I think there was very much an unconscious measure of jealousy on Sam's part in S4, which IMHO comes from a very deepseated insecurity that Sam doesn't measure up. Sam has long since had a habit of putting Dean down whenever Dean's actions become a "threat" to something Sam takes pride in.
Take Sam's intelligence, for instance. Sam mocked Dean's EMF reader in Phantom Traveler (one of the first signs we have of smart!Dean). His shock over the concept that Dean could be intelligent in his own right continues all the way through S4 when the fact that Dean reads was apparently rather incredible.
I'd argue that Sam felt comfortable in his identity as "the smart one" for some time; he seems to take pride in it during ASS and the pilot episode and he uses his dedication to his studies as a way to separate himself out from his family (to whom education obviously wasn't as important, just look at the fact that Dean dropped out of high school for comparison). Sam felt very uncertain though about his abilities as a hunter in general. He knew where he stood with his smarts and so took considerable pride in it. With hunting though, the case was significantly different and so he was keen with letting Dean be the "better" hunter between the two of them.
That changed during S3 though. Dean made what Sam would have perceived as a critical error in judgment - he made his deal. And then worse, Dean refused to help Sam save his own life. That planted the seed for Sam to view himself as the better hunter, I think, especially when Sam spent so long by himself and began to focus exclusively on demons. And he was good at it. Good at saving people. Sam says that he was able to save more people using his powers than he had Dean had for months when they were doing it the old fashioned way and I believe him. But Sam's insecurity being what it is, he was unable to accept that both he and Dean could be good at it. It had to be one or the other. And thus, Sam had to be the better one.
I don't think it's so much a matter of seeking glory, but I do think that Sam was addicted to being The One. Sam might have hated what Azazel did to him, but I have to wonder if it soothed some inner complex of his; I mean, it was a compliment, if one that no one really wants to receive, to be called the Boy King. Sam was used to being the center of attention when it came to the Winchester family drama and I don't think he liked sharing that one whit, though I doubt he ever thought that through. From the moment that Dean came back though, Sam automatically assumed that whatever Dean's "destiny" was, Sam was somehow included in that. It wasn't just that God had work for Dean; by 4x02, Sam was talking about the situation in plurals.
Which again, I really think is related to Sam's insecurities. It's why I'm so glad to see him maturing as an individual - it makes it so much easier for him to be able to stand on his own and recognize that it's okay to be strong and it's just as okay for Dean to be strong as well. Sam has always been self-centered and in a twisted way, he had the healthier perspective for quite some time. Dean was selfless to the point of martyrdom and that wound up screwing everyone over. Until S4, Sam's more selfish attitude was very much the better option between the two. He went too far in S4 and now needs to learn to look outside himself and realize the consequences his actions have.
He's making progress in this regard. I think he took a huge step forward when he recognized his own continuing faults in 5x02. I think to a large extent, Sam and Dean didn't really know each other that well prior to this point, for all that they were close and would have died for each other. They both had an idealized version of the other - Dean put Sam up on a pedestal and Sam had an unfortunate tendency to see the worst of Dean. They're going to have to get to know each other now and accept and embrace both the good and bad parts of each other. Which will be painful, no doubt, but will also be pretty fascinating to watch. :)
What can I say? you got it all right there. I think Sam's sense of self has been fueled by his brother's dedication and admiration. His brother was ready to do anything for him and always let him believe he was the "smarts". I'm not lying when I tell you that first time, with the EMF was a stab for me because a good brother, a loving brother should have praised it -even if he thought it worthless- but he couldn't bring himself up to it. I think Sam resents Dean's personality as much as a child resents his parents' during adolescence. Dean simply cannot do well by Sam. All of the things that endear Dean to us, irritate Sam. But yeah, I see light at the end of this tunnel and it's not hellfire. I think Sam actually turned a point. Matured and decided he has to grow up and has to do it in his own time. For as painful as it is for both of them, Dean, at least recognizes it to be true. This season is going to rock!
I've read meta that theorized that Dean deliberately downplayed his own intelligence and I can see that as being believable, especially since Dean wouldn't have cared about the same things that Sam did in displaying it. Dean would have been impressed by tactical rather than strategic developments - developing the salt shotgun shells, for one, which it's implied that Dean came up with and which he seemed quite pleased about. That's clever and would have had an immediate application within their lives. Stuff like the SATs or finals? Not so much. Getting an A on that Algebra test wouldn't likely have helped him ensure that his father and Sam stayed safe on a werewolf hunt, for instance. So I think it's a matter of Dean's prioritization and about him being sensitive enough to Sam's buttons that he didn't mind letting Sam shine there.
It strikes me that Dean only really seemed to get annoyed with that when Sam started to mistake Dean's lack of interest in academics with Dean being... Not stupid (Sam never seemed to think that) but not smart. Combine that with Sam sniping at Dean in other ways, and it's little wonder that Dean starts to get defensive towards the middle and end of S4.
I think you've got a great point about why Sam seemed to look down on Dean. It very much is a parental thing, though given the twisted relationship dynamics of the Winchesters, I think it goes beyond that as well. There was a great meta posted last spring about Sam transferring his strife with John onto Dean after John's death and the Oedipal nuances that are displayed between the three of them and I think this very much plays into that. Sam wanted his father to acknowledge him as an equal (or a superior), but John's death precluded that option. He wanted Dean to side with him against their father when he thought that John was in the wrong, but when he came to understand John and his reasoning better, he wanted to take John's place - and that included having Dean answer to him. Which, Dean being Dean, he was going to reject as a concept.
