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brightly_litAn lj friend brought up an awesome point in a comment. It’s been said before that Show seems to be ‘Sam’s story told through Dean’s eyes,’ which inevitably brings up the question of Dean as a supremely unreliable narrator, because as this friend (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
indiachick) said, “Most of what we know of Sam comes from Dean. Do we know what music he likes or what stuff he'll put in his own room if he even has one in the bunker? Is it ever stressed what he feels about the whole Dean/Purgatory thing, or how he feels post Cas healing him in S7?”
If Dean really loves Sam so much ... why does he know so little about him, even down to the question of, as brought up in 9.01, whether he wants to live and why? How could Dean have spent an entire year with him (S8) and never bothered to learn what was really going through Sam’s head all that time (as it was finally revealed in “Sacrifice”)? How could Sam have confessed to Dean that he “found something” that really meant something to him (Amelia), and Dean’s only response is fury at his “betrayal”? It’s not like Sam wouldn’t tell him if Dean asked; it’s just that Dean doesn’t really want to know. Why? Because Dean wants things the way he wants them. He wants the brother he’s always wanted, and any way in which Sam fundamentally differs from Dean’s idealized version of the ‘perfect brother’ is in Dean’s view one of Sam’s many “failings.”
So let’s go into the question of whether Sam has ever really failed Dean, because since probably S4, I’ve been niggled at by Dean’s, seemingly the show’s, and also seemingly the fans’, perception that Sam has ‘failed Dean.’ Dean generously provided Sam with a long list of ‘confession topics’ in “Sacrifice,” which was really a list of personal grievances against Sam (and one additional projection, among so many, that was actually Dean’s doing--the mean thing he did to a girl in 6th grade--which was hilarious but illuminating about Dean’s character). I’ll start with Dean’s list, then address a few others besides. You can tell me if I missed anything.
Going to Stanford
I wrote a story that begins as Sam arrives at Stanford which will tell you a lot about how I see this, but (as addressed in that story), in what world is a kid finding a way to go to a well-respected college without money and with basically every card stacked against him a failure? The world in which Dean didn’t get what he wanted, I guess. The world in which Dean feels he doesn’t have the option of doing what he wants with his life, and so seeks to deprive Sam of the same thing. What about what Sam wanted? Who is to rate hunting higher than education, or for that matter, higher than one person’s dreams? You might be able to say stopping the apocalypse was more important, but at the time they had no inkling that this was a part of their future; they were just killing wendigos and werewolves and FULLY AWARE that there were plenty of other hunters out there doing the same. Dean harbors resentment over feeling like Sam abandoned him and his dad, but who would Sam have betrayed if he’d abandoned himself, his true desires and values? Sam had a difficult choice to make--an almost impossible choice: himself or his family--and he made it ... and has never truly been forgiven.
Releasing Lucifer from hell
This one always gets me, because of course Dean was the one who broke the first seal, and Sam was the one who broke the last, giving them equal responsibility, which Dean nearly always neglects to mention when engaging in his frequent pastime of finding fault, particularly with Sam. Who can blame Dean for breaking on the rack? Killing Lilith was a choice Sam didn’t have to make, so maybe you could blame Sam a little more on those grounds ... except inasmuch as Dean helped drive him to it, all the angels and all the demons were pulling strings to make sure it happened, and Dean was 100% on the killing-Lilith bandwagon right up until Cas reveals to him that it’s the last seal, which Sam could not have known. Rather, Sam was willing to make extreme personal sacrifices to make sure to do away with the demon who sent Dean to hell, which leads us to ...
Ruby, and getting hooked on demon blood
I say much more on this in this story, but let’s state a few facts, shall we? 1) Circumstance repeatedly more or less forced Sam to use the abilities his demon-blood addiction gave him just to keep him and Dean alive to keep fighting another day, not to mention, 2) Dean HELPS Sam dose up on demon blood in the S5 finale in order to try to overcome Lucifer, so Dean is hardly a paragon of making the ‘right choice’ no matter the circumstance, himself. Selfishly, Dean stands by and allows Sam to harm himself in this way when it benefits him/them, then turns around and mercilessly shames and criticizes Sam for it the rest of the time. Finally 3) Sam isn’t lazing around enjoying his addiction; he’s trying his best to do the right thing at great personal cost--the costs of his addiction being all too obvious to him all along.
