Comments | sargraf: SPN: a poll (post-Devil's Trap v.2)

sargraf

SPN: a poll (post-Devil's Trap v.2)

May 21, 2006 18:42

Manon, I hope you've noticed that my last few posts have been utterly emotion-free. ;) I told you I could do it! And now, I'll go back to my regularly scheduled program... :P

( another analysis sort of poll )

stop everything, spn

Comments 22

lemmealone May 22 2006, 01:26:45 UTC

This is purely a comment on the poll for now, because I knw reading your ramble is going to make it even more difficult to pick just one answer ( ... )

dotfic May 22 2006, 03:02:06 UTC

Kripke's anecdotal five year plan

Hi, does this mean there's word going around that Kripke has a five year plan? Because that's one of my hopes for this show, that they've chosen a time frame, with a beginning, middle, and they know exactly how and where it's going to end (nervous former X-Phile here...fears of a MOTW series getting bogged down in its own complex mythology...eek).

lemmealone May 22 2006, 03:04:29 UTC

Kripke has said in an interview that he knows how the first season will end, the second season, etc right up to the fifth season. Don't ask me where, because I rather stupidly didn't save the article. :)

But he does seem to have an overriding plan. Or least he claims to...

dotfic May 22 2006, 03:16:08 UTC

Oh, yay! Well, at least he's going to TRY, and he knows how each season ends.

Thread 5

lemmealone May 22 2006, 01:35:24 UTC

Okay, and re. the ramble. I'm with you on wanting to see the darkness and isolation of what they do explored a bit more, and I think there's the potential for it. There were little hints and pieces in season one that say, to me, that things are going to get murkier. Right back in the pilot, where Sam exposits how Dad gave him a gun for the closet monster and Dean is honestly baffled, asks what the hell else was he supposed to do? He honestly has no idea that John's reaction was a bit sideways of how a parent is Supposed To React. It's those weird little moments of cognitive dissonance that give me hope; reactions that fall, ever so slightly, outside the norm. Because we've seen that SPN does know how to pay attention to little details like that, even if they do sometimes fall down on the bigger things!

sargraf May 24 2006, 23:18:17 UTC

That's a good point about the little moments of dissonance. I guess I'm just hoping or wishing that they'd do more with that layer of the show, rather than having it as sort of a background to base this boys' adventure on... you know? It's like Kripke has created a sea, but he's only allowing the boys to wade around in the surf.

aithne414 May 22 2006, 02:04:10 UTC

So... I feel like a lot of this needs explanation. :P For the first question, a lot of the insensitivity moments that I was pissed as hell about, I now feel were meant to be there. I don't think Sam was meant to get Dean, or to really empathize with him, for a good part of the series, hence all the WTF?! moments... Home is really the only place where I didn't understand why Dean was being treated so badly. I think Sam wasn't supposed to be able to break out of his own problems to sympathize with someone else's, and I don't think John was supposed to have any kind of regard for Dean whatsoever except as a soldier in his army. So it's not so much WTF Kripke?! as WTF, John and Sam?! :P As for the Sam stuff, I felt in DitW like we weren't really meant to take Dean's side there, I thought his pushing in Provenance was entirely appropriate, and the selfish stuff is always just his defense when Sam is pushing his buttons. :P So I feel like that's Kripke's way of showing us something about Dean, instead of Kripke trying to tell us something ( ... )

sargraf May 24 2006, 23:23:29 UTC

Yeah... A lot of the insensitivity is in-character, and as such, though it annoys me, I can't fault it for happening. As much as Sam's "how old were you" line pisses me off, for instance, it's in-character. Just as Dean's "selfish bastard" and "it's called being a good son" in response is in-character. Misery, natch, is completely unacceptable to me, and a few of the other ones that I picked out. They feel more wrong-headed OOC, a mistake in the writing itself, rather than something that character would normally do or say that I'd find offensive. My tendency is toward WTF, Kripke!?, though, rather than WTF, John/Sam/Dean?! I always blame the writer. ;)

