http://soul-whisperer-sam.tumblr.com/post/87222675348/when-jumping-the-shark-please-wear-sam-goggles
When Jumping the Shark, Please Wear Sam!Goggles.
So…. I was watching a painful episode yesterday.
Jump the Shark.
And as I watched it, I got really upset because it comprised so many things that makes me mad about Supernatural and the fandom.
Throughout the episode Sam (who has learned from his mistakes concerning keeping information about monsters from people who might one day be in danger) wants to teach “Adam” about hunting. Or he, at least, wants to give “Adam” the choice, at first.
However, this is spun through Dean’s eyes as a Sammy/Parent-Dean scenario, almost. And at the same time, John-Sam vs. Mary-Dean, which is a very convenient exercise in black-and-white thinking!
Though Sam calls Dean out, because he believes Dean wants to keep “Adam” in the dark for selfish reasons, Dean is supposedly the one who wants what’s best for little, baby “Adam.” They are John’s pet martyrs; they knew the true John/ John had no choice raising them. Dean chooses to lean on John’s understanding, not his own. If John didn’t want Adam to know about hunting, despite the danger of that, then that’s holy writ. (And it’s a parent-y thing to do, riiiiiiiight?)
People, keeping things from your kids while simultaneously putting them in danger is not a good parenting strategy. Please and thank you.
Though they spin it as a harshness in Sam, I see it as more of a practical way of dealing with their situation. And again, it’s about autonomy. He doesn’t think they have the right to withhold info from someone who just lost their mother and who might one day be in danger again.
THIS IS WHERE SUPERNATURAL FAILS SAM. I don’t want to be in a club where you have to have Sam!Goggles on to be able to see his perspective!
Dean, to a casual viewer, despite the shitty way he treats Sam in this episode, is seen as the soft-hearted mama-bird taking care of his kiddos, despite the rough start. I guess people are willing to write off Dean continuing to point a gun at someone who might’ve been an innocent kid just because John being unfaithful to Mary’s memory is unthinkable.
The worst is when Dean gets to have his monologue at the end, where he describes his worship of John and how Sam is just-like-him-omg. As soon as Dean mentally turns on John, Sam’s suddenly exhibiting all his supposedly negative traits. Dean gets to spin Sam’s actions because his reaction is textual, and he gets to falsely equivocate that Sam was pulling a John Winchester by telling “Adam” about the hunting life, though “Adam” is an adult training to be a doctor and not a CHILD (as Sam and Dean were when introduced to hunting.) There is a WORLD of difference there.
Also, Adam was sitting right there when Sam suggested using him as “bait.” Though he wasn’t participating at first, it wasn’t kept from him.
Okay, I think you know Adam isn’t really Adam, so I’m dropping the quotation marks… finally.
Sam, talking to Adam about the life, was trying to slap a WARNING on hunting, to give Adam all the information necessary to make a decision for himself.
And Dean— instead of seeing this as a warning sign about Sam’s mental state here—Dean castigates him for being like their father, the god to whom Dean used to offer his body, mind, and soul. Dean, instead of caring one ounce about Sam’s mindset, puts him down. Sam, who has hated hunting FOREVER, now thinks it will never, ever get better and that he’s stuck on this hunting treadmill for life.
Sam says, “Dean…all this…it’s not real. The dad Adam knew—he wasn’t real. The things out there in the shadows—they are real. The world is coming to an end. That’s real. Everything else is just part of the crap people tell themselves to get through the day.”
If that doesn’t sound like someone who has no hope for the future and might make suicidal decisions, I don’t know what does. And of course, instead of thinking about how Sam must feel to have done such a one-eighty, Dean just changes his opinion of Sam. No talking it out and no emotional support (thusly, no questions about what Sam might be thinking about doing), because of course, “No chick flick moments.” Sam can ask Dean if he’s ok, but God-forbid Dean ever takes an emotionally protective role in Sam’s life. He’ll physically protect him, but emotionally? Good luck with that, Sammy!
Remember the “It gets better” speech Sam gives Kevin in 8.1? This is where Sam desperately needed one of those. Or even one of those “Talk to me” moments Dean offered Cas in season 8. Obviously, Dean is capable of noticing emotion in others. Not in Sam, though.
Also, note the end of “Stairway to Heaven” and Dean’s dismissal of Sam vs. his concerned conversation with Castiel.
(In the context of season 4, I think it also showed Sam another instance of Dean being unable to see big-picture, and I think it subsequently cements in his mind, even more, that Dean’s stint in hell and all that damage will impinge his ability to kill Lilith.)