Did he make the wrong choice and trust the wrong person? Sure, just like Dean has, and Cas has, and everyone has. Sam made the best, bravest, and smartest (not to mention, most self-sacrificial) choice he could at every juncture, based on the information he had, just as Dean did, so why is it a failure on Sam’s part and not on Dean’s? And let’s not forget, if the accusation is that Sam’s weakness or failure was addiction, what about Dean spending a few seasons (including S4) as a high-functioning alcoholic? Which is the kind of double standard Dean has for Sam that leads him to accusing Sam of being weak and a failure for the exact behaviors Dean regularly engages in. And why did Sam wind up in Ruby’s clutches to begin with? Because he was so broken over the loss of his brother, just as Dean loves him to be, judging by how often he’s harangued Sam over not looking for him in S8, and his straightforward declaration in “Clap Your Hands If You Believe ” that he should be “suffering” when he has cause to be worried for Dean’s safety.
“Being soulless”
Okay, this one just makes me laugh--like ‘being soulless’ is something to apologize for. It’s a state of being, not a choice in any case, but particularly in Sam’s case. Did any decision of Sam’s lead to that state? No. If Dean insists on laying blame, it lays entirely with Cas, who kindly attempted a rescue of Sam from the box and accidentally left a most important piece behind. Sam had nothing to do with it; he only suffered from it.
But let’s do go into how “wrong” Sam’s soullessness was. Crowley incisively noted, near the end of S8, the trail of destruction the Winchesters leave everywhere they go in the name of trying to save lives. It could probably convincingly be argued that they might even be responsible for more deaths due to their interference, not counting averting the apocalypse, than they are for lives saved. Soulless!Sam lacked morality, but his goal was the same: saving lives. Unburdened by the incredible weight of the baggage of Sam and Dean’s combined guilt and sense of personal responsibility for anything going wrong anywhere, although some innocent lives were lost (heck, soulless!Sam killed some of them himself), given his capacity for logic and weighing the collateral damage versus the benefits, not to mention his inhuman efficiency, I think it’s quite likely that he saved more people than he or Dean do while adhering to their own, increasingly questionable, moral code.
Not looking for Dean
Okay, they say they’ll keep going into this matter, but let’s just have a little look at this as it currently stands, shall we? Sam and Dean had an agreement ... just like they had an agreement when Sam took Lucifer into the box ... which Dean adhered to. Exactly like Sam, Dean spent a year with a woman in which he experienced a fulfillment different from any he’s ever known, and Sam did not begrudge him this--in fact, Sam insisted Dean get that for himself. Two years later, Sam’s weeping in a church and ready to die because he believes Dean when he constantly tells him he’s a failure, his worst failure being this ‘betrayal’ he will never let Sam live down, which wasn’t a failure at all--just Sam trying to have for himself the thing he was willing to suffer eternal torment to let Dean have.
Personally, the shittiest thing I’ve seen Sam do to Dean was throwing the wrapper in his room at the bunker just when Dean had gotten it all perfect. It’s infantile, pointless, destructive, and just plain mean, even if it’s a small thing. Yet, if Sam is continually emulating his older brother, it was an unsurprising choice, because that’s something DEAN would do any old time.
All of which has led me to believe (and I get the sense the show is on the same wavelength) that Dean, on whatever level, is fully aware that it isn’t Sam who has failed, it’s Dean, who has not only failed at least as much as Sam has, but who has also failed Sam by causing Sam to truly--falsely--believe he’s the failure between them to such a degree Sam wants to die to let Dean proceed unfettered by the “burden” he’s made Sam believe he is. It was immensely satisfying to see Sam finally get some kudos for all he’s accomplished, from Death no less. It was agony to see Charlie thank DEAN for averting the apocalypse, when it was SAM who made that terrible sacrifice, only to turn to Sam to offer her condolences on his “lack of luck with the ladies.” Dean, and so many other characters, seem to have come around to believing it was somehow Dean who deserves credit for averting the apocalypse, when Dean’s main contribution was simply being willing to let Samifer beat the living shit out of him. (Actually ... that often seems to be Dean’s main contribution, but that’s for another meta. ;-) ) Bobby and Cas both died for it; Dean just took the beating. Not that it was small or unnecessary; just that it’s not the same as getting tortured by Lucifer for over 100 hell years.
