So I spoke somewhat about my thoughts on Emanator Sampo here, but I never really thought of it from a design point of view or what kind of powers he would have until just recently. But I actually kind of love leaning into it from a "stage hand" perspective?
Because like. Aha's body in THEIR official art is completely black, giving attention to all the fun brightly colored things around THEM. And that's so fitting for Sampo! He usually prefers to be a side character. He likes to act from the shadows. His is a much more subtle hand.
So I wonder if as an Emanator, a lot of his clothes are actually very dark? Not necessarily plain, still extravagant and needlessly detailed in things like cut and quality with lots of different fabrics and textures and ornamentation, but dark. Or maybe even his skin itself becomes blackened further down his body; his hands in particular are dark, as a sort of sleight of hand reference.
The motif of a lot of straps wrapped around him like in his canon design is still present, but they're all loose and flowing off of him like paper streamers now instead of restraining him or holding him together. He is no longer contained! Or maybe they're still a bit more rigid/heavy, but just draped more like red stage curtains!
And this is like. Fully self-indulgent, but I love inhuman designs, and there's nothing in canon to say I can't do this, so screw it! Go for broke!! Maybe it's not visible to normal people, but Sampo having a second set of arms would be really cool, as further sleight of hand reference. One set is almost normal looking, but his hands are a bright, attention-drawing white, and the other is dark, set almost in the shadows of the first arms, to act less noticeably.
He also has something of a broken heart design to him in canon (the front of his black shirt with its jagged shape down the middle; his coat looks like a full heart shape in the back), and I actually like him keeping that element as an Emanator, because I think it suits him. Sampo says his taste in aesthetics and views on Elation involve human dignity,
and the story he helps create in Belobog involves the long and winding road of resistance and survival and eventual triumph in the face of some very adverse, oppressing odds. (I'm pretty sure I heard he once called Wildfire "artless" though, plus the man acts like he thinks Shame is some kind of dessert, so like ndkdjzjskkd) But the point being!!
I think Sampo is someone who can appreciate heartbreak and angst and tragedy in a story, because it makes the victory at the end all the sweeter. And this would be another thing he shares with Aha, because I think THEY did bless the Mourning Actors partly just to be a little shit, but also because Aha does recognize tragedy as part of THEIR Path, too, and you can see it in some of the game. So a broken heart motif can still suit him, and I like him having elements of both comedy and tragedy. Like his clothing having a happy sun/sad moon (like the moon in Aha's art) or him having both of the traditional comedy/tragedy masks in his design.
And as Emanator, Sampo can maybe play with the stage settings environment, too. Like lights sometimes behave strangely around him, appearing blindingly bright to someone or dramatically dark. Sampo wills it and suddenly there seems to be a metaphorical spotlight right where he wants everyone to look. And when he doesn't want to be noticed, his face seems to be cast in shadow, he seemingly just fades into the background, no one notices or recognizes him and he sneaks away easily. He can create smoke or fog literally out of thin air without his bombs now, too, the air will just suddenly thicken until his stage is obscured, and Sampo can set the scene as he pleases or disappear without a trace.
And in line with being a stage hand, Sampo can direct attention like no other. He was already extremely good at this as a normal mortal, and becoming an Emanator only took it up to 11, past human limits. Sampo points, and all present feel compelled to follow his fingertip. He looks away, and they all follow his gaze. He can even affect the mood of an audience; he can influence everyone to be calm and placid or he can whip them into a feverish frenzy. Sometimes a crowd will start to become unsettled, agitation stirring until it boils over, until it incites a full on violent mob.
And in the middle of all that chaos will stand one perfectly calm figure, face cast in shadow, until they quietly slip away out of sight.
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2.10 Hunted
-direct continuation from Croatoan. Sam was waiting for Dean to tell him what it was John said about him before dying. Sam looked really fearful.
-Dean is scared too. This time the camera focuses on him as he begins, “he said that he…wanted me to watch out for you” and his voice trembles as he continues, saying John asked him to take care of Sam, and save him.
Sam doesn’t understand at first. John said this kind of thing all the time, and Dean has been watching out for/caring for/saving Sam their whole lives, but Dean’s demeanor doesn’t match up with what he’s saying. When Dean finally gets to the point, which is that if he can’t save Sam, John said he’d have to kill him, Sam looks so deeply shocked and hurt and upset. It’s like his brain is both seizing upon and rejecting this information. Seizing on it because there’s a part of him that’s thinking I knew it, I knew something was wrong with me and rejecting it because it’s coming out of his older brother’s mouth.
It’s wild that Sam at no point this episode seems to question Dean’s loyalty to him. There’s a little seed of fear inside him that Dean will think he’s a monster, but he just came off a job in which Dean proved to him again that he will listen to and value Sam, not to mention choose Sam over everything else including his own life.
-Dean keeps looking down. He’s ashamed that he’s even saying this. He says “he said I might have to kill you, Sammy” like he’s pleading for Sam’s help. Sam is usually there for him when he’s scared or upset. This is the very first time Dean is saying this out loud and he’s feeling how awful and unfair that was for their dad to put on him.
