spaaaaaaaaaam
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS
However, going around stealing other people's Laura Roslin prompts is bad form and will get you airlocked with extreme prejudice.
BRAIN. Again, for a lot of reasons, not least of which the shallow one that it's fucking badass.
BUT ALSO. This is my one and only quibble with Sam’s story so far: I really want the show to return to that sometime, and deal with the way the Otherness of the demon power was cast as something inherently bad. The demon blood is unhealthy for Sam, and he made a bad judgment call in trusting Ruby about Lilith, but the ability to deal with a demon threat non-violently and (relatively) easily is just an amoral tool. There’s a lot of telling that his power is bad, and then we see him making a couple of bad calls in using it, but that in no way indicates that the power itself can’t be used judiciously. (You’d think if anyone could get his head around that, it’d be the drunk with the trunk full of firearms. Dean, you sanctimonious prick.)
Cf Ruby's knife, a weapon of at least equally dubious provenance, the use of which is never questioned on similar grounds. Without acknowledgment of that discrepancy, the implication seems to be that mind-power is inherently evil and physical violence is exhilarating and fun. I don't like being told how something is inherently wrong BECAUSE UM BECAUSE, especially when all empirical evidence suggests it is neutral if anything good, and so I like the brain-weapon best because I am contrary.
If anything, it’s the stigma around his condition which isolates him and leaves him susceptible to Ruby’s gaslighting and his own flaws. Until the conversation with Chuck in 4x17, after he’s well and truly dug in, the only conversation anyone will have with him about it is to tell him how WRONG and DIRTY and BAD it - the demon blood condition, not any danger it could pose to him - is and JUST SAY NO, SAM. And Chuck's input, while not unkindly intended or on the mark in other ways, still has its share of "YOU CAN'T DO THAT BECAUSE IT'S WRONG" finger-wagging. He’s smart enough to know that’s bullshit, so all he learns is that he has to make any and all decisions about the demon blood condition on his own. Which sucks, because he’s also smart enough to know that he’s too close to it and can’t. Which leaves him totally vulnerable to the exploitative relationship with Ruby.
....oh.
And, 'cause it's always meta with me. When the guys fight demons in female bodies - especially since sometimes the victims, as they know, are still alive in there - they're still hitting girls, and we're still expected to root for them. Usually, they're doing so with super-phallic guns or knives. The stabbing imagery is always particularly disturbing. I'm not desensitized to male violence against women; I don't particularly care to be. The brain-power doesn't have those connotations, and so it can be a lot more neutral (and therefore enjoyable) for me as a viewer.
I don't really need for Sam to use it again, necessarily, because it clearly takes too much of a toll on him to be a practicable option. And I think the general healing process he's gone through in S7 suggests that he at least isn't carrying and that fear and hate of that part of himself any more. But this is something that bothered me from the introduction of the plot point, and as much as I adore the storyline overall, this part of the way it shook out did leave me a little unsettled.
However, going around stealing other people's Laura Roslin prompts is bad form and will get you airlocked with extreme prejudice.
BRAIN. Again, for a lot of reasons, not least of which the shallow one that it's fucking badass.
BUT ALSO. This is my one and only quibble with Sam’s story so far: I really want the show to return to that sometime, and deal with the way the Otherness of the demon power was cast as something inherently bad. The demon blood is unhealthy for Sam, and he made a bad judgment call in trusting Ruby about Lilith, but the ability to deal with a demon threat non-violently and (relatively) easily is just an amoral tool. There’s a lot of telling that his power is bad, and then we see him making a couple of bad calls in using it, but that in no way indicates that the power itself can’t be used judiciously. (You’d think if anyone could get his head around that, it’d be the drunk with the trunk full of firearms. Dean, you sanctimonious prick.)
Cf Ruby's knife, a weapon of at least equally dubious provenance, the use of which is never questioned on similar grounds. Without acknowledgment of that discrepancy, the implication seems to be that mind-power is inherently evil and physical violence is exhilarating and fun. I don't like being told how something is inherently wrong BECAUSE UM BECAUSE, especially when all empirical evidence suggests it is neutral if anything good, and so I like the brain-weapon best because I am contrary.
If anything, it’s the stigma around his condition which isolates him and leaves him susceptible to Ruby’s gaslighting and his own flaws. Until the conversation with Chuck in 4x17, after he’s well and truly dug in, the only conversation anyone will have with him about it is to tell him how WRONG and DIRTY and BAD it - the demon blood condition, not any danger it could pose to him - is and JUST SAY NO, SAM. And Chuck's input, while not unkindly intended or on the mark in other ways, still has its share of "YOU CAN'T DO THAT BECAUSE IT'S WRONG" finger-wagging. He’s smart enough to know that’s bullshit, so all he learns is that he has to make any and all decisions about the demon blood condition on his own. Which sucks, because he’s also smart enough to know that he’s too close to it and can’t. Which leaves him totally vulnerable to the exploitative relationship with Ruby.
....oh.
And, 'cause it's always meta with me. When the guys fight demons in female bodies - especially since sometimes the victims, as they know, are still alive in there - they're still hitting girls, and we're still expected to root for them. Usually, they're doing so with super-phallic guns or knives. The stabbing imagery is always particularly disturbing. I'm not desensitized to male violence against women; I don't particularly care to be. The brain-power doesn't have those connotations, and so it can be a lot more neutral (and therefore enjoyable) for me as a viewer.
I don't really need for Sam to use it again, necessarily, because it clearly takes too much of a toll on him to be a practicable option. And I think the general healing process he's gone through in S7 suggests that he at least isn't carrying and that fear and hate of that part of himself any more. But this is something that bothered me from the introduction of the plot point, and as much as I adore the storyline overall, this part of the way it shook out did leave me a little unsettled.