tl; dr (no, really)
Okay, so Jared gave out a YOOOGE spoiler at Fangoria. At least, everyone is saying it's a huge spoiler, even though it's been broadcast in foot-high neon letters in every episode of season 3 so far. It's kind of like, "HUGE SPOILER! Next episode, Dean drives the Imapala! OMG!" But I shall spoiler-cut like a good fan.
If the strike hadn't happened, the last episodes of this season would have brought back Sam's powers at much-increased levels.
What, you say? The Antichrist-to-be will have powers? Also, bear shits in woods. Anyway, janissa11 wrote a thoughtful post which you should read. From that post and the comments, there seems to be basic consensus on some points:
1. Sam having powers fundamentally changes the show (and Super!Sam isn't the show we signed up for)
2. Everything being All About Sam is bad and not what we signed up for
3. Sam having powers somehow shortchanges Dean as a character, makes the brothers unequal, and reduces Dean to a role of victim or sidekick
4. Dean has been a passive and undeveloped character from the start, existing only to be All About Sam, and now even his one active decision- the Deal- is really only in service of Sam's development.
5. Dean ought to have some kind of Special Destiny on par with Sam's (ie, Hell wants his soul for some other reason that to get to Sam)
6. The way (possibly only way) to make Dean a strong character is for him to fundamentally defy Sam, either by actually going to hell or going all Epic brother-against-brother (King of the Demons versus King of the Demons. GO!)
The funny thing is that I disagree with every single one of those points, except maybe the first.
I do agree with point 1: Sam having powers fundamentally changes the show. When I first fell in love SPN, it was because of a very particular emotional angle that spoke to me deeply. It's common, in genre fiction, for there to be a Chosen One- a character with some kind of fate or destiny, forced into heroism he doesn't chose. It's everywhere, from Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter, and seems to be universally acknowledged to be a powerful trope. I don't get it. It's not that I dislike it, because if I did, I couldn't read anything. But the reverse has always held all the emotional power for me. I'm talking about those rare instances when you see a character who is perfectly ordinary- he has no hidden background, no unknown father, no royal lineage, no fate, no destiny, no special power, nothing. These characters step into the role of hero and save the world out of conscious choice. Often their motivation isn't even great moral ideas, but fierce loyalty to their group or friend. A character who is not special is so uncommon in fantasy that I can't even give you common examples, except perhaps Sam in Lord of the Rings (Neville gets a lot of his power from being the one who could have been special but isn't, but even he has his parents to live up to). Very often, I read only to be disappointed because, "oh look, there was a prophecy about this guy too."
Anyway, when SPN started, that seemed to be what they were doing. This was a normal, ordinary family, suddenly struck by a random act of darkness and evil- and John STEPS UP. He devotes his whole life to fighting evil, not because he has no choice, but out of a personal, conscious devotion to his wife and because once he knows, he can't turn away. Dean continues that, even though he doesn't have the same personal stake in revenge that his father does- he wants to save people. Sam hits the road again out of personal devotion to his father and brother. These boys were going to fight demons and stop the thing that was ruining the lives of families and save people and do good and they DIDN'T HAVE TO. Not special. So when I agree that "Sam having powers changes the whole show," I'm not talking about some kind of balance of power between the brothers (which seems to be what most people mean), I'm talking about that- it's that moment in fantasy when you go, "damn. Special after all." Maybe that's just me.
Point 2: The show isn't supposed to be All About Sam! This one's funny, because I think if one thing is perfectly clear from the pilot, it's that OF COURSE this show is All About Sam. Look at the structure- we're introduced to Sam, a normal guy living a normal life with a normal girlfriend, who suddenly runs into a character who drags him away from his life into a strange world of magic. This new character is half guide, half sidekick, and is more comfortable in this fantasy world than our main character, answering a lot of our questions about world-building- but the viewer's journey is still fundamentally with Sam, our normal guy, as he struggles to adjust. This is How To Introduce A Fantasy Protagonist 101, guys. Bilbo, Frodo, Harry, Luke Skywalker, the Pevensie children... this is the standard, cookie-cutter, by-the-book way to tell us that Sam is our main character and emotional "in" to this world.
