SPN: a poll (post-Devil's Trap v.2)

[sargraf]

Manon, I hope you've noticed that my last few posts have been utterly emotion-free. ;) I told you I could do it! And now, I'll go back to my regularly scheduled program... :P

Comments

[sargraf]

Kripke's anecdotal five year plan is causing the writing of the characters to be... they're trying not to show everything at once and they're far from omnipotent narrators because the characters are still very organic in re. audience response and especially the way the actors are handling the.

That's a very good point. I don't know how to feel about it, really. On the one hand, it's sort of nice to know that we may have that much influence over the characters. On the other hand... as a writer myself (not a published one; just a passionate one :)), my characters may be organic in their own right, but I would never bend or adjust them according to which way the wind blew, so to speak. If the readers didn't care for a decision one of my characters made or felt he or she should be softer/harder/happier/sadder, I wouldn't turn that character around. If one of them was not the type to break down nearly unprovoked (Dean, Shadow) or if another had an enormous amount to answer for (John), I wouldn't force them into that position or have the issues so lightly and easily apologized for, just so that the readers can have that Scene. You know?

But you're absolutely right. Kripke said it himself. Who knows how much of it he'd intended when he first created the characters. He probably intended for Dean to be not much more than a springboard for deeper, sweeter Sam. But Jensen was unintentionally deep...? Good for him, but it's both thrilling and frightening to ponder how flexible his characterization could be...

I definitely think that Sam's selfishness has been too pronounced. Sam girls always get on my case for saying that, but they don't seem to understand: this isn't a criticism of his character, it's a criticism of how he's written. Like X-Treme Horndog Woobie Dean in Shadow (WTF, Kripke?). And like you say, they've built Dean's self-sacrificing ways up to a point where he makes everyone else look selfish by contrast. He's not without flaws, but Kripke calls him on the same ones all the time; ditto, Sam. So they never truly evolve. It's like Kripke will only handle one major flaw at once. Selfishness for Sam. Weakness for Dean. *sigh* It's frustrating, because we see the other layers but there hardly if ever addressed or expanded. If he's got a 5-year plan, that's 5 big issues per guy, given the same heavy-handed treatment. (Or... well, so I hope, if that's his MO. I hope it's not going to be 5 years of the same flaws. Ugh.)

Dean... you play with Dean way more efficiently than I ever could!

Ooooh! And you haven't even seen how I dream about him. Hee! ;)