Meta: The Dick and the Monster (a.k.a. Bitch & Jerk)
The Dick and the Monster (a.k.a. Bitch & Jerk)
Self Identification and Fandom Bias
Warnings:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN which is likely nobody but me, ;-P I am officially out of Supernatural fandom for the duration of the season.
Also, officially, going the unspoiled route. I'm not a fanatic about this, I plan to watch next episode previews, and I reserve the right to sneak off now and then to check out anything that impinges on my consciousness, but in general, no spoilers, and no fandom.
Nobody's particular loss, but I can't go through another season like last season. The attraction of sharing squee just can't compensate enough for the negatives.
Since Our Boys have set the fine and shining example this season, I'm coming clean: I DIDN'T DO IT.
I couldn't do it. One after another, this season's episodes thus far were so much more than I had expected or hoped for that I just had to see what other people were saying. And I completely fell off the spoiler wagon as well, just from being revved up and excited about my show in a way I hadn't been since January of last year.
See, I'm a Sam Girl.
A HA! You say (assuming you didn't know already).
You now know everything I'm going to say about anything to do with the show. Right?
Well just in case you kept reading, I will continue. :)
As a Sam Girl, I am very pro Dean. See, in my understanding of how Winchester dynamics works, back from the getgo of Season 1, Sam is the first or primordial Dean Girl, and Dean is the all time unstoppable first and always Sam Girl. (Okay without the "girl" but you know what I'm talking about. :) )
Of course, the show has put a lot of strain on that idea. Because Show is Dramatic! And drama requires tension. Conflict. So Supernatural started by establishing the brotherly relationship, with its affection and trust and reliance, and also, because Kripke and his posse are very clever people, including the tug and pull of brotherly tension and conflict from the outset. Sam ran away from his family! Dean dragged him back! Older brother was pushy and overbearing as well as loving and loyal. Younger brother was whiney and contentious as well as independent and pure.
Bitch! Jerk!
Without that tension, who would have believed they were brothers? It was the conflict and tension that made the wonderful loving and trusting and brother support work, made it believable and not simply unrealistic two dimensionality.
We saw, we understood, we fell in love with the characters and the formula and the status quo established at the beginning, but this show warned us, told us flat out from the first five minutes of the first episode, that this story wasn't going to be like any other television series we had ever seen.
Problem is, when something is new or unique, people don't recognize it. Don't get it. I didn't either.
What I did get, as Season 1 ended in that horrible cliff hanger, as Season 2 opened with Dean out of body, talking to a Reaper, as John made his deal and left Dean with that awful secret order, was that if I hadn't strapped in tight, I was going to be thrown from the roller coaster.
Sure enough, the plot kept cranking up, the tension kept cranking up, the conflicts cranked up from there, culminating first in Sam's death, and then Dean's choice, his Deal. The opening of the hell gate. All Hell breaking loose, literally! And that was just the end of Season 2.
Season 3 was all about demonic invasion. And it was about tension, and conflict. Sam desperate to save Dean. Dean refusing to let himself be saved, ostensibly because it would cost Sam's life, but also, we began to suspect (because he said so) because Dean was tired. Tired of fighting. Ruby was introduced, as one of the demons freed by the opening of the gate, and she began to insinuate herself in between the brothers even as early as her first appearances, by approaching Sam, by dropping hints about his mother (which plot point apparently fell by the wayside in the wreckage of the writer's strike) and by offering to help save Dean, which she never intended to do. If Dean had been more willing, earlier, to try and save himself with Sam's help, would Ruby have been able to use saving Dean as a carrot to start the wedge between them? I think the answer is clear.
Am I saying that means it's all Dean's fault? Sam's not responsible for keeping secrets? Yadda yadda...
