#sam winchester meta

[cannibology]

once in a while i’ll see someone act like sam had a good (or even spoiled) childhood just because he had dean taking care of him and all i can think is, are we talking about the same sam? the sam who wanted to get away from his family so badly as a child that his imaginary friend, a real being with his best interest at heart, was encouraging him to run away? the sam who was so miserable at home that the times he was able to get away became all of his best memories? that’s the sam we’re saying had a good childhood?

dean may have done his best to care for sam and sam may express a lot of appreciation for that in hindsight, but it doesn’t change the fact that a kid is never going to be able to be a good primary caregiver to another kid. dean wasn’t a father or mother to sam; mary was sam’s mom who was gone for good and john was sam’s dad who was gone most of the time and sam was a kid raised without real parental nurturance or really any kind of consistent support from an adult in his life. he may have had a brother who tried to fill that gap, but that was always going to be a sisyphean task for a fellow child. dean being the closest thing he had to a good parent doesn’t make his childhood better, it just means he didn’t have a good parent in his life at all because dean was never a parent, much less a good one.

pretending dean did a great job raising sam and gave him a good childhood isn’t any fairer to dean than it is to sam, because the point isn’t that dean did a good job, the point is that dean never should have been given that job in the first place. he was a child with far more weight on his shoulders than he could reasonably be expected to handle and sam was a child abandoned by the person who actually should have been caring for him. both of them were neglected by the only family they had left, and both of them suffered for it.

[samwinchesterism]

in re: “cas knows dean better than sam”

“cas sees dean as a whole person and sam just sees dean’s façade as his big brother slash parent” but like how and where. outside of your fanfiction. season and episode. scene and line. if it’s so obvious and apparent you should have at least 3-5 concrete examples right? “sam doesn’t know dean carried him out of the burning house” yeah but did cas? outside of a footnote in the angelic manila folder they gave him between seasons 3 and 4 so he could better manipulate him and sam into doing heaven’s bidding? like if you’re going to say “cas knows dean better than sam” than you need to show how cas succeeds where you perceive sam to be failing at the very least. but even your perceptions of how sam doesn’t measure up are so warped, blinkered, and moronic that it wouldn’t even be worth much if you could provide the textual evidence, but at least you’d have a semblance of a point. like say anything without going “as an eldest daughter…” “well my relationship with my sibling isn’t…” please say anything without fucking projecting your own self-pitying crybaby bullshit onto your little woobie dean and using the actual canon text of the show. I’m literally begging you.

like the thing of it all is and always has been that you’re so hell-bent on twisting the sam and dean relationship to fit into this narrow and almost entirely inaccurate mold which is the basis upon which you build the entire Destiel Mythos that you literally lose all sense of media literacy. you don’t even miss the forest for the trees, you miss the trees for like, the pretend invisible things you’re seeing in between the trees, the forest is a whole long way away from your current level of perception. because the Destiel Mythos is based entirely on the fact that dean is Not Seen and Not Appreciated and Not Loved and Cannot Be Himself until cas comes along, and that Family (read: sam) Is Only A Burden on Him That He Must Be Freed From In Order to Flourish, so you keep trying to warp the sam relationship into something that is only one dimension of it – and keep ignoring the ways in which dean is seen, loved and understood within it, because you need to keep lying to yourselves that there is a narrative need to emancipate dean from something that he has never wanted emancipation from because it is ultimately a net good for dean in the particular circumstances of their lives. it’s also profoundly unhealthy, codependent, evil and toxic etc. (a lot more dean’s fault than sam’s but I will nawt be getting into all that right now) but that doesn’t change the fact that sam and dean both know and understand and feel deeply that they are each other’s person – that they know the best and love the most in the world. but that – which IS true canon fact – is incompatible with the Destiel Mythos so it must be ignored and all good sense must be thrown out the window in order to do it.

anyway i digress there are two main categories of Bad Thinking that i will be addressing below

childhood/ “parent/child” / blah blah blah

every single thing people are saying in favour of the deeply stupid thesis in the title of this post is proof positive of the very silly form of ‘analysis’ I just described. a few things:

“wah sam didn’t know that dean carried him out of the burning house :( this means that dean withholds things from sam to protect him because he is a PARENT and sam can only know things about him in the context of him being a PARENT to him” – what the fuck are you on about genuinely. first of all reducing the sam/dean relationship exclusively to parent/child is in itself foolishness for so many reasons that I don’t have time for right now. but also, it’s clear that this is just something that happened when sam was a baby that just never came up. in the scene (1.09) where this is brought up, dean is mildly surprised that he or john never mentioned that detail and then states that sam knows the rest of the story (i.e. the actual traumatic stuff) just as well as dean does – which is true, demonstrably whenever they talk about it.

obviously there are some things that happened to dean in their childhood that sam doesn’t know about (or didn’t know about, until told in whatever episode they come up in). equally, there are things dean doesn’t know about sam’s childhood, e.g. the fact that he was so lonely he needed a zanna (11.08). or how dean didn’t remember that sam was friends with barry cook until he mentions it when they go back to their old school (4.13). or about the nature of sam’s relationship with amy pond (7.03). these don’t mean that ‘sam withheld these things to protect dean out of parental love’ lol, it’s just that there are details and events in each of their lives that the other happens to not have been told about.

similarly “sam didn’t even know dean wanted to be a firefighter L” girl did dean know sam wanted to be a lawyer? in 1.01 he’s pretty surprised that sam has a law school interview. the point here isn’t “neither sam nor dean know each other well,” these are minutiae that aren’t relevant to how well you know someone as a whole, and very poorly demonstrate the bad and inaccurate point that dean withholds things from sam the way a parent does a child (on a constant or regular basis). obviously the way they were raised, sam was deemed too young to know about certain things until he got older and dean had to keep that secret, but as shown in 3.08 flashbacks, most if not all of this is eventually revealed throughout their childhood when sam is still fairly young.

or possibly the dumbest one is that “wah sam doesn’t even know that dean reads books L” whenever that was he was also obviously joking because in more serious moments (e.g. 8.14) he admits that dean is smart/a better researcher than he is, literally remembers dean reading to him as a kid (8.21) so like. clam down  

one of the extra annoying variants of this type of ‘proof’ covers things that are very clearly novel pieces of information about dean that dean, sam, and the audience are learning about dean in real time. like if you’re actually watching the show to comprehend it as it was intended to be comprehended, instead of funnelling everything through the Destiel Machine until it’s unrecognizable slop that fits neatly into your pre-ordained molds that Make Destiel Necessary In the Narrative (when it actually isn’t, at all) it’s abundantly clear. the top two worst offenders:

“sam didn’t even know that dean is good with kids :( he doesn’t even realize that dean raised him :(” first of all you people need to understand that parentification does not literally create a parent-child dynamic between siblings but I digress – this doesn’t make any sense bro. in 1.03 dean admits he doesn’t know any kids as an adult. dean being good with his own kid brother when they were both kids is to any reasonable person not necessarily linked with him being good with other random kids when he’s an adult. in 1.03 it’s clear that dean himself is a bit surprised that he’s able to connect w/ lucas so well because he’s clearly not dealt with a lot of kids since sam grew up. the whole point of this is that dean, sam, and the audience are all sort of seeing a new side of dean. who again is just 26. after this very early episode, there’s no question from sam that dean is able to connect w kids. sam being a bit surprised by this also has absolutely zero connection with him not understanding or realizing that dean looked out for him when they were both kids – sam is standing there at 22 years of age talking about adult dean and children – of fucking course he doesn’t mean himself are you stupid.

from the very first season, sam is very clearly aware of everything dean ~did for him~ when they were kids, see e.g. 1.21: “Dean...ah...I wanna thank you. […] For everything. You've always had my back you know? Even when I couldn't count on anyone I could always count on you. And I don't know, I just wanted to let you know, just in case.”

and 1.06: DEAN: Well, I’m a freak, too. I’m right there with ya, all the way. (SAM laughs.) SAM: Yeah, I know you are.

