Oh yes, Dean is my hero.
I was doing some reading *cue music of doom* for my final paper in Women in Lit and Film about fairytales/folklore and this contrast between the classic or mythic hero and the folktale hero that keeps coming up in a few different texts sparked a few thoughts on SPN.
According to the texts that I've been reading, the mythic hero (you know, him- hero of a thousand faces- Oedipus, Odysseus, Moses, Siddhartha, David, Superman, Spiderman, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, etc.) follows a certain story pattern called the journey of the hero and as a myth, this story address grand, sacred, and universal human concepts and struggles. (This part I actually knew from Freshman English-- HS Freshman English-- when we studied the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey plus the Wizard of Earthsea.) Meanwhile, the folktale hero and the folktale is specific, secular, and local. To quote: "The mythic hero is world-historical, representing macrocosmic human triumphs, whereas the protagonist of the fairy tale achieves domestic, microcosmic triumph-- a personal victory."
Now, the way this relates to SPN is that I think that Sam is a mythic hero while Dean is a folktale hero. Later, when I'm not so busy (and know more about the features of a folktale hero so I can do a fair comparison), I'll develop this further, but it was just a thought that, I think, considering the themes of SPN might be on some kind of track.
According to the texts that I've been reading, the mythic hero (you know, him- hero of a thousand faces- Oedipus, Odysseus, Moses, Siddhartha, David, Superman, Spiderman, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, etc.) follows a certain story pattern called the journey of the hero and as a myth, this story address grand, sacred, and universal human concepts and struggles. (This part I actually knew from Freshman English-- HS Freshman English-- when we studied the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey plus the Wizard of Earthsea.) Meanwhile, the folktale hero and the folktale is specific, secular, and local. To quote: "The mythic hero is world-historical, representing macrocosmic human triumphs, whereas the protagonist of the fairy tale achieves domestic, microcosmic triumph-- a personal victory."
Now, the way this relates to SPN is that I think that Sam is a mythic hero while Dean is a folktale hero. Later, when I'm not so busy (and know more about the features of a folktale hero so I can do a fair comparison), I'll develop this further, but it was just a thought that, I think, considering the themes of SPN might be on some kind of track.