretend to not have experienced all these emotions and be happy there in the company of his emotionless brothers who he doubts. And even if he was allowed to stay on earth with both Dean and his grace intact, Dean would eventually grow old and die and leave him in the dust. I mean, I guess once Dean died Castiel could follow him to heaven and continue to be with him there, still as an angel, but I dunno, that feels slightly contrived and just, in general, too good to be true. Or, if he still doesn't like how heaven works, not good enough. So, I was all about him having to fall.
Fast forward to The End, where Castiel has fallen and it's an absolute disaster. I got a really interesting comment on one of my very earliest fics, titled "the one in which Castiel doesn't fall" or something, that ended angstily because Castiel didn't fall and choose Dean. The (admittedly lame-ass) title was meant to be a warning that it wouldn't end happily, and this much more recent comment said something like, "the title made me think it would end happily." Like the commenter, I think I've started subconsciously associating falling with some pretty negative implications for Castiel.
But when I think about it, all of those negative implications are temporary ones. Castiel can get used to all these inconvenient human things, he can get over feeling useless, etc., as long as Dean is a good enough friend to him and Castiel can still contribute to the world-saving thing, right? It certainly won't be an easy road for him, but in the end, I still think he can be happy as a human, like he is in this fic. So no, even though I had to reevaluate, I don't really think my views have changed.
The only way I see him being happy without falling (and this is also a view I've had for a long time) is if there's a massive overhaul of the management upstairs. If he finds God, Zach kicks the bucket, and the angels start doing the right thing again, I think Castiel could be happy with that. (And he could wait out the rest of Dean's life up in Heaven, and then they could be together forever after all.)
Wow, this got wordy. IN CONCLUSION, here are the two post-apocalypse happy ending scenarios I've more or less always had:
1) Castiel falls and stays with Dean AND THERE IS LOTS OF SEX and when he dies, his human soul goes to heaven along with Dean's and he still doesn't have to worry about any of that angel crap when he gets back. Or maybe he even gets snuffed out, I don't know.
2) Massive overhaul in heaven, Castiel returns there to wait for Dean to die and join him AND THERE IS LOTS OF SEX (even though they won't have bodies, whatever, minor detail).
I prefer option 1 because the massive overhaul in heaven also seems contrived.