SPN--Season 4 Rewatch

[borgmama1of5]

Rewatch of Supernatural 2022

Season 4

General Observations-I remembered this season as the one where Sam and Dean’s relationship falls apart because they don’t communicate, and started this rewatch looking for the signs. Interestingly, it felt different than I remembered it.

Comments

[fanspired]

> I remembered this season as the one where Sam and Dean’s relationship falls apart because they don’t communicate, and started this rewatch looking for the signs. Interestingly, it felt different than I remembered it

[borgmama1of5]

Sam followed Ruby originally because she appeared to him to represent what Dean would do - the path of practical action, if you will - but it ultimately leads him down a demonic path. Similarly, Dean follows Castiel and the angels because he assumes they represent what Sam would do - the path of righteous action. But just as the demons represent action without thought for moral consequence, the angels are revealed to represent action without concern for human feeling. Thus by following these distorted images of each other rather than working together, both brothers are equally dehumanized.

Equally led astray by forces they don't see are manipulating them, and because they are emotionally disconnected from each other they don't see how they are being played...and they are disconnected because they are being manipulated...and it's a vicious cycle that I wonder if there would have been any point at which the boys could have broken it?

[fanspired]

Yes and no. Theoretically, if they'd only chosen to walk away from the war, there'd have been no war. ("It's a strange game, professor; the only way to win is not to play"). But given their background and their characters, it was inevitable they would make the choices they did. That's the nature of classical tragedy: the action of fate upon the hero's fatal flaw leads inexorably to his tragic destiny. (In SPN the angels and demons play the role of the fates). In the end, like all the heroes of classical tragedy, the Winchesters' story is there to serve as a moral example, in this case, warning against the destructive path of vengeance and the importance of acceptance and letting go.

[borgmama1of5]

...importance of acceptance and letting go

This touches on my conundrum of loving the relationship between Sam and Dean--watching the show, I am totally captivated by the intensity of their relationship, the lengths they will go to for each other to the point of self-sacrifice...then I turn of the TV and think just how unhealthy that is, how in real life that inability to separate themselves would be extremely unhealthy...and then I turn the TV back on and don't care...

[fanspired]

At least you can see it rationally. There seem to be many fans that can't. Maybe Kripke was too subtle in his critique of the hero myth. He's making up for that now in The Boys! :D