Supernatural Thoughts
I'm not sure what spurred this, but I've been having some thoughts about the show and my feelings on the show as of late. For whatever reason, I wrote them down and it came out kind of meta-ish.
For the last four years, I have had one main hobby: Supernatural. I randomly flipped to it back in S1 and wrote my first fic after “Asylum” first aired, and I haven’t really stopped since. I’ve produced well over 50 fics, countless icons, and participated in fic exchanges, message boards, and the like. And yet, pushing halfway through S5, something is beginning to change.
To the point: I’m losing interest.
Those who know me well (and some who don’t), know that I’ve been disenchanted with the show for awhile, namely the treatment of Sam’s character. But it’s still elicited my passion in extreme ways, even throughout the hard points of S4 and S5. So now that the boys are back together, I keep asking myself what my big issue is?
There are many things I could point to, but, after some thought, I realized it boiled down to something pretty simple. If I looked back and found the reason I fell in love with the show, I realized that, for me, I never really cared that this was about urban legends or supernatural creatures. No, I liked it because it was about family--it was about brotherly bonds and commitment and love.
Looking at where we are in S5, I can’t see this like I used to. After all, consider the three following major themes that drove the show in early seasons. As I thought about these themes, I realized how much they’d changed and are almost not even applicable to the show’s current context.
1. Saving people, hunting things. The family business.
There are many who may argue that this is still an underriding premise of the show. After all, the boys are still hunting things and they are still saving people. While this much is essentially true, the fact of the matter is that it is no longer about the family business.
This shift is entirely necessary of course, given the framework set up by the heavily developed mytharc. The idea that the boys would pursue random hunts during the apocalypse is hard to sell for more than a week or two. Otherwise, it just seems like the boys are either really stupid or irresponsible and the apocalypse then seems a whole lot less scary. Since none of these options are clearly good from a storytelling perspective, the old format--the monster of the week idea, where the boys pick up some research and drive into town and do some work before cleaning up the mess and moving on--has become almost always motivated by something related to the grander mytharc, be it angels or demons or something marginally related.
The problem is not so much that the hunts have to be more focused and therefore less diverse, but it’s an issue of motivation. Why are Sam and Dean pursuing these hunts? It’s less and less a choice for them and more and more of a chore. And not even the revenge bent of earlier seasons, but a pure and simple survival tactic. Simply put, the boys hunt because if they don’t go after it, it will come after them. Neither of them derives any semblance of pleasure or positive experience from this hunt. It is merely a necessary task.
On some level, that is somewhat heroic. They do what has to be done so no one else has to do it. However, the intensity of saving people seems muted now. While the boys are trying to avert the apocalypse and thereby save the world, the week to week angst is so based on saving their own skins that it very much seems that saving people is only a side effect. It used to mean something, and the boys used to connect if only briefly with the people they met on any given week. There was a notion of helping the world by helping individuals. The people mattered.
Now, it’s not about people, but the world. This is decidedly impersonal and the impact is far less powerful for the boys and the audience. By extension, this forces the boys to become less everyday heroes and more epic heroes, which on the surface sounds really nifty, but in actuality, just makes them far more generic.
The loss of the family business on the show also impacts the overall focus of the show. Whereas S1 and S2 were most definitely about family, the later seasons have shifted away from the family unit and focused more on the global concern. Again, this moves from ordinary to epic, which by default creates a far less intimate feel on the show. The idea of Winchester doesn’t hold weight anymore, not when the boys are cosmic pawns in a war that is bigger than them and, ultimately, far more important than they are.
2. You’re my brother, and I’d die for you.
Honestly, this one hurts the most. This sentiment was the defining aspect of the relationship between Sam and Dean. It was what made them who they were and what set them apart from most duos on TV today. And yes, it was a bit unrealistic and totally unhealthy and completely fascinating and appealing.
This was the dynamic that created tension. The brothers were very different people with real pain and real issues and the show didn’t shy away from that. They fought and they disagreed and they hurt each other and yet, in the end, always, always came back to each other. It allowed even the most ridiculous episodes to seem worthwhile because this was, as SPN writer Sera Gamble put it, the epic love story of Sam and Dean.