Of course it was Dean's fault, to the extent that his actions had consequences, just as it was Sam's fault, but really, it was John's fault, he started the secret keeping by not telling Sam what he suspected, except no, it was Mary's fault for making the deal, only it might have been Dean's fault for not warning Mary except it couldn't have been Dean's fault because that would be a time paradox and we all know it was really the Yellow Eyed Demon's fault, yes, it was ALL AZAZEL'S FAULT. Whew, I'm glad we got that settled. :)
Yes, that was tongue in cheek, but seriously, please, if you possibly can, stop thinking in terms of No, it wasn't Dean's fault, it was Sam's! No, it wasn't Sam's fault, it was Dean's!
Because it was everybody's fault, in as much as each character was and is responsible for their actions, and each character was and is shaped by the events that happen to them as much as how they view and react to those events.
That's not the point of this.
So what is the point? Well, I'm glad you asked because I was just returning to that. :)
Season 3 cranked the tension and conflict up to new heights! And there were rumblings in fandom about fault and blame (see above) and already (actually this started earlier but let's say more audibly) some were wailing that this wasn't the show they signed on for! They wanted to watch a show about two brothers driving across American killing monsters! Go back to the way it waaaaaas!
But that was never the plan. And we should have known it from the first five minutes of the show.
What show have you ever seen before that torched the mom on the ceiling in the first five minutes?
So! Season 3, some of us (me) spent all season getting more and more upset by the conflict, worrying about Dean, asking the rhetorical question how are they gonna save Dean from Hell? and somehow knowing in our heart of hearts that it wasn't going to happen. Dean's not the only one who's an ace at denial. Me! Me!
But I should have known. Because that was never the plan.
The plan was never to go backwards, always forwards, and forwards meant MORE tension and MORE conflict.
So Dean went to Hell.
Cue the world's longest summer hiatus.
And cue the escalation of a fandom split that had begun with tiny cracks and at first good natured teasing, when being a Dean!Girl or a Sam!Girl was looked upon with indulgent affection by the other party (usually). But by the hiatus between Seasons 3 and 4, the indulgence and affection had already started to become something much more contentious and ugly. Sam supporters were starting to feel isolated. Defensive. Pro Dean extremists were righteous, because their favorite was in Hell and you can't top that for angst, baby!, and pro Sam extremists started defending with fierceness and sometimes by the playbook that the best defense is a good offense.
Thankfully, Dean returned in the first five minutes of Season 4, but somehow, something wasn't right. Oh there were hugs and shining eyes and clinging... but something was wrong and we could all feel it.
Sam wasn't telling Dean about Ruby and, on top of that, there were Angels. Specifically, Castiel, a candidate for partnering up with Dean and possibly a threat to Sam's position. Dean was more broken than we expected, and he was hiding something too, behind the red flashes of eyes in the mirror.
The tension, released just enough by Dean's return to allow a couple of gulps of breath for us, immediately cranked up again and even higher.
And the conflict? That was about to hit the top of the roller coaster's highest hill (so far) and send half the fandom (do I exaggerate?) screaming all the way to the bottom we never knew was there.
It is only because of the five episodes of Season 5 that I can sit here and calmly write all this, even though I'm not saying anything that anyone who has watched all those episodes, and had any awareness of fandom at all, doesn't know. In these five episodes, I'm almost ready to hope the worst is behind us. (Just in time for the scary monster to jump out at the last turn, for you amusement park ride aficionados!) Not in terms of plot but in terms of relationship. Yes, my fingers, and toes, are crossed, why do you ask? Oh, the fact that I'm typing. It's nothing. Lots of practice. :)
Eric, who has never been anything but honest, if also gleefully evil, has gone on record as saying that this season was about the brothers coming back together, and S5 1-5 are bearing that out.
However, one wonders if, for the fandom, it's too late. If the rift between Sam and Dean supporters, with a new complication of Castiel groupies thrown in, will ever close up.
If it is too late, I can't, with hindsight, blame the show or its writers and creator, not entirely. Yes, Eric probably had too much fun egging it on at times, I suspect he finds the brother versus brother factions silly, probably as silly as a straight male no doubt finds the idea of Wincest, but Eric Krpike can't be blamed for the vagaries of human nature, any more than Dean, nor Sam, are to blame for the entirety of the trials of the Winchester Brothers and their hellish lives.
