*sadface*

[ratherastory]

I sometimes wonder what show people are watching.

Clearly, it's not the same one I am.

If you need me, I will be over here in my happy bubble that is free of ship wars, character-bashing, and show-bashing in general.

Comments

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

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.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

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.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

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.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

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.