Tension, Conflict, Motivation, and Plot: Why the Story is About Dean and We Do Know Sam
I wrote a meta thingy! :)
There’s been avid discussion about Sam and Dean and which of them, if either, seems to be favored by Kripke as well as debate about “who is the story really about”. I’ve noticed there’s been a propensity for some self-proclaimed “Dean girls” and “Sam girls” to run circles around each other, trying to prove their points. Both this topic and the fan polarization seemed especially heated in the comments to The CW’s Source’s "Hottie Bracket Finals" featuring Sam vs. Dean. Based on my cursory glance, one anonymous commenter summed up the debate:
“Sam Fans bash Dean Fans and call them crazy, obsessed and rabid because they want Dean to have a presence in the mytharc episodes that doesn't just revolve around Sam. Yet Sam Fans whine continuously about Sam not having any characterization.”
Being that it’s the hiatus and I apparently need my SPN fix, I found myself thinking about why some people believe Dean has “no plot” and Sam has “no characterization”. This meta is my SPN-deprived brain’s attempt to explain why.
Let me first say I’m not a Sam or Dean girl. I like both the boys (according to the lingo being thrown around I’m apparently “bibro” (bi-brother) *snortlaughs at self*). And although my initial connection to the show was through Sam, I’ve grown to love Dean. It’s difficult for me to think of one without the other, and if asked to choose which one I favor, it wouldn’t be an easy answer. Each, to me, serves two different yet vital roles in the story-without either of them the plot that’s kept me watching would collapse. I’ve not contributed to the discussion on the CW page. I’m not into fandom wank or purposefully stirring up controversy. So if your knee jerk reaction is to type a ranting reply in caps lock, please do that in your own journal and, if you feel so inclined, send me a link or spin it into a meta and post to spn_heavymeta where I’ll likely stumble across it. However, I love SPN-related discussion and enjoy all pleasant and good-intentioned chatting regardless if what’s being said is inline or refutes my points. I welcome people expanding the discussion, playing devil’s advocate, and/or pointing out inaccuracies or misinterpretations. I don’t ever expect or ask people to agree with me, but when talking about “hot topics” lets keep things civil because it’s a lot more fun. Fandom is supposed to be where show love and fan fun smash together to equal good times to the power of a million and five. Enough said, now onto the blabber! *hurkie jump*
In “The Art of Fiction” John Gardner uses an analogy about two territorial tigers to illustrate how tension must be maintained between characters in order for the climax of a story to be persuasive and interesting:
“The value of the standard feud story always depends on the writer’s ability to create powerfully convincing characters in irreconcilable conflict, both sides in some measure sympathetic--that is, both sides pursuing real, through mutually exclusive, values. For the climax to be persuasive, we must be shown dramatically why each character believes what he does and why each cannot sympathize with the values of his antagonist; and we must be shown dramatically why the conflicting characters cannot or do not simply avoid each other, as in real life even tigers ordinarily do.”
The bolded section is what I find especially relevant to Sam and Dean. They’re like the two tigers that must be constrained to the same territory by the artificial constructs of plot and motivation in order to build tension and conflict necessary for a satisfying and inevitable story climax. As a result, I believe they have fundamentally different (and sometimes overlapping) roles in SPN’s story. And it’s out of these prescribed roles that I believe the “Sam hogs the plot” and “Dean steals all the characterization” debate has emerged.
But before getting to the Sam and Dean tigers, let me back up and ramble about tension and conflict in fiction. I realize there are execution differences between writing fiction that’s being digested in written form (short stories, novellas, novels) and fiction for the visual medium (theater, television, cinema), but I feel the heart of storytelling is largely the same--which is why novels are commonly adapted to the screen--and there’s relevance in applying the rules of fiction to both. So I may be generalizing a bit, but for any screenwriters who may stumble upon this please know it’s not my intention to butcher your medium. I have a better understanding of literary fiction, so that’s where this discussion is sourced.
One of the most important and difficult things to do in fiction is sustaining audience interest. The main way to do this is through tension, if that be through character vs. character tension (antagonist/protagonist tension or romantic tension a.k.a. UST (unresolved sexual tension)), plot driven tension based on a yet-to-be-solved mystery or a what-will-happen-next quest, tension based on a character vs. nature or society, or tension that occurs entirely within the hidden self of a character (character vs. self).
Tension is mostly achieved through conflict. And without conflict, an interesting and compelling plot is impossible. Even tales, arguably viewed as “simple” stories, have concrete, specific, and sustainable conflict. Cinderella was at odds with her stepmother and stepsisters; the Three Little Pigs had the Big Bad Wolf repeatedly banging on their door; even Snow White, who was a push over, had her stepmother queen creating havoc. Furthermore, conflict doesn’t have to be imposed on the character by external forces; it can be entirely internal. In Dorothy Parker’s “A Telephone Call”, an interior monologue about a phone call, the conflict takes place entirely in one character’s head.
In fiction (let’s brush aside modern and postmodern fiction, okay?) sustainable conflict must be magnified to be compelling. Likewise, the characters in the story need to be pumped up so they’re slightly larger than life without becoming completely unrealistic, which can alienate them (unless the point is to make them a caricature or parody a character archetype, usually only done for flat characters who are villains or act as comic relief). The reason why characters capture our hearts is because they act in ways we wish we always could. They say things most of us might think but would never say. They're braver, cockier, funnier. They’re who we wish we could be. Heroes blast ahead and take a stance against impossible odds, and must, at some point, deal with conflict.
However, in real life most of us do whatever we can to avoid overt, messy conflict. We try to keep our mouths shut, procrastinate, acquiesce and capitulate to demands/requests that we may silently not been keen on in order to keep the peace. And only when we’re backed into a corner or are pushed beyond our breaking points do we usually act. We do our best to play nice because the world is a better place when we don’t fight.
And this is where fiction diverges from real life and the tiger analogy comes into play. People in reality are like territorial tigers. Tigers normally avoid conflict. Rather than invade another tiger’s territory, they stalk away and establish their own new territory. But fiction requires a concrete and specific reason why characters must butt heads. Fiction also requires that those involved not be allowed to simply exit the story and establish a new territory off page. It this happened there wouldn’t be a compelling plot and the ending would be unsatisfying (how disappointing it would it have been if Sam walked out after finding John in “Dead Man’s Blood” 1x20 or Dean never chose to return to reality at the end of “WiaWSNB” 2x20). Like two trapped tigers, characters must be made to repeatedly invade and eventually stay in each other’s territory for the conflict to play out. The tigers must be forced, by either internal or external forces, to circle each other until something happens. And this slow circling, evading, hiding, and seeking builds until the climax of the story where their meeting is inevitable and the conflict finally comes to a head.
So how are the tigers kept circling?
A character must be attached to the story in a way that prevents them from avoiding the conflict indefinitely and escaping. As I see it, this is done though:
1. External forces: the character is directly tied to the plot so they can’t escape. This is what I’ll call the plot tiger.
2. Internal needs/desires: the character’s motivation is constructed such that they won’t leave. This is what I’ll term the motivation tiger.
I think Sam and Dean represent these two different conflict tigers, one tied largely to the plot and one made unable to leave because of constructed motivation/characterization. As a byproduct, Sam and Dean are lashed to the story in fundamentally different ways, resulting in the notion of the Sam-centric plot and Dean-centric characterization.
Because I believe Sam and Dean conflict tiger roles have evolved, I’m going to discuss S1 and S2 together and then S3 (through the currently US aired episode “Jus In Bello” 3x12). Then I'll talk about why I think The Show/Kripke doesn't favor either Sam or Dean, but the perception that "it's all about Sam" and "we know Dean to death" both at the expense of the other are artifacts of SPN-specific plot construction, the nature of creating compelling and believable conflict in fiction, and how the fundamentally different conflict tigers are used in a story (I have a really geeky table, too *grins*).