and then possibly even more stupidly, the one where it’s like “wah sam doesn’t even know dean can cook :( he doesn’t even know that DEAN was the one making him food as a babe in arms :(” – when sam is surprised that dean made something fairly gourmet and from scratch literally the first time they have ever had a permanent living space with a functional kitchen. in this VERY scene (8.14), dean himself points out that they haven’t had a kitchen before and when sam remarks on the irregularity of him doing serious cooking, he says “I’m nesting”, clearly showing that this is a novel development because they now have a kitchen, and that it’s irregular relative to past behaviour – both of them acknowledge this. because real proper in-depth cooking and making box mac and cheese for sam until he was like 11 and old enough to be left alone are two different things, which sam understands because he’s smart, unlike whoever chooses to make this point. dean never showed significant signs of liking to cook before this, which is what the exchange is about, but he did have to prepare food for them both when sam was too young – of course sam knows he had to, there are childhood memories referred to (e.g. 14.11) where sam is mentioned to literally help dean do the cooking as kids lol (and yes, genius, sam says ‘I didn’t know you knew what a kitchen was’ or something to that effect, but if you think he’s being 100% literal there I have an oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you)

again, obviously there are pieces that sam doesn’t know about dean, e.g. when he’s talking about his response to mary dying in 1.03. but again, Sam is 22, dean is 26, the last time they were in regular contact was when sam was 18-20, these are things that happen when people grow up, they’re able to reflect and share on childhood experiences if they’re close with their siblings as adults. it’s clearly not something that 26 y/o dean wanted to hide from 22 y/o sam. yes sam didn’t know everything about how dean felt when they were young, but that’s equally true in the other direction, and it’s such an irrelevant point in this discussion when, crucially, sam does learn these things about dean mostly fairly early on in the series (i.e. when they’re really not that deep into adulthood yet). cas was also not magically blessed w/ knowledge about dean, he also had to learn whatever it is that he knows, but somehow sam has to know everything about dean from age 7 or it doesn’t count when it’s sam lol.

“sam doesn’t know the One True Dean / doesn’t see through his facades”

the next branch of defending this flawed thesis is invariably that sam has little idea of the fronts and facades that dean puts up and is content to just believe them, whereas cas digs deep and sees the One True Dean that stupid sam always misses. there is nothing in the text that demonstrates this is true. multiple times, we see sam being very knowing of the fact that dean puts up fronts and facades. sam is also knowledgeable of the way dean perceives himself, and – demonstrated in multiple episodes before such sam lines were very poorly recycled and regurgitated into cas’s dialogue in 15.18, but keep acting like that was the first time anyone ever showed that they knew the One True Dean.

Obviously there are times where sam teases dean when he’s being more touchy-feely than usual, but 9.99 times out of 10 (as a conservative estimate in case there's something i'm forgetting otherwise i would say every time) that’s very clearly coming from a place of knowing the real dean vs. the façade he puts up because that’s the whole joke. and it’s allowed to be a joke because they’re siblings and that’s what siblings do lol. esp since sam and dean have touchy feely moments at the end of like every episode.

examples of all of the above off the top of my head (there are more than these, but these are the ones I can think of):

2.02 (about John’s death)

Sam: “I mean this ‘strong silent’ thing of yours, it's crap. […] I'm over it. This isn't just anyone we're talking about, this is Dad. I know how you felt about the man.”

Dean: “You know what, back off, all right? Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to.”

Sam: “No, no, no, that's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this. But you have to deal with it, man. Listen, I'm your brother, all right? I just want to make sure you're okay.”

2.03 (Sam to Dean, also about John’s death): “You know, you slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it. Because I know how you feel, Dean. Dad's dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can't take it, but you can't just fill up that hole with whoever you want to. It's an insult to his memory.”

Note that Dean essentially admits that Sam is right in these two instances in 2.04 bc I know yall have stupid shit to say about john too that has nothing to do with how anyone actually felt about him in canon

3.07 (about Dean’s demon deal – also proven true in later episodes)

SAM: Dude, drop the attitude, Dean. Quit turning everything into a punch line. And you know something else? Stop trying to act like you're not afraid.

