Assuming that the casting people had at least some idea that the character was going to turn evil and die, (and lets face it, how many recurring minor characters on the show don't do one or both), isn't their option to casting a person of color saying "whites only for this role"?

I hear what you're saying, but the reality is that they chose to give us a physically imposing badass character ("Black people are scary!") and then make him be actively evil, rather than keeping him an unpleasant and curmudgeonly good guy a la Snape. And, although embarrassingly I was not initially pinged by Uriel being black, and indeed thought about it much as you're expressing yourself here, during the course of Race!Fail I started to be more conscious of SPN's Season 3's problems, but was congratulating Season 4 on being much better, and thinking of Uriel as an example of this. Then I read an FoC's gloomy comment on how putting racist diatribes in the mouth of a black actor was pretty painfully ham-fisted, and the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt. Because as attempts at irony go, it's the kind of thing you might think was clever and effective as a 15 year old writer. In reality? Not so much with the clever irony.

Also, if they had cast a white person in the role, given that the character was racist (or maybe speciesist, given that it was mankind as a whole he hated), and this did play a part in his motivation, wouldn't it have been worse if they had cast a white actor?

I honestly think it would have been less offensive, myself. The racism is right there in the whole 'mud monkeys' stuff - putting that into the mouth of a black actor doesn't ameliorate it any; in fact I think it exascerbates it. I wouldn't have been offended at having a white man playing a racist, because, you know - racists (with the power to have an impact) are generally white people. Yes, it might have been a bit more shocking, but I don't think it would have been more offensive.

And, yes, much as I adore the hell out of Castiel, I have to agree that having the bitter, racist, unpleasant, ruthless, misanthropic angel be the good guy and Castiel turn out to be the killer would have been more satisfying storytelling. (But that would interfere with my rabid Castiel/Dean 4Evah111!!!11! 'shippiness, so, um, I'm good with it not having happened.) Or Anna - I think Anna would have been a GREAT call, all pissed off with the forces of Heaven and taking revenge on them for not letting her reascend, or whatever.

Meanwhile, I am really tickled by this theory; I love the notion that the powers that be may have consciously brought in the Big Gay Blasphemous Love Interest to try to make the fandom less depraved.

Oh, fandom!

I appreciate the discussion here because I just saw the episode. I watch it kind of late or am always late to discussion here.

At the end of the episode I just shook me head and said "man, not again." And guess what, you all are discussing it here too!

I have to concur with the general sentiment, recently discussed by Fay, but I would like to add this:

I enjoy watching the show, no doubt. Full stop. But, I am bothered by the general portrayal of Black characters AND how they are beating up women (killing them, blinding them and killing them) all the time. This show seems so squarely from the point of view of young, White men that it is kind of scary.

I suspect the end will be brother against brother - just how we all thought it would be - but it might be nice to expand what we mean by family and for the writers (and brothers) to understand that they need true, sincere help from a variety of people to save the world.

At the beginning of Death Takes a Holiday, I remember being ruefully surprised that the person who was knifed at the beginning of the episode was not the black man. You know things have gotten to a bad point in a show when I see two characters--one of whom is black--and wonder how the show is going to screw it up this time.

Aside from here, I mostly drift along the edges of online SPN fandom. Has there ever been any talk about having people write in en masse between now and the time they start working on next season to say how and why the treatment of race and gender has been bothersome? Not as a protest, but more along the lines of an intervention?

On a totally different note, who else besides Dean referred to Castiel as "Cas?" I think I recall Anna doing so, but did Uriel? Sam?

Sam called him "Cas" in Heaven and Hell, and has since then as well.

I did not intent to rhyme.

Many thanks!

CW interview with Misha Collins - mostly unspoilery but it does talk very briefly about something that they will be going into in a future (un-named) episode.

Or Anna - I think Anna would have been a GREAT call, all pissed off with the forces of Heaven and taking revenge on them for not letting her reascend, or whatever.

Yes, this. The show is so busy being all "it's better to be human than an angel" and portraying Anna as the one special snowflake that sees the blind loyalty of Heaven as a worse alternative than free will/rebellion that they've overlooked she decided she knew better than God and fell to follow the beat of her own drummer. I believe there's another figure who started out that way whose story just might be familiar to viewers.

She wouldn't even have to be all mwah-ha-ha evil, merely convinced that the angels were too willing to sacrifice innocent people in the name of winning the war, and willing to put a stop to that.

grabs devils advocate hat again.

So having a woman (who Dean had sex with) turn evil/traitor and then die would be "better" than having a black angel do so?

eta: I'm really not trying to say that the show doesn't need to work on race or gender issues. I guess it's more that it's painted itself into a corner because of the patterns, and because of that I'm not sure there's a way they could have played this that wouldn't have been problematic. Unless Castiel was the traitor, and as Fay said, that's just no.

It would involve better established motivation on her part than Uriel's speciesm, since she's already effectively regarded as a traitor by Heaven to the point of putting a kill order out for her. And I said nothing about her dying, my impression is she'd win a fight against Castiel just like she did against Uriel.

It would involve better established motivation on her part than Uriel's speciesm, since she's already effectively regarded as a traitor by Heaven to the point of putting a kill order out for her.

Fair point,

And I said nothing about her dying, my impression is she'd win a fight against Castiel just like she did against Uriel.

But if the traitor didn't die, that a) would probably end up with Castiel being dead, and b) definitely change the story arc.

b) might not be a bad thing in the end, but I still want to see where the show is going with the storyline they've created, not the one(s) I might have wanted them to create.