The only thing I've seen on fantasy/horror TV that struck me as seriously irresponsible (and apparently, ASH agreed, so HA!) was showing Giles horseback riding sans helmet in that one episode of Buffy.

Which, you know. Don't go riding without a helmet, people.

But it just struck me as funny that there are a LOT of things the characters do that would be iiieeeee dangerous to do in the real world, but the putting out a magic oil fire with water was commented on.

I think the difference is that if you go shoving stakes into people in the real world, you are a dangerous lunatic anyway, whereas putting out an oil fire with water seems plausible if you don't know better. So reinforcing it really does make it slightly more likely. Showing people putting butter on burns would make me cringe for the same reason.

horseback riding sans helmet

Huh. Wouldn't have thought about that. Of course I haven't been on a horse since I was 12 and we didn't wear bike helmets then, either.

Huh. Wouldn't have thought about that. Of course I haven't been on a horse since I was 12 and we didn't wear bike helmets then, either.

It's pretty unsafe to ride with your head bare. I mean, a helmet won't save you from everything -- see Christopher Reeve -- but it helps.

I took lessons for the whole of my teens, which sort of drilled the "HELMET! HELMET!" into me.

whereas putting out an oil fire with water seems plausible if you don't know better. So reinforcing it really does make it slightly more likely.

No, I get that. I was approaching it in the same way that people deal with me when I get worked up about sloppy occult research in the writing of the show. Someone teases me about what I'm fixating on, and I laugh. (And still mutter under my breath and wave my hands about that's not what fucking Enochian looks like, a Hand of Glory is supposed to be made from the left hand, and and and ...)

Someone teases me about what I'm fixating on, and I laugh.

We tease with love. And with teasing. Because Show gets a lot of things wrong and, I think, you pick your battles with it.

For me, when the bad outweighs the good, it's time to break up with the show, whatever show that is.

I'd have to rewatch, but I think he said it was supposed to be some kind of powerful protection amulet.

I rewatched a few weeks ago. While wee!Sam was wrapping the amulet for John, wee!Dean asked him where he got the money. Did he steal it? Sam said, "No. Uncle Bobby gave it to me to give to him. Said it was real special." (Which is why I've been looking more closely at Bobby, thinking there's more there than meets the eye.)

I don't recall if they ever elaborated more on the amulet in other episodes.

it makes no sense to me that some little trinket Dean got as a kid is somehow specifically designed to track down God - who may not even be incarnate as Castiel suspects. As preachy as it might be, I'd prefer for any reveal of YHVH to be speaking through multiple normal people, lecturing the angels that He's always been right there in everybody, and it's they who've lost their way to the point that they can no longer hear Him.

Matt, I agree. Making the amulet into a magickal god-finding GPS seems a cheap device, and from a personal standpoint I think it means much more if it continues to be a visible, tangible sign of the love between the brothers. Sam gave it to Dean in the moment he made the decision to give all the loyalties that would have instinctually first gone to a father to his brother instead, and Dean values that amulet. Because Sam gave it to him, not because of its supposed protective properties or god-finding GPS abilities.

Making the amulet into a magickal god-finding GPS seems a cheap device,

I really hope we find out that Cas got that bit of information as a way of someone (God? Michael?) sending him on a holy snipe hunt. Either that, or the GPS factor is a side effect of some other quality the amulet has (container for Michael's grace?)