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shallowrambles · 1 year

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The virgin-whore, purity-corrupted phenomenon as it pertains to Andrea Kormos:

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ANDREA: We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted.

BENNY: What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest.

ANDREA: But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here.

BENNY: What I loved – it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.

ANDREA: You think you're better than me now?

BENNY: No. I think we're all damned.

ANDREA snarls and her fangs descend. DEAN stabs her from behind and then cuts off her head. BENNY and DEAN look at each other before BENNY looks down at ANDREA’s body.

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I mean, yes; on the one hand, Benny doesn't quite imply that he's better than her, but he does imply that she's worthless, nothing--just a shadow of the idealized woman he put up on the trophy shelf as his "Reason for Being." All for deciding to live the exact life Benny had lived for so long. He doesn't even try to convince her to overcome or to compromise. He just...gives up. It's quite tragic and alarmingly indicative of how Benny views his relationships as a whole, as well as his place within them.

Season 8 is, in a sense, about mirages. It's about trying to desperately convince yourself things that are not real are. (Or that things that are real aren't.) It gives it an odd, dreamy quality. These mirages are somtimes idealized, baggage-less relationships and jobs/roles (friends, family, and otherwise) that COULD be good, if not for them representing idealization/escape/etc. (It's even echoed in Cas's wish to be a hunter solely to avoid the consequences of his genocide. Naomi's brainwashed Cas is an idealized angel without the baggage of chaos.)

Importantly, these mirages never let you down. But real bonds don't stay forever in that liminal limerance of "never letting you down." Strife and perseverance and deciding if they're worth tackling (or not) are precisely what transition bonds of all kinds into the latter phases of committment and stability (or ending). Every study and pop book lands on a similar conclusion.

But what happens here? Before Andrea even lashes out, Benny absolutely demolishes her worthiness, lameting that she's no longer the uncorrupted, unblemished idea of Perfect Woman from his memories. He cruelly says this to her face, rather than actively discussing alternative futures or seeking any kind of meaningful discussion about overcoming vampiric cannibalism. Ultimately, he cannot bear that she became sullied by his father in what amounts to a symbolic chess game of moving the chattel between the two men.

What if this person isn’t really as magnificent as we thought they were? This transition is painful, but it’s not a catastrophe. In fact, our emotional and relational health depend on it. For each of us to move forward in our development, we must face the fact that we’re different people with distinctive needs that will never mesh entirely.

Disillusionment is the dark, wintry season of love. By now power struggles have risen fully to the surface.

It’s a paradox: when we feel good about ourselves, we’re more likely to feel generous toward others.

- Linda Carrol

And now? He doesn't offer an alternative to Andrea. He doesn't offer insight into why that life ultimately never worked out for him. No, it's just a verbal lamentation that this blossom named Andrea has withered in the face of life's tribulations. (It's also insanely hypocritical, as Benny is equally corrupted as she, and he has worked on the high seas, plundering and eating for likely much longer, even if he's "recovered" from the lifestyle now.)

But Andrea isn't allowed to exist in this flawed state. She's not allowed to even hear a verbalized shade of gray or a potential compromise. It's either she stays unsullied or she has to die before she disturbs that holy, past image. When Benny gives up on Andrea, he gives up on his own image, too: "We're all damned," he says. All or nothing. Black or white. Benny's symbolic suicide was magnanimously present from this moment on. Not just because of how Andrea was killed but because of how he dismissed and dehumanized her prior to her aggression. He cannot see a possibility beyond Purgatory. He cannot see potential for true shades of gray in the new Andrea or himself. For him, life becomes a ticking countdown to self-annihilation.

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BENNY: My life changed when she entered it, Dean. Everything I had been or done up to that point just... seemed to vanish... into what we had become together

This describes phase one of love, a merging, an innocent unrecognition of the complexity of The Other. It's a very immature love, an image of perfection that clearly Benny still longs for. "You cannot become like me. You exist to inspire me to be better, to meet my needs / nourish me with your blood, and to be the reason for either my rebellion / triumph, or the fridge for my emotional pain."

Once we emerge from the Merge, some of us will be able to reunite with our lover with new maturity and deeper, if perhaps less intense, satisfaction. It depends on our ability to reconcile two distinct needs: to dwell in the delights of the other and to stand firm in our own space. - Linda Carroll

They did not survive that middling doubt, denial, disillusionment phase. (And that's okay! They're both in bad, hopeless places.) What's surprising is Benny didn't even try. This shows an immaturity and complexity Benny never quite gets credit for (he is often The Feisty, Smooth-talkin' Idealized Blood Brother, and the flaws and red flags he does portray are not Seen due to the idealization and his incredibly short tenure.) In terms of narrative...Benny is the peer-addict Dean would hypocritically support compared to Sam's wholly unsupported stint as addict - this happens in so many families! I think of it as analogous to supporting an illness with lip service in church or by doing time and donations to your local soup kitchen, but you don't have sympathy for it within your own home or family. For Dean, this is subconscious. And for Sam, it's a symbolic sore spot: you enable his addiction but you judged mine. Anyway, Benny is so zeroed in on his own fatalism, that he had already decided deep down that they'd both die. They're both damned. It's tragic for them both, but it's especially tragic for Andrea.

“Never marry a man you haven’t already divorced,” she said. - Linda Carroll

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Better to be a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment, eh Andrea? I wish we'd gotten to see Andrea reigning over Purgatory, if I'm honest. I'd have liked to see her grapple with everything.

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DEAN: You ever fall off the wagon and feed?

BENNY: Some questions you just don't wanna ask, brother.

#tw misogyny #misogyny #benny crit #just to be safe #i wanted andrea kormos to be ruling purgatory in season 15 #anyway the stuff with andrea always bothered me #i've struggled to out it into words but she def gets whore-ified #i hated benny's speech to her soooooo muuuuch #i just wish they'd brought it full circle with a restoration of andrea for contrast even in season 15!#it would have been such a good twist #and a great parallel to boot #more narrative calling out of benny's dismissal of andrea would have elevated his character nicely to more fleshed out imho

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