So there's really two strikes going on here: Sam has the stereotypical teenage rebellion mindset where your parents can do no right and they "just don't understand" but also with Sam's need to control the situation, you've got a large dose of resentment when Dean refuses to capitulate to Sam's leadership.
I agree though, Sam has matured a tremendous amount in the past couple of episodes and I've full faith and confidence that he'll continue to do so. I think Sam's storyline is going to be wicked interesting to watch!
I wish I could express myself in such a beautiful way as you do. English is not exactly my mother language and then again, I haven't had the opportunity to put my opinions into words - seeing as much of the fandom does not look at things really, really deep (sorry, I'm not being snobbish here, I swear...)- anyway, thank you! You just made my week! If you don't mind, may I befriend you? Only if, of course, it's all right with your ongoing policy or whatever. (And, then again, how do I go about that ?!)*perplexed*
See, I had no idea that English wasn't your native language! I need to learn to read German for school and I've studied various languages off and on for the past decade. I've a huge amount of respect for anyone who is fluent in more than one tongue!
I'm not sure that I'm all that deep a thinker, but I do like to ramble. :) Please feel free to friend me, I always love meeting new people!
(Do you mean how do you friend someone? I know that if you go into their profile, there's usually an option to Add Friend, if that helps.)
I think you've got a great point about why Sam seemed to look down on Dean. It very much is a parental thing, though given the twisted relationship dynamics of the Winchesters, I think it goes beyond that as well. There was a great meta posted last spring about Sam transferring his strife with John onto Dean after John's death and the Oedipal nuances that are displayed between the three of them and I think this very much plays into that. Sam wanted his father to acknowledge him as an equal (or a superior), but John's death precluded that option. He wanted Dean to side with him against their father when he thought that John was in the wrong, but when he came to understand John and his reasoning better, he wanted to take John's place - and that included having Dean answer to him. Which, Dean being Dean, he was going to reject as a concept.
That was pretty fascinating and twisted end of last season when Sam started remaking the John/Dean relationship and the Winchester family right in front of Dean's nose, with him as John and Adam as him, and leaving Dean out of the picture entirely except as an external onlooker and someone whose commands Adam could ignore with impunity. Talk about triangulating to get the family you really want. Just another version of what the Siren promised.
I like the part about the Oedipal transference - hadn't thought about it that way. You don't have a link to that meta by any chance, do you?
4x19 is pretty important in terms of reliving the Winchester triad drama. I'm not sure that Sam would ever have accepted Adam as a replacement for Dean, but I imagine that Adam was easier to deal with in a number of ways. To my mind, that episode underscores the Sam-John connection and also Sam's control needs - he obviously can't control Dean, which discomforts him. He can control Adam, who even seems to welcome it in a mentor sort of way, which had to have been a relief. Seriously, all throughout S4, I keep getting the idea that Sam constantly had a refrain of "why won't they just listen to me" running through his head.
Which comes across as being awfully negative, but I do get where Sam's coming from with that. The very worst moments in his life were ones where his control was wrenched utterly from him. Dean was tortured in front of him and he couldn't even move to help him, nor could he control his psychic talents enough to TK the Colt to him (which he was even mocked for), John died right in front of him, he was kidnapped in AHBL which lead to his own death, he's been possessed and was forced to kill a man and assault Jo in a pseudo-sexual fashion, he had to watch Dean be literally slaughtered and torn apart by hellhounds, not to mention the dozens and dozens of deaths in Mystery Spot.
All in all, yeah. I'm pretty sure that Sam has good cause for his control freak tendencies, and maybe there's a trust factor involved with that as well. He's learned that he can't trust Dean to keep himself alive, which bleeds into him not being able to trust Dean's judgment?
Which is, ah, all pretty much incredibly OT. Mea culpa - I ramble. :)
I very much see the Sam-Dean-John relationship in an Oedipal manner when they're at their most twisted. Dean did play the maternal role in the family; he raised the kid, did the cooking, John talks about Dean waiting up for him to get home at night to reassure him that things will be okay. And I kind of like that, to be honest; it's not that Dean's effeminate, but I love the dichotomy of this very manly guy taking on these stereotypically feminine roles within his family. It makes him more complex as a character.
Sam and John fit the roles of the warring father and son to a T and it does seem to me that Dean was used as a weapon or a prize in a lot of their arguments. Look at them in Dead Man's Blood - Dean is very much caught in the middle between them and his resigned "here we go" (and the fact that he's perfectly comfortable sending them both into time out) suggests heavily that he's very used to stuck between them both.
In preseries and through S1, Sam seems to want Dean to side with him against their father. He's gratified when Dean does, such as in Salvation. By S2 though, Sam shows signs of wanting to replace their father - look at his actions in Hunted. How is Sam abandoning Dean in the middle of the night and then when they meet up again telling him that they can keep hunting Sam's way or Dean can leave any different than what John did in S1? And he only really grows more into that role as he gets older, for that matter. The natural evolution of that behavior is what we saw in S4.
What's of interest to me though is that Dean was rejecting John's overbearing attitude (and I like John, but if anyone meets the definition of "overbearing" and "unwilling to compromise", it's him) at least from the middle of S1 on, with indications that he'd stood up for himself more than once before the pilot as well. Dean called John out for not bothering to check up on him when he was dying and for being impossible to get in contact with when John started to get uppity about Sam's powers. And Dean likewise shows no hesitation for balking at following Sam's direction and guidance, which itself only becomes more pronounced as time progresses.
