Comments | ginzai: General Sam meta and thoughts on S4

ginzai

General Sam meta and thoughts on S4

May 27, 2009 15:39

So I think I need to rewatch S4. As in, all of it. From Lazarus to Lucifer and yes, that unfortunately includes Yellow Fever and ASS and CAIADB. There are just so many interesting themes and nuances that keep getting brought up and even each of the MOTW throwaway episodes does something to refer to the overall mytharc in some way or another, ( Read more... )

sam, wow i really can't shut up to save my li, huh, spn, meta

Comments 51

sistermagpie May 27 2009, 20:16:16 UTC

I have been so behind in all wondrous SPN stuff at the end of the season but yay this! I love looking at the season this way. And I've really totally disagreed with all the claims this season that we haven't seen Sam's story or he's been pushed aside when it seems like it's been shaped pretty clearly just the way you've described it here. He's denying it to himself, he's hiding it from Dean, but showing it would almost give the wrong impression, as if Sam was consciously acting against Dean and that's just not really what was going on imo. I loved it.

I was re-watching LR again and trying to figure out Bobby's speech. I wonder if the pause he takes before he makes it is supposed to indicate that he thinks this is something he thinks will work rather than something he thinks is true? Like if he knows that Dean knows all this stuff so he's going to yell it at him knowing he won't defend against it? Anything would help...

ginzai May 27 2009, 20:50:58 UTC

I've read a lot of complaints about how there wasn't enough Sam this season, but especially in retrospect, it feels like there was a ton of Sam. Maybe not quite as much JP, but S4 is drenched in Sam and Sam's story and Sam's issues. Dean's is very upfront and easy to see and Sam's kind of got this left hand path theme going on, but that just makes it all the more interesting to tease out exactly what's going on, when, and why.

Urgh, Bobby's LR speech. Seriously, that had to be one of my least favorite moments in the entire finale, if not the season as a whole. I like your idea there because otherwise I'm not sure how to shoehorn "family makes you miserable" with his previous motto of "family doesn't end with blood".

I mean, to be fair, family (including half-adopted Winchesters) seems that it really has made Bobby miserable. He had to kill his wife after she was possessed, he helped to bury Dean, Sam's both died in front of him and rejected him full out when Bobby tried to help him during summer 2008, and certainly his ( ... )

Lovely meta! eilonwy May 27 2009, 20:55:20 UTC

I should probably preface this by saying that if I had to choose, I'd say I'm a Sam!Girl, so what I'm about to say comes from a place of love. :)

We move from the Sam who was desperate for Jack to be saved in 4x04 to the Sam who lies with a straight face to the dead boy Cole in 4x15 in order to manipulate him into helping them and who honestly believes that the rules that regular the rest of mankind no longer apply to him (or Dean, to be fair). The sheer contrast there is just startling. At the very start of the season, we have a Sam who talks about how saving people feels good and in the very end, he's willing to kill a woman who is begging and pleading for her life. That's a drastic change and it happens over the course of a mere eight months.I think you're right, but that we see the seeds for this go far deeper and earlier than season 4. Yes, "Sam was desperate for Jack to be saved" but I think that was, in large part, not just because he was innocent (until he chowed down) but because he was, as you pointed out, an analog for ( ... )

Re: Lovely meta! ginzai May 27 2009, 21:32:47 UTC

You don't need to be a Sam!girl to come from a place of love. *g* He's driven me crazy at points this season but I adore the guy, now more than ever.

I think you're right, but that we see the seeds for this go far deeper and earlier than season 4.

Oh, totally agreed. I was coming from the perspective of S4 almost as a stand alone, but absolutely there's epic amounts that you can draw in about Sam's shifting mortality throughout the seasons. I do think that Dean hit the nail on the head when he confronted Sam with the notion of Jack falling a little too close to home and you're very much correct that you can take examples from the previous seasons and further expound on that. None of them were quite so obvious as Jack, IMHO; even Max Miller didn't quite work as a direct comparison, no matter that Sam brought that point up himself because S1!Sam and Max were such completely different characters ( ... )

