Daily Burst -Greatest Hits (8.06 Southern Comfort)

[ash48]

This is my broments entry for theheartofspn. I needed to say a lot more about this one so I have created a separate post - which became meta. I suppose everyone will have their own take on that scene. Here's mine.

Comments

[maenad]

The part that made me want to scream at my TV was Sam equating Dean keeping Benny a secret with Sam not looking for Dean. The two things aren't the same magnitude--but what I think is happening is that Sam is projecting his guilt over not looking for Dean AND his guilt for feeling guilty because he felt his was doing the right thing at the time. And we all know that Sam turns his guilt into anger, whereas Dean turns his guilt into depression. So Sam is lashing out.

I don't know - I think they are equivalent in the way Sam and Dean themselves are framing the debate. Dean says 'You left me to die for a girl'. Sam says 'You had your reasons for Benny'.

Garth says Sam had reasons for his actions. I'm willing to bet he has good ones - we've got hints, but not absolute answers, yet. But Sam hasn't been explaining those reasons, so to Dean it kind of sounds as though he just shrugged his shoulders and found a singles bar.

And Sam - well, he's been making noises about leaving. But those noises sound less convincing when you look at his panic and desperation in Blood Brother. Dean's always been big on repaying debts and maintaining loyalties (they both have, but Dean especially), but they generally discuss it and go save the day together. That thing where they drop everything and run, and explanations be damned? They reserve that for each other. So Sam comes running, like they do - but when he gets there Dean's fine, Dean's got a new partner he brought with him out of purgatory. And Dean dropped everything and ran off for this stranger.

I think the trouble is that they were torn apart when they were most trusting of each other. And I would say that bad things happened to both of them, although those things are only just being hinted at. They forged new connections out of necessity, and it's hard to talk about those new connections because they are bound up with those bad things. So they tell half-truths, and those half-truths end up dominating the conversation.

At the heart of it, I think they both feel guilty for not being there, and that guilt manifests as jealousy. Benny knows what purgatory was like. Aemilia probably knows why Sam made the choices he did. So they are the same thing, the way they see it.

Er. Sorry. I ramble. But that's how I took it. :)

[borgmama1of5]

"Sam hasn't been explaining those reasons, so to Dean it kind of sounds as though he just shrugged his shoulders and found a singles bar."

You are completely right, this is why Dean (and some fans) aren't understanding Sam right now. Though we are starting to get glimpses of how traumatized Sam was, like, as you point out, Sam's panic while driving to rescue Dean from the vamps.

"...they generally discuss it and go save the day together."

Framed like that, I can see how Sam takes Benny as a betrayal. Good point!

[chemm80]

"Sam hasn't been explaining those reasons, so to Dean it kind of sounds as though he just shrugged his shoulders and found a singles bar."

I said this over at saberivojo's post the other day. I think it's partly just the writers drawing out the mystery and making us wait for it, but if you think about it, Sam has never been particularly good at explaining himself to Dean.

It may be partly his arrogance or stubbornness as the younger sibling (or child, if you look at it as a parent/child relationship), i.e. "Why should I have to keep explaining myself to you?" Sam has even said this almost word for word (in the rugaru ep in S4, I don't know many episode names after S3): "I can't keep explaining myself to you. You won't understand because it's not in you like it's in me."

And that's another reason why he generally doesn't explain himself to Dean, or at least not very thoroughly. Dean won't get it because he's never understood Sam (to Sam's mind) because Sam was always the outsider, the "nerd," the weirdo in their family, even before he began to think of himself as a monster and he's tired of having to try. It reminds me of the way I rarely try to explain fandom to outsiders because they won't get it and I feel frustrated and marginalized when I try, but in Sam's case there's also the wish we all have for our loved ones to understand us without our having to explain. They should get it-accept us-unconditionally and constantly having to justify our actions, our very existence, is soul-crushing.