It's why I can't buy meta that posits Dean as a doormat, eternally bound to the whims of Sam or John. Dean might be at a certain disadvantage when it comes to arguing with his family, but he'll do so and without hesitation when he feels it's called for.
It's why I can't buy meta that posits Dean as a doormat, eternally bound to the whims of Sam or John.
Snort. Yeah, I hate that stuff.
As well as wincest of the eternally bottom Dean variety which is its literary corollary.
I think it is a fundamental misread of the character of Dean.
But people are very attached to it. And you can see already with some critiques and comments on those critiques of early Season 5 Dean that it is making some people very anxious that the Dean who always gives into Sam and puts him first no longer exists. It's like their entire template for Dean has now imploded.
I guess they didn't take Dean seriously in 4.21 when he told Bobby that he'd rather see Sam dead than turn himself into a monster.
It's amazing how 30 years of resisting Hell can help repair even the soft parts of someone's backbone.
Doormat!Dean is the bane of my existence. I can't stand the stuff. Same with broken!Dean; seriously, it took the man thirty flipping years to break in Hell. Thirty years! I'm pretty sure that whatever your baddie of the day torments him with over a matter of hours isn't going to be enough to break him just so you can write a scene with Dean sobbing into big!strong!manly!Sammy's arms about how horrible it was.
Argh.
I don't do much Wincest because I need several things in place before I'll even buy it as believable and even then it needs to have a compelling story and characterization for me to be hooked. I have read some and enjoyed it, but it's a rare bird for me.
I have less of an issue with bottom!Dean though because I don't equate being the bottom with being the submissive and I can see that Dean might have an issue being the aggressor in a sexual relationship with his four years younger brother. In fact, if Dean IS comfortable with it off the bat, then I'm done with the story. So much of Dean is wrapped up in being the protective older brother that I can't see how him pushing for sex with Sam would be anything but molestation in his mind and frankly that's so far out of character for me that I'll never be able to buy it. And while the aggressor in a sexual relationship =/= the top, I can see Dean thinking that or being worried that he'd hurt Sam and so refraining from topping unless Sam explicitly told him that he wanted it.
Which is probably more than you wanted to know about my thoughts on Wincest.
Anyway, YES. I have seen people since the middle of S4 speaking out against Dean's growing independence and I just don't get it. Since S1, it's been a theme in Dean's story that he was going to learn to break away and stand on his own. How is anyone surprised now that it's happening? It would be like being upset in Smallville that Lex turned evil - it's the entire point of the story! I can understand being upset about it being handled clumsily, but that's definitely not the case here. I'm officially done with the extreme and unhealthy codependence between Sam and Dean, especially since people only seem to require it coming from Dean's side.
And yeah, I think assertive!Dean caught some people off guard just as much as dark!Sam did. People wanted submissive!Dean and sweet!Sammy but you know, the thing is that neither of those tropes actually existed! You had Sam acting sweet on occasion and you had Dean occasionally submitting to Sam or John, but in neither case was it their dominant charactrerization. Sam was snarky and could be cold just as readily as he pulled the puppy eyes and Dean stood up to both Sam and John repeatedly and didn't hesitate to call them on it when they were being idiots. I mean, there's some truth to the myth, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't their be all and end alls, if you know what I mean.
Agreed too about Hell. In fact, that's the whole thing that gets me because Dean knows what Hell is like and he knows that Sam is in danger of damning himself if he is allowed to turn into a monster. S2!Dean didn't know that and so might have stood back and allowed Sam to do terrible things. S2!Dean, IMHO, could not have killed Sam. But S4!Dean? Dude, he's been to Hell. He knows what's waiting for Sam if he allows Sam to go down a dark path. And absolutely he's going to take the lesser of two evils and kill Sam ahead of time if it doesn't look like there's another option.
I have less of an issue with bottom!Dean though because I don't equate being the bottom with being the submissive and I can see that Dean might have an issue being the aggressor in a sexual relationship with his four years younger brother. In fact, if Dean IS comfortable with it off the bat, then I'm done with the story. So much of Dean is wrapped up in being the protective older brother that I can't see how him pushing for sex with Sam would be anything but molestation in his mind and frankly that's so far out of character for me that I'll never be able to buy it. And while the aggressor in a sexual relationship =/= the top, I can see Dean thinking that or being worried that he'd hurt Sam and so refraining from topping unless Sam explicitly told him that he wanted it.
I view Wincest as strictly AU since it seems completely non-canonical to me - things like Wee!cest are entirely out of character, IMO.
The thing about bottom Dean as written, though, is that it's often about him being the needy one and the desperate one and the one who will sacrifice everything. So, yeah, I tend to view that as submissive - because mostly all Sam has to do is role those puppy dog eyes and blam.
And it strikes me as entirely OOC, since we saw just how uncomfortable and unhappy Dean was with Sam's attempt to take over leadership in season 4. Dean hated it. Which translates to me that he would not be happy in that role in the relationship.
I also kind of think that Dean would think of constantly bottom Dean as the one who would be submissive, as opposed to the relationship they had for most of canon, which is switching off on who takes leadership and command and who saves whose ass any given day. Until Sam tried changing that up in Season 3 - and it entirely backfired on him.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts on Wincest. Which may be more than you want to know as well.
I'm officially done with the extreme and unhealthy codependence between Sam and Dean, especially since people only seem to require it coming from Dean's side.
Yeah - ITA.
