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May. 17th, 2007 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseI read ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
throughadoor's comments on Sam in AHBL part 1 and basically his character arc over the last two seasons. (Obviously, major SPOILERS.) For some reason she articulated a lot of stuff that, as soon as I read it, I thought, "oh duh!" and wondered why I hadn't been able to articulate that myself. About the differences between Sam last season and this season. Anyway, that may interest you all as well.
Somebody - I think it might even have been TWOP, but I read so much junk about an episode pretty much as soon as I've seen it, so I'm not sure - said post-"What Is And What Should Never Be" that after seeing this episode, Dean's entire character arc throughout the season made sense and, in retrospect, looked a lot more clever than it might have seemed the first time around. From subtler stuff like in "Simon Says" when he bitches about reheated gas station food right through to the big obvious moments in "Hunted" when he asks Sam to just take a break - it all paid off in a major way in "What Is And What Should Never Be". And actually, I think that's incredibly gratifying, as a fan, to have an episode where every second line you're thinking, wow, that comes from here, and that comes from here," and man, continuity. Continuity is fucking awesome.
I particularly liked the waythroughadoor gave Sam a unifying motivation and direction, and I was thinking a bit about what Dean's could be - I want to say it's something more than just "protect Sam", because I want a solution that can also give me an answer for a question like... I don't know. Every time I read a futurefic where Dean has kids and he teaches them how to hunt, I take a major break and say, huh. And I really want to know whether Dean really would raise his kids like he was raised. I actually would almost buy Sam doing it more than I buy Dean doing it, but I don't know why I feel like that.
I mean. I think a fairly obvious motivation for Dean is "protect the family", and while John was still alive that really involved hunting, because that was a big part of the way John interacted with his family, in terms of Mary's death and his struggle. John himself seems to have seen it as a big part of his family (comments in "Dead Man's Blood" notwithstanding). So when John died I think a big part of Dean's motivation for seeing the hunt as a part of his family life died too. And yet in "Bloodlust" he was pretty obviously happy to be back on the road. So something else must have changed, which is presumably Sam's Big Honking Destiny, because a few episodes later he is all about quitting.
So I guess the question is, do I really buy that he wants to leave the hunt? I don't know. Earlier in the season and in the first season Dean really seemed to get a satisfaction out of saving people. In the second season it looks like the personal cost to him becomes so great that he doesn't get a satisfaction out of saving people anymore, because it brings him into contact with stuff that puts Sam at big risk (of turning evil, of getting stabbed in the back by a Marine, whatever.)
*shrug* I don't know. All I know is that whenever I try to stick Dean with a prevailing motivation I end up qualifying it and fucking around with it, because I think I also believe that Dean's desire to quit hunting is genuine but temporary - like, if he could be convinced Sam was out of danger, and he could keep hunting without the personal costs that, say, John suffered, he would still want to.
Aaaand a final comment: my one real prediction for this season was that we'd see some kind of prophecy, and we so haven't? So I'm surprised. OTOH, a destiny is a pretty good replacement.
throughadoor's comments on Sam in AHBL part 1 and basically his character arc over the last two seasons. (Obviously, major SPOILERS.) For some reason she articulated a lot of stuff that, as soon as I read it, I thought, "oh duh!" and wondered why I hadn't been able to articulate that myself. About the differences between Sam last season and this season. Anyway, that may interest you all as well.Somebody - I think it might even have been TWOP, but I read so much junk about an episode pretty much as soon as I've seen it, so I'm not sure - said post-"What Is And What Should Never Be" that after seeing this episode, Dean's entire character arc throughout the season made sense and, in retrospect, looked a lot more clever than it might have seemed the first time around. From subtler stuff like in "Simon Says" when he bitches about reheated gas station food right through to the big obvious moments in "Hunted" when he asks Sam to just take a break - it all paid off in a major way in "What Is And What Should Never Be". And actually, I think that's incredibly gratifying, as a fan, to have an episode where every second line you're thinking, wow, that comes from here, and that comes from here," and man, continuity. Continuity is fucking awesome.
I particularly liked the way
throughadoor gave Sam a unifying motivation and direction, and I was thinking a bit about what Dean's could be - I want to say it's something more than just "protect Sam", because I want a solution that can also give me an answer for a question like... I don't know. Every time I read a futurefic where Dean has kids and he teaches them how to hunt, I take a major break and say, huh. And I really want to know whether Dean really would raise his kids like he was raised. I actually would almost buy Sam doing it more than I buy Dean doing it, but I don't know why I feel like that. I mean. I think a fairly obvious motivation for Dean is "protect the family", and while John was still alive that really involved hunting, because that was a big part of the way John interacted with his family, in terms of Mary's death and his struggle. John himself seems to have seen it as a big part of his family (comments in "Dead Man's Blood" notwithstanding). So when John died I think a big part of Dean's motivation for seeing the hunt as a part of his family life died too. And yet in "Bloodlust" he was pretty obviously happy to be back on the road. So something else must have changed, which is presumably Sam's Big Honking Destiny, because a few episodes later he is all about quitting.
So I guess the question is, do I really buy that he wants to leave the hunt? I don't know. Earlier in the season and in the first season Dean really seemed to get a satisfaction out of saving people. In the second season it looks like the personal cost to him becomes so great that he doesn't get a satisfaction out of saving people anymore, because it brings him into contact with stuff that puts Sam at big risk (of turning evil, of getting stabbed in the back by a Marine, whatever.)
*shrug* I don't know. All I know is that whenever I try to stick Dean with a prevailing motivation I end up qualifying it and fucking around with it, because I think I also believe that Dean's desire to quit hunting is genuine but temporary - like, if he could be convinced Sam was out of danger, and he could keep hunting without the personal costs that, say, John suffered, he would still want to.
Aaaand a final comment: my one real prediction for this season was that we'd see some kind of prophecy, and we so haven't? So I'm surprised. OTOH, a destiny is a pretty good replacement.
