I'm so excited to welcome a new guest writer onboard to sweetondean, my friend Elizabeth. You might know her as @CleverlyLemon on twitter.
Elizabeth and I connected through our mutual adoration of Dean Winchester and a certain Ackles fellow who plays him, and our genuine desire to foster postive dialogue about the show we love so much.
We finally got to meet at a convention, and thankfully, have managed to do the same con a couple of times!
So please welcome Elizabeth onboard, and to find out more about how she came to Supernatural, check out her bio on our writers page!
Don't forget to let say hi to Elizabeth in the comments!
-sweetondean
***
“I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk
treasure.”
–Virginia Woolf, English writer
and literary modernist
Bobby
breaks into the Sioux Falls Public Library [6.04 Weekend At Bobby’s]
I love Supernatural for many, many reasons.
It is one of the best television shows ever made. From the plot, to the
production, to the quality of performance, you would be hard pressed to name a
show that has ever done it better. I also believe part of the beauty of the
show is the fact that so many people find their world in it. It is a commentary
on everyday, hard pressed, down and dirty, good old fashioned LIFE. Yes, it is
told through fictional storylines of angels and demons, ghosts and vampires,
hunters and monsters but its themes are found in life in New Zealand or Germany
or bustling Las Vegas or small town Wyoming, USA. The small piece of my world
that is so beautiful represented in Supernatural is that of public libraries.
Libraries rarely are treated with such love and respect on the screen as they are
in Supernatural.
I have worked in public libraries for 13
years. It is a job which most people don’t realize still exists or one that is
steeped in antiquated stereotypes of old women in hair buns and bifocals,
“shushing” anything that breathes inside the walls. See this exchange for
example:
Dean: What'd she look like?
Sam: Kinda like a librarian.
Dean: Your kind of librarian, or
my kind of librarian?
Sam: Well, she was wearing clothes, if that's
what you mean.
[6.17 My Heart Will Go On]
While those perceptions and stereotypes
still exist in small form, most 21st century libraries are bustling hubs of
modern, innovative thought and community. Instead of marble halls and hushed
conversations, they have become open, fresh, bright buildings with energetic
staff who not only perform traditional library duties but are also highly
trained in modern technology and current culture. (Side note: one of my favorite blog posts is this
one from the Huffington Post about tattooed
librarians). But public
libraries have evolved in a way that still acknowledges the traditional and at
the same time celebrates the new. You will see microfilm machines next to 3D
printers and archive collections sometimes dating back 400 years right next to
Anime & Graphic Novel collections. It is that kind of diversity that I love
to see Supernatural revel in.
“Before we came over here we stopped by the library
and did a little homework ourselves.”
–Dean Winchester,
2.04 Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead
Things
Supernatural, without any obvious
spotlight, honors public libraries. They are woven in the fabric of the show.
They are mentioned in normal conversations. They are used CONSTANTLY in the
series, in almost every episode. When after 8 years, the show built it’s
massive home base for its main characters, the main hall featured a monumental
library. Ironically, the very first scene that Jared and Jensen ever shot
together in “The Pilot” [1.01] took place in a library. That is the beauty of
local, public libraries. They are pillars in communities without people even
realizing it. People of every race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation
or economic standing are welcomed with open arms. Diversity is celebrated. No
question is too strange or unworthy. Librarians make it their mission to answer
every inquiry posed to them in a way that goes above and beyond. One of my
favorite library moments in the series is after Demon!Dean terribly beats up
Cole in “Reichenbach” [10.02], Cole stumbles into a nonfiction section of a
local library, bleeding all over the books and asking for “everything you have
on demons.” The librarian’s face looks like this:
While the scene ends there, I know for a
fact, that librarian got right up and spent hours helping Cole find all the lore
and legends of demons. Because when we next see Cole in “Girls, Girls, Girls”
[10.07] he is very knowledgeable about demons and the ways to fight them.
“A great library is one nobody notices because it is
always there, and always has what people need.”
–Vicki Myron, American author and librarian
People ask me all the time if I think
libraries are becoming a thing of the past with the dawning of the digital age.
Instant knowledge is always at our fingertips. Google provides us with
thousands of answers for any question you might ask. Apps will read text to
you. Unlimited numbers of digital books can fit on a tablet that takes up less
space than one printed book. While these are all well and good, I believe there
3 huge reasons libraries have lasted for thousands of years and will continue
to have a major presence in society for thousands of years to come. All of
those reasons are candidly and plainly woven into the world of Supernatural.
Let’s explore them.
AUTHORITATIVE
RESOURCES
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
–Neil Gaiman, English author and screenwriter
The problem with today’s user-generated
knowledge is that it gives the illusion that everyone’s opinion is of equal
authority, and that’s not true. Our digital culture has given us all a stage
where we can voice our opinions to the world, but that doesn’t always mean we
should listen. When everyone is an expert, nobody is. Libraries combat that
trend. Their shelves are full of materials from authorities in all subjects.
Their databases are teaming with accredited information.
In “Hook Man” [1.07], the Winchester
brothers are researching the urban legend of the Hook Man. I guarantee if they
would have gone to Google to research it they would still be in Ankeny, Iowa trying to gank that dang
monster. Just for the fun of it, I googled “the legend of hookman” and got over
61,000 results. But instead the Winchesters went to the local Ankeny library to
do some research.
