#why aren't they done? I'm working through shit from the traumatic bullshit of the year. this is a horrible work environment. I'm burnt out. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autisticandroids · 2 years

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whenever i defend sam i always feel cheap because a lot of the "bad" things sam has done genuinely weren't bad and i believe that but then also when all's said and done, most of what's left on the list of #samtransgressions is stuff that i just discount out of hand because imo it's wildly ooc. like, the biggest things that i really don't see as in-character for sam and don't consider to have happened or to be meaningful are:

abandoning kevin in the s7/s8 gap

hating and being distrustful of benny

the whole season ten sam plot

(it's no coincidence that all this stuff is carver era, either - carver had a very particular thesis for the brothers that involved twisting sam into something he really wasn't, and paralleling them in ways that did not work.)

god, i'm gonna have to put this under a cut aren't i. embarrassing.

number one:

abandoning kevin is like... ooc is maybe not the right word here. contrived is better. because like. the issue is essentially that sam didn't pick up his phone. which is... it's silly, and it's bullshit, and it exists primarily to justify dean being mad about sam not looking for him, because carver wanted that to be the season conflict.

like, dean isn't actually mad about the fact that sam abandoned kevin. that's resolved in like, two episodes, and we never see, for example, kevin being traumatized or really even affected by having been abandoned, certainly not like... in-depth. instead we see dean angry at sam for a lot of things, including abandoning kevin, and he remains angry long after kevin is rescued. because what dean is actually mad about is that sam went on with his life while in purgatory. and the thing is... that anger is deeply sympathetic! there's a lot of ways you can read it, ranging from the traditional triggered abandonment issues dean doesn't think sam cares about him reading, to my preferred projection reading, but any way you slice it, it makes sense that dean is mad. he's being a huge dick and sam doesn't really deserve it, but like. i feel like dean is entitled to be a huge dick a little after the year he's had. but it's still fundamentally irrational, and the show shies away from just admitting that and letting dean work through it and grow, which would have like... been a satisfying arc.

plus, the show wants us to believe that sam not hunting is a moral failing, which is... laughable. harold they're serial killers. like the idea that the winchesters do a moral good in the world by their interaction with the supernatural is like... dubious at best. it's kind of a tired refrain that they mostly clean up their own messes, but it really is true. plus it's just weird? like, why is it your job, specifically, to save the world? if it's everybody's job to save the world, you should be spending your time making internet tutorials on how to kill werewolves. you should be spreading knowledge of the supernatural as far and wide as you can, and training everyone to defend themselves. if it's not true that everybody has a duty to be a hunter, what makes you special? and obviously it's because salmondean are space cops. like, they're acting out the motions of a cop drama. and on a cop show, there would be some shit about an oath or a duty to the uniform or whatever. but like... hunting isn't actually a vocation, and sam definitely did not choose it. in-universe, it's a family trap and a paramilitary cult which sam has finally manages to escape. so even though out of universe, the show supernatural follows the same beats as a police procedural, sam isn't actually a cop in any meaningful in-universe sense, so there's no reason that he has any more obligation than anyone else to hunt monsters.

plus, even if he did, the thing with kevin is so contrived as to be pretty disconnected from the morality of hunting. sam absolutely does have a duty towards kevin, as both the only person kevin knows who might be able to help him, and the person who kind of ruined kevin's life. but sam doesn't refuse to help kevin. he stops answering his phone without knowing kevin was in trouble, and then later kevin called him for help and he didn't answer because he had put that phone in storage. that's not really a moral failing on sam's part, it's a tragic accident. if you want to see a good example of guilt-for-not-hunting, look at what is and what should never be: in that episode, dean is confronted with the choice between changing the past which allows him to live in a world where his mom is alive, but also means all of the people he's saved will be unsaved, and returning to his own life, which is awful, but where he did save all those people. this makes a decent moral argument for hunting: it's dean actually having to choose between being happy while essentially killing a bunch of people who he's already saved, and being miserable while not doing that. (obviously i know that's not really what it's about in the end, but that's one of the angles presented). like, that gives us a moral that's much more directly related to hunting. it's talking about victims dean actually saved, and not something... kind of tangential to that. plus, the distinction between past and present hunting is really important - in what is and what should never be, the point is that hunting, the life dean never chose and was forced into from a young age, did end up helping people, and choosing to undo all that also unhelps those people. it's not that dean is specially obligated to be a hunter and continue to be one, it's that he was one already, and to undo that, he would have to ruin and end lives. in season eight, the point is i guess that sam and dean are special boys who are obligated to keep hunting all the time for ever and ever until they drop dead but somehow this only applies to them for some reason? i dunno, it's weird.

anyway basically the thing with kevin is super contrived and not really sam's fault and it also exists to prove points that it doesn't actually prove (sam was wrong for quitting hunting/not looking for dean) because carver is too stupid to try making those points a more legitimate way.

number two:

this one's a lot shorter. sam is usually the one who is sympathetic to monsters, so it's really not believable that his objection to benny is that he's a vampire. sam is, in seasons 1-7 and 9-15, 100% always the guy who wants to give a monster the benefit of the doubt. the only exception is benny. there's clearly something else going on here. and there is!

