SPN Meta: Opening Pandora's Box
I've kind of stayed out of the humungous big arcing meta for Supernatural because frankly, I'm not usually up for the either the discussion (or the wank) that follows, when people have differing opinions -- because OMG! I suck at debate in a big bad ugly way! But in this case, discussion is really no more than a simple disagreement about options and impressions that people are occasionally getting bent out of shape about, which then devolves into character criticisms that get people all worked up, and then it gets personal more or less when actually it's not.
So, why now, when pretty much I've limited myself to comments on other people's journals or kind of non-condemning supposition in my own ep reviews?
One of the arguments I keep seeing presented as a defacto framing for this is the idea of looking at the Winchester family through the lens of normal family dynamics. Now, almost every bit of meta I've seen has given a head nod to the fact the Winchesters are not a normal family and haven't been since that night 23 years ago when Mary Winchester was the first personal casualty in a war the Winchesters didn't even know they were part of. There's a lot of reference to John's military background, and how that became the overall structure he imposed on family life with his sons. Not all the time or even most of the time but utilized when something needed to be done or they needed to move on. All else aside, outside of the freaky-not-normal dynamics of family and lifestyle, the boys are both pretty well adjusted, functionally social if not more. They really do have pretty clear moral compasses (albeit not the same one) regarding interaction with the rest of the world.
So, fair warning, I'm not really trying to cut anyone any slack here as to the majority of individual actions people pin their rationales on. YMMV, and my opinion is my opinion, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Outside of the realm of supernatural, Dean really is like a hundred other blue collar guys I know; full of machismo and bravado, looking for a good time, not necessarily sure they want to settle down but kind of open to the possibility now and again, with passing, fleeting thoughts of wives and children. (And yes, I know Dean verbally eschews all of that but I will quietly point you to Andrea and Lucas and to Cassie -- the idea is there, even if the commitment to follow through isn't just yet.) He's like a guy who works on platform oil rigs or high iron -- a risk taker, but highly skilled. He's got the guts, he's got the clarity of purpose that allows him to do the kind of work he does (and yes, it would translate as well to a cop or an EMT, a fireman.) All of those jobs require a level of skill and focus that most of the rest of the working world doesn't really have to summon up on a daily, hourly basis. These are the same guys who are (stereotypically) close to and extremely protective of their families, the kind that work away from home six months at time and send the bulk of their paychecks back because they don't need much but they can offer much to their families in taking on this kind of work, of being willing to risk it all for fairly substantial returns.
But of course, Dean doesn't do what he does for his family because of monetary gain, but the concept is similar. He offers, by his actions, a certain amount of family security. He is supportive and caring toward their father, protective and nurturing toward Sam and the payoff for Dean is and always will be the fact that his actions kept his family together to some extent -- functional or not and that is and always will be what he wants, and the strongest aspiration of his life.
John, despite being dead and gone, primarily focused on his family's survival: him and his sons, Mary's gift and legacy to him, left in his care. His methods were militaristic and maybe even occasionally harsh, looking toward immediate survival and possibly long term security. In my opinion, despite John and Sam's conversation in Salvation, John actually gave up on vengeance years ago, probably right around the time he started putting pieces together and started to grasp the real threat here -- not only to Sam but to whatever is beyond Sam's immediate necessity to the YED's plans. Dean and Sam are primarily in the forefront of what needs to be kept safe, the part of him and Mary that needs to survive. I would not be surprised to discover that John has been, in the past, very much where Dean is now in terms of trying to slot things into black and white, of good and evil, to keep it simple and clean -- save the good, destroy the bad. We get that John is largely self-taught in the knowledge of all the evils outside of mankind itself that can rise up and take on the innocent (or not so innocent) and the unaware. But he did pick up allies and mentors along the way: Pastor Jim, Daniel Elkins; possibly even Bill Harvelle at one point.
