Cat Ladies & Friends#4 [We Don't Invite Anyone] - Page 77

Originally posted by: herms_angel

You didn't know that? Oh, there are dozens.

Wincest - Dean & Sam.

Destiel - Dean and Cas.

Sastiel - Sam and Castiel.

And more. I wouldn't personally like to undergo the traumatic experience of mentioning more. These are enough as it is. 😳

Originally posted by: herms_angel

I liked the episodes with Ghostfacers in it. BUT then,

Ed broke Harry off with his girlfriend for some stupid selfish reasons.

And Dean saved Sam's life under real tight circumstances.

And compare two those cases? Buttonheads. 😳

It is that last point that is substantive. While Sam's characterization is contrived, and incomprehensible because of it, it is also made necessary by the show-runner's determination to generate a particular kind of conflict between the brothers.

Apparently, the only valid form of drama in Supernatural is having the brothers in conflict about their relationship. Notwithstanding that is a fundamentally flawed conception, it is made even more fatuous by what appears to be a decision that the only way that conflict can be realized is by rehashing issues between the brothers that have been explored, ad nauseam, since season 1.

They are issues that were resolved in Swan Song and whose resolution has been reaffirmed in every subsequent episode where Sam has stated his choice to hunt, and not seek a "normal" life. What we have, therefore, is not a nuanced exploration of the brothers' relationships and their character, but instead a manufactured redux of an argument that now lacks any kind of authenticity.

And authenticity is the problem. Sam's character this season (much as it was last) is so deformed, so unrecognisable as the Sam we know, that many of us cannot empathize him. We also cannot feel Dean's frustration and guilt, because those emotions are triggered by a piece of characterization we simply don't believe.

The result is that we find Sam & Dean's conflict completely unpersuasive. Illogical, irrational, baldly: stupid. It throws us out of the story every time the argument is milled on screen, and instead of feeling the pain of the conflict, we are left to mostly roll our eyes at the ineptitude of it, and wonder when the writers are going to hurry up and fix it.

Because we presume they will fix it; like season 8 we will have a last minute rapprochement, a tearful scene in a church and then someone will need saving: these, the final ingredients of the Annual Sam & Dean Angst Formula.

🥺

Originally posted by: SilentSilver

the very reason I am actually scared of the tumblr spn tag.

Originally posted by: Sawyer_Tom

Tch. Tch. And just when I started thinking this show was super cool.

Originally posted by: herms_angel

The conflict is, supposedly, part of the wider intention stated by the show-runner to make the brothers' relationship more mature. Let us deal with this for a moment. Notwithstanding it is a fairly breathtaking piece of presumption - particularly in light of all of us who have been tuning in for 9-years exactly for that immaturerelationship - it is also an assertion that proceeds from a general fallacy.

The brothers' relationship isn't toxic, it isn't immature; it isn't something that - at the end of season 5, or 6 or 7 - needed fixing. You can illustrate this quite simply by reference to similar relationships that are built in extreme, life threatening situations. Talk to veterans about the camaraderie and close personal bonds they build with their fellow soldiers during war, and then tell them there is something toxic or immature about it. Or talk to real siblings who are close and ask them whether they think there was anything immature or inherently toxic in what Dean did at the start of the season.

The counter argument, the reason why Dean should feel guilty, was made in the artless echoing between Harry and Ed and Sam and Dean in the episode #Thinman, in which the melodrama of the former pair paralleled the melodrama of the latter. Unfortunately, the implicit argument is a completely specious one.

Sam and Dean are not Harry and Ed; there is no genuine parallel there because the circumstances of each pair, their life experiences, are utterly different. The implied complaint that Dean somehow prevented Sam from having a normal life and that Dean only saves Sam because he's lonely, is both unfair to Dean and wilfully ignorant of Sam's own choices. It therefore amounts to a disingenuous piece of rhetoric to prop up what is otherwise merely a regurgitation of themes already dealt with in previous seasons.

I SWEAR. 😳 I swear she took those points on the parallels drawn between Dean-Sam and Harry-Ed right away from my mind. Like seriously, how do you even compare the two cases? 🤓

Originally posted by: Sawyer_Tom

Tch. Tch. And just when I started thinking this show was super cool.

Originally posted by: Sawyer_Tom

And now I feel smug about forgetting my tumblr account password.