S1 and S2: The Injured Sam Tiger and The Mama Dean Tiger
Every story needs a plot tiger. It doesn’t matter if it’s a person, an animal, or an object, but the story must be about someone or something in order for the plot to move forward in a logical manner. For S1 and S2 Sam was the unwilling plot tiger, tied to the story by external forces outside of his control. He was dragged kicking and screaming from his chosen life, bonked over the head, and essentially concussed by the plot. And like an injured tiger, he literally couldn’t escape the story (i.e. the territory) because it was about him, happening to him, and following him … a monkey humping his back.
Even if Sam had run off to Yemen and left Dean in the dust, he would've only been postponing the inevitable. Azazel would’ve eventually come charging through Sam's front door, dragging the story with him. In fact, the intervening 22 years between the pre- and post-title card scenes in the pilot was exactly what this was; a postponement of what eventually must be and Sam’s futile attempt to escape the inescapable. So by necessity and story construction, someone had to be the plot tiger; in this case it was Sam, who simply had no choice in the matter.
This is why Sam was the entry character for the series, and why the pilot was told from his POV. He was whom the audience was meant to identify and empathize with, which was why it was important to cast a likable and accessible actor to portray him (as substantiated by Kripke in the S1 DVDs). To draw the audience Sam had to be a seemingly regular college student to provide the contrast for his subsequent character development (Campbell’s hero's journey). We had to be charmed by Sam's normalcy, and it was his everydayness that was meant to endure him to us. Sam was the audience’s security blanket, the one we could depend on when inevitably the plot got gnarly (which is why Sam's transformation in S3 is that much more unsettling). So at the beginning of the series it was Sam's story because the story had to be about someone. The mytharc, which so far features Sam at its center, supports this supposition: the generations of PsyKids and their seemingly dark destinies, the fate of a demon army, and the surface motivation for the big bad gal/kid/thing in S3. Even Mary's death-the catalyst for John's and subsequently Dean and Sam's hunting lives-was a consequence of actions centered on Sam and his demon blood baptism.
Certainly S1 and S2 Sam was also made to fit the description of the motivation tiger by making the plot (mytharc) personal in the last five minutes of the pilot with Jess burning on the ceiling. This was repeated at the beginning of S2 with John's death. However, all characters need motivation otherwise the story seems nonsensical and sentimental, so although Sam filled both conflict tiger roles to some degree, his primary purpose in S1 and S2 was to be the plot tiger, the foundation of the story, and anchor the mytharc (plot) firmly into place.
On the other hand, in S1 and S2, Dean was never held hostage by the plot: he wasn't having visions, a demon wasn't hunting him, he wasn't part of a generation of psychics. He wasn't entrenched in the plot the same way Sam was because, at that point, the mytharc (which is what I’m referring to as “plot” even though technically the definition extends it beyond that narrow application) wasn't about Dean. Furthermore, Dean wasn't meant to be the audience surrogate, so he was free to be whatever the writers wanted him to be. He didn't have to be likeable or totally believable. Therefore, he was bigger than life, funnier, tougher, gruffer, snarkier, and sexier than your average Joe. Whereas we were meant to sympathize with Sam and follow him into the plot because we cared about what happened to him (plot), Dean’s role was to entrance us like the Pied Piper, making us follow him because we were curious about who he was (motivation). Dean was the frosting on the cake and the sparkly glitter on the tiara and what Sam couldn't be by construction.
But all of Dean's charisma couldn't anchor him in the story and keep him circling the injured (and sometimes pissy) Sam plot tiger in a believable way. And for the story of two brothers to work, Dean needed to absolutely stay with Sam. Therefore, Dean's motivation had to explain why he wouldn't run off to find John alone even though he physically could've escaped the story (i.e. the territory) without the plot following him. This is why Dean's needs and desires were made to be familial, why Dean needed to need John and Sam more than anything else, why it was necessary for his sense of self to take a backseat to his collective SamDeanJohn identity, and why Dean had to be the bridge between Sam and John (who needed to be at odds for Sam’s rejection of his former life implicit in Campbell’s hero’s journey to take place). In this way, Dean became the mama motivation tiger who repeatedly chose to stay because his internal needs/desires prevented him from exiting the story. It wasn't that Dean couldn't leave; it was that he simply wouldn't (which is why S3 Dean's impending departure is that much more heartbreaking).
Keeping the motivation tiger circling requires different treatment than the plot tiger. Whereas it's usually clear why the plot tiger-Sam in S1 and S2-can't escape as he's essentially trapped in the story, the audience needs to understand why the motivation tiger-Dean in S1 and S2-continues to hover despite the difficulties, bone-aching angst, and single-tear manpain otherwise his character's involvement feels contrived and the conflict appears artificial. The motivation tiger requires a significant amount of characterization independent of the plot (a.k.a. mytharc) as he can’t rely on the plot to elucidate his actions and use it as a characterization crutch like the plot tiger because, by nature, the motivation tiger isn’t tied to the plot. And as a consequence, the motivation tiger appears to be an attention hog because without specialized attention geared specifically toward characterization, his actions simply won't make sense. Essentially the motivation tiger is the shiny dude in the middle of the three-ring circus juggling oranges and pineapples and humming the Benny Hill theme song while the plot tiger is the quiet guy in the corner holding the tent up. But without either of them, things would fall apart; keeping the circus running requires a collective effort.
I think a story can have multiple motivation tigers, plot tigers, hybrid motivation-plot tigers, and/or a combination of all three. However, in the case of the S1 and S2, the story (as we’re learning) was convoluted enough that I think there was room for only one plot tiger, Sam. And I think in order to further delineate character roles without injecting more messy competition in an already conflict-ridden surface plot, Dean was appointed the motivation tiger. However, in any story, as the plot develops and the characters become more complex, the plot and motivation tigers begin to blend, and as a story evolves and the stakes are upped, hybrid conflict tigers are the natural result. Anchoring a character into the story by trapping them in the plot as well as assigning them concrete reasons why they won’t leave only strengthens plot and ratchets everything up for a big-payoff climax. I think this is exactly what’s been happening in SPN and brings us to Sam and Dean and their convoluted relationships with the S3 story.
S3: The Trapped Dean Tiger, The Watch Guard Sam Tiger, and a Mix of Each
S3 feels like the fulcrum on which the mytharc is balanced and we're experiencing the shifting power dynamic as the Winchester seesaw begins to slowly tilt in the opposite direction. I think this makes sense when framed in Kripke’s five-year plan. Year three is when everything should begin to shift; when character foundations laid in the previous seasons are expanded and previously planted plot seeds begin to sprout. S3 is when things should begin to change. And appropriately S3 is when Sam and Dean reverse conflict tiger roles with Dean becoming plot tiger and Sam reverting to the motivation tiger. Then later they evolve into hybrid tigers, supporting the idea that as a series evolves the characters become more firmly incorporated into story through both plot and motivation.
Dean became the plot tiger the moment he locked lips with the Crossroad’s Demon in “AHBL-2” (2x22). By sacrificing his life for Sam’s, Dean trapped himself in his own plot. And like Sam in S1 and S2, he’s now being carried on the back draft of the story, and regardless of his actions, Dean will be forced to deal with the conflict in some manner if it be weaseling out of the deal or taking a trip to the pit. Also, like with the inevitable meeting of trapped plot-tiger Sam and Azazel in S1 and S2, the tension, what enthralls us, isn’t if Dean will deal with the consequences of his deal (because it’s unavoidable) but how he’ll deal with it. Even more satisfying is Dean’s previously established characterization/motivation built through his motivation-tiger role was used to catapult him directly into the plot. The Winchester propensity for self-sacrifice (“Salvation” 1x21, “Devil’s Trap” 1x22, and “IMToD” 2x01) and Dean’s need to save his family, his reflexive response to put others before himself, his inability to accept failure, his fear of being alone, or whatever one interprets the reasons behind his choice made his switch from motivation to plot tiger seamless and a natural extension of his character, the hallmark of good characterization.
