Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Chapter 6 - On Sam, Born of Love And Loss
AN: This Sam-analysis seems to have a mind of it's own. It's grown to Jared-sized proportions, so I'm going to give them to you in two series of posts. This first series of posts are going to focus mostly on Sam's early years and into Season 1 experiences, setting the stage for the next series of posts that will explore the later implications of Sam's choices and the events that shaped him to be what he is now.
With no further ado:
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It seems fitting, somehow, that a child born of such opposites of love and loss should express all these things in his struggle to find a role in the world.
Sam struggles between the knife point of opposing forces in his life, the preservation of self versus attachment to the family he loves, great potential of power versus powerlessness and despair, and great Good and great Evil.
It is difficult to talk about Sam without talking about Dean, just as it was difficult to talk about Dean without talking about John. Dean defined much of Sam's world just as John defined much of Dean's world. While the primary defining event of Dean's life came when he was young, the forces that play out in Sam's life have come in a series of events across time. The timing of these emotional traumas have had an impact on Sam's perception of them and how he coped with them.
Like Dean, Sam suffered losses to his innocence about his world with which he had to contend, but these occurred for him at a later age. Like Dean in his willingness to cut off parts of his humanity to serve his family and in his transformation in Hell, Sam has also suffered losses to his innocence about himself.
Sam's First Loss
Sam's loss of innocence
John postponed exposing Sam to the nature of the supernatural world and hunting life.
Perhaps it was for purely pragmatic reasons. If you've ever tried to encourage a young child to keep a secret, you know how futile that attempt is. Only way to really do it is to bring down a heavy hand of guilt, shame and fear on them. Even then, they act out their distress in all kinds of ways, ways that people who are attuned to it find suspicious. "The truth will out" at some point, and I doubt John liked the attention that that would have brought down upon his family's heads if that happened.
Perhaps hiding the truth was yet another way in which John was attempting to protect Sam. Did he see the effect it had on Dean and tried to avoid that kind of trauma for Sam? Or did John protect Sam's innocence because of his concerns about the implications of the supernatural for Sam? Did John not want Sam to confront the supernatural until his son was old enough to develop more skills to understand and combat its interest in him? Did John think that he was protecting his son from ever knowing about the supernatural, hoping to have killed the thing that murdered Mary before Sam grew up?
Regardless, the effect was that Sam lost his innocence about the nature of the world around him and the tenuousness of his own and his family's safety at a later age than had Dean. To paraphrase what
impulsiveanswer said in her meta about Sam : unlike Dean and John, it wasn't death and destruction that lead to the traumatic loss of innocence for Sam, it was the introduction to hunting and all the implications surrounding the need for hunters in this world that was traumatic for Sam.
DEAN: Monsters are real. Dad fights them. He's fighting them right now.
SAM: But Dad said the monsters under my bed weren't real.
DEAN: That's 'cause he'd already checked under there. Yeah, they're real, almost everything is real.
SAM: Is Santa real?
DEAN: No.
A Very Supernatural Christmas
SAM: I read in Dad's book that they got Mom.
DEAN: It's complicated, Sam.
SAM: If they can get Mom, they can get Dad, and if they get Dad, they can get us.
DEAN: It's not like that. Okay? Dad's fine. We're fine. Trust me. You okay?
SAM: Yeah.
A Very Supernatural Christmas
Sam read John's journal, and learned that there are many, many different ways to die, and many things out there that could kill him, his brother or his father. Here he was holed up with his brother in a motel room and only a gun in the hands of a 12 year old to keep him safe while his father risked his life on a daily basis.
Dean, being the big brother that he is, attempted to help Sam cope with the loss and the resulting fear and helplessness that it generated in Sam. He offered Sam the means by which he had coped with the loss of his innocence all those years ago, reassuring Sam that they were safe because of their father. He offered Sam the belief in John the Hero who would protect them if only they would place their trust in him.
DEAN: First thing you have to know is, we have the coolest dad in the world. He's a superhero…. Monsters are real. Dad fights them. He's fighting them right now. …
SAM: If monsters are real, then they could get us. They could get me.
