some speculation on Metatron’s spell

I’ve been thinking about the angel tablet, Metatron’s spell, and the trials for closing the gates of heaven.

What’s interesting about Metatron’s spell is that all the required steps involve the destruction of love: killing the nephilim, taking away Cupid’s bow, stripping away an angel’s grace. But what’s more, all these steps seem to encourage a total separation of heaven and humanity.

By killing the nephilim, Castiel destroys the product of the ultimate union between heaven and humanity - the creation of a new life. By taking away Cupid’s bow, humans will be able to fall in love with one another by choice, rather than following the will of heaven - preventing heaven from meddling in humanity’s affairs (literally!). And by taking away an angel’s grace, Metatron strips Castiel of the literal and metaphorical manifestation of God’s love - the very definition of grace.

The spell and the angel tabet trials to close the gates of heaven have the same basic idea - remove the angels from human affairs. But rather than lock the angels up in heaven and keep them away from humanity, Metatron casts a spell with steps designed to separate human and heavenly affairs - only the spell removes the angels from heaven and casts them to earth, where they will surely become involved with human affairs to even a greater extent. It seems like a paradox.

What’s also a paradox is how the steps for the spell could be seen as stripping away free will - taking the life of a being created by the union between an angel and a human, forcibly removing an angel’s grace - only it could be argued that the opposite is true (the nephilim notwithstanding). Taking away the Cupid’s bow will allow humans to chose who they fall in love with - not just fall in love with whoever heaven decides they should. And taking away Cas’s grace is a callback to Metatron’s quotation from Rasselas - “Make your choice, and be at peace” - that in order to truly understand the meaning of free will, free will must be first taken away. An angel’s grace is given to them by God, granted with the expectation that the angel will serve heaven - take away the grace and what’s left, if not free will?

I think a spell like this is created in order to be undone.

So what would reversing the spell do? Would it give the angels their wings back? Would it allow the angels to fly back to heaven? Is Cas the only angel who can reverse the spell, or could each angel reverse the spell individually? How could the spell be reversed?

Look at any fairy tale and you’ll learn that the trick to reversing any spell is taking the same steps and ingredients you took to complete the spell, only going about the process backwards. So what might need to happen in order to reverse Metatron’s spell?

1. Killing a nephilim, the product of a union between an angel and a human —> reversing this step might involve creating a nephilim (or any baby, or the act of making love itself). There were nods all throughout season eight to babies - Prometheus and the son he hadn’t known about but died to save, Metatron’s comment to Cas about finding a wife and making babies. This could be the reason for April x Cas. Carver mentions that Cas’s foray into sex will end strangely - a surprise pregnancy resulting in a nephilim (would it be a nephilim if the angel wasn’t an angel anymore?) would very well fit that scenario.

2. Taking the bow of a Cupid, which causes people to fall in love —> reversing this step might involve either returning the bow, or having the person reverse the spell become a matchmaker, or falling in love themselves, without the aid of the bow.

3. Taking away the grace of an angel (in love with humanity?) —> reversing this step might involve reclaiming the grace of an angel - creating a soul - or giving up their grace voluntarily. Angels choosing to give up their grace.

The steps for reversing Metatron’s spell encourage the mingling of heaven and humanity. Fall in love. Make love. And maybe, just maybe - giving up their grace (for love?). Which is by far my favorite option.

How did Sam plan to return Crowley’s soul? By giving up his life in order to complete the trials. How would a soulless being go about getting a soul, I wonder? Maybe be giving up their lives for someone else. There’s a precedent in the bible for this, in fact.

Think of angels giving up their grace willingly, because they do it for love. Angels giving up their grace and falling, becoming thoroughly human themselves. Which means, when they die, they would be allowed back into heaven. As souls, not angels. Maybe this is the only way for angels to return to heaven now that they’ve been cast out from heaven and God’s grace- as mortal souls, who have died for the love of humanity.

And think about it - this is an alternative to the apocalypse, which was started just because angels were tired of it all, and wanted it to be over so that they could be at peace in paradise.

The apocalypse was a struggle between obtaining peace or freedom.

Why not have both? Life as a human, and then peace in heaven?

I know the collective fandom headcanon is that Metatron required the grace of an angel in love with a human, but I don’t know if that is really the case. How does Metatron know that Castiel is the perfect mark? Probably through a combination of talking to the prophet and maybe listening in on angel radio. And I doubt that Kevin knows Castiel well enough to provide Metatron with that particular bit of intel. I think it’s far more likely that Metatron heard through the grapevine about the lengths Cas has gone to in order to protect the Winchesters (and humanity in general.) I think it’s far more likely Metatron needed the grace of an angel who loved humanity, rather than one specific human, for his spell. An angel who, if he did decide to reverse the spell, could be counted on to love humanity enough to consider voluntarily giving up his grace. An angel who, if he went about reversing the spell, would making love for the first time, would fall in love for the first time. Because as far as I understand it - Cas doesn’t quite know about falling in love yet. Dean may have the faintest inklings about his feelings, but I sincerely doubt Cas would recognize romantic love right now if it booped him on the nose. Which is another reason why April is so important to Cas’s plot this season. How will he know the difference if he doesn’t have anything to contrast it with?

Reversing the spell would require human-angel loving, and a lot of it. Which is what seems to be a problem in heaven. Naomi says it herself - angels were meant to protect humanity, not destroy it. And not only that - reversing the spell might encourage free will. Regardless of whether or not Metatron is supposed to be a villain, his mustache-twirlable plot could be a pretty interesting exercise in unconditional love.

What if instead of closing the gates of hell, all the demons could be turned back into humans? And instead of closing the gates of heaven, all the angels could give up their grace and fall? Imagine releasing Lucifer from his cafe - and instead of killing him, get him to give up his grace and return to heaven as a mortal soul. What is hell, after all, but separation from God?

I would really, really love it if Carver took this route. Not to say that he will - but oh, it would such a nice scenario, having Dean dying for Sam and Sam dying to save the world and then Cas and the angels dying for humanity. The music the SPN crew picked for the opening credits in 9x01 is hopefully an indicator about what season nine will be about - who do you love?

But what about the trials to close the gates of heaven? I think it’s likely that even as Cas will be called on to reverse Metatron’s spell, he will also take on the trials to close heaven - for real, this time. In fact, I think he’s already completed one of those trials, back in the crypt in 8x17. Cas doesn’t kill Dean, even under Naomi’s mind control. Why not? We don’t know. (Love.) But Cas went all glowly and gold even as Sam went red and veiny as he completed his own trials, which makes me think Cas has already started to close the gates of heaven.

The hellgate trials were significant in that all those steps Sam had to complete were the reversals of what Lucifer probably did to create hell. Lucifer created the hellhounds. Lucifer used his hellhounds to drag souls to hell. Lucifer created demons.

If the trials to close the gates of hell were to kill a hellhound, rescue an innocent soul from hell, and to cure a demon - then what might the actual heaven trials include? Would they be a reversal of what was done to create heaven?