#sam winchester commentary

[fandom-hoarder]

Grabbing these tags by @deanwinchesterpregnant from this post to expand.

Because yes, this is a very important part! Sam says it, too!

And while there ARE Sam haters that will say "Sam doesn't know how much Dean sacrificed!" and mean it as a JUDGEMENT and omg wooby!Dean; there are also people like me, who started writing s1 Sam POVs to understand him better, and suddenly connected him to my little brother like, 'OH. Sam doesn't KNOW. How COULD he know??😭' and it's not a judgment of his character or his love for Dean! And he's not stupid! They're both just kids who have yet to work through their own shit enough to realize they don't know EVERYTHING about each other, despite their shared history. It's part of why Sam says in In My Time of Dying that they were "just starting to be brothers again."

Obviously it's a necessary part of s1 to give us, the viewer, expositional glimpses into Sam and Dean's inner workings. But the way they each react to certain new revelations about each other are still canon even if there are Doylist reasons.

It's canon that Sam didn't know Dean carried him out of the fire. It's canon that Dean has felt responsible for Sam almost being eaten by a shtriga since he was 9/10 years old, and it's canon that Sam never even knew that happened. It's canon that the memory of Mary was so coveted by Dean and John that Sam has virtually no connection to her; no stories and no echoes of her in the way they live other than the infamous Winchester Surprise.

It's canon that Sam doesn't really have any happy holiday memories, and Dean does. It's canon that their perspective on the same shared holidays is completely different. It's canon that Dean stole Christmas decorations and presents for Sam and apparently none for himself. And it's canon that Sam realized Dean did that for him and gave him his only present. And it's canon that remembering that made grown-up Sam want to give Dean Christmas even though it meant admitting something hurtful to himself. (John not showing up for Christmas/Dean's last Christmas)

If you put yourself in Sam's shoes--- a kid left alone for most of his formative years; unable to put down roots and make friends; whose best friend, the only one who could even try to understand him, is his good little soldier brother--- it's easier to understand why Sam felt lonely and became a much more introspective person. Because he was literally stuck with just his thoughts and anxieties and the TV for days at a time. When you think about how sick he must've been about it, every time Dean and John would leave. Waiting for that next phone call. Biting his fingernails when the call was late. Wanting to be invited to prove yourself, but also because if you're THERE at least you KNOW what happens.

But then, too, if you can put yourself in Dean's place: it's not necessarily something a kid or young adult can fully appreciate--- especially a somewhat emotionally immature young adult--- that their little sibling is a completely autonomous person with their own inner life. They don't just pause when you leave their sight. Dean throws himself into the hunt, and isn't thinking about how much Sam is worrying about them. He's thinking, "Sam is safe, so I can focus on backing Dad up."

It sounds selfish, but it's simply a fact of the maturing brain that it takes some time to comprehend someone else's existence outside of you as a real thing and not just a vague concept.

So, to touch on another aspect that gets discoursed:

There ARE a lot of things about Dean's parentification that Sam doesn't know at first, but he has always known about it to SOME degree. He had his own perspective on it, and for sure I wouldn't say that Sam thought of Dean as his parent. Dean has definitely always been his older and somewhat overbearing big brother. But who do you think Sam took his problems to? Who threatens to rip his bully's lungs out in After School Special? Who remembers what fucking play Sam did in drama?

And a short related aside--- thinking about how Sam was surprised about the things of his John had in storage. His surprise that John kept an eye on him at Stanford. And relating these things that changed Sam's understanding of his father, to the way his understanding of Dean shifted with each revelation of what Dean had done for him. And despite everything Sam ALREADY knew, his adult brain and life experiences gave him new perspective on things.

This maybe is a little rambley, but oh well. What was I saying...

Oh yeah. So sometimes people get upset about Dean being given like. More praise than he deserves or something, by having those "you practically raised me" lines and things. As if it's a retcon. But it's really not.

