paellegere
crack open a cold boy
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a thesis.
#supernatural#sam winchester#spn#not gonna lie. this took more effort than just writing an essay about 1.08 bugs would have. which is insane i think#i hope this makes sense. please see my vision. sam's body is the cursed land#spn posting#.txt
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i've been putting off watching bugs all morning because i like need to prepare myself for it. not because i don't like the episode but because i love it too much. there are so many details that make my head spin and my dick rock hard and i need to be prepared for that kind of religious experience
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.08#i need to be in a headspace where my body and mind can function as a conduit for the holy word of god (eric kripke) or whatever#it's the description of their lifestyles and the instability. the insecurity. the desire to consume because of the experience of hunger#1.08 bugs you are a dream and i won't let anyone insult you#.txt
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Because I want to fit in.
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the theme of sin is strong throughout hook man, and lori is revealed as the conduit through which divine retribution is enacted upon the people she perceives as sinners. sam relates to her feeling of being cursed: jessica died, mary died, both in the same way. it's unknown yet whether sam blames himself for mary's death, but she did die in his nursery.
lori begins to blame herself, which is in the end the truth, because her necklace is channeling the hook man to punish sinners. if lori and sam are meant to be read as parallels, especially since sam has been blaming himself for jessica's death, then this episode can indicate early evidence for sam feeling wrong or bad in some way, for feeling unclean or impure. the connection between these deaths and sin through a christian lens strengthens this notion of impurity. sam has sinned by causing jessica to die.
the source of both sam and lori's guilt are rooted in the supernatural: sam had visions of jessica's death for weeks before it actually happened, and lori is summoning a ghost to enact vigilante justice according to her morals. both of them are passive receptors of these powers, unwanted and terrifying things that they reject and want to ignore or eliminate. both of them have also been raised in an environment where evil is real, and evil deserves to be condemned. for lori, these evils are embodied by human sin; for sam, these evils are literal, physical monsters.
if the monster that caused jessica's death is his visions, is his inaction toward saving her, does that make him evil? is he the very thing he's been raised to kill?
hook man takes place two episodes after bloody mary, which first hints at sam's psychic powers, and two episodes before home, which further expands on those powers. it's right in the middle, a bridge between these two developments all dressed up in language of sin and justice.
both pilot and hook man put sam in the position of the monster, but in different ways: pilot forces sam into an active role, participating directly in the harm around him through his choices, and hook man suggests his harm is more passive, a result of something inside of him or something affecting him. lori isn't aware that her feelings are causing people to die, and when she finally comes to that conclusion she prays for forgiveness. likewise, sam wasn't aware that his visions would come true, and when they finally result in jessica's death he is heavy with guilt. they both come to blame themselves for the deaths of those close to them.
this all suggests that from the beginning, sam is viewing his psychic powers as a sort of evil, one that should possibly result in his own death as justice for the harm he's done (see bloody mary, see playthings) due to that evil being inside of him.
by the time playthings rolls around, how many times has sam thought about his own death? how many times has he grappled with his own mortality? how sure is he that he's become the monster he's supposed to kill?
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.07#sam winchester#this was originally part of one big post but actually i think it should have been two posts so yeah. splitting them up#spn posting#.txt
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all right, i'm trying on an argument for hook man as an examination of sam's relationship to john.
there's a few key themes to this episode: morality (specifically of the christian variety), repressed emotions, and (subconscious) vigilante justice. sam relates to lori and forms a relationship with her, so she functions as a conduit to explore sam's psyche.
lori is a repressed reverend's daughter who was raised to believe that sin should be punished. her worldview is colored by christianity, and she's modest, mild-mannered, and hesitant to explore the world outside of her comfort zone not out of a lack of desire but as a result of conditioning in her home life. her relationship with her father is rather distraught, as she wants the independence to grow that he won't let her have. dad shelters her and disapproves of her attempts to separate from her apparently strict upbringing.
the episode opens on sam continuing his search for john. this episode is immediately after skin, which doesn't feature them looking for john but does feature sam being made aware of dean's feelings of abandonment. the shapeshifter revealed to sam that dean thinks john ditched him. this could be the impetus for sam to have continued the search. it gives him another reason to be angry—this time on dean's behalf, especially since dean himself is refusing to be outwardly angry about this despite the fact that sam knows the truth. perhaps right now he's carrying the anger for both of them.
here then is a strong parallel between lori and sam: they're both angry with their fathers. they both believe their fathers have done something wrong, and they both want to see the wrongdoings rectified—they want justice.