Agreed too about Hell. In fact, that's the whole thing that gets me because Dean knows what Hell is like and he knows that Sam is in danger of damning himself if he is allowed to turn into a monster. S2!Dean didn't know that and so might have stood back and allowed Sam to do terrible things. S2!Dean, IMHO, could not have killed Sam. But S4!Dean? Dude, he's been to Hell. He knows what's waiting for Sam if he allows Sam to go down a dark path. And absolutely he's going to take the lesser of two evils and kill Sam ahead of time if it doesn't look like there's another option.
Yeah, exactly.
In fact, about mid season, I thought that that was what the Season 4 finale was going to be about. Dean having to kill Sam who had become a vessel for Lucifer in order to save the world, as part of his redemption for 10 years of torturing in hell. (That was before we knew about the seal breaking in hell.)
I kept on waiting for Sam to realize how strong Dean was, despite the immediacy of his breakdown, because he had resisted hell for so long, but it never came. I think a certain amount of that - obviously not the killing of Sam because he had become a vessel for Lucifer - but some aspects of what I had envisioned - might take place this year instead. In any case, if Sam is tempted by Lucifer, and I imagine at some point this year he probably will be to some extent because it will make for good drama, before Sam saves himself or stops Lucifer, Dean is going to have to be willing at least to do the deed to stop Sam from worse, as you say above.
And because, otherwise, that potent storyline is going to waste.
Oh, all Wincest is very much AU. The fact that they've actually gone out to confirm that in canon is at once amusing and dismaying.
Needy, desperate Dean does things to me. Things like triggering rage and annoyance and not anything particularly positive, but it does do things. It wouldn't be so bad, I don't think, if I didn't view that whole dynamic as being directly counter to Dean's character growth and, frankly, not even that in character for early in the series proper. It's not that there's anything wrong with a character being submissive in bed, it's that it's always Dean and so many negative stereotypes are typically read in along with the submissive behavior and it's so contrary to where we're seeing him going that it just kind of breaks my heart. I want Dean to be able to stand alone and be comfortable in his own skin. In so many of those submissive!Dean stories, he's very much unable to do so, he's always off-kilter and unbalanced.
For for the bottom issue, I think it would depend on where you are at in the story when it starts up. I can't see pre-series at all. The concept actually rather squicks me. It can be done well, I've seen it be done well, but thank you, DNW. I don't think Dean would so much have an issue constantly bottoming unless other issues were coming up at the same time. It's sort of like smart!Dean, to my mind. Dean is smart, but he generally ignored Sam's generally teasing snipes when it came to Dean's intelligence right up until S4, when for the first time, we saw that it actually started to annoy him. IMHO, it's a similar concept with this - if he believed that they were generally equals, I think he'd be fine with it. If he was getting the impression that Sam was trying to put him in a subordinate position or was treating him like John did, it would start to rankle and probably would come across as an insult.
I never thought that Dean would have to kill Sam. I'm pretty firmly convinced that they'll both live at the end of the series, especially since there are rumors about season 6. It would be hard to have S6 if they both died in S5, after all.
I do think that Sam as a vessel is still a potential issue to watch out for, but I'm hoping that they don't go there. If we actually got evil!Sam, I'd want to have evil!Sam. The Boy King storyline revisited, not Sam being possessed by Lucifer. They've already played out the "kill me for the sake of the world" issue. They did it with John in DT, they did it with Sam in BUaBS - I'm ready for something else now.
One of my hopes for S5 is for Dean and Sam to really get to know each other. I know I've said it before, but it never fails to strike me how very poorly the brothers really know each other. I mean, superficially, they know each other quite well and obviously they love one another, but their true, core selves? Sam has a terrible impression of Dean and Dean kept putting Sam up on a pedestal, it's why they had such terrible miscommunication in S4. Sam believing Dean to be weak or ineffectual is nothing new, look at his rueful "he means well" comment in Hunted, for instance, when he's talking about why he left Dean in the middle of the night. And Dean? Dean should have been calling Sam out in S3 for his really terrible plans to save Dean's life, not to mention Sam's occasionally rather horrid behavior in earlier seasons.
So, yeah. I'm wanting Dean to get to know Sam, warts and all. And for Sam to really learn to recognize who Dean is - including the strength that has made him uncomfortable in the past.
I do think that Sam as a vessel is still a potential issue to watch out for, but I'm hoping that they don't go there. If we actually got evil!Sam, I'd want to have evil!Sam. The Boy King storyline revisited, not Sam being possessed by Lucifer. They've already played out the "kill me for the sake of the world" issue.
So they've done it in an interesting way - by making consent the issue. And absolutely negating the "kill me for the sake of the world" storyline. Because that won't work. So it's not a repeat.
Plus now we'll have twin storylines with Dean and Sam and the issue of consent.
You write such interesting meta. Even though I don't always agree with you, they're a pleasure to read.
About the EMF meter, I would have mocked if my own brother had made it. It's a big sister's duty! Dean frequently mocks and teases Sam about being a geek or a girl and nobody complains.
On the destiny thing - I don't see Sam as hogging the glory and being jealous at all. I think both brothers have a saviour complex. They both felt guity about different things. Dean saw his rescue from hell as a second chance to get it right after breaking the first seal. Sam saw a chance to turn his tainted blood and past history of being the reason for Mary and Jess' death into something good. Also a chance to make up for his failure to save Dean from hell.
They both grabbed at the chance for redemption.
I agree the Sam-Dean relationship will be fascinating to watch. It has so many layers and boy, the writers have got pretty rich material there. I cannot believe those who claim that this relationship is getting stale.
