#dean again and again shows that he believes monstrosity and evil are choices | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soft-pine · 22 days

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there's something that fascinates me about spn as a queer monster show specifically. which is that in many monster shows, monstrosity is itself the allegory for queerness: the difference, the ostracization from normative society, the secrets, etc. i am not the first to say this of course. and i'm not saying this doesn't exist in spn to some extent. but something that is very dear to my heart is that to a large extent, the monsters in spn are, in fact, just evil. they're killing kids or projecting wrongs onto innocent people that they then harm or just plain eating people (in the non sexy way). they are separate from society because they are harmful and the consequences for their actions are logical, more often than not. of course, OF COURSE, there are exceptions to this and i really like how spn emphasizes that those exist because it is the moral responsibility of all of us not to harm each other. (side note, i also really enjoy how much spn actually shows how cops, the us military, the us government, and those in power are complicit in the monstrosity). but let's circle back, as i always will, to dean. because i've said before and i'll say again, the fandom’s understanding of dean's morality as "monsters bad / humans good" is wrong. (feel free to take a peak at the monsters vs humans tab of my notes doc.)

but i think because people have that view of him - and because of the monsters as a queer allegory thing so they are the victimized ones which isn’t really how it plays out in spn - there is this association that to come out and truly be a good person or something, dean has to quit hunting. like hunting is something violent and impulsive and evil that he chooses to do because he is angry and wants to take it out on something and once he's admits he’s wrong and let's it go, he can heal.

but he's not wrong. the things he's hunting are petty and selfish and dangerous. and he is desperately, wholly, irrevocably correct in his moral stance against them. (dean had my whole heart as soon as i watched the pilot, but his RAGE at the doctor harming kids in 1.18 got me in ways that i could never fully verbalize).

anyway, all this isn't to say i don't want him to quit hunting! to be honest what i envision is a world in which he doesn't have to anymore because it's hard for me to see him quitting while people are still in danger.

but i did want to unpack this trend a little bit cause it’s a real ick of mine - especially in fics.

#dean again and again shows that he believes monstrosity and evil are choices

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shirtlesssammy · 7 years

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When the Levee Breaks: Recap

Then:

Sam’s sucking the demon blood like it’s going out of style, so Bobby and Dean send him to Bobby’s Basement Panic Room Rehab.

Now:

Sam is still stewing away in the panic room, and getting no sympathy from Dean. He tries apologizing and asks Dean to let him out, but Dean is hearing none of it. (Who’s loving the red Sam and the white Dean lighting aesthetic??) Sam needs to dry out, and in the meantime, Dean and Bobby will stop Lilith.

The withdrawals start to kick in for Sam. His vision starts to blur, lights start to flicker, and the temperature in the room plummets. Oh, and Alistair shows up. Cut to Sam trussed up on the torture chair of torture, and Alistair ripping his guts apart. Oh wait, j/k, it’s all just part of the detox, and he’s hallucinating the whole thing. Dean and Bobby drink copious amounts of alcohol to get through listening to the terror Sam is going through one floor below them.

Bobby gets a call from Rufus. “Suck dirt and die, Rufus. You call me again, I'll kill you.” BFFs, amirite? The phone rings again, and this time the camera pans in on Bobby ever so slowly, so something serious is going down!

Back in the panic room, Sam comes to the realization that he’s not tied down, and Young!Sam fills him in that he’s hallucinating. (I love that Young!Sam and Old!Sam got to work together. I forgot about that.) Young!Sam demands answers from him.

“How could you do this to me? I thought we were going to be normal.” “I tried. I did. It didn’t pan out that way,” Old!Sam responds. Ugh, I’m not ready to deal with Sam feels, but this is a really great inside look into Sam’s mind. The guilt he still holds onto from Jessica’s death.

Just listening to him talk to his younger self is painful. He is rationalizing his hunting life SO hard, not because he believes in his words, but because he has to in order to keep moving forward. He wants to find a rational reason to justify his actions, for Jessica, for the life he lost, but he knows the demon blood is wrong. Young!Sam throws his greatest guilt back at him and asks, “How can you run from what’s inside you?” Cue yellow eyes.

