We were a good team. And we had a lot of fun in that 1996 season. Or rather, I had a lot of fun. That was me at my craziest. I really was an absolute pest. I had no respect for anyone on the track. To me they were all the same, it made no difference if it was a veteran vying for the title, or a debutant like me. I just wanted to go fast, very fast, and if I saw an opening, I went for it. I wanted to overtake everyone, come what may. In other words, I made people uncomfortable.
I was fast, but I made mistakes. Too many times I threw away decent positions. I think I must have fallen fifteen or so times that season. In the very first race, I got into an argument with Jorge Martinez. We were at Shah Alam in Malaysia. I was making my debut and had secured a spot in the third row. I started very well and I'm not sure how, but I somehow found myself alongside the leaders early on. I was cruising along somewhere between seventh and eighth position. At one point, Dirk Raudies was in front of me and Martinez just behind me. Raudies' engine seized up, and, to avoid him, I instinctively braked, changing trajectory. Martinez was unable to avoid me, hit me, and fell.
That was the year in which Martinez, riding the "official" Aprilia, was heavily favoured in the race for the title. I had just upset one of the darlings, one of the "untouchables" of the world championship. I finished the race in sixth place and was quite pleased. In fact, everyone around me was pleased, we were all celebrating.
Then, suddenly, I came face to face with Martinez and Angel Nieto.
"Son of a bitch!" they shouted. "We're going to tear you a new arsehole!"
That's when I realised they probably did not like me very much. So I slipped behind the mechanic, who was a big guy, using him as a shield. The two Spaniards were rabid, they looked as if they wanted to beat me up, so the big mechanic did come in very handy, as a deterrent. But I soon started enjoying the scene, rather than being frightened. The pair of them were absolutely furious, but they also looked so funny, in the way that only short people can look funny when they get really angry. And both of them were tiny, unintimidating in every way. I was not really worried at all.
Valentino Rossi in his 2005 autobiography, What if I had never tried it
he went on to beat jorge martinez for his first ever race win - from the rec list:
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"The fandom unnecessarily villainizes sam and dean for choosing each other over strangers when it's literally how humans work" great critic but I actually think the fandom (those interested in the brothers' relationship) are reacting to it how they're meant to: in a negative light.
To trace things back, yes, it's a given, kind of an innate human nature to respond in situations by prioritizing the people you know over ones you don't. That is true. On an individual basis, each person would do this, I would do this, and anyone'd be crazy to villainize this act on my and your part. But sam and dean do it, and it's painted in this hyperbolic moral degeneration light both by the narrative (we could argue) and by the fandom. Because see, sam and dean are a little different than you and me.
They're positioned in their world as tragic heroes who, given the nature of their job, are expectedly deprived of things the normal person could enjoy. They don't get to lead normal lives, they don't die by natural causes, and they must navigate through life bearing more than they must know with soul-crippling responsibilities. "We're the people who save the world," sam and dean don't spend much time before they assume the token role of saviors in their world. Along with that role comes even more imposed limitations.
They are more viscerally equipped and knowledgeable. They have access to things randoms could never dream of having (like death and god). The more you know, the worse you sleep and comes with the mere knowing is the obligation to do something about it. Someone ignorant to the whole ordeal simply doesn't have to answer to it.
Basically, they're soldiers. Imagine samdean reporting for duty, they preserve peace of the public and their blind following to decision moral rightness is taken for granted. It comes with the job. You don't get to make ill-advised progress in your self-interest as a person (sth random ppl can enjoy) when several lives are at stake.
At some point, sam and dean themselves are metaphoricaly acting Gods: people's survival or death depends on them. Sometimes, it's a city's worth of population. Other times, it's the entire world. Their right to free-decision making stops depending only on its virtuous intent and starts being consequential. They're elevated to adhere to higher standards and criteria than normal people are held to.
The rightness of their actions will not be determined among a set of feasible options but instead assessed by whether they chose the option with the best consequences. Or not. The main decision-making factor for "heroes" like them should be putting the general welfare at its fore interest. Not one individual's. Especially not if it's one individual's.
