This is me venting about SPN.
Feb. 26th, 2014 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ramblin_rosieI'm disabling comments because I'm really only posting this to get it off my chest and, I hope, stop stewing over it, at least until the next ep. I know some of you will agree or disagree with varying levels of conviction and/or vitriol, and that's fine--but I really don't have time to host a discussion, even if it is (as I would hope!) perfectly civil and respectful. Please, even if you do agree with me, don't PM me or comment on another post... I truly am swamped right now.
There is no universe in which, given the set of initial conditions present in the Season 9 opener, with Dean boxed in and with no right choice available, Dean does not choose to save Sam's life even if it means doing something Sam would never condone.
The writers have to know that.
And that's why I'm angry--not at Sam (who was wronged but is lashing out more than is needful), not at Dean (who knows he did wrong but cannot apologize for saving Sam's life), but at the writers. I reject the entire premise of fandom's argument over who's right and who's wrong. The situation did not need to be written as it was. The situation did not need to arise in the first place. How just is it to put a character in a scenario in which only one outcome is possible and then blame the character for reacting precisely as you knew he would?! This isn't like RL; fictional characters don't have wills that are wholly free of the wills of their creators, their seeming at times to have minds of their own notwithstanding.
(I had the same objection to RoboSam, FWIW. It's all well and good to explore the nature of the soul, but you don't have to do it by turning your favorite character into both a psychopath and a sociopath, especially when you know a good chunk of fandom hates that character to begin with! This is also why I'm not a Calvinist, but that's a bunny trail that I refuse to chase right now.)
There had to have been other ways to deal with the problem of the boys' relationship as it stands. This choice on the writers' part is flat out cruel and unusual, given what we fans know to date. For it to make sense--to be redeemable, in my opinion--it is going to have to have one doozy of a payoff.
Note that I don't say "make the relationship healthy." That hasn't been an option since Mary died, may not ever have been. Dean has had one job since he was not quite five years old: look out for Sammy, your own needs be damned. We've been reminded of that this season even in "Bad Boys"--as a teen, Dean had the option to stay at Sonny's after John had left him there for two months, but he chose to leave the home and love he craved so badly for Sam. (I may yet write the AU where John arranges for Sammy to stay at Sonny's with Dean and comes back to find he's lost them after all.) I don't know if it's possible for any of that hardwiring to be rewired now. If so, it would take a TON of support and therapy, none of which is going to be forthcoming... and even if it were, part of the problem, as I've argued before, is that their universe itself is fundamentally flawed.
What is possible, and what IMO is essential, is for Sam to save Dean from the downward spiral that's being accelerated by the Mark of Cain, preferably without crossing any previously uncrossable lines. I say this for two reasons. One, Dean's love language is action, and it's going to take action for Sam to erase Dean's misunderstanding of both what Sam said at the end of "The Purge" and what he did by leaving Dean in Purgatory as meaning that Sam doesn't love him. Far too much of what Sam thinks he's said in the last year and a half hasn't actually been verbalized, and what has been said and done has been easy to misinterpret. That needs to be healed with an unequivocal action on Sam's part. But two, if the writers' intent really is to break the cycle that's gone back at least to Mary's deal in '73, the most logical place to begin is by thwarting the pattern of season finales. To date, odd-numbered seasons have ended with a family member dead, either in fact (3, delayed in 1 until 2.01) or for all practical purposes (5, 7), while even-numbered seasons end with another dimension invading Earth. This being an odd-numbered season, then, it would seem necessary for both brothers to survive the finale, beholden to no one for their survival, if any progress is to be made.
And then they can go gank that thrice-accursed usurper Metatron and start putting other things to rights. *nod*
My, my,
The clock in the sky
Is pounding away,
There's so much to say.
A face, a voice,
An overdub has no choice,
An image cannot rejoice.
There is no universe in which, given the set of initial conditions present in the Season 9 opener, with Dean boxed in and with no right choice available, Dean does not choose to save Sam's life even if it means doing something Sam would never condone.
The writers have to know that.
And that's why I'm angry--not at Sam (who was wronged but is lashing out more than is needful), not at Dean (who knows he did wrong but cannot apologize for saving Sam's life), but at the writers. I reject the entire premise of fandom's argument over who's right and who's wrong. The situation did not need to be written as it was. The situation did not need to arise in the first place. How just is it to put a character in a scenario in which only one outcome is possible and then blame the character for reacting precisely as you knew he would?! This isn't like RL; fictional characters don't have wills that are wholly free of the wills of their creators, their seeming at times to have minds of their own notwithstanding.
(I had the same objection to RoboSam, FWIW. It's all well and good to explore the nature of the soul, but you don't have to do it by turning your favorite character into both a psychopath and a sociopath, especially when you know a good chunk of fandom hates that character to begin with! This is also why I'm not a Calvinist, but that's a bunny trail that I refuse to chase right now.)
There had to have been other ways to deal with the problem of the boys' relationship as it stands. This choice on the writers' part is flat out cruel and unusual, given what we fans know to date. For it to make sense--to be redeemable, in my opinion--it is going to have to have one doozy of a payoff.
Note that I don't say "make the relationship healthy." That hasn't been an option since Mary died, may not ever have been. Dean has had one job since he was not quite five years old: look out for Sammy, your own needs be damned. We've been reminded of that this season even in "Bad Boys"--as a teen, Dean had the option to stay at Sonny's after John had left him there for two months, but he chose to leave the home and love he craved so badly for Sam. (I may yet write the AU where John arranges for Sammy to stay at Sonny's with Dean and comes back to find he's lost them after all.) I don't know if it's possible for any of that hardwiring to be rewired now. If so, it would take a TON of support and therapy, none of which is going to be forthcoming... and even if it were, part of the problem, as I've argued before, is that their universe itself is fundamentally flawed.
What is possible, and what IMO is essential, is for Sam to save Dean from the downward spiral that's being accelerated by the Mark of Cain, preferably without crossing any previously uncrossable lines. I say this for two reasons. One, Dean's love language is action, and it's going to take action for Sam to erase Dean's misunderstanding of both what Sam said at the end of "The Purge" and what he did by leaving Dean in Purgatory as meaning that Sam doesn't love him. Far too much of what Sam thinks he's said in the last year and a half hasn't actually been verbalized, and what has been said and done has been easy to misinterpret. That needs to be healed with an unequivocal action on Sam's part. But two, if the writers' intent really is to break the cycle that's gone back at least to Mary's deal in '73, the most logical place to begin is by thwarting the pattern of season finales. To date, odd-numbered seasons have ended with a family member dead, either in fact (3, delayed in 1 until 2.01) or for all practical purposes (5, 7), while even-numbered seasons end with another dimension invading Earth. This being an odd-numbered season, then, it would seem necessary for both brothers to survive the finale, beholden to no one for their survival, if any progress is to be made.
And then they can go gank that thrice-accursed usurper Metatron and start putting other things to rights. *nod*