There's a shitload of good theories and rumination on the secret John passed on to Dean, about it's impact on Dean and ultimately on Sam -- I'm still kind of in the camp that the secret wasn't so much a secret as a confirmation of things already presented in canon thus far, indirectly but laid out to be read like rune stones. Dean's running on at the mouth under Andy Gallagher's compulsion that Sam thinks all the kids like him might become killers and Dean admitting he was starting to worry that Sam was right about that was a pretty big rock thrown in a pretty small pond of possibilities.
And I'm not going into the whole debate of whether John made his deal solely to save Dean or in doing so, was trying to fulfill an ultimate goal of saving Sam. I think even had John not known more about the YED's plans for Sam he'd have done it anyway because his son was dying and he was out of options. I have my own theories about John's dismissal of Sam right before those final moments and what that means or could mean. I don't think he did it primarily thinking Dean was a better candidate to keep Sam safe than he himself, entirely. I think he went at it that he was the only one who could save Dean and the rest, after the further negotiations with the YED, was was less fatalistic than passing the torch and once more reiterating his confidence in Dean even if Dean didn't take it that way. I'll come back to this a little later but pretty much, I think John did it to save Dean's life. The rest was afterthought and opportunity.
I'm in the camp that holds that part of Dean's recent rush to judgment and lashing out has to do with him coming face to face with the same kind of grief turned vengeance that John and Sam have both faced and had to deal with in the past. That whole vengeance angle for Dean (again, IMO) up until John's death has been more theoretical than actual. Avenging the death of his mother was not so much a priority in Dean at four -- holding onto what was left of his family was and it carried him up to and into adulthood. So, yes, the idea that if he isn't able to keep Sam safe, he might have to kill him would be a horrible, horrible burden to bear, but I think it says a lot about Dean's already admitted and demonstrated doubts about his ability to keep Sam safe that he's denied it as an absolute until John whispered in his ear.
He believes it now because his father told him it was a possibility, a consequence of approaching this war too passively. It's no longer enough to protect Sam's life, now he has to protect Sam's integrity of person as well, and that's kind of huge. It's never a good idea to have to make choices for someone else when they may be actively resisting that influence and Sam has already shown a remarkable resistance to anyone trying to take his choices away. That's not likely to change and Dean, of all people, knows that.
Plus, John is dead, albeit to save Dean. Something Dean would have done in a heartbeat as well, but he's having a hard time reconciling his father's sacrifice to his own sense of worth, plus being asked to essentially step in his father's shoes regarding Sam's fate. John might have been willing to go head to head with Sam on a lot of things, but Dean's always been the mediator, the negotiator, trying to see both sides -- it's a different role for him to be so absolutely on the opposite side of Sam's will.
Dean's got a smaller window of time here, to work through that whole grief and vengeance cycle, because the shit is starting to fly fast and with John gone, Dean's got no back up -- he doesn't see Sam as that, really. On an individual hunt, yes, but Sam's to ready and willing to launch off on his own for them to ever come to an accord. And Dean can try to change course (let's go to the grand Canyon, or Amsterdam) but Sam is neither a coward nor stupid although he can be dangerously stubborn at times. And some of that comes back to the whole grief and vengeance thing, where Sam and Dean have been so at odds wit each other about who and what needed killing. And I can see that as an extension of the burden Dean is bearing up until the beginning of hunted -- that if he kills everything and anything even remotely evil, maybe he can eliminate them all before the evil comes for Sam, or conversely he can inure himself to the killing of all evil so that he can do what needs to be done when it comes Sam, if it comes to Sam. (not logical or likely, but there is certain frenzy toward desensitization in Dean's actions of late.)
Okay, and here's my off the wall, pulled out of thin air theory regarding the secret -- and I fully admit that part of this probably stems from my dissatisfaction with what was said -- I don't think Dean told Sam everything John said. I think Dean told Sam the consequences of what could happen without telling him the specifics of what he might know. For Dean, it wouldn't be so much lying as it would be getting to the crux of the problem, the burden for himself.
And I say that because both John and Dean have lied to Sam to his face, and directly when Sam has asked them about it. John out and out lied to Sam when Sam asked him in the hospital if he knew what the demon's plans were for him. Dean did the same thing when Sam asked him if their father had said anything to him before he died.
