What was this mess of S10 that people keep talking about? I didn't live watch back then because I joined this fandom recently but SERIOUSLY, what happened during S10 that was SO BAD that people rage quit and meta writers didn't see a twist coming like they usually do. I'm just trying to understand and this is no way meant as hate and I'm sorry if it sounds that way.
I joined during S12. I knew about SPN and Destiel from Tumblr but I didn’t necessarily ship it because I prefer to judge for myself. What is bothering me is the S9-S10 “painfest” people claim. I admit it got a bit boring (and repetitive) for me MAINLY cuz of no Cas in S7 but otherwise I didn’t want to stop? I mean sure MOC was pretty angsty but a story is a story. I’m just trying to understand why people burned out during S9-S10? Why people thought it was “repetitive”? (I’m a hypocrite I know)
OK so I got both of these asks because I have been talking about season 10 lately and the mass exodus of fandom at the time.
The main reason people rage quit the show at the end of season 10 was because of the (horrific, stupid, unnecessary, cruel, disgusting, and to this day completely wrong) choice to kill off Charlie Bradbury in 10x21.
Season 10 was the first season I watched live. I followed a lot of meta writers on tumblr at the time with a skeleton blog and was the very definition of a lurker on tumblr. I followed ALL THE META and consumed it and it was the season 10 meta that inspired me to start writing my own in season 11 - even AFTER the wankfest. Season 10 was not painful to watch live going though it, I actually really enjoyed it at the time. It was after 10x21 that everything changed. Those last three episodes of season 10 are the biggest pile of shit SPN has come out with in a few years - even though 10x22 did redeem itself with a few scenes.
Before 10x21 it was actually pretty fucking epic to follow the fandom content and the excited shippers who were slowly becoming more and more convinced that season 10 would end with something huge.
It all started with this:
Now over the s9/s10 hiatus everyone was SUPER excited about Demon!Dean. Because a lot of people theorised that Demon!Dean would not be so extremely repressed as regular Dean and therefore we should get some fucking quality content and an insight into Dean’s emotions that we wouldn’t usually see.
Well, we did. Sort of. I think there are still meta writers today that can’t quite believe Drowley was a thing and wonder if the whole implication of Drowley was in fact just some shared online fever dream. I still grumble about it in disbelief tbh. So OF COURSE Drowley gets us excited because the implication in the subtext was that Demon!Dean was totally cool with hooking up with guys. There are probably thousands and thousands of words written about Dean, Crowley, and the Triplets (who were definitely all male) and the loose implication in CANON that Dean has been part of an all male five-way is still something I can’t quite get over.
So to the title card. EVEN BEFORE this season had aired people were getting excited about it, because this very much looks like angel grace casting out demon smoke. VERY MUCH SO.
So right away people were putting theories around that Cas would be the one to cure Dean. Now remember that this was shortly after season 9 when Cas became human, he only took on the stolen grace out of duty and wanting to be useful to the action, that he had to be ready. Season 10 then explored Cas’s feelings towards “who he is” even more heavily and for the first 3 episodes it really seemed like they were building on a story that would end with Cas giving up his grace again, but this time by choice. This was implied over and over again throughout season 10 in mirrors, in his interactions with Hannah, and in his love for humanity and human things.
On top of all that we get the moment in 10x03 where Cas is able to stop Dean from attacking Sam and his eyes glow blue whilst Dean’s turn black. This was considered foreshadowing.
The season then goes on and continues to explore the effects of the Mark of Cain on Dean - constantly framing it as an internal conflict and corruption of his soul. The darkness inside him and the question addressed throughout the season of what makes a monster?Sam is insistent that he will save Dean, we get amazing moments like Dean’s confession in 10x16 which once again seems to reinforce the reading that he is bisexual (still what I consider to be the closest moment to Dean being outed so far) and Cas exploring his humanity further by reaching out to Claire Novak and then pursuing Metatron (who always was the best character for calling Cas out on the things Cas has struggled to understand about himself).
