i'm good at repairs, and i'm under each snare

[pocochina]

So this weekend I started harassing the ol' f-list like, "can I talk your ear off about my deep and abiding love for early-S6-Sam" and got a solid "you're the one with the Jolly Green Jackass fetish, you post about it" (I'm paraphrasing). So here is my scatterbrained flail about why it was so perfect for Sam's arc.

Comments

[ever_neutral]

I LIKE THIS POST.

And have nothing intelligent to add. But it is a good post and you should feel good.

[pocochina]

I'm glad you liked! RoboSam is the deal. ♥

[bitterlimetwist]

Hi. I'm not sure how I ended up here but, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

[pocochina]

A FELLOW SOULLESS FAN? Clearly you are a person of intellect and taste! I love Sam always, but this bit of his story is one of my favorites on its own, and confirms so much of the most interesting stuff that had come before.

[bitterlimetwist]

I love him so much! I could talk about him forever. I love the way he has his own tragic arc - he just wants to live, damnit. And I could not agree more about what a perfect choice it was for Sam to come back broken in pieces. I thought the whole thing was utterly brilliant.

(Um, I've been reading your other Spn posts and - S4 as the season of EPIC SAM LOVE, soulless Sam obviously, and occasionally wanting to punch Dean in the face for his control issues? ARE YOU ME?)

[pocochina]

I love the way he has his own tragic arc - he just wants to live, damnit.

Yes! I was so fascinated when he started to form that sense of self, in the last couple of episodes before the lobotomy re-ensoulment. Acknowledging that he's adverse to the suffering his soul could cause shows that he is feeling something, and knows he's feeling it. It's a long way off from where he was before, but I believed him as a person in his own right who could have developed.

And I could not agree more about what a perfect choice it was for Sam to come back broken in pieces. I thought the whole thing was utterly brilliant.Absolutely! It came so close to being a literal deconstruction of the character. Not necessarily a critical one, but just, looking one by one at the layers that grind away in his mind all the time

[percysowner]

One of the most interesting things about Soulless Sam is when Dean finds out that something is wrong. When Dean lashes out and beats him viciously, Sam STILL doesn't fight back. He takes it, like he took it every time except Levee. The in the next episode he get out of the bonds easily, somewhat proving his point that he is in fact better and stronger, but even so, he lets Dean beat him. He also fell in pretty quickly, all things considered, with trying to find a way to bet his soul back based only on the fact that Dean thought it was a good idea

[pocochina]

I don't know how I missed this comment the first time around but OMG SOULLESS!

When Dean lashes out and beats him viciously, Sam STILL doesn't fight back. He takes it, like he took it every time except Levee.

And then hangs around for more. Even "Soulless Dickbag" has that Winchester-inspired Stockholm Syndrome.

I still think if Sam had REALLY wanted to kill Bobby he could have pulled it off.

Agreed! It's not like he was ever aggressive against Dean or Bobby, which is frankly more than you can say about them toward him, until he really does believe he's defending his own life. It's not like Bobby wasn't actively on board with the re-ensoulment - that is, conspiring in a huge threat to Sam's own life. This may be the only Mal Reynolds quote I ever drop approvingly, but if someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back! And so Sam's looming and stalling and hesitancy isn't about self-preservation or even fairness. There really is some genuine affection for Bobby mixed in there.

I have always wished they had stuck with the plan

[percysowner]

WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALLLLLLL

We really could have and it would have been a more cohesive storyline. However fandom HATED Sam not being Sam, so SS got dumped midseason, and I really regret where I think it should have been.

Agreed! It's not like he was ever aggressive against Dean or Bobby, which is frankly more than you can say about them toward him, until he really does believe he's defending his own life.One of the fandom ideas that I hate the most is the idea that Sam had to be resouled because SS was a sociopath who was murdering people all over the place. IMHO, he was weighing the pros and cons and simply didn't place individual human life or individual human suffering over ridding the world of an evil supernatural creature. Which really fits in with how so many other hunters behave. Good Lord, I've always believed that John set Sam and Dean as bait for the Striga and although people know that John was not a good parent, they kind of ignore that part. Heck, Sam and Dean put Michael as bait in Something Wicked. Like it or not

[pocochina]

One of the fandom ideas that I hate the most is the idea that Sam had to be resouled because SS was a sociopath who was murdering people all over the place

Yeah. It makes sense in-universe, that Dean would make that rationalization. It's so important for him to think that his constant railroading of Sam is righteous Good Brother behavior, enough that he will totally conflate "Sam can't be manipulated" with "Sam is wrong in a morally bad way and must be changed." But people taking it at face value irks me a lot.

IMHO, he was weighing the pros and cons and simply didn't place individual human life or individual human suffering over ridding the world of an evil supernatural creature. Which really fits in with how so many other hunters behave.

Exactly. And it makes sense with the end of S5. After jumping into hell to save the world, he's COMMITTED to the greater good having to win out. And he's not likely to be big on investing in individuals in the same way, after learning that everyone he'd ever connected to was a demon out to get

[duckondebut]

I stopped using my journal because I'd reached a... saturation point? of sorts? with SPN and fandom in general, but I've been reading through all of your SPN posts over the last couple of days and remembering why I'd fallen in love with this show in the first place.

Oh god ROBO!SAM. He's so tragic in a way, and this essay made me ache for him all over again.

Really love your reasoning for WHY Robo!Sam didn't go all out for demon-blood. There was this moment in 6.10 where he gnaws at his own wrist to get the blood to paint the Devil's Trap. Aside from the DEEPLY UNHYGENIC OMG SAM connotations of that scene, I'd wondered why the taste of his own blood hadn't tempted Robo!Sam to give the whole demon-blood thing another go. But like you said, the need for a soul to really tap into that power makes beautiful sense from a worldbuilding perspective and I absolutely love it.

[pocochina]

Supernatural fandom is exhausting. I find the show really emotionally engaging, which is great, but it can make the basic-ass concern trolling conversation a little more intense than I like my recreation. It's nice to have my bubble here.

OH SOULLESS. I adored him. And yeah, I just love the idea that souls are power. And so as uninhibited and physically strong as Sam was in that year, he just doesn't seem to have had anything solid to build on and really become the creature he could have.

DEEPLY UNHYGENIC OMG SAM

OMG RIGHT? S4 is all "blah blah demon blood's evil blood's evil and you're going to get evil, Sam" and I completely get stuck on "OH MY GOD, YOU HAVE TO GET TESTED, SAM."

[manzanita_crow]

One of the reasons I will forever be a Samgirl is how brilliantly entertaining he is when he's bad :)

When Dean does bad things so much less dramatic and fun to watch. Let's hope the Mark of Cain turns him into a power-hungry, crazed psycho so Jensen can have the fun of playing the bad guy for once.

[pocochina]

I ♥ Soulless.