ratherastory | *sadface*

Really? I can see not really liking Season 1 Sam (I loved him, but I'm not blind to his faults), but hating him? Why?

I was hoping for a surcease from the angst. As you said, they've been pumping the angst in full-steam since Season 4, and I'm starting to get a little... not inured, because it hurts every time, but I dunno. I'd like a real break. An actual stretch of time during which the boys are okay.

I still don't understand why such hatred but I've heard comments about how Sam never appreciated Dean, that he left him abruptly to go to Stanford, etc. I guess that for some people, Sam is at the root of all Dean's problems and without Sam-- Dean would be a "free" man. Now, their relationship isn't the healthiest but there isn't Sam without Dean nor Dean without Sam and the show wouldn't be Supernatural without both brothers.

I'd like a real break. An actual stretch of time during which the boys are okay. Exactly what I would like! If they did have stretches of time where the boys are okay (and it could be during a case, etc doesn't have to be before a case as such), then there would be more impact when the angst does come.

Okay, yeah. I can see that. Dean viewed Sam's departure for Stanford as a betrayal, and if someone was seeing things only from Dean's perspective I can see how they would interpret it that way as well.

I guess since I sort of did what Sam did, a little bit, I can see where he's coming from. My parents never disowned me or anything so dire, but at one point I had to run the risk of disappointing them by going my own way, and it didn't mean I loved them any less.

It's also true that, at first, Sam probably didn't appreciate Dean. What child appreciates their parents until they're old enough to understand? I think Sam damned well started appreciating Dean at the beginning of the show, when Dean pulled him out of the fire (again) and held him together and gave him a new purpose out of all the tragedy and confusion. Even if he was still desperate to prove he could be his own person and sometimes bucked against Dean's perceived restraints on him. It's a process, not an instant revelation.

I am hopeful that once they start fixing what's wrong with Sam, then the brothers will find a measure of peace with each other again.

But come on... he was just going to college?

To make something of his life and be able to make his own choices, instead of just blindly doing what his father told him to do. Sure, that was scary for his father and it hurt Dean. But only because John was an idiot and told him not to come back.

I mean, I'm a Dean girl, but I honestly don't see how anyone can hate Sam for wanting to have a life and be safe after he's spent all his childhood living in his father's nightmare.

I mean, I'm a Dean girl, but I honestly don't see how anyone can hate Sam for wanting to have a life and be safe after he's spent all his childhood living in his father's nightmare.

Yes, but that's because you're *reasonable*.

I just can't help it, sorry :-)

I just love both brothers, I just love Dean a wee little bit more :-)

I understand entirely.

I think if push came to shove I might love Sam a wee bit more, if only because he's the one who's floundered the most. Dean has a really solid emotional core, and no matter how battered and broken he is, he always knows who he is and what really matters.

Sam? Doesn't have that. He's been searching for meaning, for a way to prove to himself that he can be his own person, to find his own moral core, for the entire five seasons and change that the show has been airing.

I have a serious soft spot for redemption stories, and Sam's is an epic redemption story. :)

Sam might drive the plot of the show, but Dean is it's emotional and moral centre, and I love them both for it.

Fandom's approach to Stanford drives me nuts. I don't blame Dean for being hurt by it, though I do somewhat blame him for still, in 5.18, thinking of it only through the perspective of his own hurt, but canon is actually fairer to Sam on this point that fanon. Sam points out in the Pilot that it was John's ultimatum, not his decision to go to college, that made it a choice of college OR family. And though you see over and over again in fic that Sam cut off all contact with Dean and asked Dean not to contact him, the Pilot actually has him telling Dean that Dean could have called, and Dean saying "Would you have picked up?" The cut-off of communications went both ways. Given that Dean in s1 only slowly moves away from aligning himself in a family configuration of John and Dean on one side and Sam on the other, and that he makes that dig in Bugs about how the kid should stick with his family and not go to college, it's not unreasonable for Sam, as well as Dean, to be carrying some hurt from Stanford, Dean because he feels that Sam rejected him and what he stands for, Sam because he feels that Dean, like John, would only accept him as family on condition that he played family by their rules.

And the thing is, Sam couldn't have family by the same rules as John and Dean, because he was always a bit on the outside of that family. Another continuity between the Pilot and 5.18: the pre-demon, Mary-centric Winchester family is something that explicitly doesn't belong to Sam, and Dean enforces that exclusion. Sam formed an alliance with John in s1 not because he was part of the shared experience but because he had had a parallel experience with losing Jess, but that meant that there wasn't really a united John and Dean and Sam, but more a John and Dean and a John and Sam and a Dean and Sam. That gap in the experience of family is something that demonstrably hurts both Sam and Dean, but it seems like fandom sees it exclusively as Sam hurting Dean.

Again, thank you for expressing my emotional flailing in words.

This.

I don't understand why fandom, unlike canon, can't see that the whole Stanford debacle hurt Sam just as much as it hurt Dean, but in a different way.

When Sam left for Stanford, what he heard was: "You are not a part of this family."

And that scene in 5.16? "Sorry, Sammy, guess it's my memory, not yours." BROKE MY HEART. Because there was an element of nastiness to Dean's statement that I'd never seen before. He could see that his memory was hurting Sam —because Mary wouldn't acknowledge Sam's presence— and part of him wanted it to hurt. He was lashing out at Sam because Sam's memories hurt him too, and so I understand why he did it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Yeah, I totally get where Dean was in 5.16; it wasn't a likable moment, but it was totally understandable. What I don't get is why fandom is right there with him.

I think it's because Dean is usually the POV character of the show. Sam drives the plot, but Dean tends to be the emotional core, the character we're meant to relate to. He has the stronger moral code, even if it tends to be overly simplistic. Sam overthinks things, constantly questions himself, sees things in so many shades of grey that, like John, he's able to rationalize his way into making the worst possible decisions.

I agree-- I also think that some people don't approach Dean's or Sam's actions towards the other brother rationally because they're invested in the one brother as a character and sometimes as an actor as well. Which means that no matter what the writers write to further develop the characters' motivation or actions, people will be upset.

I am hopeful that once they start fixing what's wrong with Sam, then the brothers will find a measure of peace with each other again. I really hope that they do that, but I've been "burned" too many times by hoping they will doing things. I'm with you-- once Sam is okay, then I want the boys to find a way to be okay again. The thing is that it could be in the next few episodes but then something will happen and there will be angst and distrust again OR they'll drag everything out and by 6x20 the boys will be on good grounds again. I just don't know...

I hear you. I'd like to get off the roller coaster now, please. Just have a slow, steady progression back to a healthy relationship. This might be Show's last season, I really don't want the boys to be back together only at the tail end. :(

Exactly! :D

sadface

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