DEAN: I'm not!

SAM: You're lying. And you may as well drop it 'cause I can see right through you.

DEAN: You got no idea what you're talking about.

SAM: Yeah, I do. You're scared, Dean. You're scared because your year is running out, and you're still going to Hell, and you're freaked.

DEAN: And how do you know that?

SAM: Because I know you! […] Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just […] I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... (can't find words; tears in his eyes) just 'cause.

5.18 [Sam figures out what Dean is doing re: his plan to let Michael possess him, tracks him down, and eventually is the catalyst for Dean ‘making the right call’, which he predicts] – e.g.:

SAM: No, you won’t. When push shoves, you’ll make the right call

DEAN: You know, if tables were turned…I’d let you rot in here. Hell, I have let you rot in here.

SAM: Yeah, well…I guess I’m not that smart.

DEAN: I—I don’t get it. Sam, why are you doing this?

SAM: Because… you’re still my big brother.

8.14 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18 + sam intrinsically understanding the trials are a death wish for dean): “I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it. […] I AM smart, and so are you. You're not a grunt, Dean. You're a genius – when it comes to lore, to – you're the best damn hunter I have ever seen – better than me, better than dad. I believe in you, Dean. So, please – please believe in me, too.”

10.22 (understanding how much dean has ~done for him~)

SAM: I'm saving my brother.

CASTIEL: You told Dean—

SAM: —I know what I told Dean. Cas, look. I've been the one out there, messed up and scared. And alone. And Dean—

CASTIEL: He did whatever he could to save you.

SAM: Yes. I mean, it's become his thing. I owe him this. I owe him everything.

10.23 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18, x2 – from Sam to Dean): “You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way. […] You will never, ever hear me say that you -- the real you -- is anything but good.”

11.13 (Sam understanding exactly how Dean feels about Amara being his ‘deepest desire’, and confirming that it doesn’t make him a bad person)

Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I’m…

Sam: Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil?

Dean: For starters, yeah.

Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not.

Dean: You know that I want her ass dead.

Sam: Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it?

13.02 (Sam perfectly explaining Dean’s psyche to Jack)

JACK: Is that why Dean hates me?

SAM: Dean doesn’t hate you. It… Look, sometimes the wires in Dean’s head get crossed and—and he gets frustrated, and then he mixes frustration with anger, and—and fear.

JACK: Why would he be afraid?

SAM: Because Dean feels like it’s his job to protect everyone. And right now, we need to protect you. But we may also need to protect people from you.

14.03 [Sam assesses Dean’s psychological/emotional response to the Michael possession; end of episode, Dean confirms that Sam’s assessment was fully accurate]

14.10 [Sam is the only one able to snap Dean out of his weird Michael mind loop by using their code word]

14.11 [Sam figuring out that something is troubling Dean just based on the fact that Dean hugs him]

15.17 (self explanatory at this point)

DEAN: Chuck has to die. He has to! Otherwise he'll keep us tap dancing forever, and I can't live like that, man! I can't live like that! I won't!

SAM: I know you feel like that right now, okay. I know you do. But you gotta trust me. My entire life, you've protected me— from Dad, from Lucifer, from everything. I didn't always like it, you know, but... it's the one thing in the whole world that I could always count on. It's the only thing I've ever known that was true. So please... put the gun away. Just put it away, and we'll figure it out, Dean, we'll find another way, you and me. We always do.

like maybe there are some cas moments w dean along these lines too. i don't know, i don't remember what the guy says or does anymore it's been too many years and he is not memorable. but the point is where and in what capacity and based on what metric other than the amount of bad fanfic you've read does cas exceed sam in these respects.

so basically just. genuinely, what are you people literally ever talking about. go watch the show instead of saying stupid wrong stuff about sam on the hellsites all day. or watch another show (please for the love of god watch any other show this one is absolutely lost on you and it’s such a stupid one too i'm embarrassed for you)

[calibrationneeded]

John dehumanizes Sam and Dean in different ways, but both in the way a solider would to keep a “level” head in a situation, which I think makes a lot of sense, as John was a marine.