It's Sam growing up, and his brain constantly taking in new information and reshaping his understanding. It's Sam seeing how much Dean blames himself for things that weren't his fault, and wanting Dean to see the good he's done. It's Sam being able to see Dean's heart underneath his codependent or selfish decisions, and reaching out. It's Sam trying to remind Dean he can lean on Sam, too.

I've gone off on a tangent and made myself tear up lol. I don't remember where I wanted to end up anymore. Somewhere in the ether there's another rant about how Dean has a harder time allowing himself the introspection on his perception of Sam, and how this leads to Sam having to do a lot of the leading on the emotional maturity of their relationship, and how hard this is when the person you're leading still sees you as their kid, in whatever capacity.

But ultimately, of COURSE Sam does as much for Dean. Of course Sam has agency in this and isn't Dean's baby that had a pampered childhood vs Dean's horrible one. Sam and Dean acknowledging the actual circumstances of their childhood dynamic doesn't have to be a Samgirls vs Deangirls fucking situation lol.

[wendibird]

These tags by @books-space-things though!

Just, ALL of this!

I will say it is fascinating how much screen time that spn puts into convincing everyone in and out of the show that Sam is this absolute freak of nature to the humans AND monsters when they absolutely never follow through on it. Boy king of hell? Never happened. Lucifer’s vessel? He’s that for like. 40 minutes. And it was never about him anyway just some vague thing about bloodlines. Return from hell? That’s just not even Sam look we can get his soul back. Season 7? Trauma baybeee. Season 8? That was just Gadreel camped in there. And so on and so on.

Even the demon blood. He gets some powers and releases Lucifer but that’s not so freaky in comparison to everything else the show’s got going on. It’s like the very project of the narrative wants to convince him and us of the freakishness but it is all utterly manufactured and never challenged. And everyone in the narrative is like yeah. Sounds about right.

Wild stuff about the power of the narrator etc etc, this is why Sam’s victory is escaping the story & the assigned role the narrative gives him just for the vibes

[seasononesam]

team free will 2.0 + phones | template

[thezestywalru]

I think it would be incredibly funny to write a supernatural crack fic where they have to take down the vampires from twilight and Dean Winchester has a big brother talk with Bella. Maybe she joins them hunting.

[sticky-bros]

When Lisa says Dean and Sam have “the most unhealthy, tangled-up, crazy thing I've ever seen,” she goes on to say that she wouldn't bring her own sister back from the dead. This is interesting to me, because I've noticed a few SPN viewers say they would bring their siblings back to life if they could. This is arguably one of the most resonant aspects of Dean and Sam's sibling relationship. It's not really my go-to example of their unhealthy behavior. I wonder why they wrote that line.

[fandom-hoarder]

I'd say the trials are a large aspect of elucidating an underlying theme with Sam that pain is his penance for existing, or even for failing Dean. (See: s7 Defending Your Life, Sam telling Dean he feels good even despite Hallucifer because he went to hell and paid his dues, followed by s8 and all the guilt of not looking for Dean) There's also Sera Gamble's commentary re: SamRuby, where Sam's sexual relationship with Ruby represents self-harm, which is also connected to not saving Dean. And one might even say that the way Sam goes off the rails for Dean in s10 is a type of self harm, where Sam sort of sacrifices his own moral code all season to save Dean from the Mark.

BUT, I'd also say that calling it "canonical masochistic tendencies" is playing a bit fast and loose with interpretation, and that Sam requires some sort of impetus for these "tendencies" to show; they don't exist in a bubble, or as a kink, in canon. And as a baseline it's more about his faith and self worth than it is loving pain itself. But these are issues he struggles with---though in s12 we do get the lovely line that pain does not purge sin, and pretty much past that point he blames himself for things less, but he's not totally immune when it comes to certain issues.

Also, we have all the times Sam has shown what a high tolerance for pain, injury, and torture he has--- even inviting it as a stalling/intimidation tactic towards captors--- which I think also fuels this particular interpretation. Plus the fact that fandom plays fast and loose with vocabulary in general, in often aggravating ways that ignore convention.

