#Sam And Dean Winchester Are Not Human Beings

[zmediaoutlet]

spn20rewatch, 1.12: "The guy probably would've died anyway."

After agreeing that, yes, you're invested in the mission of this family after all, and you're an equal participant in it and you're bought in -- what are you willing to do?

Death comes easy in Supernatural -- it's kind of the starting premise -- and avoiding death comes more-or-less easy, too. Faith is the first time we see the Winchesters evade the obvious conclusion but it's far from the last, and it's also the first time we see how easy the slippage comes between breathing and not, between moral and not, between allowable and not. Reapers seem to come for the dying no matter what, but it isn't actually that hard to redirect that energy from one person to another. What happens when you do it? What cost are you willing to bear?

Dean takes a mortal wound in the everyday exigencies of the hunt. He was a good person, saving kids from a monster. He doesn't deserve to die. (Right?) A faith healer sees something special in him and he's chosen, over a lot of others, and he will be snatched back from the jaws of patient death, and -- that's good, right? Dean will live and he will save many more kids, and him being alive is a net positive in the world. Does it matter what it costs?

Unfortunately, as Sam is soon to learn, evading the inevitable in the moral structure of Supernatural's universe is just a whole-ass series of trolley problems. Yes, Dean lives, but Marshall Hall dies. Did Marshall deserve that? He was probably a decent guy. Maybe he didn't save kids from monsters, but he was a human person and that should be enough to deserve life. Was his life more valuable on the eternal scales than Dean's? For Sam, most certainly, but we can't trust Sam's judgment on making that call. Is there any possibility of being objective, here? (On a meta level, would the driving structural forces of this narrative allow any other option?)

DEAN: Sam, the guy's playing God, he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book. SAM: No. We're not going to kill a human being, Dean. We do that, we're no better than he is.

Tricky calculus. Who decides? And, worse, what if you know that by one decision you're dooming some to death, but some others will live? Would Sam have made the decision to go to the faith healer if he knew that someone else would go in Dean's place? We really don't know, and at this point I'm not sure Sam knows, either. He'd certainly say that he wouldn't, especially with the benefit of hindsight. In the lonely growing darkness in a motel room with his dad refusing to answer the phone and Dean's white face in a white hospital bed blotting out every other thought -- who knows what decision he would've made, with full awareness.

How lucky that he got exactly what he wanted without having to make the grimiest possible version of the choice. Sam (and we) can wonder what might have happened, if Layla had been chosen first and they'd realized what the stakes really were and then on a later day Roy had turned his smiling benevolence Dean's way. Who decides who lives and who dies? Luckily the universe tends to intercede on the Winchesters' behalf before they have to answer that question truthfully.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

...I always interpreted this as Cas seeing, and falling in love with, Dean's demon form first. So

1- Cas has known What Dean Is(tm) the whole time and has never not loved ALL of Dean's weird, demihuman/monstrous, "what if I punched God in the face", undefinable riftwalker hot boyMILF ass.

2- Cas raising Dean from Hell was (at least to start) less the dramatic bridal carry we all envision and more like someone trying to rescue a very angry stray cat that does not know its being rescued so it has to be wrapped in a towel until it stops trying to claw its rescuer's face off.

i think a lot of people don’t realise that cas pulling dean out of hell in lazarus rising wasn’t cas pulling dean off the rack, it was cas pulling dean AWAY FROM the rack, away from the people he was torturing

the first time cas touched dean he saw the pain dean was inflicting on other people, saw the way he enjoyed it, and it didn’t change how pure dean was to him, it didn’t make him any less good

[runawaydr3amerao3]

"Sam and Dean love each other as much as two human beings can love each other. Truly." — Jared Padalecki, San Diego Comic Con 2017

[X - 0:20]

❤️ Jensen's version

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

1.01, "Pilot" | Stephen Adly Guirgis, "The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot" " | 5.22, "Swan Song"

[beebox-illustrations]

Sammy and Dean having breakfast for dinner, waiting for John to return.