After Sam’s caveats about hunting, maybe Dean doesn’t like the bitterness in Sam’s voice. Maybe he doesn’t like the lack of enthusiasm. Because Dean equates hunting with being-with-Sam, even though Sam has disabused him of the notion that Sam wanted to leave Dean when he went to Stanford. No, he wanted to leave the hunting life; “Dad was the one” who said he couldn’t come back. Dean, unfortunately, is subconsciously unable to separate being-with-family (Sam) and hunting. If Sam feels free to do whatever he likes, Dean thinks he’ll leave.
And meanwhile, who chooses to be more like John?
I feel like Sam sees himself in Adam, here. He spent years and years as a child never knowing where the hell John was going, why they had to move so often, or even why everyone always seemed scared and tense. Kids see that. I would argue that they’re more in tune with people’s emotions than adults, because they’re constantly trying to emulate those around them, figuring out social cues like when to be happy, sad, angry, etc. How in the hell Sam is such a wonderful human being, the world may never know.
Dean is, initially, the only one who refuses to respect Adam’s agency. Instead, he’s just some other kid who needs to be sheltered. In the past, Sam has also wanted to shield people from hunting, but I feel this is different. Here, Adam will continue to be in danger, simply because he carries John’s genetic material. And now that SamnDean know about him, he can be used against them.
As a result, SamnDean discuss whether to let Adam help in the hunt, while Adam is in the room, and Dean, adhering to the John Winchester Code of Ethics, succinctly ends the discussion.
When Adam asks, “Do I get a say in this?”
Dean yells, “NO!”
Sam also says, “no,” but he says it gently. Despite all previous indication that he was going to give Adam the choice, he says no.
Here, I see it as projection, and it ties into what he says later, when he says John did right by them as kids.
As all Sam fans know, Sam ruminates. He thinks about his choices, carefully inspecting every action. He usually doesn’t act rashly. And then he thinks about his actions, and in retrospect, he gleans useful information from them. He learns from his mistakes. Sometimes he learns the wrong thing, though. People don’t always learn the most adaptive behavior. If only.
Sam, at this point, has rewritten his life’s story, and all the shitty things that happened to him have become, in his mind, thinks that happened because of him. Including both Sam and Dean’s childhoods, even though his mother made the deal. (Death washes away every sin….) And the most egregious mistake he’s made is leaving for Stanford and putting Jess in danger.
Nevermind that John let him leave without telling him demons were out for his blood, or rather, that they might want to feed him their blood. John knew something (hence, “Save Sam or kill him, Son!”), and he should’ve told Sam.
According to Sam, If he hadn’t left, Jess would be alive. Maybe John would be alive, and maybe Dean would’ve never gone to Hell. He had been an ignorant child, thinking he could be a real person and have dreams and aspirations. Nope, he’s nothing special—subhuman, even— just a cog in a terrible, terrible machine.
I really don’t think the writers adequately show that Sam is 100 percent projecting onto Adam. Adam wants to be a doctor (a prestigious career, similar in status to that of a lawyer), and Sam asks if he has a girlfriend, definitely thinking about Jess burning on the ceiling above their bed. He tells him he has to give up on the life he’d known if he wants to hunt.
“He’s a Winchester. He’s already cursed.”
Obviously, I don’t agree with Sam that Adam doesn’t have a choice (people always have a choice), but I think the double-standard in this fandom is egregious. Some people will do anything to absolve poor Dean of his selfishness, his self-indulgent emotionality, his less-than-objective nature. If Sam doesn’t think-of-the-children!, he’s a calculating bastard!
And this is on the writers.
Yes, Sam is an introvert who doesn’t vocalize what he’s feeling (though people who are unable to think critically call him emo and whiny….(to a Sam fan, this argument is like saying “Christo” to a demon)…. He’ll easily talk about other people’s feelings, but to the casual viewer, he’s a black box. Unless you’re watching specifically from his perspective, it’s easy to miss what the narrative’s trying to say about him.
And they don’t remedy that with outside perspective. They could easily have someone explain a bit of what he’s feeling, but unfortunately, as Safiyabat has pointed out, demons more often than not are the only people who seem Sam-sympathetic. They do lots of parallels, but it’s undeniable that words reach people better than subtextual metaphors. And nobody’s willing to give weight to a demon’s word…unless it’s, I dunno, someone whom Dean makes a connection with. I’m looking at you, “Sin City.”
According to the text, Sam is John Winchester reborn because Dean says it. Meanwhile, according to subtext and the plot, Sam was right. The ghouls were pursuing a vendetta just because they were Winchesters, and unfortunately, Adam is already dead. He was cursed from the start… but he deserved to know it, just as Sam did.