Because, see, the thing is, by writing two very real, very recognizable characters in Sam and Dean Winchester, the stage was set, and by actually having the balls to pursue the rules of dramatic tension to unheard of heights, this was, perhaps, inevitable.
Why? Simple.
The very dynamic that makes the brothers work, as a team and as brothers, as realistic, recognizable, loving but human siblings, is the dynamic that caused the rift in the fandom.
From the beginning, some of the show's audience were bound to identify more with one personality type than with the other.
Some find it easier to understand the funny, sarcastic, irreverent Dean, with his loyalty, and his dependence on his family.
Some find it easier to identify with Sam, his independence, his geekiness, his questioning of assumptions, and yes, his angstiness.
We identify with what we are and what we feel, and we choose our heroes when we encounter a person, or fictional character, who has both our weaknesses and our strengths, but maybe to a larger degree, and at least with fictional characters, in a prettier package, or a more clarified situation that brings out the sense of heroism that the mire and doldrums of everyday life mask us from seeing in our selves.
The good qualities of our chosen hero make us proud. The negative qualities or flaws allow us to see ourselves in them.
This, in essence, is where identification come from. But when there is a genuine dynamic like the one between the two Winchester brothers, the tension becomes our tension and the conflict also becomes ours.
Sometimes, with immersion, we stop seeing the whole story. The big picture.
Sometimes we don't. Like I said in the warning, I'm generalizing. And it's going to get worse. But if you don't see yourself in my description, I'm willing to bet you see someone you know or have encountered. These aren't startling revelations, they're basic facts of human nature.
Thanks to Season 5, Episode 5, I've had my brain imploded with another fact of human nature.
(Now here is where the generalization gets pointed, so if you feel the urge to bash me over the head in a minute, well, I guess I'm lucky only people I trust know where I live. :) )
So, having broken, no shattered, no, smashed to bits my vow not to read fandom reactions to episodes this season, I was reading reactions to Fallen Idol.
I started with a few people on my own flist, then I nosed at the metas coming out, and finally sampled from the SPN Newsletter's episode reaction post. Random sample, hardly exhaustive.
But being the cocky little knowitall I am, I'm prepared to make a statement.
With stipulations, and exceptions, but in general, if you loved the episode, you might be a Sam!Girl.
If you didn't like it, or thought it was 'meh', you might be a Dean!Girl.
Stipulating that some Dean!Girls will have liked it. Some might have loved it.
If I run across a Sam!Girl who didn't like it, I'd be curious about that.
Here's why:
Of the reviews I've looked at, the ones who didn't just have sparkly eyes over the episode, specifically over the brotherly interaction in it, were those who thought it wasn't fair for Dean to apologize so much. That Sam was being mean by saying he went with Ruby in part to get away from Dean. Variations on those reactions.
Basically the whole root of the fandom split: Sam was mean to Dean! Sam lied, went with Ruby, etc etc etc. His reasons? Just flimsy excuses. And why hasn't Sam apologized for calling Dean weak?
Now, I have no intention of refuting those views. Whatever you think, you're entitled to that, just as I'm entitled to my opinion.
However it did bring out for me a fact of human nature.
When we call names, we call the other person what we don't want to be. What we are afraid we are.
We hate in others what we hate in ourselves.
This is a very simple, basic fact. If you don't find it to be true in general, I have no persuasive arguments for you. Somewhere out there are learned folks who have degrees in psychology or just a lot of experience with human nature and they will back me up, but my brain is like Warehouse 13 with no filing system, so I can't name sources. I've been on the planet for a couple of decades longer than a large chunk of the fandom, and personal experience tells me this is true.
It is demonstrably true of the Winchesters, which is yet another testament to the writing and brilliance of this show.
Check it out.
Sam is afraid he's weak. Sam hates weakness in himself. He wants to be independent because (as many fine metas have pointed out) as the youngest, he was overwhelmed by his life, his knowledge of the reality of supernatural danger, and eventually, his knowledge of what had been done to him and what he might become. Helpless in the face of it. Helpless = weak.
