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Apr. 1st, 2007 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseI went to a party last night and deliberately came home early because I had work this morning, and the neighbours on both sides were also having a fucking party. And the other side is a four-lane highway. Siiiigh.
Anyway, um, I kind of have some meta!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ethrosdemon hosts Sunday Meta once a week, and it's not Sunday there but it is here. (And actually, I think she might be away this week. I have the best timing, like, ever.) I've been wanting to do something for it since she started because, you know, cool, and this week I actually do have something I can sort of talk about. This is not one of those clever, way thought out pieces of acafan writing on The Way Fandom Is, though, mostly because I can't handle that jandal. Although I like to read it. This is, in fact, really pretty shallow, which you can tell because I basically want to compare this one episode of Dark Angel to S2 of Supernatural.
SPOILERS right through to HEART.
A few days ago I was bored - well, okay, I was trying to avoid doing my homework - so I sat down to re-watch a couple of episodes of Dark Angel, and one of the first episodes I hit on was "Two." This episode comes early-ish in the second season: Max has bust up Manticore and a whole bunch of fellow transgenics are escaped and living underground, including her pal Joshua, a big, tough, but basically a giant puppy canine/human transgenic. In this episode, something is killing people and ripping out their tongues. One victim identifies Joshua, and Max goes haring off to find him. Eventually she discovers that the culprit is actually Isaac, Joshua's younger brother. Joshua explains that he has known it was Joshua doing the killing but he didn't want Isaac hurt - he actually throws Max against a wall to stop her going after Isaac. When Joshua and Isaac were young, Isaac, who was "sensitive", was abused by Manticore guards, eventually having his tongue ripped out. Now, of course, he's crazy and killing policemen because "when he sees [them], he sees Manticore guards." This is all well and good and tragic but Max isn't having any of it and after a showdown they both go after Isaac. They find him; there's a tussle; at last, Joshua kills Isaac to stop him killing Max.
Finally, there's a scene at Isaac's grave. Joshua tells Max that he promised his father that he'd take care of Isaac and not let him get hurt. Max tells him that he was a good brother, and that though she's sad Isaac's dead she's kinda happy she's alive.
Naturally, I couldn't help comparing the deliciously anvillicious fraternal angst to my favourite example of heavy-handed brotherly concern, Supernatural. In season two, a major recurring plotline/mode of character development has been Dean and Sam's concern that Sam may "go darkside" and have to be put down. In the services of emphasising this, in this season the MOTWs (MsOTW?) have become more sympathetic, less unambiguously evil, and in one case out-and-out not even a little bit evil (vampires in Bloodlust that have chosen to chow down on cows rather than kiddies in order to escape being hunted and killed. They certainly have their own best interests at heart, but it's their actions that count. Amber Benson's character actually developed that futher, indicating unexplicitly that she was struggling not to give into her base instincts - a characteristic generally praised.)
The latest example of this is in Heart - Sam and Dean meet a girl, Madison, who they discover is a werewolf, only it turns out she doesn't realise it and has no control over her other form. After attempting to cure her they realise she cannot be contained and she asks them to kill her, which they do. This is very tough for Sam who does the killin', and Dean who has to watch Sam get all upset. Anyway, in the episode Sam explicitly draws the comparison between him and Madison. This is a useless comparison and I'm going to say why real soon.
When Joshua kills Isaac, two things about the context are important:
1. he is about to kill Max and
2. it appears to be a last resort; Joshua has tried to communicate with Isaac but Isaac has continued to mistakenly kill.
If you accept that Isaac would continue to kill, and there is no other way to contain him that doesn't endanger others (due to the whole transgenic thing), it seems that Joshua's actions were "right" in the sense that it would have been wrong to let Isaac continue killing. Isaac, once the sensitive younger brother (awww) has been tortured out of his right mind and cannot be reasoned with. In fact, the entire moral structure of this episode hinges on this fact: if he could have been reasoned with, rather than killed or contained, Max and Joshua would have had a moral imperative to do so rather than kill him.
Here's where Sam and Dean come back in. There appear to be two sides to their fears for Sam. One is that Sam may become an unwilling tool of the Ceiling Demon, using his powers of... having a massive migraine and vague precognitive dreams... as weapons on the Side of Evil. In my considered and not especially humble opinion, this is both the least interesting and the least serious of the two fears. For one thing, Sam's already been posessed (in "Born Under a Bad Sign") and while, yup, he was scary, it had more to do with his ridiculous height and the skills he's learned as a hunter than anything else - in short, nothing Dean doesn't also have.
The second fear appears to be that Sam is somehow innately evil, destined to become evil, or is likely to be somehow forced or persuaded into choosing to be evil. Sam being innately evil is pretty easy to deal to - he just ain't. Sam being destined to choose to be evil, though, that's another matter. If Sam really is destined to become irrevocably evil, then he's right - Dean will have to kill him (or otherwise incapacitate him, but I guess we're supposed to assume that Sam could use his Evil Migraines to break out of maximum-security prison. Whatever, yo.) Similarly with Madison - she was irrevocably a werewolf and uncontainable. Poor Madison, though, because in other ways her problem had a lot more in common with a posession - she didn't have any control. Presuming Sam is innately evil, Sam himself would still be in control - he wouldn't be a Sam present-Sam would like, but he'd still be Sam.
