Meta: What’s with Sam’s depressed, defeated attitude these days?
I’ve seen a lot of people talking lately about Sam’s depressed, defeated state of mind, expressing confusion and frustration about it--a frustration I used to share, until I wrote my last fic and suddenly got some insight into it. After certain episodes, I remain unconvinced the writers know what they’re doing or are truly taking Sam’s depression and Dean’s self-loathing anywhere other than deeper into both, but these insights did give me some hope that it all means something and is going somewhere and thus I thought I’d share them in case they did the same for others.
My latest fic finds Sam after the events of 6.22, never having recovered from his amnesia, summarily dismissing Dean when Dean treats Sam in his habitual ways--ways this fresh Sam, without a lifetime of training and conditioning, finds outrageous, paternalistic and disrespectful ... because the very first Sam we came to know in S1, if nothing else, had the kind of fire and strength to defy his dad and go off on his own to college, to reject everything he was ever taught and forge a new path for himself, the path he truly wanted. In 1.01, enter Dean, exit Jess, and Sam has a reason to join Dean on the hunt for their missing father.
Time passes, we learn more about the relationship between the boys, the hunt for the YED becomes too pressing and personal for Sam to turn his back on, and within a couple of seasons, Sam has surrendered (as touched on when he talks to his former teacher in “After-School Special”), with significant sadness, to the idea that he tried to get out, but they kept pulling him back in. Sam is suicidal nowadays, “ready to die,” but we can easily trace the roots of that all the way back to S5, when he volunteered--nay, insisted on--sacrificing himself to prevent the apocalypse.
Lots happened that surely couldn’t have made it any easier for Sam to want to go on living: torture in hell, hallucifer, soulless Sam’s adventures (which got a lot of people hurt and killed), Dean’s disappearance and evident demise ... but I’ve come to believe the thing that’s had a far more powerful effect on him than any of these terribly traumatic experiences is the one thing he can’t fight or kill, and that’s Dean’s obsession with him.
Waaay back in S1, Sam dared to say that he didn’t want to keep on being a hunter; he wanted a normal life. Dean was extremely upset, Sam knew it, but back then, Sam was kind but unyielding, recognizing that he’s a grown man who gets to make his own decisions and if it upsets his brother, then that’s too bad but he has to do what he has to do. Still, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Dean, it’s that he can’t live without his brother by his side, especially now that their parents are gone. I used to get annoyed with Dean’s dependency on his brother, like, Yes, it’s too bad your brother doesn’t want the same things you want, but welcome to the facts and grow the fuck up, Dean.
However, after writing my last fic from Dean’s perspective, I got a window into Dean’s state of mind. Is his (co)dependency on his brother healthy? No; frankly, it’s an all-consuming addiction, but it’s real. Does Dean need to deal with some great mountains of stuff in order to get over it? Hell yeah; both of them do. They’ve seldom been able to talk anything out due to Dean’s phobia of ‘chick-flick moments,’ but it’s the only thing that would heal them now. This codependency hurts them both a great deal, both of them are all too aware of it, but for a great number of complicated reasons going back to Sam’s infancy, Sam is what lies at the core of who Dean is, and try as he might, Dean can’t get around that. He literally can’t let Sam die, or leave, or even say that he would like to leave Dean’s side, without triggering Dean’s overpowering terror of losing him.
In fact, the major arcs of almost every season could be understood as “Things Dean did to hang on to Sam and things Sam did to escape from Dean”: Dean sells his soul to bring Sam back from death. Sam jumps into the pit. Dean risks death to get Sam back out. Sam doesn’t look for Dean. Sam takes on the trials and is willing to die to complete them. Dean won’t let him. Dean tricks Sam into letting himself be possessed by an angel when he knows he wants to die. I guess, looking at this list, these arcs could also frequently be understood as “All the times Sam and Dean tried to give to the other something the other didn’t want, but was instead what they actually wanted for themselves.” Sam wanted a normal life for himself, so he tries to give it to Dean at the end of S5. Dean does what it takes to bring Sam back from death because that’s what he would want Sam to do for him. Sam wouldn’t have wanted Dean to look for him so he didn’t look for Dean in S8, and so on.
Many people have discussed what motivated Sam to let Dean talk him out of completing the trials, what made him say yes to Ezekiel when he believed it was actually Dean telling him that “If there ain’t no you, there ain’t no me!,” etc. Many theories have been floated, but if you look at the things Dean said to Sam to convince him to do what Dean wanted, in every case it boils down to “I can’t live without you,” and the thing is, Sam KNOWS this. He knows. So as much as he wants to do something noble and leave all his suffering behind; for Dean’s sake, he capitulates and does as Dean requests, because he knows better than anyone else ever could how true it is that Dean can’t go on without him. There are people who get frustrated with Sam for not being the brother Dean wants him to be, but if you contemplate it from this perspective, Sam has sacrificed everything he has to give, for Dean’s sake, repeatedly, to his very great detriment, and shows no signs of making another choice.
