helloitswillis:In season 4 I guess I wasn’t supposed to like Sam but his struggle just brought me closer

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In season 4 I guess I wasn’t supposed to like Sam but his struggle just brought me closer

 

That’s the thing, though. I mean, it’s scary the first time, cause you’re like, wait, what?! But…in the end, his only problem was sometimes he got a little too sure of what he was doing, sometimes he got a little too prideful. What he was choosing was actually noble, what he was trying to do was healthy, and awesome, and worth celebrating. Dean trusted Ruby’s intel as much as Sam did when it came to the final seal.

Sam was loving and kind and accepting to Dean about his experience in Hell and the things he did and the fact he broke the first seal. Sam hit Dean only after his brother who had threatened to kill him for being a monster told him he was a monster. And when he was hyped up and had his hands around his throat, he still stopped.

This is a great gif choice because this episode lays out for everyone Sam’s motivations. He says he’s not drinking it for kicks but to get stronger. He’d needed to be stronger, when Dean left him all alone. Dean couldn’t even take a day with Sam being dead. Sam had to endure 4 months after already enduring 6 months in which the way he behaved ended up scaring him later. He was following vengeance until he met with his hallucination of Mary.

We have the side of him so ready to be a good, self-sufficient hunter because he’d had to be when Dean was gone. I mean, don’t forget, he hadn’t had control of their relationship the way Dean had, so, it had to be kind of jarring. Even when Dean got back, he tossed Sam’s one alteration to the Impala into the back, calling it “douching her up”. It was Sam’s car, but even then, Dean wanted complete control. When alone, he felt he no longer had the luxury of questioning kills so readily or being so uncomfortable with killing. Dean looked weak in comparison when the angels were backing him as savior of the world or whatever.

We have the side of him that’s ashamed and grieving Jess’s loss and Dean’s loss and the loss of his future because, honestly, deep down, he still just wants to be someone who doesn’t kill things regularly. We have the side of him wanting to save people from demons. Demons have fucked around with him inside old teachers, his prom date, and even his own body. A demon killed his brother. This is an important and, actually, healthy goal, trying to stamp out demons without using the knife, because it protects the people being possessed.

We have the side of him who needed a friend and he found it in Ruby. She kept him alive and he repaid the favor and they made a good team. She was manipulating him about what would happen when he killed Lilith, but they did make a good team, and she did lend an ear and she did care about his well-being and his future. We have the side of him so willing to sacrifice everything, just, everything, that he actually gives up the most important thing to him. He gives up his relationship with Dean. He still gets shit for this, but he was doing it to save the world, because Dean wouldn’t work with Ruby, because Dean told him not to come back.

And then we have this beautiful moment where he meets his mom as a hallucination. He expects her to tear him a new one, or to lay the heaviness of her heart on him about how bad he’s been, about how she’s so disappointed that he broke her heart. But she tells him he should avenge her death and make it mean something, that she’s proud of him, that he should aim for justice instead of revenge, and even that, uncharacteristically to the real Mary, Dean is weak. But she was right that Dean can never understand how strong Sam is, because Dean doesn’t want to. Even her touch is painful for him, like he’s not worthy, despite how his hallucination of her says that he is. He still feels more like Dean’s horrible comments.

His hallucination of Dean comes from some elements of reality like the rest of the hallucinations. Dean told him in “Metamorphosis” how he felt, complete with two punches, vague threats on Sam’s life, yelling, the breaking of a lamp, and Dean nearly packing up and leaving. The voicemail and hallucination were not that out of character. Dean was willing to let Sam die, just so he “stayed human”. He also was more than willing to put Sam through a deadly detox with no one to talk to. Dean and Bobby made the complete wrong call, torturing Sam rather than helping him. Absolutely torturing him, in every way possible.

In season 4, Sam says some mean things to Dean, he does some rash things, but it’s never worse than what Dean does on a regular basis and has no consequences for doing. We see his motivations lined up clearly for us, then we see the voicemail that makes sense coming from Dean, and then we see Sam get betrayed by Ruby, and it’s honestly the worst moment of Sam’s life, I believe, when Ruby reveals what she has done and Lucifer rises. I love Sam’s arc in season 4.