Re: Lovely meta! mangokulfi May 27 2009, 23:09:14 UTC

It feels like TPTB deliberately set Dean and the angels up as close-minded and almost bigoted, automatically rejecting Sam's powers without any real solid proof of it. I mean, look at 4x04: Dean was absolutely in the right during that episode, but because of the way it was portrayed, Sam comes off looking like the wounded party. Couple that with the random select amnesia all characters involved display regarding verbal exorcisms this season (except Alistair, go figure, and he used it solely on the angels) and absolutely there's no real reason to suspect anything about Sam until maybe S&V and even then there was plausible deniability. Having those waters be a bit murkier would have been a huge help in showing that what Sam was doing was wrong - and for more reasons than just because Dean didn't like it.
I agree that this was done deliberately and I think it was done almost completely to maintain the mystery around Sam and also to maintain sympathy for him as a character. If we knew definitively as early as Metamorphosis that Sam's ( ... )

Re: Lovely meta! ginzai May 27 2009, 23:56:43 UTC

If we knew definitively as early as Metamorphosis that Sam's powers were going to lead to something as horrible as the apocalypse and that Ruby had been playing him the whole time, Sam would have looked like a complete chump for the majority of the season.

Yeah, I get what you're saying here. I just wish that they'd have found a way to keep Sam sympathetic while not making Dean look like a moron. If they'd just explained why Dean didn't respond back with "So use an exorcism!" when Sam explained that he was using his powers because the knife killed the victim, I'd have been much happier. And that's not even touching on all the "Dean is weak" mantras we've heard this season. The man was able to keep going right after Alistair dropped the bomb about his breaking the first Seal, I'm pretty sure that's the definition of strength right there. Argh.

I think they could have done a better job making Sam sympathetic without going to such extremes, you know? They backtracked with him a lot in the finale. I mean, the differences between ( ... )

Thread 14

mangokulfi May 27 2009, 22:59:45 UTC

Very interesting meta Ginzai. I too have been more intrigued with Sam this season in a way I never have been before. I also think I agree with all your points and the way the writers chose to handle the narrative surround Sam's "Fall." For the most part I think it worked well as the central mystery of the season. Much more so than the first three season where Sam was still the central mystery but we didn't really get any definitive movement. I think what made season 4 so satisfying where Sam is concerned is that we finally see what the danger to Sam always was starting with when the YED stood over his crib in the very first scene of the pilot.

Dean's story is very much told up front, typically during the mytharc eps and in contrast Sam's story is hidden and cloaked. We see it in glimpses of other characters and in flashbacks, but rarely from Sam's own perspective. It's an interesting choice to make in terms of storytelling, but IMHO it's a very sophisticated one. Certainly there was nothing so subtly done in S1-S3.
Here I would argue ( ... )

ginzai May 27 2009, 23:42:02 UTC

I'm not lying when I say that I had no use for Sam pre-S4. I didn't particularly dislike him, but he didn't do a lot for me. A large part of that was because there were never any consequences for his actions, nor any exploration of his mistakes. Honestly, he came off something like a Gary Stu to me, like the writers were trying just a smidge too hard to get me to like him. I see that with female leads on occasion, where I'm supposed to like a character because the other characters do, or because the writing suggests that I should, without really having the necessary depth installed in said character to organically pique my interest.

THAT SAID, man oh man, S4!Sam has triggered my intrigue. I don't think I can say enough how much I love a tragic, fallen hero (well, I probably can because I'm pretty sure you all are sick of me talking about it) and Sam is now one in so many ways. I really did like how his story was played out this season, despite some minor quibbles with how certain points were addressed. I didn't at all ( ... )

mangokulfi May 28 2009, 01:14:41 UTC

You know it occurs to me that when they used the parallels and the identifications in season 3 for Dean it tended to be with the PIPs rather than the MOWs. Even as far back as Wendigo and Dead in the Water - Dean identifies with Haley's need to find her brother and Lucas' horror at seeing his father killed in the lake.

Whereas with Sam, the parallels, especially this season, are often with the MOW. In the Pilot, like the Woman in White, Sam can't really go home (to his family.) In Hookman the true monster is Lori's anger which calls forth the Hookman and of course there is Max from Nightmare.

