we're all scared: fear and Supernatural
“What if I should discover that that very enemy himself is within me, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved - what then?”
Carl Jung
Supernatural is a horror genre show. It's all about fear. Big bold letters on the billboard, people. But we don't expect our heroes to be scared. Oh maybe in passing perhaps,but just as a moment to overcome that demonstrates how courageous they are. Again, Supernatural undermines the genre by having fear as central in both Sam and Dean's emotional landscape.
Fear is a survival instinct. When faced with danger we feel afraid and the 'flight or fight' response kicks in. Or it should. Right from the Pilot, we find out the place fear had in the Winchester world.
Sam: When I told dad when I was scared of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45
Dean: Well what was he supposed to do?
Sam: I was 9 years old! He was supposed to say “Don’t be afraid of the dark.”
Dean:: Don’t be afraid of the dark? What are you kidding me, of course you should be afraid of the dark! You know what’s out there!
So the message John gave his boys, in the face of the undeniable fact of fear, was that you don't run, you fight. Always - even if you’re a scared nine year old in the dark.
The other thing he doesn't give Sam is comfort. When we are afraid, we also seek comfort, reassurance. John doesn't even tell Sam that he will keep him safe, the message is "look after yourself".
Of course Sam had Dean to offer comfort as we saw in "A Very Supernatural Christmas". Interestingly as an adult, while Dean continues to protect Sam, it is Sam who most oftne tries to offer Dean comfort.
Eventually, Sam breaks ranks with this when he finally faces his fear by fleeing.
Dean: So what are you gonna do? You’re just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?
Sam: No. Not normal. Safe.
I think Sam left for many reasons but I think it is very telling that he corrects Dean here - that he didn't leave to be "normal" but to be safe, to be free from fear.
When fear comes back into his life, when Azazel kills Jess, Sam responds in the regulation Winchester way -- by fighting.
Sam continues to fight when he fears something, and not only in response to a specific immediate threat. When he finds out about 'the secret' in Season Two, his response is to take action, to fight something. I think as he finds out more about the fact that he is not only chosen but tainted by Azazel, he is faced with the most difficult challenge - how do you respond to something you fear when it is inside yourself? How do you fight that? How do you run from that? This struggle is what I think drives Sam to such desperate measures in S4.
In S3 Sam's fear is that he won't be able to save Dean. Sam's fight response kicks in and we see it in a greater readiness to kill although he can't kill what is causing the fear so he kills other things.
In S4, Sam has gone to extreme lengths to be able to fight the thing he fears in Lilith, and in himself. In doing so, it's not even clear whether Sam actually is capable of feeling fear at the present. When he is under the siren's spell he mocks Dean's distress over his time as a torturer - he cannot relate to Dean's own fears about his own 'inner demon'. There's a thing called fear-extinction- the idea that you can desensitize yourself to what you fear. Is that what Sam has done in embracing that inside him which he feared?
Dean, of course had the same upbringing as Sam, but we see him take a very different path with his fear over the series. At the end of S1 Dean, who has appeared so sure of himself, and so fearless, as an incredible moment of introspection:
Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh .... it scares me sometimes.
Like Sam, Dean identifies something inside himself that he fears, although his is not something imposed by a demon, but something intrinsic. Dean seems to, from this point, shift somewhat with his responses to fear - in response to fear about what could happen with Sam in S2, Dean's response is to flee - to Acapulco or Amsterdam.
In S3, the whole season looks at Dean's evolving relationship with his fear of his fate. He starts off denying it but over time, especially from the point of Sam's "this is exactly how you act when you're terrified.", through to "Long Distance Call"
Dean:I'm staring down the barrel at this thing... you know, hell, for real, forever, and I'm just.. I'm scared Sam. I'm really scared.
And Sam here, as he does later as well, offers Dean that comfort they never got as a kid, although that lack of practice if you will, shows in how awkward each brother is in either giving or accepting comfort.
It is in Hell that Dean's relationship with fear changes most drastically. No doubt Dean experiences fear himself at a incredible intensity but the,. after he gets off the rack, Dean wields fear against other souls as part of his torture arsenal. This is revealed in "Yellow Fever" - an episode all about fear.
Dean is struck with the ghost fever because that causes intense fear. As the fever takes hold he points out to Sam that they do spend all their life running towards the things most.
Dean:I mean, come on, we hunt monsters! What the hell?! I mean, normal people, they see a monster, and they run. But not us, no, no, no, we -- we search out things that want to kill us.
He also reveals to us something else he fears - a demonic Sam -when he hallucinates a yellow-eyed Sam attacking him.
Then he has a vision of Lilith, and when he asks her why he was been infected she says: "Silly goose. You know why, Dean. Listen to your heart."
What Dean has in common with the other victims is not that he's a dick. It's that they all used fear as a weapon, and this point is so important that for the first time ever, Kripke makes a statement after the episode to emphasize this point, that in a switch of all his life has been out Dean became the thing people fear.
I think we may find out more about how Dean's time in Hell changed him, but in "Death takes a Holiday", when Dean says "We're all scared. That's the big secret." I feel that Dean's time in Hell, of feeling fear that he couldn't fight or flee, and in using fear to hurt others, he has recognised that fear is part of the human condition, part of him.
At present the thing both brothers are scared of are not monsters, or demons or event he apocalypse, but what's inside themselves. Maybe Sam will need to reconnect with his fear so he can fight or flee that demon part he fears. Dean I think is maybe too connected with at the moment, fear for Sam, fear of what he found he was capable of in hell, and he too will need to work out how to deal with these fears.
I expect that each brother has more to learn about fear. and that's what I'm afraid of.
ps no spoilers for unaired episodes plz.