Dean is afraid he's a monster. After what happened in Hell, when he broke and started torturing others to stay off the rack, after he learned the he could enjoy it, Dean is terrified he is already too far gone to ever be saved. The angels at first offered him hope of redemption, but now he knows that this hope is based on not his own soul, but on becoming nothing. A vessel. Empty. Filled with a supernatural being, and Dean has never trust supernatural beings. (Yes, Cas may be the exception but lets keep it simple.) Torturer = monster. Supernatural creature = monster.
So, in the extreme tension and conflicts of Season 4, Sam calls Dean weak.
It the extreme tension of Season 4, Dean calls Sam a monster.
What we fear and hate in ourselves is what we fear in others.
The examples above are by no means exhaustive. This is a game anyone can play and I invite you to join in.
Dean feels out of control (he's running from the angels with no real plan), he tries to control Sam.
Sam feels bound and constricted (he's not only baptized in demon blood, he's Lucifer's chosen vessel!), he chafes at Dean's restrictions.
Dean knows he and Sam need to be together, to keep each other human, he knows he needs to trust Sam. But he has his fears and he projects them.
Sam knows he's responsible for the last seal breaking, and freeing Lucifer, he knows he was duped by Ruby, that his judgment was fatally compromised. But he's just been handed the last nail in the coffin of his fate when he thought it couldn't get any worse. He has fears, and he projects them.
Now I'm not going to even address who has more right to, who has more justification and all that stuff. That's beside the point. This is a different discussion.
That's pretty much what I had to say, with a lot more lead in that I had originally expected. Take it leave, love, hate it. Have fun with it.
Thanks for listening.
~
And now, a mini meta. This is kind of a hold over from Episode 4, The End.
I am going to court lynching by pointing out something that is absolutely guaranteed to stir up a hornet's nest.
Dean is a dick.
Yes, yes, I know it sounds ugly, but how ugly it sounds depends on semantics, and definitions of "dick" aren't exactly written in the Ten Commandments.
I say Dean is a dick for two reasons. No, three.
The show said he was, in that famous Season four episode, Yellow Fever. Sam was the mouthpiece but in context, he had Bobby's agreement. And people, it's just a word, okay? Does being a dick make him not a hero? No. The definition of dick does not exclude heroism, okay?
Secondly, Dean said he was one.
Yes, I know, he was aiming it at his future self, whom we all know was not present!Dean, so maybe he became a dick sometime in the future... well, he became, as present!Dean said, broken, but the dick remark was in reaction to future!Dean not trusting himself and my own take is that he didn't trust himself because he was too smart to do so, knowing himself enough to know that he wasn't going to do as he was told, even by himself. And time paradoxes are confusing.
The time has come for somebody to let go of the notion that the term dick, to these writers, and in the context of the show, is such a huge insult that it can't be forgiven!
Dean's a dick! And as others have said before me when the kerfluffle kicked off after Yellow Fever, that's part of what we like about him! It's part and parcel of the sarcastic, shallow on the surface fellow that we met in Season One, Episode One. It's part of who he is and even, I daresay, part of his sexy.
Okay, old school reference. Star Trek, original series. Captain Kirk goes through the transporter and gets split into "good" and "bad" halves. The bad side was his dick side, okay? And he needed that side along with the good, to have the strength to be the captain.
Dean needs his dick side to balance his soft fluffy center, so get over it. He's a dick.
...a magnificent, amazing, incredible beautiful, dick.*
Thank you, and good night.
ETA2: (5:25pm CST 10/12/2009)
The previous ETA, on review, was unnecessary.
Blessed be.
ETA3:
* added because all these discussions about dickdom and all the thinking about Dean just made me wipe a little drool off the corner of my mouth. Sam loves him. I love him.
Damn, I'm going to have to do that Sam Bitch meta soon. ;P
Self Identification and Fandom Bias
Warnings:
- I'm writing this with only about four hours of sleep under my belt
- What you see is what you get
- Which is usually the case anyway :)
- I'm going to generalize about fandom
- If this doesn't apply to you, no problem
- All Generalizations Are False (see what I did there?)