Of course, Sam and John are paralleled in this episode. Sam didn’t tell Jess about hunting, and she ended up dead. John didn’t tell Adam’s mom about hunting, and she and her son ended up dead. I find Sam’s situation to be vastly different, though, in that Sam was looking forward, to a new life outside of hunting, especially since his family had repudiated him.
Another troubling aspect of this episode is what, perhaps, the writers attempted to do. They did have an outside perspective in this episode: “Adam,” who seemed more sympathetic toward Sam. After Dean yelled “No!” and Sam spoke “No,” (that’s how both words are written in the transcript), Adam asks,
“Is he always like that?”
Sam laughs. He simply replies,
“Welcome to the family.”
A family where John (from beyond the grave) and Dean are in charge. No questioning that or you’re not a good soldier. (Of course, turns out that Adam was a ghoul, so anything he said or seemed to think is null and void! Lovely.)
Since Sam laughs it off, it must be OK; he must be OK. It’s a running joke. Dean calls the shots and Sam ducks his head, only rebelling wen Dean’s not around.
I just find it interesting that Dean has a condemning tone when he compares Sam and John, but he continues to take John’s lead in decision-making strategies. He picks and chooses the aspects of John he finds acceptable, pieces that help him retain control.
And that’s what all of this comes down to. Control of Sam. Dean knows what Sam thinks, that he’s changed since hell. Dean is upset at Sam’s change of opinion, and using John’s wishes is a convenient way to keep him in line. He wants to use Sam’s insecurity to keep him in check, too.
Dean didn’t expect all this crap to change his brother, but it did, irrevocably. Dean going to Hell for Sam didn’t keep his brother whole. It broke him.
It doesn’t help that John gave Dean his new mission with his dying breath and YED planted a seed in Dean’s brain once he brought him back. Both these incidents provided ample “justification” for his dehumanization of his brother.
Is Sam still Sam? Or is he a monster?
And, really, Sam and ‘Adam” are paralleled. Sam takes a big brother role, and he eventually finds out he was mentoring a monster. They both want revenge on something that killed a close family member. Does Dean think that will happen to him, that his attempts at controlling Sam will come back to bite him? (I’m sorry. That’s an uncalled-for pun.)
Maybe it’s easier to lay it all at the feet of John. You’re just like Dad.
And maybe it’s easier for Dean to see Sam as a monster than a broken person, a shadow of the child who’d idolized him. Then he doesn’t have to feel at all responsible.
So…. I was watching a painful episode yesterday.
Jump the Shark.
And as I watched it, I got really upset because it comprised so many things that makes me mad about Supernatural and the fandom.
Throughout the episode Sam (who has learned from his mistakes concerning keeping information about monsters from people who might one day be in danger) wants to teach “Adam” about hunting. Or he, at least, wants to give “Adam” the choice, at first.
However, this is spun through Dean’s eyes as a Sammy/Parent-Dean scenario, almost. And at the same time, John-Sam vs. Mary-Dean, which is a very convenient exercise in black-and-white thinking!
Though Sam calls Dean out, because he believes Dean wants to keep “Adam” in the dark for selfish reasons, Dean is supposedly the one who wants what’s best for little, baby “Adam.” They are John’s pet martyrs; they knew the true John/ John had no choice raising them. Dean chooses to lean on John’s understanding, not his own. If John didn’t want Adam to know about hunting, despite the danger of that, then that’s holy writ. (And it’s a parent-y thing to do, riiiiiiiight?)
People, keeping things from your kids while simultaneously putting them in danger is not a good parenting strategy. Please and thank you.
Though they spin it as a harshness in Sam, I see it as more of a practical way of dealing with their situation. And again, it’s about autonomy. He doesn’t think they have the right to withhold info from someone who just lost their mother and who might one day be in danger again.
THIS IS WHERE SUPERNATURAL FAILS SAM. I don’t want to be in a club where you have to have Sam!Goggles on to be able to see his perspective!
Dean, to a casual viewer, despite the shitty way he treats Sam in this episode, is seen as the soft-hearted mama-bird taking care of his kiddos, despite the rough start. I guess people are willing to write off Dean continuing to point a gun at someone who might’ve been an innocent kid just because John being unfaithful to Mary’s memory is unthinkable.
The worst is when Dean gets to have his monologue at the end, where he describes his worship of John and how Sam is just-like-him-omg. As soon as Dean mentally turns on John, Sam’s suddenly exhibiting all his supposedly negative traits. Dean gets to spin Sam’s actions because his reaction is textual, and he gets to falsely equivocate that Sam was pulling a John Winchester by telling “Adam” about the hunting life, though “Adam” is an adult training to be a doctor and not a CHILD (as Sam and Dean were when introduced to hunting.) There is a WORLD of difference there.
