It's Strange To See People Reacting Like Jensen's Said Something New Here. I've Listened To Pretty Much

It's strange to see people reacting like Jensen's said something new here. I've listened to pretty much everything he's ever said on the topic and, as far as I can tell, he's always understood that scene to be a confession of romantic love on Cas's part.¹

The part that Jensen's repeatedly pushed back against — and sometimes gotten exasperated or frustrated about — is the insistence of some fans that Dean must reciprocate Cas's feelings. He's been very clear about the fact that he understands Dean to be straight, that he's always played him as straight, and that he's never gotten guidance from writers or directors or showrunners that he should be playing him differently.²

Meanwhile, Jensen has consistently affirmed that Dean feels love for his dearest friends — which includes Cas — but he has also consistently avoided using language that suggests Dean feels romantic love for him, because he doesn't think that Dean does.

That's why Jensen describes their relationship by calling Cas "one of [Dean's] best friends," "one of his closest allies," "not only a brother-in-arms, but one of his closest — the closest people to him," and doesn't describe their relationship by calling Cas "the man he loves" or using other phrases that people usually reserve for romantic partners, like "his everything."³

In any case, what Jensen is trying to say seems pretty clear to me even without the above context, but with it, I'd call it beyond clear. When he says there's nothing to resolve, he's saying that (consistent with what he's said before) Cas & Dean were on the same page by the end of the scene. Dean understood Cas's feelings and Cas understood Dean's.

To spell it out: Cas loved Dean romantically but knew that Dean would never love him back romantically because he was straight (thus, the wanting something he could "never have"). But he realized he could still experience joy in confessing his love and accepting it for what it was, even if it was never reciprocated. And he expresses both of these things to Dean: that he loves him romantically and that he knows that Dean doesn't (can't) reciprocate.

And he's right, so there's really nothing Dean can say to that. Cas knows how Dean feels — that he loves him platonically, that Cas is (in Dean's own words) like a brother to him — and now Dean knows how Cas feels, but it doesn't change anything between them. Dean can't make himself love Cas like Cas loves him. But he also won't stop loving Cas like a brother just because he finds out that Cas's feelings are different, either.

So, while Cas's confession was poignant, it doesn't change who they are to one another or how they would exist in each other's lives.

Thus... there's nothing more to really say about it. The scene included its own catharsis, its own resolution. Setting aside the resulting grief/loss parts (due to Cas's death, not his words), both sides had reached a kind of peace with Cas's confession as it stood.

¹Although, early on, he was more accommodating of the perspective of some fans that it wasn't — clearly trying to be diplomatic — and today, he obviously sees less point in equivocating about that.

²In the past, Jensen's gotten annoyed by repeated assertions that Dean is bi, and people have seemingly mistaken this for him being homophobic or somehow opposed to the idea that Cas has romantic feelings towards Dean, but that interpretation doesn't make sense in the context of his statements as a whole. The problem is, if you're straight & people keep telling you they think you're gay, it's really hard to stop them without seeming like you think there's something wrong with being gay. But it's annoying to have your orientation constantly questioned, just like it's annoying to be misgendered or repeatedly mistaken for pretty much anything you're not.

(And yes, I get that Jensen isn't Dean, but when you're a straight man playing a straight man and people won't stop coming up to you to tell you that your idea of "a straight man" is totally gay/bi, then, yeah, they're basically saying that you're wrong about your own orientation: that you don't understand how a "real" straight man would react to x, y, or z. Basically, "mansplaining" (reverse-mansplaining?) your orientation to you. Or, at the very least, your acting.)

³It's challenging to talk about a relationship where on one side, you've got platonic love, and on the other side, you've got romantic love. If you call them friends, you seem to be dismissing the one person's romantic feelings. But there isn't a better term. That's why Jensen switches (somewhat fumblingly) between terms like "allies" and "friends" and "closest people."

Jensen Ackles | Insta stories, Nov, 2020 

Jared's dress style || Njcon 2024

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Sam and Dean are canonically soulmates

It's Winchesterland as in SamDeanland only because

05x16

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