Stories where a character is purely evil and simply has to be defeated bore me. Dean is not the antagonist--he’s one of the protagonists, and arguably the POV character! No one could deny Dean’s real, abiding, even all-consuming love for his brother. Although Dean is really good at remaining in denial even when Sam says stuff straight out like what was said in the church at the end of “Sacrifice” (can’t wait to see whether they follow up on Sam pouring his heart out in future episodes!), Dean--if he weren’t drunk or hell-bent on hunting or engaging in purely defensive behavior--would be appalled if he really allowed himself to process the depth to which he’s inadvertently managed to hurt and damage Sam. He never meant to--he’s flawed and adorable and maddening and all twisted up and damaged himself--but it happened.
I love this, not just because of all the delicious angst it yields for the fans (since this kind of thing can be most enjoyable in fiction, even if in life it sucks beyond measure), but because it reflects a real dynamic between people that occurs all too often. It could be summed up by saying it’s the archetypal battle humans have waged all along, between ESTJs and INFPs, Democrats and Republicans, brothers and sisters, men and women--that is, between people with opposite perspectives with opposite beliefs and the way each is inadvertently hurt by the other, no matter how much they may love one another.
Edited to add:
So, I DID miss a couple of important items from the list that multiple people brought up in the comments, so I’ll address them now.
Sam drains an innocent girl to get strong enough to battle Lilith
Not Sam’s finest moment, for sure, but this is the way I see it: Sam truly and fully believed that killing Lilith was the secret to stopping the apocalypse. He and Dean--mostly Dean--have both sacrificed people to the end of fulfilling their goals, most notably Dean attempting to kill Mrs. Tran in order to kill Crowley, and offering up Henry to Abaddon with the understanding that he might very well be killed, in order to stop her. One of the benefits of Sam drinking demon blood was that it allowed him to save the people the demons inhabited, whereas Dean’s favored method of dealing with demons was killing them, along with the people they inhabited, with the demon-killing knife, so the innocent girl was no worse off than if Dean had gotten his hands on her. In fact, Sam saved a lot of lives, compared to Dean, as he walked that harrowing path all season.
Abandoning Kevin
This was probably the most shocking choice Sam has made (not to mention out of character), especially since he knew exactly where Kevin had been taken (with Crowley), while he had no idea where Dean and Cas had gone. I’m glad people brought this up, because thinking it through, I think I understand better where Sam’s headspace was during the time Dean was in purgatory, which is to say, completely defeated. Hopefully they’ll go into it more in the show. It could certainly be argued that that’s no excuse, but since the subject is whether Sam has failed in ways Dean hasn’t, I have to say, I thought Dean failed Kevin far more outrageously (and abusively) through S8 than Sam did by simply leaving him to his own devices. (Ohh ... or maybe Sam was starting to think, as Crowley said, that they actually did more harm than good. Sam's cross to bear has always, after all, been that he feels like anyone he gets close to dies, which certainly seemed to have come to pass in the S7 finale--EVEN DEAN--so he felt like Kevin was better off without his involvement.) Kevin surely felt better off on his own on the run than he did when the Winchesters came back into his life and Dean threw him at Garth, bullied him into doing the work of translating the tablet for them, harangued him continually to work faster--“helping out” by buying him stimulants when he knew full well that Kevin was falling to pieces, and also failed to keep him safe, seeing as how Crowley still got his hands on him and was a breath away from killing him when Metatron finally saved his ass. Meanwhile, they’re sitting around in the perfectly safe bunker in comfort, knowing how Kevin is suffering where he is, and Dean only gets around to noting they should have brought him there, too, when he believes it’s already too late.
