Castiel, as any fan of The CW's longest-running show will tell you, is one of the most important parts of Supernatural. Since his debut on the show back in season four (aka 2008), the rogue angel has become a main cast member, a human, a god, and a whole host of other things. Like any long-running character on a show that's been going for more than 13 seasons, Castiel has had his ups and downs as he has grown and developed.
Originally meant to appear in just a few episodes, Castiel instantly resonated with fans, immediately becoming a hit after saving Dean from Hell. After gripping Dean tight and raising him from perdition, Castiel has gone on a long journey, becoming more complex and nuanced than any other angel character. Castiel's morality and view of the world started out black and white, but he has changed his outlook multiple times. Having been an ange, a kind of mutated god, and also essentially a human, Castiel has had as many role changes as the Winchesters themselves.
All this change led to more than a few holes in Castiel's development and relationship with the world of Supernatural. This list counts down the ways that fans have to ignore aspects of the character to enjoy the show-- plot holes and leaps in logic that just about every show falls prey to, especially the ones that go on as long as Supernatural.
These are 20 Things Wrong With Castiel We All Choose To Ignore.
He doesn’t like Sam as much as Dean
Normally, the Winchester brothers are peas in a pod, essentially the same package. However, when it comes to Castiel, one of them is clearly the favorite. Castiel himself has said he shares a "profound bond" with Dean Winchester, but he can't say the same for his friendship with Sam.
There have been some attempts in recent seasons to try to bridge that gap, but fans know there's just no way it'll happen.
Castiel is always going to like Dean more than he likes Sam, no matter how uncomfortable that makes the whole team dynamic. After all, Castiel is the angel who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition.
His over-the-top gravelly voice
Some fans may not care to admit it, but Castiel's voice can be more than a little grating on the ears. Misha Collins describes his process behind creating the voice-- obviously quite different from his normal speaking voice-- as being inspired by Castiel's true voice. Since humans can't hear Castiel's true voice and live, he thought his speaking voice would be very deep and harsh.
However, Collins thought he'd only be appearing in a few episodes, and never anticipated he'd have to do this voice for years to come. Collins himself says Castiel's voice is unpleasant for him to do. As for the fans, we all just have to ignore the fact that it isn't that fun to listen to, either.
Power corrupted him
One of the biggest events in all of Castiel's storylines on Supernatural was the time he became God-- sort of. After absorbing all the souls in Purgatory, Castiel became one of the most powerful beings in existence.
He was a kind of mutated angel who sought to impose his will on the creatures of Earth.
While later seasons somewhat exonerated Castiel by explaining that his actions had been influenced by the ever-hungry Leviathans, the point still stands: Castiel wasn't a good or kindly god. Cas was supposed to be a pure, conscientious angel that helped the world, but he ended up just proving the old adage: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
He threatened to destroy the Winchesters
One of Castiel's more notorious acts while he was a mutant god was to essentially threaten the lives of everybody he came across. Castiel became convinced that his way was the only way, and demanded fealty from his former friends, allies, and enemies. Among those were the Winchester brothers.
Castiel actually threatened to destroy the Winchesters (and Bobby) if they didn't proclaim their obedience to their new "god." This naturally represented just how far Cas had fallen, just how much the souls from Purgatory had affected his mind. Still, for him to not even think twice before threatening the lives of his dearest friends was pretty messed up. Fans of the show who think back to this moment have to realize how bad it makes Cas look.
Meg flirted with him, and he flirted back
Starting in season five and continuing in seasons six and seven, fans got to see a brand dynamic between Castiel and Meg. Obviously, these two characters are on opposing sides, but that didn't stop the angel and the demon from flirting and kissing in that span of time.
The relationship was popular enough that writers brought back Meg to flirt with Castiel multiple times.
It still breaks more than a few rules that the series itself had set out. First, angels aren't really the types for romance in the first place, and starting one with a demon seems like it would entirely against Castiel's worldview. Fans can enjoy those episodes all they want, but they have to ignore the logic of Supernatural's own world to do it.
He's walking around in the body of a deceased guy
In the world of Supernatural, every angel has a "true" host, a human vessel that isn't damaged by their possession. Castiel's perfect vessel is Jimmy Novak, a Christian family man who consented to his body being used by an angel. This is all well and good, but the story doesn't have a happy ending.
