I'm glad caranfindel asked, because I too was confused but intrigued. I guess I'd say I agree with you both. (Although I'm currently rewatching S2, about halfway through, and we'll see if I still have these opinions as it wears on!)
I agree with you that S2 lacked cohesion and failed to make the question of whether Dean might have to kill Sam resonate, but I agree with caranfindel that I didn't think it was obvious that Dean wouldn't kill Sam, inasmuch as I felt like Dean was John's good little soldier all their lives (particularly when Sam left them to go do his own thing at Stanford), while Sam was John's much-less-obedient and more reluctant little soldier, so Dean was torn but more likely to obey the father whose approval he'd always needed so desperately than stick by the brother he felt had abandoned them and was a crappy son, especially since they'd been brought up to save the world and other people at any cost (including their own lives).
I felt like that tension was there all along, until in ONE OF MY VERY FAVORITE EPISODES EVER, 2.14, as Dean is pushed farther and farther, seeing that 'Sam' is killing innocent people and finally all but begs Dean to kill him, Dean finally sees that no matter how bad Sam gets, he can't do it, saying, "I'd rather die." I always got the strong impression that he would do his best to do as John requested, but when push came to shove (even if it left him disgusted with himself), he realized there was nothing his brother could ever become or do that would make him kill him.
Ooh, which, come to think of it, actually was a necessary prerequisite for telling the events of every ensuing season, as Sam DID go ever more darkside in S4, then said yes to Lucy, then lost his soul. The audience might have wondered, you know, "Sam is evil! Why isn't Dean doing what he must, however much he doesn't want to?" but you know right then in 2.14 why and that he never, ever will.
Actually, I'm a fan of Dean's Secret from Sam, too! Not because I felt like it served any real plot purpose, though; just because that's a great mystery to draw out to tease the audience. If I were writing for the show, I'd have done the very same thing. ;-)
That being said, though, I couldn't agree with you more that the writers
changed their minds and made it up as they went along. Which, it's TV, that is kind of what you do! And what SPN does to some degree every year. I don't really hold that against anything, because it's kind of part of the medium
Sometimes I look at the quality of fic that comes out of this fandom and I'm like, GAH, if only the show ever made so much sense and was so cohesive and tied together all the themes so beautifully! But then, the writers of the fic have only themselves to answer to. In t.v., there are so many fingers in the pie between pre- and post-production. Maybe the scripts WERE perfect and cohesive and beautiful at the beginning, but this director had a different vision, and that actor interpreted that line differently, or it works great on the page but not in a visual medium so they had to change something. The important thing is that those themes ARE there in the show for the fans to draw out and examine, even if sometimes they get a bit muddled in the process of making a show for the masses.
But, thank you both for this!:
Anyway, in the context of B_L's fic I was saying that her emphasis on the part by bringing out these visions of Samifer, and by guiding John's obsession by making it in this fic very pointedly about trying to keep his son from that, and his trying to skirt the very full-frontal possibility of this 2014!verse alternate timeline, the fic gets back to that sentiment from the first half of S2 and reorients it in a way that I find useful in elaborating and rediscovering that particular thread of canon.
Yes, it is a good thing. I love the idea that John really knew what was in Sam's future, other than "he's going to be bad," and that he was specifically trying to prevent that.
*glows*
And, yay for my fic being the inspiration for discussions like these!
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-01-11 02:13 am (UTC)I agree with you that S2 lacked cohesion and failed to make the question of whether Dean might have to kill Sam resonate, but I agree with caranfindel that I didn't think it was obvious that Dean wouldn't kill Sam, inasmuch as I felt like Dean was John's good little soldier all their lives (particularly when Sam left them to go do his own thing at Stanford), while Sam was John's much-less-obedient and more reluctant little soldier, so Dean was torn but more likely to obey the father whose approval he'd always needed so desperately than stick by the brother he felt had abandoned them and was a crappy son, especially since they'd been brought up to save the world and other people at any cost (including their own lives).
I felt like that tension was there all along, until in ONE OF MY VERY FAVORITE EPISODES EVER, 2.14, as Dean is pushed farther and farther, seeing that 'Sam' is killing innocent people and finally all but begs Dean to kill him, Dean finally sees that no matter how bad Sam gets, he can't do it, saying, "I'd rather die." I always got the strong impression that he would do his best to do as John requested, but when push came to shove (even if it left him disgusted with himself), he realized there was nothing his brother could ever become or do that would make him kill him.
Ooh, which, come to think of it, actually was a necessary prerequisite for telling the events of every ensuing season, as Sam DID go ever more darkside in S4, then said yes to Lucy, then lost his soul. The audience might have wondered, you know, "Sam is evil! Why isn't Dean doing what he must, however much he doesn't want to?" but you know right then in 2.14 why and that he never, ever will.
Actually, I'm a fan of Dean's Secret from Sam, too! Not because I felt like it served any real plot purpose, though; just because that's a great mystery to draw out to tease the audience. If I were writing for the show, I'd have done the very same thing. ;-)
That being said, though, I couldn't agree with you more that the writers
changed their minds and made it up as they went along. Which, it's TV, that is kind of what you do! And what SPN does to some degree every year. I don't really hold that against anything, because it's kind of part of the medium
Sometimes I look at the quality of fic that comes out of this fandom and I'm like, GAH, if only the show ever made so much sense and was so cohesive and tied together all the themes so beautifully! But then, the writers of the fic have only themselves to answer to. In t.v., there are so many fingers in the pie between pre- and post-production. Maybe the scripts WERE perfect and cohesive and beautiful at the beginning, but this director had a different vision, and that actor interpreted that line differently, or it works great on the page but not in a visual medium so they had to change something. The important thing is that those themes ARE there in the show for the fans to draw out and examine, even if sometimes they get a bit muddled in the process of making a show for the masses.
But, thank you both for this!:
Anyway, in the context of B_L's fic I was saying that her emphasis on the part by bringing out these visions of Samifer, and by guiding John's obsession by making it in this fic very pointedly about trying to keep his son from that, and his trying to skirt the very full-frontal possibility of this 2014!verse alternate timeline, the fic gets back to that sentiment from the first half of S2 and reorients it in a way that I find useful in elaborating and rediscovering that particular thread of canon.
Yes, it is a good thing. I love the idea that John really knew what was in Sam's future, other than "he's going to be bad," and that he was specifically trying to prevent that.
*glows*
And, yay for my fic being the inspiration for discussions like these!
<3 to you both. <3