Dean’s role as plot tiger marks the emergence of a dual mytharc-related plot. For the first time Sam and Dean have their own plots, “demons after Sam” and “Dean’s deal”. And I think the competing nature of a two-plot story adds to the emotional estrangement between Sam and Dean and the more fragmented feel of S3 by dividing their attention and toggling between each plot respectively. As a result, Sam and Dean must operate more independently because they’re responsible for carrying and cultivating their own plot as well as each other’s (their propensity for secret keeping also acts as dividing agent that supports more individualized plots). In S3 we’ve had at seven out of twelve (58%) episodes featuring plot-driven scenes with Sam sans Dean (“The Magnificent Seven” 3x01, “TKAA 3x02, “Sin City” 3x04, “Bedtime Stories” 3x05, “Mystery Spot” 3x11) and Dean sans Sam (“TKAA 3x02”, “Sin City” 3x04, “Malleus Maleficarum” 3x09, “DaLDoM” 3x10) whereby in previous seasons with a single-plot mytharc there were only seven out of forty-four (16%) such episodes (“Scarecrow” 1x11, “Bloodlust” 2x03, “Crossroad Blues” 2x08, “Hunted” 2x10, “BUaBS” 2x14, WiaWSNB” and “AHBL-1” 2x21). It’s easy to see why a single plot was important for S1 and S2 when part of the goal was to first build the fraternal bond then strengthen the collective Sam-and-Dean identity. But as we’re entering the middle of the series it seems natural that as the story expands their relationship also experiences growing pains regardless if this was done purposefully and/or created inadvertently from story construction. In all likelihood we’ll see the two S3 plots merge, reunifying the brothers with a single larger, stronger plot as the series comes full circle to its finale.
Like flipping from heads to tails on a coin, as Dean became the plot tiger Sam became the motivation tiger. This wasn’t a matter of Sam simply defaulting to motivation tiger because Dean became the plot tiger, but I think, like Dean in S1 and S2, the easiest way to reattach Sam to the plot was through motivation. Furthermore, it was imperative that Sam learned about Dean’s deal before the end of “AHBL-2” to prevent him from leaving the story. When Dean killed Azazel, Sam’s surface goals set up in S1 and S2-avenge Jess and Mary's death and get Azazel off his back-were fulfilled, and without the big bad guy perusing him and the other psychics of his generation dead, the plot previously tangled around Sam’s ankles seemingly fell away. Sure, there was the threat of the newly released demon army but with what we knew at that point Sam could’ve likely exited the story without it following him (Gordon and Kubric didn’t emerge until “BDaBR” 3x03 and mentions of Lilith didn’t occur until “Malleus Maleficarum”). Therefore, Sam had to be retied to the story in a new way, and this had to happen before the curtain closed on S2. The easiest way to accomplish this was to endanger what Sam had come to care about most, what The Show has been building since the pilot, his relationship with Dean, and then reveal Dean’s life was at stake as soon as possible (in the resolution of S2’s climax, the last five minutes of “AHBL-2”). As a result, we never doubted that Sam would stick around for S3 because it was ingrained in his character to need, above everything else, to save Dean. And, voila, that’s how Sam’s character development over the last two seasons was used to flip him from the plot tiger to the motivation tiger in one swift and easy plot reveal. :)
To support this, we’ve seen a number of S3 episodes specifically centered on Sam’s characterization that parallel S1 and S2 Dean-centric episodes when he was the motivation tiger. The Sam-centric flashbacks in “AVSC” (3x08) mimicked the flashbacks in the Dean-centric episode “Something Wicked” (1x18). I think the Sam-centric alternate-reality episode “Mystery Spot” was purposely made the counterpoint to the alternate-reality Dean-heavy episode “WiaWSNB”. Watch the opening montage for “Mystery Spot” and you’ll see clips from “WiaWSNB” despite the fact the episodes didn’t share reoccurring characters outside of Sam and Dean nor were linked by a through-going plot thread.
As the plot becomes more complicated and the characters develop, the relationship between character, plot, and motivation becomes more complex. Plot and motivation tigers are no longer mutually exclusive and characters begin to mesh into the plot based on both external circumstances and internal desires/needs. The need to save Dean kept Sam pigeonholed in the motivation tiger role until Kubric and Creedy tracked him down in “ABDaBR” (3x03) and the revelation a demon was gunning for him in “Malleus Maleficarum” pulled him back into the plot, making Sam a hybrid plot-motivation tiger. And, strangely, this also turned Dean, the new S3 plot tiger, into a hybrid tiger as we know Dean would never exit the plot on his own accord and leave Sam. So although the dual plot might have the boys by the ankles, Sam and Dean have their hands around both plots’ necks and aren’t letting go. In S3, plot, motivation, internal needs/desires, and external pressures/circumstances have melded to create a tangled ball of drama/angst and a no-exit story where the characters are solidly tied to two separate plots and each other. And by the nature of fiction and compounding effect of plot complications it’s only going to get messier. Yay!
Why the Story is About Dean and We Do Know Sam
So far I’ve tried to come up with reasons for some of fandom’s staunch belief “the plot is all about Sam” and “Dean hogs all the characterization”. But just because there’s a possible explanation doesn’t necessarily mean the original observation is true. So because I was curious if there really were more episodes centering on Dean’s motivations and more Sam-based plot episodes (and because I’m a dork), I made a table *makes a face*. Marks in the Sam (P) and Dean (P) columns denote episodes where I thought new information about Sam and/or Dean’s mytharc-related plot was revealed, while marks in the columns labeled Sam (M) and Dean (M) identify episodes featuring new revelations regarding Sam and/or Dean’s motivations/characterization. These designations were based on new information/reveals instead of reiterations of previously known facts because the nature of storytelling is to forward the plot and character development as efficiently as possible, and I felt new information would be the best measuring stick in which to judge the central focus (character/plot) of each episode.
The table of extreme dorkery is here (something is very wrong with Macs and table format preservation and I can't spend any more time trying to figure out how to get the table in this post *headdesk*).
The table results generally support the plot/motivation tiger trends. S1 slightly favors Sam’s plot-slanted episodes (9-8 episodes) and S2 slightly favors Dean-heavy motivation episodes (16-13 episodes). Episodes spent on character motivation in S1 are the same, which makes sense considering both characters needed to get up and running and needed almost equal attention. Sam was favored slightly in S3 with one more motivation-based episode than Dean. It’s not surprising that S1 and S2’s plot results are similar because there was only one plot (see the * table note for explanation), but with the emergence of Dean’s deal, I thought S3 would be telling. But, weirdly, Sam had one more plot-based episode than Dean, which was probably a result of Sam being reincorporated into the plot through two threads (Gordon and Kubric as well as Lilith).
The designations for each episode are somewhat subjective and the table might vary slightly depending on opinion. But I tried to be non-biased so any “errors” are hopefully random (gah, whatever). Even if fandom at large disagrees on the specifics of the exact episode designations, unless I was biased and consistently ruled in favor of one brother over the other, even a moderate amount of non-biased play in the plot and motivation designations wouldn’t likely result in huge differences whereby one brother was favored dramatically over the other in any category. Enough of that boring methodology stuff *snore*, moving on…
The point is neither Sam nor Dean-centric episodes based on plot or motivation overwhelm each other. The slight emphasis on Sam’s plot (28 Sam-plot episodes to 26 Dean-plot episodes) and Dean-motivation episodes (37 Dean-motivation episodes to 35 Sam-motivation episodes) supports the idea of Sam being the plot tiger and Dean being the motivation tiger for the majority of the series. However, overall there’s not a significance difference between Sam and Dean-heavy episodes, suggesting both brothers have more or less been treated evenly with respect to both plot and motivation. Put plainly: Sam isn’t a total plot pig and Dean isn’t a complete characterization hog.