Castiel promised Jimmy that his body would be returned to him unharmed, but that didn't happen. Lucifer destroyed Jimmy's body while Castiel possessed it, and while Castiel was resurrected in Jimmy's body, Jimmy's soul ascended to heaven. This means that Castiel has been basically using a deceased body as his home for most of his appearances on the show, something most fans would rather not think about.
Jimmy Novak's faith was misplaced
Possessing a human body is an ethically risky thing to have angels do, and producers of Supernatural set out to make Castiel conscientious about it. This led to a mini-arc where Castiel reveals that he is possessing Jimmy Novak, a devout family man who was more than willing to give up his body in service of God.
As the events of the show have revealed, Jimmy's faith would have been better spent elsewhere.
Angels have been shown to be ethically ambiguous and God is mostly a no-show, far from the idealized faith Jimmy believed in. Plus, Castiel promised no harm would come to him, and look how that turned out.
Castiel's vessel is way too resilient
The vast majority of Supernatural's angel and demon characters take more than one form in their run on the show, as the powerful entities possess the bodies of various humans. There's also an in-universe explanation, as the power of angels and demons are too great for the human body.
If Castiel were to hop into a new vessel, it would mean that Misha Collins could no longer play him.
Obviously, fans wouldn't tolerate this, so the show has just kind of allowed Jimmy Novak's body to be way more resilient than any other. For instance, even when a fallen archangel (Lucifer) possessed Jimmy's body, it didn't deteriorate. The producers are just that committed to Collins staying on--they'll even break the rules of the story.
He keeps getting destroyed and resurrected
Castiel has perished five times. We'll say that again: Castiel has perished and gone to the afterlife five separate times during the run of Supernatural, and he has been resurrected every single time (usually by God himself). At this point, Castiel has been destroyed almost as much as the Winchesters have.
Honestly, it's starting to get a little old. Cas has been terminated by Lucifer, by Leviathans, by other angels, and always comes back in the end. At this point, if the series ever truly bumps him off, fans likely won't believe it. They'll just expect another resurrection, as the show has made it clear that powerful cosmic entities seem to believe Castiel must be alive.
His personality and powers change a lot
Castiel has been through several different wringers on Supernatural, having perished five separate times, been stripped of his angelic Grace on more than one occasion, and even gained enough power to challenge the gods. As you might expect, this has led to Castiel changing as a person-- a lot.
Some fans aren't sure what Castiel's true personality really is.
While most television shows try to create consistent psychologies for their characters, Castiel's personality has changed hugely from season to season, usually depending on his power level. Castiel is a very different person when he's basically a human than he is when he has angelic powers, and that makes it hard for some fans to connect with the character.
Michael should have been the one to save Dean
As we've already mentioned, every angel on Supernatural has one true vessel; one human body that can perfectly house them without deteriorating. It's just Dean Winchester's luck that he's the true vessel for one of the most powerful angels out there, the archangel Michael, the brother and equal to Lucifer.
When Dean was first sent to Hell, shouldn't it have been Michael who "raised him from perdition"? Instead, Castiel, a naive, young angel was sent. By now fans realize that this was a narrative convenience that allowed the show's writers to introduce Cas as a character. We're not complaining, because Castiel's relationship with Dean is great, but going by the show's own logic, it should have been Michael.
How is he still wearing that trench coat?
This may seem like a cheap shot, but it's an honest question: how on Earth has Jimmy Novak's trench coat lasted so long? We know that the coat has been destroyed and recreated more than once, and the coat is so integral to Castiel's look that he always just puts it back on again, but at this point the question isn't just how-- it's why.
Castiel's Columbo-inspired aesthetic is memorable, but we have to know: is it really the same coat that Cas first borrowed?
Does Cas keep a cosmic closet full of identical coats? Do angel powers extend to magically cleaning coats after bloody battles? The writers never really explained why Cas is so attached to the coat or how he maintains it, so fans just keep wondering.
The other angels love and hate him
Castiel might be an angel himself, but that doesn't mean he gets along with the other angels. Cas has had a tumultuous relationship with them, as he has gone from up-and-comer to outcast to god to outcast again during the run of the show.The problem is, there doesn't seem to be any real rhyme or reason to the angels' opinion of Castiel.
Basically, the one throughline for the angels is that they think whatever they need to think of Castiel to make the plot move forward. If they're supposed to cower in fear of his mutant power? They do. If Castiel is supposed to be an outcast, then they ostracize him. Basically, it's kind of impossible to tell whether any angel is going to be Castiel's ally or not.