And thank you for all the thoughtful, substantive comments--I’m looking forward to responding to them, although it might take me a while to get through them all as thoroughly as I’d like ...
indiachick) said, “Most of what we know of Sam comes from Dean. Do we know what music he likes or what stuff he'll put in his own room if he even has one in the bunker? Is it ever stressed what he feels about the whole Dean/Purgatory thing, or how he feels post Cas healing him in S7?” If Dean really loves Sam so much ... why does he know so little about him, even down to the question of, as brought up in 9.01, whether he wants to live and why? How could Dean have spent an entire year with him (S8) and never bothered to learn what was really going through Sam’s head all that time (as it was finally revealed in “Sacrifice”)? How could Sam have confessed to Dean that he “found something” that really meant something to him (Amelia), and Dean’s only response is fury at his “betrayal”? It’s not like Sam wouldn’t tell him if Dean asked; it’s just that Dean doesn’t really want to know. Why? Because Dean wants things the way he wants them. He wants the brother he’s always wanted, and any way in which Sam fundamentally differs from Dean’s idealized version of the ‘perfect brother’ is in Dean’s view one of Sam’s many “failings.”
So let’s go into the question of whether Sam has ever really failed Dean, because since probably S4, I’ve been niggled at by Dean’s, seemingly the show’s, and also seemingly the fans’, perception that Sam has ‘failed Dean.’ Dean generously provided Sam with a long list of ‘confession topics’ in “Sacrifice,” which was really a list of personal grievances against Sam (and one additional projection, among so many, that was actually Dean’s doing--the mean thing he did to a girl in 6th grade--which was hilarious but illuminating about Dean’s character). I’ll start with Dean’s list, then address a few others besides. You can tell me if I missed anything.
Going to Stanford
I wrote a story that begins as Sam arrives at Stanford which will tell you a lot about how I see this, but (as addressed in that story), in what world is a kid finding a way to go to a well-respected college without money and with basically every card stacked against him a failure? The world in which Dean didn’t get what he wanted, I guess. The world in which Dean feels he doesn’t have the option of doing what he wants with his life, and so seeks to deprive Sam of the same thing. What about what Sam wanted? Who is to rate hunting higher than education, or for that matter, higher than one person’s dreams? You might be able to say stopping the apocalypse was more important, but at the time they had no inkling that this was a part of their future; they were just killing wendigos and werewolves and FULLY AWARE that there were plenty of other hunters out there doing the same. Dean harbors resentment over feeling like Sam abandoned him and his dad, but who would Sam have betrayed if he’d abandoned himself, his true desires and values? Sam had a difficult choice to make--an almost impossible choice: himself or his family--and he made it ... and has never truly been forgiven.
Releasing Lucifer from hell
This one always gets me, because of course Dean was the one who broke the first seal, and Sam was the one who broke the last, giving them equal responsibility, which Dean nearly always neglects to mention when engaging in his frequent pastime of finding fault, particularly with Sam. Who can blame Dean for breaking on the rack? Killing Lilith was a choice Sam didn’t have to make, so maybe you could blame Sam a little more on those grounds ... except inasmuch as Dean helped drive him to it, all the angels and all the demons were pulling strings to make sure it happened, and Dean was 100% on the killing-Lilith bandwagon right up until Cas reveals to him that it’s the last seal, which Sam could not have known. Rather, Sam was willing to make extreme personal sacrifices to make sure to do away with the demon who sent Dean to hell, which leads us to ...
Ruby, and getting hooked on demon blood
I say much more on this in this story, but let’s state a few facts, shall we? 1) Circumstance repeatedly more or less forced Sam to use the abilities his demon-blood addiction gave him just to keep him and Dean alive to keep fighting another day, not to mention, 2) Dean HELPS Sam dose up on demon blood in the S5 finale in order to try to overcome Lucifer, so Dean is hardly a paragon of making the ‘right choice’ no matter the circumstance, himself. Selfishly, Dean stands by and allows Sam to harm himself in this way when it benefits him/them, then turns around and mercilessly shames and criticizes Sam for it the rest of the time. Finally 3) Sam isn’t lazing around enjoying his addiction; he’s trying his best to do the right thing at great personal cost--the costs of his addiction being all too obvious to him all along.
