#metamorphosis is like jack is pushed into killing in trying to save his wife

[lawboymagicshow]

s4 will really create a situation where it's like society has transformed a person into a monster it is not inherent to them... but then will be like we have to still kill them in an incredibly dehumanizing way where we can still feel morally in the clear

[deanstudies101]

4x04, Metamorphosis

Critical theory: What makes a monster. What you are vs. what you do. 

Discussion point/question(s): Once again we see the moment Dean shuts down when he realises Sam knew about the demon blood for a year and never told him. Sam pushes Dean to talk about emotions, and once again shuts Dean down when he does. 

Key quotes: Travis, “You ever been really hungry? I mean, haven’t-eaten-in-days hungry?” Dean, “Ha, yeah.”; Dean, “Manburger Helper” [this is silly and goofy]; Sam, “It doesn’t matter what you are, it only matters what you do.”

Discussion: 

Feel for Sam a bit, because Dean was quite harsh with him. And it’s not even that he means to be harsh, it’s just his way of talking (macho mask), and it’s coming from a place of concern. He can’t accept that he has very little authority over what happened while he was dead. Exploring the psychic stuff is a neutral choice, and Sam is saving people, we can’t really fault him for that. But Sam gets very argumentative with Dean, and doesn’t seem to realise that Dean isn’t John—he’s not trying to control or order Sam around, but protect him. Sam didn’t like growing up as a little soldier, and maybe he didn’t have it as bad as Dean, but he ran away from it. So when Dean brings things up in that harsh way, Sam gets very defensive—his dad is controlling his life. 

[Controversially I think this is too kind on Dean. I think he is trying to control Sam. However, I also think it’s too harsh on him too. I think he didn’t just “have it worse” than Sam, he was indoctrinated. He is like John in this way because he has to be. He was raised to be like John, to idolise him. Of course he can be controlling.] Dean trying to control Sam is Dean trying to protect Sam. That’s how he was raised, it’s all he knows. 

Iga, Sam seems to be the one killing the almost-monsters now.

And Jack was fucking baited. Sucks for Sam to see that—from Sam’s perspective, Jack just snapped. But the truth is it was in self-defence, and in defence of his pregnant wife. How can we blame him for that? 

This episode really shows us just how harsh hunters are. Comes back to what Dean said at the beginning of the episode, about hunting Sam. Hunters would hunt Sam. We saw a bit of this in S2, but it’s so much worse now. The angels are probably being a bit too hasty, because Sam’s powers seem kinda useful. Angels in a lot of myths are stoic and harsh. Black and white. An army. [Angels are warriors of God.] They’re not gonna fuck around, they’re just gonna see that Sam is crossing the line and stop him. [They're there to fight a war.] There’s probably less angels than demons, so they kinda have to be a bit harsh/hasty. 

Feel really bad for Jack. Lots of people have that battle with something, an addiction. And he was pushed. He was trying his best, but he was pushed. 

It hasn’t been expressed what the demon blood is doing to him. Is he having evil urges, does he want to hurt people? [In season 2, we see it expressed as anger, like uncontrollable anger. But that’s pretty much the extent of what we’ve seen I think.] But that could just be childhood trauma, there’s got to be something deeper there. Iga, also, if the demon blood makes you stronger, is it just Azazel’s blood? Just when you’re exactly six months old? Why are we not drinking demon blood? Like a strength potion?

Notes: Visiting student Julio. First use of ‘Cas’ we think. 

[mittensmorgul]

Hello from the tnt loop today! 4.04, Metamorphosis, and if I'm not mistaken, the first incident of Direct Lamp Abuse.

SAM: I'm pulling demons out of innocent people. DEAN: Use the knife! SAM: The knife kills the victim! What I do, most of them survive! Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year. DEAN: That what Ruby want you to think? Huh? Kind of like the way she tricked you into using your powers? Slippery slope, brother. Just wait and see. Because it's gonna get darker and darker, and God knows where it ends. SAM: I'm not gonna let it go too far. [DEAN smiles at that, walks over to the wall and hits the lamp on the side table, making it crash and fly. DEAN looks angry again.] DEAN: It's already gone too far, Sam. If I didn't you know... I would wanna hunt you. [...] SAM: You were gone. I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you. And what I'm doing... It works. DEAN: Well, tell me. If it's so terrific... then why'd you lie about it to me?

Sam doesn't have an answer right away, but dealing with the monster of the episode gives him a depressing new insight into his own tenuous condition. Sam makes Jack's state about himself, desperately trying to save himself, find some proof that Dean and the angels are wrong about him, that he's not trapped heading down the "darker and darker" road Dean described it as.