Now before anyone jumps at me with why and how John and Dean did this -- let me say, I get it. For Dean it was a matter of his father giving him information in confidence and the fact he'd had no time to actually process what he'd learned when Sam asked. For John, there could be any number of reasons why he would want to keep that knowledge from Sam, including the fear that Sam's stubborn, independent streak would show itself and Sam would go off to take on his fate or future by himself -- because it would be a very Sam thing to do.
But the fact of the matter is, that despite their reasons, both John and Dean are perfectly capable and willing to lie to Sam when it suits their purposes -- even if that purpose is to protect Sam and ensure he survives. Their reasons make sense to them -- not so much to Sam. I think that's the anger we saw in Sam at the beginning of Hunted -- aimed at Dean, yes, because Dean was right there -- but aimed at his father as well, because Dean was John's proxy.
Right wrong or indifferent, I'd wager that more than half of Sam's anger and the reason why he so often forces confrontations with John or Dean, and why he really is as terrified as he is of his own future and destiny comes out of the fact that his family does not trust him. It doesn't matter why or how that plays out -- that it's done not from lack of love on John and Dean's side but from a desire to protect Sam -- for Sam it comes down to the fact that both his father and his brother have repeatedly lied to him about what they know regarding this horror that has plagued Sam's life since infancy. And even if Dean did tell him everything -- if that was the whole of the secret? Sam has no reason to trust that that's all there is, at all.
The fact that Sam can be self-centered and contrary speaks a lot to this pattern of unspoken approval but very verbal disapproval Sam gets a lot of. Through half of Season one, Dean's on Sam's case about leaving them, leaving the family to go to college -- in Scarecrow he admits that he's actually proud of Sam and admires him. John gives him holy hell about the same thing, and then Sam finds out at one point that John actually had actively planned for both his sons to go to college -- something Sam managed on his own in the face of his father's disapproval and Dean's sense of betrayal.
Seriously, it's a wonder Sam's not a bigger bastard than he can be. His family does not trust him to make the right decisions, they don't even trust him with the information he needs to make informed decisions…I think he gets they do it out of love and concern but seriously? If the two people he admires most in the world, that he loves best in the world, don't trust him -- how can he possibly trust himself to resist whatever evil is percolating in his blood?
But never forget that Sam actually seems to shine and come to his own when he's most in opposition to something. The thing I see is that Sam really does want Dean beside him -- or him beside Dean, taking on all comers, but they have to do it as equals and up until recently, they haven't been. Information has been withheld, decisions about Sam have been made without Sam being part of the process.
Given the show's penchant for parallels, there's some really even and kind of chilling lines being drawn between how the Winchester's deal with Evil and how Evil deals with the Winchesters.
So, I'm going to make another huge theoretical leap here regarding the lines being drawn. Part of my theory regarding hunted is that Ava, either innocently or complicity was sent a vision of Sam's death the same way all other visions appear to be initiated. The point here was that Sam is no good to the YED dead.
Which when you run back to the end of season one, from Shadow to Devils' trap, puts a new spin on what happened. Jess was killed because she was a "distraction" to Sam. I think it highly likely that the idea of isolating Sam from anyone he cares about, or anyone who cares about him, would play very nicely into the YED's hands. It's like cutting an animal from the herd. Isolate them, make them stand alone. Sam's fear of losing yet another person to the YED (and let me wail a bit about Season 2 as yet not dealing with the impact of John's death on Sam as thoroughly as it has on Dean) is pretty obvious, explicit in canon. The likelihood of Sam taking off again is high, not out of stubborn willfulness but to protect Dean AND YES, to do it in his own way, Dean or his father's opinion be damned. He's pretty clear the impact that will have on Dean so he hasn't yet, but given how far Sam will go to protect his brother, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
(Edit: And yes, I know Sam took off on his own, when Dean asked for time. And I get that he knew Dean would be frantic when he realized Sam was gone, and at the same time, I'm still wrestling with the conflict of interest here between Dean, who has been carrying this burden, and Sam's burden which has been watching his brother become a dangerous stranger because he knew something Sam didn't. John's directive or not, Dean made it pretty clear he didn't need or want Sam's help, up to and including the events in Croatoan, and then suddenly Dean's ready to quit and give up. If Sam hadn't been watching his brother self-destruct in front of him over the last few months, it might have been different but it is what it is. Despite the hiatus, the events of Crotoan took place only hours before Hunted. The demon came for them, Sam had visions, Dean is giving up or half crazed...my impression is that Sam thinks they are running out of time and Dean's crisis notwithstanding, they don't have the luxury of waiting. Especially now that Sam knows he's facing possible death at the hands of the person he loves most. So, yeah, I'm not having a ton of sympathy for Dean's request here. For his dilemma, yes, but I think in the face of the constricted time line, he was asking a hell of a lot from Sam. And Sam, in theory, gave Dean time to work it out but he wasn't going to hang around in a coffee shop while Dean did it, not after months of being stonewalled.)
