Meta: Dean Winchester is a sociopath (SPN, 9.01-9.05)
Topic: Early Season 9 - the method-madness of Dean Winchester - what is plot
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the CW or Supernatural. All opinions are my own.
Dean Winchester is a sociopath.
Well, Late Career Dean is, anyway. Like other TV sociopaths, he's incredibly charming when he needs to be, but then also incredibly ready to use the people that have fallen in love with that charm to achieve his immediate objectives (Kevin, stay with us, you're Family! Who cares about your mum? Cas, stop killing me, you're Family! Oops, I'm throwing you out! Hi Benny! I may have ditched you in your hour of need, but could you please stand there while I decapitate you, Brother?). And then there's the lying. Oh, the lying.
Cas: You lied.
Dean: I did. I do that. (Probably my favourite line of the season so far - Jensen's delivery was awesome.)
You could argue that all this is not so much amoral as it is madly-in-love-with-his-brother, but the line between love and obsession has gotten pretty thin, especially with the angel possession development. Zachariah's diagnosis of "psychotically codependent" was funny-because-somewhat-accurate in Season 5, when Dean eventually allowed Sam to choose to sacrifice himself to save the world; in Season 9, it's so accurate it's not funny -- Dean sacrifices not only the greater good but Sam's free will to keep his brother with him. You could also argue that Saving Sam, Hunting Things constitutes its own special Dean morality. But is that actually a moral standard (because then so is the Nazi Conscience), or more of an internalised, fanaticised adherence to the John Winchester Prime Directives?
None of this is a complaint. In fact, it's such a subtle and interesting part of Dean's character arc that I'm not sure if the writers actually intended it (sorry guys, but you haven't exactly been the most careful or observant of storytellers, c.f. the gazillion plot holes and random Euripidean WTFs in, oh, every single episode in the last two or three seasons). But there seems to me to be a definite trajectory from, say, his decision to wipe Lisa and Ben's memories (which was portrayed as an incredibly painful, sacrificial though still high-handed decision), to the fake-Amelia-text debacle from last season (portrayed as casual, almost thoughtless, and perpetrated on the person Dean supposedly loves most).
And of course the really interesting part is that this is the same guy who is the opposite of unfeeling 99% of the time. This is the guy who loves his car and his room and gets excited about superheroes and the Wild West. Who puts his body on the line for ingrates every week (hero or adrenaline junkie? probably both) and, if you take seriously the debacle that is 9.05, frees dogs from the pound because That Just Ain't Right (assisted by Eskimo-powered canine empathy, sure). And if Dean is all about the Using People, Hunting Things, then why did he just let his resourceful genius BFF traipse off to CGI Land with her Once-Upon-A-Time-copycat love interest instead of completing her Plot Device Computer Rewiring/Windows Commercial Mission? (P.S. Noooooo, Charlie, come back!)
Dean has always been a mix of tender and terrifying, and, now that I think about it, the expansion of the terrifying (and/or infuriating) parts may not be as out of character as I previously thought. With both hell and purgatory in his rearview mirror, it's no surprise that he has been both brother and torturer, martyr and hedonist, tough guy and nurturer, dog whisperer and necromancing obsessionist. (Incidentally, the real parallel at the end of 9.05 is not in the fact that both Chef Frankencannibal and Sam are "taken over" by animal and angel spirits respectively, but in the way Dean, like the chef, keeps MacGyvering himself ways to keep a dying man alive, screw the collateral damage.)
So, has there been a surprising undercurrent of consistency and character development amidst the poodle potshots and feeble plots that have plagued Season 9 so far? Or is it just my Deannish powers of retcon and denial?
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the CW or Supernatural. All opinions are my own.
Dean Winchester is a sociopath.
Well, Late Career Dean is, anyway. Like other TV sociopaths, he's incredibly charming when he needs to be, but then also incredibly ready to use the people that have fallen in love with that charm to achieve his immediate objectives (Kevin, stay with us, you're Family! Who cares about your mum? Cas, stop killing me, you're Family! Oops, I'm throwing you out! Hi Benny! I may have ditched you in your hour of need, but could you please stand there while I decapitate you, Brother?). And then there's the lying. Oh, the lying.
Cas: You lied.
Dean: I did. I do that. (Probably my favourite line of the season so far - Jensen's delivery was awesome.)
You could argue that all this is not so much amoral as it is madly-in-love-with-his-brother, but the line between love and obsession has gotten pretty thin, especially with the angel possession development. Zachariah's diagnosis of "psychotically codependent" was funny-because-somewhat-accurate in Season 5, when Dean eventually allowed Sam to choose to sacrifice himself to save the world; in Season 9, it's so accurate it's not funny -- Dean sacrifices not only the greater good but Sam's free will to keep his brother with him. You could also argue that Saving Sam, Hunting Things constitutes its own special Dean morality. But is that actually a moral standard (because then so is the Nazi Conscience), or more of an internalised, fanaticised adherence to the John Winchester Prime Directives?
None of this is a complaint. In fact, it's such a subtle and interesting part of Dean's character arc that I'm not sure if the writers actually intended it (sorry guys, but you haven't exactly been the most careful or observant of storytellers, c.f. the gazillion plot holes and random Euripidean WTFs in, oh, every single episode in the last two or three seasons). But there seems to me to be a definite trajectory from, say, his decision to wipe Lisa and Ben's memories (which was portrayed as an incredibly painful, sacrificial though still high-handed decision), to the fake-Amelia-text debacle from last season (portrayed as casual, almost thoughtless, and perpetrated on the person Dean supposedly loves most).
And of course the really interesting part is that this is the same guy who is the opposite of unfeeling 99% of the time. This is the guy who loves his car and his room and gets excited about superheroes and the Wild West. Who puts his body on the line for ingrates every week (hero or adrenaline junkie? probably both) and, if you take seriously the debacle that is 9.05, frees dogs from the pound because That Just Ain't Right (assisted by Eskimo-powered canine empathy, sure). And if Dean is all about the Using People, Hunting Things, then why did he just let his resourceful genius BFF traipse off to CGI Land with her Once-Upon-A-Time-copycat love interest instead of completing her Plot Device Computer Rewiring/Windows Commercial Mission? (P.S. Noooooo, Charlie, come back!)
Dean has always been a mix of tender and terrifying, and, now that I think about it, the expansion of the terrifying (and/or infuriating) parts may not be as out of character as I previously thought. With both hell and purgatory in his rearview mirror, it's no surprise that he has been both brother and torturer, martyr and hedonist, tough guy and nurturer, dog whisperer and necromancing obsessionist. (Incidentally, the real parallel at the end of 9.05 is not in the fact that both Chef Frankencannibal and Sam are "taken over" by animal and angel spirits respectively, but in the way Dean, like the chef, keeps MacGyvering himself ways to keep a dying man alive, screw the collateral damage.)
So, has there been a surprising undercurrent of consistency and character development amidst the poodle potshots and feeble plots that have plagued Season 9 so far? Or is it just my Deannish powers of retcon and denial?