SAM: [beginning to cry] What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel, another -- another vampire? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother just –

dean's relationship with benny has made sam insecure. sam felt like he'd been supplanted by benny, and so he wrecked dean and benny's relationship on purpose by making dean choose.

and that's... that's just not sam's deal. sam has never once seemed concerned that dean will leave him if he finds someone better. he's never been jealous before, and he's never jealous after. sam would probably be overjoyed for dean to have a support system outside himself, because sam generally feels smothered by the way dean acts his love and devotion. like, the fundamental tragedy of their relationship is that dean's idea of love is completely smothering and all-consuming, with no recognition of boundaries or individual needs or anything except each other, and dean loves sam and wants sam to love him. but sam, though he loves dean very much, also values personal autonomy and mutual respect, both of which are completely incompatible with dean's idea of love, so dean will always feel unloved by sam, even though sam loves him, because dean is incapable of recognizing sam's love. and sam will always feel smothered and disrespected by dean, because dean's idea of love requires him to perform love in a certain way. obviously i'm showing bias here, like, clearly i think sam's way is healthier, but i also think dean's way is deeply sympathetic and tragic and it's a result of huge abandonment issues and attachment issues. which sam like... doesn't really have. like sam has a lot of issues, but they tend to be more along the lines of like... believing he might be inherently evil, and being scared of hurting people, and being overall unhealthily morally scrupulous. dean's main emotional problems concern and impact his relationships with other people, sam's don't as much. obviously he still has some interpersonal issues, but those imo run more towards a tendency to self-isolate than anything else.

anyway, my point is, that feeling insecure that someone he loves cares about someone other than him and intentionally wrecking that relationship? that's like, dean's signature move. he does it all the time, to everyone he cares about. but it's not really something that makes sense for sam.

the reason sam engages in it is that jeremy carver wants to tell a story of mutual and mutually toxic codependency. he wants to show the brothers as mirrors of each other. and they're just... not. the winchester brothers codependency is not mutual - certainly not by season eight. the only reason they're still together at that point is that sam was too exhausted by trauma to actually function without dean (who is sam's entire support system) during season seven, so he couldn't really leave after the amy pond thing. dean wants possession of sam, and sam wants freedom. that's, like i said, the basic tragedy and inequality of their relationship.

essentially, sam is ooc here, because in order for the Themes to work, his behavior has to mirror dean's, but the Themes are wrong.

number three:

now, caveat here: i don't really think sam did anything wrong in season ten. or like... the narrative frames it as the equivalent to dean tricking him into allowing gadreel to possess him, and it is definitely definitely not that. we can argue about the morality of accidentally starting the apocalypse again but like... there are so many more interesting things to discuss and moralize about in supernatural than the end of the world.

but i still don't think it makes a ton of sense for sam to do what he does, especially not framing it the way he does. like, sam very much frames it to himself, and to dean, as a parallel to the gadreel thing. because, as i said previously, jeremy carver's thesis is that the toxicity of the brothers' relationship is mutual. his thesis is that the codependency is a destructive, negative force in the wider world and in the brothers' lives, which is something that's fun to me, but also that it's equal, which is downright silly.

like if we're framing getting rid of the mark as similar to gadreel... it would be a way more satisfying emotional payoff for dean to tell sam not to try and save him, and have sam actually listen, and for dean to be hurt by that because if sam Really Loved Him, sam would violate his boundaries. but sam won't. someone needs to save dean, obviously, but you can just give that job to cas, since cas is a lot more like dean in his love and also dean neither expects nor wants that kind of boundary violation from cas.

plus i think season ten is a great time for the brothers to actually spend some time apart for real. just split the episodes into a dean plot and a sam plot and have them live in separate houses for half a season until they reconcile. instead of trying to parallel dean and sam, heighten sam's tendency to self-isolate and desire for personal freedom in the same way you heighten dean's smothering and controlling tendencies by having sam just dip.

anyway. digression. the season ten plot with sam happened because jeremy carver is an idiot and i am standing outside his house.

essentially, these three big #samtransgressions are ones where i just don't think they were in character and i can't factor them into my analysis of sam.

good night everybody.

#spn

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