Look, I love Supernatural as much as the next person. I grew up with it and have rewatched it many times. I’m super attached to every character and love the way the monsters are presented. But none of this can distract me from the show’s faults一the finale being the biggest one of them all.
Warning: Supernatural spoilers ahead!
Did they seriously think it was a good idea to make Castiel come out to Dean and then kill him a few minutes afterward? After years of queerbaiting, they decided to give the fans what they asked for, just to say “sike!” and kill the now-gay angel. It’s not even the first time they’ve had a queer character on the show (no, we still haven’t forgiven them for Charlie and Dorothy). This partakes in the “Bury Your Gays Trope”一BYG for short一wherein queer characters always die or end up unhappy. Sure, we get it一the producers wanted a dramatic love confession, but the fans didn’t want a fan favorite (now queer character) to die that way. The message that it leaves isn’t a pretty one. It’s almost as if they were conveying that if you’re queer, you can’t have a happy ending.
In that very scene, after not giving Dean, the protagonist, time to react to said confession or mourn his best friend (because even if Dean didn’t love Castiel romantically, he was still his best friend), they go ahead and kill him off as well. Once again, the fans were expecting one of the brothers to die, but we never expected it to be because they were impaled by a rusty nail. We expected one of them to die in a grand way, killing the latest big baddie. Of all things, a nail sent the great Dean Winchester, who survived the wrath of both Hell and God himself, to the grave. And here’s the kicker: he goes to heaven, where he finds out that Castiel is alive again, and decides not to find him?! In what world wouldn’t Dean Winchester look for someone that he considers family and believed to be gone forever?
All things considered, the ending was loved by some fans. It actually made some pretty understandable points and we can see what the producers wanted to do. Most of the fans, though, (myself included) were so pissed that we got the hashtag #Destiel trending during election time. Why make our years-long ship become somewhat canon if you’re not going to actually make it canon?
They literally did anything to avoid fans questioning Dean’s sexuality (which would have been a big win for bisexual and pansexual people if it was made canon) and eliminated any possibility of developing the relationship by killing both characters. There were a thousand ways they could have ended the show, but this one was definitely not it. Sure, the fans would have loved for Destiel to be canon, but never in this way. Heck, I would have preferred this storyline to not to be canon at all if it avoided the BYG trope (I was so mad about it that I ended up writing a nine page essay about it for my English class).
So what’s your opinion about Supernatural’s ending? Were you angry too, or just sad that it was over? Let us know!