Personally, I do love to play with their complementary sadomasochistic dynamic based on these ideas--- playing with how Sam's life has shaped and changed his relationship and trauma response to pain, to the point of ashamedly craving it when he "shouldn't"; playing with Dean's guilt over sadistic things he's done and the repressed urges that have been pulled out of him supernaturally; playing with how they can trust each other enough eventually to be vulnerable and open about these things--- but calling it hard canon is a very slanted and narrow reading of what's actually on screen.

I wish people would remember the word "headcanon," or the phrase "personal interpretation," and start using it, tbf. Hell, even "my fav reading" would serve better, imo.

have seen a few people lately saying that sam canonically has masochistic tendencies and. am I missing something? I see him using pain (esp wrt Hallucifer), and I see him accepting pain, and I see him taking pain, but I don’t see him enjoying it. Is that just referring to the Trials, where the whole (painful) process is giving him hope for catharsis/cleansing? Or are people speaking loosely?

(It’s entirely possible that I’m just a lot less likely than most people to use the word ‘canonically’ to describe things about a character’s interiority than other people.)

[aliusfrater]

there's something about sam being diplomatic about everything in the later seasons that breaks my fucking heart. it is literally such a positive mindset born out of the absolutely worst circumstances, a product of so many instances of abuse. like him taking on the responsibility of being the open-minded one of the two. not just to rationalise dean's behaviour but also because it's like dean's treatment of him in seasons one to five cemeted itself so deep into his fucking bones and now he never wants anyone to feel like that ever again. AND it's terminal

[downs1de-has-moved]

@qapsiel

STILL A CHOIR BOY

"Only on a technicality."

[biggentlemenking]

Why does Dean act like an abusive husband getting angry and leaving his wife (Sammy) 'babysitting the kid' (Adam) to go out and drink. What is it with them??

[opheliasam]

this fic is soooooo

My third time reading it and I still gasped, it’s so good

[fandom-hoarder]

Hey, random SPN question from someone who hasn't seen the whole show... I know Dean is explicitly stated to be straight... is Sam's sexuality ever explicitly stated? By Sam himself I mean, not Dean's "we don't swing that way"

Sam's sexuality is never explicitly stated by himself, despite that one time Dean said "we don't swing that way". (We all know Dean using we/us pronouns to speak for himself and Sam doesn't necessarily mean Sam agrees lol.) Sam never even fights against all the gay jokes made about him in early seasons, he just lets them lay and sticks to the topic, leaving his character wide open for pretty much any queer headcanon just as much as it does for a cishet guy who is secure in his sexuality/manhood.

And there's fandom lore that Sam has a tendency to use gender neutral terms when talking about relationships, though I keep forgetting to do my own fact check on this. I think in season one he does a bit of "I lost somone" when talking about Jess.

IIRC the gender neutral phrases were brought up at a con once and Jared agreed or was at least open to a possible queer reading of Sam. (I'm not sure if it was the same instance, or at a different con, when Jared said he could get behind a he/they Sam headcanon.) Not that we need the actor's opinion on it to enjoy a headcanon, but it's kinda cool to me when he's open to it.

[dean-winchester-is-a-warrior]

Look what I got today!!!

❤️-❤️

❤️-❤️

(x)

I'm so unbelievably stoked!!!

(x)

[destiel-wings]

Listen I love jack I think he's awesome but I still dont feel like jack was an elevated replacement of Crowley cause man did I LOVE Crowley either way I still love jack...but I had a thought imagine if jack storyline didn't existed that castiel was made god Instead...can you imagine the poetic implication of God being in love with Dean Winchester omg like that has just bamboozled my mind...dean Winchester who never takes credit of anything being loved by the absolute supreme??? him being bestowed the absolute validation??? LIKE THAT IS JUST PERFECT....AND LIKE CAS WAS LITER LIKE

cas to anyone else: I will kill you

cas to dean: I'm your huckleberry

God being only soft for one individual yea no bye i want to bury myself rn cause I need this

I absolutely love Crowley too!! I never thought about Jack as a replacement for him, but I see where you're coming from.