Of course these aren't hard and fast rules for either brother through all four seasons but if we were to go through epi by epi I suspect that Dean more often than not parallels the victims while Sam more often parallels the monsters. Huh! Clever Kripke.

ginzai May 28 2009, 01:51:55 UTC

Huh, that is interesting! Certainly there are episodes where Sam more closely connects with the PIP; that kid in Bugs was like an AU version of Sam at age 15, he more closely connected with Madison and with Sarah, and several others besides, but especially in the later seasons, that fades out a bit and we see Dean more taking on that role ( ... )

ariadnes_string May 27 2009, 23:11:02 UTC

This is really great! Especially your brilliant point about the way Sam's character arc was mostly illuminated obliquely, or allegorically, through the stories of other people (other monsters). What a great way to tell the story of someone in denial, or self-deception. I'd love to think the writers did it on purpose, but even if not, it's still great ( ... )

ginzai May 28 2009, 00:27:36 UTC

Thanks for commenting! You raise an interesting point about Dean and Hell, definitely. I think TPTB screwed the pooch when it comes to that particular storyline. Why did the flashbacks stop when Dean got his memories back? Or did they at all and we just no longer see them? I mean, he did that that weird reaction to the masks in ITGPSW, which was after he remembered Hell. I mean, you'd expect a bit more reaction when he saw Alistair for the first time, if nothing else. Being confronted out of the blue with the demon who tortured you for 30 years and who mentored you for another decade on top of that? THAT should have inspired some flashbacks ( ... )

ariadnes_string May 28 2009, 03:09:43 UTC

Okay--I had to come back after reading samidha's story because I think she implicitly offers a great explanation of why there might be more solo!Dean stories than solo!Sam stories. If you think of the epic, famous, ones like "The 1300 Hundred Days" and "Fire in the Hole," it's clear that even though Sam shows up late (in Days) or not at all (in Fire), Dean still carries an incredibly powerful version of Sam with him at all times, yearns for him unremittingly in both, really, doesn't let go of his feelings for him, despite the angst. So, solo!Dean is really only physically solo. Whereas, as in "Wind Shear," solo!Sam seems like he might really go solo in body and soul, really get rid of Dean, out of pain, guilt, or something else. Now, why Sam might be more capable of that, or more vulnerable to it, is another question. As is the question of which is the more self-destructive move ( ... )

ginzai May 28 2009, 03:37:50 UTC

Huh, that's an interesting thought. It's easier to take solo!Dean because Sam still has such a presence in those stories. You're right, it never is Dean putting all thoughts of Sam out of his mind, Dean tends to keep those thoughts cradled close which has to prevent the wound from healing and would, IMHO, hurt a lot more than Sam's method, but from what little information we have on that time period, he was at least able to remain functional.

Sam in turn just sort of denied the pain, like ripping out a section of his soul. Then again, Dean was dead, not just out of reach. When Sam died in S2, Dean just sort of shut down himself. If he hadn't been able to make a deal then, especially given that Dean was suicidal in S2, I'm pretty sure Dean wouldn't have outlived his brother by much. I'm not even sure he'd manage to kill himself in a hunt, like it seemed that Sam was trying for ( ... )

harwhon May 28 2009, 00:30:09 UTC

Wow. I don't think I've watched enough SPN yet (I'm kinda new to the series and the fandom) to play this game of "connect the dots", but something tells me that even if I had, I wouldn't have been able to see all this.

You didn't like After School Special? Not that I don't respect your opinion- It's just one of my favourite episodes, so I'm intrigued. :)

I agree with eilonwy. I think that Sam so desperately wants to save Jack, because he sees how alike they are- much more so than because of him being innocent. All through S4,I've had the feeling that we don't get to see the real Sam at all until the last five minutes of the finale when he finally comes to his senses. In his very first scene in Lazarus Rising, he already seems detached- even as he's hugging Dean.

Considering that we see the first turn in Sam's character in Jus In Bello, after the S2 finale- does this mean YED had a point saying Dean couldn't be sure that what he'd brought back was 100% Sam? (Or did everyone agree on this eons ago, making me mortifyingly late to the party ( ... )

ginzai May 28 2009, 01:09:54 UTC

Hey, welcome to the fandom! We're nice, I promise!

ASS was one of my least favorite episodes this season on account of how I am a HUGE Dean!girl and I very much felt that Dean got the shaft, both as a teenager and as an adult. I didn't much care for the actor chosen for teen!Dean (not on account of skill but because he looked too old to play the part, especially with such a wee!Sammy in tow), most of both Deans' jokes fell flat to me (which cheerleaders are legal? From a 30 year old man who is playing their teacher? Um. Ew.), teen!Dean's petulant claim to be a "hero" in the middle of a busy high school hallway, and so on. All of that rankled. I adored wee!Sam but the portrayal of Dean just completely soured the episode for me.

we don't get to see the real Sam at all until the last five minutes of the finale when he finally comes to his sensesI think this is EXTREMELY significant. I can't imagine S1!Sam leaving Dean alone the first night he gets him back from Hell, just as I can't imagine S2!Sam lying about Dean's dying wish ( ... )