On top of all this we have the freaking Cain/Colette parallel which again, strongly implied that love would be the cure… and well…
Add it up:
- Angel grace burns out demon smoke in the title card
- Cain/Colette show that love can stop the mark
- Dean spends the season exploring his inner self, and the things he represses, and desires.
- Cas spends the season questioning his place as an angel and what he truly desires.
It all seemed to be building to something spectacular. Something like for instance Cas choosing to give up his grace to cure Dean of the Mark of Cain - and by doing so, proving that the Power of Love is the most “powerful force” in the universe (interestingly enough Cas used this exact phrase when talking about how to cure the Mark in 10x10).
The thing is, throughout the whole season there were these breadcrumbs and elements which all seemed to imply that the mark would be cured by love, even if it wasn’t romantic love, love seemed to be the obvious cure. It also seemed pretty obvious that the mark was nothing more than a corruption of the soul. A completely internal force.
Then the wank storm happens. 10x21, Charlie is butchered and fridged, by freaking nazis who have such a stupid story line that I still cringe when I think about them. 10x22, Dean beats Cas to a pulp and doesn’t seem to show any *obvious* regret in the finale, 10x23, the whole idea of the mark being an internal corruption is flipped on its head - turns out the bloody thing was an external force all along. It wasn’t anything to do with Dean’s soul, it was some primordial Goddess of Darkness - who later turns out to be God’s bloody sister.
The kicker was that it literally took a pretty simple spell to remove the damn thing. With the primary ingredient being “the thing the spell caster loves most”. Well that made me flip my shit even if no one else did. WHY would the spell ingredient be for the spell CASTER. Wouldn’t it make more sense for that ingredient to be something that the SUFFERER of the Mark had a connection to instead?
It’s like they took those elements that they had been playing with all season, about love being the cure, and decided to just fob it off on Rowena - write in a random character for her to love - who has never been heard of before or mentioned since - and be done with it.
It literally felt like Carver got to a point in this story, and just chickened out, so instead wrote some bullshit last minute to cover himself. 10x23 was such a poor quality finale. I was just confused through most of it. Nothing made sense, it really did seem like Carver had typed it out in one crazy night a few nights before they were due to film whilst surviving on nothing but coffee and hot dogs like poor Kevin in season 8…
Everything else in season 10 seemed to be building to something wonderful. We all felt like Carver knew what he was doing, but it really does seem like he just changed his mind last minute. The last three episodes of season 10 are awful compared to the rest of the season and none of the themes or mirrors or subtext that was included throughout the season came to ANYTHING.
Alot of people rage quit after Charlie, but a lot more gave up after 10x23 it seemed because it all just fell apart. Nothing made sense and it seemed like all the meta, all the speculation, all the build up, was just lost. it was a huge missed opportunity for the show. They could have ended that season spectacularly, but Carver lost the plot… literally… maybe his dog chewed up his original script I dunno.
Anyway, this is all my interpretation based on memory alone of course. Other meta writers who were around back then may say something completely different, but all this is based on my own experience and the huge amount of meta and speculation I consumed during that season.
This is why there are so many canon!verse fanfics on AO3 set after season 10 or set just before the final few episodes of season 10 where Cas cures Dean with his grace (and also confesses his love) if nothing else, the season spurned a huge amount of fix-it fics which were pretty awesome to read, all with their own different versions of how Cas would heal Dean.
This is also why I am still weary about getting to ahead of ourselves with speculation now. Because in a lot of ways season 13 seems very similar to season 10 in the themes it is exploring and how it all seems like there is a clear path here to the finale at least regarding Dean and his choices. We all expect a confession of some kind from him… but we have to remember that this show rarely does things the obvious way, and it has burned us a lot in the past. The meta and the analysis all seem to point to a certain conclusion, but we have first hand experience of a time where the meta failed us, and the show swapped out logic for a story that made no sense. Perhaps in hindsight better meta writers than me have been able to find a way to explain season 10 so that it all makes sense in its entirety - season finale included. But for me it still just reads as one big WTF moment.
