I'm pretty sure Lucifer is using Sam to regain influence on Earth

[xrayvision]

I pointed this out yesterday in another thread but wanted to start a seperate discussion focused solely on it...I think what Sam was seeing & experiencing was actual torture as a result of Lucifer infusing part of himself with Sam's soul when he was in the cage with him. Lucifer would have to know how stubborn the Winchesters are & how Dean would never let Sam rot in the cage, so he would have likely seen Sam's soul as his ticket out of the cage. First he could harness his powers through Sam & bring destruction to Earth through an unwilling & unparticipating Sam. Then he could even torture Sam enough or perhaps even gain control of Sam to ultimately open the cage with the Horsemen's rings to release himself entirely from the cage.

He even said how there is no escape from the cage. Even though Sam would have escaped the cage, if he has a piece of Lucifer with him now, his cage-torture would accompany him wherever he went. It's also possible that Lucifer could have taken a piece of Sam's soul & withheld it from Death in the cage so that Sam's current experiences are a result of a piece of him still being in the cage. This would be huge leverage on Lucifer's part in getting Sam to open the cage again. But I think it would be cooler if he's harboring a piece of Lucifer in him now. Either way, I think this could be what Death was referring to when he told Dean to keep digging since he wanted him & Sam to learn something about souls that they don't know. That something could be that souls could be infused with angels or be split apart. Critics of this could say that why would Death knowingly release a piece of Lucifer into Sam since he of all people would know if a piece of Lucifer was mixed in with Sam's soul or why would Death allow Lucifer to retain a piece of Sam's soul in the cage. My answer to them is that Death doesn't have any favorites and only helped the Winchesters when it suited him (when he wanted to be freed from Lucifer's binding). Death is loyal to one thing---the same master plan that God created and the reapers & Fates follow. So if it was supposed to happen, then Death would not interfere with that. Death's interference in season 5 by giving Dean his ring wasn't really interference since the master plan was not what Michael or any of the angels thought it was, but rather it was always about the Winchesters sending the 2 big archangels to the cage.

So I think Sam is truly screwed at least for the time being. They will either have to find a way to seperate Lucifer from Sam's soul, which may also have to do with what Death wants them to learn, or they will have to retrieve the piece of Sam that may still be in the cage. Or if this is the final season, Dean, Bobby & Sam may come to the conclusion that Sam's presence on Earth as a result of Lucifer latching onto his soul would destroy the world & Sam may have to jump back into the cage, this time permanently. I hope the latter isn't true and that Sam has a happy ending at the end of the show given what the poor guy has gone through.

I think it would be incredibly cool if either a piece of Lucifer is infused with Sam's soul in his body or if a piece of Sam's soul is still in the cage because this could lead to a new & different collaboration with Crowley. We could maybe get a Crowley who could become as loyal as Cas, or as close to that as possible given how he's a demon. Between the threat of Lucifer's return & the threat of the Leviathans, I think Crowley will definitely be teaming up with the Winchesters again. I think as king of hell he may even play a huge role in sending any part of Lucifer in Sam back to the cage or getting any part Sam's soul that's still in the cage out of it.

I don't know what the writers plan, but right now it has a *ton* of potential & looks very promising, which is amazing given that this is the 7th season and how most shows lose their steam way before then. I still think the show can go to an 8th depending on what they do this season. If there's an 8th, I'd say that's a good one to end the show on with the pacing they can do. I hope we get to see a lot more of Mark Pellegrino this season than we did in season 5. One thing I think they should have kept longer was the godCas storyline. I want them to write the arc that's being presented this season like they wrote the Apocalypse plot, which was split into 2 seasons--season 4 being the pre-Apocalypse with the breaking of the seals & season 5 with the actual Apocalypse. This season should be about the Leviathans & Lucifer (and Michael) doing what he's doing to Sam to break free with a final showdown between the Winchesters & Lucifer (and whoever else joins him) next season. That would be a spectacular way of closing out the show.

