ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-01-06 01:12 pm
ratherastory) wrote2010-01-06 01:12 pm
Entry tags:
Random meta thought about SPN
Spoilers for Season 5 in this post
I'm not LJ-cutting this. If you haven't seen Season 5, skip the post. :)
So I've been obsessinga bit a lot about the show, specifically about the whole Sam problem.
Of the two boys, I think Sam might be the bigger problem. Sure, Dean went to hell, he got betrayed by his brother, all that stuff, but ultimately he's the "righteous" of the two (the prophecy said so!), the one who's basically the "good" brother.
Sam, on the other hand, seems to be spiraling into despair. Anyone else notice that? Sure, there are episodes in which he seems fine, but he's basically trapped in a lose-lose scenario. The best he can do is not be evil. Wow, that's an awesome career choice. "Don't Be Evil." It might work for Google, but Sam isn't a giant corporation.
I'm kind of waiting for someone —specifically Dean— to realize that Sam needs to be forgiven, unconditionally. No questions asked, no more apologies. We all know Sam is sorry. God knows he's sorry. But there aren't enough "sorrys" in the universe to make up for what he's done, and he knows it. Just in case he didn't know it, Dean and Castiel and everyone they know are pretty quick to throw it back in his face. Everywhere he turns, people are rubbing his nose in the fact that every single choice he's made for the past three years has been wrong.
So, y'know, Dean, just forgive your brother already, and quit waiting for him to somehow miraculously pull something out of his ass that's going to make it all better. You don't forgive someone because they've earned it, or because they deserve it. You forgive them because they need it. Forgive him, or you'll send him right into Lucifer's waiting arms.
Seems pretty simple to me.
I'm not LJ-cutting this. If you haven't seen Season 5, skip the post. :)
So I've been obsessing
Of the two boys, I think Sam might be the bigger problem. Sure, Dean went to hell, he got betrayed by his brother, all that stuff, but ultimately he's the "righteous" of the two (the prophecy said so!), the one who's basically the "good" brother.
Sam, on the other hand, seems to be spiraling into despair. Anyone else notice that? Sure, there are episodes in which he seems fine, but he's basically trapped in a lose-lose scenario. The best he can do is not be evil. Wow, that's an awesome career choice. "Don't Be Evil." It might work for Google, but Sam isn't a giant corporation.
I'm kind of waiting for someone —specifically Dean— to realize that Sam needs to be forgiven, unconditionally. No questions asked, no more apologies. We all know Sam is sorry. God knows he's sorry. But there aren't enough "sorrys" in the universe to make up for what he's done, and he knows it. Just in case he didn't know it, Dean and Castiel and everyone they know are pretty quick to throw it back in his face. Everywhere he turns, people are rubbing his nose in the fact that every single choice he's made for the past three years has been wrong.
So, y'know, Dean, just forgive your brother already, and quit waiting for him to somehow miraculously pull something out of his ass that's going to make it all better. You don't forgive someone because they've earned it, or because they deserve it. You forgive them because they need it. Forgive him, or you'll send him right into Lucifer's waiting arms.
Seems pretty simple to me.
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I don't mind that Dean has had a hard time forgiving Sam. I don't want the path back to redemption to be cheap or easy. Yeah, I want the brothers back to what they were, but I don't want there to be any shortcuts.
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I'm just hoping the writers know it and are going to use that to redeem both boys at a critical juncture.
No, having Dean just forgive Sam off-the-bat would be cheap and easy and disappointing.
Of course, I'm a sucker for redemption plotlines, so maybe I'm biased that way. ;)
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I personally see it that Sam has to forgive himself. He hates himself for what he did and until he gives himself absolution I don't think any of Dean's efforts will penetrate. And of course it doesn't help that Dean's opinion of himself is shaky with his feelings about what he did in hell and, perhaps the realization that his going to hell gave Sam the push over the edge. Not sure if he's getting the second part just yet.
Really, I just wish Kripke would let the fans write the reconcilation scene and get it over with!
(Plug for a friend--did you read sandymg's The Road to Detroit is Paved with Hell? http://sandymg.livejournal.com/14620.html Addresses this problem incredibly!)
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Sam does have to forgive himself, but I think that right now he's convinced he doesn't deserve forgiveness. I figure Dean's forgiveness will be a good starting point for him. *crosses fingers*
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Yes, yes, yes, a few hundred times over yes. Sam is in a doom spiral and, while I don't know if it will save him, the only hope for some kind of salvation is going to come in the form of forgiveness, unconditional, from Dean. It's the only way that he's ever going to be able to let some of it go himself.
But, there's Dean. Who I love to the moon and the stars, but yeah. Deano.
I've chewed over this a couple thousand times and I sort of think that Dean's constant inability to just forgive him stems from a couple of things. Most obviously, he sold his soul and went to hell for Sam. I think on some level he know that it was going to mess him up, but that he clung to this idea that Sam was Sam, good-hearted, puppy-eyed, can't we try to save the nice vampires Sam. I don't think for a minute that Dean had an inkling of how scared and desperate Sam was before he even died. So, he goes to hell, suffers immeasurably, becomes something truly awful, but some part of him thinks, what the hell, it's for Sam. What does it matter if I'm lost and damned, it's all for Sam. And, then, whoosh, he's back topside and finds that Sam's done some things that aren't too dissimilar from Dean the torturer. It took hell 30 years to turn Dean into a monster, something he suffered for his brother. It took Ruby, loss, anger, and despair only 4 months to turn Sam into one. I think that's number one. Dean tried so hard and I think he feels like Sam just rolled over and let it happen.