Initially, he seems to view Sam as someone might view the “good side” in combat, something that needs to be defended even if it means laying down your life, but there’s no actual emotional connection, a soldier who loves this country doesn’t necessarily love the people. Later on after the demon blood incident it’s like a switch is flipped for John, and all the sudden he sees Sam almost as a traitor who needs to be taken out. It kind of makes me think of in zombie media when a character is turned and another one kills them without hesitation because it doesn’t matter if they used to be their loved one, they have to kill them for the greater good.

With Dean, he treats him kind of like a subordinate or fellow officer. He cares about him, but in the throes of what he sees as battle, if his comrade is taken out, he can’t always stop to save them, he would have to do what’s best for the greater good in the situation. He would feel sad if Dean died, but he would justify it by saying that, that’s the way war is, and that Dean was a martyr (as if Dean chose to be in John’s Sudo army). I think this is also why John is so aggressively hard on him because he doesn’t see him as his son, he sees him as a soldier who needs to be harped on.

This is also reflected in the canon because there are several times where a character will assume that Dean was in the military, and he will answer along the lines of that he did serve, but he’ll be vague. To be perfectly honest, Dean did essentially serve when it comes to the emotional toll, but he was never in an actual military position. 

“Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy.” -Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, 1899.)

[theboykingsmichaelsword]

it had to be dean who finally killed azazel not john not sam because dean is the family's core mary's ghost may haunt the narrative may have been what propelled this family quest but by virtue of her being dead she can't be home or hearth when john disappears on a hunt and sam's too young to feed himself in this month's crappy motel. when the moment comes john can help because he's the one who made mary's boy into his perfect soldier but john can't do the deed himself can't pull the trigger mary cocked the day her eldest son watched her kiss the demon wearing the father who made her a hunter no not john who wasn't born with killing monsters in his blood john who wasn't bred for it like mary campbell and dean winchester and it can't be sam either. sam can witness but sam has to be immobile relegated to mere voyeur as the demon who polluted his blood dies on the other end of his brother's gun because he's john's son and mary's son and dean's son and this is about him this is about parents righting a wrong against their child this is about a child killing the thing that wore his father before murdering him this is a wife killing what snapped her husband's neck this is a husband killing the demon who burned his wife this is a brother killing the monster whose schemes stabbed his brother in the back. life dragged them broken and bleeding to an eleventh hour where dean is father-son-and-holy spirit(mary) in a way sam is not of course it was dean it could only have ever been dean

[t00muchheart]

Thinking about the differences between how Dean raised Sam and how he handled Jack being born and how much John Winchester is at the heart of that difference. Dean believes that John raised Sam, and always saw John in the father position (since it was technically true), and so he focused on taking care of Sam, providing for him and keeping him safe—all the things that made him far more of a father to Sam than John ever was. But in filling the role of father for Jack, Dean falls back on the example he had, which is John’s parenting, not recognizing that he already knows how to be a good father because he already had to be one.

Additionally, I think that’s why Sam does a little better with Jack (not that he was perfect, especially at the beginning when he was trying to use Jack to get Mary back): because his example of a good father figure is Dean, who provided for him and taught him to survive.

[cyantt-does-stuff]

How some people can hate Sam Winchester genuinely is beyond me.

He's not a flawless character. You don't have to like him. But I would hope it's for actual reasons besides just looking at him and saying you think he's terrible.

I've seen people say he's a horrible brother, as if Dean is any better (no hate to Dean I love him but he's got just as many issues). I've seen people mischaracterize him to a point where it's not even funny. "Dean is better" or "Castiel is better" when they're both equally as important as Sam. "He's annoying" isn't a good basis to start off with. It's a reason, but not a good one. "He complains too much", he has so many reasons to complain. Legit saw a comment saying that he whined about his issues a lot and that he was "jealous of Dean's relationship with Mary" and I'm like... huh? Let me dissect these two things.

