Supernatural 8x16 "Remember the Titans" spoiler discussion thread

[Dorian Thompson]

New episode tomorrow evening, good people Here's to hoping we all enjoy it. Apparently Misha Collins will again be a regular next season and will also get to direct an episode. Awesome cakes.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Wow, no replies so far.
Maybe this show should switch to one thread per season from now on like most other shows these days.

Was a bit boring this episode.
Prometheus wasn't very interesting. They could have gone full Jason Bourne with him and let him show some passion for the kid or the woman.
I liked that Sam solved the problem by his wits only this time.

Ancient gods have been done before, but have they ever been defeated this easily?
For the most powerful ancien greek god, Zeus was a bit of a pushover and seemed less powerful than your average demon.

 

[Snaploud]

Ancient gods have been done before, but have they ever been defeated this easily?
For the most powerful ancien greek god, Zeus was a bit of a pushover and seemed less powerful than your average demon.

It's previously been established that god-strength is dependent upon each god's number of worshippers. That's why Lucifer was able to kill a bunch of pagan gods so easily back in season five. Those gods weren't worshipped much anymore, so their power levels were much diminished. Besides, even the most powerful of beings on this show seem to be killable with the right weapons.

 

[ITL]

As I'm sure most people did, I figured the guy was Prometheus pretty quickly. The title of the episode plus a dead guy getting his insides eaten by an eagle before coming back to life? They couldn't have telegraphed it better! Pretty run of the mill episode, though.

 

[auntiehill]

Yeah, this one was pretty flat. Seemed like they were mostly killing time. Not all that interesting.

 

[Reverend]

Did I miss something or have they ever addressed how the pagan gods fit into the Heaven & Hell, Angels & Demons etc. mythos? Are they just a *really* powerful breed of monster courtesy of Eve, or something else?

 

[Dorian Thompson]

They've never addressed it. I think the idea of a single thread per season is probably a more practical idea than single episode threads. I'll do that next season. Unfortunately, I have to agree that this eppy fell flat. Last week's was much better.

 

[Mister Fandango]

Did I miss something or have they ever addressed how the pagan gods fit into the Heaven & Hell, Angels & Demons etc. mythos? Are they just a *really* powerful breed of monster courtesy of Eve, or something else?

They're referenced in the bible multiple times, particularly in Exodus. "You shall have no other gods before me" not "I am the only god." The extended verse, which I don't remember verbatim, even has God admitting that he's jealous and simply doesn't want anyone worshipping the other gods.

As Dean would say: He's kind of a dick.

So whatever origin God has, chances are it's about the same for the other gods. Give or take.

 

[EmoBorg]

The Christians worship Yahweh, the God of the Jews. Muslims call him Allah. Basically the Christians and Muslims co opted the Jewish God as their own. Each culture or people had their own gods. The greeks, romans, indo aryans and jews had their god or gods.

The only difference is that the jewish god only allows the worship of himself and nothing else whereas in the other ancient cultures, their gods were willing to share power. If you look at it carefully, monotheism is based on the worship of an intolerant and selfish God. He was more of a dictator and he murdered millions if they displeased him (biblical flood) and promises to murder billions more on judgment day according to Christians and Muslims writings.

The pagan gods of other culture had debates among themselves and with mortal men & women. They were more consultative and democratic in a way. The Greek Gods mythological stories inspired early Greek democracy.

FYI i hated this episode. Zeus was responsible for the birth of Greek culture and civilization according to mythology. Without him, there would no ancient Greek or for that matter European civilization to begin with.

 

[RJDiogenes]

All gods are dicks. Power corrupts.

Anyway, I liked this episode, although I did feel that the death of freakin' ZEUS was handled a bit casually. No matter how weakened the old gods are, it's still freakin' ZEUS and should have been a bigger deal.

I was wondering if this episode would end, as several have lately, with a Human-Supernatural pairing going off into the sunset to fight the good fight against evil. Well, it did end with a Human-Supernatural pairing, but all they did was go home.

It had some pretty funny moments, though. Dean trying to impress everyone with being a Legacy of the Men of Letters. Dean's reaction when Sam was playing Artemis. And of course: "Who do we know who's died multiple times and attracts dangerous women?" "You?"

 

[Roshi]

The Christians worship Yahweh, the God of the Jews. Muslims call him Allah. Basically the Christians and Muslims co opted the Jewish God as their own.

You got it backwards. The three monotheist religions worship the God of Abraham. They haven't co-opted anything.

 

[Mister Fandango]

Anyway, I liked this episode, although I did feel that the death of freakin' ZEUS was handled a bit casually. No matter how weakened the old gods are, it's still freakin' ZEUS and should have been a bigger deal.

