Supernatural - Castiel: It's About the Souls

This is part one of a three-part series looking at the season 6 story of Castiel.

“It’s his soul, it’s missing.” – Cas (speaking about Sam) (ep. 6.7)

“I'm an angel, you ass. I don't have a soul to sell.” – Cas (6.20)

“It all comes down to the souls in the end.” – Crowley (6.20)

Season 6 of Supernatural started with the reintroduction of Sam, but it didn’t take long before it became obvious that there was something wrong with him. We learned the answer in Family Matters – that his soul was missing. As the first half of the season continued, we saw the importance of a soul by witnessing one of our favorite characters altered. Sam, who was known for his puppy dog eyes – his ability to see into others’ souls and nonverbally express compassion, became an ice-cold killer with no compassion for the people he still tried to save as a hunter, and his instincts for reading people appeared damaged.

As the season progressed, we began to see a bigger, more global story unfold. The horseman Death gave Dean a lesson on the natural order and cryptically told him that he wanted Dean to keep digging at something. What exactly that something was, he wouldn’t reveal, but he gave Dean a hint. It was about the souls. In the last few episodes of the season, we found out that much of the disruption in the world and in Heaven that we were witnessing – including the angels’ civil war and the return of the mother of all monsters – could be traced back to an unholy alliance between Cas and the King of Hell. And what was more, Cas – trusted friend and unofficial brother – had never had a soul.

Viewers and the Winchesters struggled with trying to understand how their beloved angel, the “Balki Bartokomous of Heaven,” could have turned so dark so quickly. And the question emerged – how much of Cas’s actions could be attributed to his lack of a soul?

While soulless Sam seemed incapable of caring about other people or any ideals, Cas throughout the past three seasons had demonstrated time and again a willingness to risk his own safety to help those he cares about and the cause of stopping the Apocalypse. And he continued to show affection for Sam and Dean in season 6. But on the other hand, there were parallels that emerged between the thought processes and decisions reached by soulless Sam and by Cas.

Both soulless Sam and Cas focused on the big picture at the expense of human empathy. Soulless Sam was willing to let his brother be temporarily turned into a vampire so to give the Campbells a strategic edge in catching the alpha vamp (6.5). Soulless Sam was also willing to use innocent humans as bait (6.13), and he chose to kill the female bartender in The Man Who Knew Too Much rather than lose his prey, a demon holding her hostage.

Cas admitted early in the season that his “people skills are rusty” (6.3), and appeared to have become quite adept at torture for achieving his end result (6.19). He rolled his eyes at Dean and Sam’s insistence on saving a couple of young boys in Mommy Dearest, but instead reminded Dean of the “bigger picture.” He killed his angel brothers for the cause. Finally, he crashed Sam’s wall that were keeping Sam’s Hell memories out, knowing that the act may kill Sam, in order to get Dean off his trail in trying to stop his plan to open a door to Purgatory.

Both soulless Sam and Cas also appeared only partly aware of their moral deficiencies. In the case of Sam, he remembered that he used to be different, and when he asked Dean to join him hunting, he said it was because Dean cared about the victims. But on the other hand, he later denied that he needed Dean and tells Dean that he did “just fine” being on his own for a year, before he hooked up with Dean (6.9). Cas defended his actions and told Dean to stay focused on “the bigger picture” (6.19), but he also expressed doubts and begs God for a sign to indicate whether he is on the right path (6.20).

“I was on my own for a whole year, and I was just fine.” – Sam
“I don’t want to hear your definition of fine.” - Dean (6.9)

“You don't even see it, do you? How totally off the rails you are.” -Dean to Cas (6.22)

Finally, there is symmetry in the way the two story arcs concluded. The soulless Sam arc ended with Sam trying to kill Bobby, a man he considered to be like a father to him, in an effort to scar his vessel so badly that his soul couldn’t return. Cas’s arc concluded with him crashing Sam’s wall – an act that could easily have killed someone he considered a brother – in what was possibly an effort to sever the link to the Winchesters.

