This is what I need to point at when people are insisting that Supernatural fans are the sickest of the sick because we all think that Jared is sticking it up Jensen's jacksie. $40K in donations in their name in five months, thank you very much.

"Jacksie"? That's a new one for me.

Uh, British?

Ah. Even so, I'm usually familiar with the slang, I thought. What other words am I missing?!

But they're not being remade. They're just being sent. I don't see how their souls are being yanked away from their rightful destination--vampire "souls" go to purgatory. That's their rightful destination.

They started out as humans who presumably didn't feel a nigh-irresistible urge to feed off and kill other humans and a lack of remorse over acting on it. And Mother-of-All was threatening to infect all of humanity and claim all their souls for herself. Unlike the Heaven/Hell/unquiet ghost afterlives, the final fate of people that are attacked by monsters and infected is determined by something outside their own choices. I wouldn't call that rightful. It is possible that the changes that monster-y contamination makes in most of those souls results in them not being horrified by where they end up, but I'd think their spiritual state would still be the stuff of nightmares to an outside observer.

Jared's adorable factor is reaching infinite proportions now.

But Matt, you're talking like the souls of people end up in Purgatory. As far as we know, they don't. It's the rugaru/werewolf/vampire souls that end up there, not the people themselves. And we've never been given any indication that they were in any sort of torment, although we've also never been told if the people passed on or they are changed. Still, what we've been shown are mostly monsters that have come to terms with what they are, and more often than not we're shown monsters who are really really into what they are. I'm not sure where your pain is coming from.

Mother-of-All was threatening to infect all of humanity and claim all their souls for herself

Which has no effect on the souls currently in Purgatory, which would be the ones that Cas took into himself.

I'd think their spiritual state would still be the stuff of nightmares to an outside observer

Who are the outside observers in this scenario? Sam was in pain because he was in pain, not because he was observed to have been in a bad state. That was his soul experiencing punishment. And all I'm saying is that we haven't been told that monster souls are tormented in Purgatory. Hell, perhaps (demons have expressed reluctance to return there, although I'm sure it's better for some than others), but not Purgatory.

Jared, you look *just* fine. How tired is Gen right now, daddypants?

ita, the werewolf/vampire/shapeshifter souls are human souls before they're infected. (Jury's out on the Rugaru, which appear to procreate normally, but I assume they're originally of human stock too since most of the tangible monsters seem to be.) Supernatural's metaphysics/cosmology doesn't have people's souls being replaced by an outside animating spirit while the original soul zips off into the ether the way vampires' are in the Jossverse - whoever gets bitten or clawed or injected, etc. and survives apparently experiences changes into a like creature on a spiritual level as well as physical. That losing of one's former self in a slow (or not so slow) transformation into something other, complete with a sort of hive-mind connection to Mother-of-All, is actually probably the most horrifying aspect of the show's mythology to me.

The outside observer I was referring to in this case was Cas, who went off the rails with megalomania (almost instantly) and an apparent gleeful enjoyment of violence (in pretty short order) after assimilating the souls/monsters he picked up in Purgatory.

ita, the werewolf/vampire/shapeshifter souls are human souls before they're infected

Where is this stated?

That losing of one's former self in a slow (or not so slow) transformation into something other

Where is this slow transformation into the other? Where did we see this?

I've been making some guesses because I don't see the canon out there, but it seems I've missed some important stuff.

I guess I see Sam's situation as pretty clear--he had a soul tortured specifically by Lucifer in Hell. Castiel assumed the results of that specific damage onto himself. We've never seen anything like that with monsters in Purgatory, so I'm not sure how we can draw parallels between anything that's gone before in a different location subject to different hands and this, even if souls are transformed (no consistent evidence across monsters--I could see a werewolf argument, since they're perfectly normal most of the time, but why vampires? Where'd that come from?) that they are being tormented or are in any way suffering.

I mean, I wouldn't even think Cas would go mad from doing the same thing to Dean or any other person who'd suffered in Hell, just Sam.

Maybe that's the difference. I see Sam as an exceptional case, and you see him as one of many.

I'm just not seeing the evidence of monsters in anguish that you see as so obvious. We've had tormented monsters called out as exceptions to heighten a handful of stories, but most often it's monsters both Dean and Sam would have no hesitation putting an end to, Mr. Black and White, and Mr. 1 Million Shades of Grey themselves.

Also, did we have any evidence that Eve was connected to the monsters before she came topside? I get what you mean by hive mind, although it's not a term I'd have used. She seemed to be broadcasting to them, and reading their senses, but when I think of hive mind I think shared consciousness, and I didn't get that here.

Where is this stated?

I think the alpha vampire told them -- he was asking them where they thought someone like him would go when he died.