On personality responsibility and culpability
Even moreso, both Sam and Dean have gone beyond in accepting their due and have claimed culpability for things beyond their control.
In my mind, this is extremely significant, especially as every other character involved is either an antagonist (such as Zachariah or Alistair) or has yet to claim responsibility for his part (such as Castiel and Chuck). Even in Zachariah and Alistair's cases, both of them neglect to consider their own actions and they both wanted the seals to break! Zachariah outright blames Sam for releasing Lucifer with that not-so-subtle little wink of his and he blames Dean for being unable to stop him, this despite the fact that he kidnapped Dean and then gave orders to prevent him from seeing Sam. Alistair likewise gives Dean full credit for breaking the first seal but neglects to mention that Dean's actions were very much done under duress and that Dean hadn't know what he was doing at the time.
Even the good guys are guilty of this. Castiel blamed Sam and Dean (and Dean in particular) for what happened, and while I don't really fault him for his anger, it's hardly a fair statement to make. He really did give up everything for Dean because he hoped that Dean could stop it, but Dean never once promised him that he could - he said that they needed to try and that it was worth dying over, two very true statements. And Dean did try and Castiel did do the right thing by freeing him; if Castiel hadn't, then Dean would still be stuck in Heaven and likely have been tortured into submission by this point, if he wasn't being tortured still. It took Hell 30 years to break him, after all, and that was when he didn't know what the consequences would be.
Point remains that Castiel has yet to come clean about the fact that he was the one who let Sam out in 4x21 or that he knew the truth when he forced Dean to make the promise to abide by the angel's will. He knew but he still put all the blame for what happened on the Winchesters. Not exactly Castiel's most shining moment, for all that he looked extremely pretty when he got up in Dean's face in 5x02.
Likewise, Chuck also knew the truth. In fact, of all the "good" characters in Supernatural poised to make a difference, Chuck was the one who had known the consequences for breaking the final seal the longest. He found out the truth in 4x18 and while his initial plan to tell Sam and Dean immediately was thwarted, he was obviously able to get a message to them in 5x01 (albeit because Zachariah was trying to sniff Dean out) and so he's considered options that he hadn't bothered to try back in S4. Despite this, not one character has called Chuck out for what he knew, including Chuck. Chuck has assumed no responsibility at all.
So what do we have in contrast? We've got Dean (who has long held himself accountable for crimes that were outside of his control - Something Wicked, anyone?) and we've got Sam (who's coming at this from the opposite angle, having never previously been forced to consider the ramifications of his actions and to his credit is now taking on more than his share).
I've read some meta about how Dean is being a hypocrite because he's pushing all the blame off on Sam, and I almost find that concept to be laughable. Dean isn't pushing the blame for anything onto Sam except for how Sam has treated him, and frankly after S4, Sam very much deserves that. Dean has spoken repeatedly in these past two episodes of the thing that he and Sam have done. Others have put the blame squarely on the Winchesters' shoulders and he's not once tried to shirk that. When Sam says he wants out, Dean doesn't once stop to say "this is your fault, you need to clean up your own mess" - instead, he offers to shoulder on alone.
What Dean hasn't done is recognize the fact that he's only out of Hell because he broke. Sam had given up on saving him. Zachariah wanted the first seal to break and likely was the force who delayed the order to save him until it was too late. The fact that Dean broke in Hell was the only factor that led to his eventual rescue. Dean quite obviously blames himself for having broken; we see how very much he loathes his own past actions in episodes like 4x10 and 4x11, and again in 4x16. Dean considered himself unworthy of being saved all the way back from 4x01, and that was before he got his memories of what had happened in Hell back. The circumstances of his rescue are ones that he's not really considered thus far, which isn't terribly surprising as he's only had all the pieces to put together since the tail end of 4x22 and, well, he's been pretty busy since then.