The YED is not omnipotent or omniscient. It does not know everything. Whether Ava is one of the special kids who is just now coming into her abilities or complicit in the action from the start, is up for grabs, but I don’t think it's beyond reasonable theory that Sam would react better to a young woman intervening on his behalf than he would had the YED played it's hand directly against Gordon (which let’s admit, it could have after Gordon killed Scott). So, not dissimilar to Meg, Sam now has someone else to worry about, someone he may think was taken or hurt or used because of him.
Which again, plays into the trust issues. Sam's already full of doubt about himself, now about how honest his father and bother have been with him. It's a wonder he isn't totally impotent in the face of being able to trust himself at this point. But really, Sam is stubborn. Not a quitter, not yet. And we know from Croatoan that Sam's been being tested in some way. Maybe directly in the form of his visions and the demon virus, or maybe indirectly in seeing how far he can be pushed before he breaks.
I do think Dean knows more than what he's said and I'm half way to thinking Ava is not as innocent as she appears. (I'd happily be wrong about that, though.)
I'm holding to my theory that Sam (and the other kids like him) aren't as important as individuals as they are an amalgamated whole, but that Sam may well be the lynchpin or keystone for the YED's plan. (i.e. that something specific to Sam's abilities make him a viable simultaneous connection to all the others like him) and that currently that extends most strongly to those that have crossed that line because Sam did not see Scott's death, because Scott hadn’t killed anyone yet. He did have a connection to Andy's brother Weber, confused as that was, because Weber had, as had Max Miller. I don’t think the visions are actively driven by the YED (unless, like possibly Ava, they've already fallen.) Scott was seeing the YED in his dreams, as was Andy's brother. Max as far aw we know, wasn't, and one could assume that neither was Baby Rose. Plus, intervening to save Baby Rose's mother seems to run counter to what the YED plans.
I think Dean is in more danger of becoming the next target of the YED's attention than Sam is.
I have no great conclusion to draw from all of this, just these observations. I think the lack of trust is a bigger threat at the moment to Sam's survival than Dean realizes. I think it possible that if the breaking point for Sam is that at some point he will kill someone in some manner other than in self-defense it's highly likely that given present circumstances, he's going to be doing it to save Dean, not necessarily from dying but from becoming more deeply enmeshed in this gray mire he's sunk into.
To go back to my initial premise -- The Winchesters are not a normal family. That's pretty obvious. Their moral compasses are intact but they swing differently than most of the rest of the population -- I think even Sam gets that.
I think resolving those moral dilemmas is the crux of what drives the overall arc of the show, and that if Dean wants to save his brother, he's going to have to see and act on that, not because Sam's right but because when Dean falters Sam stumbles.
I know a lot of people had problems with the idea of Sam being "special" and Dean being reduced to the role of protector, but I actually like that structure, because if Dean is all about saving what's good in the world, including his family, and John was all about surviving the evil to continue the fight, then Sam is all about hope. Hope for a future, hope for an end to the conflict, hope that good will triumph and if it's Dean's destiny to keep hope in the world after Pandora's box has been opened and evil released, then I can't think of anything more important or big than that. And I really do think Sam represents all that, stubborn, aggravating, occasionally self-centered in that "I'm not giving up" way.