DEAN: Dad's not going to let them get you.
SAM: But what if they get him?
DEAN: They aren't going to get Dad. Dad's like, the best.
A Very Supernatural Christmas
I found it very poignant how precious that gift of belief in John was to Dean, and how he wanted to share it with Sam as a way to comfort his brother. Unfortunately, however, it was offered too late in development for it to take for Sam like it had comforted Dean.
Sam's loss of faith in John
A younger child has less experience with the world at large. Their experiences are largely defined by their caretakers. As such, they don't have as much information, or, frankly, cognitive capacity to compare and contrast different experiences and take into account point of view. There was little to challenge John's worldview for Dean because of how limited his experience was with other people's point of view. Without the capacity for critical thinking that only comes later in development, it would have made it easier for Dean to whole-heartedly throw himself into John's world-view. Once Dean committed himself, his identification became self-perpetuating.
By the time Sam was confronted with his powerlessness in the face of a violent world and the likelihood of potential loss, he did have the experience with the world and cognitive capacity to think critically. Sam could perceive the difference between John the Hero and his father's failure to be there for his sons. John likely had very powerful reasons for prioritizing people's safety over the celebration of rituals and life events, but the truth remains that Sam had repeated experiences of feeling powerless in the face of constant danger without his father's presence and support.
Dean could see that his offer of John was lacking, and goes to great lengths to shore up his father's image and hide John's prioritization of other's needs over his son's.
DEAN: Sam, wake up. Dad was here. Look what he brought.
SAM: Dad was here?
DEAN: Yeah, look at this, we made a killing.
SAM: Why didn't he try to wake me up?
DEAN: He tried to like a thousand times.
SAM: He did?
DEAN: Yeah, did I tell you he would give us Christmas, or what?
A Very Supernatural Christmas
But it wasn't enough.
Imagine, if you would, two young children in the midst of war zone. Even in the midst of the most horrific of circumstances, life goes on. When possible, adults work, shop, prepare food and try to keep their children fed and sheltered. Children play and learn what and where they can. People take joy in visiting with friends and family. Life goes on as well as it is able even in the midst of war, just as life went on around Dean and Sam. But make no mistake, violence is present in all its rawest and most disturbing forms, and everyone is affected by it. Rumors of horrific acts reach your ears daily and you never know when it's coming for you and yours. Now imagine Sam and Dean in that war zone, and their father has to leave them to fend for themselves for long periods of time without someone bigger than themselves for them to rely on for help. They are alone.
Sam and Dean lived in a war zone. Their father's journal contained the testament to the battle that was being fought every day, even though life continued to go on around them. Can you wonder, then, that Sam - with a young child's understanding of such things - lost his trust in his father? If the world was such a dangerous place, then why was Dad choosing to leave his and Dean's safety in the hands of a 9 year old with a shotgun?
DEAN: Look, I'm sure Dad would have been here if he could.
SAM: If he's alive.
DEAN: Don't say that. Of course he's alive. He's Dad.
SAM: Here, take this.
DEAN: No, it's for Dad.
SAM: Dad lied to me. I want you to have it.
A Very Supernatural Christmas
Sam's loss of trust in his father had significant consequences for how he fit into his family.
Where Dean identified with his father and took on John's definition of family and the family's values, Sam didn't have the trust in his father to accept them uncritically. They didn't have the same value for him. For Dean, John's demands for compliance made sense. They were the lifeline to which he clung. Making sacrifices in their service was thus justified.
Sam didn't have that foundation of trust in John. He hadn't been traumatized by the supernatural but by John's choices, and so he also didn't have that belief that what John was demanding of him had a purpose above and beyond the fact that his father saw the world a certain way and wanted it so. In Sam's experience, he had the ability to see how all these other families were functioning just fine without sacrificing their sense of security, emotional intimacy outside the family, and any desires that didn't serve the family's mission. In fact, from Sam's point of view, it was likely John's "obsession" that kept the family immersed in situations that brought Evil to their door and created the very conditions which required the sacrifices. Other families didn't live like they lived and yet they were safe, so why then must his family plunge headlong into the breach?