To me, it feels like these numbers (which I expected to be highly skewed) don’t really account for fandom’s avid discussion about this topic. Weird. So if you’re onboard with the discussion so far, the question now becomes: if Sam and Dean are treated more or less fairly with respect to the number of episodes designated to their character and plot development, then why does it still feel like Sam gets less characterization and Dean is short-changed on plot? Could it be something about the nature of their conflict tiger roles rather than the number of episodes they’ve been occupying those roles?
Sam and Characterization
“AVSC” made me realize that I really did know Sam even though I felt he wasn’t as concretely defined as Dean. During the flashback scenes with wee!Sam and notsowee!Dean, I immediately recognized Sam’s snarky sarcasm (“A pony.” :D), his 2+2=4 logic (“If [monsters] got Mom, they can get Dad, and if they get Dad they can get us.”), and his propensity to question the obvious and steadfast, unquestionable boundaries (Is Dad a spy? Why do we move around so much? Is that why we never talk about Mom?). Hiding behind those scruffy bangs was the same Sam, that deeply damaged little boy who idolizes his big brother, who pushes until he gets answers he doesn’t want to hear. In contrast, my knee-jerk reaction to Sam in the flash-forward in “Mystery Spot” was to think, “Wrong! Wrong!” and suddenly want to watch the pilot or “Hookman” featuring the emo-bangs-hoodie-college boy from S1. Then I realized in order to feel the strong affinity for wee!Sam in “AVSC” and the omg!wrong contrast in “Mystery Spot”, I must have good sense of who Sam is to begin with. I don’t think my thoughts are original enough to make me the only one who in fandom felt this way after watching those episodes, so…
I think we do know Sam. I think he has received his fair share of characterization, but it’s been done in a less obvious way. Recall the plot tiger’s characterization is largely filtered through the plot. It’s more direct than the motivation tiger and requires less attention-grabbing work to explain the how and whys of a character. The irony is because the plot tiger’s characterization results in a more straightforward approach we don’t necessarily notice it, making it appear to be covert and sneaky even though we’re staring straight at it. It’s like the non-squeaky wheel, we don’t think about Sam’s characterization being delivered through the plot because it’s meant to be transparent; it’s what’s supposed to happen and we take it for granted. When things work right for the plot tiger, characterization naturally spins from the plot and is virtually unnoticeable. The motivation tiger is the squeaky wheel you can’t help but notice because he’s making noise and waving a sign that says, “LOOK AT ME!” because to understand him you must look away from the plot. When things work right for the motivation tiger, he entrances the audience into paying attention to him, not the plot, and that’s what we remember.
Furthermore, when Sam became the motivation/hybrid tiger in S3, his motivations didn’t need much individualized attention because we already had two seasons of pre-plotted Sam characterization. When Dean was motivation tiger in S1 and S2 we were still learning who the characters were and Dean’s motivations needed to be explained as the story unfolded with scene and subplots outside of the mytharc plot. We didn’t need to be told as many things about Sam in S3 because we’d already seen them-it was understood that Sam wouldn’t abandon Dean because we saw Sam’s head-down determination and his efforts to save Dean in “Faith” (1x12). With Dean it was like we were given the already-constructed building and had the time-consuming task of personally deconstructing half of it to see how it was made. Whereas with Sam we passively monitored the construction from the beginning and saw the innards as the final product was being fabricated.
Dean and The Plot
I think the perception that Dean gets “no plot” is partially due to the nature of the story and Dean’s invented motivation/characterization. This may sound like a cop out, but implicit in Dean’s role in S1/S2 was his need to be all about John, Sam, the family Winchester at the expense of himself in order to set up the motivation for his deal in “AHBL-2”. So according to Dean’s character, Sam’s S1 and S2 plot had to be Dean’s plot, and in a roundabout way the plot was also Dean’s. That’s the paradox; by being about Sam it’s also about Dean because what happens to one affects the other. You kick one and the other jumps. And reinforcing this idea that Dean’s invented motivation partially defines his relationship to the plot is the fact his more assertive sense of self expressed in “DaLDoM” is coincident with the development of his independent plot. It’ll be interesting to see how his character develops as his plot plays out in the rest of S3. :)
In some cases, our understanding of mytharc made some episodes, at their airdate, appear to be Sam-centric even though we now know they weren’t. “IMToD” is an excellent example of Dean’s plot hiding in plain sight. Until “AHBL-2”, the last episode of S2, when Dean’s own plot emerged, the plot-related events in “IMToD” were viewed only in terms of Sam’s plot arc because Dean’s plot, although present, was incognito. But looking back on S2, it’s clear that Dean’s plot had been quietly unfurling since the fall of 2006, we just didn’t notice. Silly us.
I think what also adds to this false perception is even when “it was about Dean” the larger outcome, what we remember, was tied to the mytharc-related plot and, therefore, to Sam, the S1 and S2 plot tiger. Take “Croatoan” (2x09) where the surface plot was Dean-centric (the mystery of him shooting Duane Tanner, his choice to stay with infected Sam). Even though there was lots Dean-centric stuff happening, Dean’s story was the vehicle delivering information about the mytharc-related plot that centered on Sam (Sam’s immune to a demonic virus that’s being cultivated). So what the majority of fandom remembers foremost about “Croatoan” is its ties to the mytharc plot that just happens to be attached to Sam because those facts are directly relevant to the construction of the larger story.
Even though technically Sam was the plot tiger in S1 and S2, that doesn’t negate Dean’s role in the plot. In fact, without Dean to forward the story, the plot would’ve fallen flat on its face. Dean enlightened and deepened the story considerably. Like two facing mirrors reflecting an image to infinity, the consequences of Sam and Dean’s actions bounce off of both brothers over and over again. They’re foils for each other. We understand the story better through their combined reactions. Without Dean, this story wouldn’t have been possible. Think about how different some mytharc-related episodes like “Dead Man’s Blood”, “Scarecrow”, “Croatoan”, or “Devil’s Trap” would’ve been without Dean. Some episodes such as “IMToD”, “BUaBS”, “AHBL-1 and 2” wouldn’t have been possible at all. So I argue that even though Dean wasn’t directly linked to the plot like Sam in S1 and S2, he was definitely part of the plot, got his fair share of plot-related episodes, and was and an active and integral component of the story.
Final Blabberings
I think the idea Sam hogs the plot and Dean hoards the characterization at the expense of the other is a perception, a misconception even. I believe Sam received just as much characterization as Dean and Dean had his fair share of the plot. I maintain The Show doesn’t favor either of them, but has divided its attentions between Sam and Dean more or less equally over the last three seasons and this debate is a perceived artifact of SPN’s plot construction and the nature of creating compelling and believable conflict in fiction.
A character’s motivation is rooted in plot and plot spins directly out of a character’s needs and desires. So plot and characterization are like a snake swallowing its tail, where one ends the other begins. And Sam and Dean’s relationship with the story and their conflict tiger roles illustrate the circular-nature of this debate perfectly. More than anything, this story is about two brothers who are fundamentally different but work together all the same. And I think the same is true for how Sam and Dean are tied to the plot and how their characterization is dealt with. Each are accomplished in different ways and delivered through different means, but somehow they compliment each other and are used in tandem to forward the story. This is Sam-and-Dean’s story, not only Sam’s, not only Dean’s. I think it’s worth a closer look to realize that it’s not a matter of Sam getting more of something at Dean’s expense or Dean having more of something else at Sam’s expense. And with S3 melding previously established conflict tiger roles, I think this perception may very well be on its way out.
Gah! The end! I'm sort of embarrassed about how long and detailed this got, but apparently this is what happens after weeks without new shows. *needs chocolate and caffeine*
ETA:
kentawolf drew this gorgeous and so appropriate picture of our furry plot tigers! *eee* Thank you, sweets!
