I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home bigger than that
I've long been fascinated with Sam's anger. Back in January 2007, after Croatoan, I wrote a meta about how I felt it was central to his character and his journey. That from a young age his maybe Sam feared his own capacity for anger. I wondered if you look at the super-ego as an internalization of the father figure, and your father figure is someone obsessed with killing and filled with anger (hello John Winchester), is it any wonder Sam may have had a fear that his id would be unregulated?.
This uncontrollable rage, this id-monster, which he fears, is Sam’s shadow self. The shadow self is the dark side of our psyche where those things we don’t wish to acknowledge about ourselves reside. Interestingly, the shadow self is often referred to as the dark brother or evil twin.
The process of self-actualisation, of truly becoming one’s self, involves first acknowledging and then integrating the shadow into our consciousness. It is the journey we follow Luke Skywalker on in Star Wars. On Dagobah, as part of a vision quest, Luke confronts Darth Vader, only to have his own face revealed beneath Vader’s mask. This confrontation with his shadow, the part of him that is like Darth Vader, allows Luke to start to acknowledge and integrate his shadow self and ultimately resist the dark side of the Force.
And so I was wondering - was last week's confrontation with Brady, symbolic of Sam's Dagobah moment? Has he faced the darkness within and acknowledged it? Does the mean he can now face Lucifer ? dun dun dun....
More importantly will Castiel turn up in the next episode in a gold bikini?
