Episode 3.12 Jus in Bello

Justice in war... the code of ethics that judges actions on the battlefield. On the surface, this episode makes us question what is right, cuts off almost every choice Sam and Dean could’ve made, and backs them so far into a corner they’re literally shackled together and shoved in a cage. It was a situation that we won’t find out for most of an entire additional season of the show that was specifically engineered to shove this exact pressure point to see what would happen.

It’s incredibly easy to watch this episode from that surface level and come to the conclusion that Ruby was right, that they should’ve listened to her and done her (morally questionable) spell-- sacrificing an innocent to save everyone’s lives. It’s easy to judge Dean for his refusal to cooperate with that plan without the later proof that he’d been 100% right all along.

But there are cues even within this episode that should at least cast doubt on that interpretation, starting with the title begging us to examine the morality of their choices. This is why I chose that tagline for the weekly graphic: “If that’s how you win wars, then I don’t want to win.”

Because Ruby does present this from the outset as “war.” As a battle that must be won. But it was ALL a manipulation-- at the time it was written, perhaps a more immediate manipulation intended to drive Sam to his original fate to corrupt himself in order to save Dean from going to Hell, but folded into a far larger narrative that would eventually unfold throughout s4 because the writer’s strike made it impossible to complete this arc over the four episodes they had left to work with in s3, and no guarantee that the show would even be picked up for s4 yet.

She berates them at the end of the episode for their failure to save everyone, but seven of those people they mourned were dead before Sam and Dean were even released from their shackles, and the thirty people Ruby’s plan would’ve saved also walked away safe and sound because of Dean’s plan. Only, he didn’t have to murder an innocent to make that happen. Only Lilith’s choices after the fact cost the lives of the three additional people who were killed. That had nothing to do with Dean’s plan being one with a “body count,” as Ruby put it. They were played, their emotions manipulated, and Sam was just a little more compromised morally because of it.

Okay, I think I summed up the entire episode, but I have FEELINGS about this one. It’s the intro to morality and manipulation in SPN, and I love it for that.

Referenced in this week’s episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

But especially these linked posts focusing on the morality and free will aspects of this episode, and this one about the sexual innuendo of Dean and Victor’s comments

a flickr album of behind the scenes photos from this ep and 3.11

casting sides for Deputy Amici, Nancy, and Sheriff Dodd

and i think this is just about as many words as anchor lets you use before you run out of characters (3992/4000) lol

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