[xrayvision]

I also think this is why Castiel left Sam's soul in the cage when he resurrected his body. I know Castiel himself couldn't enter the cage & retieve Sam's soul by himself but it's possible he could have gotten someone else to do it, perhaps Death. Or even if he couldn't, he could have at least made it known to Sam & Dean that Sam's soul was still in the cage. There is no way that he didn't know that Sam's soul wasn't in his body when he was resurrecting his body because with Dean he had to break into hell & break his soul out, and even left a mark on Dean's body after reconstructing it. But with Sam, the only thing Cas did was reconstruct his body without retrieving his soul since Cas couldn't enter the cage himself & wouldn't risk doing so.

I really think Cas knew that Lucifer would infuse himself with Sam's soul and releasing Sam's soul would give Lucifer power & influence on Earth again. He definitely knew that telling the Winchesters about Sam's soul still being in hell would result in them relentlessly trying to get it out with how stubborn & persistent they are, and he didn't want to deal with it especially during the war against Raphael. But I also think he knows a lot more about souls & what angels/archangels could do with them than the Winchesters do---like Lucifer riding Sam's soul.

If Adam gets resurrected too & the same happens to him, then I think Michael could ride his soul (infuse himself with his soul) just like I think Lucifer is doing with Sam's.

[kcufehttahw]

As much as I like and pay attention to Supernatural that is a little more than I can swallow . Great theories though.

[Anno_Domini]

I still hate the idea of people thinking Castiel purposely left Sam's soul in the cage. He wasn't stamped as a villain until he teamed up with Crowley, why would he have done something evil beforehand? He wouldn't.

[kcufehttahw]

If I remember correctly, the Cas-centric episode last year; can't quite remember what it was called showed Castiel teamed up with Crowley the whole time since Sam was pulled out of the cage, was he not?

[Anno_Domini]

AFTER he pulled Sam out of the cage, yes, and I am one to think Castiel really didn't know about forgetting Sam's soul. It was shown in "The Third Man" that an angel can't read someone's soul unless they put their hand through someone's chest, so maybe Castiel was just too prideful to check from the get-go. I mean, he did tell his story in "The Man Who Would Be King", so why would he just lie by saying it wasn't prideful? I just don't believe Castiel lying with this scenario and purposely leaving Sam's soul behind. An accident? Yep.

[xrayvision]

AFTER he pulled Sam out of the cage, yes, and I am one to think Castiel really didn't know about forgetting Sam's soul. It was shown in "The Third Man" that an angel can't read someone's soul unless they put their hand through someone's chest, so maybe Castiel was just too prideful to check from the get-go. I mean, he did tell his story in "The Man Who Would Be King", so why would he just lie by saying it wasn't prideful? I just don't believe Castiel lying with this scenario and purposely leaving Sam's soul behind. An accident? Yep.

The thing is...he didn't even pull Sam out of the cage or enter the cage. We know that he couldn't enter the cage without getting trapped inside himself since only special beings like Death & perhaps fairies, if they were telling the truth, could enter it & leave. My logic says to recreate Sam's body, which would have been needed given what would have happened to it in the cage (all burned up to nothing), Cas wouldn't need to enter the cage, but rather use his powers to gather organic matter & recreate it in Sam's body & DNA since bodies are merely shells that can't last in hell like souls could. This is what the angels who resurrected Adam in season 5 did since they weren't anywhere around him when he began to rise from the ground (I think it was Zachariah who did that & he was in Heaven when he did). So even if he could get into the cage, there wouldn't be a body in there for him to drag out. And because there was no body, there was no way Cas could have forgotten to get Sam's soul.

I just don't think he could have done anything to get Sam's soul out without also letting Lucifer & Michael out, which would defeat the purpose of what they went through in season 5. So I don't think Cas is evil for not getting Sam's soul out. I just think 1) he couldn't without seriously risking Lucifer's escape from hell and 2) that he may have known that Lucifer could have infused himself with Sam's soul even if he did try another way of getting Sam's soul out of the cage. So if he purposely left him in there, it wasn't because of him being evil, but because of him not wanting to ruin all the hard work they did. And I believe he knew that Sam didn't want them to do it given how it was his decision to say yes to Lucifer & take the dive into the cage.

