#most of what i've seen from jared around the time of seasons eight and nine are mostly involved with his defending sam from

[aliusfrater]

almost all s8 opinions regarding sam make me want to tear my hair out but what do you make of the takes that we can't really blame sam for s8, mainly not looking for dean/quitting hunting because it was "out of character"?

not just the you know who shippers who say this either btw I've seen so-called sam stans say the same

the evidence to this claim always seems to be that jared supposedly didn't like it either (which may very well be true idk the source) but I have to wonder if jared only said that or something similar because fan reactions to s8 sam began affecting him too

quite simply, i just don't agree with or enjoy interpretations that genuinely and earnestly refer to it as sam 'not looking for dean' in any context that's intended to be from sam's point of view because that's very much what dean considers it to be because he knows that he wasn't dead in the soul-had-left-his-body sense and he considers sam's adherence to his own perceived death as abandonment which is the major culprit of his own, sam's as well as the narrative's perpetuation of the idea that sam 'didn't look for him'. like this exact idea from sam's own pov is touched on in the first episode of season eight when sam is at his most confident in his independence away from his and dean's relationship:

then based on bobby's reaction to sam's own recount of dean's death to bobby in 8.19, it does seem evident to me that sam neglects to retell his own pov and he tells bobby that dean was in the same purgatory they were currently in, which is why bobby reacts with disbelief (because if you knew where he was, why didn't you attempt to save him?) and why sam's response is to bring up the previous 'agreement' he and dean had about death.

i have my own qualms about bobby's disillusionment re: the agreement as a 'non-agreement' and that he 'taught [sam] that' based on the actual events of 6.01 and the fact that bobby does indeed leave dean out of hunting at sam's will and the only plausible point at which it could have become a non-agreement is during the 6.11 and 6.12 conflict that is regaining sam's soul (without sam's consent, twice fold, but i consider soulless!sam to be more of a direct victim of being resouled than i do sam because of his active agency against it. sam's agency was preceded in his dying wishes and are therefore passive). bobby's reaction does, however, add to the already narratively skewed perspective of sam's decision where there is already that prioritisation of dean's 'didn't look for me' on account of the fact that bobby's own role as patriarch does narratively match dean's, along with bobby's position as a character who is narratively third to sam and dean's relationship (which then then bleeds into both sam's and the fandom's own interpretation of it, i think; sam also begins to doubt his decisions more which is also related to how the trials turn into his own suicidal ideation).

the conflict regarding which brother takes on the trials is very much foundational within sam's own view of a light at the end of the tunnel and his desire to leave the life and dean, at multiple points, within conversation about why he should be the one to do the trials, reiterates sam's own desire for normalcy away from hunting, within what dean himself desires for sam's life, which bring us back to the root of the issue that is dean's fear of abandonment (8.03, 8.14).

sam's own desire or attempt to leave the life seems to be fundamentally Wrong or is at least disproved of until dean approves of it/whenever it's part of dean's ideal for sam. 8.01, "so… free will, that's only for you?" the greatest sin is to disobey your patriarch; i think the culprit here re: sam's own person, just like it was with season four and the beginnings of soulless!sam, seems to be sam's rejection of the dynamics of his and dean's codependency in favour of his own attempt at independence. there's also the idea that dean would rather complete the trials that have a possibility of death than have sam go through the trials, die, then 'leave' dean to face the idea of living a life without sam—and he attempts to make this decision by on his own, without sam's input.

generally, i don't believe sam needs any excuse(s) to live a life outside of dean but the narrative's own facilitation of sam back into the non-role (the struggle to fit into the role) of his and dean's relationship, the dichotomy of monstrosity, the cycle of abuse, the patriarchal structure etc. etc. after his attempts at independence are endlessly interesting to me and although this isn't yelled at you through explicit exploration, i do consider aspects of sam's history with mental health to be relevant within several aspects of season eight, but mostly being related to sam's decision to leave hunting specifically within the context of the year between seasons seven and eight (especially after all that is seasons three to seven) as it's explored in 8.08. ultimately though, i think the major aspects of sam's decision to leave revolve around 1) grief and sam's avoidance of his grief, which is pretty well represented by his initial reluctance to name riot and explored through sam and amelia as mirroring characters (how blatant it is pisses me off a little),

and 2) the very basic building block regarding sam as a character that is his desire to leave the life. quite generally, i think the fact that through dean's own conflation of family and hunting (on account of john's own pov that through choosing college over hunting, sam had also chosen college over family) as well as dean's own pov prioritised through his and sam's relationship along with the previously mentioned structures, the idea that sam, too, is therefore unable to leave the life or subvert any of these structures without it being perceived as leaving dean or forsaking family is pretty neglected within a lot of interpretations of sam as a character. i think dean very much keeps sam tethered to the life either through sam's own ability to choose dean and their conflated lifestyle over something/someone else (later season one, season two, three, later nine to fifteen) (there's also the guilt tripping) or as a result of being preoccupied in a way that inhibits his idea of normalcy (his monstrosity in seasons four and five), but on account of the dynamics and his and dean's relationship, sam is unable to reject their codependency which perpetuates hunting and SamAndDean as existing synonymously. i mean, even when sam was hunting without dean as soulless!sam, on account of the agency and autonomy sam was able to achieve due to the differences between s!sam and sam's priorities due to the difference between then (the soul lol), s!sam's rejection of his and dean's relationship did become evidence for his monstrosity. which is, of course, punishable by (possible) death should dean decide that the dichotomy will not stretch to accommodate said monstrosity.

season eight, to me, is when these characters first start feeling a bit like cardboard, especially due to how wittled down to its core sam and dean's dynamic is represented. this is the most boring and basic version of How They Work at this point in the show and even then people explain their simple and cardboard-ish behaviours away with explanations like saying they're 'ooc'. sam's state of mind is pretty straight forward if you know where to look; sam taking his entire family's death as his sign that he's able to leave the life is not out of character to me at all. kill the supernatural appointed patriarch in your head.