And all in all, that's not a bad thing for Dean to hold onto at all. But he's got to trust it.
So, why now, when pretty much I've limited myself to comments on other people's journals or kind of non-condemning supposition in my own ep reviews?
One of the arguments I keep seeing presented as a defacto framing for this is the idea of looking at the Winchester family through the lens of normal family dynamics. Now, almost every bit of meta I've seen has given a head nod to the fact the Winchesters are not a normal family and haven't been since that night 23 years ago when Mary Winchester was the first personal casualty in a war the Winchesters didn't even know they were part of. There's a lot of reference to John's military background, and how that became the overall structure he imposed on family life with his sons. Not all the time or even most of the time but utilized when something needed to be done or they needed to move on. All else aside, outside of the freaky-not-normal dynamics of family and lifestyle, the boys are both pretty well adjusted, functionally social if not more. They really do have pretty clear moral compasses (albeit not the same one) regarding interaction with the rest of the world.
So, fair warning, I'm not really trying to cut anyone any slack here as to the majority of individual actions people pin their rationales on. YMMV, and my opinion is my opinion, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Outside of the realm of supernatural, Dean really is like a hundred other blue collar guys I know; full of machismo and bravado, looking for a good time, not necessarily sure they want to settle down but kind of open to the possibility now and again, with passing, fleeting thoughts of wives and children. (And yes, I know Dean verbally eschews all of that but I will quietly point you to Andrea and Lucas and to Cassie -- the idea is there, even if the commitment to follow through isn't just yet.) He's like a guy who works on platform oil rigs or high iron -- a risk taker, but highly skilled. He's got the guts, he's got the clarity of purpose that allows him to do the kind of work he does (and yes, it would translate as well to a cop or an EMT, a fireman.) All of those jobs require a level of skill and focus that most of the rest of the working world doesn't really have to summon up on a daily, hourly basis. These are the same guys who are (stereotypically) close to and extremely protective of their families, the kind that work away from home six months at time and send the bulk of their paychecks back because they don't need much but they can offer much to their families in taking on this kind of work, of being willing to risk it all for fairly substantial returns.
But of course, Dean doesn't do what he does for his family because of monetary gain, but the concept is similar. He offers, by his actions, a certain amount of family security. He is supportive and caring toward their father, protective and nurturing toward Sam and the payoff for Dean is and always will be the fact that his actions kept his family together to some extent -- functional or not and that is and always will be what he wants, and the strongest aspiration of his life.
John, despite being dead and gone, primarily focused on his family's survival: him and his sons, Mary's gift and legacy to him, left in his care. His methods were militaristic and maybe even occasionally harsh, looking toward immediate survival and possibly long term security. In my opinion, despite John and Sam's conversation in Salvation, John actually gave up on vengeance years ago, probably right around the time he started putting pieces together and started to grasp the real threat here -- not only to Sam but to whatever is beyond Sam's immediate necessity to the YED's plans. Dean and Sam are primarily in the forefront of what needs to be kept safe, the part of him and Mary that needs to survive. I would not be surprised to discover that John has been, in the past, very much where Dean is now in terms of trying to slot things into black and white, of good and evil, to keep it simple and clean -- save the good, destroy the bad. We get that John is largely self-taught in the knowledge of all the evils outside of mankind itself that can rise up and take on the innocent (or not so innocent) and the unaware. But he did pick up allies and mentors along the way: Pastor Jim, Daniel Elkins; possibly even Bill Harvelle at one point.
There's a shitload of good theories and rumination on the secret John passed on to Dean, about it's impact on Dean and ultimately on Sam -- I'm still kind of in the camp that the secret wasn't so much a secret as a confirmation of things already presented in canon thus far, indirectly but laid out to be read like rune stones. Dean's running on at the mouth under Andy Gallagher's compulsion that Sam thinks all the kids like him might become killers and Dean admitting he was starting to worry that Sam was right about that was a pretty big rock thrown in a pretty small pond of possibilities.