We still haven’t seen his true form
Supposedly, an angel's true form and true voice are so awesome to behold and behear that ordinary humans would get vaporized or some such nonsense from doing so. Supernatural has held fast to this arbitrary rule, never once showing Castiel's true form to the audience.
At this point, fans have started to wonder if it's just because of laziness.
Supernatural has shown all kinds of impossible sights over the years. While the effects tend to be pretty low-budget, you have to wonder if they don't show the angels' true form because they never actually imagined it, instead choosing to just vaguely describe it. Ah, well, maybe someday we'll see Castiel unleashed.
His relationship with Claire Novak is uncomfortable
What, exactly, would you say to the girl whose father you were currently wearing like a shirt? There's no way Castiel's relationship with Claire Novak could ever be described as healthy, given that her deceased father's body has become Castiel's permanent vessel. Castiel has never proven to be adept at social situations.
You'd probably become a rebel, too, if your dad had been replaced with an angel that didn't know you. Can you really blame Claire for acting out, or the relationship for becoming uncomfortable? The whole dynamic admittedly makes sense-- and attempted to set up Claire for the failed Wayward Sisters spinoff-- but honestly we'd rather we didn't have to cringe at it anymore.
He keeps joining forces with villains
One of Castiel's core personality traits is his willingness to believe in the goodness of others, especially when they present as an ally of God. This has led him to allying with some unsavory characters, though some were to be expected: teaming up with angels like Metatron or Uriel makes sense for a trusting angel, at least until he learned of their ulterior motives.
There are some alliances that Castiel just should never have made.
In later seasons, Castiel even began tolerating certain demons, making alliances and uneasy truces with some powerful figures in the underworld. Crowley and Meg were chief among these-- though Castiel ended up betraying Crowley in their first team-up. Frankly, it's getting kind of old how Castiel keeps getting in bed with the bad guys.
He let go of thousands of souls to save the Winchesters
Season six of Supernatural did not exactly showcase Castiel on his best behavior. Specifically, his overarching storyline focused on him fighting a civil war in heaven against the archangel Raphael, and he did more than a few unsavory things to achieve his goals. One of the worst came in the 17th episode of the season.
In that episode, Balthazar changes history so that the Titanic never sank, and this angers the Fates, who begin destroying all the victims' descendants that weren't alive in the original timeline. The Fates then threaten the Winchesters, and Castiel goes back in time and causes the Titanic to sink again, saving the brothers and erasing the 50,000 descendants. You wouldn't really think a literal angel would sacrifice thousands of souls to save two, but you'd be wrong.
He has been saved by both humans and demons
You might think, given that Castiel is an angel and therefore one of the most powerful beings in creation, that he wouldn't need much help in his adventures on Earth. Well, you'd be wrong, as Castiel's life has been saved a wide range of friends-- not to mention some foes. Obviously, the Winchester brothers and other humans have helped Cas out in a pinch from time to time, but some unsavory characters have done the same.
Demons like Meg and Crowley have saved Castiel's life, meaning that the angel owes his life to his sworn enemies.
Castiel talks big about stopping demons, but without some of them he'd be a goner.
Some think the seasons without him were the best
A constant refrain you'll hear from critics and fans when watching a show that has gone on for many seasons: the first seasons were the best ones. While there's no irrefutable proof that any season of Supernatural is the best, the first few seasons have their share of fans saying the show jumped the shark later on.
Why does this affect Castiel? Well, he didn't get on the scene until season four, meaning that the people who think the first few seasons were the best think that the seasons without Castiel are the best. Castiel might be one of the best new character additions on the show, but he'll never win over the fans who think the show had already gone downhill by the time he arrived.
His stagnant relationship with Dean
Look. It needs to be said: why haven't the writers done what we all know they should do and just let Castiel be with Dean Winchester? Just about every love interest for Dean (and Cas, few though they are) is thrown away a few episodes after they're introduced, so it's not like their romance would be replacing anything memorable.
Dean and Castiel share the deepest relationship non-family in the whole series, which Cas himself has called "a profound bond."
If Supernatural was ever going to have one big romance at its heart, it would have to be them. It may sound like the wild fantasies of a crazed fan, but this relationship makes more sense than any alternative.
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What else do fans overlook about Castiel from Supernatural? Let us know in the comments!