sam's anger at john is similar to lori's anger at her father: john raised sam and dean in unethical ways, and he should be punished for that. there's additional support from the pilot here: sam knows the way they were raised was messed up. paralleling sam and lori could therefore reveal that sam is seeking justice for what john did to him, as a B-side to dean's increasingly complicated feelings about john and his abandonment. where dean is repressing his feelings, sam is openly angry and disdainful toward john. he's had time to sit with his feelings to the point that they're more background noise to sam's character, so it makes sense that dean's feelings on john have been given more focus than sam's until this point, whereupon development can actually occur thanks to sam's new revelation. establish the anger in episode 1, give it time to fester as dean is finally awakened from his delusions, and then once sam is made aware of dean's shifting feelings, bring the focus back to him.
interesting that this episode is the introduction of a new axis upon which sam and dean will rotate: christianity. dean is shown as disdainful toward the christian faith, by letting the church door slam shut behind him, by letting a sarcastic laugh escape when the reverend expresses his joy at finding more "young people who are open to the lord’s message." sam, on the other hand, is portrayed as respectful toward christianity, as he bows his head in prayer when the reverend calls for it and nudges dean to get him to do the same.
john is positioned as a godlike figure in the narrative, specifically paralleled with the judeo-christian god as the deadbeat, neglectful, absent father. so the introduction of christianity as a theme in the same episode as the development of sam's anger at john makes for fun conclusions all around, especially when the holy man of god is simultaneously the unfaithful, strict, oppressive father. the connection is drawn between god and bad dads, and as sam and dean develop along the axis of christianity so too will this connection develop and strengthen.
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.07#sam winchester#john winchester#this was originally part of one big post but i realized i preferred it as two different posts about this episode so i split them up#idk what it is about this episode man. it's so weird to me but then when i write all of this out i'm like wow this episode fucks#idk???????????? it's bizarre#.txt#spn posting
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i know it’s a friday night in the year 2023 but i just cannot stress enough how much lisa braeden lived in cicero indiana
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1x01 - Pilot || 1x21 - Salvation
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so skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones. the allegory is told through the literal torture and murder of girlfriends by a shapeshifter wearing the face of their boyfriends. the psychological aspect is just as important as the physical aspect for this shifter—it's a betrayal, something that will destroy both parties involved and ruin their relationship (if the victim makes it out alive of course).
the shapeshifter takes dean's face: he becomes the boyfriend-murderer, and sam is therefore the girlfriend-victim. it's the first time an episode has itself had an incestuous lining on a thematic level since the pilot (interesting too that the episodes that focus on sam have placed sam and dean in the position of lovers, whereas the dean-focused episodes until now have been more platonic in nature).
throughout the episode, the emotional B story depicts both sam and dean hurting (betraying) the people who trust them. sam, for one, is trying to maintain a relationship with his college friends, but he's lying to them. it also seems like he's not being very communicative with them in the first place, since most of his recent messages are people asking where the hell he even is:
(side note, i love that sam is apparently friends with two people named john and mary. feels weirdly psychosexual)
he hurts rebecca, and zach by proxy, later in the episode by lying to her and contaminating the crime scene. his lying, through the lens of the allegory, is framed as a betrayal of trust—metaphorical abuse and torture.
the shapeshifter also brings up another betrayal: sam leaving for stanford, betraying his brother and stealing his life away by forcing dean into a difficult position where he has to abandon his own dreams so that sam can pursue his.
this is victim blaming. the shifter is hurting people because he thinks they deserve it, because he's the true victim here, because he was shunned from society and treated as a freak. this episode portrays the monster as imprinting on dean, rather than sam or dean imprinting on another character. it's the second time a parallel has been drawn between the monster and one of the brothers, the first being pilot.
the shifter speaks for dean: dean is jealous because sam has friends, a life—and dean is just a freak. the B story of the episode starts with dean telling sam that it's for the best if he cuts his ties with people, and up until this point in the episode dean is portrayed as being unilaterally correct, because sam keeps hurting people as a result of his lying.
but now it's given a different framing. even if what dean has said isn't incorrect, we can see it through a lens of selfishness and jealousy. does dean want sam to give up his life because it's truly for the best? or is it because dean wants what sam has, and he'd rather neither of them have it than watch miserably as sam achieves what he's given up on?
misery loves company.
dean apologizes for what he said at the start of the episode at the end of it, but the shapeshifter dug dean's memories and feelings out from somewhere. because the shifter is imprinting on dean, it's likely that his own experiences are intensifying the secondhand feelings he's receiving from dean, but even if that is the case, there's still something there—it's possible that right now, dean still isn't fully aware of it himself. it's possible that he is and is just trying to bury it.