SAM: What if he doesn't hulk out? I did a little homework. Uh, I've been checking out the lore on rougarous. TRAVIS: What? My 30 years of experience not good enough for you? SAM: What? No. No, I-I- I just wanted to be prepared. I mean, not that you didn't.. [...] SAM: Look, everything you said checked out, of course, but uh. I found a couple of interesting stories about people who have this rougarou gene or whatever. See, they start to turn, but they never take the final step. [...] TRAVIS: Good on you for the due diligence, Sam. But those are fairy tales. Fact is, every rougarou I ever saw or heard of... took that bite.

Sam's final stance is that he's not gonna kill Jack unless he does something to deserve killing for... like with the possessed people Ruby's been teaching him to exorcise. And it's a noble concept, but so far beyond flawed as a way to deal with rougarou... but Dean capitulates, because he feels guilty and at least a little responsible for why Sam's in this state now. So they try to deal with a rougarou with logic, giving him all the facts and hoping he chooses to resist giving in.

But unlike Dean, Travis the hunter who brought them in for help on this case, goes back to kill both Jack and his pregnant wife, and it forces Jack's hand. He may have resisted killing up to that point, but when backed into a corner to save someone he loves, he lost control, and that was all it took to turn him into the monster.

Sam's so distracted trying to stop Jack from killing Dean, too, he missing the Huge Flashing Arrow, which Travis had warned him about-- rougarou leave their wives pregnant when they turn. Jack told him Travis had tried to kill his wife, too, but when Sam asked why, Jack lied, used that fact to villify Travis in Sam's mind, making HIM look like the monster. And in the fashion of the overarching spiral narrative, we're left to assume that somewhere out there, there's now a 10-year-old kid who's completely unaware of his family legacy, waiting like a ticking time bomb to go off and eat someone in a couple more decades. (unless Michelle was as horrified by what she learned and saw Jack do that she was smart enough to end the pregnancy...) And of course Dean knows none of this because he's been knocked unconscious and is unable to hear it at all.

And isn't that just a tidy metaphor for how Sam was lured into working with Ruby? Using his own powers, believing the manipulative lie Ruby fed him, which fed right into his own need to be good at all costs, to feel like he's at least working toward scrubbing himself clean of the stain of what was done to him.

SAM: You have no idea what I'm going through. None. DEAN: Then enlighten me! SAM: I've got demon blood in me, Dean! This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean! I'm a whole new level of freak! And I'm just trying to take this - this curse... and make something good out of it. Because I have to.

One of the things Sam worries Dean thinks of him is that he doesn't "know the difference between right and wrong," as if there was a simple, black and white answer. (lol because that's the whole premise of the next episode on the loop... a simple, black and white case, that turns out to be anything BUT that... but that's for the next post). They're both trying to do what they feel is the right thing, when there really is no clear answer. In those situations, they have to decide what really matters most to them and at least try to do THAT. For Sam, that's the Saving People half of the job description. Not wanting to kill Jack until he's got enough evidence to prove to himself that he's too dangerous to live. Unfortunately for Sam, there's two problems with that strategy:

1. Jack is pushed into doing something that would make him "deserve" being killed, which means "letting" him kill an innocent person. But of course Sam's hoping he won't do that, as armed with the facts about what that would make Jack as he is, sometimes we're not given a choice and circumstance dictates our choices in the moment. Things are never as simple as they seem on the surface...

2. Travis and his 30 years of experience dealing with rougarou knows this, and seeing he's not getting the help he asked for from Sam and Dean, goes ahead and does what he thinks he has to do without them... and ends up becoming the "innocent" person Jack kills that turns him. What a plot twist...

That's effectively what happens to Sam over the course of s4, as he becomes more and more convinced that he alone is right, because they don't have all the facts (and in fact have the deliberately misleading facts about what their ultimate goal of the season is-- not killing Lilith... if only he could've resisted taking that final bite, as it were, in 4.22. But instead he believes he's doing the right thing, protecting people he cares for, even at the cost of his own humanity, just like Jack in this episode, and honestly just like Jack the Nougat Babby in 14.14 and beyond... and the narrative loop spins again...)

If only Sam could understand why Dean’s so afraid for him... but:

Sam: Anyway, it doesn't matter. These powers... it's playing with fire. I'm done with them... I'm done with everything. Dean: Really? Well, that's a relief. Thank you. Sam: Don't thank me. I'm not doing it for you. Or for the angels or for anybody. This is my choice.

is it really, Sam? Or will the narrative back you into corner after corner until you feel compelled to use those powers anyway? Until you’re completely stripped of choices and see only one way out?