the bitter end
Hey. It's been a while.
I flew the LJ nest over to tumblr long ago, but in case you remember me and are still here, or stumble onto my fic and are curious about what I thought, I figured I might as well tell you what I thought of the finale.
Where to begin.
Dean's story began by being burdened with the responsibility of taking care of his brother while enduring a traumatic event, and ended exactly the same way. He picked Sam up that night and was never allowed to put him down again until the very moment he died. Dean's last words served Sam and Sam alone. Dean was scared and unprepared to die, and yet the words he spoke were essentially a pep-talk for Sam. This is not narrative symmetry. This is not poetic tragedy. This erases, nay spits in the face of, so much of what Dean struggled against for the entire 15 year of the show. And it sends a dangerous, psychologically damaging message to anyone who has ever strongly identified with Dean and the adversity he has faced.
This ending betrays the most basic contract a writer makes with their audience. Over the years, they showed us how damaging Dean's self-worth issues were, and how deserving he was of something more. Yes, he talked about how he expected to die with a gun in his hand, so to speak. He expressed how he expected to die a violent death. But this was never an actual desire. It was cynicism. It was hopelessness, and it was always presented as such. Because we also got to see moments where he expressed a desire for something different, a desire to live life differently, to try new things. The writing told us that the cynical ending that Dean imagined for himself was not the right ending. That he deserved more than that.
Maybe if this whole season had been about defeating Chuck because he was going to destroy the world, and the emphasis hadn’t been placed on how Chuck was manipulating Sam and Dean specifically, and how Dean, ESPECIALLY, was so angry about being manipulated, about not having free will, to take control of his life (which clearly implies that it’s a life he values) then maybe I could have been okay with them dying together to save the world (probably not, but maybe in a narrative sense). But that’s not how it was set up. We were rooting for Dean and his freedom and his life. That was what he was fighting for. And having that for half an episode (a week, maybe two?) only for him to die a random, senseless death isn’t a rewarding story. It’s punishment. It’s Dean being punished for being so foolish to think that his freedom would amount to anything. It’s everyone who loved Dean being punished for thinking that the fight for freedom is worth the effort, because how can it be, if the end result will always be the same? There’s no hope to be found in that.
Dean spent more of his adult life in Hell than he did on earth and a few weeks of freedom is not enough. He dies a death where he is essentially fridged so that Sam can have the real story. And we are also left to wonder if Sam only kept hunting out of a sense of obligation, an obligation that Dean's death finally freed him from. So we are left feeling that this was always Sam's story. Dean's story only existed to serve Sam. Even though Dean was always far more nuanced a character, far more human, far more relatable than Sam ever was.
Dean was the true fighter so many of us identified with, not in the physical sense, but in the psychological sense. He battled so many inner demons. He struggled with guilt and self-loathing and suicidal thoughts, and he persevered. He set an example for so many of the fans who loved him. He couldn't see it, but he was so full of love (how many of us needed to believe that about ourselves, but found in Dean a surrogate for that self-love we were not quite ready to gift ourselves with?). The show even spelled that out for us with Cas's speech in 15x18. But for what? That seemingly endless struggle, what was it all for? To die in a freak accident, and only have your happy ending, your peace, be waiting for you in Heaven? This is such a terrible message. This idea that that life is suffering, and peace only comes in death, is such a damaging one, especially to anyone who suffers from depression or has ever struggled with suicidal thoughts.
In the end, the thesis becomes: suffer. Suffer your whole life and just deal with it because you will be rewarded in heaven. Which is basically the most toxic, manipulative propaganda Christianity ever came up with to bamboozle poor, working class people who deserved a better LIFE. These were two working class boys living on the skids their whole life, fucked over by power-hungry assholes on a regular basis, and we're supposed to think it’s fine that Dean died before he even got to really live because he's in heaven?
Dabb, in his infinite wisdom, thought it would be more fitting for Dean to be killed in the most depressing way possible, exactly how Dean always feared, for Dean’s last words to re-enforce his distorted view of himself as someone whose sole purpose in life was only ever that of a parentified sibling, a boy who never got to have a childhood, who had dreams and desires that he never had a chance to fulfill, which could have given his life so much meaning beyond just raising his brother. And for Dean to be given such a short window of opportunity to make something of his new life is the cruelest fate I can imagine. And it ignores years of complex character building, and reverts the dynamic of Dean and Sam's relationship right back to the pilot.
In the end, they decided Dean was too damaged to find peace in life. So what does that say about those of us who see ourselves in Dean? They really took what could have been a beautiful message about recovery and self-love and finding a place for yourself in the world, the real world, despite years of feeling too damaged to be deserving of good things, and threw it all away.
And now I am left with a hole in my heart and no idea of how i will ever find any hope or comfort in watching this show again. Knowing that Dean's worst fears for himself will be realized, that nothing will ever be given to him, despite how much he gave and gave and gave.
You wanted to know how I was feeling. Well, that's it. So tell me. What could you possibly say to make that all right?