Did he make the wrong choice and trust the wrong person? Sure, just like Dean has, and Cas has, and everyone has. Sam made the best, bravest, and smartest (not to mention, most self-sacrificial) choice he could at every juncture, based on the information he had, just as Dean did, so why is it a failure on Sam’s part and not on Dean’s? And let’s not forget, if the accusation is that Sam’s weakness or failure was addiction, what about Dean spending a few seasons (including S4) as a high-functioning alcoholic? Which is the kind of double standard Dean has for Sam that leads him to accusing Sam of being weak and a failure for the exact behaviors Dean regularly engages in. And why did Sam wind up in Ruby’s clutches to begin with? Because he was so broken over the loss of his brother, just as Dean loves him to be, judging by how often he’s harangued Sam over not looking for him in S8, and his straightforward declaration in “Clap Your Hands If You Believe ” that he should be “suffering” when he has cause to be worried for Dean’s safety.
“Being soulless”
Okay, this one just makes me laugh--like ‘being soulless’ is something to apologize for. It’s a state of being, not a choice in any case, but particularly in Sam’s case. Did any decision of Sam’s lead to that state? No. If Dean insists on laying blame, it lays entirely with Cas, who kindly attempted a rescue of Sam from the box and accidentally left a most important piece behind. Sam had nothing to do with it; he only suffered from it.
But let’s do go into how “wrong” Sam’s soullessness was. Crowley incisively noted, near the end of S8, the trail of destruction the Winchesters leave everywhere they go in the name of trying to save lives. It could probably convincingly be argued that they might even be responsible for more deaths due to their interference, not counting averting the apocalypse, than they are for lives saved. Soulless!Sam lacked morality, but his goal was the same: saving lives. Unburdened by the incredible weight of the baggage of Sam and Dean’s combined guilt and sense of personal responsibility for anything going wrong anywhere, although some innocent lives were lost (heck, soulless!Sam killed some of them himself), given his capacity for logic and weighing the collateral damage versus the benefits, not to mention his inhuman efficiency, I think it’s quite likely that he saved more people than he or Dean do while adhering to their own, increasingly questionable, moral code.
Not looking for Dean
Okay, they say they’ll keep going into this matter, but let’s just have a little look at this as it currently stands, shall we? Sam and Dean had an agreement ... just like they had an agreement when Sam took Lucifer into the box ... which Dean adhered to. Exactly like Sam, Dean spent a year with a woman in which he experienced a fulfillment different from any he’s ever known, and Sam did not begrudge him this--in fact, Sam insisted Dean get that for himself. Two years later, Sam’s weeping in a church and ready to die because he believes Dean when he constantly tells him he’s a failure, his worst failure being this ‘betrayal’ he will never let Sam live down, which wasn’t a failure at all--just Sam trying to have for himself the thing he was willing to suffer eternal torment to let Dean have.
Personally, the shittiest thing I’ve seen Sam do to Dean was throwing the wrapper in his room at the bunker just when Dean had gotten it all perfect. It’s infantile, pointless, destructive, and just plain mean, even if it’s a small thing. Yet, if Sam is continually emulating his older brother, it was an unsurprising choice, because that’s something DEAN would do any old time.
All of which has led me to believe (and I get the sense the show is on the same wavelength) that Dean, on whatever level, is fully aware that it isn’t Sam who has failed, it’s Dean, who has not only failed at least as much as Sam has, but who has also failed Sam by causing Sam to truly--falsely--believe he’s the failure between them to such a degree Sam wants to die to let Dean proceed unfettered by the “burden” he’s made Sam believe he is. It was immensely satisfying to see Sam finally get some kudos for all he’s accomplished, from Death no less. It was agony to see Charlie thank DEAN for averting the apocalypse, when it was SAM who made that terrible sacrifice, only to turn to Sam to offer her condolences on his “lack of luck with the ladies.” Dean, and so many other characters, seem to have come around to believing it was somehow Dean who deserves credit for averting the apocalypse, when Dean’s main contribution was simply being willing to let Samifer beat the living shit out of him. (Actually ... that often seems to be Dean’s main contribution, but that’s for another meta. ;-) ) Bobby and Cas both died for it; Dean just took the beating. Not that it was small or unnecessary; just that it’s not the same as getting tortured by Lucifer for over 100 hell years.
