But it seems that when they repeat characters across seasons, either they're the bad to take down, or they get neutered.

The problem with that is, a pure villain is boring after a while, and not that believable. If they were dodging Azazel for seven seasons in a row, they would have either defeated him or died of the constant Life-threatened stress.

Shoot, I forgot to add:

Well, I'm not assuming anything gets written by mistake.

I think a lot of people don't ever consider that storytelling is a lot of work. If they did, then they couldn't lobby for their own plotty desires so blatantly.

I'm not saying it's not a lot of work. But I'd rather have lost Crowley than end up with the stupid bland hell we got now. I think some people see the bureaucratic nature of the Leviathan the way I see that. Hell was the place with the hellhounds that tore Dean apart and gave him PTSD and started him down this self-medicating path and sleeping above the sheets with his clothes on. What they had to do to keep Crowley around in S8 (because I think they could have kept hell bad, and by extension him) if we weren't to see him again.

I'd love to hear Meg outsmarted him off camera and she's gone back to the Azazel/Alistair/Lilith way of things. I want it to still be worse than heaven. I want heaven to be a bad place when you think about it, but still better than flayed and raped and taunted and brought back to life and peeled and showered in fire ants.

Ugh. It's just not an ecosystem right now, and I don't think any recurring character was worth that shift to the world view.

Yeah, much as I love Richard Speight, I don't need to see Gabriel (or really any angels aside from Cas) again.

Having Gabriel come back is the sort of thing that can be nice in fic, depending on how it's handled, but you're right - I don't want to see him come back on the shows.

As for other angels, I would like some nod to what's going on in Heaven now that the archangels are gone and the rank and file have been seriously thinned out.

Meg could be used in a couple of interesting ways, but I have no idea where they're going. I think I'm more willing to have her around as a "devil you know" sort of friend, though.

I'd love to see her make a bid for Crowley's job. She'd do hell right, methinks.

This is adorable, but it's harder to see him (I feel it's expression more than features) than Jensen or Jared.

And this: [link] is where I got the link.

Tiny Castiel! Misha!

What they had to do to keep Crowley around in S8 (because I think they could have kept hell bad, and by extension him) if we weren't to see him again.

I guess for me, we've been to hell. Dean has been, Sam has been, I can't really imagine that they're going there again, so hell's design isn't that important to me. As a threat hanging over their heads, sure, I guess it should be, but I'm not completely clear that the two of them will wind up there when they're finally really truly dead.

Neither of them have to go there again for me to want hell to be hellish. Just like they don't have to go to heaven (during the show's run) for me to have ideas of how I like heaven to be. The show's cosmology deliberately includes both places, because they've taken us there, they've taken characters there, they have characters run those places, fear those places, want those places..

A full fledged universe without a hell that's bad is lame to me. I guess we have a really scary purgatory, but that's also off kilter. A show that has the afterlife as a key component doesn't have anywhere a demon might be mad to be consigned to anymore. Now an exorcism is annoying. It won't hurt the demon, it just means they'll be bored shitless working their way back to earth.

That's...that's much lamer than four seasons ago, when Hell hung as a threat over the heads of humans and demons alike. Now that's all gone.

I mean, honestly--how can you change Hell to irritating and boring? If Sam hadn't been locked in with Lucifer and Michael, it might not have been that bad. Lucifer knows how to bring it. But what Dean went through simply isn't there any more. They've taken away one of the extremes--it's not just Crowley that's changed, it's the universe.

I think Crowley might be going for an existential Hell that's more maddening in the long run, but far less traumatic in the short run. I can see how pain and torture might be something you'd get desensitized to over the decades, but boredom's not going to get less objectionable as one heads off toward eternity.

A full fledged universe without a hell that's bad is lame to me.

Oh, I can see feeling that way. But for me, if hell's not really an issue at the moment, it just doesn't matter much.

When it comes down to it, I think Joss trained me well enough that all of that stuff is metaphor to me from the get-go, so once it's lost its usefulness to a particular plot arc, it's fine with me to let it go.

I mean, honestly--how can you change Hell to irritating and boring?

Make it a never-ending Monday staff meeting.

But for me, if hell's not really an issue at the moment, it just doesn't matter much.

Hell's an issue every time they deal with a demon or Crowley, and that's likely to not be that rarely. It's an issue every time I consider the world of Supernatural, which is, like, all the time. There's no balance. The world building is broken for me.

I can see how pain and torture might be something you'd get desensitized to over the decades, but boredom's not going to get less objectionable as one heads off toward eternity.

Yeah, I'm not of that school of thought. Ten years of boredom is probably remarkably similar to five hundred. I'm only working on four or five years of chronic pain, but it's nothing compared to hell and I've been tempted to stick a knife into my leg for a change of scenery. I know it was supposed to be all cute and revolutionary and "how forward thinking is this???" but it's precisely what you don't like about the Leviathans (and I do, for max irony) I feel. Hell is no place for a late 20th century affectation (while Earth is precisely the place for that sort of attack). I think Dante and his ilk did a pretty good job laying things out, and the big decisions are hot vs. cold and hunger vs. thirst and rape vs. mutilation.

I don't know--I guess your back hurts really bad and your knees get stiff? Is there a rule against striking up conversation? Stepping out of line? How will I get punished? Sent further back in line? What's the escalation? How do you break someone? How do you reward someone and make them your lieutenant?

As long as we have a character that rules hell, other characters that either want to go there or don't want to go there, it needs to work for me. I don't have spoilers to hand, but internet dollars to Krispy Kremes, Crowley will be around next season, and hopefully Meg, and if they bring a taint of a useless hell with them, then it's on topic.