#he defects but there's no escape bc he's so wrapped up in nostalgia.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

@paellegere posting and replying to your tags bc yes! love this addition, also i have extra thoughts now.

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[incesthemes]

#the military upbringing (absolute obedience to patriotism and the myth of nationhood)#= patriarchal familial dynamics (absolute obedience to the Man of the household and his authority)#= American protestant cultural christianity (absolute faith and obedience to god and his authority)#all inseparable in the American mythos...#the Bioshock Infinite of it all..........#early spn was clever! sam framed as the prodigal son escaping heroism. who chooses to embrace his doomed destiny#dean framed as the obedient son pushed to his limits and ultimately rejecting his destiny/father/god#and reading the brothers as 'rejecting' john/god. there's a lot of complexity between them#sam who initially rejects family/john because he was the one rejected first! he's been excluded/an outsider his whole life!#and he is the one more eager to jump on the sword. because therein lies the belonging he's never felt he's deserved.#his ultimate longing for full acceptance into hunting = heroism = his family is what dooms him...#(i could write a whole separate meta on why sam's desire for 'normalcy' is a veneer. too many ppl buy into it at face value??)#dean who slowly grows more and more tired of the path he's been pushed onto. by john. by god. he's shackled by heroism#he defects but there's no escape bc he's so wrapped up in nostalgia.#his longing for domesticity and home <- all the cultural symbols by which Family reasserts itself as inescapable truth#but the Family is a power structure...and his absolute nostalgia for it is what leads into him recreating its power dynamics.#they're both just lil haunted rats running circles in the maze of America..........#< or however that nico vega song goes (via @finalgirlsamwinchester)

many people, especially in a culture where religion is so omnipresent, turn to religion for community and belonging—this is also how cults recruit new members: preying on people's feelings of isolation and loneliness and inviting them into a community of people just like them. it makes sense that sam, ostracized and alienated as he is, would be the one to turn toward religion, and since "religion" in the united states almost universally means "christianity" because of cultural reinforcement and the overwhelming presence of christ, this was the option presented to sam and the one he took.

dean on the other hand already has a god in his father. not only is there no room for christ with john consuming dean body and soul, but he's actively discouraged from believing in a higher power due to his lifestyle (and probably from john himself, since all mentions of religion in the winchester family are related to mary only, dean initially rejects the possibility that angels exist which means john probably never considered it a possibility either, golden boy dean would probably never disagree with his father on such an important ideological ground, and sam is treated as odd and Other for believing in god, indicating that religion is a stranger to the family).

so sam fills the hole of belonging and community inside of him with god, but dean's is filled by john. john is just as much an absent father as god is, but dean pours his faith into john and doubles down on his belief in him as an absolute authority as a result of the shtriga attack, and then likely continually reinforced over time. because sam isn't given the responsibility dean is, he has more freedom to reject john's authority, but it doesn't change his upbringing: he needs to find authority somewhere else, and so he turns to god, hoping he will save him. this faith is strengthened by his feelings of dirtiness and sin, which is encouraged by christianity because of the concepts of original sin and penance and salvation.

but in the end they both need the same thing, because they're cut from the same cloth. the absolute obedience to a higher authority to tell them how to live. when sam's faith in religion begins to ebb, he clings more to dean as an authority; when john dies, dean clings to sam for direction. it's not an immediate shift, and they both constantly return to god/john as an authority, haunting them both long past they exited left stage. they're both seeking approval and direction from someone other than themselves because they've been raised soldiers, not leaders (and isn't it fitting, then, that christians call themselves god's warriors?).

even the marked physical absence of john in the narrative positions him as a god figure. he becomes no different from god because he's not here. all they have is the good book (dad's journal) and faith that following his path (quite literally) will save them and bring them closer together. the first season, then, can be a metaphor for a religious journey, for seeking god in america. the cross-country road trip (wild goose chase) is as literal as it is spiritual. and the ultimate critique is that god is absent; god is a deadbeat father; god is an abusive son of a bitch who demanded obedience from soldiers kept ignorant by design. the metaphor is extended when the judeo-christian god is revealed to be literally, actually an absent, deadbeat father demanding obedience from soldiers kept ignorant by design. john is the symbol of an absent god, and god is the symbol of an absent father.

kripke is jewish, not christian, so i'm sure a lot of this critique is by design. because as someone who is not christian, it's easy to see how christ-haunted america is. it's easy to understand the alienation and otherness that spawns from a lack of faith in the christian god. sam and dean are trapped in an americana nightmare they can't escape from. they can reject god, but dad is still there haunting them anyway. they can reject dad, but god is still there jerking them around on puppet strings. even rejecting everything and turning to each other doesn't allow them escape, because they're a product of their raise and they still crave obedience to authority, and they still act the way they were taught. you can't escape christinity when christianity is your culture. you can't change the way you were raised. you can't help that your father is also your god, and you can't prevent the damage of his abuse. free will is an illusion, and you will always follow the path god laid out for you because you can't escape your very nature.

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along