Next: Dean is shortchanged, a sidekick, weak, and (this is the big one) passive. This may be where my Jensen-love blinds me. This show was obviously supposed to be about Sam, and plot-wise for two seasons now, it's been about Sam- Sam lost the girlfriend, Sam has the powers, Sam may need to be killed, Sam is being groomed by a demon, Sam is destined to be some kind of Antichrist... But emotionally, the show is All About Dean. It's strange, seeing all the plot happening to one character and all the development happening to the other. To be honest, I think it happened that way because the writers realized what they had in Jensen, and as he did more and more incredible things with Dean they just gave him more and more to work with, until Dean far outstripped Sam as far as complexity and emotional connection from the audience. It sure wasn't planned that way, as the structure of the pilot makes clear, but somewhere along the line Dean became our "in" and basically our POV character, and the writers didn't fight it. The central problem of the show isn't "what does the demon want from me? What will I become?" but "what's happening to my brother? How can I save him?"
Basically, I believe Dean Winchester is the best character I have seen on TV, and I think he is that way mostly because Jensen proved that he could carry a lot of heavy emotional work for the show that Jared just wasn't up to (I don't mean to dis Jared. I love him to pieces and he's grown by leaps and bounds since he started this show). As Dean became, for lack of a better way to put it, more and more fucked up- more laden down with Daddy issues and survivor's guilt and suicidal ideation and complete lack of self-worth and everything else- he could have become a freak, or just pathetic. Instead, he is the most powerful and moving character I've ever seen.
So what's all this about Dean being weak and passive? I mean, I'm the first person to say that Dean is better than he's written a lot of the time (I'll never forgive the writers for his horrible pratfall in TM7, or botched exorcism in Sin City, and I'm convinced that the way he lets Sam play Exposition Man at him comes not because he doesn't know this stuff, but from long habit, conscious or not, of sinking into the background and playing the Dumb One for Sam). But he's very, very good at what he does, and brutally competent and powerful in many episodes. Sure, he spent his life subordinate to John- but that was a conscious decision the character made, for the sake of his family, and I refuse to classify it as weakness.
There are times he's passive, I guess. In Croatoan he makes the decision not to go on living without Sam, and I suppose he spent all of WIAWSNB hanging by his arms in a cave, but anyone who can watch those two episodes and tell me that Dean isn't one of the strongest and most heroic characters they've ever seen must not even be watching the same show I am. As for the deal, it was a character-driven moment that came logically out of everything we saw Dean experience through all of Season 2. It certainly wasn't just in the service of Sam's arc. And OF COURSE he's been passive about it in Season 3- that's written into the damn contract, to passively accept Hell was part of the incredibly powerful decision he made. He would be weaker if he fought it. It'll take something BIG to convince him that he needs to change his stance here, and that just hasn't happened yet- it's coming. I just... guess I don't understand all the cries of "Dean is too passive!"
Just because Dean's life has revolved around Sam, just because he's made conscious decisions to sacrifice himself for Sam, doesn't make him weak. It doens't make him not Sam's equal. It certainly doens't make him not the hero of this show.
Lastly: Dean ought to have a special destiny too, be king of the hunters, fight in an epic brother-against-brother war, etc. I think that after my first point it should be abundantly obvious that the LAST thing I want is for Dean to be Special too. Please don't let him have powers, or some kind of destiny!
There is much talk in that thread about what Dean has to do to "redeem" himself as a character, all of which I can't agree with because I don't think he needs redeeming.
Janissa said "It would be far stronger to have Sam come into his powers, and Dean say, I'd rather go to Hell for all eternity than see you become what we've always hunted. And motherfucking DIE. Because that shows a little valor." Except... well, that's all well and good, and would be a hell of a thing for Dean to do. But then we're left with either a (far more evil, much farther-gone) Sam dragging Dean bodily back out of hell, or a deranged Sam taking the earth apart stone by stone trying to. Which is awesome in fanfic, but not so much on TV. It sounds very heroic, but why would Dean do that? It doesn't save Sam. It doesn't stop Sam from being evil, doesn't save anybody else.
