SPN meta: Dean and His Deal
Dean and His Deal
Why he made it, what it's done to him, and whether he'd do it again
We're coming up on the end of Dean's year, and we've had fifteen episodes to find out how he handles living under a death sentence. Before Our Darling Show closes the book on this chapter, I'd like to throw in my summary of what this arc has meant for Dean's ( Read more... )
Why he made it, what it's done to him, and whether he'd do it again
We're coming up on the end of Dean's year, and we've had fifteen episodes to find out how he handles living under a death sentence. Before Our Darling Show closes the book on this chapter, I'd like to throw in my summary of what this arc has meant for Dean's ( Read more... )
I'm joining the ranks (of 2) who maintain John did not know whence demons originate when he made the deal. Remember that he was originally dealing not for his life, but for the Colt, and Azazel insisted on the higher ticket item. I can't imagine that John thought he was giving up anything more than his own life.
Speaking of examples, though, remember too that John had decided (apparently some time before he deserted Dean to go demon-hunting) that he no longer cared if he survived the encounter with the YED, so long as Mary was avenged. I think because his boys had grown up (whether or not they were together) and he had already spent half his life hunting the sumbitch, he had decided that the hunt was *worth* his own sacrifice. Which is another subconscious factor pressing on Dean. (Not that John would equate his sacrifice with his boy's, but you're absolutely right: Dean would.)
But finally to this point, regarding opening the Gate and/or Dean finding a way out of Hell...even if he does, he's still *dead*. John escaped, and clearly hadn't been demonified (shut up, I'm verbing) yet (and according to Ruby, demonification is a process that seems to take years, decades, maybe even centuries), but once Azazel was dead, he went to the glowy place. So while clawing his way out of Hell pre-demonification is an option that may save Dean's soul, ultimately, it doesn't actually save his life.
I wasn't fully convinced that Dean actually wanted domesticity until DaLDoM.
I'm still not. Yes, he clearly has some fantasies, now, but I think they're not just about domesticity. I think they're also about "growing up" a little, if that makes sense, about having people around who care (besides Sam, he doesn't "count") and who will remember him fondly when he's gone. It is significant because TKAA and DALDOM are the first times we see him consider "normal" - the "normal" that he's always teasing Sam for desiring - but by the same token, the single image with Lisa and the extended fantasy life with Carmen still don't add up, to me, to Dean wanting to settle down.
I think it's a product of feeling his own futility (in WIAWSNB) and his mortality (in DALDOM). I'm not sure we can hold him to these fantasies, especially the latter since it's something of a dying man's conversion.
And yes, Sam is a scary bastard. Dean has always had an incredibly strong moral center, and Sam, for whatever reason, tends to blur the lines more readily than Dean does. Perhaps it's what drew him to law. ;^D But it's probably a product of Dean sheltering him so much (and yes, I say Dean, because I think Dean was more responsible for Sam's naivety for longer than John was, but that's a whole other meta). John obviously raised them both to believe that saving people was of paramount importance, and that the job they did put them on the front lines between civilians and the supernatural, but Dean is the one who embraced that lesson. Sam is much more pragmatic when it comes to fudging moral ground for expedience; Dean only does it in extreme circumstances. Sometimes I think Sam thinks he can outsmart just about any situation - and that makes him dangerous.
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I tend to look at both of them as "the road not taken" sort of fantasies. If normal folk dream of being heroes, doesn't it make sense that on the flip side, heroes dream of being normal folk sometimes? Especially under extreme duress(and I think we can say Dean has been under extreme duress both this season and last season). Jensen was asked about the Lisa dream at LA Con I think and unfortunately I can't remember exactly the words he used but he said he didn't play the scene with the intention in mind that this is what Dean really wants.
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God, I'm so tired of this fucking Sam bashing I could puke! No-one o these guys are perfect, not by a long shot. But the more Sam is bashed, the more I'm staring to like him. And vice-versa with Dean. I so gotta leve this fandom *cackles*
Yes, Sam is evil, amoral, stupid and a bastard because he considered the solutions of a willing virgin's sacrifice. While Dean had his heart set on saving said virgin. I doubt he'd be so willing if the woman was 55 and well lain *rolls eyes* Jeez!
And we now the results of said decision, don't we? The virgin died anyhow.
