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A philosophy near and dear to my heart – and an integral building block of who I am – is concept of free will. More than anything else it is our choices that define us. And the choices that define us the most are those that are made when it appears we actually have no choice. The concept of free will has its most power in face of the capriciousness of fate or destiny or whatever it is that people are calling the uncontrollable circumstances of life. Even if we can’t choose the path we are on, we can choose how we go down that path.
One of the reasons I love “Supernatural” so much is that it’s all about free will. I know that there are a lot of shows that bandy about the concept of free will. Usually it’s presented as coming-of-age marker or a pseudo-anarchist “screw the establishment” mantra that firmly entrenches our hero as “different”. But instead of just tossing out free will in an “us or them”, fork-in-the-road, “left or right”, or a "do/don't do as you're told" simplicity, Supernatural focuses on the true complexity – the power, the cost, the unpredictability and the necessity – of free will.
This show presents every choice as an exercise of free will, even the choice to do what is expected of you. Sure, Sam is presented as the character that most obviously exercises his free will. His choices to try and be "normal", fights with his father and leaving the family to go to Stanford – all of this is classic fodder for literary free will. However, Dean's loyalty to his father and obedience to his father's rules and instructions are also presented at free will. In the first season, Sam often criticizes Dean's "blind" obedience to John's orders. But it is also clear in the first season that Dean's obedience isn't blind, but rather based in the knowledge that not following the orders is dangerous – and in "Something Wicked" even Sam acknowledges that Dean's choice is a valid one. (A nice touch since in "Scarecrow", Dean acknowledged that Sam's choices are valid, too.)
And that brings me to another thing that I really love about Supernatural: it couples free will with knowledge. It states (correctly) that in order for free will to work you have to have some knowledge of what is going on. Knowledge is a key factor/plot point in Supernatural. In fact, wanting to know the facts is the biggest point of contention between Sam and John when the boys reunite with their father in season one. Sam wants to know everything that John isn't telling them – because that knowledge allows him to make better choices. Dean doesn't need to know but not because he doesn't care, rather because what he knows of his father teaches him that he can trust John. On the other hand, what Sam knows of his father is that John hides important information.
The show is wonderfully psychologically accurate in how these contrasting attitudes where developed, too. It's clear that Dean has always been aware of how his mother died and what his father did. Not all the details, but the general "truth" of everything. Dean grew up never having a reason not to trust his father and, in fact, was given every reason to trust him. Contrast that with Sam who was lied to by his father until he was seven, at which point he was only told the truth after he discovered it on his own. Even then, it was Dean who told him and it was clear that John would have continued to keep the secret. In fact, I always wondered how long the boys managed to keep that Sam knew the truth from their father. John wanted to keep Sam in the dark for a reason, after all.
Which ties into another complication of free will: as important as knowledge is to free will, that the knowledge comes with a price. How much the boys know, what they need to tell people and when they tell them is a part of the foundation of the show. They don't tell people who they are and what they really do, not willingly. Sure, if the boys are asking someone to do something dangerous, asking them to make a choice, exercise free will, they give them the facts. Yet, at the same time, there are constant reminders of how much that knowledge changes lives – and rarely for the better. Each time they tell people "the truth" they agonize over the fact that they have altered that person's reality and given them a burden that that person will have to carry forever. The same burden that they boys carry themselves. A burden that they both accept willingly, but that neither really wants.
And that? The burden and responsibility that comes with knowing things and how that conflicts with the necessity of knowing things in order to truly have fee will? That is beautiful. The more you know, the more responsibility you have to act on that knowledge, the more that knowledge changes who you are and how you view the world around you. But without that knowledge you have no free will and without free will we are nothing.
Most people in life do a delicate balancing act. Knowledge and responsibility and free will are powerful and dangerous things. They are also very threatening. One of the tenets of free will is that two people – equally intelligent and equally invested – can choose to do two very different things with the same knowledge. We like to believe that our choices are not only right, but that they are universally right. But free will disputes that. Because we are all free to choose our own action, those actions don't have to match anyone else's. Anytime you let someone else decide their own actions, you run the risk of them choosing to do something you wouldn't. It's really the biggest challenge of free will: to accept that not everyone who has the same information will make the same choices.
Supernatural hits all of those notes, and more. It plays with choice and the effects each choice has on others and how much guilt and responsibility people bear for those effects. When it added the angels, it brings in the view that free will is evil because it allows for evil – that choice is inherently evil simply because one has the choice to chose evil. By having Castiel slowly come to the decision that he has to decide for himself what he needs to do, we are given a view of the conflicting emotions and desires that come into play with free will. By adding Jesse and giving him so much power we are shown exactly how dangerous free will can be. As horrific as Castiel’s demand to kill Jesse is, it clearly illustrates how much simpler life would be if not everyone would have free will – especially those who wield great power.
I’ve always believed that it is more important to teach people how to think rather than what to think. It’s how I’ve attempted to raise my child. It is, however, a scary and dangerous thing. Our differing choices of free will could lead us to stand alone and against those we care about. This, again, is something that Supernatural does so well, especially in the last season with the schism that developed between Sam and Dean. People often like to take sides and place blame, as if life is a zero sum game that has a perfect solution that eliminates all the errors and pain. But you can’t. Free will demands that there are errors and pain. In the end, that’s what freedom is. As Dean told Castiel in “Lucifer Rising”: “I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.”