They are in the library twice in this
episode. Once to see if the urban legend of the Hook Man really had any roots
in this small town and again to see what happened to the hook that Jacob Karns’
spirit is attached too. Hearsay and lore wasn’t enough to go on this time so
they dug deeeeep into the library’s records. Arrest records for the county
dating back to 1851 and the log book for the Iowa State Penitentiary (although
I am not sure why that would be in the Ankeny Library considering the
Penitentiary is over 3 hours away in Fort Madison, IA but no matter, maybe they
interlibrary loaned it...hee hee). Because of the authoritative records in the
library they ganked the monster in short order.
Another scene from “The Great Escapist
[8.21], this one in the Bunker library not a public library, is when Sam is
trying to make heads or tails from Kevin’s research. He recognizes a reoccuring
symbol in the notes and because of the extensive Bunker library collection is
able to name it as a petroglyph from Native American culture meaning Messenger
of God.
ARCHIVES
It's a death certificate. From the '30s. We got it at
the library.
–Sam Winchester, 1.17 Hell House
In working for a library myself, I can
attest to all the donations a public library receives DAILY. Boxes and boxes of
books and records are constantly being donated from the public or from archives
of other business and organizations in town. When one of the local funeral
homes closed down after decades of service in our community they donated all
their records to us. Now we have close to 40 years of cause of death and
obituary records in our collection. It is valuable, necessary archives and what
other place would be as suited to keep these records as a public library?
My favorite library scene in Supernatural
is so brief you might actually miss it, but it features the greatest archival achievement libraries have
done. That is microfilm/microfiche (the difference being microfilm is in reels
and microfiche is in sheets) collections of local newspapers. In my library we
have film/fiche records of nearly 98% of the newspapers ever published in the
entire 100 year history of the county. That is an impressive and frequently
used collection. I have helped people from all over the nation who have called
looking for articles and/or obituaries published in our county decades ago.
Here, in this Supernatural scene, these records break the case open for Sam and
Dean.
In “Something Wicked” [1.18], the
Winchesters are completely stumped as to who the monster is that they are
fighting. They know that it is a Shtriga but as Shtrigas take on a human form
when not hunting it could literally be ANYONE in Fitchburg, WI. The old lady at
the hospital was a dead end and now another small child has fallen ill. They
are out of time and out of leads.
While Dean is at the hospital with the
distraught mother of the latest victim, Sam takes it upon himself to head to
the library and try to find out more about this Shtriga. He knows to look for
articles about Ft. Douglas, WI from 16 or 17 years ago but then he keeps going.
He finds articles from Ogdenville, then before that North Haverbrook, and even
further back from Brockway. The furthest articles he finds is in Black River
Falls in the 1890s. Every 15 to 20 years there have been a string of child
deaths from an unknown illness. Then, with a satisfied look, Sam finds what he
is looking for. The doctor treating the children in Fitchburg, Dr. Hydeker, is also in a picture of children being treated in 1893. GOTCHA.
Without the archived articles they might
have never connected the dots to the doctor.
LOCAL
KNOWLEDGE
Librarian: You do know there is a good reason he's called the unknown soldier, right?
Sam: Right. We were just hoping maybe a theory or two had been a
floated around over the years – something local, maybe?
Librarian: There is one.
[8.06 Southern Comfort]
This reason alone could cement the library’s place in
the future forever. Nothing, I repeat, nothing beats the first hand knowledge
of a local.
This librarian is young but you know that she has
lived in this town her whole life, and if I had to guess her parents and
grandparents did too. When Sam asks for the local story she turns right to it.
There is the official story and then there is the legend the locals tell. A
good librarian knows both. She tells the story of two brothers who fought on
opposites sides of the civil war. One killed the other and with his dying
breath he swore vengeance on his brother. Many years later the living brother
dug up his sibling and brought him home to be buried there. That is the theory
of who the unknown soldier is. The librarian also points them in the direction
of what the object was that was taken from the tomb and that the spirit is
attached too. It is was a custom in the mid-1800’s to give a soldier leaving
for war a penny on a string for good luck and some extra cash if needed. As it
turns out, that theory is true and it leads Sam and Garth right to source of
the spirit.
“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and
secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel
better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber
There are a few other great mentions of
libraries in Supernatural. Twice in the series, something very important was
hidden in a library. In “Everybody Hates Hitler” [8.13] Rabbi Bass hides the
red ledger in the university library. Also Sam uses a bookcart as a weapon in
this library and let me tell you, from personal experience, those things can
definitely be deadly. In “Book of the Damned” [10.18] Metatron hides Cas’ grace
and the demon tablet in a book in a library.Then, of course my favorite quote
about librarians is...
“These guys may have been sexist, but like all
librarians, they were wicked smart, too.”
―Charlie
Bradbury, 9.04 Slumber Party
In conclusion, I laud Supernatural for
being true to the everyday person who still works in and uses public libraries.
I have many friends in the fandom who are librarians and we all love to find
the wonderful nuggets about libraries that are woven into almost every episode
of Supernatural.
What is your favorite library memory or
your favorite mention of them in Supernatural?
-Elizabeth
Hail to libraries and librarians, guardians of civilization!:-) My fave scene was from Everybody Hates Hitler which unfortunately was edited - hilarious!
ReplyDeleteThat is such a great library scene! I love how smart Sam is in figuring out that code was a call number. I was yelling at the TV "Library of Congress, Sam!" And he got it! Love me some smart Winchesters <3
ReplyDeleteI love this blog and am so glad I stumbled upon it.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite library scenes was in Weekend at Bobby's, when he broke into the University library to get a book.