But... I think Madison is a useless example, and that's because I don't think Sam is innately evil. I mean, yeah, I guess the whole point of the season is to have us be on tenterhooks wondering if the demon's going to show up and flip some kind of a switch and badabing, badaboom, we're stuck with Evil!Sam the whole time (... and let's all confess, who among us would mind much?) but I don't expect that to happen. Nope. I expect lots and lots and lots of angst because - again, in my opinion - it is Sam's very worry about his own nature that prooves that he just is not that evil. Which is not to say it's not possible for him to become evil in some way, just that if he does become evil, it will be out of a series of his own choices - not because the demon said so. And this is where he's like Isaac.
Isaac became as he is as a response to stimuli - his father abandoned him, he became depressed. The guards cut out his tongue, he became angry. He was neglected and abused and then thrown out onto the streets to fend for himself - he went crazy and became a psycho killer. Were Sam to become evil, come on, we all know how it goes, the same way it went for Max Miller and Weber (Andy's evil twin) - mommy dies when he's little, he gets a screwed up family life (although Sam lucked out with Dean, as we know. *squidges*) Family life is screwed up, he decides he wants to strive for normalcy. Normalcy is shattered by girlfriend's death, he gets depressed and goes on the road. Bad Shit happens, he develops ESP, he starts to be concerned about his inner workings. Papa dies and Dean nearly does too, Sam develops massive guilt complex. More Bad Shit happens, Sam makes Dean promise to kill him. And the rest is spec, but basically: some more Bad Shit happens, Sam gets posessed or accidentally kills someone, he gets more angst. Someone close to the boys dies, Dean dies, Sam becomes more and more ruthless and eventually goes off the rails. 1000 fanfics, etc.
So... is Dean ever going to need to kill Sam? Well... maybe? If Sam's innately evil and unable to be contained, like Madison, then yes: to be a good brother, he would have to kill Sam. If Sam's not innately evil - that really depends whether or not Sam goes crazy, and the deciding factor in this - snap! - is Dean. In "Nightmare", Dean himself actually acknowledged this, telling Sam that nothing bad would happen to him while he, Dean, was around. He didn't always seem that sure about it but I think it was true then and it's true now, and Dean realising this can't come to soon for me.
Okay, so that was kind of tl;dr, but that's OK! :D I feel all thinky and, um, I also want to go watch some more Supernatural instead of doing my reading. Bad me, no cookie.
Anyway, um, I kind of have some meta!
ethrosdemon hosts Sunday Meta once a week, and it's not Sunday there but it is here. (And actually, I think she might be away this week. I have the best timing, like, ever.) I've been wanting to do something for it since she started because, you know, cool, and this week I actually do have something I can sort of talk about. This is not one of those clever, way thought out pieces of acafan writing on The Way Fandom Is, though, mostly because I can't handle that jandal. Although I like to read it. This is, in fact, really pretty shallow, which you can tell because I basically want to compare this one episode of Dark Angel to S2 of Supernatural. SPOILERS right through to HEART.
A few days ago I was bored - well, okay, I was trying to avoid doing my homework - so I sat down to re-watch a couple of episodes of Dark Angel, and one of the first episodes I hit on was "Two." This episode comes early-ish in the second season: Max has bust up Manticore and a whole bunch of fellow transgenics are escaped and living underground, including her pal Joshua, a big, tough, but basically a giant puppy canine/human transgenic. In this episode, something is killing people and ripping out their tongues. One victim identifies Joshua, and Max goes haring off to find him. Eventually she discovers that the culprit is actually Isaac, Joshua's younger brother. Joshua explains that he has known it was Joshua doing the killing but he didn't want Isaac hurt - he actually throws Max against a wall to stop her going after Isaac. When Joshua and Isaac were young, Isaac, who was "sensitive", was abused by Manticore guards, eventually having his tongue ripped out. Now, of course, he's crazy and killing policemen because "when he sees [them], he sees Manticore guards." This is all well and good and tragic but Max isn't having any of it and after a showdown they both go after Isaac. They find him; there's a tussle; at last, Joshua kills Isaac to stop him killing Max.
Finally, there's a scene at Isaac's grave. Joshua tells Max that he promised his father that he'd take care of Isaac and not let him get hurt. Max tells him that he was a good brother, and that though she's sad Isaac's dead she's kinda happy she's alive.
Naturally, I couldn't help comparing the deliciously anvillicious fraternal angst to my favourite example of heavy-handed brotherly concern, Supernatural. In season two, a major recurring plotline/mode of character development has been Dean and Sam's concern that Sam may "go darkside" and have to be put down. In the services of emphasising this, in this season the MOTWs (MsOTW?) have become more sympathetic, less unambiguously evil, and in one case out-and-out not even a little bit evil (vampires in Bloodlust that have chosen to chow down on cows rather than kiddies in order to escape being hunted and killed. They certainly have their own best interests at heart, but it's their actions that count. Amber Benson's character actually developed that futher, indicating unexplicitly that she was struggling not to give into her base instincts - a characteristic generally praised.)