Carl Jung
Supernatural is a horror genre show. It's all about fear. Big bold letters on the billboard, people. But we don't expect our heroes to be scared. Oh maybe in passing perhaps,but just as a moment to overcome that demonstrates how courageous they are. Again, Supernatural undermines the genre by having fear as central in both Sam and Dean's emotional landscape.
Fear is a survival instinct. When faced with danger we feel afraid and the 'flight or fight' response kicks in. Or it should. Right from the Pilot, we find out the place fear had in the Winchester world.
Sam: When I told dad when I was scared of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45
Dean: Well what was he supposed to do?
Sam: I was 9 years old! He was supposed to say “Don’t be afraid of the dark.”
Dean:: Don’t be afraid of the dark? What are you kidding me, of course you should be afraid of the dark! You know what’s out there!
So the message John gave his boys, in the face of the undeniable fact of fear, was that you don't run, you fight. Always - even if you’re a scared nine year old in the dark.
The other thing he doesn't give Sam is comfort. When we are afraid, we also seek comfort, reassurance. John doesn't even tell Sam that he will keep him safe, the message is "look after yourself".
Of course Sam had Dean to offer comfort as we saw in "A Very Supernatural Christmas". Interestingly as an adult, while Dean continues to protect Sam, it is Sam who most oftne tries to offer Dean comfort.
Eventually, Sam breaks ranks with this when he finally faces his fear by fleeing.
Dean: So what are you gonna do? You’re just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?
Sam: No. Not normal. Safe.
I think Sam left for many reasons but I think it is very telling that he corrects Dean here - that he didn't leave to be "normal" but to be safe, to be free from fear.
When fear comes back into his life, when Azazel kills Jess, Sam responds in the regulation Winchester way -- by fighting.
Sam continues to fight when he fears something, and not only in response to a specific immediate threat. When he finds out about 'the secret' in Season Two, his response is to take action, to fight something. I think as he finds out more about the fact that he is not only chosen but tainted by Azazel, he is faced with the most difficult challenge - how do you respond to something you fear when it is inside yourself? How do you fight that? How do you run from that? This struggle is what I think drives Sam to such desperate measures in S4.
In S3 Sam's fear is that he won't be able to save Dean. Sam's fight response kicks in and we see it in a greater readiness to kill although he can't kill what is causing the fear so he kills other things.
In S4, Sam has gone to extreme lengths to be able to fight the thing he fears in Lilith, and in himself. In doing so, it's not even clear whether Sam actually is capable of feeling fear at the present. When he is under the siren's spell he mocks Dean's distress over his time as a torturer - he cannot relate to Dean's own fears about his own 'inner demon'. There's a thing called fear-extinction- the idea that you can desensitize yourself to what you fear. Is that what Sam has done in embracing that inside him which he feared?
Dean, of course had the same upbringing as Sam, but we see him take a very different path with his fear over the series. At the end of S1 Dean, who has appeared so sure of himself, and so fearless, as an incredible moment of introspection:
Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh .... it scares me sometimes.
Like Sam, Dean identifies something inside himself that he fears, although his is not something imposed by a demon, but something intrinsic. Dean seems to, from this point, shift somewhat with his responses to fear - in response to fear about what could happen with Sam in S2, Dean's response is to flee - to Acapulco or Amsterdam.
In S3, the whole season looks at Dean's evolving relationship with his fear of his fate. He starts off denying it but over time, especially from the point of Sam's "this is exactly how you act when you're terrified.", through to "Long Distance Call"
Dean:I'm staring down the barrel at this thing... you know, hell, for real, forever, and I'm just.. I'm scared Sam. I'm really scared.
And Sam here, as he does later as well, offers Dean that comfort they never got as a kid, although that lack of practice if you will, shows in how awkward each brother is in either giving or accepting comfort.
It is in Hell that Dean's relationship with fear changes most drastically. No doubt Dean experiences fear himself at a incredible intensity but the,. after he gets off the rack, Dean wields fear against other souls as part of his torture arsenal. This is revealed in "Yellow Fever" - an episode all about fear.
Dean is struck with the ghost fever because that causes intense fear. As the fever takes hold he points out to Sam that they do spend all their life running towards the things most.
Dean:I mean, come on, we hunt monsters! What the hell?! I mean, normal people, they see a monster, and they run. But not us, no, no, no, we -- we search out things that want to kill us.
He also reveals to us something else he fears - a demonic Sam -when he hallucinates a yellow-eyed Sam attacking him.
Then he has a vision of Lilith, and when he asks her why he was been infected she says: "Silly goose. You know why, Dean. Listen to your heart."
What Dean has in common with the other victims is not that he's a dick. It's that they all used fear as a weapon, and this point is so important that for the first time ever, Kripke makes a statement after the episode to emphasize this point, that in a switch of all his life has been out Dean became the thing people fear.
I think we may find out more about how Dean's time in Hell changed him, but in "Death takes a Holiday", when Dean says "We're all scared. That's the big secret." I feel that Dean's time in Hell, of feeling fear that he couldn't fight or flee, and in using fear to hurt others, he has recognised that fear is part of the human condition, part of him.
At present the thing both brothers are scared of are not monsters, or demons or event he apocalypse, but what's inside themselves. Maybe Sam will need to reconnect with his fear so he can fight or flee that demon part he fears. Dean I think is maybe too connected with at the moment, fear for Sam, fear of what he found he was capable of in hell, and he too will need to work out how to deal with these fears.
I expect that each brother has more to learn about fear. and that's what I'm afraid of.
ps no spoilers for unaired episodes plz.