It's a fairly weak thing to say - if there's one thing I learned in TOK, it's that so much more intellectual debate & stimulus is brought out by contrasting opinions - but agreed with pretty much everything. This is the problem I have with Supernatural, and to some extent, pretty much every show I watch (with maybe the exception of Being Human - Otherness!yay, not much gender!fail, and little race!fail (though perhaps because there's only one recurring POC on the show, though she's one of the three main characters, and I suppose Random Guy from Bar will be joining the cast? Anyways, I digress) - and Leverage). I like them, but man, so much compartmentalization, because these things make me SCREAM, especially about the relative amount of powerless I have as a fan. We can write, vid, and talk about these characters; redeem, celebrate, and exorcise them; but we still can't change them, or prevent more like them from being written. Eventually, we are faced with a choice of a) not watching the show, or b) watching and ignoring the fail. Few of us, I think, choose the first option, because despite it all we as fans pour a lot of love into these characters, and giving up a fandom is in many ways giving up on a relationship, or moving across the country. It's jarring, and not particularly pleasant. And so, instead, we plead the second, and compartmentalize, and even occasionally convince ourselves that really, it's not that bad. And then, of course, we become complacent in the fail, and perhaps even perpetrate it ourselves.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately - power and powerlessness in regards to change - and I am not happy with the conclusions I am reaching.

Three semi-related things: No, I don't think we've ever had a daughter avenging her mother, and that's a sad thing. You could probably argue that Jo was sort of trying to avenge her father in her drive to hunt, and Tamara was avenging her daughter (?), but we've never had a female mirror to the Winchester boys. (One of the reasons why high up on my list of Episodes I Really, Really Want But Will Never Ever Get is the Winchester's encounter with an alternate universe with a genderswapped Dean.) Secondly, lynching? And thirdly - I have no idea if this is relevant or not, but it was Drano Tamara's husband was forced to drink, not gasoline. That's why it burned his mouth and throat (quite loudly and visibly, actually *shudders*).