Alternatively, we have the brother-against-brother war, King of the Demons versus King of the Hunters. It could be great. It could be epic. It would take huge growth from Dean. Can you imagine Jensen's face when Dean realizes that he should have killed Sam, that the deal was fundamentally wrong and that now he has to hunt his brother for the sake of the world? My god. I'm just imagining Jensen's face, and it's a beautiful thing. Talk about oh, Dean! But there are problems with that. Mostly, that Sam would have to be so completely evil for Dean to turn against him irrevocably. At that point, it's utterly black and white, and there's no possible redemption for Sam- the rest of our series is Dean Vs. Sam, forever, and I don't see a way back out.
So Sam saves Dean. He has to do horrible things to do it, and use powers that come from a demon, and ally himself with demons. But that doesn't make him evil. And after Dean gets back, they have to devote themselves to undoing that evil- to fighting the demons they helped put in power, whatever. Dean has to bring Sam back from some kind of brink. There's a lot of moral anguish. Dean has to accept that his life was bought at great price, once again, and has to wrestle with whether and how to forgive Sam for that- just as Sam has to wrestle with his own conscience and how to forgive Dean for the deal. Maybe Sam's powers are all burned out in saving Dean, or maybe he still has them and they have to wrestle with whether to use them, or how to get rid of them, or how to control them.
But Dean is going to SAVE SAM. He doesn't get the easy way out. He doesn't get to just die, and to hell with the world now ruled by the Antichrist. He doesn't get to draw bright moral lines and fight a war against evil. He doesn't get to become a hunter-superhero. It will be hard, both physically and morally. It means that he, as a character, is always All About Sam, and he's not Special, and he doesn't have great powers or a great destiny or any kind of obvious heroism that the rest of the hunting world can see. He may seem to be inferior to Sam, with his powers. But this is Dean, and it's what he is going to do, and it's what constitutes heroism for Dean, and to take any of those easier ways out would make me think so much less of the character. I think what the writers and Jensen have done with Dean is absolutely a FEAT and I don't want him to be anyway other than how he is. *shrugs* That simple.
If the strike hadn't happened, the last episodes of this season would have brought back Sam's powers at much-increased levels.
What, you say? The Antichrist-to-be will have powers? Also, bear shits in woods. Anyway, janissa11 wrote a thoughtful post which you should read. From that post and the comments, there seems to be basic consensus on some points:
1. Sam having powers fundamentally changes the show (and Super!Sam isn't the show we signed up for)
2. Everything being All About Sam is bad and not what we signed up for
3. Sam having powers somehow shortchanges Dean as a character, makes the brothers unequal, and reduces Dean to a role of victim or sidekick
4. Dean has been a passive and undeveloped character from the start, existing only to be All About Sam, and now even his one active decision- the Deal- is really only in service of Sam's development.
5. Dean ought to have some kind of Special Destiny on par with Sam's (ie, Hell wants his soul for some other reason that to get to Sam)
6. The way (possibly only way) to make Dean a strong character is for him to fundamentally defy Sam, either by actually going to hell or going all Epic brother-against-brother (King of the Demons versus King of the Demons. GO!)
The funny thing is that I disagree with every single one of those points, except maybe the first.
I do agree with point 1: Sam having powers fundamentally changes the show. When I first fell in love SPN, it was because of a very particular emotional angle that spoke to me deeply. It's common, in genre fiction, for there to be a Chosen One- a character with some kind of fate or destiny, forced into heroism he doesn't chose. It's everywhere, from Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter, and seems to be universally acknowledged to be a powerful trope. I don't get it. It's not that I dislike it, because if I did, I couldn't read anything. But the reverse has always held all the emotional power for me. I'm talking about those rare instances when you see a character who is perfectly ordinary- he has no hidden background, no unknown father, no royal lineage, no fate, no destiny, no special power, nothing. These characters step into the role of hero and save the world out of conscious choice. Often their motivation isn't even great moral ideas, but fierce loyalty to their group or friend. A character who is not special is so uncommon in fantasy that I can't even give you common examples, except perhaps Sam in Lord of the Rings (Neville gets a lot of his power from being the one who could have been special but isn't, but even he has his parents to live up to). Very often, I read only to be disappointed because, "oh look, there was a prophecy about this guy too."
