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

[pocochina]

I thought he would man up and take care of Sam when Sam should have felt free to let go and suffer out loud a little bit. Instead, Dean Suffers out loud. I think it's that there was an overt push to make people feel sorry for Dean, but no similar and equal push for viewers to feel sorry for Sam, and empathize with Sam on that same level.

hm. Yeah, and again (this might be an author-is-dead reading, but w/e) this strikes me as appropriate characterization. Someone with Dean's personality type doesn't react to a sustained struggle with sensitivity and patience. They feel REALLY CONCERNED, OH MY GOD, SO WORRIED when a crisis hits fever pitch that interferes with THEIR life and self-construct as Someone Who Cares. And then as soon as they can ignore it, they distance themselves by setting up a situation where they are ENTITLED to ignore it, because things are so hard for THEM, which puts the onus on the person who is still in crisis to hold their hands as much as possible. So then Dean's spiral becomes, in Dean's POV, ALL SAM'S FAULT for being traumatized AT HIM and not having the emotional resources to pull Dean out of HIS spiral, for MAKING Dean WORRY like this, GOD. And that's a really realistic dynamic; one that I was impressed the narrative could show at all. I'm not saying people *should* buy it, I'm just not surprised that they do.

the audience can over look how Dean treats Sam and other people is because they put Dean in the pole position, as if Dean is the moral center of the show, and not this abusive monster who uses people.

hmmm. Admittedly, I am pretty firmly in Sam's POV, and when not his then Castiel's. So I'm not sure what anything post-S2 looks like from behind Dean's eyes, if a viewer who's situated there has any perspective markers. But like. I don't think this comes from a "Dean gets good things as a just reward for being good" place. I think it's (a) Dean's POV, that if he admits that he is anything other than 100% ~tortured, dutiful, reluctant champion of righteousness, then his world falls apart because he's such a black-and-white thinker. Even if he only cops to 90% those things and 10% self-interested asshole, it undermines his identity in a huge way. So he ends up coming all the way around and making his perception on others 100% rooted in his (totally selfish) preservation of his self-image. Understandably, maybe, given his messed-up life, but seriously ugly. And (b) the narrative knows what an unflattering thing it's doing, and so if it lets us forget for a MOMENT how HARD Dean has it, how NO PAIN IS LIKE HIS PAIN, then we will realize what a dick he is and he is presumably likely to lose a lot of sympathy.

Obviously I don't take that perspective? I like Dean best when it's acknowledged who he is and the mental backflips he's doing. But I think Sam is both the better-loved and easier-to-love character in terms of narrative, because it's not constantly trying to use the quickness of the hand to trick us into sympathizing with him.