The latest example of this is in Heart - Sam and Dean meet a girl, Madison, who they discover is a werewolf, only it turns out she doesn't realise it and has no control over her other form. After attempting to cure her they realise she cannot be contained and she asks them to kill her, which they do. This is very tough for Sam who does the killin', and Dean who has to watch Sam get all upset. Anyway, in the episode Sam explicitly draws the comparison between him and Madison. This is a useless comparison and I'm going to say why real soon.
When Joshua kills Isaac, two things about the context are important:
1. he is about to kill Max and
2. it appears to be a last resort; Joshua has tried to communicate with Isaac but Isaac has continued to mistakenly kill.
If you accept that Isaac would continue to kill, and there is no other way to contain him that doesn't endanger others (due to the whole transgenic thing), it seems that Joshua's actions were "right" in the sense that it would have been wrong to let Isaac continue killing. Isaac, once the sensitive younger brother (awww) has been tortured out of his right mind and cannot be reasoned with. In fact, the entire moral structure of this episode hinges on this fact: if he could have been reasoned with, rather than killed or contained, Max and Joshua would have had a moral imperative to do so rather than kill him.
Here's where Sam and Dean come back in. There appear to be two sides to their fears for Sam. One is that Sam may become an unwilling tool of the Ceiling Demon, using his powers of... having a massive migraine and vague precognitive dreams... as weapons on the Side of Evil. In my considered and not especially humble opinion, this is both the least interesting and the least serious of the two fears. For one thing, Sam's already been posessed (in "Born Under a Bad Sign") and while, yup, he was scary, it had more to do with his ridiculous height and the skills he's learned as a hunter than anything else - in short, nothing Dean doesn't also have.
The second fear appears to be that Sam is somehow innately evil, destined to become evil, or is likely to be somehow forced or persuaded into choosing to be evil. Sam being innately evil is pretty easy to deal to - he just ain't. Sam being destined to choose to be evil, though, that's another matter. If Sam really is destined to become irrevocably evil, then he's right - Dean will have to kill him (or otherwise incapacitate him, but I guess we're supposed to assume that Sam could use his Evil Migraines to break out of maximum-security prison. Whatever, yo.) Similarly with Madison - she was irrevocably a werewolf and uncontainable. Poor Madison, though, because in other ways her problem had a lot more in common with a posession - she didn't have any control. Presuming Sam is innately evil, Sam himself would still be in control - he wouldn't be a Sam present-Sam would like, but he'd still be Sam.
But... I think Madison is a useless example, and that's because I don't think Sam is innately evil. I mean, yeah, I guess the whole point of the season is to have us be on tenterhooks wondering if the demon's going to show up and flip some kind of a switch and badabing, badaboom, we're stuck with Evil!Sam the whole time (... and let's all confess, who among us would mind much?) but I don't expect that to happen. Nope. I expect lots and lots and lots of angst because - again, in my opinion - it is Sam's very worry about his own nature that prooves that he just is not that evil. Which is not to say it's not possible for him to become evil in some way, just that if he does become evil, it will be out of a series of his own choices - not because the demon said so. And this is where he's like Isaac.
Isaac became as he is as a response to stimuli - his father abandoned him, he became depressed. The guards cut out his tongue, he became angry. He was neglected and abused and then thrown out onto the streets to fend for himself - he went crazy and became a psycho killer. Were Sam to become evil, come on, we all know how it goes, the same way it went for Max Miller and Weber (Andy's evil twin) - mommy dies when he's little, he gets a screwed up family life (although Sam lucked out with Dean, as we know. *squidges*) Family life is screwed up, he decides he wants to strive for normalcy. Normalcy is shattered by girlfriend's death, he gets depressed and goes on the road. Bad Shit happens, he develops ESP, he starts to be concerned about his inner workings. Papa dies and Dean nearly does too, Sam develops massive guilt complex. More Bad Shit happens, Sam makes Dean promise to kill him. And the rest is spec, but basically: some more Bad Shit happens, Sam gets posessed or accidentally kills someone, he gets more angst. Someone close to the boys dies, Dean dies, Sam becomes more and more ruthless and eventually goes off the rails. 1000 fanfics, etc.
So... is Dean ever going to need to kill Sam? Well... maybe? If Sam's innately evil and unable to be contained, like Madison, then yes: to be a good brother, he would have to kill Sam. If Sam's not innately evil - that really depends whether or not Sam goes crazy, and the deciding factor in this - snap! - is Dean. In "Nightmare", Dean himself actually acknowledged this, telling Sam that nothing bad would happen to him while he, Dean, was around. He didn't always seem that sure about it but I think it was true then and it's true now, and Dean realising this can't come to soon for me.
Okay, so that was kind of tl;dr, but that's OK! :D I feel all thinky and, um, I also want to go watch some more Supernatural instead of doing my reading. Bad me, no cookie.
