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samdean literally get worse. they start out in an astronomically healthier place than they end. like consider how pilot dean not only has left sam to his devices at stanford for years already but willingly intends to leave him there again by the end of the episode. imagine like, any sam later in the show telling dean he’s leaving him to go to college. dean would lock him in a basement first. s1 sam says they’ll never be brothers the way they were again and that he wants life outside of dean. we don’t even have to imagine what a later season sam would do if dean devalued their brotherhood. canonically he goes crazy. every time. isn’t that beautiful. they started out almost healthy if not estranged and tense then ended like fucked in the mind enmeshed. tl;dr samdean get worse and it’s the best part of the show.

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How tf is sam is queer coded?? And more than dean or cas? You said he was the “first”. Like how 🙄

oh man okay.

another hathfrozen essay (1.5k lmaooo sorry) for y’all and this one is very personal for me.

thesis (as it were): sam winchester is the most queer coded (main) character on spn. keep reading to see why. 

first: this is about sam. it is not an invalidation of dean or cas, or how people might read them. i’ll compare and contrast them a few times to help illustrate my points about sam but this very specifically about sam, the way he is written, and the way he is treated by the fanbase. 

let’s start by defining queer coding in the critical context.

“queer coding” means something from a critical perspective. there is an actual systematic presentation of characters who are not textually identified as queer but hold a certain set of characteristics or follow certain tropes which align with mainstream conceptualization of queerness. this is usually, unfortunately, negative, angsty, and overexaggerated. queer coding is, in its rawest form, not necessarily a good thing, as it reflects heteronormative and homophobic standards. 

however, a lot of queer people, myself included, end up identifying with and loving those characters anyway! as problematic as the tropes behind queer coding might be, they often reflect the queer experience in a heteronormative society.

so. how does sam fit this?

here’s a basic starting point for queer coding: it is foundationally about the Othering of a character. Othering is massive literary device that functions in a number of ways, and not every Othered character is queer coded. however, every queer coded character is Othered (mostly). what specifies an Othered character as queer coded is the addition of things like gender non conformity, alienation, character conflict, themes of desire, and more. 

i really hope all of those sparked something about sam for you, as it should if you’ve watched the show at all, but i’ll elaborate. 

sam is Othered from the very start. he is established as estranged from his family. this already--the familial estrangement--is a classic representation of queerness, and indeed a common experience of queer people in real life. the conflict with his father is also classic. more specifically, he is rejected by his father for not conforming to john’s standard of what a son should be, and what defines manhood.

this brings us to the gender non conformity piece. this is not overt or dramatic, because spn is very gender normative and generally misogynistic. however, this is what makes sam’s gendered traits actually significant. he is consistently identified as being more or too feminine than dean, and other characters in general. he cares too much, he’s too empathetic, he doesn’t like hunting, he talks too much, he cares about his appearance and diet, etc etc etc. not only are these traits feminine (like, within the context of spn because spn will never be a paragon of gender enlightenment), they’re generally used as points of insult or weakness against sam, and often mocked. 

now let’s talk about a really, really big piece and that is where sam aligns with the infamous occurrence of queer coded villain/anti hero. this is what really makes sam’s coding significant, and it comes before any other characters in the timeline. his earliest arc is about fighting a darkness, and eventually in seasons 4 and 5, literally becoming a threat. mainstream media loves to take queer coded characters and villainize them. we all know this. it is famously done. and sam fits right in there, in so many ways. let’s break it down:

what makes his villainization (for lack of a better term) really very queer is how it is centered around desire. his need for demon blood literally aligns with any taboo or marginalized desire in society. again, queer coding is at its core homophobic. it mirrors mainstream understanding of same gender desire as something that is dangerous, deviant, and destructive. 

this brings us to the the element of it as something that needs to be “fixed”. i doubt i need to elaborate, again, how this fits. everyone around sam wants to fix him, and sam internalizes that. sam felt there was something wrong with him, something dark in him, something different. it’s that Othering again, and it is deeply reflective of queer people’s experience in a world that rejects them. 

later, during the trials, the entire theme is a matter of “purifying” himself. sam is queer coded in the tragic, upsetting way, the very classic way. people ignore that, and i don’t know why. maybe it’s more comfortable to engage with the characters who are queer coded in a “quirky”, fun way. i get that. but it doesn’t mean sam isn’t written as he is. he is not the heterosexual archetype here. 

sam’s behavior reflects that of a queer coded character’s general background and arc. he literally runs away to college preseries because he doesn’t belong in his family, and wishes to be somewhere he can be himself. like, the queer coding is glaring. i detailed the demon blood and trials arc, and how that fits. his conflict with his father fits. hell, his conflict with dean fits. 

if sam had been textually queer, say, bisexual, it would only have emphasized everything about the way he is written. it is right there. it’s not even a matter of potential, of well, maybe, of well, what if....... it’s not a matter of throwaway lines and baiting jokes. he is written the way mainstream media treats queer and queer coded characters. 