Somehow the thought of how little Sam must have eventually stopped asking when their dad‘s gonna return makes me really emotional 🥲

Had a busy weekend so here we are with a belated post! Have a fantastic week✨🌻

[incesthemes]

i can't stop thinking about the first episode of season 6, when sam tries to convince dean to come with him, to come back to hunting. he says "it's just better with you around, that's all." it's an interesting line because sam is soulless, obviously. and even though he doesn't understand the details yet, he knows something's wrong with him.

"it's better with you around" he says, citing dean's compassion and care for others as the reason why. and how interesting is that? sam's working with plenty of other hunters who still have their souls—they're all more than capable of caring about the people they save. but sam needs dean specifically. he knows he's missing something, and he sees dean and recognizes that something in him. even cold and calculating and unrelentingly logical, sam recognizes that dean, alone, can "complete" him, give something back to him that he's supposed to have.

in episode 8 he tells dean he "needs his help." he doesn't elaborate; he never explains what he means by that. he has a whole family of hunters who'd be willing and able to help him, but still he needs dean. even without his soul, his hyperrational mind knows he needs him.

soulless sam isn't capable of caring about dean. but he doesn't need to care to know they need to be together, no matter what—to know dean is good for him, dean completes him, dean needs to be there for him.

it's like a sick reversal of season 1. sam drags dean back into this life because he can't keep going without him. because he needs him. because when you think about it logically, and sam has no other choice, there was never any other option for them.

[shadystranger]

What was up with cass fighting for his life to stop dean from rescusing sam (not to mention his almost enthusiastic jumping to move past sam's death) He did NOT have that energy when the roles were reversed

like summin smell fishy and it aint just cass's pussy

[harbingerofsoup]

“dean’s problematic” “no sam’s problematic” “cas is a bad character”

guys, we can’t judge them by the usual standards of morality applied to characters. the writers were all fighting each other over consistency and the network was meddling so their actions episode to episode don’t mean as much for their characters as their essence does or like the core of the characters

[s0fter-sin]

sometimes i think about how much of a waste it was to just have cas ignoring sam’s prayers in s6 instead of him actually not being able to hear him bc he was soulless and his prayers didn’t work

[soullessjack]

i think perhaps another layer of autism in jacks character is that he’s fine with being different, but is always upset to be treated or perceived differently.

[batcavescolony]

S4 E10 Supernatural

Anna was an Angel, also Only 4 Angels have seen God. Ruby got tortured by Alastor, that's sucks. Uriel saying Castiel has a weakness and it's that he likes Dean. Dean and Anna...seem to get along. Ok OK OK and on to the heartbreaking stuff. Dean told Sam about hell, and how it's wasn't months for him it was 40years and he was given a choice to get tortured or torture others. Dean wishes he couldn't feel anything cus he cracked after 30years and he was good at it. Uggh 💔

[quietwingsinthesky]

still thinking about how gadreel blew up. lmao.

i still think he should have cut his own grace out and fed it to cas. feels like a better conclusion to his arc. fucked it all up for humans trying to do the right thing, fucked it all up for angels trying to do the right thing, he's been trying to martyr himself since at least Dean and Sam captured him, but fuck that. live, bitch. lose part of yourself that both connects you to your trauma but also to everyone/thing you love. give it up to save someone else. and then go live at the bunker as a human guy while sam is at his most fucked up because dean just died <3 it would be so awful for both of them <3

[angelic-omega]

Depression will have you watching supernatural all the way through NOT once…not twice but THREE FULL TIMES

If you use supernatural as a means of escapism please seek therapy

[kyxgrey]

i drew a little something the other day

[ohmygodletmesignup]

supernatural but it’s about two extremely normal guys

[blushingsastiel]

human castiel makes my heart break!!! i lowkey love him as a human but he didn't have time to adjust!!! he was thrown into how sucky it is to be humannn with no warning. horrible. literal torture dkjfsjkfsjj it sucks out here being human JKHJFDHSJK