And then, it was gone. S4 was a cold season from both brothers. They were so screwed up and self invested that the idea of brotherly concern was barely visible. It popped up from time to time, but mostly, the boys angsted about their own things and didn’t seem to care too much about the other. Leading to the ultimate betrayals in the end: each brother hit below the belt and severed ties. I’m not interested at this juncture in the blame game because, quite simply, if this is the love story between Sam and Dean, then it was both of them and always will be. All relationships require two people and the deconstruction of a relationship is never one sided.
And maybe this would work. It was angsty and it was hard to watch and all of that. The problem, however, is in the resolution of this breakdown in S5. Instead of a shift back to you’re my brother and I’d die for you, we’ve moved into the boys having a working relationship with virtually no other vested interest. Sam and Dean don’t actually like each other. They might die for one another in a very simple sense, but the drive and passion that kept them together is gone.
In fact, they can and would work apart. It just isn’t in their personal interest to do that. Neither of them wants to do it alone so they have turned to each other in order to guarantee the best personal success. It’s not about each other, it’s about themselves. It’s much more of a duty and much more of a chore.
Worse than that, the show is making an active point of showing the boys letting each other go. Dean is becoming the ultimate leader, which in theory is really a good thing, but in execution, means putting his brother last, even when it’s not a necessary choice. These boys won’t do anything to save each other, and that is a huge problem in terms of what makes this show different and appealing.
No, I don’t want to see the endless cycle of deals. I hate the entire concept of deals to begin with. But you better believe that I want to see my boys doing anything and everything to save each other--not holding back because it’s the “right” thing to do.
Now, please understand. This isn’t Dean bashing or anti-Dean rhetoric or whatever. And yeah, I get all the reasons why Dean is having a hard time accepting and all that. The thing is--and this is the heart of my problem with the show right now--as realistic and mature as all of it may be in real life, it’s just not the show. It’s not how it started. And after the seasons of you’re my brother and I’d die for you and as long as I’m around nothing bad will ever happen to you--this? Seems incredibly hollow.
Sure, maybe TPTB are going to fix it. I honestly don’t know. The most recent ep gave me a tiny amount of hope--but it might be too little, too late. I just know that after a season and a half of this lack of connection, I’m realizing that I don’t like the brothers anymore. Either of them. The trait I loved best about both of them was the love and devotion they had for the other. Both of them have betrayed that, stomped on it, and kicked it neatly to the curb in order to become “mature” people.
And never has watching two partners on TV been more painful. The boys aren’t special in ways that count anymore. They’re just two people, stuck in a crappy situation, working with what they have to try to get out of it. There’s no heart anymore. And that’s why for the first time in five years, I’m not just upset. I’m actually losing interest.
3. Two brothers, one destiny.
So technically, this is still true. The brothers are both on a scripted path toward a single destiny in stopping the apocalypse. Dean is to be Michael’s vessel and Sam is to be Lucifer’s and they’re both equally awesome and special in amazingly perfect parallel ways.
Problem is, that this scenario means that the catch phrase about two brothers, one destiny is much more about Michael and Lucifer than Sam and Dean.
Sam and Dean are just avatars now, sort of limited parallels to some greater cosmic family struggle. This parallel does make them “special” but also makes them utterly devoid of individual importance. Now, Dean’s duty as a big brother becomes nothing more than a mimic of Michael. Sam’s rebellion that took him to college is nothing more than Lucifer’s butt being thrown out of heaven. And the ultimate resolution of this may involve both boys saying yes, but seems to be heading toward the ridiculous reality that the endgame will involve the boys’ bodies more than themselves.
This is no longer about Sam and Dean as people. It’s about Sam and Dean as hosts. And while we all are supposed to angst about how and if and when they say, it’s ultimately a moot point. The boys essentially have no way to be proactive at this point. Their entire struggle is a yes/no question now.
Now, this may still have worked as an endgame for the season were it not for the absences in point one and point two. But the fact is, the unique sense of Winchester is glaringly absent from the show, and without it, this is nothing more than a show about two guys who are stuck in the apocalypse. Will they win? Will they say yes?
