some general thoughts about fandoms, an inter-show comparison, and SPN 9x14 review

[pocochina]

I am going to ask this even though I’m like 98% on the answer, because I really want this to be the problem: do people really, sincerely, not understand how/why a viewer might enjoy a narrative as a whole without highly and equally admiring all of the main characters?* I mean, I think the “I don’t UNDERSTAND???!?! why anyone anywhere is having a

Comments

[pocochina]

The "you are watching it wrong if you don't like everyone!!" claim is such a weird one to me in context of, you know, pretty much every television cultural touchstone of the 21st century? Breaking Bad? BSG? The Wire? The Sopranos? It's not that awful people are necessary to enjoyable drama, it's just that I find it difficult to believe that people are genuinely unaware that those two things can be compatible.

I saw the post about people who act and I think it kind of missed the mark in context of Supernatural specifically. Like, if we cared about people making the effort more than we care about results, then people would have a lot more admiration for Sam wrt S4. I think it's much more about self-presentation, about people who convincingly claim to be devil-may-care cowboys and don't actually drag us along with their honest deliberations. Not to put too fine a point on it, people are attracted to confidence, we like to identify with a very obvious, conventional kind of strength. IMO that's what's still attractive about Dean to people, even more than prioritization of his POV (which in any event I think has been decreasing since Kripke's arc concluded).