So, I had this whole thing about Hell being like a blasting furnace that burns the evil away - byproduct: Demon. But then the good is also concentrated and possibly just as dangerous. And Kripke clearly doesn't want to go in that direction.

She could be playing both of them.

This wouldn't surprise me at all. Making her sympathetic makes Dean trust her more. And maybe see his potential self in her.

I think the thing that least impresses me is this idea of a huge *war*. And powerful LesbiDemon is hanging out with wanna blessed-bes whose main objective is lower mortgage rates and craft contest wins? I don't get it.

Maybe she was just starting out small, taking over these women's souls and encouraging them to do more and more black magic, but the plan got thwarted by Vengeance Witch?

As far as the witches being women, I'm going to continue to sound like I'm defending the patriarchy, and maybe I am, but when it comes to American mythology, are there really a lot of warlocks running around? Are there lots of male covens? The mythos of a coven of female witches seems much more prevalent to me.

I may be the only buffista who called demons being people - months ago. Though I did not get the exact mechanism, I guessed they were some sort of angry spirit as soon as I heard that demons don't know whether Lucifer exists any more than people do. Too lazy to do a search and link the post.

I'm getting a bit tired of this season's positioning "pagan" as shorthand for evil. Guys? Your dad and you, Bobby, and presumably other hunters, have been using a polyglot of bastard Roman, Byzantine and Orthodox Catholic ritual along with bits from Norse, Asian, Indian, Pictish, various Amerindian, Celtic and Polynesian pagan mythologies to combat "evil" for as long as we've known you. Cut out the pitiful politic attempts to placate whatever religious queasiness you're being pressured with by naming "pagans" as evil. Ta ever so.

Like Amy, I was so happy to see Winchesters on my screen I didn't give a lot of critical thought to my first watching. And I haven't had time since to watch again. Discussion here and elsewhere has given me lots to think about during that second, and any subsequent, watching.

I think at this point the arc is pretty well unrecoverable. I hope they don't attempt to resolve it, but weave it into S4--which I believe they're pretty well guaranteed, due to lack of new show pilots next season. They might have a resolution at holiday hiatus, and a forewarned and therefore much more gracefully abbreviated S4 arc. Or, I could be completely off-base. Wait and see, I guess.

Zap2it's blog entry is entitled, "Supernatural versus Charmed."

Bev: "Cut out the pitiful politic attempts to placate whatever religious queasiness you're being pressured with by naming "pagans" as evil. Ta ever so."

Sorry for not knowing how to properly quote. At any rate I am with Bev on this. As a pagan myself--in a matter of speaking, I get sick and tired of the pagan=evil motif as well. I thought that SPN was an exception to this, at least in regards to witches, in the early episodes as I seem to remember Dean correcting someone about Wicca/Witchcraft and devil worship. It seems that as the show becomes more accepting to some monsters it is becoming more intent on reinforcing the Pagan=evil ideal. Case in point, the christmas ep. Pagan gods are scary cannibals that are disguised as your grandparents? That ep got points for humor but it did annoy me on the whole.

When I saw that the new ep was about evil witches I was disappointed. Especially since the 'old world black magic' witch technically never existed in literal form (people who do not believe in the existence of Satan certainly cannot be said to worship him) and the specter of it is nearly always invoked to punish/control/execute women who stepped outside of their prospective roles.

Now, it could be argued that since SPN is a show concerned with folk tales, myths, urban legends and creatures of nightmare that this type of witch is acceptable to canon but if they were going to cast witches as petty women seeking lower mortgage payments I see no reason they could not have included males in the coven.

btw, I agree that the beheading of Gordon by Sam was more disturbing that the stabby stabby.

It occurs to me that Sam does have a way to get Dean out of hell once he's dead, but it would involve letting who knows how many demons and other spirits out of the gate.

Matt, I like that idea.

darlini, to quote, put a > before the bit you want to quote, with no space.

before the bit you want to quote

I remember Sam, in the pilot: I like your necklace. (Girl holds her silver pentagram pendant and says something about people believing it's a Satanist symbol). Actually, it's a protection against evil. The pentagram...

And then Dean cuts him off.

But the show--until this season--has been more or less inclusive of many pagan beliefs. Bobby goes to the books to find ancient rituals from a wide variety of beliefs, and John passed many of those on, as well. The unspoken message had been that using the power of any ritual to do harm is bad, while using the same power to prevent harm, or to combat it, is what hunters do. I don't know why, alla sudden this season, "pagans" are suddenly evil.

As far as the witches being women, I'm going to continue to sound like I'm defending the patriarchy, and maybe I am, but when it comes to American mythology, are there really a lot of warlocks running around? Are there lots of male covens? The mythos of a coven of female witches seems much more prevalent to me.

When you've specifically said that Old School Bad Witch Evil Bad Nasty is gender-neutral, but what you show is excessively feminized (spurned by a man revenge! get hubs a promotion! win the craft fair!) and exclusively female, and the language you use to smack talk 'em is as gendered as it was, it reads as very much anti-woman with a "but we don't mean it that way!" disclaimer smacked over the top.

IIRC, though it's been years since I read the things on a regular basis, the American horror genre has plenty of men doing Bad Black Magic Evil Things. There's in no way a female monopoly on it.

Conjure men and male hoodoo priests are pretty common in American folklore. And actually I can't recall any female malevolent witches from what little Native American lore I've encountered, although there are spiritual woman-figures like Blue Corn Woman, Selu, and White Buffalo Calf Woman.