Also, Adam was sitting right there when Sam suggested using him as “bait.” Though he wasn’t participating at first, it wasn’t kept from him.
Okay, I think you know Adam isn’t really Adam, so I’m dropping the quotation marks… finally.
Sam, talking to Adam about the life, was trying to slap a WARNING on hunting, to give Adam all the information necessary to make a decision for himself.
And Dean— instead of seeing this as a warning sign about Sam’s mental state here—Dean castigates him for being like their father, the god to whom Dean used to offer his body, mind, and soul. Dean, instead of caring one ounce about Sam’s mindset, puts him down. Sam, who has hated hunting FOREVER, now thinks it will never, ever get better and that he’s stuck on this hunting treadmill for life.
Sam says, “Dean…all this…it’s not real. The dad Adam knew—he wasn’t real. The things out there in the shadows—they are real. The world is coming to an end. That’s real. Everything else is just part of the crap people tell themselves to get through the day.”
If that doesn’t sound like someone who has no hope for the future and might make suicidal decisions, I don’t know what does. And of course, instead of thinking about how Sam must feel to have done such a one-eighty, Dean just changes his opinion of Sam. No talking it out and no emotional support (thusly, no questions about what Sam might be thinking about doing), because of course, “No chick flick moments.” Sam can ask Dean if he’s ok, but God-forbid Dean ever takes an emotionally protective role in Sam’s life. He’ll physically protect him, but emotionally? Good luck with that, Sammy!
Remember the “It gets better” speech Sam gives Kevin in 8.1? This is where Sam desperately needed one of those. Or even one of those “Talk to me” moments Dean offered Cas in season 8. Obviously, Dean is capable of noticing emotion in others. Not in Sam, though.
Also, note the end of “Stairway to Heaven” and Dean’s dismissal of Sam vs. his concerned conversation with Castiel.
(In the context of season 4, I think it also showed Sam another instance of Dean being unable to see big-picture, and I think it subsequently cements in his mind, even more, that Dean’s stint in hell and all that damage will impinge his ability to kill Lilith.)
After Sam’s caveats about hunting, maybe Dean doesn’t like the bitterness in Sam’s voice. Maybe he doesn’t like the lack of enthusiasm. Because Dean equates hunting with being-with-Sam, even though Sam has disabused him of the notion that Sam wanted to leave Dean when he went to Stanford. No, he wanted to leave the hunting life; “Dad was the one” who said he couldn’t come back. Dean, unfortunately, is subconsciously unable to separate being-with-family (Sam) and hunting. If Sam feels free to do whatever he likes, Dean thinks he’ll leave.
And meanwhile, who chooses to be more like John?
I feel like Sam sees himself in Adam, here. He spent years and years as a child never knowing where the hell John was going, why they had to move so often, or even why everyone always seemed scared and tense. Kids see that. I would argue that they’re more in tune with people’s emotions than adults, because they’re constantly trying to emulate those around them, figuring out social cues like when to be happy, sad, angry, etc. How in the hell Sam is such a wonderful human being, the world may never know.
Dean is, initially, the only one who refuses to respect Adam’s agency. Instead, he’s just some other kid who needs to be sheltered. In the past, Sam has also wanted to shield people from hunting, but I feel this is different. Here, Adam will continue to be in danger, simply because he carries John’s genetic material. And now that SamnDean know about him, he can be used against them.
As a result, SamnDean discuss whether to let Adam help in the hunt, while Adam is in the room, and Dean, adhering to the John Winchester Code of Ethics, succinctly ends the discussion.
When Adam asks, “Do I get a say in this?”
Dean yells, “NO!”
Sam also says, “no,” but he says it gently. Despite all previous indication that he was going to give Adam the choice, he says no.
Here, I see it as projection, and it ties into what he says later, when he says John did right by them as kids.
As all Sam fans know, Sam ruminates. He thinks about his choices, carefully inspecting every action. He usually doesn’t act rashly. And then he thinks about his actions, and in retrospect, he gleans useful information from them. He learns from his mistakes. Sometimes he learns the wrong thing, though. People don’t always learn the most adaptive behavior. If only.
Sam, at this point, has rewritten his life’s story, and all the shitty things that happened to him have become, in his mind, thinks that happened because of him. Including both Sam and Dean’s childhoods, even though his mother made the deal. (Death washes away every sin….) And the most egregious mistake he’s made is leaving for Stanford and putting Jess in danger.
Nevermind that John let him leave without telling him demons were out for his blood, or rather, that they might want to feed him their blood. John knew something (hence, “Save Sam or kill him, Son!”), and he should’ve told Sam.
