warblgrbl days of SPN, day 1(a)
(I don't even remember where I found this meme? Probably I c&p'd from someone on my f-list? whatever.) Mostly these posts are going to be a Sam-fest, she explained helpfully to anyone who might have wandered in by accident.
(1) Dean or Sam?
(5) Season you're most likely to rewatch?
I’m more likely to pop in a particular episode or arc than to sit and re-watch a season. Oddly enough, given how short it is, I’d say that happens surprisingly often with S3 episodes. A lot of the criticisms of the season are fair - it did have a couple of lackluster episodes, and I think the show’s unfortunate misogyny was at its highest concentration. The technical and philosophical issues are drawbacks too great for me to say it was a strong season overall, but I did like S3 as I watched it, particularly because it made me really warm up to Sam. Also it’s been on TNT on Demand. I'm not real proactive with rewatching decisions.
There's totally no thesis here. I just can’t get over how much I love Sam’s arc, and how early and thoroughly the groundwork was set down. This show ultimately has a pretty narrow focus, but what it does, it does right. Almost every episode in S3 season directly lays the groundwork for Lucifer Rising.
So really, the Sam arc starts in AHBL. Even aside from the awesome Hunger Games-esque setup of Part I, I am an absolute sucker for "cage match with yourself" scenarios, and SPN is really good about delivering on that, especially for Sam.
It works because all the other special children are, in some respect, reflections of Sam. Andy's skill is artifice and manipulation; Lily brings death to everything she touches and blames herself for the loss of her girlfriend. They represent the normal facade Sam put up at Stanford, and they're the first two to go. I don't think it's an accident that they die without having killed anyone - past-Sam is blameless for all the big wrongs of his life so far - whereas Ava and Jake have two kills each before they go down.
Ava and Jake are both what Sam (rightly, it turns out) fears he will become. Unlike Lily, Ava's dead fiance is incidental to her turn to the dark. She kills because she perceives herself in a kill-or-be-killed world, but she becomes a killer because she starts to enjoy it. Sam relates to those impulses, and he keeps them in check with discipline, and dedication to a greater purpose; naturally, Jake ends Ava.
Jake, the rigid soldier; Jake, who ran so far to avoid slotting into his father's place. This is still what Sam thinks of as "strong," implying that the Sam who had the shot to kill Jake and didn't was weak. The conscious objections to the win/lose mentality his upbringing drilled into him were enough of a strain for him before being so brutally refuted.
This plays on his issues left over from the end of S1. Sam can at least contextualize his choice not to kill the YED with the fact that - it was his fucking father. It doesn't matter whether he should or shouldn't have taken the shot, that's just asking too much. But he doesn't know Jake from Adam. (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) He doesn't have an emotional connection to Jake; he had every rational reason to kill the guy. And where did that act of principle get him? Murdered. Dean's going to hell, because Sam let his guard down. The mouth of hell opens, because - Sam thinks - he let it happen.
Whatever his other flaws, the poor boy does always try not to make the same mistake twice.
Sam emptying that clip into Jake is cold, sure, but that's not why it's so scary. Sam finishing off the last of his fellow Special Children - the one he got along best with, the one he identified and cooperated with most readily - is a calculated, violent act of self-destruction. On a narrative level, there's nothing left of the old Sam.
Except the feud with Azazel, and even that's not his. S3-4 is a clever replay of all of Sam’s unresolved issues with the YED. Azazel also came after Sam himself and took one of Sam’s family members from him. Sam’s spent his whole life conflating the righteous fight against evil, an outlet for grief over lost loved ones, fear over threats against himself, and bristling tempestuous anger at his powerlessness. He'll see Lilith as an opportunity to even the scales (morally, emotionally, in terms of personal power) on the fact that he didn’t kill the YED when he had a chance, and Dean did. Sam's (usually unconscious, often substantiated) perception of Dean as an impediment to his agency in such conflicts is almost the first thing Sam picks up on after his resurrection, and it'll set the tone for their interactions from here on out.