-John also made Dean promise to keep this from Sam. He probably thought that was for the best for some reason but it belies his complete misunderstanding of his sons as people and as brothers that he thinks 1) Dean would be able to keep it from Sam and 2) that they’re better off not working together. There is just no way Dean could handle this on his own, he needs Sam.
-Sam gets angry. I don’t even think he’s actually angry, it’s more like he’s freaking out and it presents as anger. His fear that he’s not pure is not only becoming a real threat, but also one that caused his father to ask the one person he trusts in the world to kill him if necessary. Sam thought he and John were at least somewhat on the same page when he died.
-Sam switches to need-more-info mode, which is just so deeply Sam. Knowledge makes him feel in control and one of his deepest drives as a character is the Need to Understand. He needs to understand monsters, what makes them bad, what bad even means, why his family hunts them, what’s going on inside of himself, what Dean is thinking and feeling.
The one area that he doesn’t push or poke and seems, later this season, to actually want to protect himself from, is the nature of his and Dean’s connection. I want to assume that he did a ton of research on incest taboos while he was in high school or at Stanford, but the way he avoids understanding makes me think that it’s at the root of his shame and he’s built himself a wall around it just like the one he’d built against Dean himself in s1. The reason so much of Sam’s arc was about letting Dean in again was because his trust in Dean’s love was rattled when he went to college—Sam didn’t know how badly Dean wanted to get back together with him. Now he trusts that Dean loves him, but not that he can save him.
-Dean says he wants to “lay low” because “then I can make sure—“ and Sam cuts him off: “what? That I don’t turn evil?” When Sam says sarcastically “maybe you will have to waste me” Dean yells at him “I never said that.”
It’s the first time Dean raises his voice in the conversation. His anger seems to come from being misunderstood rather than being confronted about something true. Dean can’t imagine Sam becoming evil. I think Dean was about to say “Then I can make sure nothing happens to you” or something. He doesn’t seem like he’s actually angry either, just like he’s terrified and he’s trying to take control of a situation outside of his grasp.
-Dean begs Sam for “time to figure this out.” He says please four times. It quiets Sam. I wonder if Dean has spoken to Sam like that in the past, if he used to get Sammy to let him stitch him up by asking him to please just let him disinfect it or to please just count to 20 and it’ll be over.
-Sam runs off on his own, which is such an *interesting response since he has been running away from home since he was an adolescent. He is not one to spook easy or to look away when things get tough, but he hates feeling like he’s the problem.
*link for any curious psych nerds. runaways are more likely to have a single parent, have a negative relationship with parents, have been exposed to violence, and have a mental illness (most often depression). Sounds like Sam.
He runs away to investigate on his own for a few reasons. He’s afraid of himself and of what’s going to happen to him and he needs some control over the situation. He’s probably also noticing that this is tearing Dean up inside and he doesn’t want Dean to save him, he wants to fix it himself. If he can fix it, he can fix what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t really think Dean can do that for him, which is sort of true and sort of false. They have to do it together.
Whatever is up with Sam is and always has been intimately and inherently connected to Dean and the brothers’ love. There’s their destiny as vessels, and their love ultimately saving the world, but it’s also their bond itself. The demon caused the fire, so the demon blood in a way is responsible for delivering baby Sammy into Dean’s arms and their incestuous codependent relationship. (And I’m treating their relationship as incestuous regardless of what physically has or hasn’t happened.)
-So Sam leaves. When he goes to Ellen’s bar, Ellen tells him that Jo left to become a hunter and that Ellen told her “not under my roof.” It parallels Sam’s decision to leave for Stanford. Ellen tells him it’s not his fault, which he seems affected by. He thinks things are his fault because he’s impure. He probably thinks his and Dean’s feelings are his fault for the same reason.
-Ellen tells Sam that Dean has been calling asking about him, “worried sick.” When Sam leaves she’s like You know I have to call your brother and let him know you’re safe right?
It’s exactly what a parent would say to a runaway kid about calling their mom.
-Sam basically tells Ellen that Dean can’t protect him from who he is. He doesn’t believe Dean can save him and he will ultimately need to have faith that Dean can save him in s5.
-How does Sam have money for all this? He must be helping Dean with the hustling by now.
-Sam pockets some of Scott’s prescription meds, to use or to sell or both.
-Dean asks about Sam unprompted as soon as Ellen calls him. When he tracks Sam and spots him through the motel window he says out loud “thank god you’re okay” and then sees Ava and says “oh you’re better than okay” and smiles and I think it’s cute that Dean still thinks Sam is interested in anyone other than him.
-Gordon shoots at Sam. Dean beats Gordon up and says “you do that to my brother I’ll kill you” but Gordon hits him on the head with his very large gun (a rifle? I don’t know guns) and knocks him out cold. Dean feels strongly about not killing people except when it comes to protecting Sam then it’s totally fine.