Back upstairs, Bobby and Dean go over Rufus’s news: Bad things are going down all over the world --seals are breaking fast. Bobby wonders where Dean’s angel pals are. Dean’s clueless. Bobby then wonders if they’re not thinking straight about Sam. He’s got powers they could use. Maybe they’re sidelining him because they love him too much. Dean stares blankly ahead. You can practically see: Does. Not. Compute. all over his face.

Back in Hallucination Hilton, Sam’s in his own version of a sweat lodge, sweaty and thirsty, when he gets another visitor. Mary Winchester! She’s in her lovely white nightgown with blood bling all over the front. He tells his mom that she can tell him that she’s disappointed --that he’s been a horrible son.

Instead, she commends him for his practical choices (Man, I could totally see season 12 Mary doing this! Like, she would see the bottom line. Sam needs to do this to stop the apocalypse.) (Natasha: 100% agree) I...just… “I was raised a hunter from a long line. We understand that there are gonna be hard choices. And we do what we have to to get the job done. Yes, our family is cursed. But you—you have the power to turn it into a gift. You can use it against them.” Like, we should have known all along what Mary would be like! I realize this is Sam’s own projection for needing acceptance for his actions, but man. Sam continues to doubt his choices, but Mary makes it clear that he’s doing the right thing. Dean is weak (OUCH!) and he must defeat Lilith without his brother.

Outside Bobby’s, Dean’s been praying to Cas for two and a half hours. Flap, flap, “What do you want?” STARING.

Ah, this is right after Cas was reprogrammed in heaven, so he’s kind of forgotten about his weakness for “humanity”. Dean cuts to the chase and asks Cas if Sam can really kill Lilith. MORE STARING.

Cas says that it’s possible, but he’d have to up the demon blood training, and that would change him forever. “Most likely, he would become the next creature that you would feel compelled to kill.” STILL STARING.

However, if Dean would just play his part, it doesn’t have to be this way. Dean counters with a “God, you’re a dick these days.” But agrees to serve God and “you guys.” AND THEN LITERALLY 10 SECONDS OF NOTHING BUT STARING.

Back in the panic room, Sam’s not doing so swell.

Dean fills Bobby in on his angel deal. And then they both realize that things are a little too quiet in the basement. They rush to the basement to find Sam convulsing on the ground, and then slamming into the wall. They tie him down to protect him from himself.

Later, Sam awakens to Dean questioning him about why he started drinking the demon blood. He tries justifying his actions --but it’s revealed he’s talking to an empty room.

Cut to Dean and Bobby fretting over the detox plan upstairs. Bobby worries that they’re killing Sam by withholding demon blood from him cold turkey. Dean refuses to give him blood, though. He’d rather Sam die than turn into a monster.

We jump back and forth between Sam and HalluciDean and Bobby and Dean as their conversations weave around each other. HalluciDean argues that Sam drank demon blood because he felt different his whole life; Sam’s been a monster since he was a baby. HalluciDean takes great pleasure in calling Sam a monster.

Upstairs, Dean vows to die for Sam in a heartbeat but he refuses to watch Sam destroy himself. To him, Sam has only recently started to stroll down the path towards monstrosity.

Time passes, night falls, and suddenly Sam’s cuffs come undone.

The door opens by an unseen hand. Sam calls out into the darkness. When there’s no answer he gets up and escapes up the stairs. Is it a demon? Sam’s mind powers? Nooooope. It’s Castiel who steps out from behind the basement steps. Oh, Castiel. You are breaking our fucking hearts (we didn’t realize how bad angel ‘reprogramming’ was back then which - I’M SORRY - gives me a lot more empathy for our favorite angel). Cas relocks the panic room door and flaps away.

On distant docks Castiel leans against a railing overlooking a shipping bay. He looks morose and turns around as Anna appears. “What did you do?” she asks. We learn that Cas was ordered by Heaven to let out Sam Winchester.