The fact is, Hell is Hell. Everyone breaks in Hell. There's no option that if Dean had just held out long enough, he'd have been rescued and everyone would have been fine. There was no chance for Dean to not break after being systematically and viciously torn apart every day for 30 years by a sadistic mastermind who knew Dean inside and out. Dean in 4x16 seemed to take the position that he just hadn't held out long enough, as assisted by Alistair's words on the topic. 4x16!Dean believed wholeheartedly that he was unworthy because he gave in too quickly and that it was a failing of his own that he hadn't held out long enough. The actual situation is that it wouldn't have mattered how long Dean resisted because succor only would have come after he agreed to torture others.
There's a significant difference in implication between the two concepts - the one is something of a personal failing because it indicates that Dean's resistance mattered. The other tells us that his rebellion was a futile action. As Castiel said in 4x16, it's not blame that falls on Dean, it's fate. And as he is an angel, one of the agents of fate, he really would know. Now the trick will be to convince Dean of the same.
As an aside, I frankly don't believe Alistair's words on John. For one, I don't think that John was a Righteous Man and I don't buy that the demons did either. Azazel knew that it was Dean who had the angelic friends in 4x03, not John, and it was Azazel who saved Dean's life twice so that Dean could survive long enough to make his deal. For two, John was able to escape via the Devil's Gate. Had he still been on the rack, how could he have managed that? Demons were trying to escape, true, but the implication is given that Dean was fairly deep in Hell (based on Castiel's description in 4x01 and 4x16) and that's where John would have been as well, with Alistair, the one demon who didn't want to escape, acting as his guard.
I simply don't see how it's possible for John to not have broken, especially since the demons were already trying to get Dean to make a deal as early as CRB - a mere couple of months after John's death. Measure up all of those unlikelihoods against the fact that Alistair knew Dean and wanted to fuck with his head and I've got to conclude that either John broke or John wasn't on the rack in the same fashion that Dean was. Either way, you've got Dean accepting the blame for things that are well outside of his control.
Which brings me to Sam. I spoke out (repeatedly) while S4 was airing about the fact that Sam kept getting away with things and that I felt it to be a highly negative mark against his character. Sam has long since had a habit of rejecting or not recognizing personal responsibility for his own actions. How long did it take him to realize that John might have had a point, or at least wasn't a complete ass, about the Stanford argument? Or maybe recognizing that promising to Dean that they'd figure it out together and then up and leaving him the very next episode apparently in the middle of the night might not be the best way to solve things, especially given how condescending he acted about Dean's attempts to protect him? (Especially rich, that one, because Sam would have been killed had Dean not been able to track him down - Gordon had a headshot and was seconds away from sniping him when Dean showed up.) Or how about Sam ever recognizing that he was wrong about the things he claimed in Asylum? Or recognizing how far he'd gone in S3 when he was willing to kill Nancy and take the Doc up on his offer for immortal life? Or even in S4, when he lied to himself and everyone else about his true motivations for killing Lilith?
Let's face it - being true to himself and accepting when he's at fault have never exactly been talents of his.
It's why I was so proud of him in 5x01 and 5x02. It took Sam a bit to recognize why Dean was so upset in 5x01 (itself a delightful reference to Winchester Fuckedupness, really - why be upset over starting the Apocalypse when you can be pissed that your brother picked a demon over you?), but he never once tried to get out of claiming responsibility for killing Lilith. And once he got it, he was even able to own up to the fact that Dean had a point about not being able to trust Sam in 5x02. Heck, he was able to own up to the fact that Sam couldn't trust Sam in 5x02, which is itself significant. Sam had been in denial over his cravings, had refused to admit to Dean that he still had a problem. In 5x01, he was all about making amends, but didn't want to suggest in any way that he was capable of doing anything else on top of his previous crimes. Ruby told him that it was all Sam's own doing all along, but it wasn't until that final scene in 5x02 that Sam accepted his own guilt and took the necessary steps to protect himself, Dean, and the world.
