embrrssed-love:

illusivexemissary:

i don’t think people realize that when Gabe bounced at the end of 13X18, he was showing Dean MERCY.

Gabe knew that Dean would come in and get violently coercive (and he did: he screamed, shouted, threw things, expressed the urge to force Gabriel’s hand, and blamed everyone around him). You’re probably saying, how would he know, it’s been so many years!  But remember, Sam and Cas JUST UPDATED GABE on what went down when he was in Hell, and furthermore?  Dean has ALWAYS been coercive with Gabe. See these earlier examples, including the famous “Can’t or won’t” (KILL YOUR BIG BROTHER WHO RAISED YOU) speech: 

1) Tall Tales. They start out recognizing a certain joie de vivre and love of using hedonism to cope with hardship in each other. 

“I like you.  “I don’t want to hurt you, and you know that I can.”  But after Tall Tales, it goes south quickly.  

2) Mystery Spot.  Gabe recognizes that Dean was the epicenter of TFW’s problems as early as Season Three, in Mystery Spot, after all, by forcing Sam to recognize their codependence. Sam was spared, rather than the reverse, for those nearly 100 times that Gabe killed Dean, because Gabe knew Sam would be the more receptive, malleable student of the pair.  

3) Changing Channels. Dean is the one who repeatedly antagonizes Gabriel.  He doesn’t yet know he’s an Archangel, but he does know that he’s at least a powerful “demigod Trickster,” and he still tests the boundaries of Gabe’s temper by relentlessly hounding and verbally baiting him.

 Gabe gives him chance after chance to stop, and he doesn’t respect the boundaries Gabe establishes.  Because for Dean, it’s all for the cause.  It’s all a worthy sacrifice for the endgame, to “protect” everyone.  So Gabe lashes out with physical intimidation, and with the notorious line, “Don’t you ever, ever presume to know what I am.”  

Later, Dean speeches (as Dean is wont to do) at Gabriel about what an asshole he is, only after he has strongarmed Gabe into submission with a ring of holy fire. He gets Gabe so riled up with taunts of Gabe’s alleged cowardice and cruelty, deigning sanctimoniously to turn on the sprinklers and free him, that Gabe is left paralyzed with fury, looking like this: 

4) Hammer of the Gods. A tense exchange (the famous “bite me Gabriel” and “maybe later, big boy”) in a private room of the Elysian Fields Hotel, where Gabe has shown up to SAVE HIS FRIENDS FROM HIS MURDEROUS BROTHER, and of course Sam and Dean are there to fuck it up.  And while Sam stops and listens to Gabe’s warnings, Dean baits and postures again, strongarming Gabriel (the exchange of wits about “cutting off their hands” and “then they’ll all be asking, ‘why do they have no hands’ ”)  into cooperating with the pair, which leads directly to Kali stabbing Gabe, and to the conversation in the Impala.  

Interestingly GABE ALSO NOTICES THE BENEFICIAL/USEFUL SIDE OF DEAN’S PERSONALITY, appealing to him in the Impala and later giving DEAN the video with the vital information with stopping the Apocalypse: because Gabe also knows that IF DEAN WANTS TO GET SHIT DONE, HE WILL (unfortunately, Gabe also knows down the line that this also can mean at the expense of others).  

What’s the point of all these examples?  It’s that Gabe recognizes echoes of MICHAEL (and Lucifer and Raphael) and his ride-or-die complicit soldier mindset in Dean.

Did you all notice that it was when MICHAEL’S name was dropped that Gabe panicked, stood, gestured frantically and RAN for the bunker door?

Because Michael is coming, and so is Dean.  

Gabriel knows Dean, for all his flaws, is a force for good (”I put my money on you guys the last time”) and he even has some residual affection for TFW, so he doesn’t want to kill Dean, which he would be forced to do if Dean cornered him, triggered him by once again demanding his Grace (what his abuser Asmodeus was taking for him via excruciating methods through violation and mutilation for over! seven! YEARS!). 

Dean is the sort of person who says things like “he doesn’t GET to say no” to and about a person who was robbed of agency and bodily/psychological autonomy for seven years.  Gabe knows this, because he is an astute strategizer who knows human natue well, and because he also has heard his oldest brother say these things during all the wars in Heaven. So instead of lashing out at Dean, as he is now self-aware enough to know he would do, Gabe, who is conflict-avoidant anyway, leaves.

That people are shaming this act, I find outrageous.  What would you do in his shoes, if you knew someone with a violent coercive temper was coming to demand of you precisely what traumatized you? Exhibit some compassion for someone outside the precious circle of protagonists, please.  

Given the choice, Gabriel will always choose the least violent, confrontational option.  That’s a good part of why he removed himself from the equation of the Apocalypse, AFTER PASSING ON VITAL INFORMATION TO THE WINCHESTERS FOR STOPPING IT.     “I’m not a team kind of guy” is a face-saving excuse for someone who is still traumatized and scared shitless, who already on a good day hates fighting so much that it agonized him into leaving his birth-home.   Gabe is afraid of what Dean will do to reach Dean’s goal.  Just like he is of Michael. 

It was honestly, ironically, the most well-written part of the episode, that he left.  

“"I don’t want to hurt you, and you know that I can.”  

And honestly, it will be interesting to see if my theory that Gabe jumps into Dean’s vessel rings true. That had better be HIS choice, not coercion.  

I’m not trying to hate on Dean here, btw. I’m fond of Dean. I’m just explaining what Gabriel knows, what he fears, and why. 

Interesting theory that Gabriel might have foreseen how Dean would react. But I’d TOTALLY forgotten he said that line in Tall Tales. The gifs and episode synopses really help so, on a related note: 

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is Gabriel’s dialogue to Dean in that final Casa Erotica video about why he’d not wanted to fight.

• “And Dean, you were right; I was afraid to stand up to my brother.”

This line was always the only thing I felt ever validated the “Gabriel is a coward” mindset in the fandom, because he said it himself. But now that we know definitively that he was just pulling a Trickster, a whole new set of meanings became canon. Basically:

• Misleading people about what he is and what he feels, just so both parties can move on, is kind of Gabriel’s thing. He repeatedly allows the people who are after him to think they’ve won!
• So Gabriel was potentially just telling Dean he was right even though Gabriel himself didn’t actually view it that way, just for the effect it’d have on Dean to hear it. Said another way: Gabriel was just telling Dean what he wanted to hear. Again.
• Because yes, Dean did infamously ask Gabriel if he just “can’t or won’t” kill Lucifer. But you know what else Dean also said in that car? “It’s the best idea I’ve heard, so unless you have a better one…”
• Well, as it would turn out, yes, he did have a better idea. Gabriel informed them in his final video, “Without me, you’ve got zero shot at killing Lucifer.” So in his usual way of avoiding-conflict-to-minimize harm, Gabriel found a way to do it all: He not only helped the boys protect humanity by telling them how to put Lucifer in the cage, and fake his death to avoid future confrontation, but 
• Gabriel faked his own death to avoid killing his brother.

This archangel has always been and probably always will be a character that, if at all possible, will utilize avoidance for its most holy of purposes: to avoid harm. Likewise, he only uses conflict for its most holy of purposes: To bring justice. Which–and thank you for the reminder–is remarkably something he completely summarizes himself as one of his first real lines in-character:

“I don’t want to hurt you, and you know that I can.”