“You really shouldn’t have come,” he tells her, looking away. Angels appear, seize Anna, and take her away to Heaven. Cas returns to his dockside brooding.

Bobby interrupts Sam’s escape attempt and begs him not to leave. Sam challenges Bobby, telling him to shoot him if he wants to stop him. Then, catching Bobby off guard, he knocks him out with the gun, steals a car, and drives away.

Later, Bobby and Dean head into the safe room to investigate how Sam escaped. They notice the broken devils traps and guess that Ruby let Sam out. Dean heads out, angel duties be damned, to go kill himself a saucy demon temptress.

Sam holes up in a hotel room, shaking and pale from withdrawal, and waits for Ruby. She grins at the honeymoon suite he’s booked to throw off Dean, apologizes for leaving Sam alone for so long, and expresses shock at how Dean has treated Sam lately.

“It’s sad that things have gotten this bad between you two,” Ruby pouts. Sam tosses her on the bed and caresses her body. He’s looking to get some! (Some blood, that is.) He takes out a knife, slices her arm, and starts to drink. Later, Ruby tells Sam that he’s stronger now. Which is good, she says, because they’re approaching the final seal. Lilith - “Lucifer’s first” demon - is the only one who can break the last seal. Ruby has targeted a member of Lilith’s entourage in order to get close to Lilith’s location.

Cut to a hospital where two nurses are gossiping about a long-time nurse who went rogue and stole two babies.

Evil demon-possessed nurse, Lilith’s supplier of tasty babies, smiles evilly at a room full of babies. Moustache twirl. Moustache twirl.

Back with Sam, he’s looking far more pressed and washed now that he’s had a blood fix. Ruby warns him that to stop Lilith, he’s going to need even more blood. Sam reluctantly agrees and wistfully thinks about fixing things with Dean after he’s averted the apocalypse.

Bobby gives Dean an update on Sam. He’s tracked the stolen car to a ditch a few hours out from Dean and weather reports in the area focus possible demon activity on one town. Bobby advises Dean to be kind to Sam - not to push him away. Dean has always been great at managing his temper, so this should end well.

Dean tracks Sam to his hotel, busts inside the honeymoon suite, and immediately goes after Ruby with her knife. He almost has her when Sam stops him and lets Ruby escape. Sam begs to talk it over - he’s got a plan to stop Lilith. Both he and Ruby have been working to stop the seals from breaking. Dean warns Sam that he’s being manipulated by her.

Sam tells Dean about the lead on Lilith’s demon. Dean is on board as long as Ruby gets left behind. Sam refuses, though. He needs Ruby. Frankly, Dean isn't strong enough to stop the apocalypse. “My whole life you take the wheel. You call the shots. And I trust you because you are my brother,” Sam tries to explain. “Now I’m asking you for once. Trust me.”

Dean can’t, though. “It’s not something that you’re doing. It’s what you are. It means--”

The word “monster” dangles unsaid until Sam prompts him to finish his sentence.

At the word “monster”, Sam punches his brother, sending him crashing to the floor. Dean jumps up and whales on Sam in return. The two tangle in a dirty fight - broken glass, smashed furniture. Dean ends up lying on the floor gasping for breath when Sam wraps his hands around Dean’s throat and begins to choke him. He pulls back before his brother falls unconscious.

“You don’t know me,” Sam spits. “And you never will.’

“You walk out that door, don’t you ever come back,” Dean says parroting their father and probably re-enacting word for word That Time Sam Went Off To Stanford.

Sam leaves.

Self-Quotious Dicks:

If it smells like a duck…

I was raised a hunter. From a long line. We understand that there are gonna be hard choices. But we’re doing what we have to to get the job done.

They come on like shady politicians from Planet Vulcan.

Makes you feel strong. Invincible! A big bad wolf in a whole world of pigs.

#spn recap #spn 4x21 #when the levee breaks #spn pic spam #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #bobby singer #ruby #anna milton #mary winchester #supernatural season 4 #destiel

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