When dean and/or sam sacrifices someone stranger to save his brother, it's a subjective good call I can relate and see myself in it, but given their position within the universe it's irresponsible and far objectively wrong; especially if at the cost of saving his brother, several others suffered.
There are criteria for judging the actions of the pivotal role they uphold. From a subjective moralness standpoint, sam and dean are only humans, and they can be cut some slack or even not at all villainized for doing what their instinct demands. On the other hand, moral objectiveness influenced by the world-setting's structure deems the goodness or badness of how they behave based on the particular consequences of their given actions and whether said actions affected people in good or bad ways. If sam and dean did something that brought peace to the world on the whole and reduced suffering, it's good and logical, whereas if said action caused suffering and threatened peace, it's bad.
dean grudgingly accepting sam’s plan to overtake lucifer even though it meant losing his brother is the objectively morally good choice to make. He had to sacrifice his precious family, but he ultimately was rational and responsible enough to know his brother's life is not a fair trade-off to millions. both sam and dean here act in accordance with their positions within the story/world: they're heroes. But by S8 dean doesn't let sam make a similar sacrifice. He prioritizes sam's life over the many who'll be possessed and will either kill others or be killed themselves. sam releases a world-ending evil to save his brother, and later on, both take turns facilitating the guy who practically promises them an apocalypse to once again save each other.
"The good of any one person is no more important from the point of view of the universe than the good of any other." sam or dean's lives aren't more important than someone else's, this was a point so base sam felt the need to make because it needed to be addressed, their lack of changing anything about it is another matter. Thing is they're the world's designated saviors be it by choice or not, the narrative views them as the fact, they're expected to value the well-being of all individuals equally, regardless of their personal closeness. Imagine a firefighter postponing saving you because someone he knows is more important even when the situation for them is not as grave as you. It'd be unethical and worthy of condemnation because in this line of work, and in general when your job is saving people and work towards the greater good, you do it indiscriminately, you don't get to privilege the well-being of yourself or your family over the well-being of distant others.
sam and dean hold a rightful consequentialist commitment to their actions being as good as possible: the basis on which one outcome is better than another is only if it contains a greater sum total of people's betterment. No impartiality.
Yes, it's his brother, his only family, but it's still morally wrong to prioritize him (in their case). Let's use a patriotism allegory. Imagine a general of a losing army. He catches wind of the enemy's secret bases or is exposed to confidentials enough to turn the tide to his side. However, he finds out his family at home is being held hostage. The moment he reveals what he knows, they get killed. A man has to save his family it's the most basic human instinct, yes, but you'd think it's irredeemably wrong for him to prioritize his family in this case. You'd think he doesn't even have the right to choose when it's a choice between two insignificant people and the entire country being infiltrated and invaded, with the deaths of million soldiers and citizens. It's not even a choosing matter. sam and dean are the general in this scenario, and instead of the country being at stake, it's sometimes the entire population they're throwing to the fire for each other. Anyone'd think it's messed up. You're supposed to.
There is a good reason to save your family (brother) over a stranger (or two, or hundred or million); but labeling both actions as right would risk ignoring the important moral difference between the two. And we need to draw an account of what a hero is obliged to do in order to meet minimal moral standards. sam and dean's constant moral failure to meet such standard despite their role in their universe paints them as flawed, sometimes as the story's designated antichrist.
Their ceaseless prioritizing of themselves marks their moral debauchery and decline as heroes. they get away with not fulfilling their obligations that are thrust upon them by design, they're using a cheat code acting not how they're supposed to and that's the characters/narrarive's grip with them. I don't blame corbin for what he did, while It’s extremely wrong that he tried killing sam, it was a call for survival. Your savior normally doesn’t come with conditions. He was faced with an oddity from the typical rescue mission. And he did what he had to ensure the more number of people survives. We sympathize with sam and dean, so we criminalize corbin immediately and side with dean. We're swept by emotions and our judgment is clouded you could say but from a utility standpoint, dean's decision to stay with a dying sam would've lead to four people's death, or three and one heavily wounded meanwhile corbin's leads to three people's survival and the loss of one. With corbin, more lives are saved, with one unfortunate but necessary sacrifice. Morally and objectively, corbin was more right in choking sam than dean was in staying.
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