#also audiences will always b predisposed to absorbing stories this way bc it's so culturally ingrained

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

Rebecca A. Brown. 'Of Radioactive Sprites and Diminutive Tyrants: Hammer’s Monstrous Children' + Dustin Freeley, 'The Monstrous Child Replacement and Repetition in The Shining' from Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters

[aliusfrater]

#every time i post an excerpt on here know that im 100% thinking about it in relation to sam#despite the Apocalypse really being a cascading tragedy where both brothers are equally culpable for starting it#sam as the original *monstrous* body becomes the one to shoulder the blame at a story level#always thinking on the show's failure to fully subvert its premise (one son as the Hero and the other as the Monster)#bc it mostly plays those story mechanics straight (and that's where audience sympathy gets directed)#even when it tries to metatextually address the idea like look! both of them are trying to escape their destined roles!#also audiences will always b predisposed to absorbing stories this way bc it's so culturally ingrained#a Hero is the central figure who draws your empathy. now look at a story and tell me who you think is its least sympathetic figure?#there lies the Monster. not a ghoul or a vampire or a villain. but the unknowable outsider#the hero as the knowable heart of a story and the monster in order to remain as its scapegoat - always becomes unknowable#even when the story gives you enough material to sympathise with the both of them!!!!!!!#hence why sam somehow being a boring blank slate or an incomprehensible freak is such a common interpretation here#does the fault lie in the writers or in an audience unwilling and unpracticed at empathising with a scapegoat?

Rebecca A. Brown. 'Of Radioactive Sprites and Diminutive Tyrants: Hammer’s Monstrous Children' + Dustin Freeley, 'The Monstrous Child Replacement and Repetition in The Shining' from Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters