let me make a GREAT impression on my new f-listers!

[pocochina]

(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*

Comments

[nekosammy]

I am one of those people upset by how Sam's been handled since Season 4. I think for me, it just hurts that Dean gets soooooo much focused attention, and all the side characters, and the guest characters, and the Big Showy Drama About his Sad Hang Nail and what not. It's like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, in nearly every episode. It gets to me, I tell ya, it really gets to me. Even in the latest episode, Charlie only interacts with Dean, and even Dean's talking about Sam is meant to illicit sympathy for Dean giving up Benny. There was an article with a round table of critics, and at the end, they were asked if the brothers were drowning, which one would they save? Only one picked both, and I know she's really a Dean and Castiel fan, and all the rest said Dean. One said, what if Sam is the type of person who doesn't even like music? There's so much about Sam we don't know, because Dean has to be the ONE who likes/loves everything in the universe while we still know nothing about what Sam likes. It's like the Death of a Thousand Cuts when it comes to Sam.

I haven't read your articles/comments on Season 7 yet, because I felt like Sam got two hand rubs during Dean's big 14 Episode Arc as Whiny Drunk Asshole of the Year (pretty sure he got at least a plaque for that), and it made me feel like I was going crazy myself. Once Cas took Sam's Crazy, Sam's time in the Cage has been buried and unmentioned. Seriously, Season 7 broke me. It just broke me like no other season has. And I'm not sure what the point has been for this season, exactly, but I guess I'll wait and see what happens. I watched ST:VOY all 7 seasons so I just feel hard-core that way, lol.

I think I've always gotten Sam, so nothing but nothing has made me NOT love Sam at any point. I'm like Oliver Twist, though, I want MORE SAM. What I keep getting is More DeanDeanDeanDean and it kinda drives me batty. @___@

I usually like Element of Nerd characters, no matter how that plays out. Sam has that Element for me. And I've always dug Sam's Low Calm Voice of Reassurance when he's talking to people. Also, Jared does that Emotionally Naked Acting Thing, where it's almost more about how a character IS than a lot of rubber facing for the peanut gallery. I'm very attracted to this kind of acting and not every actor has that quality. Alexis Denisof is another one (Wesley!). And Jared is really doing Sam when he's got his Puppy Eyes on. I've seen Jared on Gilmore Girls and some of his movies, and in none of them does he break out the Puppy Eyes like he does for Sam. Jared does a lot of subtle things to give Sam that Little Brother quality, and to down play his size.

I think for a lot of Sam fans, it's just this sadness that we get so much Dean, but so little Sam, and how this blows up the fandom against Sam in a lot of ways. It's hard to deal with emotionally (no, seriously, it's hard).

[pocochina]

But I just...don't see how anything you described about the show speaks to bad writing for Sam? I think it says something about fandom, that so many people prefer not to look past Dean and his bullying and his overt, obvious antics. I expect someone like Sam to try to deal as privately as he can, and for that stress to come through the cracks in ways that are sometimes subtler. And that's what happens. I'd rather have that not be diluted for the sake of people who are missing the point, you know?

Once Cas took Sam's Crazy, Sam's time in the Cage has been buried and unmentioned.

But that was episode 17, out of...22? 23? That's most of the season, even after the entire trauma-recovery metaphoric arc of S6. I think that Sam putting it as far out of mind as possible makes sense, as does the massive burnout we saw from him in the last few episodes. I don't think it would have been half so effective if we got clobbered over the head with it in a way that wasn't organic.

I mean, I find it hard to handle watching the show sometimes because I feel protective of Sam? But I think those feelings are provoked by the strong portrayal of the terribly unhealthy relationship he has with Dean. Good writing =/= good feelings all the time.