I don’t know. But the question I’m asking myself more than anything is that when they finally get there, will I even have enough of an investment in the show I used to love to care.
For the last four years, I have had one main hobby: Supernatural. I randomly flipped to it back in S1 and wrote my first fic after “Asylum” first aired, and I haven’t really stopped since. I’ve produced well over 50 fics, countless icons, and participated in fic exchanges, message boards, and the like. And yet, pushing halfway through S5, something is beginning to change.
To the point: I’m losing interest.
Those who know me well (and some who don’t), know that I’ve been disenchanted with the show for awhile, namely the treatment of Sam’s character. But it’s still elicited my passion in extreme ways, even throughout the hard points of S4 and S5. So now that the boys are back together, I keep asking myself what my big issue is?
There are many things I could point to, but, after some thought, I realized it boiled down to something pretty simple. If I looked back and found the reason I fell in love with the show, I realized that, for me, I never really cared that this was about urban legends or supernatural creatures. No, I liked it because it was about family--it was about brotherly bonds and commitment and love.
Looking at where we are in S5, I can’t see this like I used to. After all, consider the three following major themes that drove the show in early seasons. As I thought about these themes, I realized how much they’d changed and are almost not even applicable to the show’s current context.
1. Saving people, hunting things. The family business.
There are many who may argue that this is still an underriding premise of the show. After all, the boys are still hunting things and they are still saving people. While this much is essentially true, the fact of the matter is that it is no longer about the family business.
This shift is entirely necessary of course, given the framework set up by the heavily developed mytharc. The idea that the boys would pursue random hunts during the apocalypse is hard to sell for more than a week or two. Otherwise, it just seems like the boys are either really stupid or irresponsible and the apocalypse then seems a whole lot less scary. Since none of these options are clearly good from a storytelling perspective, the old format--the monster of the week idea, where the boys pick up some research and drive into town and do some work before cleaning up the mess and moving on--has become almost always motivated by something related to the grander mytharc, be it angels or demons or something marginally related.
The problem is not so much that the hunts have to be more focused and therefore less diverse, but it’s an issue of motivation. Why are Sam and Dean pursuing these hunts? It’s less and less a choice for them and more and more of a chore. And not even the revenge bent of earlier seasons, but a pure and simple survival tactic. Simply put, the boys hunt because if they don’t go after it, it will come after them. Neither of them derives any semblance of pleasure or positive experience from this hunt. It is merely a necessary task.
On some level, that is somewhat heroic. They do what has to be done so no one else has to do it. However, the intensity of saving people seems muted now. While the boys are trying to avert the apocalypse and thereby save the world, the week to week angst is so based on saving their own skins that it very much seems that saving people is only a side effect. It used to mean something, and the boys used to connect if only briefly with the people they met on any given week. There was a notion of helping the world by helping individuals. The people mattered.
Now, it’s not about people, but the world. This is decidedly impersonal and the impact is far less powerful for the boys and the audience. By extension, this forces the boys to become less everyday heroes and more epic heroes, which on the surface sounds really nifty, but in actuality, just makes them far more generic.
The loss of the family business on the show also impacts the overall focus of the show. Whereas S1 and S2 were most definitely about family, the later seasons have shifted away from the family unit and focused more on the global concern. Again, this moves from ordinary to epic, which by default creates a far less intimate feel on the show. The idea of Winchester doesn’t hold weight anymore, not when the boys are cosmic pawns in a war that is bigger than them and, ultimately, far more important than they are.
2. You’re my brother, and I’d die for you.
Honestly, this one hurts the most. This sentiment was the defining aspect of the relationship between Sam and Dean. It was what made them who they were and what set them apart from most duos on TV today. And yes, it was a bit unrealistic and totally unhealthy and completely fascinating and appealing.
This was the dynamic that created tension. The brothers were very different people with real pain and real issues and the show didn’t shy away from that. They fought and they disagreed and they hurt each other and yet, in the end, always, always came back to each other. It allowed even the most ridiculous episodes to seem worthwhile because this was, as SPN writer Sera Gamble put it, the epic love story of Sam and Dean.
