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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Some of it is very much out in the open and one of those themes that most interests me is Sam's general growing sense of apathy with humanity as a whole. We move from the Sam who was so desperate to save Jackin 4x04 to the 4x15!Sam, who lied with a straight face to the dead boy Cole in order to manipulate him into helping them and who honestly believed that the rules for the rest of mankind no longer apply to him (or Dean).
The look on Sam's face when he lied to Cole in 4.15 showed just how bad he felt about lying to the kid (and I don't think it was necessarily completely wrong for him to lie, because in that situation time was of the essence and the kid wasn't showing any signs of being reasoned with). That whole episode wasn't so much about his apathy with humanity but his new comfort with a morally gray area and his willingness to believe that it's all right ( ... )
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The look on Sam's face when he lied to Cole in 4.15 showed just how bad he felt about lying to the kid
I'm not sure I read quite as much regret into Sam's expression as you do. To me it was more distaste - it was a job he didn't want to be doing, but distaste for being in an unfortunate position is different than outright regretting it. I see a huge measure of apathy in regards to humanity in Sam's actions there. Perhaps alone it wouldn't work quite so well as an example, but it slots in readily with the other signs we have of the same: Sam's not even wanting to say goodbye to his lover in 4x14, Sam having no sympathy for the incest babies in 4x11, Sam being willing to sacrifice humans to feed from in the later episodes, Sam thinking that the normal rules don't apply to him, and so on ( ... )
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My personal take on Sam is that he's made up of countless layers, the majority of which he wasn't even aware of by the end of the season and all of which goes back to his theme of lying to himself. He acted the part of a martyr in 4x22, but I believe that was merely the top-most of these layers - and the most false of them. Under that is the superiority and aggression, both of which went deep, and under those was a sheer layer of pure rage. All of which worked to disguise what was at his true core, those emotions that he didn't even allow himself to feel because they simply hurt too much: guilt and self-loathing and pain and horror and shock, and yes also a suicidal drive ( ... )
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I'm not reading a level of attachment between Sam and the doctor - I'm reading his desire not to get attached or to encourage attachment on her part. And since it was a one-night stand (most likely on both their parts), I don't see how his failure to call can be interpreted as him believing the "normal rules" don't apply to him anymore. After all, how many one-night stands did Dean call back? Does that mean Dean always thought the "normal rules" don't apply to him? No, of course not. The truth is we've never seen Sam have a proper one-night stand so we don't know how he normally behaves under those ( ... )
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Of course Dean came back different. But he didn't come back broken. We have no signs that Sam noticed the nightmares prior to 4x08 nor that Dean was drinking heavily before that point. Dean didn't have full access to his memories until the end of YF so his NOT being broken makes perfect sense. That didn't stop Sam from treating him as though he were broken before then and Sam's view on Dean only grew worse afterward.
I'd also argue that even after Dean got his memories back, he wasn't broken. Battered, yes. In a bad mental place? Absolutely. But the closest we've ever seen Dean be to breaking was the final hospital scene 4x16, after he'd been physically smashed down, had the trauma of learning about the first Seal, and was told by an angel that he, Dean, was expected to stop all of it but that they weren't going to give him any information on HOW he was to do so after he'd already gone ( ... )
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I also think that was shameful defiance, but I'm not so certain there wasn't anything else they could have done. They could have tried a regular exorcism and they had Castiel as back up (I wouldn't count on Uriel). Sam didn't bother to consider either option; instead he took a unilateral action that involved him breaking his promise to Dean about using his powers and that he did so at the very first opportunity afforded to him makes me wonder exactly how long he ever intended to keep that promise. Sam managed, at most, a month without using his powers and I'd argue it was far less than that - a couple of weeks, tops ( ... )
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They didn't figure into the picture - Dean may have been somewhere in the vicinity, but Sam was all alone when he faced off with Samhain. He didn't have Castiel as a back-up because Castiel told him and Dean that he was there to DESTROY the town if Samhain rose; and Castiel may have had Dean's back if he asked but he could barely bring himself to shake Sam's hand, so it's fair to say Sam couldn't have counted on Castiel for help. As for a regular exorcism, for all of those on the show the demon is first restrained - Samhain was beating the crap out of Sam, nowhere near being restrained or even letting Sam get out all the words he needed to exorcise ( ... )
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Are you suggesting that Sam contrived to fight Samhain alone so he could use his powers? Because that's absolutely ridiculous.
What could it have hurt to ask Castiel for help? Also, why shouldn't he have tried to get the knife back?Asking Sam to go to Castiel for help at that point would be asking him to trust Castiel far more than what was reasonable. Castiel was there because the town was supposed to be destroyed - there was absolutely no reason to believe his orders would change just because Samhain rose (the easiest way to stop Samhain would have been to destroy the town. Beyond that, Sam and Castiel had just met, at which point Cas seemed repulsed by the notion of shaking Sam's hand, called him the boy with the demon blood, and then spoke only directly to Dean. Not a whole lot of reason for Sam to trust Cas as back-up ( ... )
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I agree that Sam is responsible for his decisions, but not "coming to his senses" after Dean came back isn't tied a decision - it's tied to emotions. And Sam's emotions aren't so shallow that all that grief, anger, confusion, rage, and guilt instantly go away just because Dean's back. And he did slowly start to get better: he reconnected with Bobby, got off the demon blood, encouraged Dean to open up about Hell, and even started to open up himself about the stuff he went through during the summer. It was only when his relationship with Dean got more distant and fractured (something was was equally Sam and Dean's fault) did he revert.
I think ( ... )
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