First of all, John Winchester sucks. He's not a great father by any means, and even though he loved his sons, he fucked up raising them, if you can say he raised them at all besides hunter crap. Sam has every right to hate how their father raised them. Sam has every right to despise hunting and has every right to want to be normal. Plus, Sam wasn't just angry for his own sake. He was angry for Dean's as well. Dean had to be a father, mother, and brother to him because John only ever cared about his revenge. Sam has every right to bitch and moan about his daddy issues. Dean never did because he was expected to be the good son. A soldier. Which is also fucked up.

And Dean's relationship with Mary? Of course Sam is going to want what Dean has. Sam never knew his mom. He only had pictures. If my mother, who died and came back because of some divine miracle, had a good bond with my sibling but not me? I'd be pretty jealous too. And it's not a crime for him to want that.

Another point I've seen people make is that he doesn't care about Dean. Which, did we watch the same show? I don't think we did. Sam would do anything for Dean. Sam is just as codependent, Dean is his everything just as Sam is Dean's. They LITERALLY cannot live without the other. They just can't function. They go off the deep end. It's not healthy by any means but you cannot sit there and tell me Sam didn't care about Dean.

The whole point of Sam's character is that he's left out. He's the black sheep. He's the different one. He's shunned and put down for wanting to escape the life he was born into.

A lot of people disregard his problems in favor of another character's problems. You can't gloss over that he's suffered just as much as anyone else, if not more.

Anyways, sorry for the rant I just love this guy a lot and it pains me to see the unnecessary hate towards him.

[keen-eye]

sam as a character + a long personal anecdote

dear diary, idk what happened…

after 10 years i randomly thought of supernatural which made me want to rewatch the pilot just for nostalgia’s sake

i ended up rewatching seasons 1-5 which is about as far as i got the first time, not that i remembered literally anything. i had a vague idea of destiel being a big deal? only from what i gathered from people irl, i wasn’t part of any fandom community back then. and i’ve only had tumblr for less than a year now

and then as i’m watching i’m actually digesting the plot, i guess i wasn’t Dialed In like i am currently. and i’m connecting to sam and just really invested in his part of the story. and feeling defensive of him in seasons 4 & 5 as well as disliking dean’s behavior towards him. so i go on tumblr bc i’m curious about others thoughts about the show and his character

and then i get whiplash once i find out that there’s so much drama about the show that’s seemingly been going on since 2005. and part of that drama is about sam and fans/creatives on the show having opinions of him ranging from disinterest to pure hatred. calling him selfish and whiny. as well as extending it to the actor who plays him? and i’m shocked bc to me he’s so fascinating and complex and deserving of empathy

and then i become obsessed with everything going on about That and dive head first into the abyss. it must be a combination of (1) very much recognizing him as a kindred spirit (& queer-coded/harmed by misogyny) and (2) unfortunately finding myself personally offended by the treatment of his character by the show and the opinions on him, by apparently a large portion of the fans. this is genuinely heartbreaking to me lol. also i can’t think of another fictional character that has suffered as much as him which is something.

in conclusion, this whole mess has consumed my brain going on weeks now. never have i ever become this obsessive about any character ever. at first it felt like it would be just another addition to the adhd fixation train where i would immediately move on once i became consumed by something else. the show isn’t even that good.

but this feels different. (hyperbole ahead) i’m afraid i’ve been sucked inside the black hole of spn forever, doomed to seek out validation from the same thinkpieces and debates repeated over and over for all eternity. only time will tell…

[motelnatural]

gazes dreamily at the ceiling. sam winchester often does good deeds in an unconventional manner. which, if taken at face value, those actions are automatically taken as an inherent threat of malicious intent. majority of characters in supernatural do not go further than face value. which inherently pushes the narrative that everything sam does right is wrong and

[lumosxiii]

screaming crying throwing up thinking about post finale "there will be no new king of hell" boy king of hell sam winchester who accepts who he is, sam who would rule hell in a good way, sam who would make sure only bad people end up there, sam who wouldn't think he's cursed or bad because of his powers and blood

[samwinchesterism]

after many months of not feeling it i am finally once again experiencing missing sam hours. reading my own never to be finished wips from 2021 to feel something and now i accidentally feel too much like

that's my kid ? my special boy? im SAD

[calibrationneeded]

I feel like a lot of Sam fans are gonna come at me for this, and this is no way as a crit of Sam as a person, but I feel like especially in the later season Sam is given the short end of the stick writing wise.