There’s been avid discussion about Sam and Dean and which of them, if either, seems to be favored by Kripke as well as debate about “who is the story really about”. I’ve noticed there’s been a propensity for some self-proclaimed “Dean girls” and “Sam girls” to run circles around each other, trying to prove their points. Both this topic and the fan polarization seemed especially heated in the comments to The CW’s Source’s "Hottie Bracket Finals" featuring Sam vs. Dean. Based on my cursory glance, one anonymous commenter summed up the debate:
“Sam Fans bash Dean Fans and call them crazy, obsessed and rabid because they want Dean to have a presence in the mytharc episodes that doesn't just revolve around Sam. Yet Sam Fans whine continuously about Sam not having any characterization.”
Being that it’s the hiatus and I apparently need my SPN fix, I found myself thinking about why some people believe Dean has “no plot” and Sam has “no characterization”. This meta is my SPN-deprived brain’s attempt to explain why.
Let me first say I’m not a Sam or Dean girl. I like both the boys (according to the lingo being thrown around I’m apparently “bibro” (bi-brother) *snortlaughs at self*). And although my initial connection to the show was through Sam, I’ve grown to love Dean. It’s difficult for me to think of one without the other, and if asked to choose which one I favor, it wouldn’t be an easy answer. Each, to me, serves two different yet vital roles in the story-without either of them the plot that’s kept me watching would collapse. I’ve not contributed to the discussion on the CW page. I’m not into fandom wank or purposefully stirring up controversy. So if your knee jerk reaction is to type a ranting reply in caps lock, please do that in your own journal and, if you feel so inclined, send me a link or spin it into a meta and post to spn_heavymeta where I’ll likely stumble across it. However, I love SPN-related discussion and enjoy all pleasant and good-intentioned chatting regardless if what’s being said is inline or refutes my points. I welcome people expanding the discussion, playing devil’s advocate, and/or pointing out inaccuracies or misinterpretations. I don’t ever expect or ask people to agree with me, but when talking about “hot topics” lets keep things civil because it’s a lot more fun. Fandom is supposed to be where show love and fan fun smash together to equal good times to the power of a million and five. Enough said, now onto the blabber! *hurkie jump*
In “The Art of Fiction” John Gardner uses an analogy about two territorial tigers to illustrate how tension must be maintained between characters in order for the climax of a story to be persuasive and interesting:
“The value of the standard feud story always depends on the writer’s ability to create powerfully convincing characters in irreconcilable conflict, both sides in some measure sympathetic--that is, both sides pursuing real, through mutually exclusive, values. For the climax to be persuasive, we must be shown dramatically why each character believes what he does and why each cannot sympathize with the values of his antagonist; and we must be shown dramatically why the conflicting characters cannot or do not simply avoid each other, as in real life even tigers ordinarily do.”
The bolded section is what I find especially relevant to Sam and Dean. They’re like the two tigers that must be constrained to the same territory by the artificial constructs of plot and motivation in order to build tension and conflict necessary for a satisfying and inevitable story climax. As a result, I believe they have fundamentally different (and sometimes overlapping) roles in SPN’s story. And it’s out of these prescribed roles that I believe the “Sam hogs the plot” and “Dean steals all the characterization” debate has emerged.
But before getting to the Sam and Dean tigers, let me back up and ramble about tension and conflict in fiction. I realize there are execution differences between writing fiction that’s being digested in written form (short stories, novellas, novels) and fiction for the visual medium (theater, television, cinema), but I feel the heart of storytelling is largely the same--which is why novels are commonly adapted to the screen--and there’s relevance in applying the rules of fiction to both. So I may be generalizing a bit, but for any screenwriters who may stumble upon this please know it’s not my intention to butcher your medium. I have a better understanding of literary fiction, so that’s where this discussion is sourced.
One of the most important and difficult things to do in fiction is sustaining audience interest. The main way to do this is through tension, if that be through character vs. character tension (antagonist/protagonist tension or romantic tension a.k.a. UST (unresolved sexual tension)), plot driven tension based on a yet-to-be-solved mystery or a what-will-happen-next quest, tension based on a character vs. nature or society, or tension that occurs entirely within the hidden self of a character (character vs. self).
Tension is mostly achieved through conflict. And without conflict, an interesting and compelling plot is impossible. Even tales, arguably viewed as “simple” stories, have concrete, specific, and sustainable conflict. Cinderella was at odds with her stepmother and stepsisters; the Three Little Pigs had the Big Bad Wolf repeatedly banging on their door; even Snow White, who was a push over, had her stepmother queen creating havoc. Furthermore, conflict doesn’t have to be imposed on the character by external forces; it can be entirely internal. In Dorothy Parker’s “A Telephone Call”, an interior monologue about a phone call, the conflict takes place entirely in one character’s head.
In fiction (let’s brush aside modern and postmodern fiction, okay?) sustainable conflict must be magnified to be compelling. Likewise, the characters in the story need to be pumped up so they’re slightly larger than life without becoming completely unrealistic, which can alienate them (unless the point is to make them a caricature or parody a character archetype, usually only done for flat characters who are villains or act as comic relief). The reason why characters capture our hearts is because they act in ways we wish we always could. They say things most of us might think but would never say. They're braver, cockier, funnier. They’re who we wish we could be. Heroes blast ahead and take a stance against impossible odds, and must, at some point, deal with conflict.
However, in real life most of us do whatever we can to avoid overt, messy conflict. We try to keep our mouths shut, procrastinate, acquiesce and capitulate to demands/requests that we may silently not been keen on in order to keep the peace. And only when we’re backed into a corner or are pushed beyond our breaking points do we usually act. We do our best to play nice because the world is a better place when we don’t fight.
And this is where fiction diverges from real life and the tiger analogy comes into play. People in reality are like territorial tigers. Tigers normally avoid conflict. Rather than invade another tiger’s territory, they stalk away and establish their own new territory. But fiction requires a concrete and specific reason why characters must butt heads. Fiction also requires that those involved not be allowed to simply exit the story and establish a new territory off page. It this happened there wouldn’t be a compelling plot and the ending would be unsatisfying (how disappointing it would it have been if Sam walked out after finding John in “Dead Man’s Blood” 1x20 or Dean never chose to return to reality at the end of “WiaWSNB” 2x20). Like two trapped tigers, characters must be made to repeatedly invade and eventually stay in each other’s territory for the conflict to play out. The tigers must be forced, by either internal or external forces, to circle each other until something happens. And this slow circling, evading, hiding, and seeking builds until the climax of the story where their meeting is inevitable and the conflict finally comes to a head.
So how are the tigers kept circling?
A character must be attached to the story in a way that prevents them from avoiding the conflict indefinitely and escaping. As I see it, this is done though:
1. External forces: the character is directly tied to the plot so they can’t escape. This is what I’ll call the plot tiger.
2. Internal needs/desires: the character’s motivation is constructed such that they won’t leave. This is what I’ll term the motivation tiger.
I think Sam and Dean represent these two different conflict tigers, one tied largely to the plot and one made unable to leave because of constructed motivation/characterization. As a byproduct, Sam and Dean are lashed to the story in fundamentally different ways, resulting in the notion of the Sam-centric plot and Dean-centric characterization.
Because I believe Sam and Dean conflict tiger roles have evolved, I’m going to discuss S1 and S2 together and then S3 (through the currently US aired episode “Jus In Bello” 3x12). Then I'll talk about why I think The Show/Kripke doesn't favor either Sam or Dean, but the perception that "it's all about Sam" and "we know Dean to death" both at the expense of the other are artifacts of SPN-specific plot construction, the nature of creating compelling and believable conflict in fiction, and how the fundamentally different conflict tigers are used in a story (I have a really geeky table, too *grins*).