And I'm not going into the whole debate of whether John made his deal solely to save Dean or in doing so, was trying to fulfill an ultimate goal of saving Sam. I think even had John not known more about the YED's plans for Sam he'd have done it anyway because his son was dying and he was out of options. I have my own theories about John's dismissal of Sam right before those final moments and what that means or could mean. I don't think he did it primarily thinking Dean was a better candidate to keep Sam safe than he himself, entirely. I think he went at it that he was the only one who could save Dean and the rest, after the further negotiations with the YED, was was less fatalistic than passing the torch and once more reiterating his confidence in Dean even if Dean didn't take it that way. I'll come back to this a little later but pretty much, I think John did it to save Dean's life. The rest was afterthought and opportunity.
I'm in the camp that holds that part of Dean's recent rush to judgment and lashing out has to do with him coming face to face with the same kind of grief turned vengeance that John and Sam have both faced and had to deal with in the past. That whole vengeance angle for Dean (again, IMO) up until John's death has been more theoretical than actual. Avenging the death of his mother was not so much a priority in Dean at four -- holding onto what was left of his family was and it carried him up to and into adulthood. So, yes, the idea that if he isn't able to keep Sam safe, he might have to kill him would be a horrible, horrible burden to bear, but I think it says a lot about Dean's already admitted and demonstrated doubts about his ability to keep Sam safe that he's denied it as an absolute until John whispered in his ear.
He believes it now because his father told him it was a possibility, a consequence of approaching this war too passively. It's no longer enough to protect Sam's life, now he has to protect Sam's integrity of person as well, and that's kind of huge. It's never a good idea to have to make choices for someone else when they may be actively resisting that influence and Sam has already shown a remarkable resistance to anyone trying to take his choices away. That's not likely to change and Dean, of all people, knows that.
Plus, John is dead, albeit to save Dean. Something Dean would have done in a heartbeat as well, but he's having a hard time reconciling his father's sacrifice to his own sense of worth, plus being asked to essentially step in his father's shoes regarding Sam's fate. John might have been willing to go head to head with Sam on a lot of things, but Dean's always been the mediator, the negotiator, trying to see both sides -- it's a different role for him to be so absolutely on the opposite side of Sam's will.
Dean's got a smaller window of time here, to work through that whole grief and vengeance cycle, because the shit is starting to fly fast and with John gone, Dean's got no back up -- he doesn't see Sam as that, really. On an individual hunt, yes, but Sam's to ready and willing to launch off on his own for them to ever come to an accord. And Dean can try to change course (let's go to the grand Canyon, or Amsterdam) but Sam is neither a coward nor stupid although he can be dangerously stubborn at times. And some of that comes back to the whole grief and vengeance thing, where Sam and Dean have been so at odds wit each other about who and what needed killing. And I can see that as an extension of the burden Dean is bearing up until the beginning of hunted -- that if he kills everything and anything even remotely evil, maybe he can eliminate them all before the evil comes for Sam, or conversely he can inure himself to the killing of all evil so that he can do what needs to be done when it comes Sam, if it comes to Sam. (not logical or likely, but there is certain frenzy toward desensitization in Dean's actions of late.)
Okay, and here's my off the wall, pulled out of thin air theory regarding the secret -- and I fully admit that part of this probably stems from my dissatisfaction with what was said -- I don't think Dean told Sam everything John said. I think Dean told Sam the consequences of what could happen without telling him the specifics of what he might know. For Dean, it wouldn't be so much lying as it would be getting to the crux of the problem, the burden for himself.
And I say that because both John and Dean have lied to Sam to his face, and directly when Sam has asked them about it. John out and out lied to Sam when Sam asked him in the hospital if he knew what the demon's plans were for him. Dean did the same thing when Sam asked him if their father had said anything to him before he died.
