Thoughts about Sam and Dean and responsibility and forgiveness and heartbroken little faces

[caranfindel]

stir_of_echoes was kind enough to make GIFs for part of Sympathy for the Devil (5.01) for me. (Go. Look. It is awesome and heartbreaking.) And it turns out I have a lot of thoughts about this. To me, it is one of the saddest scenes in the entire series. And that’s saying a lot.





First… damn. Look at Sam’s face (I borrowed one GIF but really, you need to go view the entire gifset, not just this one, and then tell her thanks for BREAKING YOUR DAMN HEART). Look at him mustering up the courage to tell Bobby what he did. Look at him admitting responsibility. (Dean, this is how you apologize.) And then watch him crumble, watch his heart crack into pieces (how amazing is Jared?) when Bobby rejects him. I saw this comment on Tumblr and it just hurts: Look at this face, knowing this is 27-year-old Sam Winchester, hearing an old family friend/father figure tell him to lose his number because he started the Apocalypse. Now, imagine 17-year-old Sam Winchester’s face, hearing his actual father tell him to never come back if he leaves to accept his free ride to Stanford. SHIT. (Actually, I think 17-year-old Sam would have been angry before he was sad. BUT STILL. AT SOME POINT HE LOOKED THIS CRUSHED, BUT 10 YEARS YOUNGER.)

Excuse me for a minute. I have to compose myself.

Second… How does Sam respond to Bobby’s rejection? He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t lash out. He just accepts it. Watch his little nod there at the end. He knows he fucked up, he hasn’t forgiven himself, and as much as it hurts, he doesn’t expect Bobby to forgive him either.

Third… Looking back, once you get past Sam’s face (sob), the worst part to me is how Dean reacts. He does nothing. Not when Bobby makes his pronouncement, not when Sam leaves, not later when he’s alone with Demon!Bobby, who says more horrible things about Sam (he may possibly start to defend Sam, but it sounds weak at best, and he’s distracted by his realization about the storage place). Not even at the end of the episode, when we’re reminded that those words were spoken by a demon, not by Bobby. Is it because Dean agrees Sam has done something that can’t be forgiven (and if so, has it occurred to him he’s agreeing with a demon, and isn’t that a little ironic considering he’s so angry at Sam because he listened to a demon instead of Dean)? Or is he just so thoroughly molded into the good soldier that he's unable to disagree with any fatherly authority figure? Or both? What do you think Dean looked like when John gave his ultimatum? I imagine it was a lot like what we saw here. Dean, feeling hurt and betrayed by Sam, not daring and/or wanting to disagree with John.

Lest this be considered Dean-bashing, let me point out again that I love Dean. I really do. It’s just not the put-him-on-a-pedestal type of love that says “Saint Dean has sacrificed his whole life for Sam and others and has never done anything wrong and they’re all so meeeeeaaaaaan to him, especially Sam.” Because it’s not true, and because that Dean would be pretty boring, honestly.

No, I love flawed, human Dean. The Dean who is heroic and brave and self-sacrificing but is also selfish and vindictive and petty. The Dean who accepts blame for things that couldn’t possibly be his fault, but shrugs off responsibility for things he actually did. The Dean who sets impossible expectations for himself and others, and is disappointed when they are not met. The Dean who literally dies for others and then resents them for not being worthy of that level of sacrifice. The Dean who loves his little brother desperately, but is occasionally cruel to him, because that’s how people are.

But this? This is why I'm 55% Samgirl. 

Comments

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Dean who accepts blame for things that couldn’t possibly be his fault, but shrugs off responsibility for things he actually did.

Great summation of why Dean Winchester is such a riveting character that I have to keep watching!

[freya922.livejournal.com]

Looking back at Sam's face at that moment "Bobby" disowned him...and reading your directive to imagine the 17 year old version when John disowned him... *sob*

I love both boys madly, and I find your post so insightful because it looks at the flaws as well as the heroism in both... and I do think these past weeks people have been just crazy anti-Sam. I don't get how easily people forget all he's been through. People DO screw up. People do hurt, and say things in anger and frustration when their message never seems to get through, however delivered.

