I think my Dad's dad's people spoke Scots Gaelic, apropos of not very much. Was common enough in Nova Scotia enclaves, go fig.

I am trying to get Jilli on board with my Earth 2 fanwank for shit like Samhain. Honestly, it helps with the exploding brains.

I am trying to get Jilli on board with my Earth 2 fanwank for shit like Samhain. Honestly, it helps with the exploding brains.

Care to expound?

Celtic Cs are always hard. Boston Celtics are the exception. Signed, formerly obsessed. Please don't ask me about Welsh, I have NO clue.

I heard once (I have no idea if it's correct, but the source was a believable one), that Scots say celtic with the soft C and Irish say it with the K-sound or hard C.

I think my Dad's dad's people spoke Scots Gaelic, apropos of not very much. Was common enough in Nova Scotia enclaves, go fig.

Was he from Cape Breton?

I wonder if your Earth 2 fanwank has anything in common with mine. Supernatural is set in an alternate earth where the supernatural is real, and very similar to many of our own earth's urban legends and popular cultures. So in that earth it really is "Sam Hain" and it really is the "The book of revelations".

Cindy, I think so, but I will have to ask. He was born on PEI, but they moved around a lot, and weren't originally from there. That is the branch of the family that is hard to trace.

Bev: Earth 2 = comic book alternate earth. Jilli doesn't believe the fanwank, nor will she accept the Superboy Prime punched a hole in reality excuse.

Gar: pretty much.

According to Fraser (The Golden Bough), Samhain is one of the four major Celtic fire festivals; it's the end of the year and the beginning of the next. It's not doom and death, it's passage into the new year. On the day of the dead, when the year too dies...

I admit that although I know how to pronounce a lot of Celtic words, I'd never heard Samhain pronounced--I just knew it likely wasn't Sam Hane. It sounded like they were talking about Sam Haine, the pizza delivery guy. Argh.

As for Uriel, I have a suspicion he's the Angel of Death. He's very Old Testament. Castiel's a bit more NT, the way he refers to "my father".

... which I also find slightly problematic. God is Our Father--father to humans. But angels are a different order, and I'm not sold on the concept of them calling their creator their father. That's too mortal for them.

Which is another problem I had with Castiel. Angels are emissaries and servants of God. They are a different order of being than humans and they don't, I think, have free will--or at least not the way we understand it. Free will is what makes us human, what makes us valuable--that we can choose evil as well as good. Castiel having doubts makes no sense to me.

OTOH, according to legend Lucifer was an angel who revolted, and you can't do that without doubts either. Except in this show they've told us that demons used to be people: does that mean angels did, too?

I dunno, man. The theology on this show really makes my head hurt. Victims get punished (like last week), damned souls can crawl out of Hell, God is ruthless and his messengers are racist, there is no grace or mercy in the universe, and demons used to be humans. It's so ... unforgiving. One moment of anger or resentment and you're damned forever, apparently.

I'm so glad I don't live in the Winchesters' world, and not just because I'd be a shitty hunter.

When your cosmology comes entirely from horror flicks and comic books by Vertigo, the universe is not a happy place.

Also, lacking in accuracy and filled to the brim with handwavium.

(Someone on the flist said she started to get into and fall for SPN when she realized that it was a tragedy. The more I think about it, the more she seems to be right.)

It pretty much started out as Moore's American Gothic and has ended up more like Hellblazer for the last couple of years.

Points to new tag: It's good to have a plan in place.

(Someone on the flist said she started to get into and fall for SPN when she realized that it was a tragedy. The more I think about it, the more she seems to be right.)

I've been thinking of it as a tragedy for awhile now. If nothing else, the audience getting catharsis through pity and fear.

We even got a micro-tragedy in the episode In the Beginning: The Tragedy of John and Mary.

If the hero is Sam, then the tragic mistake is using the demon powers for what he thinks is a noble cause but will ultimately be his undoing? Or if Dean is the hero, then what is his tragic mistake? Following his father's orders, and now his Father's orders? Did your lj friend expand upon why she felt it was a tragedy?