SPN 4:14
Basically what I've come to is this:
I read somewhere once that people say that god doesn't answer prayers. What they forget is that no is an answer too. The reason I mention this is because this ep drove some things home for me. The main thing is that I've always raved about the character development on the show, how the boys really do grow and change. I just never thought they'd grow in a direction I didn't care for.
Someone else commented recently that writing a Dean that's not all about Sam is like writing Moby Dick without the whale and that rings so true to me. On Sam's end, I've never, ever doubted that he loved Dean. When he said he wanted out, I heard not that he didn't want to back Dean up, but that he wanted them both to stop hunting. He's said repeatedly that he wasn't going to let Dean die, and proven it time and again. I've always believed that, at least during the series, Sam wanted his Dean with him the same way Dean wanted his Sam with him, both much the way small children want their teddies. The bumps that came were natural and human. I mean, it's hard enough living with someone, much less living in their pocket. I've always adored reading AUs wherein they stop hunting and live in a duplex or somesuch - together, but with enough space to not go crazy.
I'm also not totally on board with the Sam=evil thing that's being set up. I was always raised to believe that an evil deed done in the name of good is still an evil deed, and likewise, a good deed done in the name of evil is still a good deed. Thus far Sam hasn't really done anything evil, to me. Oooh, he can exorcise demons from hosts with his mind, therefore not killing the host. Damn him. I guess it will depend on how it plays out in the future eps, but so far he's only guilty of being a tool and a jackass.
I get that it's a slippery slope, but I would be totally ok if Sam had, say, gone darkside to take Lilith down and drag Dean out of hell. I'm ok with how Sam decided to call Ruby again, at least in my interpretation, because wants to nip this in the bud. He's tired of their family always being casualties and he doesn't want Dean or himself to die years from now when they're too old and tired to do the job any more, or just by sheer bad luck when he can stop it now. It really seemed like he made the choice for himself and Dean, and I am a-ok with that.
I am not so much okay with them both being so estranged and twisted up that they were willing to kill each other for something they knew wasn't real. Yes, Dean is upset that Sam is hiding things and lying to him, but where's the guy who sold his soul to bring his brother back? Yes, Sam had to learn how to deal with Dean's death, but where's the guy who basically tried to kill himself b/c he was so distraught that he couldn't save/resurrect his brother? The reasons they gave were pretty poor reasons (in my opinion) to truly, genuinely try to kill one another.
What they said to each other doesn't really bother me. I'm sure they both meant those things, but haven't we all said things in the heat of the moment that we absolutely meant 100%, but that weren't the way things actually were? You leave, you have a chance to cool off some, and upon reflection think, "Well, that's not really how I feel at all." The threads are there, but it's like focusing in on one thread of a tapestry. Even one color in a tapestry. Yes, they are there, but they don't even begin to approach the whole picture.
They are marvelously complicated boys with a marvelously complicated relationship. I guess I have a problem with reducing them to what seem to be simplistic negative emotions. I think that writing them like that does a disservice to the effort that has been put into the characters by both the writers and the Js.
They have such rich characterization that it is possible to take them out of situations we've explicitly seen and predict how they'd react. That's why fics and authors get kripke'd so often. It really is like knowing someone well enough to know their likes, dislikes, behaviour patterns.
This episode just didn't really ring true to me.
One last thought: we know how the siren appeared to Dean. What did Sam see?
I read somewhere once that people say that god doesn't answer prayers. What they forget is that no is an answer too. The reason I mention this is because this ep drove some things home for me. The main thing is that I've always raved about the character development on the show, how the boys really do grow and change. I just never thought they'd grow in a direction I didn't care for.
Someone else commented recently that writing a Dean that's not all about Sam is like writing Moby Dick without the whale and that rings so true to me. On Sam's end, I've never, ever doubted that he loved Dean. When he said he wanted out, I heard not that he didn't want to back Dean up, but that he wanted them both to stop hunting. He's said repeatedly that he wasn't going to let Dean die, and proven it time and again. I've always believed that, at least during the series, Sam wanted his Dean with him the same way Dean wanted his Sam with him, both much the way small children want their teddies. The bumps that came were natural and human. I mean, it's hard enough living with someone, much less living in their pocket. I've always adored reading AUs wherein they stop hunting and live in a duplex or somesuch - together, but with enough space to not go crazy.
I'm also not totally on board with the Sam=evil thing that's being set up. I was always raised to believe that an evil deed done in the name of good is still an evil deed, and likewise, a good deed done in the name of evil is still a good deed. Thus far Sam hasn't really done anything evil, to me. Oooh, he can exorcise demons from hosts with his mind, therefore not killing the host. Damn him. I guess it will depend on how it plays out in the future eps, but so far he's only guilty of being a tool and a jackass.
I get that it's a slippery slope, but I would be totally ok if Sam had, say, gone darkside to take Lilith down and drag Dean out of hell. I'm ok with how Sam decided to call Ruby again, at least in my interpretation, because wants to nip this in the bud. He's tired of their family always being casualties and he doesn't want Dean or himself to die years from now when they're too old and tired to do the job any more, or just by sheer bad luck when he can stop it now. It really seemed like he made the choice for himself and Dean, and I am a-ok with that.
I am not so much okay with them both being so estranged and twisted up that they were willing to kill each other for something they knew wasn't real. Yes, Dean is upset that Sam is hiding things and lying to him, but where's the guy who sold his soul to bring his brother back? Yes, Sam had to learn how to deal with Dean's death, but where's the guy who basically tried to kill himself b/c he was so distraught that he couldn't save/resurrect his brother? The reasons they gave were pretty poor reasons (in my opinion) to truly, genuinely try to kill one another.
What they said to each other doesn't really bother me. I'm sure they both meant those things, but haven't we all said things in the heat of the moment that we absolutely meant 100%, but that weren't the way things actually were? You leave, you have a chance to cool off some, and upon reflection think, "Well, that's not really how I feel at all." The threads are there, but it's like focusing in on one thread of a tapestry. Even one color in a tapestry. Yes, they are there, but they don't even begin to approach the whole picture.
They are marvelously complicated boys with a marvelously complicated relationship. I guess I have a problem with reducing them to what seem to be simplistic negative emotions. I think that writing them like that does a disservice to the effort that has been put into the characters by both the writers and the Js.
They have such rich characterization that it is possible to take them out of situations we've explicitly seen and predict how they'd react. That's why fics and authors get kripke'd so often. It really is like knowing someone well enough to know their likes, dislikes, behaviour patterns.
This episode just didn't really ring true to me.
One last thought: we know how the siren appeared to Dean. What did Sam see?