What makes this so important is that Sam isn't just accepting his own responsibility for what he did, now he's going above and beyond. Remember, there's still the issue of the voicemail to consider. Sam thinks that Dean believes him to be a monster, someone worthy of being put down. And yet, despite this, Sam was willing to open up to Dean about his ongoing struggle with his addiction - he might not have admitted it to himself right away, but after War spelled it out for him, he didn't try to hide it. He did the same thing with the angel warding hex bags in 5x01. Sam had to have known that openly displaying a talent that Ruby had taught him wasn't going to win him any favors, but he stood up and did it anyway and he didn't lie about where his knowledge came from. Sam's not keeping secrets any longer. He's going for full disclosure, no matter how much it hurts.
While we've not seen explicit confirmation of this in the text, my personal opinion is that both Sam and Dean are holding themselves responsible for each other's share of guilt in terms of the apocalypse as well. We've not had a scene where Dean tells Sam that he's not at fault for breaking the final seal because he broke the first one, but personally I think that's pretty logical from Dean's extremely skewed point of view. Logical to the point that, uh, I may have written fic about just that concept a few months ago.
We don't know if Sam is aware of the fact that Dean broke the first seal yet, though I doubt that he does. However, Sam's language in 5x01 suggests heavily that he's putting himself at full responsibility for releasing Lucifer, never mind that of the 66 seals, he only broke one and nominally at the very least, he acted to prevent a seal from being broken. Dean has openly claimed, in front of Sam no less, that he played a role in breaking the seals but whenever Sam talked about it, he's claimed responsibility in the singular. I might be misremembering something here, but the impression I got was very much that Sam considers himself solely responsible and will openly admit to it and Dean believes the same and is only playing lipservice to the concept of Sam having any blame (for the Apocalypse, at any rate - again the whole Ruby issue is something else entirely).
That Sam and Dean not only can accept their own blame but are able to go beyond that and are taking on more than their own fair share of it is important to me. That they're literally the only characters who accept this responsibility is what makes them heroes.
Good job, boys.
In my mind, this is extremely significant, especially as every other character involved is either an antagonist (such as Zachariah or Alistair) or has yet to claim responsibility for his part (such as Castiel and Chuck). Even in Zachariah and Alistair's cases, both of them neglect to consider their own actions and they both wanted the seals to break! Zachariah outright blames Sam for releasing Lucifer with that not-so-subtle little wink of his and he blames Dean for being unable to stop him, this despite the fact that he kidnapped Dean and then gave orders to prevent him from seeing Sam. Alistair likewise gives Dean full credit for breaking the first seal but neglects to mention that Dean's actions were very much done under duress and that Dean hadn't know what he was doing at the time.
Even the good guys are guilty of this. Castiel blamed Sam and Dean (and Dean in particular) for what happened, and while I don't really fault him for his anger, it's hardly a fair statement to make. He really did give up everything for Dean because he hoped that Dean could stop it, but Dean never once promised him that he could - he said that they needed to try and that it was worth dying over, two very true statements. And Dean did try and Castiel did do the right thing by freeing him; if Castiel hadn't, then Dean would still be stuck in Heaven and likely have been tortured into submission by this point, if he wasn't being tortured still. It took Hell 30 years to break him, after all, and that was when he didn't know what the consequences would be.
Point remains that Castiel has yet to come clean about the fact that he was the one who let Sam out in 4x21 or that he knew the truth when he forced Dean to make the promise to abide by the angel's will. He knew but he still put all the blame for what happened on the Winchesters. Not exactly Castiel's most shining moment, for all that he looked extremely pretty when he got up in Dean's face in 5x02.
Likewise, Chuck also knew the truth. In fact, of all the "good" characters in Supernatural poised to make a difference, Chuck was the one who had known the consequences for breaking the final seal the longest. He found out the truth in 4x18 and while his initial plan to tell Sam and Dean immediately was thwarted, he was obviously able to get a message to them in 5x01 (albeit because Zachariah was trying to sniff Dean out) and so he's considered options that he hadn't bothered to try back in S4. Despite this, not one character has called Chuck out for what he knew, including Chuck. Chuck has assumed no responsibility at all.