S1 and S2: The Injured Sam Tiger and The Mama Dean Tiger
Every story needs a plot tiger. It doesn’t matter if it’s a person, an animal, or an object, but the story must be about someone or something in order for the plot to move forward in a logical manner. For S1 and S2 Sam was the unwilling plot tiger, tied to the story by external forces outside of his control. He was dragged kicking and screaming from his chosen life, bonked over the head, and essentially concussed by the plot. And like an injured tiger, he literally couldn’t escape the story (i.e. the territory) because it was about him, happening to him, and following him … a monkey humping his back.
Even if Sam had run off to Yemen and left Dean in the dust, he would've only been postponing the inevitable. Azazel would’ve eventually come charging through Sam's front door, dragging the story with him. In fact, the intervening 22 years between the pre- and post-title card scenes in the pilot was exactly what this was; a postponement of what eventually must be and Sam’s futile attempt to escape the inescapable. So by necessity and story construction, someone had to be the plot tiger; in this case it was Sam, who simply had no choice in the matter.
This is why Sam was the entry character for the series, and why the pilot was told from his POV. He was whom the audience was meant to identify and empathize with, which was why it was important to cast a likable and accessible actor to portray him (as substantiated by Kripke in the S1 DVDs). To draw the audience Sam had to be a seemingly regular college student to provide the contrast for his subsequent character development (Campbell’s hero's journey). We had to be charmed by Sam's normalcy, and it was his everydayness that was meant to endure him to us. Sam was the audience’s security blanket, the one we could depend on when inevitably the plot got gnarly (which is why Sam's transformation in S3 is that much more unsettling). So at the beginning of the series it was Sam's story because the story had to be about someone. The mytharc, which so far features Sam at its center, supports this supposition: the generations of PsyKids and their seemingly dark destinies, the fate of a demon army, and the surface motivation for the big bad gal/kid/thing in S3. Even Mary's death-the catalyst for John's and subsequently Dean and Sam's hunting lives-was a consequence of actions centered on Sam and his demon blood baptism.
Certainly S1 and S2 Sam was also made to fit the description of the motivation tiger by making the plot (mytharc) personal in the last five minutes of the pilot with Jess burning on the ceiling. This was repeated at the beginning of S2 with John's death. However, all characters need motivation otherwise the story seems nonsensical and sentimental, so although Sam filled both conflict tiger roles to some degree, his primary purpose in S1 and S2 was to be the plot tiger, the foundation of the story, and anchor the mytharc (plot) firmly into place.
On the other hand, in S1 and S2, Dean was never held hostage by the plot: he wasn't having visions, a demon wasn't hunting him, he wasn't part of a generation of psychics. He wasn't entrenched in the plot the same way Sam was because, at that point, the mytharc (which is what I’m referring to as “plot” even though technically the definition extends it beyond that narrow application) wasn't about Dean. Furthermore, Dean wasn't meant to be the audience surrogate, so he was free to be whatever the writers wanted him to be. He didn't have to be likeable or totally believable. Therefore, he was bigger than life, funnier, tougher, gruffer, snarkier, and sexier than your average Joe. Whereas we were meant to sympathize with Sam and follow him into the plot because we cared about what happened to him (plot), Dean’s role was to entrance us like the Pied Piper, making us follow him because we were curious about who he was (motivation). Dean was the frosting on the cake and the sparkly glitter on the tiara and what Sam couldn't be by construction.
But all of Dean's charisma couldn't anchor him in the story and keep him circling the injured (and sometimes pissy) Sam plot tiger in a believable way. And for the story of two brothers to work, Dean needed to absolutely stay with Sam. Therefore, Dean's motivation had to explain why he wouldn't run off to find John alone even though he physically could've escaped the story (i.e. the territory) without the plot following him. This is why Dean's needs and desires were made to be familial, why Dean needed to need John and Sam more than anything else, why it was necessary for his sense of self to take a backseat to his collective SamDeanJohn identity, and why Dean had to be the bridge between Sam and John (who needed to be at odds for Sam’s rejection of his former life implicit in Campbell’s hero’s journey to take place). In this way, Dean became the mama motivation tiger who repeatedly chose to stay because his internal needs/desires prevented him from exiting the story. It wasn't that Dean couldn't leave; it was that he simply wouldn't (which is why S3 Dean's impending departure is that much more heartbreaking).
Keeping the motivation tiger circling requires different treatment than the plot tiger. Whereas it's usually clear why the plot tiger-Sam in S1 and S2-can't escape as he's essentially trapped in the story, the audience needs to understand why the motivation tiger-Dean in S1 and S2-continues to hover despite the difficulties, bone-aching angst, and single-tear manpain otherwise his character's involvement feels contrived and the conflict appears artificial. The motivation tiger requires a significant amount of characterization independent of the plot (a.k.a. mytharc) as he can’t rely on the plot to elucidate his actions and use it as a characterization crutch like the plot tiger because, by nature, the motivation tiger isn’t tied to the plot. And as a consequence, the motivation tiger appears to be an attention hog because without specialized attention geared specifically toward characterization, his actions simply won't make sense. Essentially the motivation tiger is the shiny dude in the middle of the three-ring circus juggling oranges and pineapples and humming the Benny Hill theme song while the plot tiger is the quiet guy in the corner holding the tent up. But without either of them, things would fall apart; keeping the circus running requires a collective effort.
I think a story can have multiple motivation tigers, plot tigers, hybrid motivation-plot tigers, and/or a combination of all three. However, in the case of the S1 and S2, the story (as we’re learning) was convoluted enough that I think there was room for only one plot tiger, Sam. And I think in order to further delineate character roles without injecting more messy competition in an already conflict-ridden surface plot, Dean was appointed the motivation tiger. However, in any story, as the plot develops and the characters become more complex, the plot and motivation tigers begin to blend, and as a story evolves and the stakes are upped, hybrid conflict tigers are the natural result. Anchoring a character into the story by trapping them in the plot as well as assigning them concrete reasons why they won’t leave only strengthens plot and ratchets everything up for a big-payoff climax. I think this is exactly what’s been happening in SPN and brings us to Sam and Dean and their convoluted relationships with the S3 story.
S3: The Trapped Dean Tiger, The Watch Guard Sam Tiger, and a Mix of Each
S3 feels like the fulcrum on which the mytharc is balanced and we're experiencing the shifting power dynamic as the Winchester seesaw begins to slowly tilt in the opposite direction. I think this makes sense when framed in Kripke’s five-year plan. Year three is when everything should begin to shift; when character foundations laid in the previous seasons are expanded and previously planted plot seeds begin to sprout. S3 is when things should begin to change. And appropriately S3 is when Sam and Dean reverse conflict tiger roles with Dean becoming plot tiger and Sam reverting to the motivation tiger. Then later they evolve into hybrid tigers, supporting the idea that as a series evolves the characters become more firmly incorporated into story through both plot and motivation.
Dean became the plot tiger the moment he locked lips with the Crossroad’s Demon in “AHBL-2” (2x22). By sacrificing his life for Sam’s, Dean trapped himself in his own plot. And like Sam in S1 and S2, he’s now being carried on the back draft of the story, and regardless of his actions, Dean will be forced to deal with the conflict in some manner if it be weaseling out of the deal or taking a trip to the pit. Also, like with the inevitable meeting of trapped plot-tiger Sam and Azazel in S1 and S2, the tension, what enthralls us, isn’t if Dean will deal with the consequences of his deal (because it’s unavoidable) but how he’ll deal with it. Even more satisfying is Dean’s previously established characterization/motivation built through his motivation-tiger role was used to catapult him directly into the plot. The Winchester propensity for self-sacrifice (“Salvation” 1x21, “Devil’s Trap” 1x22, and “IMToD” 2x01) and Dean’s need to save his family, his reflexive response to put others before himself, his inability to accept failure, his fear of being alone, or whatever one interprets the reasons behind his choice made his switch from motivation to plot tiger seamless and a natural extension of his character, the hallmark of good characterization.