I was putting off posting this because it didn't really have an ending, and then I remembered that's stupid. S3 starting tomorrow, ish.
(1) Dean or Sam?
(5) Season you're most likely to rewatch?
I’m more likely to pop in a particular episode or arc than to sit and re-watch a season. Oddly enough, given how short it is, I’d say that happens surprisingly often with S3 episodes. A lot of the criticisms of the season are fair - it did have a couple of lackluster episodes, and I think the show’s unfortunate misogyny was at its highest concentration. The technical and philosophical issues are drawbacks too great for me to say it was a strong season overall, but I did like S3 as I watched it, particularly because it made me really warm up to Sam. Also it’s been on TNT on Demand. I'm not real proactive with rewatching decisions.
There's totally no thesis here. I just can’t get over how much I love Sam’s arc, and how early and thoroughly the groundwork was set down. This show ultimately has a pretty narrow focus, but what it does, it does right. Almost every episode in S3 season directly lays the groundwork for Lucifer Rising.
So really, the Sam arc starts in AHBL. Even aside from the awesome Hunger Games-esque setup of Part I, I am an absolute sucker for "cage match with yourself" scenarios, and SPN is really good about delivering on that, especially for Sam.
It works because all the other special children are, in some respect, reflections of Sam. Andy's skill is artifice and manipulation; Lily brings death to everything she touches and blames herself for the loss of her girlfriend. They represent the normal facade Sam put up at Stanford, and they're the first two to go. I don't think it's an accident that they die without having killed anyone - past-Sam is blameless for all the big wrongs of his life so far - whereas Ava and Jake have two kills each before they go down.
Ava and Jake are both what Sam (rightly, it turns out) fears he will become. Unlike Lily, Ava's dead fiance is incidental to her turn to the dark. She kills because she perceives herself in a kill-or-be-killed world, but she becomes a killer because she starts to enjoy it. Sam relates to those impulses, and he keeps them in check with discipline, and dedication to a greater purpose; naturally, Jake ends Ava.
Jake, the rigid soldier; Jake, who ran so far to avoid slotting into his father's place. This is still what Sam thinks of as "strong," implying that the Sam who had the shot to kill Jake and didn't was weak. The conscious objections to the win/lose mentality his upbringing drilled into him were enough of a strain for him before being so brutally refuted.
This plays on his issues left over from the end of S1. Sam can at least contextualize his choice not to kill the YED with the fact that - it was his fucking father. It doesn't matter whether he should or shouldn't have taken the shot, that's just asking too much. But he doesn't know Jake from Adam. (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) He doesn't have an emotional connection to Jake; he had every rational reason to kill the guy. And where did that act of principle get him? Murdered. Dean's going to hell, because Sam let his guard down. The mouth of hell opens, because - Sam thinks - he let it happen.
Whatever his other flaws, the poor boy does always try not to make the same mistake twice.
Sam emptying that clip into Jake is cold, sure, but that's not why it's so scary. Sam finishing off the last of his fellow Special Children - the one he got along best with, the one he identified and cooperated with most readily - is a calculated, violent act of self-destruction. On a narrative level, there's nothing left of the old Sam.
Except the feud with Azazel, and even that's not his. S3-4 is a clever replay of all of Sam’s unresolved issues with the YED. Azazel also came after Sam himself and took one of Sam’s family members from him. Sam’s spent his whole life conflating the righteous fight against evil, an outlet for grief over lost loved ones, fear over threats against himself, and bristling tempestuous anger at his powerlessness. He'll see Lilith as an opportunity to even the scales (morally, emotionally, in terms of personal power) on the fact that he didn’t kill the YED when he had a chance, and Dean did. Sam's (usually unconscious, often substantiated) perception of Dean as an impediment to his agency in such conflicts is almost the first thing Sam picks up on after his resurrection, and it'll set the tone for their interactions from here on out.
I was putting off posting this because it didn't really have an ending, and then I remembered that's stupid. S3 starting tomorrow, ish.