The words of Samuel Winchester
from the epilogue of The Winchester Memiors.
The year of our absent Lord 2506
It has been many years since I have walked the earth, many years since the weight of the world rested on my shoulders. Many would find the lack of adrenaline boring, I saved the entirety of earth-that-was, and now I'm reduced to saving a family at a time? I am not many people. Every person I save is dear to me, and ever person who is lost along the way is a regret that weighs as heavy as the world.
Embarrassingly, the Winchester gospels has gathered quite a following, a religious order for Christ's sake. My mortification came from the fact that every one of my choices were laid out, bare, every time I chose wrong, with the reader screaming at me for trusting a demon or not trusting a brother. Yet I have made peace with that, my journey was an exercise in free will. We humans do not always take the high road, we do not always choose right over wrong, healing over pain. That, dear reader, is the point. To be cliché: without sorrow there is no happiness, without torment, no joy. You can bet my brother appreciated that first hamburger after purgatory more than any hamburger he ever had before, and the noises he made over the pie were down right pornographic.
Among hunters the bottom line is often human or not. Humans are to be saved and everything else can die bloody. I believe this is a trap. For so long we all thought demons were evil, angels were good and silly humans were stuck on earth with the monsters of the Mother. Since then we have learned that a lot of angels are dicks, some demons can be … well, not trusted, but not hell bent on total savagery, and even the Children of the Mother we mistakenly call monsters can learn to live with humans and be happy with their lot. Also, some humans are a whole lot more terrible than any of the above. Free will is a tricky thing, and all of creation has it, not just humans. What we are doesn't make us good or evil, and even if we choose, we can change. We always have a choice. Sometimes the hardest decision is when to let others decide for themselves.
The War of Independence rages across the 'verse making the question of free will especially pertinent at this time. Many hunters have flocked to war, Browncoat and Alliance banner alike, and I wish them all the best life can give. I beg every one of you fighting not to turn the enemy into a conglomerate of facelessness. Remember these are people, they have faces and childhoods and kitchens they once stood around in laughing with family or friends. They have made their choices; same as you have made yours. Don't call them monsters unless you too are willing to bear that title yourself. Remember, both Michael and Lucifer would have wiped out humanity because they thought it was right. Free will, bitches, it works both ways.
"Well, evil is in the eyes of the beholder. Tyrants never see themselves as evil, tyrants seen themselves as heroes, while their subjects tend to privately disagree." – Jack Manahoff, Four Thousand Acres and a Spoon.