The thing about Jack is he brought a whole different dynamic for team free will, narratively speaking. He reshaped all of them, bringing a lot of new story territory. When i first watched s13 I remember that I noticed and loved how much Sam's soft approach towards Jack made me appreciate him once more, reminding me why I love Sam so much. His own storyline had been weaker up until that point, but when he decided to take care of Jack, fighting for him and taking upon himself the responsibility of a child (the way Dean had done for him), that was a huge step for the character. It was growth, and it shed some very much needed good light on Sam and his good empathetic heart.

For Dean, Jack brought an intersting conflicting dynamic. I love the initial opposition that seeing Jack triggered in him, for the way it underlined his grief of losing Cas. I think seeing a character like Dean, who had always been collecting stray kids, and whose main role since he was a child had been that of the caretaker, struggling so much with Jack, was very interesting. Because Jack is a mini Cas. He's Cas's kid. And so, Dean's kid. He's not his brother, or a stray kid that he can befriend providing a parent-like care (like with Claire or Kevin, in a way). Jack is, in every way possible, more like a son. And for that, it gets harder. One gets meaner sometimes, because it's family. And it's not fair, but in the dynamics of the show, in the portrayal of family that we've seen, and that the boys have grown into, it's as real as it gets. And one makes mistakes. Dean certainly made so many mistakes with Jack, and he sometimes went way too far (like when he said Jack wasn't family in the end of s15 and then the show ended and never let him eat his words to Jack - but again, there's a lot of things that the show never let Dean say in the end...), but still, one can't deny that he cared about Jack and that his introduction didn't bring new flesh for Dean's storyline.

I don't need to explain how Jack affected Cas' storyline. It was simply wonderful to see. To witness Cas genuinely develop a father side and learn a different, completely selfless kind of love. All of that love had always been in Cas, but I think Jack brought it to surface even more, and who knows, maybe that's even what helped Cas realize that his feelings for Dean were different, romantic. Because he now had something else that was just as strong, but felt completely different to compare it with.

Ultimately, I think the point is that Jack kind of brought the whole team together even more strongly. He was like glue that kept them together, in a way that felt even more impossibly like family. And that's why i think it's so beautiful, and why his introduction was a great move that gave new life to the show.

With Crowley... they did him dirty. He was such an interesting character but towards the end the writers stopped caring about him and his storyline had become stale. His main feature, his wit, had been turned against him when they had him do a couple of stupid things (the whole storyline with Lucifer), and they just demeaned his character until he killed himself. And while i love that he was the one to do it, and for a good cause, to save our boys, his sacrifice was ultimately rendered useless too since Lucifer didn't even stay trapped but escaped and kept bringing problems.

I think the wiriters got a little bored with the character and didn't really know what to do with it, but they should've given him a refresh instead of killing him. I would've loved a storyline where he became a real part of the team. Imagine team free will being formed by hunters, a nephilim, an angel and a demon? Seeing Crowley become one of the good guys (while still being a demon) might've brought a lot of interesting story territory for them. The constant diffidence. The struggle to constantly prove his loyalty and gain their trust and approval, his relationship with Rowena developing in all this... it would've been fun. I'm thinking it might've been something like Spike's storyline in Buffy's fourth season (for those who are familiar with the show).

OR, imagine if they had him develop on what s8 started, and had him be cured as a demon and become human. Either by his own free will or by force. I'm imagining him somewhat like Endverse Cas, some sort of pariah, maybe hiding away as a hermit with a life crisis, that could've been treated both in a funny way, but also with some real moments of depths. With the Winchesters coming to look for him for his knowledge, seeking help and finding him in a sea of bottles, depressed and purposeless and overwhelmed by feelings, until they gave him something to fight for, a reason to get up, and eventually he might have become part of the team.