(Good point about the selfish comments. A defensive sort of snap. Either way, though, Dean doesn't look as sterling as he'd like to. :P Which is still in-character, but it's pilot and Scarecrow-level stuff for Dean. I wish Kripke would let them both evolve ( ... )

dotfic May 22 2006, 03:27:48 UTC

While I agree there are some WTF? character moments, and too much of the time it seems like it's the showrunners not guiding the writers strongly enough, a lot of the time I feel like it's these characters being flawed and real. They're imperfect and each Winchester has, in various episodes, behaved in ways that make me want to get out the clue bat (John's the worst ( ... )

sargraf May 24 2006, 23:26:25 UTC

What I meant by the WTF moments are more on the writing level, than for the characters themselves. A lot of it is realistic human behavior, and while I may have a problem with that for the character on the receiving end, I can't honestly define it as faulty characterization. And then there are things like Misery in Home, and Dean calling Sam selfish (for the millionth time) in Devil's Trap, and I just wish Kripke would remember what the characters have been through... That's more what I meant. WTF, Kripke? :)

From what people have been telling me about Buffy and Angel, perhaps I can stop trying to bend SPN into this dark world, and appreciate the two different atmospheres for their own sakes. Although I still say, given their upbringing and what they've seen, it would just make sense and make for more unforgettable storytelling (IMO) for Kripke to take it bleak and harsh. However slowly building up to an unremittingly desolate atmosphere before the final climax. It wouldn't have to be so much into the abyss, at least initially ( ... )

dotfic May 25 2006, 12:17:17 UTC

Misery in Home, and Dean calling Sam selfish (for the millionth time) in Devil's Trap, and I just wish Kripke would remember what the characters have been through...

On the subject of Missouri, I need to reply to your other essay. Dean calling Sam selfish I read as Dean's character flaw, not bad writing, the same way Sam isn't at all wrong for wanting his own life but can be a little too heedless about how his anger hurts Dean's (and John's) feelings.

Dean's line that he would have wanted Sam to keep that innocence would have more weight, if we saw the drain on them.You're right, we don't see the drain enough. I think we see it some, but it's more my interpretation and reading it in than real textual evidence. I thought both brothers changed a lot, in addition to being simply revealed, and part of that change was the quest, the road, wearing on them. Dean seemed to get tireder, more bitter, by the time we get to Dead Man's Blood and after that. But again, maybe I'm reading something that's not there, or of course, it could be 100% ( ... )

astri13 May 22 2006, 10:40:31 UTC

Oh, that`s a really interesting notion ( ... )

sargraf May 24 2006, 23:32:30 UTC

All I have to say is this: Thanks to this comment, I am now watching Buffy! :P You are almost entirely responsible for my new mini (and possibly soon to be overblown) obsession. *hugs you!*

I'm such an angst whore, I guess, but the darker a show, the more I enjoy it. My favorite episodes of the shows I've watched (aside from the episodes which were comic gems) have always been the bleakest ones, the harshest choices made morally and such. I thrive on that stuff. I tried to explain it in my reply to dotfic, but there's not enough weight on their shoulders to make things like Michael's loss of innocence truly resonate. He's still smiley at the end, and Sam and Dean were for the most part of the season no more "hollowed" (so to speak) than they were at the beginning. Until the last three episodes, of course. There should be a tangible sense of what this has cost them. I believe the actors (certainly JA) are talented enough to portray that and still hold true each his character's defining characteristics. Dean, his courage and ( ... )

astri13 May 25 2006, 11:02:14 UTC

You are almost entirely responsible for my new mini (and possibly soon to be overblown) obsession. *hugs you!*

Hee. I`m the pied piper of Buffy luring innocent viewers to their doom. *g*
Keep posting your episode reaction, it`s really interesting to hear from someone to whom this is all new and fresh.
I can`t watch the earlier episodes now without thinking what`s gonna happen to these characters later and how my perception of them changed with it. *sigh*

I'm such an angst whore, I guess, but the darker a show, the more I enjoy it.

Me too, that`s why I was kind of shocked I could be angst-overloaded. And don`t worry both Buffy and Angel deliver on that front. The first season just doesn`t give a good feeling of things to come since the camp is played rather high on occasion.