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Jan. 22nd, 2006 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosSo, I just got done watching "Faith". Aw, my poor woobie. *snuggles Dean*
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I read everybody else's thoughts on the episode when it came out, so I knew what was coming. I think a lot of what made me think was the opinion I saw a lot of people expressing that Dean had just given up following the doctor's assessment that he was going to die.
Here's my thing ... Dean would be the first person to admit that he does not have a normal life, and I think it's been made blatantly obvious that he never expects to have a normal life. He expects to die hunting. That concept of dying in his sleep of old age is just absolutely foreign to him considering the way he was raised. I think if he were ever to get to that point, he just would not know what to do with himself. That's a huge difference between Dean and Sam, because I've always gotten the impression that regardless what part of his life you caught him at, Sam would tell you he's going to get married and have kids and die at one hundred surrounded by great-grandkids. Sam doesn't see himself doing this for the rest of his life, while Dean sees hunting as doing what he can to save others before following that admittedly destructive path to its inevitable conclusion.
I think that if anything throws him off following the electrocution, it's the fact that he has those two weeks. It's those two weeks where he's basically a lame duck that's just screwing up his momentum. I didn't see it as giving up so much as flailing without a sense of direction and simply letting Sam call the shots due to a decided lack of knowing what the hell to do. He's not supposed to get two weeks to waste away, he's supposed to get energy-sucked by a succubus or impaled through the heart by a ghost or any number of gruesome pretty much instantaneous deaths following some stupidly heroic move. After all, this is Mr. "No chick flick moments." I seriously believe that there was a big part of him that was partly annoyed about Sam having them go to see a "specialist" because he was seeing it as a waste of his time, but not in that "this so isn't going to work" kind of way. I keep thinking of the two of them on the way to the healer, with Dean saying, "Dude, we could going off to fight a poltergeist in Poughkeepsie, and you've got me wasting time going to a specialist?" And I really only think he put up with Sam trying it because he had thoughts of what he would have done if the roles were reversed.
As for Sam, I think everybody's said the, "AWWW, look at what widdle Sammy will do for his big brother!" thing, which OMG YES. But here's what keeps getting to me as the series progresses and more of Sam's knowledge of the occult and beliefs come out. I keep wondering what he was like when he was in college. I mean, he says he was trying to step away from his life, but the problem is that they were "raised like warriors" and as Dean constantly feels the need to point out, they're not normal. I highly doubt Stanford is a completely supernatural-free area. Hell, considering the amount of hunting the Winchesters have done, I'd be amazed if there were anywhere in this 'verse that wasn't plagued by the supernatural at one point or another. Even if Sam weren't actively hunting, it's hard to believe that he could magically just avoid it for all of his time at college.
Then again, "actively hunting" isn't the same thing as "prepared for any eventuality." He wasn't out of practice with his self-defense techniques when Dean attacked him in the apartment. He packs a small blade of some sort, which makes it not that much of a stretch to assume that there are other weapons in the apartment that Jess never saw. (Or even that there didn't need to be -- it's safe to believe with both Winchester brothers that you could lock them in a room with a plastic cup, a bag of Cheetos, and a pretty pink ribbon and they could defend themselves against a werewolf if need be.) There were a hell of a lot of potted plants in that apartment, which I always assume to be Jess's. But what if they were Sam's? He could have easily been using herbs disguised as pretty plants or whatever as protective spells. (Aaaaand now I have a story idea. *headsmack* Don't mind me, I'll be fine.)
That's what gets me --- trying to picture Sam justifying what he knew was out there with the normal life he was trying to have. Yeah, he could have tried to have a normal life, but it wasn't so much forgetting about what he's done, but what he does. It's like when you're raised Catholic, and you stop going to church, but you can still cross yourself without thinking when the need calls for it. I think there probably were still things that he did without thinking ... pouring salt around the door figuring it couldn't hurt, catching a whiff of brimstone off a passing student and saying, "Christo," just to see if it works, that sort of stuff. I think he was good enough about covering what he knows, but at the same time, I think there were a lot of things that he just couldn't have given up, and if he were to look back and see the little details of his life back then, he'd see that he was doing things to protect himself from the supernatural without even noticing he was doing it.
I don't know, I guess I needed to ramble about that. :)
EDIT: You know, I swore I wasn't going to learn how to play Sudoku because I'm a huge puzzle junkie and I knew I'd be hooked, but then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tarzanic linked to Websudoku and I was pretty much immediately obsessed ... damn it.
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I read everybody else's thoughts on the episode when it came out, so I knew what was coming. I think a lot of what made me think was the opinion I saw a lot of people expressing that Dean had just given up following the doctor's assessment that he was going to die.