Now before anyone jumps at me with why and how John and Dean did this -- let me say, I get it. For Dean it was a matter of his father giving him information in confidence and the fact he'd had no time to actually process what he'd learned when Sam asked. For John, there could be any number of reasons why he would want to keep that knowledge from Sam, including the fear that Sam's stubborn, independent streak would show itself and Sam would go off to take on his fate or future by himself -- because it would be a very Sam thing to do.
But the fact of the matter is, that despite their reasons, both John and Dean are perfectly capable and willing to lie to Sam when it suits their purposes -- even if that purpose is to protect Sam and ensure he survives. Their reasons make sense to them -- not so much to Sam. I think that's the anger we saw in Sam at the beginning of Hunted -- aimed at Dean, yes, because Dean was right there -- but aimed at his father as well, because Dean was John's proxy.
Right wrong or indifferent, I'd wager that more than half of Sam's anger and the reason why he so often forces confrontations with John or Dean, and why he really is as terrified as he is of his own future and destiny comes out of the fact that his family does not trust him. It doesn't matter why or how that plays out -- that it's done not from lack of love on John and Dean's side but from a desire to protect Sam -- for Sam it comes down to the fact that both his father and his brother have repeatedly lied to him about what they know regarding this horror that has plagued Sam's life since infancy. And even if Dean did tell him everything -- if that was the whole of the secret? Sam has no reason to trust that that's all there is, at all.
The fact that Sam can be self-centered and contrary speaks a lot to this pattern of unspoken approval but very verbal disapproval Sam gets a lot of. Through half of Season one, Dean's on Sam's case about leaving them, leaving the family to go to college -- in Scarecrow he admits that he's actually proud of Sam and admires him. John gives him holy hell about the same thing, and then Sam finds out at one point that John actually had actively planned for both his sons to go to college -- something Sam managed on his own in the face of his father's disapproval and Dean's sense of betrayal.
Seriously, it's a wonder Sam's not a bigger bastard than he can be. His family does not trust him to make the right decisions, they don't even trust him with the information he needs to make informed decisions…I think he gets they do it out of love and concern but seriously? If the two people he admires most in the world, that he loves best in the world, don't trust him -- how can he possibly trust himself to resist whatever evil is percolating in his blood?
But never forget that Sam actually seems to shine and come to his own when he's most in opposition to something. The thing I see is that Sam really does want Dean beside him -- or him beside Dean, taking on all comers, but they have to do it as equals and up until recently, they haven't been. Information has been withheld, decisions about Sam have been made without Sam being part of the process.
Given the show's penchant for parallels, there's some really even and kind of chilling lines being drawn between how the Winchester's deal with Evil and how Evil deals with the Winchesters.
So, I'm going to make another huge theoretical leap here regarding the lines being drawn. Part of my theory regarding hunted is that Ava, either innocently or complicity was sent a vision of Sam's death the same way all other visions appear to be initiated. The point here was that Sam is no good to the YED dead.
Which when you run back to the end of season one, from Shadow to Devils' trap, puts a new spin on what happened. Jess was killed because she was a "distraction" to Sam. I think it highly likely that the idea of isolating Sam from anyone he cares about, or anyone who cares about him, would play very nicely into the YED's hands. It's like cutting an animal from the herd. Isolate them, make them stand alone. Sam's fear of losing yet another person to the YED (and let me wail a bit about Season 2 as yet not dealing with the impact of John's death on Sam as thoroughly as it has on Dean) is pretty obvious, explicit in canon. The likelihood of Sam taking off again is high, not out of stubborn willfulness but to protect Dean AND YES, to do it in his own way, Dean or his father's opinion be damned. He's pretty clear the impact that will have on Dean so he hasn't yet, but given how far Sam will go to protect his brother, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
(Edit: And yes, I know Sam took off on his own, when Dean asked for time. And I get that he knew Dean would be frantic when he realized Sam was gone, and at the same time, I'm still wrestling with the conflict of interest here between Dean, who has been carrying this burden, and Sam's burden which has been watching his brother become a dangerous stranger because he knew something Sam didn't. John's directive or not, Dean made it pretty clear he didn't need or want Sam's help, up to and including the events in Croatoan, and then suddenly Dean's ready to quit and give up. If Sam hadn't been watching his brother self-destruct in front of him over the last few months, it might have been different but it is what it is. Despite the hiatus, the events of Crotoan took place only hours before Hunted. The demon came for them, Sam had visions, Dean is giving up or half crazed...my impression is that Sam thinks they are running out of time and Dean's crisis notwithstanding, they don't have the luxury of waiting. Especially now that Sam knows he's facing possible death at the hands of the person he loves most. So, yeah, I'm not having a ton of sympathy for Dean's request here. For his dilemma, yes, but I think in the face of the constricted time line, he was asking a hell of a lot from Sam. And Sam, in theory, gave Dean time to work it out but he wasn't going to hang around in a coffee shop while Dean did it, not after months of being stonewalled.)