So what do we have in contrast? We've got Dean (who has long held himself accountable for crimes that were outside of his control - Something Wicked, anyone?) and we've got Sam (who's coming at this from the opposite angle, having never previously been forced to consider the ramifications of his actions and to his credit is now taking on more than his share).
I've read some meta about how Dean is being a hypocrite because he's pushing all the blame off on Sam, and I almost find that concept to be laughable. Dean isn't pushing the blame for anything onto Sam except for how Sam has treated him, and frankly after S4, Sam very much deserves that. Dean has spoken repeatedly in these past two episodes of the thing that he and Sam have done. Others have put the blame squarely on the Winchesters' shoulders and he's not once tried to shirk that. When Sam says he wants out, Dean doesn't once stop to say "this is your fault, you need to clean up your own mess" - instead, he offers to shoulder on alone.
What Dean hasn't done is recognize the fact that he's only out of Hell because he broke. Sam had given up on saving him. Zachariah wanted the first seal to break and likely was the force who delayed the order to save him until it was too late. The fact that Dean broke in Hell was the only factor that led to his eventual rescue. Dean quite obviously blames himself for having broken; we see how very much he loathes his own past actions in episodes like 4x10 and 4x11, and again in 4x16. Dean considered himself unworthy of being saved all the way back from 4x01, and that was before he got his memories of what had happened in Hell back. The circumstances of his rescue are ones that he's not really considered thus far, which isn't terribly surprising as he's only had all the pieces to put together since the tail end of 4x22 and, well, he's been pretty busy since then.
The fact is, Hell is Hell. Everyone breaks in Hell. There's no option that if Dean had just held out long enough, he'd have been rescued and everyone would have been fine. There was no chance for Dean to not break after being systematically and viciously torn apart every day for 30 years by a sadistic mastermind who knew Dean inside and out. Dean in 4x16 seemed to take the position that he just hadn't held out long enough, as assisted by Alistair's words on the topic. 4x16!Dean believed wholeheartedly that he was unworthy because he gave in too quickly and that it was a failing of his own that he hadn't held out long enough. The actual situation is that it wouldn't have mattered how long Dean resisted because succor only would have come after he agreed to torture others.
There's a significant difference in implication between the two concepts - the one is something of a personal failing because it indicates that Dean's resistance mattered. The other tells us that his rebellion was a futile action. As Castiel said in 4x16, it's not blame that falls on Dean, it's fate. And as he is an angel, one of the agents of fate, he really would know. Now the trick will be to convince Dean of the same.
As an aside, I frankly don't believe Alistair's words on John. For one, I don't think that John was a Righteous Man and I don't buy that the demons did either. Azazel knew that it was Dean who had the angelic friends in 4x03, not John, and it was Azazel who saved Dean's life twice so that Dean could survive long enough to make his deal. For two, John was able to escape via the Devil's Gate. Had he still been on the rack, how could he have managed that? Demons were trying to escape, true, but the implication is given that Dean was fairly deep in Hell (based on Castiel's description in 4x01 and 4x16) and that's where John would have been as well, with Alistair, the one demon who didn't want to escape, acting as his guard.
I simply don't see how it's possible for John to not have broken, especially since the demons were already trying to get Dean to make a deal as early as CRB - a mere couple of months after John's death. Measure up all of those unlikelihoods against the fact that Alistair knew Dean and wanted to fuck with his head and I've got to conclude that either John broke or John wasn't on the rack in the same fashion that Dean was. Either way, you've got Dean accepting the blame for things that are well outside of his control.