That's what I would've done, and I think either solution would've been better than what his character got, but anyway. 😅

I'm not sure i understand how Jack's absence would be linked to Cas being revealed God, since Chuck had already been established as God by the time Jack arrived (are you talking about Godstiel?) but anyway I see your general vision about Cas being God and being in love with Dean and... yes, oh, yes, that definitely would've been something. I'm thinking about Dean's "Cas? Are you God?" and that would've been sweet. Instead we got a different kind of God who was still obsessed with Dean, but unluckily, not in a good way.

But again, every show needs conflict, so we couldn't have it the sweet way. Just like the characters, we were doomed from the start.

Thank you for the message <3

[anassemblageofpassions]

God the fact that Lucifer comes to Sam as jessica, as the first woman he truly loved, right after everything that’s gone down through with ruby, arguably the second woman he truly loved, and he comes as her and he’s all light and goodness where ruby was dark and twisted even in her love for him but it’s the same exact manipulation only worse. Sam getting dreams of the woman he loved and it’s lucifer, his ultimate groomer, after he’s just had such a bad experience finally letting himself truly fall in love with and have somewhat of a relationship with another person. It’s barely been more than a month since everything went down with Ruby. And lucifer is all softness and deception until he reveals himself and then he’s all softness and cruelty and honesty, he knows what Ruby did, how she put on her dean persona, how mean she was to him, and so Lucifer is going to be Jess, he’s going to be kind and he’s not going to lie, he’s going to tell the truth, even if his very introduction to Sam is a lie that leads to Sam literally kissing him on the neck.

[aliusfrater]

didn't talk about 6.02 a whole lot in my post about souless!sam's car but i just rewatched some of it and it's making me insane. so. dean's usage of sam's car can also be connected to the narrative's synonymy of masculinity and hunting. if to not hunt is narratively portrayed as a divergence from masculinity then the motherly role dean takes on when taking care of the shapeshifter baby sam had picked up on his hunt is evident of his diverging role from a patriarch within his and sam's relationship, which is inherently identifiable with hunting, and is both connected to, as well as facilities sam's own diversion from his non-role within the structure. when sam's new relationship with hunting, which narratively changes his perceivable masculinity, is considered along with dean's presently more liminal relationship with hunting, the push and pull factors relating to their comparative differences in masculinity is what facilitates the patriarchal structural shift within this episode. and this does ultimately become evidence for sam's soullessness (less so for dean and more so for the audience) and is encapsulated within the metaphorical representation of sam having his own car.

dean's liminality as represented by his conflict about beginning to hunt again is also a super important topic to me because it's something that had been previously represented in sam only. it's a large part of my interpretation of sam within this allegorical patriarchal structure and is, i think, largely responsible for his non-role as narratively portrayed within his more nuanced masculinity—a large part of this nuance being both the dynamics of sam and dean's codependency as well as sam's more personal push-and-pull relationship with hunting. it's very crucial to note that this aspect of sam's relationship with hunting and its implications originates from the apprehension to hunting that's presented within his very first episode after his period of clarity from everything that hunting represents—the cycle of abuse, sam and dean's codependency, familial rot—while at college and while in a relationship with jessica. the same is mirrored within dean's year off hunting within suburbia; this is his version of sam's time at stanford and there are even explicit rejections of the cycle of abuse ("[...] but my dad was exactly like this. all the time. it's scaring the hell out of me.") that thematically mirrors sam's rejection of these parts of what hunting represents with his independence. sam's own helping along in getting dean to realise how his actions in trying to keep his family safe are simply facilitating said cycles also point to sam's contextually soulless rejection of his and dean's codependency; he stresses the inherent inability to keep the family dean has while hunting or having the mental state of one with the overarching episodic connotation that dean cannot remain within this liminality, that he has to choose between suburbia and hunting:

it's also important to note that, in the end, it's lisa that pushes dean back into the life, just as it was jessica's death that had thrown sam back into hunting.

[downs1de-has-moved]

@trickheaven

How about pulling it

GABRIEL??????