a response to responses to criticisms of Dean throughout S9

[pocochina]

In numerous meta communities, I've seen conversations of S9 which strike me as incomplete about some very important dimensions to the season, and I'd like to respond.

Comments

[pocochina]

Yeah, exactly. I think, maybe a little more precisely for myself, that it was something that started for all the right reasons and continued for all the wrong reasons? So obviously the behavior took a turn for the worse. I really do believe that the main motivation in the hospital was wanting Sam to survive.* But since then, it's become about control. Because that's been his whole thing, right? "Sam NEEDS my protection; the world NEEDS my protection from him." And then Sam showed that he was willing and able to do the trials - Sam is strong enough and good enough to stand on his own two feet, not that anyone should NEED to prove those two things to have autonomy because that is a right and not a privilege, but S8 pushed Dean to a place where he couldn't deny those things about Sam anymore, and stripped him of his denial about how badly his controlling behavior fucks with Sam. And I think keeping the possession a secret is him trying to recapture those feelings of "I'm in charge here, Sam needs me to make these decisions" - and he's this twisted about it because that is so clearly not true that even he can't keep up the cognitive dissonance about it.

*IMO he might even have had a little doubt that Sam would DEFINITELY NOT NO WAY NO HOW be willing to host an angel if it was that or dying. Like, in some ways this is movement from "at least he dies human" - I'M NOT LETTING IT GO I'M NEVER LETTING IT GO - in that he's not trying to kill Sam for being a freak anymore? But he's still appointing himself the arbiter of whether or not Sam lives or dies, human or otherwise, and that's what's gotta stop.

Thanks for reading and for the thoughtful comment.