Which brings me to Sam. I spoke out (repeatedly) while S4 was airing about the fact that Sam kept getting away with things and that I felt it to be a highly negative mark against his character. Sam has long since had a habit of rejecting or not recognizing personal responsibility for his own actions. How long did it take him to realize that John might have had a point, or at least wasn't a complete ass, about the Stanford argument? Or maybe recognizing that promising to Dean that they'd figure it out together and then up and leaving him the very next episode apparently in the middle of the night might not be the best way to solve things, especially given how condescending he acted about Dean's attempts to protect him? (Especially rich, that one, because Sam would have been killed had Dean not been able to track him down - Gordon had a headshot and was seconds away from sniping him when Dean showed up.) Or how about Sam ever recognizing that he was wrong about the things he claimed in Asylum? Or recognizing how far he'd gone in S3 when he was willing to kill Nancy and take the Doc up on his offer for immortal life? Or even in S4, when he lied to himself and everyone else about his true motivations for killing Lilith?
Let's face it - being true to himself and accepting when he's at fault have never exactly been talents of his.
It's why I was so proud of him in 5x01 and 5x02. It took Sam a bit to recognize why Dean was so upset in 5x01 (itself a delightful reference to Winchester Fuckedupness, really - why be upset over starting the Apocalypse when you can be pissed that your brother picked a demon over you?), but he never once tried to get out of claiming responsibility for killing Lilith. And once he got it, he was even able to own up to the fact that Dean had a point about not being able to trust Sam in 5x02. Heck, he was able to own up to the fact that Sam couldn't trust Sam in 5x02, which is itself significant. Sam had been in denial over his cravings, had refused to admit to Dean that he still had a problem. In 5x01, he was all about making amends, but didn't want to suggest in any way that he was capable of doing anything else on top of his previous crimes. Ruby told him that it was all Sam's own doing all along, but it wasn't until that final scene in 5x02 that Sam accepted his own guilt and took the necessary steps to protect himself, Dean, and the world.
What makes this so important is that Sam isn't just accepting his own responsibility for what he did, now he's going above and beyond. Remember, there's still the issue of the voicemail to consider. Sam thinks that Dean believes him to be a monster, someone worthy of being put down. And yet, despite this, Sam was willing to open up to Dean about his ongoing struggle with his addiction - he might not have admitted it to himself right away, but after War spelled it out for him, he didn't try to hide it. He did the same thing with the angel warding hex bags in 5x01. Sam had to have known that openly displaying a talent that Ruby had taught him wasn't going to win him any favors, but he stood up and did it anyway and he didn't lie about where his knowledge came from. Sam's not keeping secrets any longer. He's going for full disclosure, no matter how much it hurts.
While we've not seen explicit confirmation of this in the text, my personal opinion is that both Sam and Dean are holding themselves responsible for each other's share of guilt in terms of the apocalypse as well. We've not had a scene where Dean tells Sam that he's not at fault for breaking the final seal because he broke the first one, but personally I think that's pretty logical from Dean's extremely skewed point of view. Logical to the point that, uh, I may have written fic about just that concept a few months ago.
We don't know if Sam is aware of the fact that Dean broke the first seal yet, though I doubt that he does. However, Sam's language in 5x01 suggests heavily that he's putting himself at full responsibility for releasing Lucifer, never mind that of the 66 seals, he only broke one and nominally at the very least, he acted to prevent a seal from being broken. Dean has openly claimed, in front of Sam no less, that he played a role in breaking the seals but whenever Sam talked about it, he's claimed responsibility in the singular. I might be misremembering something here, but the impression I got was very much that Sam considers himself solely responsible and will openly admit to it and Dean believes the same and is only playing lipservice to the concept of Sam having any blame (for the Apocalypse, at any rate - again the whole Ruby issue is something else entirely).
That Sam and Dean not only can accept their own blame but are able to go beyond that and are taking on more than their own fair share of it is important to me. That they're literally the only characters who accept this responsibility is what makes them heroes.
Good job, boys.