- If you disagree with what I said, it's cool. I'm with Spock, I believe in infinite diversity in infinite combinations. (Yay President Obama! Taking down don't ask don't tell? You da man!)
- However if you disagree with what you think I said, that's your problem not mine.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN which is likely nobody but me, ;-P I am officially out of Supernatural fandom for the duration of the season.
Also, officially, going the unspoiled route. I'm not a fanatic about this, I plan to watch next episode previews, and I reserve the right to sneak off now and then to check out anything that impinges on my consciousness, but in general, no spoilers, and no fandom.
Nobody's particular loss, but I can't go through another season like last season. The attraction of sharing squee just can't compensate enough for the negatives.
Since Our Boys have set the fine and shining example this season, I'm coming clean: I DIDN'T DO IT.
I couldn't do it. One after another, this season's episodes thus far were so much more than I had expected or hoped for that I just had to see what other people were saying. And I completely fell off the spoiler wagon as well, just from being revved up and excited about my show in a way I hadn't been since January of last year.
See, I'm a Sam Girl.
A HA! You say (assuming you didn't know already).
You now know everything I'm going to say about anything to do with the show. Right?
Well just in case you kept reading, I will continue. :)
As a Sam Girl, I am very pro Dean. See, in my understanding of how Winchester dynamics works, back from the getgo of Season 1, Sam is the first or primordial Dean Girl, and Dean is the all time unstoppable first and always Sam Girl. (Okay without the "girl" but you know what I'm talking about. :) )
Of course, the show has put a lot of strain on that idea. Because Show is Dramatic! And drama requires tension. Conflict. So Supernatural started by establishing the brotherly relationship, with its affection and trust and reliance, and also, because Kripke and his posse are very clever people, including the tug and pull of brotherly tension and conflict from the outset. Sam ran away from his family! Dean dragged him back! Older brother was pushy and overbearing as well as loving and loyal. Younger brother was whiney and contentious as well as independent and pure.
Bitch! Jerk!
Without that tension, who would have believed they were brothers? It was the conflict and tension that made the wonderful loving and trusting and brother support work, made it believable and not simply unrealistic two dimensionality.
We saw, we understood, we fell in love with the characters and the formula and the status quo established at the beginning, but this show warned us, told us flat out from the first five minutes of the first episode, that this story wasn't going to be like any other television series we had ever seen.
Problem is, when something is new or unique, people don't recognize it. Don't get it. I didn't either.
What I did get, as Season 1 ended in that horrible cliff hanger, as Season 2 opened with Dean out of body, talking to a Reaper, as John made his deal and left Dean with that awful secret order, was that if I hadn't strapped in tight, I was going to be thrown from the roller coaster.
Sure enough, the plot kept cranking up, the tension kept cranking up, the conflicts cranked up from there, culminating first in Sam's death, and then Dean's choice, his Deal. The opening of the hell gate. All Hell breaking loose, literally! And that was just the end of Season 2.
Season 3 was all about demonic invasion. And it was about tension, and conflict. Sam desperate to save Dean. Dean refusing to let himself be saved, ostensibly because it would cost Sam's life, but also, we began to suspect (because he said so) because Dean was tired. Tired of fighting. Ruby was introduced, as one of the demons freed by the opening of the gate, and she began to insinuate herself in between the brothers even as early as her first appearances, by approaching Sam, by dropping hints about his mother (which plot point apparently fell by the wayside in the wreckage of the writer's strike) and by offering to help save Dean, which she never intended to do. If Dean had been more willing, earlier, to try and save himself with Sam's help, would Ruby have been able to use saving Dean as a carrot to start the wedge between them? I think the answer is clear.
Am I saying that means it's all Dean's fault? Sam's not responsible for keeping secrets? Yadda yadda...