“You've got no instinct. I mean, you are seriously messed up. … if we do this … you tell me everything, whether you think it's important or not, because, trust me, you can't tell the difference.”

- Dean to soulless Sam (6.7)

But while there were similarities between soulless Sam and Cas, there were also differences. With soulless Sam, the issue of his soullessness was portrayed as physical defect. Without the soul, he was handicapped in making human decisions about right and wrong. However, when the big ball of white light was put back in him, and he was instantly back to the old Sam (once he woke up) – questioning Dean’s methods in stealing a victim’s diary and empathizing with the family of the victims. And whereas soulless Sam seemed to be motivated exclusively by self-preservation and admitted to having lost the capacity to feel any kind of attachment for another – including his brother – even in season 6, Cas repeatedly demonstrated attachment to the Winchesters – trying to hug Sam when his soul was returned from Hell, and intervening when Fate wanted to kill them.

Angels and Emotions

So the question becomes, can angels without souls experience true human emotions and connections? When we were first introduced to Cas in season 4, he appeared more soulless than human. He explained that angels were warriors of heaven, not guardians (4.2), and referred to the “bigger picture” on more than one occasion (4.7). When he told Anna he was “sorry” for having to turn her in to the angels in season 4, she replied “No. You're not. Not really. You don't know the feeling” (4.10). Cas told Dean that his superiors feared he was getting too close to Dean and was beginning to experience emotions, which were the gateway to doubt.

But unlike Sam, who experienced an instant change once his soul was reinserted, Cas’s transformation to seeming more human was gradual and there was no physical change. In seasons 4 and 5, Cas repeatedly put himself in a position where he might be killed for Dean and for the cause of defeating the Apocalypse. When Dean appealed to Cas’s sense of right in wrong in Lucifer Rising, Cas relented, defying his angel superiors and putting his life at risk to help Dean stop Sam from killing Lilith (4.22).

But when Cas was apart from the Winchesters for a long period of time, he gradually reverted back to acting more soulless again. Dean asked him, “What happened to you, Cas? You used to be human, or at least like one” (6.6). But even in season 6, when Cas was mostly back to his old warrior behavior, Cas still showed signs of emotion regarding the Winchesters, as he made decisions that would hurt his own cause of defeating Raphael after the threat of danger to Sam and Dean. One example is Cas relenting to Fate and giving up the 50,000 souls he could have used in his war against Raphael. Another is continuing to protect Sam and Dean against Crowley.

A question I’ve had is how much should we read into Cas’s season 4 and 5 behavior. Was it a sign that angels don’t need a soul the way humans do? Or was it just a break in the continuity of the writing? The writers most likely didn’t know they would be building a season on souls before they started planning for season 6, and there were already two seasons of Cas written at that point, so a break in continuity sounds reasonable.

Souls as Fuel

But an interesting concept that the writers introduced in season 6 is that angels can use human souls as energy. If Heaven gets its energy from souls, do they get anything else from souls as well? Could Heaven’s morality and values merely be a reflection of the goodness in human souls? In Old Testament times, angels were portrayed as fierce warriors enforcing the wrath of God – values that reflected society of that time. Twenty-first century angels on Supernatural were portrayed as greedy, corporate opportunists. Could Heaven be just a reflection of the human world? Was the reason that Cas, and also Gabriel, seemed more human for a while, their daily interaction with people? And if Cas switches out human souls for monster souls as his fuel, how will that change Cas?

Parting Questions

Throughout the first half of the season, Dean refuses to accept Sam’s soulless state and calls Sam a “replicant” in front of Cas because Sam doesn’t have a soul. Cas, on the other hand, sometimes appeared defensive and challenged Dean’s decision to risk Sam’s life by putting a damaged soul in his body rather than leaving Sam soulless. Knowing that Cas also doesn’t have a soul, does this change your interpretation of these scenes?

How much of what we saw in season 6 do you think was due to Cas not having a soul, and where should this go from here? Should Cas get a soul if he survives the first few episodes of next season?

Next Week: Cas ... Winchester?