Granted, our lives rarely (fortunately) have such grand, obvious examples of free will. We rarely get to make grand stands for life and right and good. But I think that all of us, somewhere deep down, want to be able to make that choice. To fight a worthy battle, to choose our own path and to say, “If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.” After all, it’s our choices that makes us truly alive, isn’t it?
One of the reasons I love “Supernatural” so much is that it’s all about free will. I know that there are a lot of shows that bandy about the concept of free will. Usually it’s presented as coming-of-age marker or a pseudo-anarchist “screw the establishment” mantra that firmly entrenches our hero as “different”. But instead of just tossing out free will in an “us or them”, fork-in-the-road, “left or right”, or a "do/don't do as you're told" simplicity, Supernatural focuses on the true complexity – the power, the cost, the unpredictability and the necessity – of free will.
This show presents every choice as an exercise of free will, even the choice to do what is expected of you. Sure, Sam is presented as the character that most obviously exercises his free will. His choices to try and be "normal", fights with his father and leaving the family to go to Stanford – all of this is classic fodder for literary free will. However, Dean's loyalty to his father and obedience to his father's rules and instructions are also presented at free will. In the first season, Sam often criticizes Dean's "blind" obedience to John's orders. But it is also clear in the first season that Dean's obedience isn't blind, but rather based in the knowledge that not following the orders is dangerous – and in "Something Wicked" even Sam acknowledges that Dean's choice is a valid one. (A nice touch since in "Scarecrow", Dean acknowledged that Sam's choices are valid, too.)
And that brings me to another thing that I really love about Supernatural: it couples free will with knowledge. It states (correctly) that in order for free will to work you have to have some knowledge of what is going on. Knowledge is a key factor/plot point in Supernatural. In fact, wanting to know the facts is the biggest point of contention between Sam and John when the boys reunite with their father in season one. Sam wants to know everything that John isn't telling them – because that knowledge allows him to make better choices. Dean doesn't need to know but not because he doesn't care, rather because what he knows of his father teaches him that he can trust John. On the other hand, what Sam knows of his father is that John hides important information.
The show is wonderfully psychologically accurate in how these contrasting attitudes where developed, too. It's clear that Dean has always been aware of how his mother died and what his father did. Not all the details, but the general "truth" of everything. Dean grew up never having a reason not to trust his father and, in fact, was given every reason to trust him. Contrast that with Sam who was lied to by his father until he was seven, at which point he was only told the truth after he discovered it on his own. Even then, it was Dean who told him and it was clear that John would have continued to keep the secret. In fact, I always wondered how long the boys managed to keep that Sam knew the truth from their father. John wanted to keep Sam in the dark for a reason, after all.
Which ties into another complication of free will: as important as knowledge is to free will, that the knowledge comes with a price. How much the boys know, what they need to tell people and when they tell them is a part of the foundation of the show. They don't tell people who they are and what they really do, not willingly. Sure, if the boys are asking someone to do something dangerous, asking them to make a choice, exercise free will, they give them the facts. Yet, at the same time, there are constant reminders of how much that knowledge changes lives – and rarely for the better. Each time they tell people "the truth" they agonize over the fact that they have altered that person's reality and given them a burden that that person will have to carry forever. The same burden that they boys carry themselves. A burden that they both accept willingly, but that neither really wants.
And that? The burden and responsibility that comes with knowing things and how that conflicts with the necessity of knowing things in order to truly have fee will? That is beautiful. The more you know, the more responsibility you have to act on that knowledge, the more that knowledge changes who you are and how you view the world around you. But without that knowledge you have no free will and without free will we are nothing.
Most people in life do a delicate balancing act. Knowledge and responsibility and free will are powerful and dangerous things. They are also very threatening. One of the tenets of free will is that two people – equally intelligent and equally invested – can choose to do two very different things with the same knowledge. We like to believe that our choices are not only right, but that they are universally right. But free will disputes that. Because we are all free to choose our own action, those actions don't have to match anyone else's. Anytime you let someone else decide their own actions, you run the risk of them choosing to do something you wouldn't. It's really the biggest challenge of free will: to accept that not everyone who has the same information will make the same choices.
Supernatural hits all of those notes, and more. It plays with choice and the effects each choice has on others and how much guilt and responsibility people bear for those effects. When it added the angels, it brings in the view that free will is evil because it allows for evil – that choice is inherently evil simply because one has the choice to chose evil. By having Castiel slowly come to the decision that he has to decide for himself what he needs to do, we are given a view of the conflicting emotions and desires that come into play with free will. By adding Jesse and giving him so much power we are shown exactly how dangerous free will can be. As horrific as Castiel’s demand to kill Jesse is, it clearly illustrates how much simpler life would be if not everyone would have free will – especially those who wield great power.
I’ve always believed that it is more important to teach people how to think rather than what to think. It’s how I’ve attempted to raise my child. It is, however, a scary and dangerous thing. Our differing choices of free will could lead us to stand alone and against those we care about. This, again, is something that Supernatural does so well, especially in the last season with the schism that developed between Sam and Dean. People often like to take sides and place blame, as if life is a zero sum game that has a perfect solution that eliminates all the errors and pain. But you can’t. Free will demands that there are errors and pain. In the end, that’s what freedom is. As Dean told Castiel in “Lucifer Rising”: “I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.”
Granted, our lives rarely (fortunately) have such grand, obvious examples of free will. We rarely get to make grand stands for life and right and good. But I think that all of us, somewhere deep down, want to be able to make that choice. To fight a worthy battle, to choose our own path and to say, “If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.” After all, it’s our choices that makes us truly alive, isn’t it?