and he has been written this way since the very beginning. it is the essence of his characterization. since episode one, when we see a soft-hearted, kind-eyed sam who has been hiding out from his family in california get tackled to the ground by his rough and tumble big brother and dragged into a mission to save the father who rejected him for not fitting in....it’s right there. 

how is this different from dean and cas?

y’all are gonna hate to hear it. 

dean is not queer coded the way sam, or any other noticeably coded character is. he has traits some people identify with and he would make great rep if he was bi, but his arc and characterization is not queered the way sam’s is. not to that degree. some parts, sure, can be, included his need for redemption and the religious allegories to some of his plot lines. people will point out the way spn teases some of dean’s interactions with men. this could be seen as baiting, but baiting, while related to coding, isn’t exactly the same. dean’s throwaway lines, flirting with men, are generally treated as a joke. again, reflective of spn’s problematic heteronormative nature. but it’s literally like a running joke to them, not the essence of dean’s character as a queer person. this doesn’t mean people can’t read dean the way they want to and identify with that, or even “reclaim” the baiting nature of such writing, but it’s not just not the same. 

some people will be surprised to hear me say this, and some might be pissed, but yeah, actually, cas does have some coding to him. i actually think he’s coded more significantly as neurodivergent than queer, but there’s overlap and there’s distinct elements of queerness too. however, he literally is not the first character to be written this way, and people act like he is, and that bothers me. especially, when people contrast him against sam, as if sam is the antagonistic het idol or something. like the hell? 

anyway. here’s what my problem is. 

people pretend that sam isn’t everything i’ve just outlined. that pisses me off, and then they go and treat him like shit. 

now, if you don’t like sam, you don’t have to. i love him, but that’s my business. but. people will go on this huge crusade for dean, cas, or deancas and say their reasoning is first and foremost the queercoding and queer rep. like they go so hard for those characters and the ship because of the queerness. like if that were true, you’d go hard for sam too. 

what’s really happening is this: 

they like dean or cas or deancas --> they identify with the characters --> they hc them as queer --> they want validation from the show for this

what they’re saying is happening is this:

dean or cas or deancas is coded as queer --> they identify with the characters --> they want validation from the show

if that were true, if what came first was the coding, then sam would be y’alls favorite too. or at least you’d crusade for him and the show’s treatment of him the same way you do cas and dean. but you don’t. 

and that is (mostly, to my eyes) fine. i mean that from the angle that you don’t have to love sam, you don’t have be up in arms for him.

but i wish people put some fucking critical thinking into what they’re saying when they talk about queer coding in spn, how the characters are treated, and what they want from the show. i want people to think critically when they run their mouths about sam as the “token straight”, sam as the “toxic het”, and get fucking mad ??? when people behind the scenes acknowledge sam’s coding. if you really cared so much about queerness and rep in spn, you’d celebrate moments like that, you’d respect who sam is and how sam has been written.

but you don’t. because your priorities are dean or cas or deancas. and that is, i guess, fine. just don’t pretend it’s anything else. 

*the characters mentioned are not textually queer. in canon, both sam and dean are understood to be white heterosexual men and in canon, behave romantically as such. it is important to recognize this, no matter how we read these characters. 

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Catherine Lacey, “Cut”

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okay but henriksen really thought he was doing something in 3x13, just casually roasting sam and dean like “hope y’all enjoy prison, you’re never getting out lol” and they could not care less. dean’s cracking jokes, sam’s unbothered, like yeah yeah whatever dude. but the second he says “take a good look at sam, you’ll never see each other again”—bro. the way they SNAPPED their heads towards him. like they forgot how to breathe for a sec. eyes full of murder. like how dare he even suggest they get separated? that's his biggest sin right there. you can lock them up, you can put them on death row, you can throw them into the deepest, darkest hole imaginable for all they care—but separate them? absolutely the fuck not. that is not on the table. i just know henriksen had a little moment of realization like "damn okay, these guys are unwell."

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1x01, “Pilot” / Jenny Holzer, Truisms / 2x21, “All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 1)”

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Mary Winchester, “In The Beginning” / Sam Winchester

dedicated to @jellybracelet <3

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—guns and desire I, anne carson, decreation

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Sam + catching the keys 🔑

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whatever we need more discussion abt sams tits. they’re so big and plump and beautiful and they literally glow she’s the prettiest person alive I need her

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i am cursed to post only at the most inconvenient of hours and soulless fem Sam is no exception

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Sir Dean "I get hard when I see my mom" Winchester and Sir Dean "I get hard when I see my little brother for the same reason" Winchester

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Late seasons Sam vs Jared’s audition video

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Research question: I can’t seem to remember anytime jared interfered with sam’s storyline or made specific acting choices. Are there any such instances that I’m unaware of?

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you can't say you miss sam's early seasons "fire" if you refuse to acknowledge when it was lost and why

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this has prob been done before but whateva