I rewatched “Sacrifice” not long ago. There’s been debate about Dean’s list of grievances as he gives Sam suggestions for what he should confess to purify himself, but on second viewing, I found it to be a remarkably clever piece of writing. Dean isn’t necessarily listing the worst things Sam’s ever done to HIM; he’s listing the things that (in some cases were and in some cases were not actually Sam’s doing but that) from an outsider’s perspective would appear to be the most egregious mistakes any human ever made--basically, releasing Lucifer and starting the apocalypse ... upon which he ends the list with “... not looking for me.” What Dean is saying is that to him, not looking for him was on par with the worst atrocities perpetrated by mankind ... after which he accuses Sam of doing something shitty to a girl in 6th grade, which turns out to be something Dean himself actually did. Some people think Dean was joking, but I don’t; I think what that was meant to say is that Sam is so much a part of Dean in his own mind that he can’t even differentiate between them.
If the brother you love is so obsessed with you that he can’t let you go, live the life you want, have relationships with other people, or even let you die, wouldn’t you be despairing and depressed? We’ve watched Sam at first gently and then more and more explicitly try to extract himself from the relationship that’s suffocating him since the very first season, and at this point he’s tried everything, including trying to die more than once, first for noble causes and ultimately without redemption in 9.01. No matter what he does, it has no effect. Dean’s codependency, his recklessness and obsessiveness when it comes to hunting, and his abusive and controlling tendencies (which are an inevitable result of his undealt-with addiction) have gotten progressively worse, and Sam knows now that if nothing else, Dean will find a way to force him to remain at his side no matter the cost to either of them. There is literally nothing left Sam could do save killing Dean himself--nothing left that Sam actually would do--that would change a thing. All he can do is wait (and suffer) and pray that Dean finally sees his way clear to begin the process of healing.
It would be a long process. Dean would be controlling and irrational for a long time, but as long as he was trying to move toward healthier attitudes, I’m sure Sam would be patient. They would surely end up no longer at opposite ends of the spectrum, rather, both moving more toward the middle--Dean would no longer believe he had to have Sam there with him to survive, and Sam would come to want to be with his brother. They would find the middle. God, I hope they find the middle.
My latest fic finds Sam after the events of 6.22, never having recovered from his amnesia, summarily dismissing Dean when Dean treats Sam in his habitual ways--ways this fresh Sam, without a lifetime of training and conditioning, finds outrageous, paternalistic and disrespectful ... because the very first Sam we came to know in S1, if nothing else, had the kind of fire and strength to defy his dad and go off on his own to college, to reject everything he was ever taught and forge a new path for himself, the path he truly wanted. In 1.01, enter Dean, exit Jess, and Sam has a reason to join Dean on the hunt for their missing father.
Time passes, we learn more about the relationship between the boys, the hunt for the YED becomes too pressing and personal for Sam to turn his back on, and within a couple of seasons, Sam has surrendered (as touched on when he talks to his former teacher in “After-School Special”), with significant sadness, to the idea that he tried to get out, but they kept pulling him back in. Sam is suicidal nowadays, “ready to die,” but we can easily trace the roots of that all the way back to S5, when he volunteered--nay, insisted on--sacrificing himself to prevent the apocalypse.
Lots happened that surely couldn’t have made it any easier for Sam to want to go on living: torture in hell, hallucifer, soulless Sam’s adventures (which got a lot of people hurt and killed), Dean’s disappearance and evident demise ... but I’ve come to believe the thing that’s had a far more powerful effect on him than any of these terribly traumatic experiences is the one thing he can’t fight or kill, and that’s Dean’s obsession with him.
Waaay back in S1, Sam dared to say that he didn’t want to keep on being a hunter; he wanted a normal life. Dean was extremely upset, Sam knew it, but back then, Sam was kind but unyielding, recognizing that he’s a grown man who gets to make his own decisions and if it upsets his brother, then that’s too bad but he has to do what he has to do. Still, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Dean, it’s that he can’t live without his brother by his side, especially now that their parents are gone. I used to get annoyed with Dean’s dependency on his brother, like, Yes, it’s too bad your brother doesn’t want the same things you want, but welcome to the facts and grow the fuck up, Dean.