By the time the events of The Third Man came around, Cas was seriously involved in his deal with Crowley, so keeping that a secret from Sam & Dean wasn't beyond him given how he tortured that kid to find out which angel he sold his soul to in exchange for the Staff of Moses.

[Anno_Domini]

Huh? You think he created a new Sam?

[Kaleltheking]

That's interesting and makes sense in a way. If you think about it, if Cas could get into and out of the cage so easily, what would be stopping Lucifer or Michael. They are, after all, way stronger than Cas.

[xrayvision]

Huh? You think he created a new Sam?

I think he had to whip up a new body for Sam since his original one wouldn't stand a chance at surviving hell. He had to do partly the same with Dean's body since it was already somewhat rotten & had decayed during those months it was in the coffin.

[Anno_Domini]

That's too sci-fi for my tastes, lol. As much as it is a very interesting theory, I just don't see how Cas would've created a body and instead create some lie during his own story of what happened during the last year or so in "The Man Who Would Be King". To tell God some kind of lie about him going to Hell would be very insigificant because God would know, obviously, what really happened. That would just take away everything that the episode gave us and make what became one of the best SPN episodes into just an episode that has zero foundation story-wise.

[xrayvision]

That's too sci-fi for my tastes, lol. As much as it is a very interesting theory, I just don't see how Cas would've created a body and instead create some lie during his own story of what happened during the last year or so in "The Man Who Would Be King". To tell God some kind of lie about him going to Hell would be very insigificant because God would know, obviously, what really happened. That would just take away everything that the episode gave us and make what became one of the best SPN episodes into just an episode that has zero foundation story-wise.

But he didn't tell God that he went to hell to get Sam out did he? I know he was telling his story in that episode and God was intended to be the one it was being directed to, but I thought he just told Him about his deal with Crowley in hell & going to hell to meet Crowley. It may be possible that since Sam's body was destroyed in hell, he did recreate it in hell, but I don't see how it's possible that Cas took Sam's body out of the cage. There's no way he would have been able to leave. And even if he could, the 2 most powerful archangels would see to it that he wouldn't leave or would leave with him.

Crowley gave Sam a small sample of the burning of hell's fire last season when he touched him. I'm sure actually being in hell would burn him up completely, let alone the cage, which is the worst part of hell. Souls, unlike bodies, can't be destroyed and can take punishment that would destroy a body, which is why Dean's soul was torn to pieces but came back together again. By the same logic, if the fire of hell is strong enough to torment a soul, it would certainly be enough to scorch a body. So I just can't logically see how Sam's body would have lasted 5 seconds in there. If Cas recreated his body in the outer parts of hell, then maybe he was able to use his angel powers to cast a protective barrier around him. Or perhaps Cas just touching Sam while pushing his body out of hell would protect Sam from hell.

I think Cas somehow getting Sam's body out of the cage would definitely kill the foundation to the continuity of the show & Lucifer's cage. I definitely agree that resurrecting Sam's body was one of Cas' first objectives after he was resurrected and was done likely after stashing the Horsemen's rings somewhere safe and after Dean left Cas to go to Lisa's house in Swan Song. It was definitely before he first met with Crowley. I really have to watch The Man Who Would Be King again, but I hope it's not implied that Cas actually entered the cage because that would create serious problems in my opinion.

[kcufehttahw]

Mmm...personally I don't think angels can create humans out of nothing. From a religious perspective isn't God the only one who can do that?

[xrayvision]

Mmm...personally I don't think angels can create humans out of nothing. From a religious perspective isn't God the only one who can do that?

Yes, but I stopped viewing this show from a religious perspective since there are too many contradictions (Death supposedly being able to kill God, Armageddon being Michael vs. Lucifer rather than God vs. the devil/Lucifer/antichrist, angels being able to resurrect people rather than God, etc).