To me, he seems to function as more of a straight-man, to be the guy with the rational ideas who actually stops and thinks, and that can sometimes work, but that gets handled like it’s his primary personality trait. This isn’t for every single season or episode some writers write Sam better than others. 

There are so many aspects of Sam that get explored on a very surface level in Canon that aren’t fully brought up again and I think that really sucks because I think he could be so interesting and dynamic, but he’s treated more like a self insert for the audience, but that doesn’t really work because the audience of supernatural isn’t straight white men, it’s primarily gay women and trans people.

I love when the writers lean into the fact that Sam is very much not a mentally stable person. I think comparing his surface level calm demeanor with his mountain of issues pairs beautifully and makes him this hurricane of a person. He’s a raging storm, but he just seems to be calm and put together and sometimes we see this, but not nearly enough and I think that’s such a shame.

I had some people ask me why I don’t post about Sam more, or make fanart of Sam and this is kind of the primary reason because I have such a hard time connecting to him as a character because there isn’t that much there in my mind, and the way that I do imagine how Sam could be is very far from a lot of peoples idea of who Sam is and I feel like that would be a little offputting to people because I like the idea of a more aggressive Sam, who is more impulsive and manipulative- not in in an evil way, but in a younger sibling with a lot of emotional issues, kind of way.

TDLR: I like Sam I think he could be interesting, but I think the writers were a bit lazy when it came to his characterization and this is why I have a hard time making fan content of him because I can’t emotionally connect with the character 

[arwenadreamer]

https://www.tumblr.com/arwenadreamer/730177835866652672/to-be-honest-sam-and-dean-are-occ-in-the-first

I could not agree with your take here more.

I do ultimately think it’s a bit out of character for Sam not to do more to find Dean. But, I completely agree that, given how bat-shit crazy he went after losing Dean in the past, he was trying not to do that this time, and over-corrected. He says it right in the premiere that hunting git everyone he’s ever loved killed, so it makes sense that he cut and run from it. This guy is also not emotionally stable, especially since he’s only been un-crazy from hell hallucinations for what, a few weeks at this point?

The thing that makes me crazy about Supernatural is that both brothers make some huge mistakes, but only one of them is consistently held accountable and punished repeatedly for it. Sam’s actions are almost always understandable, if not completely reasonable, if you look at them from a certain angle, but the show very rarely does so. Both brothers have been in the wrong and bath have had the right intentions just executed badly, but only one of them never (or at least rarely ) gets the benefit of the doubt, or the benefit of narrative support. 

The post anon is referring to.

Over-corrected is such a good word for it. Like, he over-corrected so much that he did a complete 180 and sprinted in the opposite direction.

Watching supernatural as a Sam girl can be very hard at times. But I also understand Dean’s motivation and where he is coming from. And as you said, both brothers make mistakes. Both brothers also do things right that are perceived by the other brother as a mistake. The problem does not lie in the boys behaviour, spurred by their emotions. In the contrary, that makes good story telling, that's what we want to see. Winchester drama. A drama that they come out of stronger and more united for it. The problem lies in the shows framing, if you ask me. And the framing is very unbalanced. Sam's mistakes are brought up time and again. While Sam is almost always understanding and forgiving. He tells Jack once "Dean is scared. And when Dean is scared his wires get crossed." He's so right for it. (As I said, I understand Dean.) But we never hear Sam's actions explained that way. And that creates said imbalance.

It's a topic that could drive me nuts. (Could drive many Sam fans nuts.) But ultimately we can't change the show. So I try not to dwell on it and only let it out in the occasional meta analysis.

[thenameisgul]

‘It’s the children the world almost destroys, that grow up to save it’

Sam + Horror Story

(And then he gives up all of his freedom for … everyone.)

