ext_46949 ([identity profile] pocochina.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] gateslacker 2013-05-20 07:45 pm (UTC)

*happily snacks on cookies*

like, sometimes shows lose me and sometimes I find framing of ~sensitive issues really questionable and sometimes I have to sit and re-read all my own posts about how the author is dead just to find my ~zone. And then sometimes I get really self-conscious about those posts because I see a show and think the writers are reading my journal so they can give me exactly what I want and I'm all I'M SORRY I SAID YOU'RE DEAD AUTHOR! AUTHOR, DON'T BE DEAD! ACTAR, ACTAR, ARE YOU OKAY?! And this episode was just that good. This is...I could not have asked for a more honest and incisive exploration of this relationship.

I don't care that it's a horribly unhealthy relationship. I don't care that Dean refuses to acknowledge his motivations for his behavior or consider for a moment the effect he has on Sam. I don't...well, I do care that Sam has terrible, crippling self-worth issues, but I don't object to seeing it. I just want not to feel like watching it requires condoning or romanticizing all that. And the episode was just like: "yes. Yes, we DO know this is unacceptable; you, Audience, are not getting plausible deniability on this possibly being in the realm of acceptable or sustainable; this is not just A Story but The Story."

Then when Sam mentions Dean's turning to an angel or a vampire, I don't see that as Sam throwing these people in Dean's face or trying to make Dean feel guilty because Sam's got no reserves left to make such an effort. Sam is taking this all on himself; that it is his own fault and failures that cause Dean to turn to someone else and his fear that one day Dean will have had enough to give up on him is palpable. To Sam's perspective, considering the voicemail he heard and the trashing of the amulet, it is a real possibility.

I think that the "angel or vampire" speech was so, so close to the heart of it all. Saving Dean's life earns you the eternal benefit of the doubt, be you whatever kind of monster; Amy Pond having saved Sam's life got her a knife through the heart. If that's not the starkest possible illustration of how much Dean values their respective lives, I don't know what is. And I thought it came through very clearly, if painfully, that Sam just completely internalized that message without analyzing it.

Sam's messy tears because he, apparently, does not cry the one manly tear.

Yes! When Sam does something, he means it entirely. Dean is always holding back, is always conscious of the power of appearances, even at his realest moments. Sam is absolutely without defenses or artifice when it comes to the people he loves.

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