So since many of the angels' abilities are those traditionally of God, my thoughts are that they are able to recreate bodies. I mean how else was Samuel resurrected? All that was left of him must've been bones if even that (if he was given a hunter's burial he would have been burned to ash), so the rest of him had to be recreated. The same with Adam, whose body was burned into ash, when Zachariah resurrected him.

I don't think they create them out of nothing, but they rather use organic elements on Earth to do so. They probably have a registry of every human who ever lived so they could resurrect them exactly as they were using the materials on Earth. Their powers should be able to replicate the exact DNA patterns & everything. I don't know. But they have to be able to do it somehow when with Adam & most likely Samuel too, they had nothing to work with but ash.

I know Anna wanted to smite Sam & spread his remains all across space so that the angels could never put him back together, but I think she was clearly deluded in thinking that just like how she thought her plan of going back in time had a chance of succeeding when in fact Michael could always find her wherever she went & kill her. I would rather have to explain Anna's plan of scattering Sam's remains as a result of her delusions rather than try to think of a way where Cas could have gained access to the cage to take Sam's body out. It begs me to ask 1) how Cas got out of the cage if he got in, 2) how Lucifer & Michael also didn't get out if Cas did & 3) why if Lucifer couldn't get out, would he allow Cas to get out?

And if soulless Sam (Sam's body) was in hell & pulled out by Cas, why didn't he have memories of it like Sam's soul did? The one we saw burning in the cage was Sam's soul & the one with the memories of hell (why Death put up the wall) was also Sam's soul. Which is what makes me think that Sam's body was destroyed as soon as it entered hell. Probably Adam's too so that Adam's soul is now in the cage with Michael & Lucifer.

[Anno_Domini]

But he didn't tell God that he went to hell to get Sam out did he? I know he was telling his story in that episode and God was intended to be the one it was being directed to, but I thought he just told Him about his deal with Crowley in hell & going to hell to meet Crowley. It may be possible that since Sam's body was destroyed in hell, he did recreate it in hell, but I don't see how it's possible that Cas took Sam's body out of the cage. There's no way he would have been able to leave. And even if he could, the 2 most powerful archangels would see to it that he wouldn't leave or would leave with him.

Crowley gave Sam a small sample of the burning of hell's fire last season when he touched him. I'm sure actually being in hell would burn him up completely, let alone the cage, which is the worst part of hell. Souls, unlike bodies, can't be destroyed and can take punishment that would destroy a body, which is why Dean's soul was torn to pieces but came back together again. By the same logic, if the fire of hell is strong enough to torment a soul, it would certainly be enough to scorch a body. So I just can't logically see how Sam's body would have lasted 5 seconds in there. If Cas recreated his body in the outer parts of hell, then maybe he was able to use his angel powers to cast a protective barrier around him. Or perhaps Cas just touching Sam while pushing his body out of hell would protect Sam from hell.

I think Cas somehow getting Sam's body out of the cage would definitely kill the foundation to the continuity of the show & Lucifer's cage. I definitely agree that resurrecting Sam's body was one of Cas' first objectives after he was resurrected and was done likely after stashing the Horsemen's rings somewhere safe and after Dean left Cas to go to Lisa's house in Swan Song. It was definitely before he first met with Crowley. I really have to watch The Man Who Would Be King again, but I hope it's not implied that Cas actually entered the cage because that would create serious problems in my opinion.

Straight from supernaturalwiki.com.....a transcript of "The Man Who Would Be King":

CASTIEL And so I knew what I had to do next. Once again, I went to Harrow Hell, to free Sam from Lucifer's cage. It was nearly impossible, but I was so full of confidence, of mission. I see now that was arrogance...Hubris...Because, of course, I hadn't truly raised Sam -- not all of him.(flashback to 'Unforgiven': Sam is beating a cop unconscious; flashback to 'Live Free or Twi-Hard': Sam watches Dean being turned; flashback to 'Appointment in Samarra': Sam raises his dagger to stab Bobby) Sometimes we're lucky enough to be given a warning. (back in front of Lisa's house, Sam turns and walks away- directly past Castiel) This should have been mine.