And then, it was gone. S4 was a cold season from both brothers. They were so screwed up and self invested that the idea of brotherly concern was barely visible. It popped up from time to time, but mostly, the boys angsted about their own things and didn’t seem to care too much about the other. Leading to the ultimate betrayals in the end: each brother hit below the belt and severed ties. I’m not interested at this juncture in the blame game because, quite simply, if this is the love story between Sam and Dean, then it was both of them and always will be. All relationships require two people and the deconstruction of a relationship is never one sided.
And maybe this would work. It was angsty and it was hard to watch and all of that. The problem, however, is in the resolution of this breakdown in S5. Instead of a shift back to you’re my brother and I’d die for you, we’ve moved into the boys having a working relationship with virtually no other vested interest. Sam and Dean don’t actually like each other. They might die for one another in a very simple sense, but the drive and passion that kept them together is gone.
In fact, they can and would work apart. It just isn’t in their personal interest to do that. Neither of them wants to do it alone so they have turned to each other in order to guarantee the best personal success. It’s not about each other, it’s about themselves. It’s much more of a duty and much more of a chore.
Worse than that, the show is making an active point of showing the boys letting each other go. Dean is becoming the ultimate leader, which in theory is really a good thing, but in execution, means putting his brother last, even when it’s not a necessary choice. These boys won’t do anything to save each other, and that is a huge problem in terms of what makes this show different and appealing.
No, I don’t want to see the endless cycle of deals. I hate the entire concept of deals to begin with. But you better believe that I want to see my boys doing anything and everything to save each other--not holding back because it’s the “right” thing to do.
Now, please understand. This isn’t Dean bashing or anti-Dean rhetoric or whatever. And yeah, I get all the reasons why Dean is having a hard time accepting and all that. The thing is--and this is the heart of my problem with the show right now--as realistic and mature as all of it may be in real life, it’s just not the show. It’s not how it started. And after the seasons of you’re my brother and I’d die for you and as long as I’m around nothing bad will ever happen to you--this? Seems incredibly hollow.
Sure, maybe TPTB are going to fix it. I honestly don’t know. The most recent ep gave me a tiny amount of hope--but it might be too little, too late. I just know that after a season and a half of this lack of connection, I’m realizing that I don’t like the brothers anymore. Either of them. The trait I loved best about both of them was the love and devotion they had for the other. Both of them have betrayed that, stomped on it, and kicked it neatly to the curb in order to become “mature” people.
And never has watching two partners on TV been more painful. The boys aren’t special in ways that count anymore. They’re just two people, stuck in a crappy situation, working with what they have to try to get out of it. There’s no heart anymore. And that’s why for the first time in five years, I’m not just upset. I’m actually losing interest.
3. Two brothers, one destiny.
So technically, this is still true. The brothers are both on a scripted path toward a single destiny in stopping the apocalypse. Dean is to be Michael’s vessel and Sam is to be Lucifer’s and they’re both equally awesome and special in amazingly perfect parallel ways.
Problem is, that this scenario means that the catch phrase about two brothers, one destiny is much more about Michael and Lucifer than Sam and Dean.
Sam and Dean are just avatars now, sort of limited parallels to some greater cosmic family struggle. This parallel does make them “special” but also makes them utterly devoid of individual importance. Now, Dean’s duty as a big brother becomes nothing more than a mimic of Michael. Sam’s rebellion that took him to college is nothing more than Lucifer’s butt being thrown out of heaven. And the ultimate resolution of this may involve both boys saying yes, but seems to be heading toward the ridiculous reality that the endgame will involve the boys’ bodies more than themselves.
This is no longer about Sam and Dean as people. It’s about Sam and Dean as hosts. And while we all are supposed to angst about how and if and when they say, it’s ultimately a moot point. The boys essentially have no way to be proactive at this point. Their entire struggle is a yes/no question now.
Now, this may still have worked as an endgame for the season were it not for the absences in point one and point two. But the fact is, the unique sense of Winchester is glaringly absent from the show, and without it, this is nothing more than a show about two guys who are stuck in the apocalypse. Will they win? Will they say yes?
I don’t know. But the question I’m asking myself more than anything is that when they finally get there, will I even have enough of an investment in the show I used to love to care.