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 don't see apathy and distaste so much as resignation and a choice of detachment. By the time we got to 4.14 and 4.15, Sam was eyeballs deep in the demon-blood-drinking and at this point he believed (as he said in 4.22) that he wasn't going to survive the endgame but the sacrifice of his life/soul was necessary to stop Lilith. In his point of view things had to be done and he had to do them, even if he didn't like it. The choice of detachment with his lover is a very understandable one: the YED killed Jessica, he had to kill Madison, and he was pushing himself toward a confrontation with a horrible evil - he had no reason to believe his further involvement with her wouldn't end badly for her, so best not to try at all. As for the incest babies, he was more focused on saving the family and Dean to outwardly express feeling sorry for them and that episode was more about Dean's issues - he felt bad, even sorry, for Dirk the angry ghost in 4.13.
I do think there's a measure of wanting to do this to save the world, but that doesn't seem to be his primary goal. It's more of an incidental; Sam wanted Lilith's head on a plate long before he was led to believe that by killing her, he could save the world. There's a certain amount of resentfulness there as well ("don't these people know what I'm doing for them? How can they be so ungrateful?") to Sam as well that further distances him from a noble savior figure and more so instead ties him into that superior attitude. That he's doing this to "save the world" is just one more of his lies, and an interesting thing to remember, given Dean's comment in 4x07 about how there's nothing more dangerous than some a-hole on a holy mission.
No, Sam didn't start out wanting to save the world by killing Lilith - he wanted to save Dean. He couldn't stop her from taking Dean's soul so all he could do was focus on killing her, on punishing her, on getting justice on Dean's behalf. When Dean came back so broken Sam's helplessness about not being able to make Dean feel better manifested itself further into hunting Lilith because it was all he could do. As for the perceived superiority complex, I don't think Sam's resentfulness had anything to do with him seeing himself as a noble savior or being an asshole on a holy mission - he was upset because he was being told he couldn't act like a Winchester. John destroyed his life that was to hunt the thing that killed his wife and sacrified his life/soul to save Dean; Dean embraced the hunt and sacrificed his life/soul to save Sam; now Sam was being told it was bad for him to give up who he was before for the sake of avenging his loved one, that he was being evil-bad-wrong when he was jeopardizing his life/soul to, in his mind, save Dean. He was following the examples his father and brother set and was angry (and probably insecure, as he's always been insecure about his place in the family) when everyone judged him for them.
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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.
But a suicidal drive is different than the "woe, I must martyr myself" attitude at the very top of his layers - it's darker and crueler (towards Sam) and far less comforting. Being a martyr gives a certain level of satisfaction that tends to tinge on self-righteousness, especially when you are describing yourself in that manner. It's not a compliment to be termed a martyr. I think though that his certainty that things would never be the same again, that he really had burned his bridges, was a reflection of that suicidal inner core, but one vastly warped by the other, darker surface emotions he's been driven by this past year.
As for the good doctor, I think you're reading a level of attachment and affection there that I honestly didn't see. They weren't in love, it was just a one night stand but that Sam didn't call, wasn't even tempted to call, shows a huge change in his character. It's very much a detachment from her, true, but tied in with all the other events, IMHO it goes right back to Sam's belief that the normal rules no longer apply to him.
That Sam would show more overt horror over what happened with Dirk makes perfect sense to me. Sam didn't drive him to his death, but he was in several ways the catalyst that tipped him over the edge. While I don't see anything particularly wrong in Sam's actions there, I can easily see why Sam would be so struck by how much of an impact his own actions had. That it related to Sam personally, and to a crowning moment in Sam's past, was what allowed Sam to react in that manner.
When Dean came back so broken Sam's helplessness about not being able to make Dean feel better manifested itself further into hunting Lilith because it was all he could do.
But Dean wasn't broken when he came back. Dean was very much just Dean, somewhat changed (more sympathetic and less prone towards violence as shown in 4x02) but not broken. It wasn't until after he got his memories back that he started to slide and even then it wasn't until Sam learned some of what those memories pertained to that his views on Dean changed.
I don't think killing Lilith had much to do with Dean at all, really, or if it had, that urge had faded long before Dean's resurrection. Otherwise, we would have seen Sam be far more affected by Dean's death. Sam didn't seem to mind Dean's return (most of the time), but neither did he react as one might expect to getting his brother back from Hell after four months. It was as though Dean had just been on vacation for a few weeks for all the attention and concern Sam showed.