DEAN: So, what are you going to do? You just going to live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?
SAM: No. Not normal. Safe.
Pilot
And so, when Sam complied with John's demands, he did so, not to preserve what he loved, but to be loved.
These are the lines we draw about each other
Have you ever seen the movie, Boxing Helena? It was directed by Jennifer Lynch, David Lynch's daughter. The plot, in a nutshell, involves the twisted relationship between a very vibrant and vocal woman (Helena) and a shy and inhibit but brilliant surgeon (Nick).
Through a series of circumstances that strain credulity, eventually Helena comes to live with and depend upon Nick. He adores her but is so threatened by her personality, that after he was forced to amputate he legs after an accident, he ends up slowly whittling away pieces of her. Although he tries, Nick never quite makes her "manageable."
There is very little room for in-between in a rigid family system. It's like eating family-style versus a buffet dinner. Choosing the parts that you like and doing something different for the parts you don't isn't really an option. Either you eat what's set in front of you or you go hungry. In a rigid family system, either you comply with the demands to conform or eventually you are expelled from the family.
Family systems tend to have feedback mechanisms by which its members are kept "in line." As terrible as John's fears were and as rigid as the family rules were to address his fears, there would have been some pretty strong reactions to any attempts on Sam's part to be anything other than what John wanted. We don't know much about how John disciplined Sam or how Dean reacted to Sam's expression of the desire to do things like play soccer instead of bow-hunting. But, we do know how they reacted once Sam was older.
SAM: Dad never treated you like that, you were perfect. He was all over my case.
DEAN: Maybe he had to raise his voice sometimes, but you were out of line.
SAM: Right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bow-hunting.
DEAN: Bow-hunting's an important skill.
Bugs
JOHN: Yeah. You left. Your brother and me, we needed you. You walked away, Sam, you walked away!
Dead Man's Blood
DEAN: You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Don’t care what anybody thinks.
Scarecrow
Selfish. A disappointment. There's actually nothing that works so well as shame and guilt-induction to modify the behavior of a child who craves your love and attention. And I submit that Sam loved his father deeply, and wanted to please him, but felt forced between choosing John's regard and, in a sense, his own soul.
JOHN: It’s good to see you again. It’s been a long time.
SAM: Too long.
Shadow
SAM: Before, before he- did he say anything to you? About anything?
Everybody Loves a Clown
All Hell Breaks Loose 2
In order to remain a member of the Winchester family in good standing, Sam was required to comply, to cut off parts of himself, to be "boxed" in much the same way that Nick attempted to box Helena, in order to preserve the attachment. Losing the regard of your family is devastating for a young child. It's hardly a choice.
(As an aside: Dean, too, complied with John's demands in order to feel "seen" and loved by his father, but he had the additional motivation of that gut-level "we're doing this to survive because the world can come crashing down about our ears at any time," that Sam lacked. It afforded Dean some protection from the loss and despair that Sam experienced. I think the fact that it was a survival mechanism for Dean made it possible for him to sacrifice as much as he did - which is clearly not a good thing.)
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Next to come, Chapter 7: On Sam In the Box
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Chapter 1: On the Siren's Call
Chapter 2: On John the Man
Chapter 3: On John the Father
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Chapter 4: On Dean The Motherless Child
Chapter 5: On Dean the Heart of the Family
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Chapter 6: On Sam Born of Love and Loss
Chapter 7: On Sam in the Box
Chapter 8: On Sam out of the Box
Chapter 9 : On Sam Captive on a Carousel of Time
Chapter 10: On Sam Power Can Be Taken, But Not Given
Chapter 11: On Sam From Here Forward
Chapter 12: On Sam Out of the Box Redux
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Chapter 13: On SamnDean Putting Away Childish Things
Chapter 14: On SamnDean Triangles are a Demon's Best Friend
Chapter 15: On SamnDean Stop the Carousel I Want to Get Off
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credit goes to
oxoniensis and marishna of summerskin for the screencaps