Thanks for the compliment, even if you disagree. :)
The EMF meter was just one example and if it had been just the one, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. Unfortunately, though, Sam also knocked Dean's ability to do research a couple of times in S1 and was shocked that Dean knew about sirens and read Vonnegut in S4, among a few other examples. To my mind too, there's a difference in teasing someone for being a geek and teasing them about being stupid - the one has a connotation of intelligence to it - it's a good thing to be a geek - the other? Well, you're not going to find anyone who's declaring it's a good thing to be unlearned anytime soon.
I view Dean's teasing Sam for being a girl to be just as neutral an issue as Sam teasing Dean about being butch. That's pretty normal fraternal teasing, in my mind. The main difference about Sam's put downs about Dean's intelligence is that he doesn't seem to get that Dean actually is smart, even if his particular brand of intelligence doesn't mesh up with the world of academia that Sam so admires.
(Please don't take that as a knock against academia either, for that matter. I'm an eternal university student myself and I adore academia and see why it would appeal to Sam but not so much to Dean. However, Sam doesn't seem to have realized that you can be wicked smart without having taken the GREs, if you get what I'm saying.)
Oh, I agree that both of them have a savior complex with Sam's developing mostly around S2 and later on. I think Sam is a delightfully complex character but part of the problem with that is his tendency towards self-denial. He isn't always aware of his own motivations and drives as a result. He can tell himself that he's acting to save everyone and even, on the surface, believe that to be true because he really wants it to be true - but underneath that, it isn't the case at all. IMHO that was very much him in S4: Sam told himself that he was acting to save everyone, but we find out from Pam, Chuck, and even Ruby that it wasn't the case. Sam's actual motivations were much murkier than that.
I don't want to imply that Sam is beyond redemption, but IMHO he has done acts for which he needs to be redeemed. He's a good man, Sam is, and he's enormously more interesting to me in S4 and what we've seen of him in S5 than he was in the previous seasons because we're getting to explore that darkness within him and see him be tempted by it. It's good times and a sign of a great character.
Sam and Dean's relationship is only getting more interesting by the episode as well. We're finally going there, as it were. I don't understand how anyone can say it's boring! All the promised hints and undertones since S1 are boiling to the surface and their relationship is literally fraught with drama. As painful as their break up was for most people, I can't imagine that it would have had nearly so much of an impact had people not been so invested in them. And how awesome is that? The Brothers Winchester are just that compelling!
Take Sam's intelligence, for instance. Sam mocked Dean's EMF reader in Phantom Traveler (one of the first signs we have of smart!Dean). His shock over the concept that Dean could be intelligent in his own right continues all the way through S4 when the fact that Dean reads was apparently rather incredible.
I'd argue that Sam felt comfortable in his identity as "the smart one" for some time; he seems to take pride in it during ASS and the pilot episode and he uses his dedication to his studies as a way to separate himself out from his family (to whom education obviously wasn't as important, just look at the fact that Dean dropped out of high school for comparison). Sam felt very uncertain though about his abilities as a hunter in general. He knew where he stood with his smarts and so took considerable pride in it. With hunting though, the case was significantly different and so he was keen with letting Dean be the "better" hunter between the two of them.
That changed during S3 though. Dean made what Sam would have perceived as a critical error in judgment - he made his deal. And then worse, Dean refused to help Sam save his own life. That planted the seed for Sam to view himself as the better hunter, I think, especially when Sam spent so long by himself and began to focus exclusively on demons. And he was good at it. Good at saving people. Sam says that he was able to save more people using his powers than he had Dean had for months when they were doing it the old fashioned way and I believe him. But Sam's insecurity being what it is, he was unable to accept that both he and Dean could be good at it. It had to be one or the other. And thus, Sam had to be the better one.
I don't think it's so much a matter of seeking glory, but I do think that Sam was addicted to being The One. Sam might have hated what Azazel did to him, but I have to wonder if it soothed some inner complex of his; I mean, it was a compliment, if one that no one really wants to receive, to be called the Boy King. Sam was used to being the center of attention when it came to the Winchester family drama and I don't think he liked sharing that one whit, though I doubt he ever thought that through. From the moment that Dean came back though, Sam automatically assumed that whatever Dean's "destiny" was, Sam was somehow included in that. It wasn't just that God had work for Dean; by 4x02, Sam was talking about the situation in plurals.
Which again, I really think is related to Sam's insecurities. It's why I'm so glad to see him maturing as an individual - it makes it so much easier for him to be able to stand on his own and recognize that it's okay to be strong and it's just as okay for Dean to be strong as well. Sam has always been self-centered and in a twisted way, he had the healthier perspective for quite some time. Dean was selfless to the point of martyrdom and that wound up screwing everyone over. Until S4, Sam's more selfish attitude was very much the better option between the two. He went too far in S4 and now needs to learn to look outside himself and realize the consequences his actions have.
He's making progress in this regard. I think he took a huge step forward when he recognized his own continuing faults in 5x02. I think to a large extent, Sam and Dean didn't really know each other that well prior to this point, for all that they were close and would have died for each other. They both had an idealized version of the other - Dean put Sam up on a pedestal and Sam had an unfortunate tendency to see the worst of Dean. They're going to have to get to know each other now and accept and embrace both the good and bad parts of each other. Which will be painful, no doubt, but will also be pretty fascinating to watch. :)
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It strikes me that Dean only really seemed to get annoyed with that when Sam started to mistake Dean's lack of interest in academics with Dean being... Not stupid (Sam never seemed to think that) but not smart. Combine that with Sam sniping at Dean in other ways, and it's little wonder that Dean starts to get defensive towards the middle and end of S4.