Two, for all intents and purposes, Dean raised Sam. John was unquestionably the father, molding his boys, training them, instructing them, but did he teach Sam to tie his shoes? Teach him the alphabet, how to read, how to hold his spoon, how to make macaroni and cheese? John wasn’t there enough to have been the one for things that must have probably seemed like little things. It’s Dean who was with Sam constantly. Dean who probably talked him through his first girlfriend, told him he’d kick the crap out of him if he ever tried smoking, and the thousand and one things that kids learn from their elders. Whether or not either of them really acknowledge it, and I think most of the time they don’t, Dean certainly feels this. Deep inside, maybe where he doesn’t have to acknowledge it, but he knows. He raised that kid. I think some of his disappointment is the same as a parent who’s just gotten a call from the police that their child is in jail for murder. Part of him maybe thinks, good God, I showed this kid everything, gave him everything, and this is how he thanks me? This is what he does with it? And maybe that same part of him that he doesn’t really acknowledge or listen to maybe feels, like a parent, as if he must have failed him somehow.
Super Long Reply Part II
Two more things and then I’ll shush. I don’t think Dean really gets it. In his mind, I think he just thinks that all Sam has to do is say no to the devil. Just like all he had to do was say no to Ruby. Say no to the things that were driving him half out of his mind with visions. It’s all he had to do, really. Why couldn’t the kid have just done it? How hard is it to say no? It’s not like he was on the rack in hell, after all. It’s not like day after day after day he was torn apart and put back together with fire and hatred and pain just so that he could go through it again. It’s not like he was being tortured, for crying out loud, and having someone whisper constantly in his ear “c’mon, just do it, the pain will stop if you just do it, you’re so tired, I know you’re so tired and you hurt, but all you have to do is say yes”. That never happened to Sam. Sure, he had some headaches and some bad dreams and it sucks that the one nice girlfriend he had got roasted, but come on. He just has to say no. I don’t think Dean's gotten to where he understands the constant torment, fear, and despair that Sam is going through. His entire family was torn apart, his childhood insane, and he finds out that, basically, it was all because of and for him. And then, holy crap, there’s the thousand deaths of Dean during the Mystery Spot fiasco. Which, I think, really had to cement the fact that, no matter what Sam does, people are going to suffer. He won’t be the one paying for his mistakes – it’s always someone else. And, oh yeah, great news, the only way to stop the freaking apocalypse that he kick started is if his brother lets himself be hollowed out by an archangel. I think Sam doesn’t have anywhere to go, no hope, and no idea of what to do. He just keeps going because he doesn’t know how to stop and because, no matter how fractured the relationship, he can’t let Dean go.
Which leads me to the last point – those boys are seriously co-dependent. Yeah, Sam took off for Stanford, determined to be his own man, but who knows what that was really like for him? He fell back in with Dean so easily and has shown time and again that he doesn’t do well on his own at all. And, Dean. Oh, Dean. Sure, he and John split up and ran separate jobs, but there’s such a desperate sense in the pilot when he talks about John missing that I got the feeling that they must have stayed in constant contact. Dad’s gone for a week and Dean’s at Sam’s door. Because he can’t find him alone? Maybe. But maybe also because he can’t be alone. And, given how he goes into hawk mode any time Sam’s gone for an unplanned amount of time – even before Ruby – I think it must have twisted his guts into knots while Sam was away. So, they’re stuck together, unable to really be apart, and fuck if they don’t love the hell out each other, but there’s such a wall up between them. What’s it like to be so dependent upon someone and every day wake up to find an impassible barrier between you and them and what you used to be?
I think Dean maybe resents Sam, even if he can’t acknowledge it. And fuck knows Sam resents Dean, resents and hates himself, the demons, the angels, and the God he used to believe in who just fucked off, knowing that all of this was coming down on his head. No matter how in sight of Dean that he stays, I think Sam feels like he’s lost out in the night. And it’s not that there’s no light, there’s too many lights. Too many paths. Only most of them lead off of a precipice and he has no fucking idea what to do or where to go. No matter how he resisted it, dismissed it, or gave it the finger, he’s always had Dean there, pushing him along. And Dean just stands there. Looking at him. Telling him do whatever, man. I don’t give a shit. Just don’t be evil, ok?
This, all of it, of course, being something happening below the surface because it’s not like Dean is very in touch with his feelings. I think he’s so clouded by his own self-loathing that he doesn’t turn his thoughts inward that often. I don’t think he likes what he sees in there, the poor, sweet boy. So he feels so much, but can’t quite acknowledge or dissect it. He just feels it when he looks at Sam and it sucks. It sucks a lot.
Re: Super Long Reply Part II
I feel really, really mean for composing such a short reply to your well-thought-out comment.
In short: yes, what you said.
I've been thinking all those things but I was too lazy to write it all down in what was essentially just a throwaway comment about the meaning of forgiveness.
Thank you for putting this so much more eloquently than I ever could.
Poor boys.
Re: Super Long Reply Part II
Re: Super Long Reply Part II
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I read "The Road To Detroit Is Paved With Hell" in one giant gulp yesterday, and all my resolutions to comment on each chapter went out the window because you twisted me up in knots and I kept clicking on the next chapter just so I could find out what happened next.
I am going to go back and re-read it, and I will leave coherent comments then, I swear. All I would have been able to manage last night would have been incoherent blithering.
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Feel free to hound me if I don't do it promptly. :)
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I will totally cop to putting the Google comment in for shits and giggles. I'm glad someone enjoyed it!
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other than that, i just agree.