Dean’s role as plot tiger marks the emergence of a dual mytharc-related plot. For the first time Sam and Dean have their own plots, “demons after Sam” and “Dean’s deal”. And I think the competing nature of a two-plot story adds to the emotional estrangement between Sam and Dean and the more fragmented feel of S3 by dividing their attention and toggling between each plot respectively. As a result, Sam and Dean must operate more independently because they’re responsible for carrying and cultivating their own plot as well as each other’s (their propensity for secret keeping also acts as dividing agent that supports more individualized plots). In S3 we’ve had at seven out of twelve (58%) episodes featuring plot-driven scenes with Sam sans Dean (“The Magnificent Seven” 3x01, “TKAA 3x02, “Sin City” 3x04, “Bedtime Stories” 3x05, “Mystery Spot” 3x11) and Dean sans Sam (“TKAA 3x02”, “Sin City” 3x04, “Malleus Maleficarum” 3x09, “DaLDoM” 3x10) whereby in previous seasons with a single-plot mytharc there were only seven out of forty-four (16%) such episodes (“Scarecrow” 1x11, “Bloodlust” 2x03, “Crossroad Blues” 2x08, “Hunted” 2x10, “BUaBS” 2x14, WiaWSNB” and “AHBL-1” 2x21). It’s easy to see why a single plot was important for S1 and S2 when part of the goal was to first build the fraternal bond then strengthen the collective Sam-and-Dean identity. But as we’re entering the middle of the series it seems natural that as the story expands their relationship also experiences growing pains regardless if this was done purposefully and/or created inadvertently from story construction. In all likelihood we’ll see the two S3 plots merge, reunifying the brothers with a single larger, stronger plot as the series comes full circle to its finale.
Like flipping from heads to tails on a coin, as Dean became the plot tiger Sam became the motivation tiger. This wasn’t a matter of Sam simply defaulting to motivation tiger because Dean became the plot tiger, but I think, like Dean in S1 and S2, the easiest way to reattach Sam to the plot was through motivation. Furthermore, it was imperative that Sam learned about Dean’s deal before the end of “AHBL-2” to prevent him from leaving the story. When Dean killed Azazel, Sam’s surface goals set up in S1 and S2-avenge Jess and Mary's death and get Azazel off his back-were fulfilled, and without the big bad guy perusing him and the other psychics of his generation dead, the plot previously tangled around Sam’s ankles seemingly fell away. Sure, there was the threat of the newly released demon army but with what we knew at that point Sam could’ve likely exited the story without it following him (Gordon and Kubric didn’t emerge until “BDaBR” 3x03 and mentions of Lilith didn’t occur until “Malleus Maleficarum”). Therefore, Sam had to be retied to the story in a new way, and this had to happen before the curtain closed on S2. The easiest way to accomplish this was to endanger what Sam had come to care about most, what The Show has been building since the pilot, his relationship with Dean, and then reveal Dean’s life was at stake as soon as possible (in the resolution of S2’s climax, the last five minutes of “AHBL-2”). As a result, we never doubted that Sam would stick around for S3 because it was ingrained in his character to need, above everything else, to save Dean. And, voila, that’s how Sam’s character development over the last two seasons was used to flip him from the plot tiger to the motivation tiger in one swift and easy plot reveal. :)
To support this, we’ve seen a number of S3 episodes specifically centered on Sam’s characterization that parallel S1 and S2 Dean-centric episodes when he was the motivation tiger. The Sam-centric flashbacks in “AVSC” (3x08) mimicked the flashbacks in the Dean-centric episode “Something Wicked” (1x18). I think the Sam-centric alternate-reality episode “Mystery Spot” was purposely made the counterpoint to the alternate-reality Dean-heavy episode “WiaWSNB”. Watch the opening montage for “Mystery Spot” and you’ll see clips from “WiaWSNB” despite the fact the episodes didn’t share reoccurring characters outside of Sam and Dean nor were linked by a through-going plot thread.
As the plot becomes more complicated and the characters develop, the relationship between character, plot, and motivation becomes more complex. Plot and motivation tigers are no longer mutually exclusive and characters begin to mesh into the plot based on both external circumstances and internal desires/needs. The need to save Dean kept Sam pigeonholed in the motivation tiger role until Kubric and Creedy tracked him down in “ABDaBR” (3x03) and the revelation a demon was gunning for him in “Malleus Maleficarum” pulled him back into the plot, making Sam a hybrid plot-motivation tiger. And, strangely, this also turned Dean, the new S3 plot tiger, into a hybrid tiger as we know Dean would never exit the plot on his own accord and leave Sam. So although the dual plot might have the boys by the ankles, Sam and Dean have their hands around both plots’ necks and aren’t letting go. In S3, plot, motivation, internal needs/desires, and external pressures/circumstances have melded to create a tangled ball of drama/angst and a no-exit story where the characters are solidly tied to two separate plots and each other. And by the nature of fiction and compounding effect of plot complications it’s only going to get messier. Yay!
Why the Story is About Dean and We Do Know Sam
So far I’ve tried to come up with reasons for some of fandom’s staunch belief “the plot is all about Sam” and “Dean hogs all the characterization”. But just because there’s a possible explanation doesn’t necessarily mean the original observation is true. So because I was curious if there really were more episodes centering on Dean’s motivations and more Sam-based plot episodes (and because I’m a dork), I made a table *makes a face*. Marks in the Sam (P) and Dean (P) columns denote episodes where I thought new information about Sam and/or Dean’s mytharc-related plot was revealed, while marks in the columns labeled Sam (M) and Dean (M) identify episodes featuring new revelations regarding Sam and/or Dean’s motivations/characterization. These designations were based on new information/reveals instead of reiterations of previously known facts because the nature of storytelling is to forward the plot and character development as efficiently as possible, and I felt new information would be the best measuring stick in which to judge the central focus (character/plot) of each episode.
The table of extreme dorkery is here (something is very wrong with Macs and table format preservation and I can't spend any more time trying to figure out how to get the table in this post *headdesk*).
The table results generally support the plot/motivation tiger trends. S1 slightly favors Sam’s plot-slanted episodes (9-8 episodes) and S2 slightly favors Dean-heavy motivation episodes (16-13 episodes). Episodes spent on character motivation in S1 are the same, which makes sense considering both characters needed to get up and running and needed almost equal attention. Sam was favored slightly in S3 with one more motivation-based episode than Dean. It’s not surprising that S1 and S2’s plot results are similar because there was only one plot (see the * table note for explanation), but with the emergence of Dean’s deal, I thought S3 would be telling. But, weirdly, Sam had one more plot-based episode than Dean, which was probably a result of Sam being reincorporated into the plot through two threads (Gordon and Kubric as well as Lilith).
The designations for each episode are somewhat subjective and the table might vary slightly depending on opinion. But I tried to be non-biased so any “errors” are hopefully random (gah, whatever). Even if fandom at large disagrees on the specifics of the exact episode designations, unless I was biased and consistently ruled in favor of one brother over the other, even a moderate amount of non-biased play in the plot and motivation designations wouldn’t likely result in huge differences whereby one brother was favored dramatically over the other in any category. Enough of that boring methodology stuff *snore*, moving on…
The point is neither Sam nor Dean-centric episodes based on plot or motivation overwhelm each other. The slight emphasis on Sam’s plot (28 Sam-plot episodes to 26 Dean-plot episodes) and Dean-motivation episodes (37 Dean-motivation episodes to 35 Sam-motivation episodes) supports the idea of Sam being the plot tiger and Dean being the motivation tiger for the majority of the series. However, overall there’s not a significance difference between Sam and Dean-heavy episodes, suggesting both brothers have more or less been treated evenly with respect to both plot and motivation. Put plainly: Sam isn’t a total plot pig and Dean isn’t a complete characterization hog.