I think you've got a great point about why Sam seemed to look down on Dean. It very much is a parental thing, though given the twisted relationship dynamics of the Winchesters, I think it goes beyond that as well. There was a great meta posted last spring about Sam transferring his strife with John onto Dean after John's death and the Oedipal nuances that are displayed between the three of them and I think this very much plays into that. Sam wanted his father to acknowledge him as an equal (or a superior), but John's death precluded that option. He wanted Dean to side with him against their father when he thought that John was in the wrong, but when he came to understand John and his reasoning better, he wanted to take John's place - and that included having Dean answer to him. Which, Dean being Dean, he was going to reject as a concept.
So there's really two strikes going on here: Sam has the stereotypical teenage rebellion mindset where your parents can do no right and they "just don't understand" but also with Sam's need to control the situation, you've got a large dose of resentment when Dean refuses to capitulate to Sam's leadership.
I agree though, Sam has matured a tremendous amount in the past couple of episodes and I've full faith and confidence that he'll continue to do so. I think Sam's storyline is going to be wicked interesting to watch!
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See, I had no idea that English wasn't your native language! I need to learn to read German for school and I've studied various languages off and on for the past decade. I've a huge amount of respect for anyone who is fluent in more than one tongue!
I'm not sure that I'm all that deep a thinker, but I do like to ramble. :) Please feel free to friend me, I always love meeting new people!
(Do you mean how do you friend someone? I know that if you go into their profile, there's usually an option to Add Friend, if that helps.)
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That was pretty fascinating and twisted end of last season when Sam started remaking the John/Dean relationship and the Winchester family right in front of Dean's nose, with him as John and Adam as him, and leaving Dean out of the picture entirely except as an external onlooker and someone whose commands Adam could ignore with impunity. Talk about triangulating to get the family you really want. Just another version of what the Siren promised.
I like the part about the Oedipal transference - hadn't thought about it that way. You don't have a link to that meta by any chance, do you?
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Which comes across as being awfully negative, but I do get where Sam's coming from with that. The very worst moments in his life were ones where his control was wrenched utterly from him. Dean was tortured in front of him and he couldn't even move to help him, nor could he control his psychic talents enough to TK the Colt to him (which he was even mocked for), John died right in front of him, he was kidnapped in AHBL which lead to his own death, he's been possessed and was forced to kill a man and assault Jo in a pseudo-sexual fashion, he had to watch Dean be literally slaughtered and torn apart by hellhounds, not to mention the dozens and dozens of deaths in Mystery Spot.
All in all, yeah. I'm pretty sure that Sam has good cause for his control freak tendencies, and maybe there's a trust factor involved with that as well. He's learned that he can't trust Dean to keep himself alive, which bleeds into him not being able to trust Dean's judgment?
Which is, ah, all pretty much incredibly OT. Mea culpa - I ramble. :)
I very much see the Sam-Dean-John relationship in an Oedipal manner when they're at their most twisted. Dean did play the maternal role in the family; he raised the kid, did the cooking, John talks about Dean waiting up for him to get home at night to reassure him that things will be okay. And I kind of like that, to be honest; it's not that Dean's effeminate, but I love the dichotomy of this very manly guy taking on these stereotypically feminine roles within his family. It makes him more complex as a character.
Sam and John fit the roles of the warring father and son to a T and it does seem to me that Dean was used as a weapon or a prize in a lot of their arguments. Look at them in Dead Man's Blood - Dean is very much caught in the middle between them and his resigned "here we go" (and the fact that he's perfectly comfortable sending them both into time out) suggests heavily that he's very used to stuck between them both.
In preseries and through S1, Sam seems to want Dean to side with him against their father. He's gratified when Dean does, such as in Salvation. By S2 though, Sam shows signs of wanting to replace their father - look at his actions in Hunted. How is Sam abandoning Dean in the middle of the night and then when they meet up again telling him that they can keep hunting Sam's way or Dean can leave any different than what John did in S1? And he only really grows more into that role as he gets older, for that matter. The natural evolution of that behavior is what we saw in S4.
What's of interest to me though is that Dean was rejecting John's overbearing attitude (and I like John, but if anyone meets the definition of "overbearing" and "unwilling to compromise", it's him) at least from the middle of S1 on, with indications that he'd stood up for himself more than once before the pilot as well. Dean called John out for not bothering to check up on him when he was dying and for being impossible to get in contact with when John started to get uppity about Sam's powers. And Dean likewise shows no hesitation for balking at following Sam's direction and guidance, which itself only becomes more pronounced as time progresses.
It's why I can't buy meta that posits Dean as a doormat, eternally bound to the whims of Sam or John. Dean might be at a certain disadvantage when it comes to arguing with his family, but he'll do so and without hesitation when he feels it's called for.
The meta is Sam vs. Daddy by ahania, btw. :)
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Snort. Yeah, I hate that stuff.
As well as wincest of the eternally bottom Dean variety which is its literary corollary.
I think it is a fundamental misread of the character of Dean.
But people are very attached to it. And you can see already with some critiques and comments on those critiques of early Season 5 Dean that it is making some people very anxious that the Dean who always gives into Sam and puts him first no longer exists. It's like their entire template for Dean has now imploded.
I guess they didn't take Dean seriously in 4.21 when he told Bobby that he'd rather see Sam dead than turn himself into a monster.
It's amazing how 30 years of resisting Hell can help repair even the soft parts of someone's backbone.
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Argh.
