Having had the weekend to process my feelings about Friday's episode of Supernatural (yes, seriously, it was that good. Anyone who is not currently a fan must Netflix the series immediately. It's all worth it by Season Four), I've decided to compile a list of all of the good things Castiel has done for Sam, Dean and Bobby, and compare it to a list of all the good things that Sam, Dean and Bobby have done for Castiel. I am both a nerd and a fan, so this should not surprise anyone.
I'm doing this because I'm still reeling about how hard the Winchesters are being on Cas, and this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that. And judging by the comments on io9's recap, I'm not alone in this. I'm hoping that we're left with some feeling of redemption for Cas by the end of the season, because he's certainly proved himself in the past.
Good Things Cas Has Done for the Winchesters:
1. Raising Dean from Hell (Season Four, "Lazarus Rising"). In this episode, angels are introduced as the flip side to the demon coin, and Cas' first appearance couldn't be more badass. He brushes of multiple gunshot wounds and a knife to the heart as if they were nothing, and tells Dean that Heaven has plans for him. And he introduces himself thusly: "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition."
2. Sending Dean back in time to get the full backstory on Azazel's history with the Winchesters (Season Four, "In the Beginning"). Dean meets his mother, father, and maternal grandparents. The deal Mary was forced to make with Azazel explains a lot, and while it was a painful experience for him, it was still good to know.
3. Cas stops Alastair from killing Dean (Season Four, "On the Head of a Pin"). Alastair broke out of the Devil's Trap with covert assistance from Uriel and beat the tar out of Dean. Cas stabs him before he can finish the job, and gets the tar beat out him, too.
4. Cas gives Dean the means to stop Sam from dealing with Lilith (Season Four, "The Monster at the End of This Book"). Dean is desperate to keep Chuck's prophecy about Sam and Lilith from coming to pass, and Cas gives him a hint (wink wink, nudge nudge) about using an archangel to do it.
5. Cas tries to meet with Dean in order to tell him something important (Season Four, "The Rapture"). This gets his ass dragged back to Heaven by the other angels, where it is implied that they tortured Cas back into obedience.
6. Cas saves Sam and Dean, along with Jimmy's daughter, from demons (Season Four, "The Rapture"). When Cas' vessel, Jimmy, and the Winchesters are cornered by demons, Cas uses Jimmy's daughter as a vessel to save the day.
7. Cas rebels against Heaven at Dean's request, and sends him to Sam in order to prevent him from breaking the final seal, releasing Lucifer (Season Four, "Lucifer Rising"). Sadly, Sam does it anyway.
8. Cas dies trying hold off the archangel, buying time for Dean to stop Sam (Season Four, "Lucifer Rising").
9. Cas rescues Sam and Dean from Zachariah by coming back from the dead and killing two angels (Season Five, "Sympathy for the Devil"). When Cas decides on a course of action, he commits to it. Having come back without knowing exactly how or why, his first instinct is to protect the Winchesters.
10. Cas carves Enochian sigil into the brothers' ribs, thereby hiding them from all angels (Season Five, "Sympathy for the Devil"). A much-needed measure of protection, since Dean is intended to be Michael's vessel and Sam is intended to be Lucifer's.
11. Cas saves Dean from Zachariah, who sent Dean into the future to see the consequences of refusing Michael (Season Five, "The End"). In it, we learn that Dean would become an even bigger asshole and willingly sacrifice Cas and other friends in order to get a shot at Lucifer.
12. Cas tries to rescue the brothers from Gabriel's TV Land, and gives them clues to the Trickster's true identity (Season Five, "Changing Channels"). Since Gabriel is an archangel, he easily thwarts Cas' attempts to save the boys, and sends him somewhere nasty.
13. Cas tracks down Crowley and the Colt (Season Five, "Abandon All Hope..."). Though Cas couldn't retrieve the Colt directly because of Enochian wards on Crowley's house, he led the Winchesters straight to him.
14. Cas is captured by Lucifer and refuses to join him (Season Five, "Abandon All Hope..."). When Cas tries to gather information about the Reapers, he's trapped in holy fire by Lucifer. Lucifer asks him to join up, and Cas flatly refuses, saying that he won't let Lucifer take Sam as a vessel, and that he'd die before helping him.
15. Cas escapes the holy fire and zaps Sam and Dean away (Season Five, "Abandon All Hope..."). Cas breaks free of the holy fire and rescues the boys before Lucifer finishes summoning Death.
16. Cas meets with Anna, who has escaped from Heaven and is out to kill Sam (Season Five, "The Song Remains the Same"). Even though Anna's plan might be workable, Cas refuses to let her kill Sam, staying loyal to his friend.
17. Cas tracks Anna back to 1978 and takes the Winchesters back in time, despite the fact that he's running on his own steam and the trip weakens him considerably (Season Five, "The Song Remains the Same").