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I think Sam is, at heart, more his father's son in a lot of ways than Dean - for Dean, for a long time, John was a "superhero," and I get the impression that he meant more of a Superman than a Batman. For Sam, John has always been flawed, but he nevertheless inherits John's single-mindedness and his willingness to bend the rules for the sake of the goal.
That's not bashing the character, that's discussing what's making him more morally questionable. The areas in which Dean "fails" to adhere to a societal standard are largely self-reflexive--except where they have to do with Sam. The areas where Sam "fails" to adhere to societal standards have much, much more to do with expedience.
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I suspect that was why he was so desperate to not become what he do desperately didn't want to become. But in light of Dean's deal - he will go to any length to save his brother. And that will be amoral and I can just see the shit Sam's gonna get for it. Sam's in a situation of lose/lose and the sad thing is that someone else put him there. If he doesn't save Dean, he's an unloving, selfish dipshit, if he saves Dean and goes darkside he's a amoral bastard.
That, per se. must already be hell.
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I disagree. The whole point of JiB was that it's *never* acceptable or necessary to willingly slaughter even if it's for the good of the "many." The only error in Dean's plan occurred by letting the one demon escape and even then, Lilith already knew where they were and was on her way. They had no control over her murders; they resolved the situation and at the time they left, they had saved *everyone* including Nancy. The Lilith effect would have been the same no matter what.
Here's a rather lengthy, but appropriate, section from bardicvoice's meta on JiB:
Moral and ethical choice lie with each of us. That our enemies may have no moral code does not absolve us of the need and duty to remain true to our own. If we abandon our code because it is inconvenient, because it is painful, or because it is costly, then we abandon ourselves. And it can’t be reduced to a simple numbers game, to some arbitrary ledger and balance sheet of lives saved and lives lost. What we choose to do, and how and why we do it, matter. Between them, Dean and Henriksen both said it: We do have choices. We don’t sacrifice people. We do that, we’re no better than them. Your choice is not a choice. That doesn’t mean that we throw away the rulebook and stop acting like humans! If that’s how you win wars, then I don’t wanna win. There are times when the price of physical survival is spiritual suicide, and that price is too high to pay; just ask Dean. Yet that’s exactly the price I see Ruby demanding from Sam.
The unacceptability of the equation wasn’t offset by Nancy’s willingness to be sacrificed, either. Yes, soldiers in wartime may choose to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to take out a stronghold of the other side, and in so doing save others of their comrades, and we call that noble. I would submit, however, that it’s something entirely different to agree to the deliberate murder of one of your own, and someone who’s an innocent, not a soldier for the cause, in order to use her death to kill your foes. The choice to kill your own for tactical advantage is abhorrent.
Regarding Sam's "deterioration" to save Dean...I think it's important to note that when he says he needs to become more like Dean, what he means is more like the way *he* sees Dean. That's different from what Dean actually is. Dean has always had bright, hard lines around human vs. monster. That Sam's lines are blurring, and more importantly that he seems to be actively justifying that degradation of those lines, is troublesome.
For the record, I don't for one minute think that he's unloving or selfish if he can't save Dean. It's not like he didn't buy Dean ice cream. We're talking about Hell. About forces that have had millennia to grow more powerful than Sam dreams of becoming. Whether or not he taps into his demonic powers, not being able to save Dean wouldn't ever be a "fault" we could lay at his feet.
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Dean lives according to these rules in a para-society of hunter:
Kohlberg's stage 4
[i]In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three; society must learn to transcend individual needs. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones.
The rules were set by John and Dean never questioned them until 2.03 - Bloodlust. He was ready to kill even if the vampires sacrificed only animals. Thus he was a fundamentalist in his view of the 'monsters'. He's the same reguarding Ruby, where Sam is much more villing to see diferent sides of said monsters.
Sam lives in
Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way (see Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'[13]). This can be done by imagining what one would do being in anyone's shoes, who imagined what anyone would do thinking the same (see John Rawls's 'veil of ignorance'[14]). The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it.
Sam was willing to sacrifice himself, he asked sam to kill him. He killed a vamprie because she asked for it. If she hadn't I doubts he would have because he was already making plans how to let her live, despite being one of the monsters. Nobody is constantly in stage 6, but Sam's reasoning is much more close to these principle that absolute rights and wrongs. If not adhering to societal norms he finds wrong, like killing in the two mentioned eppys, it's because he finds the norms and law unjust. He sees beyond Dean's black and white world, and that is because he sees beyond his father's rules.
Is it bastardly? Not in my eyes.
Insertions from Wikipedia
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