Of course it was Dean's fault, to the extent that his actions had consequences, just as it was Sam's fault, but really, it was John's fault, he started the secret keeping by not telling Sam what he suspected, except no, it was Mary's fault for making the deal, only it might have been Dean's fault for not warning Mary except it couldn't have been Dean's fault because that would be a time paradox and we all know it was really the Yellow Eyed Demon's fault, yes, it was ALL AZAZEL'S FAULT. Whew, I'm glad we got that settled. :)
Yes, that was tongue in cheek, but seriously, please, if you possibly can, stop thinking in terms of No, it wasn't Dean's fault, it was Sam's! No, it wasn't Sam's fault, it was Dean's!
Because it was everybody's fault, in as much as each character was and is responsible for their actions, and each character was and is shaped by the events that happen to them as much as how they view and react to those events.
That's not the point of this.
So what is the point? Well, I'm glad you asked because I was just returning to that. :)
Season 3 cranked the tension and conflict up to new heights! And there were rumblings in fandom about fault and blame (see above) and already (actually this started earlier but let's say more audibly) some were wailing that this wasn't the show they signed on for! They wanted to watch a show about two brothers driving across American killing monsters! Go back to the way it waaaaaas!
But that was never the plan. And we should have known it from the first five minutes of the show.
What show have you ever seen before that torched the mom on the ceiling in the first five minutes?
So! Season 3, some of us (me) spent all season getting more and more upset by the conflict, worrying about Dean, asking the rhetorical question how are they gonna save Dean from Hell? and somehow knowing in our heart of hearts that it wasn't going to happen. Dean's not the only one who's an ace at denial. Me! Me!
But I should have known. Because that was never the plan.
The plan was never to go backwards, always forwards, and forwards meant MORE tension and MORE conflict.
So Dean went to Hell.
Cue the world's longest summer hiatus.
And cue the escalation of a fandom split that had begun with tiny cracks and at first good natured teasing, when being a Dean!Girl or a Sam!Girl was looked upon with indulgent affection by the other party (usually). But by the hiatus between Seasons 3 and 4, the indulgence and affection had already started to become something much more contentious and ugly. Sam supporters were starting to feel isolated. Defensive. Pro Dean extremists were righteous, because their favorite was in Hell and you can't top that for angst, baby!, and pro Sam extremists started defending with fierceness and sometimes by the playbook that the best defense is a good offense.
Thankfully, Dean returned in the first five minutes of Season 4, but somehow, something wasn't right. Oh there were hugs and shining eyes and clinging... but something was wrong and we could all feel it.
Sam wasn't telling Dean about Ruby and, on top of that, there were Angels. Specifically, Castiel, a candidate for partnering up with Dean and possibly a threat to Sam's position. Dean was more broken than we expected, and he was hiding something too, behind the red flashes of eyes in the mirror.
The tension, released just enough by Dean's return to allow a couple of gulps of breath for us, immediately cranked up again and even higher.
And the conflict? That was about to hit the top of the roller coaster's highest hill (so far) and send half the fandom (do I exaggerate?) screaming all the way to the bottom we never knew was there.
It is only because of the five episodes of Season 5 that I can sit here and calmly write all this, even though I'm not saying anything that anyone who has watched all those episodes, and had any awareness of fandom at all, doesn't know. In these five episodes, I'm almost ready to hope the worst is behind us. (Just in time for the scary monster to jump out at the last turn, for you amusement park ride aficionados!) Not in terms of plot but in terms of relationship. Yes, my fingers, and toes, are crossed, why do you ask? Oh, the fact that I'm typing. It's nothing. Lots of practice. :)
Eric, who has never been anything but honest, if also gleefully evil, has gone on record as saying that this season was about the brothers coming back together, and S5 1-5 are bearing that out.
However, one wonders if, for the fandom, it's too late. If the rift between Sam and Dean supporters, with a new complication of Castiel groupies thrown in, will ever close up.
If it is too late, I can't, with hindsight, blame the show or its writers and creator, not entirely. Yes, Eric probably had too much fun egging it on at times, I suspect he finds the brother versus brother factions silly, probably as silly as a straight male no doubt finds the idea of Wincest, but Eric Krpike can't be blamed for the vagaries of human nature, any more than Dean, nor Sam, are to blame for the entirety of the trials of the Winchester Brothers and their hellish lives.
