ratherastory | Scheduling woes, and pseudo-meta

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Scheduling woes, and pseudo-meta

[insert gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair, rending of clothes]

I stupidly agreed to a shift change, and now I'm going to MISS SUPERNATURAL!

WOE!

I am The Stupid.

Well, maybe if work is quiet they'll let me watch it then (I'm a dispatcher, we can keep the TV on if the lines aren't busy). If worse comes to worst, I'll just have to wait until I can download it at home. But still. Woe!

I have a meta post rattling around in my head about why Sam Winchester hasn't been given a fair shake as a character in the four and a half seasons of SPN that I've seen. See, while I love Dean with much love, part of me wants to love Sam more, because Sam is... well, Sam is me. Sam is the person that we could all become if we're not careful: utterly human and flawed and given to despair. Dean is the hero of the piece, the guy who takes the fall for his brother. Dean is the messiah figure, the one who bleeds (so prettily!) for the sins of mankind.

The problem is that unlike Dean, Sam has never properly been explored as a character: he's a plot device, poor bunny. Ever notice how we never EVER focus on his backstory? We get a lot about Dean, about his relationship with his father, and even with his mother. All the Dean-focused episodes are about fleshing out his character. All the Sam-focused episodes end up being about the plot.

The audience doesn't know Sam Winchester. Not as a human being. We don't know what he was like as a child, other than kind of sulky and spoiled (with the one exception of "After School Special," in which he doesn't come off all that well, if you ask me). We don't know what his life was like at Stanford: the only glimpse we get of that past life is a Dean-centric episode ("Skin"). We have no idea how he treated his girlfriend (Was he romantic? Distant? Clingy? Possessive?), or what, if anything, he talked about with his friends.

Sam's emotions have always been either a result of the plot or a way to propel the plot forward. Sam's grief and rage made him leave the safety of Stanford in the pilot. His guilt over Jess' death keeps him going during the first season. In the second season it's his grief/rage/guilt over his father's death. Third verse, same as the first for the third season, with an added sprinkling of desperation to try and break Dean's deal. Need I even bring up fourth season? And the fifth season too, obviously.

There's a reason Dean doesn't recognize his brother right away in 5.12: no one really knows who Sam Winchester is. There is no baseline for us to figure out if he's acting out of character. We ALL know that Dean isn't acting like the Dean we knew from the first season. He's hurting and frightened and desperate, and we know this because we had a baseline against which to compare him. Not so with Sam, whose inner life has been kept a mystery from the very start. Sam, whose brain is constantly filled with visions and doubt and second-guesses and who constantly gets jerked around and manipulated by everyone with whom he comes into contact (even Dean, and especially Dean).

Anyway, this post isn't meant to be that meta post. Part of me wants to sit down and write this out as a proper essay. Why Sam Winchester isn't a hero and why he ought to be. I haven't written a proper essay in a very long time. It would be an interesting exercise.

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would love to read it. I will be honest.. the emotional part of me reacts negatively to the thought of Sam as hero. I like Sam, but I don't like Sam. Sam has the capacity to make me angry and want to slap him.

And you may be right.. I may be reacting that way because I don't know him - in-depth.

I know he loves his brother, doesn't necessarily respect his brother or give him his true dues. I know he's spoiled slightly, angry, defensive and was too much like his father to get along with his father.

He hates to be controlled, pushed and prodded into doing other's bidding. He's intelligent and kind hearted. He loved deeply and was hurt so badly, he became brittle and even more angry.

Hey.. maybe I do know him more than I thought.

But I would love to hear your views.

That's just it. We know just enough about Sam to have a vested interest in what happens to him, but that's about it. Sam makes me really, really angry, especially in Season 4. Ever notice how we're never given insight into why he makes his choices?

There's a lot of tell-and-don't-show when it comes to Sam: he tries to explain himself (and it always backfires because he doesn't understand it himself, so how could he explain it?), but we're never shown how he feels. With Dean it's just the opposite: he wears his heart on his sleeve even when he doesn't talk, so we can tell he's hurting.

We have yet to find out WHY Sam said "yes" in that terrible alternate future. It's a huge deal: what could POSSIBLY make Sam say yes to the DEVIL? But he did. Are we supposed to guess? Are we supposed to think it doesn't matter because now it'll never happen?

That "yes" is possibly the single worst word in the history of the show, and it was never uttered on screen. I want to know why Sam agreed, and I'm not sure we'll ever get our answer.

But you're going to write the five years that never happened, right? So YOU'LL tell us what happened while giving us awesome and previously unknown insight into Sam and his life. RIGHT?