To be fair, it took a god of hunting, a divine artifact, a powerful emotion (love; Artemis's love for Promethus and Prometheus's love for his son), and a voluntary sacrifice by one of the only titans that people still remember to take him out. Sure, it was still anticlimatic, but it wasn't like it was just a couple of mortals who stabbed him with a twig or anything.

I was more disappointed because I actually liked the guy they got to play Zeus. It would have been nice to see him on the show a bit more, as well as play around with the entire pantheon some.

I did, however, find it interesting that we know Mount Olympus is a real place now, and that it's likely chock-full of all kinds of goodies. I wonder if that was the real reason it was all touched upon, and why Zeus was eliminated so quickly (to get him out of the way as an obstacle for when they have to go hunt some artifact down or whatever).

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Yeah, I was thinking there might be a power struggle in Olympus now or something that might have repercussions later.

 

[Reverend]

The Christians worship Yahweh, the God of the Jews. Muslims call him Allah. Basically the Christians and Muslims co opted the Jewish God as their own. Each culture or people had their own gods. The greeks, romans, indo aryans and jews had their god or gods.

The only difference is that the jewish god only allows the worship of himself and nothing else whereas in the other ancient cultures, their gods were willing to share power. If you look at it carefully, monotheism is based on the worship of an intolerant and selfish God. He was more of a dictator and he murdered millions if they displeased him (biblical flood) and promises to murder billions more on judgment day according to Christians and Muslims writings.

The pagan gods of other culture had debates among themselves and with mortal men & women. They were more consultative and democratic in a way. The Greek Gods mythological stories inspired early Greek democracy.

FYI i hated this episode. Zeus was responsible for the birth of Greek culture and civilization according to mythology. Without him, there would no ancient Greek or for that matter European civilization to begin with.

I think the show has made it clear that "the" God is on a whole different level to these other gods. They seem more on par with the archangels or leviathans. For one thing they appear to be restricted to Earth and humans, while God (and Death for that matter) are apparantly responsible for the entire universe.

Actually, the pagan deities bare a lot of similarities to the gods of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. They're essentially belief parasites.

 

[Mister Fandango]

Who's to say God isn't exactly the same? He just happened to win out in the end, with a large portion of the entire planet's population believing in him, as opposed to only a few (relatively) low population countries believing in the older gods even at the height of their power.

Considering that they were around first, at least as far as anyone knows (I think Judiasm only goes back to about 1800 BC or so, and only came about because Abraham was tired of all the pagan gods running around at the time), it's a pretty safe bet to back.

Honestly, reality itself seems to be all about the power of belief. There's simply no way to rectify all the different creation myths, especially those that predate the Christian one by millennia. This episode alone demonstrated that Mount Olympus was real, that both the titans and Greek gods were real, and that they had origins pretty much on par with what mythology states. Which means they, too, ''created the world'' in a way that contradicts what the Bible says.

In the end, I just have to assume that whichever mythology is winning at the time is the "true" story as reality twists and contorts itself to make it true. Should science and reason ever replace religion in the setting, I'd bet a million bucks that it really was a random Big Bang that created the universe, not God.

At least until another theory or belief system takes hold, anyway.

 

[Snick27]

Who's to say God isn't exactly the same? He just happened to win out in the end, with a large portion of the entire planet's population believing in him, as opposed to only a few (relatively) low population countries believing in the older gods even at the height of their power.

Considering that they were around first, at least as far as anyone knows (I think Judiasm only goes back to about 1800 BC or so, and only came about because Abraham was tired of all the pagan gods running around at the time), it's a pretty safe bet to back.

Honestly, reality itself seems to be all about the power of belief. There's simply no way to rectify all the different creation myths, especially those that predate the Christian one by millennia. This episode alone demonstrated that Mount Olympus was real, that both the titans and Greek gods were real, and that they had origins pretty much on par with what mythology states. Which means they, too, ''created the world'' in a way that contradicts what the Bible says.

In the end, I just have to assume that whichever mythology is winning at the time is the "true" story as reality twists and contorts itself to make it true. Should science and reason ever replace religion in the setting, I'd bet a million bucks that it really was a random Big Bang that created the universe, not God.

At least until another theory or belief system takes hold, anyway.

Got to say this is pretty deep. Sadly ive learned more about God, pagan gods, Angels etc from watching supernatural. Same as i learned alot about fairy tales from Once Upon a Time.

On the show i look at things like this: God created Leviathan's first and got rid of them, and maybe at same time or after he created lesser Gods that we call Pagan Gods.
When God seen that wasnt working out, then he created Angels.
Maybe he wasnt really hands on with earth and had help with this Pagan gods doing most of the work and just him taken credit for it.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Since Judaism/Christianity heavily ripped of from other religions and even merged a whole bunch of other deities into one, it might have happened the same way literally in SPN.
Remember how Castiel absorbed souls and leviathans to gain god-like power?
Maybe a similar mechanic created the god here...