-Sam finds and identifies the bullet shells and calls Dean for help and Ava is like Who are you?? and Sam says “my brother” like five times. It’s so fun seeing her perspective on Sam, who she thinks is crazy and probably dangerous because of his knowledge and the fact that he and his brother have a code word specifically for when one of them is being held at gun point. Dean sees Sam as his beautiful cutie pie lil guy who he is so proud of, and outsiders see Sam as the danger to society that he is.
-Sam says “harms way doesn’t really bother me” and when Ava says This is how you die! he says “doesn’t matter. It’s my brother.” Sam is bananas. It’s good for the viewer to be reminded of this fact often.
-Dean mostly keeps it together when Gordon is talking about killing Sam, because he’s trying to find a way to save Sam even now. Screen caps of his expressions don’t really do his scenes justice because his lips tremble, and you can see him breathing shakily, and glancing around, or flinching slightly. His dread is palpable. The sick, terrible desperation in Dean’s entire body when he thinks Sam is about to be and then thinks Sam is being killed by a grenade is hard to watch.
-Incidentally this is how ptsd commonly happens. Dean is usually able to act on his fight or flight response and fight/kill the threat, but here he’s tied up and can do nothing. So this would be particularly hard for him to deal with in the coming months/years. I can’t recall if the show explores that, I guess we’ll see.
-Gordon says “your brother thinks you’re some kind of saint.” Again with the outsider perspectives here. Dean sees Sam as the most precious, good, important thing in the world and Gordon sees him as weird and soft and obsessed with his brother (gay?).
-Gordon says “show your brother the killer you really are, Sammy” and Sam says “it’s Sam” before knocking him out. I love this callback to Bloodlust where Sam says Dean is the only one allowed to call him Sammy.
-Sam goes to Dean wearily and puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s almost casual, establishing contact by touching, letting Dean know he’s there. Dean could hear Sam fighting with Gordon, so he knew he was alive, but he needs to touch Sam and look into his eyes to really know he’s alive and okay. Sam helps Dean get untied and Dean ends up pulling Sam to his feet as he unties Dean’s ankles.
When Dean holds Sam’s face in his hands, his thumbs just under his jaw, Sam tilts his head back tiredly, exposing his throat. He responds like it’s a matter of course that Dean will cradle his face, like he’s done it many times before when Sam was smaller and had to tilt his head back to look up at Dean.
What is it with Dean and Sam’s neck and throat? It’s an intimate part of the body to be looking at and touching so often, but unique in that it’s not explicitly sexual. It just feels sexual.
Sam puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder again, wordlessly confirming that yes, he is okay, so Dean breaks away to kill Gordon like he said he would.
-When Sam realizes this is Dean’s aim, he tells Dean not to and pulls him away by the collar of his jacket. It’s very guard dog/master.
-Dean calls Sam a “fine upstanding citizen” for getting Gordon arrested and Sam smiles prettily.
-Sam is so cute waiting in the car while Dean yells at Ellen on the phone about how Gordon tracked Sam by talking to hunters at her bar. Mom is so mad the bully picked on his kid, and the bully is in detention but that’s not enough he wants to talk to a parent about this.
-In the car Dean warns Sam “dude, if you ever run off like that again—“
“What? You’ll kill me?” Sam jokes.
It’s nice they can joke like this about past arguments. Couples who know how to fight are more likely to stay married.
-Dean says they should go to Amsterdam (implying that he wants them to forget their worries and get fucking blazed together) and Sam does that thing where he grins and licks his lips at him. But he says he’s not just gonna ditch the job and Dean says “screw the job.” Sam tells Dean “you’re a hunter, it’s what you were meant to do.” John and Gordon have said this same thing, but I think the difference is that they meant Dean was born to kill and Sam thinks he was born to rescue. It shows the level of admiration that Sam has for Dean, thinking that he’s doing what he was born to do. You only think that of people who are very, very talented. Personally I think Dean was bred to be a hunter and would’ve been a firefighter or an ER nurse or something (wait what did Jess dress up as for Halloween? wait), but he was born to be Sam’s big brother.
Sam never felt a calling to do anything in particular, as far as I’ve gotten in the show. He’s really good at getting people to talk and convincing them of things and doing research, so lawyer fits, but he’s also said he never fit in at Stanford. When he has a normal life in s8 he works in maintenance. He must have felt so out of place as a teenager thinking Dean had found his destiny, and that it wasn’t right for Sam.
-Dean says he doesn’t believe in destiny, meaning he believes in Sam staying good. Sam tells Dean “you can’t protect me.” Dean says “I can try” and Sam thanks him. He feels loved by Dean.
-They do their Bitch/Jerk bit and Sam grins. They must have missed each other, they’re so flirty and excited to be together again.
-Sam calls Ava again and Dean looks at him suggestively and asks if Sam is sweet on her. Sam says “she’s engaged, Dean” and Dean says “so?” Okay cool so Sam being engaged would not have been an issue for Dean it really was just the blood relative thing. Cool.
-Sam chooses both Dean and hunting. Running off on his own put him at risk which puts Dean at risk, and Dean agrees to be together on Sam’s terms rather than laying low.
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