Everything wrong with The British Men of Letters in Supernatural
OK. So let me tell you what’s wrong with the British Men of Letters from season 12 of Supernatural.
To me everything wrong with them illustrates why it’s important to have a clear idea of what you’re writing about: who characters/organisations are, why they exist, and what they stand for. Because in the case of the British Men of Letters, you end up with an organisation that does not make sense and one that has no reason for doing any of the things it does.
Cringe
I think the first problem is how goddamn cringe they are. It’s like the writers were like: What do we know about Britain? Hogwarts … James Bond … um? … And then proceeded to write a whole chapter of the Men of Letters based on those things alone, complete with cringe posh accents.
Flip Flopping Storyline
The first agent we encounter is Lady Toni Bevell, who’s … a Lady … and along with her excessively posh accent appears to be nobility. Now, I’m no expert on nobility, but I’m pretty sure they get other people to do their kidnapping and torturing .
Everything about the British Men of Letters is so poorly written. First there is Lady Bevell torturing Sam, with her badass bodyguard woman. But the bodyguard gets killed even though she’s badass (in a three against one fight) and Lady Bevell is suddenly removed and replaced with Mick. Then Mick’s all like, Hey, Sam and Dean. Forget about the torture! Let’s be friends!
It’s as if the writers decided they didn’t want a female character so wrote her out (until the end of the season), and they also decided they didn’t want the British Men of Letters to be straight forward bad guys, so last minute changed their relationship with Sam and Dean.
But the British Men of Letters are portrayed as highly efficient, highly trained operatives who make cold, hard decisions. Does their initial torture of Sam followed by an attempt to make friends seem like an organisation that has a clear plan?
No Motive
But the main problem with the British Men of Letters is that they literally have no motive for doing the things they are doing. It seems very clear to me the makers of the show did not have a clear strategy of what to do with them from the beginning. How very un-British of them!
At first it transpires that the British Men of Letters are annoyed that the entirety of the United States hasn’t successfully quarantined itself like Britain has – a fucking island a squillion times smaller than the US! They want to help rid America of all monsters! Perhaps they aren’t fans of the show and want to destroy the show’s raison d’etre.
Now, countries regularly interfere in the affairs of other countries. That is clear. But countries do this because they have something to gain, whether it’s political influence in the area, access to valuable resources, destabilising the area to make money from weapons sales, etc.
But the British Men of Letters literally have nothing to gain. Why should they care if the United States is full of monsters? If they successfully eliminated all monsters in the US, what would they gain from that apart from accolade? Remember hunting doesn’t make money – although the British sure have money for a lot of fancy gadgets – so it’s not as if the British were going to profit from having a presence in the US.
Altruism is also not an acceptable explanation either, since the standard way to help others is to share valuable intelligence and resources, not to try to take over and torture or kill everyone. Yes, there might be a few egos clashing as hunters try to work with the British Men of Letters, but from the top level an intelligent plan would be to exchange ideas and skills. From their actions, the British Men of Letters don’t seem to care about hunting Monsters, but care only about bettering the US hunters.
And this really seems to be the driving force force the British Men of Letters: they are stuck up, aloof British people who think they’re better than Americans. Really? Is that the best you can come up with? They want to rid the US of monsters because they want to show their superiority? Really?
Towards the end of the season, after some failed attempts to impress American hunters with their unique brand of condescension and sociopathy, they decide to kill all hunters in the US. But again there’s no motive for this except maybe being psychopathic killers. They literally have no reason to care what happens to the US hunters. If they can’t work with them, all they have to do is walk away. Why do they need to kill everyone?
Again the show pretty much puts it as he British wanting to show superiority. It could be the case that they want to eliminate all US hunters so they could take over the job of hunting monsters, but why would they give themselves that extra work? According to the British Men of Letters, Britain is safe, so why care about what happens in the US? Because it is clear the British men of Letters don’t care about saving lives when they are actively killing people. And hunting doesn’t make money, so the only reason would be a passion for killing. But then: Why would they have to kill hunters? There’s enough monsters out there to satisfy their bloodlust.
One explanation is that they are angry at Sam and Dean for repeatedly almost bringing the world to an end – something they seem to know a lot about but not enough to get their facts right. They could be motivated by their desire to survive. However, if that was the case, they had plenty of chances to kill Sam and Dean. The fact they didn’t try to kill them straight away means they never truly feared the world ending.
The whole ‘Let’s keep them alive to extract knowledge from them’ is an overused ruse in the Supernatural series and it only works so many times until it becomes a bullshit excuses by the writers to keep characters alive.
Missed Opportunities
There are many good aspects of the British Men of Letters. They could have brought valuable weapons and resources and been a whole lot friendlier from the start. The cliffhanger with Lady Bevell could have been written off as she was possessed or something. Or she turned bad and is trying to get some kind of revenge. Basically, they could have turned the whole thing around and brought something more engaging and enjoyable to the show.
Bringing in the British Men of Letters could have opened up a window into how the Men of Letters operated. It could have been a learning experience for Sam and Dean. Why the British Men of Letters are more James Bond than Supernatural is a strange decision. I would have liked to have seen magic and hunting wisdom, not some pompous psychopaths with rods up their arses.
The problem making the British Men of Letters like James Bond is it suggests it is a governmental organisation. But if it was governmental, why is there no US governmental monster killing organisation? Maybe that’s what the Men of Letters was supposed to be, but why then would the US government just end the US chapter without trying to continue it?
If the US government was aware of the Men of Letters, they’d be aware of monsters and they’d be aware of hunters, so they would have government approved hunters who’d get special access to police files, etc, to make their job easier. And they’d also pay the hunters so they wouldn’t have to do credit card scams.
Conclusion
You see, this is a clear case of the Making-Things-Up-As-You-Go-Along style of writing, without having a clear vision of what an organisation is, what it stands for, and why is exists.
But it’s not just a case of characters/organisations having a flimsy and unconvincing reason to exist, the poorly executed storylines bring the entire series into question. The British men of Letters just does not make sense in the Supernatural world.
In order to write a compelling story, you have to at least address the reason why characters do what they do. Everyone and everything needs a motive, but when things get to a more organised level, you can’t always rely on egomania or insanity.
Demons like to kill because they’re evil. That’s what they do. But for an organisation that supposedly protects people, you need something more than ego to explain away antagonistic behaviour.
Over and out for now, guys!
xxx