Stories where a character is purely evil and simply has to be defeated bore me. Dean is not the antagonist--he’s one of the protagonists, and arguably the POV character! No one could deny Dean’s real, abiding, even all-consuming love for his brother. Although Dean is really good at remaining in denial even when Sam says stuff straight out like what was said in the church at the end of “Sacrifice” (can’t wait to see whether they follow up on Sam pouring his heart out in future episodes!), Dean--if he weren’t drunk or hell-bent on hunting or engaging in purely defensive behavior--would be appalled if he really allowed himself to process the depth to which he’s inadvertently managed to hurt and damage Sam. He never meant to--he’s flawed and adorable and maddening and all twisted up and damaged himself--but it happened.
I love this, not just because of all the delicious angst it yields for the fans (since this kind of thing can be most enjoyable in fiction, even if in life it sucks beyond measure), but because it reflects a real dynamic between people that occurs all too often. It could be summed up by saying it’s the archetypal battle humans have waged all along, between ESTJs and INFPs, Democrats and Republicans, brothers and sisters, men and women--that is, between people with opposite perspectives with opposite beliefs and the way each is inadvertently hurt by the other, no matter how much they may love one another.
Edited to add:
So, I DID miss a couple of important items from the list that multiple people brought up in the comments, so I’ll address them now.
Sam drains an innocent girl to get strong enough to battle Lilith
Not Sam’s finest moment, for sure, but this is the way I see it: Sam truly and fully believed that killing Lilith was the secret to stopping the apocalypse. He and Dean--mostly Dean--have both sacrificed people to the end of fulfilling their goals, most notably Dean attempting to kill Mrs. Tran in order to kill Crowley, and offering up Henry to Abaddon with the understanding that he might very well be killed, in order to stop her. One of the benefits of Sam drinking demon blood was that it allowed him to save the people the demons inhabited, whereas Dean’s favored method of dealing with demons was killing them, along with the people they inhabited, with the demon-killing knife, so the innocent girl was no worse off than if Dean had gotten his hands on her. In fact, Sam saved a lot of lives, compared to Dean, as he walked that harrowing path all season.
Abandoning Kevin
This was probably the most shocking choice Sam has made (not to mention out of character), especially since he knew exactly where Kevin had been taken (with Crowley), while he had no idea where Dean and Cas had gone. I’m glad people brought this up, because thinking it through, I think I understand better where Sam’s headspace was during the time Dean was in purgatory, which is to say, completely defeated. Hopefully they’ll go into it more in the show. It could certainly be argued that that’s no excuse, but since the subject is whether Sam has failed in ways Dean hasn’t, I have to say, I thought Dean failed Kevin far more outrageously (and abusively) through S8 than Sam did by simply leaving him to his own devices. (Ohh ... or maybe Sam was starting to think, as Crowley said, that they actually did more harm than good. Sam's cross to bear has always, after all, been that he feels like anyone he gets close to dies, which certainly seemed to have come to pass in the S7 finale--EVEN DEAN--so he felt like Kevin was better off without his involvement.) Kevin surely felt better off on his own on the run than he did when the Winchesters came back into his life and Dean threw him at Garth, bullied him into doing the work of translating the tablet for them, harangued him continually to work faster--“helping out” by buying him stimulants when he knew full well that Kevin was falling to pieces, and also failed to keep him safe, seeing as how Crowley still got his hands on him and was a breath away from killing him when Metatron finally saved his ass. Meanwhile, they’re sitting around in the perfectly safe bunker in comfort, knowing how Kevin is suffering where he is, and Dean only gets around to noting they should have brought him there, too, when he believes it’s already too late.
And thank you for all the thoughtful, substantive comments--I’m looking forward to responding to them, although it might take me a while to get through them all as thoroughly as I’d like ...