No matter how research-happy Kripke says his writers are
Kripke can say a lot of things. Apparently 30 seconds on Google is all the research they do.
the majority of the people they envision as their audience is more familiar with Salem than they are with Native American folklore
I think that's the problem, actually. We
all
know the Salem/medieval version of witchery; we know it up and down, in and out -- kind of humdrum, to tell the truth. If they'd gone into a mythology that isn't like the back of all our hands, it might have had some excitement or novelty to it.
Also, I mean, you've got "witches are unsanitary and evil" and Ruby having been a witch during the Black Death, and I'm like, Eric Kripke, you did NOT just blame the victim for hundreds and hundreds of ordinary women burned at the stake for looking crosseyed at their neighbor. You did NOT just take a bunch of real people and make their suffering into a backhanded joke. I KEEL YOU.
No matter how research-happy Kripke says his writers are
Kripke can say a lot of things. Apparently 30 seconds on Google is all the research they do.
And Nutty says what I was going to! Because really, Google does not help you construct a decent demon banishing ritual.
The first death? Where the woman's teeth randomly started falling out?
You wouldn't have found that suspicious?
What I get is that these particular woman weren't serious at all. They just tried the spells for fun - they really had no idea what they were doing. I'm not sure that it reflects on anyone with real beliefs and practices at all.
The first death? Where the woman's teeth randomly started falling out?
You wouldn't have found that suspicious?
Sure. Except for how that's not the sort of thing any paper is going to report.
They could have had that town be a place where, over generations, weird deaths happen. (I'm imagining that Ruby could have been from that town - and one of the weird things in the teaser could have been her playing with dark powers in the 17th century or something and then moving up to the current "book club.")
Ahh yes, thank you it was the pentacle comment I was trying to remember. Time for me to watch the first two seasons again...oh darn =P. In terms of covens though, if you're looking at contemporary Wicca, there are all male covens and there are quite a few mixed-gender covens as well. Wiccan rituals often call for a male to represent the god and a female to represent the goddess unless it is a Dianic sect that purposefully excludes male energy. I just hope SPN isn't going to head so far down the pagan=demonic and final apocalyptic hell-war path that the show loses what I value most about it: the monster of the week and urban legend focus. *crosses her fingers*
Several years ago, when the Army decided to start letting Wiccans use their chapels, one of my co-workers was very upset about it, obviously thinking Wiccan=Satanist ... so I just dropped a comment about well, it's not like they're Satanists or anything ... and left her with her mouth open, trying to work that one out.
Good for you, Todd!
In my list, above, I neglected to mention Phoenecian, Sumerian, Minoan, Coptic, various flavors of Egyptian (and by extrapolation), Gypsy, Middle Eastern, Hebrew, ancient, not-so-ancient, and almost-modern Greek, plus "influences" from Haiti, Africa, etc., etc., sigils, rituals, spells, poultices, gris-gris, more etc. *pagan* lore and practice at Missouri's and Bobby's and John's fingertips, to use, and that has been previously shown to be used, against evil forces.
Feh. Enough with the pagan=evol! presentation. I'm ag'in it.
Apropos of everything, *damn* I miss Ellen. Anybody else miss Ellen? The older, v. sexy-but-not-hypersexualized, intelligent, competent, protective NOT EVIL woman on the show?
Specifically, I'd like to see her wash those boys' mouths with Octogon soap, but I'd settle for just having her on my screen.
