torture of souls, and can we analyze our own icons?
Well firstly, I'm just gonna ramble about Dean, and the type of person he is (a hypocrite). Not to be offensive to him or any of his fans - heck, I'm his fan - but, well, he is. Hunters are hypocrites, Dean's a hunter, Dean's a hypocrite.
For seasons and seasons Sam has been pushing Dean into the gray side, where it's not all just black and white, and just because it's supernatural doesn't mean we should kill it. We hunt evil, Dean, and these things aren't evil, I'm not evil - so Dean's got plenty of reasons to second guess. Or at least, he had plenty reasons. Because with Season 6 comes different opinions and a different Sam. One who doesn't feel compassion, or empathy, etc. Whereas a souled Sam would take one look at the baby shapeshifter and say that's me, maybe we're both monsters but we're not inherently evil, a soulless Sam says so this is what a baby monster looks like. Let's take it to Samuel so we don't have to deal with it. So Dean, the ever-stubborn hunter, has less of a reason to reason over these things. It's not like he thinks like soulless Sam - he's not that bad - but he certainly isn't Season 1/2 Sam. Which brings me to the soul-searching (haha) Castiel performs.
In the episode where we first learn about angels taking souls, Castiel does a little "interrogation" on some poor, innocent kid. Dean's completely perpendicular to the idea, while Sam is totally parallel to Castiel's methods. They intersect at the point of what is human, and what can we gain from this. Dean's reasoning is "this is just a kid, a human being, we shouldn't do this". That's what he's felt like for most of the series - definitely more sympathetic towards humans, evil or not.
However, when Dean's confronted with the problem of his brother, things are a little skewed. He's convinced Sam isn't his brother anymore, not even human - though he's not evil, he hasn't done anything wrong (meaning, nothing another hunter wouldn't do in most cases), and he still acts moderately normal, he's just un-compassionate and a bit of a compulsive liar. He's got traits of a psychopath, basically, but much more toned down in some areas. Dean doesn't take in any of this, not really - he's stuck on the not-human bit.
So after he beats Sam to a pulp, he gets Castiel to perform the "soul-searching" on Sam. No remorse on Dean's part, because, hey, it may be his brother, it may not be, the point is he isn't really human, is he?
This in stark contrast again the torture of a soulless kid, who although is a kid, manages to kill a few cops.
Maybe this is all about not knowing everything, but it still strikes me as ironic. That, and he consented to Castiel doing the same trick on Samuel, who according to Dean's suspicions might not be entirely human either.
Maybe it's just the whole kid-adult thing, maybe Dean saw that it was necessary, maybe Dean just doesn't care. The point is (do I have one?) Dean is okay with harming Sam because it isn't Sam, and Sam isn't there to tell Dean that maybe this is wrong. Hypocritical, yes. Understandable, also yes.
Now, onto my icon, haha. I feel a little self-absorbed, but now I know how people making the show feel about our metas. Basically, well we didn't intend for anything to have significance, but that's a cool theory. Who knows.
My screen is a little weird. It's big, bigger than most computer screens, and it does this strange thing where images are darker and burned the higher up on the screen they are. If they are on the bottom of the screen, and you are looking down at them from an angle, you will be able to see all the details. Now since I'm an artist, this sucks. But I'm hoping others don't have this problem.
My default icon right now is Sam and Dean after the car crash in the Season 2 premier. Obviously I added in the blood drips and smears on the top to add to dramatic effect, because who doesn't love gory and gruesome? :) At the top of my screen, you just see Sam and Dean's faces, smeared with their own blood - which doesn't look much like blood, because the screen burns away all the colour. The further down the icon goes on my screen, the more blood you can see, and the more red it is. This icon corresponds with a fic I recently posted on ohsam called Diffraction, which deals with Sam and Dean being majorly bloodied up. I think the relationship between the icon and the fic fits well because the further down you go, the worse it gets. It's the same picture, but you're noticing more and more about it, until you get to the very bottom and see all that blood. Looking at the icon from the bottom of my screen, it came a little as a shock to me, how much there is, because while I was working on the actual icon it was positioned at about the middle of my screen, and I was looking up at it slightly. So, this is my I didn't intend for it to have significance, but that's a cool theory moment.