Because, see, the thing is, by writing two very real, very recognizable characters in Sam and Dean Winchester, the stage was set, and by actually having the balls to pursue the rules of dramatic tension to unheard of heights, this was, perhaps, inevitable.
Why? Simple.
The very dynamic that makes the brothers work, as a team and as brothers, as realistic, recognizable, loving but human siblings, is the dynamic that caused the rift in the fandom.
From the beginning, some of the show's audience were bound to identify more with one personality type than with the other.
Some find it easier to understand the funny, sarcastic, irreverent Dean, with his loyalty, and his dependence on his family.
Some find it easier to identify with Sam, his independence, his geekiness, his questioning of assumptions, and yes, his angstiness.
We identify with what we are and what we feel, and we choose our heroes when we encounter a person, or fictional character, who has both our weaknesses and our strengths, but maybe to a larger degree, and at least with fictional characters, in a prettier package, or a more clarified situation that brings out the sense of heroism that the mire and doldrums of everyday life mask us from seeing in our selves.
The good qualities of our chosen hero make us proud. The negative qualities or flaws allow us to see ourselves in them.
This, in essence, is where identification come from. But when there is a genuine dynamic like the one between the two Winchester brothers, the tension becomes our tension and the conflict also becomes ours.
Sometimes, with immersion, we stop seeing the whole story. The big picture.
Sometimes we don't. Like I said in the warning, I'm generalizing. And it's going to get worse. But if you don't see yourself in my description, I'm willing to bet you see someone you know or have encountered. These aren't startling revelations, they're basic facts of human nature.
Thanks to Season 5, Episode 5, I've had my brain imploded with another fact of human nature.
(Now here is where the generalization gets pointed, so if you feel the urge to bash me over the head in a minute, well, I guess I'm lucky only people I trust know where I live. :) )
So, having broken, no shattered, no, smashed to bits my vow not to read fandom reactions to episodes this season, I was reading reactions to Fallen Idol.
I started with a few people on my own flist, then I nosed at the metas coming out, and finally sampled from the SPN Newsletter's episode reaction post. Random sample, hardly exhaustive.
But being the cocky little knowitall I am, I'm prepared to make a statement.
With stipulations, and exceptions, but in general, if you loved the episode, you might be a Sam!Girl.
If you didn't like it, or thought it was 'meh', you might be a Dean!Girl.
Stipulating that some Dean!Girls will have liked it. Some might have loved it.
If I run across a Sam!Girl who didn't like it, I'd be curious about that.
Here's why:
Of the reviews I've looked at, the ones who didn't just have sparkly eyes over the episode, specifically over the brotherly interaction in it, were those who thought it wasn't fair for Dean to apologize so much. That Sam was being mean by saying he went with Ruby in part to get away from Dean. Variations on those reactions.
Basically the whole root of the fandom split: Sam was mean to Dean! Sam lied, went with Ruby, etc etc etc. His reasons? Just flimsy excuses. And why hasn't Sam apologized for calling Dean weak?
Now, I have no intention of refuting those views. Whatever you think, you're entitled to that, just as I'm entitled to my opinion.
However it did bring out for me a fact of human nature.
When we call names, we call the other person what we don't want to be. What we are afraid we are.
We hate in others what we hate in ourselves.
This is a very simple, basic fact. If you don't find it to be true in general, I have no persuasive arguments for you. Somewhere out there are learned folks who have degrees in psychology or just a lot of experience with human nature and they will back me up, but my brain is like Warehouse 13 with no filing system, so I can't name sources. I've been on the planet for a couple of decades longer than a large chunk of the fandom, and personal experience tells me this is true.
It is demonstrably true of the Winchesters, which is yet another testament to the writing and brilliance of this show.
Check it out.