That's the plan, yes. ;)

Yes! *pumps fist in joy*

Thanks for sharing! Completely agree with the emotional focus of the show being more often on Dean than on Sam (how could anyone argue against that) and the part about Sam's reactions and how they're almost always presented as means for further advancing the plot - I've never thought about it like that, but now that you point it out, it's an interesting observation. Question about this particular comment I am replying to, though... Do you personally feel it was hard to understand or guess Sam's motivations/inner life in Season 4 or was that part of your argument in support of the case that the writers have made it very difficult for the audience in general to sympathise with Sam in Season 4?

(It would be interesting to hear the opinion anyone else has on this as well, actually. Personally, I don't really recall this sense of "why are you doing this, Sam?" a lot of people seemed to be experiencing during Season 4. Where I'm getting with this is that while I agree Sam's character hasn't been given the same kind of emotional backstory Dean's character has, I personally felt our lack of knowledge about Sam's certain emotional dimensions wasn't an obstacle in understanding him or his emotions in Season 4.

And just for the record, I'm bi-bro, as well. No blind character defending :)

Pretty much. It's not hard to understand, but I feel very strongly that we weren't given an opportunity to empathize with Sam, which is very important in my world. I can easily empathize with Dean, and I'd like to be able to do so with Sam without having to work as hard for it.

Sam so often seems to come across as a spoiled, petulant brat whose demands are completely unreasonable, which is patently not true. He's not the same person as Dean, his wants and needs are different, and I really wish that someone on that show would validate him for once, rather than having Dean be the favoured brother all the time (ever notice how Sam is always the black sheep, no matter who they talk to? Ellen, Bobby, Pamela, Jo... all of them).

we weren't given an opportunity to empathize with Sam,

That is an issue, I agree. It isn't even that difficult to empathise with Sam, if we relate to him through our personal experiences of having screwed up (like you said in the beginning, Sam is much more "us" than Dean is), but a lot of that understanding for him comes from interpretation rather than direct evidence.

A little of column A and a little of column B. Objectively I was able to understand that Sam's motivations were clear: he was devastated at losing his brother (and more importantly, being unable to be the one to save him when he was the direct cause of his death and subsequent damnation), and sought to regain some measure of control in his life. That left him open to manipulation, and the metaphor of drugs giving one an artificial feeling of power and control was pretty obvious.

That being said, I never ever got that feeling from watching Sam. I never felt that I got a true insight into his emotional state. It felt rather as though I was simply being told that he was alone and desperate and afraid.

I guess the difference lies in the portrayal. Instead of giving us a character-based episode in "I Know What You Did Last Summer," which would have been perfect to show us Sam alone and afraid and desperate, we instead got an episode that was All About Plot. What little there was about Sam's emotional state got hijacked by OMG-you-slept-with-Ruby, and the rest was All About Anna.

There was a throwaway scene of Sam getting wasted, once (and again, it got taken over by Ruby and her exposition about her time with Lilith). There was nothing to show just how terrible it must have been for him, nothing to show how close to the edge of self-destruction he really must have been.

In short, it wasn't hard to guess at Sam's motivations, but I really would have liked to feel it viscerally, the way the Show provides ample opportunities with Dean.

Heh. "When Sam falls in the forest, does he still say ow when the plot is not around to hear him?" (I'll be here all week :p) Your arguments have me half-convinced now Sam only ever comes to life when in close proximity to the plot, like a motion-activated mechanical doll. But yeah, I get what you mean - rationally, it's not difficult to understand Sam's motivations, but in contrast to Dean's openness, it's pretty easy to feel emotionally distanced to him.

Must be something in the alignment of the stars today. I started writing my own meta analysis of Sam and Dean's relationship, why it both worked and didn't work and the plot points at which it started to fracture.

Don't really know what I'm going to do with it, can't finish until I've finished rewatching the whole series and I've only just finished year 2.

Why is it so hard to remember they're fictional?

They're fictional, but like all well-written fictional characters they feel real. We empathize, get attached, it's all part of the process. :)

Can you videotape it? This is why I got DVR because my loving family FAILED to videotape When the Levee Breaks while I was on a big storytelling job. GRR. The truth is, as obsessed as I am about the show, Real Life always has to come first, and that means I don't always watch the show when it airs.

As far as Sam goes. I agree that they haven't given Sam enough time- I remember Eric Kripke saying that he regretted not spending more time on Sam's feelings over his father's death. I was really impatient for more Sam time in season four too. I'm kind of pinning my hopes on the next Sera Gamble episodes. She's the one who gets Sam, and writes him well. (I am for the record, staunchly bi-bro. I couldn't pick one over the other to save myself)

Alas, I can't. I don't actually get any channels at all on my TV: I have to download all my favourite shows if I want to watch when they air.