Anyway, when SPN started, that seemed to be what they were doing. This was a normal, ordinary family, suddenly struck by a random act of darkness and evil- and John STEPS UP. He devotes his whole life to fighting evil, not because he has no choice, but out of a personal, conscious devotion to his wife and because once he knows, he can't turn away. Dean continues that, even though he doesn't have the same personal stake in revenge that his father does- he wants to save people. Sam hits the road again out of personal devotion to his father and brother. These boys were going to fight demons and stop the thing that was ruining the lives of families and save people and do good and they DIDN'T HAVE TO. Not special. So when I agree that "Sam having powers changes the whole show," I'm not talking about some kind of balance of power between the brothers (which seems to be what most people mean), I'm talking about that- it's that moment in fantasy when you go, "damn. Special after all." Maybe that's just me.
Point 2: The show isn't supposed to be All About Sam! This one's funny, because I think if one thing is perfectly clear from the pilot, it's that OF COURSE this show is All About Sam. Look at the structure- we're introduced to Sam, a normal guy living a normal life with a normal girlfriend, who suddenly runs into a character who drags him away from his life into a strange world of magic. This new character is half guide, half sidekick, and is more comfortable in this fantasy world than our main character, answering a lot of our questions about world-building- but the viewer's journey is still fundamentally with Sam, our normal guy, as he struggles to adjust. This is How To Introduce A Fantasy Protagonist 101, guys. Bilbo, Frodo, Harry, Luke Skywalker, the Pevensie children... this is the standard, cookie-cutter, by-the-book way to tell us that Sam is our main character and emotional "in" to this world.
Next: Dean is shortchanged, a sidekick, weak, and (this is the big one) passive. This may be where my Jensen-love blinds me. This show was obviously supposed to be about Sam, and plot-wise for two seasons now, it's been about Sam- Sam lost the girlfriend, Sam has the powers, Sam may need to be killed, Sam is being groomed by a demon, Sam is destined to be some kind of Antichrist... But emotionally, the show is All About Dean. It's strange, seeing all the plot happening to one character and all the development happening to the other. To be honest, I think it happened that way because the writers realized what they had in Jensen, and as he did more and more incredible things with Dean they just gave him more and more to work with, until Dean far outstripped Sam as far as complexity and emotional connection from the audience. It sure wasn't planned that way, as the structure of the pilot makes clear, but somewhere along the line Dean became our "in" and basically our POV character, and the writers didn't fight it. The central problem of the show isn't "what does the demon want from me? What will I become?" but "what's happening to my brother? How can I save him?"
Basically, I believe Dean Winchester is the best character I have seen on TV, and I think he is that way mostly because Jensen proved that he could carry a lot of heavy emotional work for the show that Jared just wasn't up to (I don't mean to dis Jared. I love him to pieces and he's grown by leaps and bounds since he started this show). As Dean became, for lack of a better way to put it, more and more fucked up- more laden down with Daddy issues and survivor's guilt and suicidal ideation and complete lack of self-worth and everything else- he could have become a freak, or just pathetic. Instead, he is the most powerful and moving character I've ever seen.
So what's all this about Dean being weak and passive? I mean, I'm the first person to say that Dean is better than he's written a lot of the time (I'll never forgive the writers for his horrible pratfall in TM7, or botched exorcism in Sin City, and I'm convinced that the way he lets Sam play Exposition Man at him comes not because he doesn't know this stuff, but from long habit, conscious or not, of sinking into the background and playing the Dumb One for Sam). But he's very, very good at what he does, and brutally competent and powerful in many episodes. Sure, he spent his life subordinate to John- but that was a conscious decision the character made, for the sake of his family, and I refuse to classify it as weakness.