However, after writing my last fic from Dean’s perspective, I got a window into Dean’s state of mind. Is his (co)dependency on his brother healthy? No; frankly, it’s an all-consuming addiction, but it’s real. Does Dean need to deal with some great mountains of stuff in order to get over it? Hell yeah; both of them do. They’ve seldom been able to talk anything out due to Dean’s phobia of ‘chick-flick moments,’ but it’s the only thing that would heal them now. This codependency hurts them both a great deal, both of them are all too aware of it, but for a great number of complicated reasons going back to Sam’s infancy, Sam is what lies at the core of who Dean is, and try as he might, Dean can’t get around that. He literally can’t let Sam die, or leave, or even say that he would like to leave Dean’s side, without triggering Dean’s overpowering terror of losing him.
In fact, the major arcs of almost every season could be understood as “Things Dean did to hang on to Sam and things Sam did to escape from Dean”: Dean sells his soul to bring Sam back from death. Sam jumps into the pit. Dean risks death to get Sam back out. Sam doesn’t look for Dean. Sam takes on the trials and is willing to die to complete them. Dean won’t let him. Dean tricks Sam into letting himself be possessed by an angel when he knows he wants to die. I guess, looking at this list, these arcs could also frequently be understood as “All the times Sam and Dean tried to give to the other something the other didn’t want, but was instead what they actually wanted for themselves.” Sam wanted a normal life for himself, so he tries to give it to Dean at the end of S5. Dean does what it takes to bring Sam back from death because that’s what he would want Sam to do for him. Sam wouldn’t have wanted Dean to look for him so he didn’t look for Dean in S8, and so on.
Many people have discussed what motivated Sam to let Dean talk him out of completing the trials, what made him say yes to Ezekiel when he believed it was actually Dean telling him that “If there ain’t no you, there ain’t no me!,” etc. Many theories have been floated, but if you look at the things Dean said to Sam to convince him to do what Dean wanted, in every case it boils down to “I can’t live without you,” and the thing is, Sam KNOWS this. He knows. So as much as he wants to do something noble and leave all his suffering behind; for Dean’s sake, he capitulates and does as Dean requests, because he knows better than anyone else ever could how true it is that Dean can’t go on without him. There are people who get frustrated with Sam for not being the brother Dean wants him to be, but if you contemplate it from this perspective, Sam has sacrificed everything he has to give, for Dean’s sake, repeatedly, to his very great detriment, and shows no signs of making another choice.
I rewatched “Sacrifice” not long ago. There’s been debate about Dean’s list of grievances as he gives Sam suggestions for what he should confess to purify himself, but on second viewing, I found it to be a remarkably clever piece of writing. Dean isn’t necessarily listing the worst things Sam’s ever done to HIM; he’s listing the things that (in some cases were and in some cases were not actually Sam’s doing but that) from an outsider’s perspective would appear to be the most egregious mistakes any human ever made--basically, releasing Lucifer and starting the apocalypse ... upon which he ends the list with “... not looking for me.” What Dean is saying is that to him, not looking for him was on par with the worst atrocities perpetrated by mankind ... after which he accuses Sam of doing something shitty to a girl in 6th grade, which turns out to be something Dean himself actually did. Some people think Dean was joking, but I don’t; I think what that was meant to say is that Sam is so much a part of Dean in his own mind that he can’t even differentiate between them.
If the brother you love is so obsessed with you that he can’t let you go, live the life you want, have relationships with other people, or even let you die, wouldn’t you be despairing and depressed? We’ve watched Sam at first gently and then more and more explicitly try to extract himself from the relationship that’s suffocating him since the very first season, and at this point he’s tried everything, including trying to die more than once, first for noble causes and ultimately without redemption in 9.01. No matter what he does, it has no effect. Dean’s codependency, his recklessness and obsessiveness when it comes to hunting, and his abusive and controlling tendencies (which are an inevitable result of his undealt-with addiction) have gotten progressively worse, and Sam knows now that if nothing else, Dean will find a way to force him to remain at his side no matter the cost to either of them. There is literally nothing left Sam could do save killing Dean himself--nothing left that Sam actually would do--that would change a thing. All he can do is wait (and suffer) and pray that Dean finally sees his way clear to begin the process of healing.
It would be a long process. Dean would be controlling and irrational for a long time, but as long as he was trying to move toward healthier attitudes, I’m sure Sam would be patient. They would surely end up no longer at opposite ends of the spectrum, rather, both moving more toward the middle--Dean would no longer believe he had to have Sam there with him to survive, and Sam would come to want to be with his brother. They would find the middle. God, I hope they find the middle.