The SPN Mytharc and Ways of Being a Presence in Fictional Universes
bowtrunckle has posted a lovely, thoughtful and insightful SPN meta essay titled "Tension, Conflict, Motivation, and Plot: Why the Story is About Dean and We Do Know Sam". She makes a lot of fascinating points - not just about SPN but about constructing narratives and dramatic tension in general - and has a wonderful geeky chart, too
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Then again, I'd really like to see Sam *do* something (or actively choose not to) if he's so important, rather than just be chased around, so maybe these frustrations are feeding off each other.
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It absolutely wouldn't! Dean's world has always been All About Sam anyway, so to Dean, it would only be natural and expected if that turned out to be an even more wide-spread phenomenon.
I've see so many fics recently where Dean gets the Maiden In Distress role and Sam does all the saving (...) that I start to wonder if the balance is tipping fandomI haven't noticed any particular upsurge of Maiden!Dean fic, but then, I probably just ascribed it to the circumstances of Dean's deal - after all, Sam's forced to do all of the heavy lifting with this one because Dean's hands are tied ( ... )
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I do feel that Dean's role in this might be bigger than just being Sam's brother, though. For one, if Dean wasn't there, Sam would most likely be in very different place, right now. But that would still make Dean's role here a, in effect, passive one. But I also think he does have an active role to play, in regards to the mytharch; I'm not sure in what capacity, but I think Dean's role in the big picture is very important, and not just in relation to Sam. It's not impossible that Dean's the one who can REALLY put things right in the end (such as preventing the world from ending, or something *g*) and NOT Sam. Dean's a bit of wild card here, after all, and I think he's crucial to how things turn out. Thus, I do think there IS a certain balance.
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It's really just a matter of personal preferences in narratives, like I said - I'm a very difficult customer when power imbalances and hierarchical relationships and the like come into play. It's an anti-kink for me. ;-)
I kinda wish I could join you in not being bothered, because I'm pretty certain that the mytharc is indeed going there...
I think Dean's role in the big picture is very important, and not just in relation to Sam. (...) Dean's a bit of wild card here, after all, and I think he's crucial to how things turn out.
*wistful sigh* That would be *so cool*. I so hope you're right that Dean will have an active and none-reflective role of his own to play... I'm certainly holding out hope for something of that kind!
Your word in Kripke's ear. :-)
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I've spent the last couple of minutes searching through the comments to that meta because this exact thought was echoed somewhere at some point by someone in the not too distant past (of course it could've been in a different post *headdesk*).
"Plot time" - meaning involvement in and/or moving forward of the plot - is not identical with "importance within the fictional universe".Yes, exactly. :) This was something I couldn't address in my geeky chart because I was defining categories (Sam (P) and Dean (P)) on a single occurrence and not the duration of each. In the comments to that post, Zazreil mentioned she tallied up Dean and Sam's screen time in order to get a sense of "who the story was about", and they came out roughly the same. But still that doesn't directly address what you speak of which seems, to me, to tie directly into the mytharc (plot) and highlights the pesky question, "WHO IS THE PROTAGONIST ( ... )
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