regardless, we're still getting a rare glimpse into dean's true feelings here, however biased they may be. as dean's fear of abandonment unravels, dean himself is slowly coming undone, and this begins to take on a more prominent part of each episode. the ending scene of phantom traveler, too, is revisited in this same conversation:
if episodes 1-3 are introductory to sam, dean, and john respectively, then episodes 4-6 make an interesting trilogy about dean's fear of abandonment. phantom traveler introduces dean's fears and then reveal a scene at the end where dean perceives john as betraying him. bloody mary, too, includes a scene where dean perceives sam as betraying him by not being open and honest with him about his secret. these events are synthesized in this episode and elaborated on, and the fears that have been underscored through the past two episodes are finally given voice.
anyway, tangent aside, all of this culminates in the blurring of lines between the shapeshifter wearing dean's face and dean himself: there's very little difference between sam's big brother and the monster they're fighting. it helps that they share the same sentiments and anguish toward the world, the same jealousies, the same fears. where does the shifter end and dean begin? how much does the shifter speak for himself, and how much is extrapolated from dean's secondhand feelings?
is dean the real monster in this story?
skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones. the shifter takes on the likeness of various women's boyfriends/husbands. there's also an implication toward the episode that the shapeshifter uses this setup to have sex with women he finds attractive:
there is, of course, no real point for the shifter to undergo what appears to be the rather painful process of transforming back into dean after shedding rebecca's skin once he captures sam. except that this episode is about betrayal. the psychological torture is just as important as the physical torture for this shapeshifter. and the shifter finds girls he likes and uses their lovers' faces to destroy them.
dean is the lover. sam is the girl. the lines are clearly drawn here, made stronger by the sheer amount of overlap shared by dean and the shapeshifter. it's important to the shifter that dean is the one who is going to hurt sam, because the connection between sam and dean makes the violence that much more painful.
he says that sam should "appreciate" dean more than he does. it adds to the idea that dean feels "all alone" and that he wants someone to love him. dean's core desire is for family: dean wants his family to love him. he thinks sam doesn't love him, but sam should love him. again sam is blamed for a perceived betrayal, dragging up more and more of the minute details across the last several episodes that point to the emotional distance between them. dean wants those gaps closed, and sam is trying to keep them apart. skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones.
just like in the pilot, sam and dean are thrust into overtly romantic positions via the allegorical A story. a monster who has victimized girlfriends is assuming the role of dean and victimizing sam. like in the pilot, the character onto which sam and/or dean imprint is the antagonist, the monster. two lines are crossed in both of these episodes: the boundary between hero and villain, and the boundary between family and incest. doubt is cast on the roles they occupy, and that doubt breeds the gothic anxiety which allows for the nature of sam and dean's relationship, both to each other and to the world, to be questioned.
perhaps then it's only natural that shortly after this episode is where the integral running gag begins and sam and dean start getting mistaken for gay lovers. they stand within the liminal space that separates the acceptable from the taboo, and in doing so they become both, neither, everything all at once: brothers, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, tempting and unfaithful and desiring of something they can't have.
sam wants to go home. dean wants someone to love him. in the end, all they have is each other.
(fascinating, i think, how this is the episode where the idea that they're "freaks" is introduced, not only once but twice. very peculiar language)
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.06#wincest#samdean#sam winchester#dean winchester#this is such a long post but like. how am i gonna write something short about SKIN of all episodes#i'm so not okay about skin it makes me sooooooo crazy. this is my 4th time watching it and it still drives me insane#spn posting#.txt
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Lorrie Palmer, “The Road to Lordsburg: Rural Masculinity in Supernatural,” from TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural
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"john loved sam more" "john loved dean more" no he loved them differently and chose to be really obvious about it stay toxic king ✌️
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never say i don't do anything for my friends
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i love that the episode about secrets comes immediately after the episode about fear. because if dean's fear is of losing his family and being alone, then this scene carries incredible meaning for him.
because secrets keep people apart. they're a rift in a relationship, a gap that can't be crossed. that gap leaves an uncertainty in the relationship, a lack of trust, a space separating two people. if dean is afraid of being apart from his family, then secrets are a threat to his security.
and to that end, dean's shock at the notion that sam hasn't told dean everything implies that this isn't a normal occurrence for them, that it's typical for sam, at least, to be open and honest with dean. if that's the case, then sam's college excursion has changed his attitude toward his brother, put some distance between them that dean clearly doesn't like and, based on the scene and what is later revealed about his character, has a hard time coping with.