18. Cas helps the Winchesters get the story on the effects of Famine (Season Five, "My Bloody Valentine"). He catches a Cupid for some background, helps Dean lock Sam down, and tries to get Famine's ring before he's sidetracked by a tray of raw meat.
19. Cas, still reeling from the news of God's apathy and battling a truly massive hangover, helps the Winchesters kill the Whore of Babylon (Season Five, "99 Problems"). The Whore casts an Enochin spell on him, causing to collapse.
20. Cas drags Dean to Bobby's to keep him from saying yes to Michael (Season Five, "The Point of No Return"), where he also takes off to fight angels and get to resurrected Adam before Heaven does. He finds Dean after he escapes and knocks some sense into him. Then he single-handedly takes out the angels guarding the Beautiful Room to give Sam and Dean the chance to save Adam. He does this by carving the banishing sigil into his chest, and disappears along with the rest of the angels.
21. Cas cuts Pestilence's ring from his finger, using up the last of his angelic power to resist the demon's assault of disease and saving the Winchesters in the process (Season Five, "Two Minutes to Midnight"). He also helps Sam and Bobby prevent the Croatoan virus from being distributed under the guise of a flu vaccine.
22. Cas banishes Adam/Michael with a Molotov cocktail of holy fire, giving Dean the chance to try to talk to Sam/Lucifer (Season Five, "Swan Song"). Lucifer gets pissed about this and explodes him into a million pieces.
23. Cas comes back to life and heals Dean of the serious pounding Lucifer gave him, and brings Bobby back to life as well (Season Five, "Swan Song").
Good Thing the Winchesters Have Done for Cas:
1. Dean hitting the demon Alastair in the head, preventing him from casting a spell on Cas (Season Four, "Heaven and Hell"). Alastair had Cas against the ropes, and would have banished the angel back to Heaven if Dean hadn't beaned the demon in the head.
2. Sam and Dean allow Cas the opportunity to capture Alastair (Season Four, "Death Takes a Holiday"). They didn't know they were doing it, and probably wouldn't have helped him out if they knew, so this barely counts.
3. Dean agrees to torture Alastair for information (Season Four, "On the Head of a Pin"). Though he was dragged into it against his will, and only agrees because Cas told him how much he wished he didn't have to.
4. Sam stops Alastair from sending Cas back to Heaven (Season Four, "On the Head of a Pin"). This was pretty incidental, as Sam was intending to save Dean anyway, and he drank a lot of demon blood to do it.
5. Sam and Dean keep Cas' vessel, Jimmy, alive long enough for him to drop back into him (Season Four, "The Rapture"). Sort of. Sam ruins it by letting Jimmy get away, and Dean's plan to rescue Jimmy's family leads to the brothers' capture as well.
6. Dean inspires Cas to rebel and stop the Apocalypse from happening (Season Four, "Lucifer Rising"). Since this ultimately gave Cas a taste of freedom, I'll add it to this list, even though it also resulted in his death.
7. Dean lets Cas borrow his amulet to aid in his search for God (Season Five, "Good God, Y'All!"). Even though he grumbles and craps on Cas' idea in the process. Cas gives him a little what-for.
8. Dean helps Cas track down and trap Rafael for a little interrogation (Season Five, "Free to Be You and Me"). Sadly, this accomplishes nothing but enlightening us all to what a dick Rafael is.
9. Sam and Dean trap Gabriel and force him to let Cas go (Season Five, "Changing Channels"). Though they first got all the information they could out of Gabriel, they eventually remembered their old buddy Cas.
10. Sam and Dean scrape Cas off the sidewalk after their time-travel and rent him a hotel room in which to recover (Season Five, "The Song Remains the Same"). They also prevent him from falling on the floor when Cas miraculously makes it back to the present.
11. Sam kills Famine, thus freeing Cas from his compulsion to scarf down raw meat (Season Five, "My Bloody Valentine"). So I guess Sam saved Cas from E. coli?
12. Sam and Dean do some recon in Heaven for Cas, since they happen to be dead anyway (Season Five, "Dark Side of the Moon"). They grumble a bit about it, though.
13. Dean kills the Whore of Babylon, supposedly ending the spell she cast on Cas (Season Five, "99 Problems"). He and Sam bring Cas back to the hotel and let him crash there until he recovers.
The Wrap-Up:
These are all just from the fourth and fifth seasons. I could go on to mention all of the things Cas has done for the Winchesters in the sixth season, including raising Sam from the Cage, all on his own (even though he missed Sam's soul, I think we can cut him some slack because of how difficult it was). Cas has basically been at their beck and call all season, and they haven't done much to help him out with his Civil War in Heaven. Yes, Cas has been working with Crowley and keeping it from the Winchesters, but he's trying to keep Rafael from re-starting the Apocalypse. He's protected them without them even knowing it, and they can't even refrain from condemning him from doing the same thing they've ALL done in the past.
So, Dean. Sam. Bobby. Cas is still ahead on the good deeds list, and way far ahead on the "dying for you" list. You all need to grow up.
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