To me, it feels like these numbers (which I expected to be highly skewed) don’t really account for fandom’s avid discussion about this topic. Weird. So if you’re onboard with the discussion so far, the question now becomes: if Sam and Dean are treated more or less fairly with respect to the number of episodes designated to their character and plot development, then why does it still feel like Sam gets less characterization and Dean is short-changed on plot? Could it be something about the nature of their conflict tiger roles rather than the number of episodes they’ve been occupying those roles?
Sam and Characterization
“AVSC” made me realize that I really did know Sam even though I felt he wasn’t as concretely defined as Dean. During the flashback scenes with wee!Sam and notsowee!Dean, I immediately recognized Sam’s snarky sarcasm (“A pony.” :D), his 2+2=4 logic (“If [monsters] got Mom, they can get Dad, and if they get Dad they can get us.”), and his propensity to question the obvious and steadfast, unquestionable boundaries (Is Dad a spy? Why do we move around so much? Is that why we never talk about Mom?). Hiding behind those scruffy bangs was the same Sam, that deeply damaged little boy who idolizes his big brother, who pushes until he gets answers he doesn’t want to hear. In contrast, my knee-jerk reaction to Sam in the flash-forward in “Mystery Spot” was to think, “Wrong! Wrong!” and suddenly want to watch the pilot or “Hookman” featuring the emo-bangs-hoodie-college boy from S1. Then I realized in order to feel the strong affinity for wee!Sam in “AVSC” and the omg!wrong contrast in “Mystery Spot”, I must have good sense of who Sam is to begin with. I don’t think my thoughts are original enough to make me the only one who in fandom felt this way after watching those episodes, so…
I think we do know Sam. I think he has received his fair share of characterization, but it’s been done in a less obvious way. Recall the plot tiger’s characterization is largely filtered through the plot. It’s more direct than the motivation tiger and requires less attention-grabbing work to explain the how and whys of a character. The irony is because the plot tiger’s characterization results in a more straightforward approach we don’t necessarily notice it, making it appear to be covert and sneaky even though we’re staring straight at it. It’s like the non-squeaky wheel, we don’t think about Sam’s characterization being delivered through the plot because it’s meant to be transparent; it’s what’s supposed to happen and we take it for granted. When things work right for the plot tiger, characterization naturally spins from the plot and is virtually unnoticeable. The motivation tiger is the squeaky wheel you can’t help but notice because he’s making noise and waving a sign that says, “LOOK AT ME!” because to understand him you must look away from the plot. When things work right for the motivation tiger, he entrances the audience into paying attention to him, not the plot, and that’s what we remember.
Furthermore, when Sam became the motivation/hybrid tiger in S3, his motivations didn’t need much individualized attention because we already had two seasons of pre-plotted Sam characterization. When Dean was motivation tiger in S1 and S2 we were still learning who the characters were and Dean’s motivations needed to be explained as the story unfolded with scene and subplots outside of the mytharc plot. We didn’t need to be told as many things about Sam in S3 because we’d already seen them-it was understood that Sam wouldn’t abandon Dean because we saw Sam’s head-down determination and his efforts to save Dean in “Faith” (1x12). With Dean it was like we were given the already-constructed building and had the time-consuming task of personally deconstructing half of it to see how it was made. Whereas with Sam we passively monitored the construction from the beginning and saw the innards as the final product was being fabricated.
Dean and The Plot
I think the perception that Dean gets “no plot” is partially due to the nature of the story and Dean’s invented motivation/characterization. This may sound like a cop out, but implicit in Dean’s role in S1/S2 was his need to be all about John, Sam, the family Winchester at the expense of himself in order to set up the motivation for his deal in “AHBL-2”. So according to Dean’s character, Sam’s S1 and S2 plot had to be Dean’s plot, and in a roundabout way the plot was also Dean’s. That’s the paradox; by being about Sam it’s also about Dean because what happens to one affects the other. You kick one and the other jumps. And reinforcing this idea that Dean’s invented motivation partially defines his relationship to the plot is the fact his more assertive sense of self expressed in “DaLDoM” is coincident with the development of his independent plot. It’ll be interesting to see how his character develops as his plot plays out in the rest of S3. :)
In some cases, our understanding of mytharc made some episodes, at their airdate, appear to be Sam-centric even though we now know they weren’t. “IMToD” is an excellent example of Dean’s plot hiding in plain sight. Until “AHBL-2”, the last episode of S2, when Dean’s own plot emerged, the plot-related events in “IMToD” were viewed only in terms of Sam’s plot arc because Dean’s plot, although present, was incognito. But looking back on S2, it’s clear that Dean’s plot had been quietly unfurling since the fall of 2006, we just didn’t notice. Silly us.
I think what also adds to this false perception is even when “it was about Dean” the larger outcome, what we remember, was tied to the mytharc-related plot and, therefore, to Sam, the S1 and S2 plot tiger. Take “Croatoan” (2x09) where the surface plot was Dean-centric (the mystery of him shooting Duane Tanner, his choice to stay with infected Sam). Even though there was lots Dean-centric stuff happening, Dean’s story was the vehicle delivering information about the mytharc-related plot that centered on Sam (Sam’s immune to a demonic virus that’s being cultivated). So what the majority of fandom remembers foremost about “Croatoan” is its ties to the mytharc plot that just happens to be attached to Sam because those facts are directly relevant to the construction of the larger story.
Even though technically Sam was the plot tiger in S1 and S2, that doesn’t negate Dean’s role in the plot. In fact, without Dean to forward the story, the plot would’ve fallen flat on its face. Dean enlightened and deepened the story considerably. Like two facing mirrors reflecting an image to infinity, the consequences of Sam and Dean’s actions bounce off of both brothers over and over again. They’re foils for each other. We understand the story better through their combined reactions. Without Dean, this story wouldn’t have been possible. Think about how different some mytharc-related episodes like “Dead Man’s Blood”, “Scarecrow”, “Croatoan”, or “Devil’s Trap” would’ve been without Dean. Some episodes such as “IMToD”, “BUaBS”, “AHBL-1 and 2” wouldn’t have been possible at all. So I argue that even though Dean wasn’t directly linked to the plot like Sam in S1 and S2, he was definitely part of the plot, got his fair share of plot-related episodes, and was and an active and integral component of the story.
Final Blabberings
I think the idea Sam hogs the plot and Dean hoards the characterization at the expense of the other is a perception, a misconception even. I believe Sam received just as much characterization as Dean and Dean had his fair share of the plot. I maintain The Show doesn’t favor either of them, but has divided its attentions between Sam and Dean more or less equally over the last three seasons and this debate is a perceived artifact of SPN’s plot construction and the nature of creating compelling and believable conflict in fiction.
A character’s motivation is rooted in plot and plot spins directly out of a character’s needs and desires. So plot and characterization are like a snake swallowing its tail, where one ends the other begins. And Sam and Dean’s relationship with the story and their conflict tiger roles illustrate the circular-nature of this debate perfectly. More than anything, this story is about two brothers who are fundamentally different but work together all the same. And I think the same is true for how Sam and Dean are tied to the plot and how their characterization is dealt with. Each are accomplished in different ways and delivered through different means, but somehow they compliment each other and are used in tandem to forward the story. This is Sam-and-Dean’s story, not only Sam’s, not only Dean’s. I think it’s worth a closer look to realize that it’s not a matter of Sam getting more of something at Dean’s expense or Dean having more of something else at Sam’s expense. And with S3 melding previously established conflict tiger roles, I think this perception may very well be on its way out.
Gah! The end! I'm sort of embarrassed about how long and detailed this got, but apparently this is what happens after weeks without new shows. *needs chocolate and caffeine*
ETA:
kentawolf drew this gorgeous and so appropriate picture of our furry plot tigers! *eee* Thank you, sweets!