According to Sam, If he hadn’t left, Jess would be alive. Maybe John would be alive, and maybe Dean would’ve never gone to Hell. He had been an ignorant child, thinking he could be a real person and have dreams and aspirations. Nope, he’s nothing special—subhuman, even— just a cog in a terrible, terrible machine.
I really don’t think the writers adequately show that Sam is 100 percent projecting onto Adam. Adam wants to be a doctor (a prestigious career, similar in status to that of a lawyer), and Sam asks if he has a girlfriend, definitely thinking about Jess burning on the ceiling above their bed. He tells him he has to give up on the life he’d known if he wants to hunt.
“He’s a Winchester. He’s already cursed.”
Obviously, I don’t agree with Sam that Adam doesn’t have a choice (people always have a choice), but I think the double-standard in this fandom is egregious. Some people will do anything to absolve poor Dean of his selfishness, his self-indulgent emotionality, his less-than-objective nature. If Sam doesn’t think-of-the-children!, he’s a calculating bastard!
And this is on the writers.
Yes, Sam is an introvert who doesn’t vocalize what he’s feeling (though people who are unable to think critically call him emo and whiny….(to a Sam fan, this argument is like saying “Christo” to a demon)…. He’ll easily talk about other people’s feelings, but to the casual viewer, he’s a black box. Unless you’re watching specifically from his perspective, it’s easy to miss what the narrative’s trying to say about him.
And they don’t remedy that with outside perspective. They could easily have someone explain a bit of what he’s feeling, but unfortunately, as Safiyabat has pointed out, demons more often than not are the only people who seem Sam-sympathetic. They do lots of parallels, but it’s undeniable that words reach people better than subtextual metaphors. And nobody’s willing to give weight to a demon’s word…unless it’s, I dunno, someone whom Dean makes a connection with. I’m looking at you, “Sin City.”
According to the text, Sam is John Winchester reborn because Dean says it. Meanwhile, according to subtext and the plot, Sam was right. The ghouls were pursuing a vendetta just because they were Winchesters, and unfortunately, Adam is already dead. He was cursed from the start… but he deserved to know it, just as Sam did.
Of course, Sam and John are paralleled in this episode. Sam didn’t tell Jess about hunting, and she ended up dead. John didn’t tell Adam’s mom about hunting, and she and her son ended up dead. I find Sam’s situation to be vastly different, though, in that Sam was looking forward, to a new life outside of hunting, especially since his family had repudiated him.
Another troubling aspect of this episode is what, perhaps, the writers attempted to do. They did have an outside perspective in this episode: “Adam,” who seemed more sympathetic toward Sam. After Dean yelled “No!” and Sam spoke “No,” (that’s how both words are written in the transcript), Adam asks,
“Is he always like that?”
Sam laughs. He simply replies,
“Welcome to the family.”
A family where John (from beyond the grave) and Dean are in charge. No questioning that or you’re not a good soldier. (Of course, turns out that Adam was a ghoul, so anything he said or seemed to think is null and void! Lovely.)
Since Sam laughs it off, it must be OK; he must be OK. It’s a running joke. Dean calls the shots and Sam ducks his head, only rebelling wen Dean’s not around.
I just find it interesting that Dean has a condemning tone when he compares Sam and John, but he continues to take John’s lead in decision-making strategies. He picks and chooses the aspects of John he finds acceptable, pieces that help him retain control.
And that’s what all of this comes down to. Control of Sam. Dean knows what Sam thinks, that he’s changed since hell. Dean is upset at Sam’s change of opinion, and using John’s wishes is a convenient way to keep him in line. He wants to use Sam’s insecurity to keep him in check, too.
Dean didn’t expect all this crap to change his brother, but it did, irrevocably. Dean going to Hell for Sam didn’t keep his brother whole. It broke him.
It doesn’t help that John gave Dean his new mission with his dying breath and YED planted a seed in Dean’s brain once he brought him back. Both these incidents provided ample “justification” for his dehumanization of his brother.
Is Sam still Sam? Or is he a monster?
And, really, Sam and ‘Adam” are paralleled. Sam takes a big brother role, and he eventually finds out he was mentoring a monster. They both want revenge on something that killed a close family member. Does Dean think that will happen to him, that his attempts at controlling Sam will come back to bite him? (I’m sorry. That’s an uncalled-for pun.)
Maybe it’s easier to lay it all at the feet of John. You’re just like Dad.
And maybe it’s easier for Dean to see Sam as a monster than a broken person, a shadow of the child who’d idolized him. Then he doesn’t have to feel at all responsible.
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