I don't do much Wincest because I need several things in place before I'll even buy it as believable and even then it needs to have a compelling story and characterization for me to be hooked. I have read some and enjoyed it, but it's a rare bird for me.
I have less of an issue with bottom!Dean though because I don't equate being the bottom with being the submissive and I can see that Dean might have an issue being the aggressor in a sexual relationship with his four years younger brother. In fact, if Dean IS comfortable with it off the bat, then I'm done with the story. So much of Dean is wrapped up in being the protective older brother that I can't see how him pushing for sex with Sam would be anything but molestation in his mind and frankly that's so far out of character for me that I'll never be able to buy it. And while the aggressor in a sexual relationship =/= the top, I can see Dean thinking that or being worried that he'd hurt Sam and so refraining from topping unless Sam explicitly told him that he wanted it.
Which is probably more than you wanted to know about my thoughts on Wincest.
Anyway, YES. I have seen people since the middle of S4 speaking out against Dean's growing independence and I just don't get it. Since S1, it's been a theme in Dean's story that he was going to learn to break away and stand on his own. How is anyone surprised now that it's happening? It would be like being upset in Smallville that Lex turned evil - it's the entire point of the story! I can understand being upset about it being handled clumsily, but that's definitely not the case here. I'm officially done with the extreme and unhealthy codependence between Sam and Dean, especially since people only seem to require it coming from Dean's side.
And yeah, I think assertive!Dean caught some people off guard just as much as dark!Sam did. People wanted submissive!Dean and sweet!Sammy but you know, the thing is that neither of those tropes actually existed! You had Sam acting sweet on occasion and you had Dean occasionally submitting to Sam or John, but in neither case was it their dominant charactrerization. Sam was snarky and could be cold just as readily as he pulled the puppy eyes and Dean stood up to both Sam and John repeatedly and didn't hesitate to call them on it when they were being idiots. I mean, there's some truth to the myth, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't their be all and end alls, if you know what I mean.
Agreed too about Hell. In fact, that's the whole thing that gets me because Dean knows what Hell is like and he knows that Sam is in danger of damning himself if he is allowed to turn into a monster. S2!Dean didn't know that and so might have stood back and allowed Sam to do terrible things. S2!Dean, IMHO, could not have killed Sam. But S4!Dean? Dude, he's been to Hell. He knows what's waiting for Sam if he allows Sam to go down a dark path. And absolutely he's going to take the lesser of two evils and kill Sam ahead of time if it doesn't look like there's another option.
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I view Wincest as strictly AU since it seems completely non-canonical to me - things like Wee!cest are entirely out of character, IMO.
The thing about bottom Dean as written, though, is that it's often about him being the needy one and the desperate one and the one who will sacrifice everything. So, yeah, I tend to view that as submissive - because mostly all Sam has to do is role those puppy dog eyes and blam.
And it strikes me as entirely OOC, since we saw just how uncomfortable and unhappy Dean was with Sam's attempt to take over leadership in season 4. Dean hated it. Which translates to me that he would not be happy in that role in the relationship.
I also kind of think that Dean would think of constantly bottom Dean as the one who would be submissive, as opposed to the relationship they had for most of canon, which is switching off on who takes leadership and command and who saves whose ass any given day. Until Sam tried changing that up in Season 3 - and it entirely backfired on him.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts on Wincest. Which may be more than you want to know as well.
I'm officially done with the extreme and unhealthy codependence between Sam and Dean, especially since people only seem to require it coming from Dean's side.
Yeah - ITA.
Agreed too about Hell. In fact, that's the whole thing that gets me because Dean knows what Hell is like and he knows that Sam is in danger of damning himself if he is allowed to turn into a monster. S2!Dean didn't know that and so might have stood back and allowed Sam to do terrible things. S2!Dean, IMHO, could not have killed Sam. But S4!Dean? Dude, he's been to Hell. He knows what's waiting for Sam if he allows Sam to go down a dark path. And absolutely he's going to take the lesser of two evils and kill Sam ahead of time if it doesn't look like there's another option.
Yeah, exactly.
In fact, about mid season, I thought that that was what the Season 4 finale was going to be about. Dean having to kill Sam who had become a vessel for Lucifer in order to save the world, as part of his redemption for 10 years of torturing in hell. (That was before we knew about the seal breaking in hell.)
I kept on waiting for Sam to realize how strong Dean was, despite the immediacy of his breakdown, because he had resisted hell for so long, but it never came. I think a certain amount of that - obviously not the killing of Sam because he had become a vessel for Lucifer - but some aspects of what I had envisioned - might take place this year instead. In any case, if Sam is tempted by Lucifer, and I imagine at some point this year he probably will be to some extent because it will make for good drama, before Sam saves himself or stops Lucifer, Dean is going to have to be willing at least to do the deed to stop Sam from worse, as you say above.
And because, otherwise, that potent storyline is going to waste.
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Whoops - probably obvious but that was supposed to say Season 4.
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Needy, desperate Dean does things to me. Things like triggering rage and annoyance and not anything particularly positive, but it does do things. It wouldn't be so bad, I don't think, if I didn't view that whole dynamic as being directly counter to Dean's character growth and, frankly, not even that in character for early in the series proper. It's not that there's anything wrong with a character being submissive in bed, it's that it's always Dean and so many negative stereotypes are typically read in along with the submissive behavior and it's so contrary to where we're seeing him going that it just kind of breaks my heart. I want Dean to be able to stand alone and be comfortable in his own skin. In so many of those submissive!Dean stories, he's very much unable to do so, he's always off-kilter and unbalanced.