[keen-eye]

you know what would be so meta and funny (to me at least)

if in pac-man fever when charlie tells sam and dean that she read the supernatural books she also said she read fan forums and that apparently a lot of the audience really dislikes sam lmao. he’s already one of the most tragic characters ever for his treatment in universe (which i love) and out of universe (which i hate). let’s just amp it up because there’s no winning for him anyway

imagine if sam knew that the audience prefers dean and even supports his abuse of sam because dean is ultimately always viewed to be in the right. on top of knowing that the prophet/later-revealed-to-be-god chuck that literally wrote the story of their lives is unsympathetic to him and also prefers dean. for good measure, i want to rewrite the french mistake and have the writers giggle about how they’re going to torture sam next because they and the audience think he deserves it. and make it so au jared knows about it too. let sam be repeatedly and mercilessly brutalized to an extremely comical degree because it’s entertaining to everyone in and out of universe. but he’s aware of this now and yet he still remains kind-hearted through it all because that’s what makes it so ludicrous and fun. make him think “it can’t get any worse than this” but it absolutely does.

keep the momentum of sam wanting nothing but to be good but have everyone else always treat him like he’s the problem. turn the truman show into the sam show. have single episode side characters break the fourth wall because their hate for sam is so strong just by being around him. make it extremely obvious that sam does nothing to warrant this and that he’s being gaslit in and out of universe. he can be aware of how strange this all is and wonder if he’s actually insane but the scene needs to change quickly so he doesn’t have time to fully deal with it because hurry sam there’s more pressing matters!! have him try to bring it up to other characters but they immediately change the subject until sam lets it go

have it be a social experiment, write dean to be even worse than he already his, more psychopathic super villain, see how far it can go before people turn on him (we all know they won’t). in each episode near the end have sam begin to truly realize that he needs to escape, but have him die a random death like in mystery spot which resets him for the next episode. the audience can even vote for what it will be each time. it’s cathartic for them. dean lets this happen because he needs his sammy to stay with him. keep the ending the same. sam marries his blurry wife and names his son dean jr, then sam joins dean in heaven for all eternity. don’t ever let him be free.

[spn2006]

the fact that eric kripke isn't even christian really adds something to the way christianity is depicted on supernatural. because its really not about being christian at all, but about living in america, a country dominated by christianity, and having to decide for yourself how to handle that. faith is huge in supernatural, and the mythology of the show is very bible-centric, but notably, christ is never there. even sam, who starts out revering the angels, who once said he prays every night, doesn't actually call himself a christian or imply that he believes in jesus--the show is steeped in christianity and biblical lore and yet neither sam nor dean are christians. in fact, over and over again the church itself is depicted as a haunted house that sam and dean will only ever enter as strangers, as outsiders. priests, preachers, faith healers, chapels, crypts, etc. are all just iconography that create an intense sense of unease that sam and dean respond to instantly. as a jew, its very relatable. an essential part of living in america when you're not christian is that exact sense of unease, of knowing that the culture of your country has ensured that you'll get knocked over by christianity no matter where you go, that you'll see hundreds of people truly believing they're good people while doing awful things in the name of their god, and you have no choice but to confront that. kripke gets it

[quickreaver]

I can’t even imagine how this would feel. I just.

Sam + ‘Sam’s body’

This week’s episode (11x01) got me thinking about Sam’s relationship to his body, something that interests me because I’m convinced that by this point Sam must have serious issues with depersonalisation. His body has been co-opted by so many outside forces, has betrayed him so many times, that it’s impossible to think he could trust it in the usual way. This gifset shows some of the more obvious times at which Sam’s body has acted outside his control, and a little of its effect on him. Unfortunately, I had to leave out a lot of the instances in which Sam actually talks about his frustration and self-distrust. Think about his conversation with Dean on the picnic bench in 5x02: “I don’t trust me,” he tells his brother. Or remember that horrible scene at the end of 9x08, after Vesta tells Sam that he’s all ‘duct tape and safety pins’ inside. “Maybe it’s just me,” Sam says, despairing. “Maybe I’m never actually going to be all right.”