#spn has... basically never taken a crack at the first? and often falls short of the second

[azazelsocks]

you posted a while back that it bugs u that sam says “according to the lore” and like...u rite. but also spn is shit with a lot of that. especially “pagan” stuff? like “vervain and mint? heavy pagan stuff” and “dark ages black magic!” basically: the writers have no idea what they’re doing and I reserve the right to assume Sam is better than the lines he is written with. he would never be that ignorant.

this is a late answer but oh well. i agree that sam is better than “according to the lore” and that the writers don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, and i think that you can absolutely have whatever headcanons or interpretations of sam u like, but i kind of take issue with the rest of this ask?

first of all let’s just get this out of the way i am not actually interested in headcanons venerating sam as the Most Woke Academic Dude. it’s unrealistic. also, it’s everywhere & i’m bored.

anyways.

in my opinion, “heavy pagan” and similar phrasings are perfectly in-character given sam’s background & the way “paganism” is contextualized in usa protestantism esp. farther south. is it wrong & reductionist? yeah. is it a normal thing for sam as a character to be wrong about? also yeah.

also consider that

paganism in the modern sense tends to refer to european polytheistic traditions (and in the older sense referred to all non-christian religions but still mostly the european ones given where christians tended to hang out)

supernatural rarely (never?) uses the word to refer to neopagan movements active in the united states

sam’s research sources early-seasons consist largely of his dad’s personal journal, websites like “Hellhound’s Lair”, random public libraries, and maaaybe a consultation with an actual academic here or there

sam has stated an acceptance of his life/identity as a hunter (which we could argue about but i’m not going to) but in early-seasons and pre-seasons he did not like hunting and he certainly would not have enjoyed reading about/researching for hunting or done it for pleasure

prior to s6 the early seasons, many non-north american monsters were very rare (6x04 weekend at bobby’s)

BOBBY:  Okami?  Where’d you shiv it?

RUFUS:  Get this.  Billings. 

BOBBY:  The only time I ever saw one of these was in Japan.

RUFUS:  Duh. No one’s ever seen one of these except in Japan.

BOBBY:  For what it’s worth, Sam and Dean are tracking a Lamia in Wisconsin.

RUFUS:  Get out.  I thought they never leave Greece.

BOBBY:  Monsters lately.  Is it me, or is it weird?

though probably primarily because of lack of relevance to plot and infrequent featuring as monsters-of-the-week, use of “pagan stuff” “black magic” etc has heavily dropped off

conclusion: not difficult at all to make a case that sam—who is not a medievalist, primarily researches for practical nonacademic purposes, grew up in the midwest in a christian tradition, went to undergrad for law, was not exposed to the right kind of material to have any sort of nuance on the topic, infrequently encountered lore or monsters relating to european polytheism or neopaganism before ~29 (s6), and who does not seem to have had any passion or interest in the topic — used to know less about the history of paganism and now knows more about it. or still doesn’t know anything about it. either way. there’s not necessarily as much in-text justification for him to be up on this as you might think.

on the other hand there is practically no discipline or field of research, amateur or academic, sociological, historic, literary, scientific etc. in which blanket phrases like “according to the lore” etc. is anything other than reductionist and poor practice. so while saying “according to the lore” may be in line with sam not knowing anything about paganism, it is not in line with sam having like, gone to a top-in-the-nation liberal arts college.

that’s why, of all the medievalism and religion-related things that spn is wrong about, i single “the lore” out; i think it’s especially egregious and makes the least sense. ymmv tho! everyone has their own limits about what spn is the worst at & what they’re willing to overlook.

eta: follow-up asks about paganism, deleted bc it's pedantic drama that i don't want on my blog, archived in case i later get called out for shitting on pagans or something lmfao