General Sam meta and thoughts on S4
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,
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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 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. I don't think the audience would have had any sympathy left for him if we'd spent the whole season going "Sam you're a moron. She's a demon, why would you trust her?" Oh wait...;)
But seriously, I do think they needed to keep us all guessing about the powers and Ruby's role for the story to work the way it was told. But I do wish they could have done it without that wasn't at the expense of Dean. I think all the "Dean is weak" commentary from pretty much every other character was all about Kripke trying to maintain some sense of balance between the two characters but I do hope the writers will make it up to Dean next season by letting at least one character acknowledge that his strength and that he was completely and unequivocally right about pretty much everything where Sam, Ruby and the powers are concerned.
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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 4x21!Sam and 4x22!Sam are just astounding. At the end of 4x21, Sam was cold, enraged, self-assured, fully certain of the rightness of his methods, means, and motivations. 4x21!Sam was scary. And in contrast, 4x22!Sam was doubtful, wistful, and something of a martyr, rather than a soldier primed for battle. Between the two, I actually preferred 4x21!Sam but he's definitely not as sympathetic as the 4x22 version. However, had we seen more scenes of 4x22!Sam throughout the season, that sympathy could easily have been maintained.
Heck, if they had just not made it seem like Sam hated Dean and didn't care about him for the majority of the season, they could have maintained a lot more of that sympathetic angle. If Sam had honestly done it for Dean - or even if we were lead to believe that Sam had honestly done it for Dean, when really his motivations were more complex - a significant amount of sympathy would have been a given. Revenge for what Dean suffered in Hell is a VERY understandable motivation. Sam's random desire to kill Lilith just because he felt like it... Yeah, not so much.
So that angle of it, I think they could have done a lot better at. I adore the whole concept of subterfuge and telling Sam's story through third parties, I really, really do. I don't like though their blatant attempt to have their cake and eat it too by pushing up Sam by putting down Dean and the angels. Let Dean and the angels be dicks in their own right, you know? I love Dean to pieces but he can be insufferable on occasion, just the same as Castiel. Heck, that's a huge part of why I love them - I highly enjoy it when a character's flaws are both exposed and allowed to have actual consequences. If TPTB wanted them to be unsympathetic, they should have allowed that to grow organically as well.
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In fact I would say my main reason for not appreciating Sam as much I perhaps should in a two-lead show, is because Kripke has always protected and propped Sam at the expense of Dean. I guess he thinks Dean's popularity means he doesn't need the kind of authorial protection that Sam routinely receives. What he doesn't seem to get is that it's this narrative imbalance that really just makes fans more protective and forgiving of Dean, quite often at Sam's expense.
It will be interesting to see how Kripke handles Sam's redemption next season and if we will see any true accountability (especially in regard ot his treatment of Dean) or if the writers will reset the button because Ruby called Sam out at the end of the finale and Sam gave his heartfelt but completely generic apology.
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Oh, yes. And that's why I didn't much care for him before S4. I think now though they've done a much better job (especially in the second half o the season) in letting Sam make his mistakes and actually have to deal with the fall out. Dean didn't let Sam's various snubs slide this time - he argued back that he didn't deserve to be treated in such a manner and when Sam kept up with it, he found a method to deal with the problem. Which is part of why I don't have too much of an issue with the Sam-Dean relationship, even in late S4. It's twisted and it feels very one sided and Sam really did treat Dean terribly, but Dean wasn't just lying there and taking it for once. Well. With the possible exception of 4x16, but that really was his nadir.
Which was why Bobby's "family makes you miserable" bit jarred me so horribly. It's one thing for me, as an outsider, to not get angry. I can view it as an unhealthy relationship, which it had very much become, and still want Dean to stick around. It's something else entirely for BOBBY to say that - to claim that Dean was being spoilt and a child and unappreciative. Just. Man, no.
I'm not sure how the shielding from TPTB came about, but I suspect it had a lot to do with Kripke & co not recognizing what they're doing. From all the interviews I've read, they seem very easily distracted by shiny new things and have ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in dealing with actual emotional fall out.
Well, that and I'm pretty sure they mostly didn't even think of it. I mean, if they can't remember that Dean's probably not going to be wrestling with Sam the episode after he's shot and has a thumb dug in the wound, they're prolly not much going to think of emotional consequences either.
I don't think it made him less sympathetic though as a character (there were other things he had going on to help him along in that regard), but I definitely think it made him a less well balanced one. More 2D than 3D, you know? And that made him a far less interesting character for me.
I can't imagine there NOT being fall out in S5 for Sam. I don't see Dean forgetting so easily the way Sam's treated him, even though I honestly also don't think that Dean would hold the breaking of the final Seal against Sam. However, I think it would be a disgrace to Sam's characterization (not to mention his character in general) if we didn't see consequences for his actions. So much of what makes Sam up was shattered by Ruby's revelation. How could they NOT address that?
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I mean if Bobby's initial hissyfit was the writers saying "see Dean was a whiny princess through the whole season and if his head hadn't been so far up his own Hell-reamed ass, maybe he could have stopped Sam from going dark side."
If that's how the show decides to play the conflict between the brothers. The little investment I have left in the brothers' bond be salted and burned. I wish I could trust Kripke to treat the Sam's redemption as an opportunity for true character growth for both brothers but I don't have that much faith because of his tendency to cosset Sam at Dean's expense.
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I really hope that Kripke doesn't take that route for Sam but I'd have MAJOR issues if Dean got that sort of hand waving treatment as well. I think it's bad enough that we've seen so little fallout from his ten years as a torturer as is, much less having that sort of "forgiveness" schloped on top of his character at any given opportunity. It would do a terrible disservice to him and reduce Dean's complexities down to nothing.
I like it when characters have to face up to the consequences of their actions. I don't want Sam to wallow in his misery any more than I want him to go groveling to Dean for forgiveness, but I do want to see Sam's sins addressed in as realistic a manner as possible. I mean, why set up this whole house of cards if you're not going to explore what happens when the thing crashes to the ground?
I mean if Bobby's initial hissyfit was the writers saying "see Dean was a whiny princess through the whole season and if his head hadn't been so far up his own Hell-reamed ass, maybe he could have stopped Sam from going dark side."
IMHO, the writers didn't mean that reading for Bobby's snit. It felt to me like they were stretching for anything to snap Dean back into gear and hey, fandom seemed to like the Zachariah speech, so why not a bit of tough love? Unfortunately for me anyway, I hated BOTH speeches and thought them both puerile and distasteful.
I sort of suspect that both of those were also a bit of fan pandering, given how some of the things Zachariah said could have come straight out of the mouths of the fans who just wanted Dean to stop "whining" already and who had been clamoring for that since 4x10. Almost like an in joke, you know? Except that it still doesn't make sense, because Zachariah is supposed to be a dick who doesn't know what makes Dean tick as becomes abundantly clear in his final appearance. Bobby OTOH is supposed to know and love Dean. So why make the speeches so similar in tone? What are we supposed to walk away with from that?
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