The only reason I've been able to keep up with SPN is because of live streaming.

I am bi-bro as well: love 'em both. :)

See, this is what I meant when I said that when real writers talk it goes right over my head. A meta analytical essay on the life and mind of Sam Winchester. It would fascinate me to read, but never occur to me to write!

LOL

That's not the writer talking, that's the literature student. I've been a literature geek since I was eight years old. ;)

See, I envy that. I've been reading since I was three(my Dad was a teacher and it just came naturally), but an actual student of literature, no. That's why I'm so enthused about the writer's workshops SPN writerslounge is putting on. Hopefully I can learn some stuff!

I was an early reader too. My father, too, is a university professor, and he collects rare and antique books. I grew up in a house in which we actually had a room we called "the library."

Then I had teachers at school who actively encouraged me to think about what I was reading (themes and imagery and how to use words as tools for conveying meaning), and I was hooked for life. :)

Oh no! I hope you find a satisfactory way to get your fix.

Re: essay on the psychology of Sam– yes please? Your observation that Sam's characterization is stunted because he's always driving the plot rather than growing organically/ having character-based episodes like Dean was a new way to look at his character for me. I also tend to wonder why Sam comes across the way he does, and I'd love to read the rest of your thoughts.

Keen. :)

I will attempt to organize said thoughts into something resembling a proper essay. No idea when it'll be ready, though.

I feel your pain. I realized today I have to attend a meeting in one of my least favorite regions. At least it is not one of the far-distant regions. My guess is that they are going to drag it on just long enough for me to get home at like 9:20. Grr.

I agree with you on Sam; though it is kind of funny actually. Last year, when I got sucked into supernatural and mainlined the first season, I kept getting the vibe that they wanted Sam to be the protagonist and Dean the kind of sidekick...but then they kept doing all this deep emotional/character development for Dean, and hardly any for Sam.

I'm still not sure what was up with that.

They may have mistakenly thought that Sam was a complex enough character to stand on his own, and got worried that Dean would seem too superficial (sex, cars and pie), and so bent over backward to develop his character and forgot about poor Sam in the process.

I agree with you on that point entirely. I'm not sure what was up with that. You'd think they'd have figured it out at one point.

Honestly, after 5.12 I felt like they'd ripped away whatever few layers they'd actually managed to give Sam too. It's really disappointing that in one episode one character has a layer further clarified or enhanced (Dean wanting kids) and the other character has his torn away (because even I can't figure out what Sam wants anymore).

Sam's personality is stated. He's angry, he's revenge-driven, he loves his brother, he loves his girlfriend, he hates hunting, he doesn't hate hunting, he's selfish, he's angry at his dad, he understands his dad, he abandoned his family, he wants normal, he wants safe, he went to Stanford, he drank demon blood, he used his powers. There is no why. There is no explanation.

While EVERYTHING Dean does can be easily understood, while Dean has so many beautiful, heartbreaking layers, Sam feels like a piece of cardboard on most occasions. I understand that his mytharc took up a large proportion of season's one and two, while Dean didn't have a mytharc and so the show focused on his emotional arcs. But when we're in the middle of season four and five, and Dean too has developed a mytharc - now there's just no excuse for not developing Sam. And see, the more they fail with his character, the more I hope they'll give him something.

ANYWAY (never get me started on Sam's character development, it's dangerous territory) I think it'd be a wonderful idea to give us a meta on that topic. Because, if I'm being perfectly honest, I feel like Supernatural had initially set-up Sam to be the hero, or at east, the person we related to most and along the way, for whatever reason (fans liking Dean better or not) that got so terribly twisted that almost no one likes Sam anymore. Which sucks. A lot.

Personally, for me, it's all Sam and Dean. If one of their character's isn't being handled properly, neither of them are.

I'm so pleased I'm not the only one who thinks this!

Personally, for me, it's all Sam and Dean. If one of their character's isn't being handled properly, neither of them are.

Yes, this. Thank you. :)

Agreed. Sam & Dean are why I watch the show. I am unabashedly a Dean!girl, but I LOVE SAM. I love him, and it breaks my heart that Show neither loves him nor knows him.

Yet another example of Fic Writers Fic it Better.

I keep hoping Show will fix it. And yes, Fic Writers Fic It Better. I love your Sam with much love.

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Scheduling woes, and pseudo-meta

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