Also, Dean didn't give up who he was to be a hunter; he didn't have any other choice. Sam's change in personality though was a choice, and an alarming one. I also think he felt insecurity about his position in family and that was a deep set, long felt emotion. However, to me that was very much tied into his core emotions, the things that he didn't consciously allow himself to experience, even if they still tended to flavor his actions.
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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 circumstances; I'd say the one-night stand itself was the behavior that was different from how Sam normally acts and that shows his deliberate choice to remain unattached.
But Dean wasn't broken when he came back. Dean was very much just Dean, somewhat changed (more sympathetic and less prone towards violence as shown in 4x02) but not broken. It wasn't until after he got his memories back that he started to slide and even then it wasn't until Sam learned some of what those memories pertained to that his views on Dean changed.
Dean came back different and Sam saw that. Dean started drinking constantly and having nightmares and Sam saw that even before Dean told him that he remembered anything about Hell. Sam said it back in S3's Fresh Blood: he knows Dean's behaviors, when he covering up his emotions, and what emotions he's covering up. Just because Dean didn't act openly broken doesn't mean that he wasn't and it doesn't mean Sam didn't pick up on that.
I don't think killing Lilith had much to do with Dean at all, really, or if it had, that urge had faded long before Dean's resurrection.
I see it very much like how John became a hunter: it started out as a way to avenge his wife and protect his kids and, while it may have turned into something more (things both selfless and selfish), at the core it remained about the revenge and protection. Sam's motivations may have broadened, but at the core it was remained about avenging Dean.
And while I understand that Dean didn't give up who he was to be a hunter, I disagree that he "didn't have any other choice". He did have a choice - he could have walked away when he turned 18 and John couldn't have made him stay; maybe it wasn't a difficult choice for him to make, but it was still a choice to stay with the family and not see what else was out there. Also, I agree Sam's personality change was alarming and the decisions he made were his choice, but the personality change itself wasn't a choice. He didn't decide "I choose to be horrified, grief-stricken, angry, and mixed-up about my brother's death!" It's a real disservice to the character to judge him solely on his behaviors without taking into account the underlying motivations just because you find the behaviors so out-of-character and alarming.
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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 several weeks with Sam's very callous and demeaning attitude making it quite clear that he had no faith in Dean's abilities either. It took all that to get Dean close to breaking.
If Dean had been broken, he'd never have been able to face Alistair without flinching so many times. He'd have crumpled when Alistair told him about the first Seal. Dean didn't. He was perfectly able to continue the job and would have except that Uriel released Alistair early.
Sam read a lot of weakness into Dean's behaviors because SAM needed Dean to be broken. If Dean wasn't broken then Sam couldn't dismiss Dean's disapproval or admit that he really didn't give a damn as to Dean's opinion on the topic. And frankly, I don't think he much did, at least not by the middle half of the season. Not consciously, at any rate. Caring about Dean's opinion was one of those things he locked down in his core self, but it wasn't at all a factor in Sam's day to day choices. If Dean were broken though then that meant Sam could neatly sidestep the entire issue: he could make his own choices and force Dean to live with them because Sam knew better. It was another lie to himself. And it's one that's going to come back to bite him majorly now that Dean's been proven right about all of this.
He did have a choice - he could have walked away when he turned 18 and John couldn't have made him stay
I think you really don't get a fundamental tenet of Dean's characterization. Dean didn't have a choice about leaving, not in the classic sense of it, at any rate. Leaving at 18 would have left Sam unprotected and would have removed a significant amount of support from John. It would have placed them both in danger. And given that we see in ASS that the Sam-John conflict was already brewing, it would also have meant removing the stabilizing element from the family. With all those factors in place, Dean - in his mind - most assuredly had no choice at all. Dean wouldn't be Dean were he able to make the choice to walk away knowing that Sam and John would be in a considerably worse position for his departure.
He didn't decide "I choose to be horrified, grief-stricken, angry, and mixed-up about my brother's death!"
True, this was also not really a choice on Sam's part. However, it was very much a choice to do what he did while being horrified, grief-stricken, angry, and mixed-up about his brother's death. Sam chose to follow Ruby's advice about Lilith. Sam chose to give up on saving Dean from Hell and he gave up within a month of Dean's death.
Honestly, you're over simplifying Sam's behavior by ignoring the more negative factors of it in favor of pushing for an unrealistically positive portrayal.
Sam is a good man. He's also bullheaded, prideful, has a temper with trigger points that gets him in trouble and he's a control freak, but he's a good man. He wants to do the right thing. He's smart, tenacious, cunning and powerful AND he's done some terrible things this past season that showcase HUGE character flaws. By denying those and his true motivations, you diminish Sam to nothing more than a puppet, weak and ineffective.
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