I want him to say he was ready to die and why wouldn't Dean do what's best for him, what he wants? And I want Dean to say that he wasn't sure, considering Sam'd been full of hope before the trials, and there wasn't time or a chance to consult Sam before choices had to be made... and...crud.I hope we can move towards the forgiveness part soon. I hate it when they're at odds. :(

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

I want him to say he was ready to die and why wouldn't Dean do what's best for him, what he wants? And I want Dean to say that he wasn't sure, considering Sam'd been full of hope before the trials, and there wasn't time or a chance to consult Sam before choices had to be made... and...crud.

This. Yes. This needs to happen.

[stir-of-echoes.livejournal.com]

His face just breaks my heart and thinking of him at seventeen. Man, I just... *hands*

I think you're right, and Dean wouldn't have said anything back then either, and that just breaks my heart even more.

:(

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, and Dean wouldn't have said anything back then either, and that just breaks my heart even more.

It breaks my heart for both of them, because you know it tore Dean in two. :-(

[stir-of-echoes.livejournal.com]

Yes, but he wouldn't have been able to stand up to John. Wasn't yet at that place where he could question his father and that just breaks my heart because I think he would have been so torn. Caught in the middle of the two people he loved and valued most.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

The Dean who accepts blame for things that couldn’t possibly be his fault, but shrugs off responsibility for things he actually did.

I think this is actually at the root of why Dean is so unforgiving toward Sam. He's had 'you are responsible for Sam' as his foundation for so long, that I think somewhere in there, he thinks Sam's mistakes are his own, and so forgiving them would constitute forgiving himself. Which he's not good at, to say the least.

That's been the baseline of Dean's existence since he was a kid -- but at the same time, he didn't really get to be a kid, and so he never really got to grow out of it. Whereas Sam, being the youngest and with a slightly different set of expectations placed on him -- plus a bit more time on his own -- did, at least a little more, and I think that really informs what we're seeing in canon now, where they both have such different ideas of what 'the right thing' is.

(Actually, I think 17-year-old Sam would have been angry before he was sad. BUT STILL. AT SOME POINT HE LOOKED THIS CRUSHED, BUT 10 YEARS YOUNGER.)

Ouch. :( Though in some ways, I think it's even sadder that young Sam who used to get angry at John so easily is now too weary to stay up and fight with Dean.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

I think this is actually at the root of why Dean is so unforgiving toward Sam. He's had 'you are responsible for Sam' as his foundation for so long, that I think somewhere in there, he thinks Sam's mistakes are his own, and so forgiving them would constitute forgiving himself. Which he's not good at, to say the least.

Interesting theory! It's pretty clear Dean can't forgive himself, so it makes sense that if he considered Sam's mistakes his own responsibility, he couldn't forgive him either.

Ouch. :( Though in some ways, I think it's even sadder that young Sam who used to get angry at John so easily is now too weary to stay up and fight with Dean.

Yes. Too worn down, physically and emotionally, to fight about it any more.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Interesting theory! It's pretty clear Dean can't forgive himself, so it makes sense that if he considered Sam's mistakes his own responsibility, he couldn't forgive him either.

Yeah. It's awful and unhealthy, and it denies Sam his individuality -- but I also find it hard to 100% blame Dean for it, because he's had that view of them as a codependent unit impressed into him from such a young age that he doesn't know how to be any different, and, unlike Sam, he doesn't know how to want to be any different.

Ugh, I don't know if I've put that very well. It's not that I don't think Dean has any personal responsibility for his behaviour towards Sam -- of course he does. And I hope something will happen this season to make him change his attitude. But I find myself feeling sad for both of them more than angry at either of them, most of the time.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

No, I think I get what you're saying. Dean doesn't treat Sam like a separate fully functioning adult because he doesn't know how to, and he hasn't had the opportunity to learn how because he's been too busy keeping him alive, more or less. Right?

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's about it! It doesn't excuse his behaviour, but it means I find it saddening more than angering, I guess.