For seasons and seasons Sam has been pushing Dean into the gray side, where it's not all just black and white, and just because it's supernatural doesn't mean we should kill it. We hunt evil, Dean, and these things aren't evil, I'm not evil - so Dean's got plenty of reasons to second guess. Or at least, he had plenty reasons. Because with Season 6 comes different opinions and a different Sam. One who doesn't feel compassion, or empathy, etc. Whereas a souled Sam would take one look at the baby shapeshifter and say that's me, maybe we're both monsters but we're not inherently evil, a soulless Sam says so this is what a baby monster looks like. Let's take it to Samuel so we don't have to deal with it. So Dean, the ever-stubborn hunter, has less of a reason to reason over these things. It's not like he thinks like soulless Sam - he's not that bad - but he certainly isn't Season 1/2 Sam. Which brings me to the soul-searching (haha) Castiel performs.
In the episode where we first learn about angels taking souls, Castiel does a little "interrogation" on some poor, innocent kid. Dean's completely perpendicular to the idea, while Sam is totally parallel to Castiel's methods. They intersect at the point of what is human, and what can we gain from this. Dean's reasoning is "this is just a kid, a human being, we shouldn't do this". That's what he's felt like for most of the series - definitely more sympathetic towards humans, evil or not.
However, when Dean's confronted with the problem of his brother, things are a little skewed. He's convinced Sam isn't his brother anymore, not even human - though he's not evil, he hasn't done anything wrong (meaning, nothing another hunter wouldn't do in most cases), and he still acts moderately normal, he's just un-compassionate and a bit of a compulsive liar. He's got traits of a psychopath, basically, but much more toned down in some areas. Dean doesn't take in any of this, not really - he's stuck on the not-human bit.
So after he beats Sam to a pulp, he gets Castiel to perform the "soul-searching" on Sam. No remorse on Dean's part, because, hey, it may be his brother, it may not be, the point is he isn't really human, is he?
This in stark contrast again the torture of a soulless kid, who although is a kid, manages to kill a few cops.
Maybe this is all about not knowing everything, but it still strikes me as ironic. That, and he consented to Castiel doing the same trick on Samuel, who according to Dean's suspicions might not be entirely human either.
Maybe it's just the whole kid-adult thing, maybe Dean saw that it was necessary, maybe Dean just doesn't care. The point is (do I have one?) Dean is okay with harming Sam because it isn't Sam, and Sam isn't there to tell Dean that maybe this is wrong. Hypocritical, yes. Understandable, also yes.
Now, onto my icon, haha. I feel a little self-absorbed, but now I know how people making the show feel about our metas. Basically, well we didn't intend for anything to have significance, but that's a cool theory. Who knows.
My screen is a little weird. It's big, bigger than most computer screens, and it does this strange thing where images are darker and burned the higher up on the screen they are. If they are on the bottom of the screen, and you are looking down at them from an angle, you will be able to see all the details. Now since I'm an artist, this sucks. But I'm hoping others don't have this problem.
My default icon right now is Sam and Dean after the car crash in the Season 2 premier. Obviously I added in the blood drips and smears on the top to add to dramatic effect, because who doesn't love gory and gruesome? :) At the top of my screen, you just see Sam and Dean's faces, smeared with their own blood - which doesn't look much like blood, because the screen burns away all the colour. The further down the icon goes on my screen, the more blood you can see, and the more red it is. This icon corresponds with a fic I recently posted on ohsam called Diffraction, which deals with Sam and Dean being majorly bloodied up. I think the relationship between the icon and the fic fits well because the further down you go, the worse it gets. It's the same picture, but you're noticing more and more about it, until you get to the very bottom and see all that blood. Looking at the icon from the bottom of my screen, it came a little as a shock to me, how much there is, because while I was working on the actual icon it was positioned at about the middle of my screen, and I was looking up at it slightly. So, this is my I didn't intend for it to have significance, but that's a cool theory moment.