Does that make sense, though, with the way demons and hosts are supposed to work?

Dean is only the second demon we've met that could inhabit his own body and we only just learnt that was true about the first, so there's not much already written on the subject. They can make a lot of it up as they go. They can bring him back from the dead upon curing, maybe the Blade refused to let him die, who knows. He might not even be able to smoke out.

I guess I wasn't aware that they *knew* Crowley would keep that body when cured, and since they didn't go through with it all the way, we can't count it as a successful example, right?

I just don't want it to be too easy to get Dean out of this predicament, I guess.

Dean is only the second demon we've met that could inhabit his own body

Who's the first? I'm forgetting something here, I guess. Even Crowley isn't in his original body anymore.

I guess I wasn't aware that they *knew* Crowley would keep that body when cured

The guy they cured in black and white kept his host body.

Who's the first?

Cain. Didn't Crowley say it wouldn't let him go in the speech you quoted? Are you assuming he smoked out of his corpse and possessed Lassie? And the Mark came with the smoke?

I forgot about the film.

And no, I wasn't assuming Cain smoked out and possessed Lassie. I didn't think it through. No reason to be rude, though.

There was no rudeness implied in my question. Those were the only ways I could make it happen so I wanted to know if I was getting your process right. Call it a lack of imagination on my part.

I'm guessing even Lilith went through the whole fully-dead-and-sent-to-Hell demonization process, though I suppose she could have just lost her original body somewhere along the way and started possessing replacements. We haven't really gotten much info on the particulars of Lucifer turning her into the first demon, have we?

Oh, Kripke loves his vagueness...

I'm now in two debates:

• Sam is not/has not been dark, Dean has always been the dark one

Cain was the leader of the Knights of Hell.

He gave up evil for the love of a good woman

Dammit, that's right. I had forgotten. (But surely he had to do more than just say "I'm in love, won't kill anymore" to break the hold of the Blade? Unfortunately I can't rewatch because we switched service providers and my DVR with all the saved episodes is now returned to a warehouse somewhere.)

Dean's love of food is one of his most human traits. That's the way I took it anyway.

That makes sense to me. But that would mean he was turning demonic, not just dark, before the death, right?

But that would mean he was turning demonic, not just dark, before the death, right?

Ruby loved fries. Crowley loves Whiskey. That's why I think it was more like the monomania of Famine than demonic nature in particular. That the Mark and the Blade really had their teeth into him.

Admittedly, those are two atypical demons, but still.

Here's what the wiki says about Cain stopping killing:

Eventually, Cain fell in love with and married a woman named Colette. She forgave him for his past misdeeds, only asking that he never kill again. The Knights took Colette prisoner in 1863 in attempt to goad their former leader back into his old ways. This back-fired when Cain killed all the other Knights, save Abaddon, who possessed Colette and damaged her body in front of Cain by repeatedly snapping her neck. In a fit of anger, Cain tried to kill Abaddon with the First Blade as well, only for Abaddon to vacate Colette's body and trick a horrified Cain into murdering his wife. With her dying breath, Colette reminded Cain of his promise not to kill anymore, not even to gain vengeance on Abaddon. As the First Blade was indestructible, Cain threw the weapon into the ocean to honor Colette's final wish.

Fell in love is pretty telling right there. That's not going to happen much, is it?

Unless "love" is not specific to romantic love. As demonstrated over nine years now, Dean's love for Sam is paramount to all else. I'm betting on brotherly love to save Dean ultimately (if anything to retell the Cain/Abel story SPN-style.)

Here's to getting Sheriff Mills into demon-hunting with Sam and Cas, with the b-story of Cas finding/restoring his own grace before his stolen grace burns out and he dies.