this is the first time dean really makes an attempt to exert control over sam. he puts his foot down and tries to take the reins, and importantly this happens immediately after the security of his relationship with sam is threatened (or at least, he perceives it to be that way). this becomes a recurring theme throughout the series, so these early signs of this behavior pattern become retroactively strengthened through hindsight.
it's an interesting follow-up to phantom traveler, because now that seeds of doubt and conflict have been planted in dean's mind, his sense of security is breaking down and his fears are growing. sam is trying to put himself in harm's way, which could kill him: dean could lose sam in a very physical way. sam is keeping secrets from him, which is keeping them emotionally distant: dean could lose sam in an interpersonal way. his fear of losing his brother is being dangled twofold in front of him, and the threat of losing his dad is looming over them in the background.
the ground is crumbling under dean, and so he reacts the only way he knows how: by trying to take control of the situation, to protect his family and keep them by his side.
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.05#dean winchester#the first (second) time around i was so focused on sammy i missed soooooo much of dean's early characterization#now that i'm seeing it i'm so enamored with the storytelling#the way these traits are slowly being introduced naturally and organically#and i already know that these traits are going to become worse over time as the series progresses#right now it's just hints of what's to come. i think that's really awesome. great storytelling. amazing phenomenal showstopping etc#spn posting#.txt
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obsessed with how sam stares straight ahead glaring, jaw clenched, while dean tries to persuade him that jessica's death wasn't his fault. but as soon as dean tells sam to blame him,
sam looks up with the softest, gentlest expression on his face. like whole demeanor changes in a split second, just because dean has the audacity to suggest that he might share some blame in her death. like what.
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one more thing about phantom traveler that excited me: the ending scene where sam and dean call john's phone and hear his answering machine.
dean is upset by this confirmation. it's the first time dean has had to really grapple with the truth: that john is intentionally avoiding them, that he's fine, actually, and that he's not in danger. it shatters the illusions that have driven him since the first episode, and this is disappointing. it's a betrayal of the expectations he had for his father.
phantom traveler is an episode about fear—dean's fear, specifically. the A story introduces his fear of flying, but it also gives indications of what else he's afraid of.
the episode hints at the perhaps surprising rigidity of their roles in hunting, with dean as the more active fighter and sam as the more passive intellectual, even when dean is scared stiff on the plane. given further context throughout the season, this can very well be extrapolated to mean that dean is afraid of sam getting hurt. he has to protect sam; that's his job, and taking on the more physically dangerous role and leaving sam in a safer position allows him to ensure that protection.
in other words, dean is afraid of losing sam.
the end of this episode hints at another, similar fear. if the episode is about fear, then dean's reaction to john's betrayal should logically also be about fear. the betrayal here is that john is running away from them, leaving them behind, avoiding them. he's intentionally breaking apart the family unit, and since john presumably doesn't know that sam is with him, that means john is intentionally leaving dean alone.
so dean is also afraid of losing john, and of being alone (aka, without a family).
we've seen this before, and we'll see it again.
dean's desire to be surrounded by his family also informs his fear of being alone, abandoned by his family or separated from them. it informs what he's willing to do to avoid that outcome, by, as seen in this episode, shoving his fear aside to perform his role (and as we later learn about him, by remaining blindly loyal to john, a result of his failure to protect sam from the shtriga).
this is the episode that truly begins dean's narrative arc, pushes him out of his comfort zone both through the A story with the plane demon and through the B story with john's answering machine. dean will not be able to return to the comfort and security of his loyalty and will instead have to confront his fears as they become more and more inescapable. sam's overarching conflict between family and freedom began with the pilot, and now four episodes in dean's conflict has been forcefully dug up and he can no longer avoid the choices he'll have to make.
#liveblogging: supernatural#1.04#dean winchester#yeah i've been thinking about this since last night. sue me#i needed to get it out before i can watch bloody mary. god dammit#sam's anger starts at the tail end of pilot. i wonder how long it'll take for dean's anger to finally bubble to the surface?#i can't remember atm#rewatching season 1 is the best decision i ever made. these episodes are so fucking good man holy shit#spn posting#.txt
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dean should have gotten to fuck djinn universe sam i’m just saying
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Dean manipulating his brother is great
Sam manipulating his brother is fantastic
However, both manipulating each other at the same time, being possessive and jealous freaks together, with eyes only for each other, that's the real good.
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