(I actually assume we've all done our due diligence and nobody will be particularly surprised by my, um, opinionated tone! But I do usually put a little more thought into posts than this, ftr. And also, this is an SPN post but HI to all new people! *tackle-glomps*)
I was going to write a thoughtful response to a set of complaints I saw tonight* about Sam's arc. And maybe someday I will, or at least I will try and do some justice to why Sam has one of the best character arcs I have ever seen this side of Gaius Baltar and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce but it occurred to me that that's the kind of thing better done from a place of positivity than reactivity, and also I remembered this West Wing quote:
DONNA: Yes, Mr. I-Balance-My-Checkbook-Every-Month-and-Pay-My-Bills-On-Time-and-Don't-Ever-Bounce-Checks.
JOSH: Everything you just said in there was a good thing and just by saying it like Ethel Mertz doesn't make it...
(The West Wing, Swiss Diplomacy)
and it took the wind straight out of my sails, because how could I say it better?! NOBODY THROWS SHADE LIKE LYMAN.
- "Sam gets held accountable for his decisions!" is not a complaint about a character arc. It is a COMPLIMENT to a character arc.
- "Sam wants something he has always wanted but could never have!" is not a character inconsistency.
- "Sam didn't react to losing Dean in S7 the same way he did in S3" is also not a character inconsistency. It is - given everything that happened when he did what he did that first time around - evidence that he is not half as brain-damaged as he probably should be.
- "Sam's issues don't get as much attention as Dean's!" Well, Sam doesn't sulk and lash out like Dean does. Which, YAWN, seen it.
- "Sam didn't react to being shut in the cage! He just went soulless for a year and a half and then spent a year fighting off psychosis" just makes me spit nails. I don't get how people don't think Soulless was a gem of a metaphor for what sometimes happens to people after trauma; I think it makes perfect sense that he was a little bit too obliviously okay before the Epic Meltdown in a moment of crisis, and then.
"His issues didn't get dealt with in S7!" S7. I know I project my anxiety issues all over the place, but I don't understand how you can look at Sam throughout S7 and not see that he was struggling just to keep his head above water. And I don't think you can say "oh, the fix was a cop-out." No, it wasn't a cop-out. It worked like, well, psych meds - Sam did what he could, for as long as he could, and he needed something to take away the worst of his present symptoms so he could recover.
That was an amazing trauma recovery story, and it was heartbreaking, and it was oh my god so fucking brave that this show openly acknowledged its big strong male action hero as a sexual assault survivor, and respected the fallout from that experience while not allowing it to overshadow the rest of his life. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen narratives do this well, and this is the ONLY one I can think of that has done so while challenging to the very core some of its own fundamental assumptions about American masculinity. But yeah, tell me more about how it was boring.
And the fact that these things happen subtly sometimes is ALSO not a writing flaw. It means that Sam is a well-characterized introvert who doesn't constantly give the h/c money shot that people seem to think is the ONLY way people deal with trauma, and so he doesn't adequately appeal to that prurient urge to WATCH him SUFFER. I'm into fic, and fic tropes, and I think it's great that people work things out through our characters and can do so with an understanding that it doesn't have to be Great Drama. I just think that there's this new thing where we're starting to hold the fic h/c torture porn tropes up as the touchstone dramatic standard for the show. NOT HELPING.
I genuinely don't understand why fans of the character get disappointed when he is all INTERESTING at us and shit?
I don't think that a character is being abused by the writers if the writers are unafraid to show the character in a negative light. I think it shows a lot of confidence and love for a character to put his flaws on display like Sam's and trust that he will remain sympathetic. Just because you attach those sentences to a complaint about THE WRITUUUUUUUUUURZ does not make any of those bad things. THOSE ARE ALL GOOD THINGS.
Y U MAD?! Seriously. Why?
Honestly, I think what people are really responding to when they say "I love Sam but his arc sucks" is the fact that sometimes when people disagree with or criticize Sam-the-character, they have a point, if not something that can be ascribed to Sam fucking up, then at least to unrelated but legitimate (or even merely understandable) concerns on the part of other characters. Like he has to be all things to all people, while still being a dynamic character who doesn't ever actually change, and anything less is just a STRAIGHT-UP INSULT. This just in: human beings cannot be that. And if a human being cannot be it, then a well-rounded human character with depth SHOULD NOT be it. Also just in: there are real human beings who hold others to that particular impossible standard. These people are known as "dicks." They are and should be adequately represented in fiction as well!
WELL DONE, SPN.
I'm not saying there aren't philosophical issues - big ones - which become particularly evident through Sam's arc. I do, of course, get touchy and pissy with negative fandom reactions to Sam, because levels of Sam-hate are strongly correlated with willingness to embrace and celebrate abusive behavior and general being WRONG on the INTERNET. But Sam is fantastic and his arc is brilliant.
*It feels a bit unfair to link the precipitating post, because my frustration has been clearly building for a while, but I'm sure you've seen it going around. I can point anyone that way, though, I do have the link.**
**OBVIOUSLY I don't mean any of you; if you can stand to read my journal for five seconds I very much doubt you see the show this way. Which is why this post is f-locked for the moment but may not remain so.
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