The YED is not omnipotent or omniscient. It does not know everything. Whether Ava is one of the special kids who is just now coming into her abilities or complicit in the action from the start, is up for grabs, but I don’t think it's beyond reasonable theory that Sam would react better to a young woman intervening on his behalf than he would had the YED played it's hand directly against Gordon (which let’s admit, it could have after Gordon killed Scott). So, not dissimilar to Meg, Sam now has someone else to worry about, someone he may think was taken or hurt or used because of him.
Which again, plays into the trust issues. Sam's already full of doubt about himself, now about how honest his father and bother have been with him. It's a wonder he isn't totally impotent in the face of being able to trust himself at this point. But really, Sam is stubborn. Not a quitter, not yet. And we know from Croatoan that Sam's been being tested in some way. Maybe directly in the form of his visions and the demon virus, or maybe indirectly in seeing how far he can be pushed before he breaks.
I do think Dean knows more than what he's said and I'm half way to thinking Ava is not as innocent as she appears. (I'd happily be wrong about that, though.)
I'm holding to my theory that Sam (and the other kids like him) aren't as important as individuals as they are an amalgamated whole, but that Sam may well be the lynchpin or keystone for the YED's plan. (i.e. that something specific to Sam's abilities make him a viable simultaneous connection to all the others like him) and that currently that extends most strongly to those that have crossed that line because Sam did not see Scott's death, because Scott hadn’t killed anyone yet. He did have a connection to Andy's brother Weber, confused as that was, because Weber had, as had Max Miller. I don’t think the visions are actively driven by the YED (unless, like possibly Ava, they've already fallen.) Scott was seeing the YED in his dreams, as was Andy's brother. Max as far aw we know, wasn't, and one could assume that neither was Baby Rose. Plus, intervening to save Baby Rose's mother seems to run counter to what the YED plans.
I think Dean is in more danger of becoming the next target of the YED's attention than Sam is.
I have no great conclusion to draw from all of this, just these observations. I think the lack of trust is a bigger threat at the moment to Sam's survival than Dean realizes. I think it possible that if the breaking point for Sam is that at some point he will kill someone in some manner other than in self-defense it's highly likely that given present circumstances, he's going to be doing it to save Dean, not necessarily from dying but from becoming more deeply enmeshed in this gray mire he's sunk into.
To go back to my initial premise -- The Winchesters are not a normal family. That's pretty obvious. Their moral compasses are intact but they swing differently than most of the rest of the population -- I think even Sam gets that.
I think resolving those moral dilemmas is the crux of what drives the overall arc of the show, and that if Dean wants to save his brother, he's going to have to see and act on that, not because Sam's right but because when Dean falters Sam stumbles.
I know a lot of people had problems with the idea of Sam being "special" and Dean being reduced to the role of protector, but I actually like that structure, because if Dean is all about saving what's good in the world, including his family, and John was all about surviving the evil to continue the fight, then Sam is all about hope. Hope for a future, hope for an end to the conflict, hope that good will triumph and if it's Dean's destiny to keep hope in the world after Pandora's box has been opened and evil released, then I can't think of anything more important or big than that. And I really do think Sam represents all that, stubborn, aggravating, occasionally self-centered in that "I'm not giving up" way.
And all in all, that's not a bad thing for Dean to hold onto at all. But he's got to trust it.