For for the bottom issue, I think it would depend on where you are at in the story when it starts up. I can't see pre-series at all. The concept actually rather squicks me. It can be done well, I've seen it be done well, but thank you, DNW. I don't think Dean would so much have an issue constantly bottoming unless other issues were coming up at the same time. It's sort of like smart!Dean, to my mind. Dean is smart, but he generally ignored Sam's generally teasing snipes when it came to Dean's intelligence right up until S4, when for the first time, we saw that it actually started to annoy him. IMHO, it's a similar concept with this - if he believed that they were generally equals, I think he'd be fine with it. If he was getting the impression that Sam was trying to put him in a subordinate position or was treating him like John did, it would start to rankle and probably would come across as an insult.
I never thought that Dean would have to kill Sam. I'm pretty firmly convinced that they'll both live at the end of the series, especially since there are rumors about season 6. It would be hard to have S6 if they both died in S5, after all.
I do think that Sam as a vessel is still a potential issue to watch out for, but I'm hoping that they don't go there. If we actually got evil!Sam, I'd want to have evil!Sam. The Boy King storyline revisited, not Sam being possessed by Lucifer. They've already played out the "kill me for the sake of the world" issue. They did it with John in DT, they did it with Sam in BUaBS - I'm ready for something else now.
One of my hopes for S5 is for Dean and Sam to really get to know each other. I know I've said it before, but it never fails to strike me how very poorly the brothers really know each other. I mean, superficially, they know each other quite well and obviously they love one another, but their true, core selves? Sam has a terrible impression of Dean and Dean kept putting Sam up on a pedestal, it's why they had such terrible miscommunication in S4. Sam believing Dean to be weak or ineffectual is nothing new, look at his rueful "he means well" comment in Hunted, for instance, when he's talking about why he left Dean in the middle of the night. And Dean? Dean should have been calling Sam out in S3 for his really terrible plans to save Dean's life, not to mention Sam's occasionally rather horrid behavior in earlier seasons.
So, yeah. I'm wanting Dean to get to know Sam, warts and all. And for Sam to really learn to recognize who Dean is - including the strength that has made him uncomfortable in the past.
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So they've done it in an interesting way - by making consent the issue. And absolutely negating the "kill me for the sake of the world" storyline. Because that won't work. So it's not a repeat.
Plus now we'll have twin storylines with Dean and Sam and the issue of consent.
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About the EMF meter, I would have mocked if my own brother had made it. It's a big sister's duty! Dean frequently mocks and teases Sam about being a geek or a girl and nobody complains.
On the destiny thing - I don't see Sam as hogging the glory and being jealous at all. I think both brothers have a saviour complex. They both felt guity about different things. Dean saw his rescue from hell as a second chance to get it right after breaking the first seal. Sam saw a chance to turn his tainted blood and past history of being the reason for Mary and Jess' death into something good. Also a chance to make up for his failure to save Dean from hell.
They both grabbed at the chance for redemption.
I agree the Sam-Dean relationship will be fascinating to watch. It has so many layers and boy, the writers have got pretty rich material there. I cannot believe those who claim that this relationship is getting stale.
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The EMF meter was just one example and if it had been just the one, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. Unfortunately, though, Sam also knocked Dean's ability to do research a couple of times in S1 and was shocked that Dean knew about sirens and read Vonnegut in S4, among a few other examples. To my mind too, there's a difference in teasing someone for being a geek and teasing them about being stupid - the one has a connotation of intelligence to it - it's a good thing to be a geek - the other? Well, you're not going to find anyone who's declaring it's a good thing to be unlearned anytime soon.
I view Dean's teasing Sam for being a girl to be just as neutral an issue as Sam teasing Dean about being butch. That's pretty normal fraternal teasing, in my mind. The main difference about Sam's put downs about Dean's intelligence is that he doesn't seem to get that Dean actually is smart, even if his particular brand of intelligence doesn't mesh up with the world of academia that Sam so admires.
(Please don't take that as a knock against academia either, for that matter. I'm an eternal university student myself and I adore academia and see why it would appeal to Sam but not so much to Dean. However, Sam doesn't seem to have realized that you can be wicked smart without having taken the GREs, if you get what I'm saying.)
Oh, I agree that both of them have a savior complex with Sam's developing mostly around S2 and later on. I think Sam is a delightfully complex character but part of the problem with that is his tendency towards self-denial. He isn't always aware of his own motivations and drives as a result. He can tell himself that he's acting to save everyone and even, on the surface, believe that to be true because he really wants it to be true - but underneath that, it isn't the case at all. IMHO that was very much him in S4: Sam told himself that he was acting to save everyone, but we find out from Pam, Chuck, and even Ruby that it wasn't the case. Sam's actual motivations were much murkier than that.
I don't want to imply that Sam is beyond redemption, but IMHO he has done acts for which he needs to be redeemed. He's a good man, Sam is, and he's enormously more interesting to me in S4 and what we've seen of him in S5 than he was in the previous seasons because we're getting to explore that darkness within him and see him be tempted by it. It's good times and a sign of a great character.
Sam and Dean's relationship is only getting more interesting by the episode as well. We're finally going there, as it were. I don't understand how anyone can say it's boring! All the promised hints and undertones since S1 are boiling to the surface and their relationship is literally fraught with drama. As painful as their break up was for most people, I can't imagine that it would have had nearly so much of an impact had people not been so invested in them. And how awesome is that? The Brothers Winchester are just that compelling!
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