Good/Evil #2 - Castiel

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What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here! I see inside you, I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In Paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace.

Castiel is an angel of Heaven. He is completely devoted to God, so you would think that this would be no question - he's Good. But he doesn't necessarily agree with what the other angels are doing, which starts the grey area. Angels are from Heaven, so they must be Good, and yet they are trying to bring about Armageddon and so they are painted as antagonists on the show (I could do a whole entry discussing them...hmm, ideas!!) With that in consideration, in addition to God missing, it seems as though Castiel is still Good. And ever since he was introduced in season four, he has been one of my favorite characters. He and Dean developed an adorable Bromance - at one point, Cas even admitted to Sam that he and Dean do "share a more profound bond". Which made the ending of Season Six all the more heartbreaking.

Season Six is the first season after the Apocalypse has been averted; Sam is in a Cage in Hell with Lucifer and Michael, Dean is living happily with Lisa and Ben, the demon Crowley has taken over Hell in Lucifer's absence, and Castiel has returned to Heaven. However, since Michael is trapped in the Cage, there is a power vacuum in Heaven. Castiel and another angel, Raphael, have started a civil war because if Raphael takes control of Heaven, he will restart Armageddon and bring about the destruction of the world, and Cas is trying to stop that. Unfortunately, throughout the course of the season we learn that Castiel and Crowley have been working together to learn the location of Purgatory, because they can use the souls of the monsters trapped there to boost their own powers. Crowley has the Boys (Crowley has pulled Sam out of the Cage by this point) and the Campbells capturing Alphas (the first monster of a species) so that he can torture them for information. Even Castiel begins using questionable methods, becoming desperate as Raphael is winning the war. The season ends with Castiel consuming the souls of the Leviathan, though he is ultimately unable to handle them and is destroyed in the Season Seven premiere.

For most of Season Seven, Castiel is presumed dead. However, towards the end of the season Dean is sent to a faith healer, who turns out to be Castiel with amnesia. Sam is struggling with the hallucination of Lucifer, nearing the point of complete insanity. At the end of the episode, Cas offers to transfer the hallucination to his own mind, and the Boys reluctantly leave him a dribbling mess in a mental hospital, with Meg the demon as a guardian. When we see Cas again, he has been revived by a Word of God that the Boys have found, so although he is still completely bats--t insane, at least he is no longer nearly comatose. He begins to redeem himself in these last three episodes of the season as he helps the Boys take down the evil Dick Roman, but Dean and the audience find it very difficult to forget Castiel's betrayal in the sixth season.

So is Castiel Good or Evil? Considering he's an Angel, I don't think he can ever be fully Evil. However, he did begin doing some very questionable things, right down to betraying his absolute best friend in the world, so I find it difficult to call him completely Good either. So I think I'm going to go with

WELL-INTENTIONED