There are times he's passive, I guess. In Croatoan he makes the decision not to go on living without Sam, and I suppose he spent all of WIAWSNB hanging by his arms in a cave, but anyone who can watch those two episodes and tell me that Dean isn't one of the strongest and most heroic characters they've ever seen must not even be watching the same show I am. As for the deal, it was a character-driven moment that came logically out of everything we saw Dean experience through all of Season 2. It certainly wasn't just in the service of Sam's arc. And OF COURSE he's been passive about it in Season 3- that's written into the damn contract, to passively accept Hell was part of the incredibly powerful decision he made. He would be weaker if he fought it. It'll take something BIG to convince him that he needs to change his stance here, and that just hasn't happened yet- it's coming. I just... guess I don't understand all the cries of "Dean is too passive!"
Just because Dean's life has revolved around Sam, just because he's made conscious decisions to sacrifice himself for Sam, doesn't make him weak. It doens't make him not Sam's equal. It certainly doens't make him not the hero of this show.
Lastly: Dean ought to have a special destiny too, be king of the hunters, fight in an epic brother-against-brother war, etc. I think that after my first point it should be abundantly obvious that the LAST thing I want is for Dean to be Special too. Please don't let him have powers, or some kind of destiny!
There is much talk in that thread about what Dean has to do to "redeem" himself as a character, all of which I can't agree with because I don't think he needs redeeming.
Janissa said "It would be far stronger to have Sam come into his powers, and Dean say, I'd rather go to Hell for all eternity than see you become what we've always hunted. And motherfucking DIE. Because that shows a little valor." Except... well, that's all well and good, and would be a hell of a thing for Dean to do. But then we're left with either a (far more evil, much farther-gone) Sam dragging Dean bodily back out of hell, or a deranged Sam taking the earth apart stone by stone trying to. Which is awesome in fanfic, but not so much on TV. It sounds very heroic, but why would Dean do that? It doesn't save Sam. It doesn't stop Sam from being evil, doesn't save anybody else.
Alternatively, we have the brother-against-brother war, King of the Demons versus King of the Hunters. It could be great. It could be epic. It would take huge growth from Dean. Can you imagine Jensen's face when Dean realizes that he should have killed Sam, that the deal was fundamentally wrong and that now he has to hunt his brother for the sake of the world? My god. I'm just imagining Jensen's face, and it's a beautiful thing. Talk about oh, Dean! But there are problems with that. Mostly, that Sam would have to be so completely evil for Dean to turn against him irrevocably. At that point, it's utterly black and white, and there's no possible redemption for Sam- the rest of our series is Dean Vs. Sam, forever, and I don't see a way back out.
So Sam saves Dean. He has to do horrible things to do it, and use powers that come from a demon, and ally himself with demons. But that doesn't make him evil. And after Dean gets back, they have to devote themselves to undoing that evil- to fighting the demons they helped put in power, whatever. Dean has to bring Sam back from some kind of brink. There's a lot of moral anguish. Dean has to accept that his life was bought at great price, once again, and has to wrestle with whether and how to forgive Sam for that- just as Sam has to wrestle with his own conscience and how to forgive Dean for the deal. Maybe Sam's powers are all burned out in saving Dean, or maybe he still has them and they have to wrestle with whether to use them, or how to get rid of them, or how to control them.
But Dean is going to SAVE SAM. He doesn't get the easy way out. He doesn't get to just die, and to hell with the world now ruled by the Antichrist. He doesn't get to draw bright moral lines and fight a war against evil. He doesn't get to become a hunter-superhero. It will be hard, both physically and morally. It means that he, as a character, is always All About Sam, and he's not Special, and he doesn't have great powers or a great destiny or any kind of obvious heroism that the rest of the hunting world can see. He may seem to be inferior to Sam, with his powers. But this is Dean, and it's what he is going to do, and it's what constitutes heroism for Dean, and to take any of those easier ways out would make me think so much less of the character. I think what the writers and Jensen have done with Dean is absolutely a FEAT and I don't want him to be anyway other than how he is. *shrugs* That simple.