Sam is afraid he's weak. Sam hates weakness in himself. He wants to be independent because (as many fine metas have pointed out) as the youngest, he was overwhelmed by his life, his knowledge of the reality of supernatural danger, and eventually, his knowledge of what had been done to him and what he might become. Helpless in the face of it. Helpless = weak.
Dean is afraid he's a monster. After what happened in Hell, when he broke and started torturing others to stay off the rack, after he learned the he could enjoy it, Dean is terrified he is already too far gone to ever be saved. The angels at first offered him hope of redemption, but now he knows that this hope is based on not his own soul, but on becoming nothing. A vessel. Empty. Filled with a supernatural being, and Dean has never trust supernatural beings. (Yes, Cas may be the exception but lets keep it simple.) Torturer = monster. Supernatural creature = monster.
So, in the extreme tension and conflicts of Season 4, Sam calls Dean weak.
It the extreme tension of Season 4, Dean calls Sam a monster.
What we fear and hate in ourselves is what we fear in others.
The examples above are by no means exhaustive. This is a game anyone can play and I invite you to join in.
Dean feels out of control (he's running from the angels with no real plan), he tries to control Sam.
Sam feels bound and constricted (he's not only baptized in demon blood, he's Lucifer's chosen vessel!), he chafes at Dean's restrictions.
Dean knows he and Sam need to be together, to keep each other human, he knows he needs to trust Sam. But he has his fears and he projects them.
Sam knows he's responsible for the last seal breaking, and freeing Lucifer, he knows he was duped by Ruby, that his judgment was fatally compromised. But he's just been handed the last nail in the coffin of his fate when he thought it couldn't get any worse. He has fears, and he projects them.
Now I'm not going to even address who has more right to, who has more justification and all that stuff. That's beside the point. This is a different discussion.
That's pretty much what I had to say, with a lot more lead in that I had originally expected. Take it leave, love, hate it. Have fun with it.
Thanks for listening.
~
And now, a mini meta. This is kind of a hold over from Episode 4, The End.
I am going to court lynching by pointing out something that is absolutely guaranteed to stir up a hornet's nest.
Dean is a dick.
Yes, yes, I know it sounds ugly, but how ugly it sounds depends on semantics, and definitions of "dick" aren't exactly written in the Ten Commandments.
I say Dean is a dick for two reasons. No, three.
The show said he was, in that famous Season four episode, Yellow Fever. Sam was the mouthpiece but in context, he had Bobby's agreement. And people, it's just a word, okay? Does being a dick make him not a hero? No. The definition of dick does not exclude heroism, okay?
Secondly, Dean said he was one.
Yes, I know, he was aiming it at his future self, whom we all know was not present!Dean, so maybe he became a dick sometime in the future... well, he became, as present!Dean said, broken, but the dick remark was in reaction to future!Dean not trusting himself and my own take is that he didn't trust himself because he was too smart to do so, knowing himself enough to know that he wasn't going to do as he was told, even by himself. And time paradoxes are confusing.
The time has come for somebody to let go of the notion that the term dick, to these writers, and in the context of the show, is such a huge insult that it can't be forgiven!
Dean's a dick! And as others have said before me when the kerfluffle kicked off after Yellow Fever, that's part of what we like about him! It's part and parcel of the sarcastic, shallow on the surface fellow that we met in Season One, Episode One. It's part of who he is and even, I daresay, part of his sexy.
Okay, old school reference. Star Trek, original series. Captain Kirk goes through the transporter and gets split into "good" and "bad" halves. The bad side was his dick side, okay? And he needed that side along with the good, to have the strength to be the captain.
Dean needs his dick side to balance his soft fluffy center, so get over it. He's a dick.
...a magnificent, amazing, incredible beautiful, dick.*
Thank you, and good night.
ETA2: (5:25pm CST 10/12/2009)
The previous ETA, on review, was unnecessary.
Blessed be.
ETA3:
* added because all these discussions about dickdom and all the thinking about Dean just made me wipe a little drool off the corner of my mouth. Sam loves him. I love him.
Damn, I'm going to have to do that Sam Bitch meta soon. ;P