so how 'bout those SPN ComicCon spoilers?

[pocochina]

SPOILERS, obviously. tbh very little we couldn't have guessed from what we've seen, this is mostly about S8, but for the purists out there, don't click.

Comments

[percysowner]

I actually don't think John would've killed him, though. To be brutally dispassionate, John had the shot at Sam. He stalked the kid for the years he was figuring out whatever he thought Azazel's plan was, and they were together for a solid couple of days at the end there. He would've done what Dean has done since - more and more stifling and controlling and destabilizing until Sam eventually ended it himself by taking progressively more suicidally insane risks.

I actually don't think John would have either, but I think Sam might think he could have. It plays into the whole Dean loves me better than anyone else trope because he got to see Dean struggle, where as John ordered the hit and died. It had to leave Sam wondering.

Season two was about negating Sam's feelings pretty much from the get go. In Everyone Loves a Clown, I think, Sam tells Dean, who is angrily grieving, that Sam isn't doing that well either and basically gets told it's too little too late and we never hear how Sam feels about his father dying again. Sam just shuts up and shuts down. Dean gets to mope, hit Sam, judge people all because he is grieving. Don't get me wrong Dean IS grieving and feeling guilty because he suspects John sold his soul to save his life, and people can and do act out due to grief, but he doesn't permit Sam one second of that.

I'm glad you mention John's stalking Sam in college. Dean uses it as proof that John loved Sam back in season one. When you find out that John thinks Sam might need killing, it becomes a whole bunch of creepy. John isn't watching Sam out of concern for Sam, he just wants to be around if Sam has to be stopped. It is pretty much the nail in the coffin of the idea that "John loved Sam more than Dean". Sadly fandom pretty well buys the poor, neglected Dean who wasn't loved enough by John or Sam motif. To me, if you are willing to die for one son and willing to have the other killed, you don't love the one you want dead the most. Granted John managed to emotionally abuse Dean one more time before he shuffled off his mortal coil and left a big load of emotional abuse for Sam by fighting with him right before he was going to die and knowing Sam would know that John thought Sam deserved killing, but that was John (not) father-of-the-year.

[pocochina]

I actually don't think John would have either, but I think Sam might think he could have. It plays into the whole Dean loves me better than anyone else trope because he got to see Dean struggle, where as John ordered the hit and died.

That is a mind-blowingly good way of putting it.

Season two was about negating Sam's feelings pretty much from the get go. In Everyone Loves a Clown, I think, Sam tells Dean, who is angrily grieving, that Sam isn't doing that well either and basically gets told it's too little too late and we never hear how Sam feels about his father dying again.

Well, not just that, but Dean flat-out tells him "YOU fought with him all the time, YOU were not a good enough son, you were insufficiently eager to kiss the dirt beneath his feet and therefore you are less entitled to grief than I am, *I* earned the right to be in charge of how *you* feel about *our* father." Which again, is understandable lashing out on Dean's part, but IMO respecting the character means acknowledging how his mind is manufacturing this shocking level of emotional entitlement rather than accepting it as some a priori fact. And that's even before you get around to acknowledging how Sam's acceptance of this both exposed and exacerbated a lot of Sam's issues about how he has to JUSTIFY absolutely everything he feels or desires.

I'm glad you mention John's stalking Sam in college. Dean uses it as proof that John loved Sam back in season one.

I wonder what percentage of breathless Winchester fetishists are (a) Twilight fans or (b) vocal Twilight haters. That line made my skin crawl even the first time through when I was all about Dean, way outside of Sam's head, and too wasted on cold medication to think about any of it with any depth.

Sadly fandom pretty well buys the poor, neglected Dean who wasn't loved enough by John or Sam motif.

I am so grossed out by this fandom process whenever I see it. Like, not only is it bizarre to me that affection/sympathy/empathy/whatever for a character has to be self-righteously justified, but also that the controlling indicator for whether someone DESERVES love is if they have clearly been VICTIMIZED by someone else's failure to ~appreciate them. And therefore if you love a character, you have to reason back from that and FIND some villain who cruelly withheld his heart and affection because (a) character love has to be RIGHT and (b) the only way for right to exist is if there has been a WRONG. (I think I love SPN-Lucifer so much out of sheer spiteful contrarianism. I CAN'T justify it and IDGAF, SUCK ON THAT.) And therefore, "I love Dean" somehow becomes "stalking and assassination orders = John loving Sam WAY MORE THAN SAM DESERVES, THE INGRATE."

When of course, the truth is that John was awful and abusive and crazy (though even then not maliciously or villainously so, since he was methodically warped by angel-roofies and Azazel super-stalking until it's a wonder he knew up from down when they were small) and it affected both of them hugely. Admitting that doesn't negate caring more about one brother than the other.