resilience: the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens

[juppschmitz]

I have this idea that Sam is resilient, Dean isn’t. Then again I might be wrong, or it’s not as simple as that. Maybe both are a bit of both. Maybe it depends on your own point of view.

My instinct goes with Dean not being as resilient as Sam, though.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Comments

[juppschmitz]

... but somehow he still keeps going, still keeps fighting, even though he’s basically just one big walking open wound.

Yes, this exactly! I wonder so often HOW he actually manages to go from one day to the other.

And yes, I totally see what you're saying about Sam. I think it was in one episode in s7 (don't remember which one) where Sam says something about how feels good, like he has atoned for releasing Satan by doing his time in Hell.

This just always makes me feel so bad for Dean, because where Sam did something bad, and got the "opportunity" to atone, Dean never really did anything he needed to (massively) atone for until AFTER he was tortured into doing something horrible. So, in a manner of speaking, it's reverse compared to what Sam's experience was. What was atonement for Sam - being tortured in Hell, was for Dean the catalyst for becoming the torturer, and being "saved" from Hell left him with the knowledge that there will always be this open tab.

And even up to now Dean probably - like you were saying - feels there's never enough good he can do to make up for those ten years in Hell.

"Perseverant" is a brilliant way to describe Dean!

(btw the definition I was using for resilience is from Webster Merriam. Very concise, I know, but all I needed to make my point. Or rather, question :D)

[hunenka]

Yeah, that conversation about atonement was in Defending Your Life.

The trouble is, I don't think Dean only feels guilty about those ten years in Hell, or about the people he couldn't save, or the times he hurt his loved ones. I think Dean believes that being a hunter has turned him into a lesser person. "I ain't a father, I'm a killer," he told Veritas. "I think my job turns me into someone who can't sit at your dinner table," he told Ben. He thought Purgatory was pure, and a part of him clearly misses that simplicity of "killing with no consequences."

He might not be the most self-reflective man out there, but I'm sure he's fully aware of all these things about himself. And that's what makes him think there's no hope for him. (Though he doesn't seem to think the same goes for Sam. But then again, Dean almost always has more faith in Sam than in himself.)

[juppschmitz]

(Though he doesn't seem to think the same goes for Sam. But then again, Dean almost always has more faith in Sam than in himself.)

Well, if that's not the truth.