Here's my thing ... Dean would be the first person to admit that he does not have a normal life, and I think it's been made blatantly obvious that he never expects to have a normal life. He expects to die hunting. That concept of dying in his sleep of old age is just absolutely foreign to him considering the way he was raised. I think if he were ever to get to that point, he just would not know what to do with himself. That's a huge difference between Dean and Sam, because I've always gotten the impression that regardless what part of his life you caught him at, Sam would tell you he's going to get married and have kids and die at one hundred surrounded by great-grandkids. Sam doesn't see himself doing this for the rest of his life, while Dean sees hunting as doing what he can to save others before following that admittedly destructive path to its inevitable conclusion.
I think that if anything throws him off following the electrocution, it's the fact that he has those two weeks. It's those two weeks where he's basically a lame duck that's just screwing up his momentum. I didn't see it as giving up so much as flailing without a sense of direction and simply letting Sam call the shots due to a decided lack of knowing what the hell to do. He's not supposed to get two weeks to waste away, he's supposed to get energy-sucked by a succubus or impaled through the heart by a ghost or any number of gruesome pretty much instantaneous deaths following some stupidly heroic move. After all, this is Mr. "No chick flick moments." I seriously believe that there was a big part of him that was partly annoyed about Sam having them go to see a "specialist" because he was seeing it as a waste of his time, but not in that "this so isn't going to work" kind of way. I keep thinking of the two of them on the way to the healer, with Dean saying, "Dude, we could going off to fight a poltergeist in Poughkeepsie, and you've got me wasting time going to a specialist?" And I really only think he put up with Sam trying it because he had thoughts of what he would have done if the roles were reversed.
As for Sam, I think everybody's said the, "AWWW, look at what widdle Sammy will do for his big brother!" thing, which OMG YES. But here's what keeps getting to me as the series progresses and more of Sam's knowledge of the occult and beliefs come out. I keep wondering what he was like when he was in college. I mean, he says he was trying to step away from his life, but the problem is that they were "raised like warriors" and as Dean constantly feels the need to point out, they're not normal. I highly doubt Stanford is a completely supernatural-free area. Hell, considering the amount of hunting the Winchesters have done, I'd be amazed if there were anywhere in this 'verse that wasn't plagued by the supernatural at one point or another. Even if Sam weren't actively hunting, it's hard to believe that he could magically just avoid it for all of his time at college.
Then again, "actively hunting" isn't the same thing as "prepared for any eventuality." He wasn't out of practice with his self-defense techniques when Dean attacked him in the apartment. He packs a small blade of some sort, which makes it not that much of a stretch to assume that there are other weapons in the apartment that Jess never saw. (Or even that there didn't need to be -- it's safe to believe with both Winchester brothers that you could lock them in a room with a plastic cup, a bag of Cheetos, and a pretty pink ribbon and they could defend themselves against a werewolf if need be.) There were a hell of a lot of potted plants in that apartment, which I always assume to be Jess's. But what if they were Sam's? He could have easily been using herbs disguised as pretty plants or whatever as protective spells. (Aaaaand now I have a story idea. *headsmack* Don't mind me, I'll be fine.)
That's what gets me --- trying to picture Sam justifying what he knew was out there with the normal life he was trying to have. Yeah, he could have tried to have a normal life, but it wasn't so much forgetting about what he's done, but what he does. It's like when you're raised Catholic, and you stop going to church, but you can still cross yourself without thinking when the need calls for it. I think there probably were still things that he did without thinking ... pouring salt around the door figuring it couldn't hurt, catching a whiff of brimstone off a passing student and saying, "Christo," just to see if it works, that sort of stuff. I think he was good enough about covering what he knows, but at the same time, I think there were a lot of things that he just couldn't have given up, and if he were to look back and see the little details of his life back then, he'd see that he was doing things to protect himself from the supernatural without even noticing he was doing it.
I don't know, I guess I needed to ramble about that. :)
EDIT: You know, I swore I wasn't going to learn how to play Sudoku because I'm a huge puzzle junkie and I knew I'd be hooked, but then
tarzanic linked to Websudoku and I was pretty much immediately obsessed ... damn it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:36 am (UTC)Will there be a fic with that too? ;)
Anyway, what I really wanted to comment about is your whole Sam rant. I completely agree. You can take the boy out of the hunting but not the hunter out of the boy.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:49 am (UTC)Anyway, yeah. Totally agreeing. I personally would write one but Sam and River are playing with my brain.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:39 am (UTC)That is a brilliant point. *ponders*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:50 am (UTC)Hee! That made me giggle probably more than it should.
Ahem. Also? You should write that fic, with the herbs, and stuff, and plz? *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 03:29 am (UTC)I'm totally with you about Dean. I really felt like he just had come to grips with the fact that he wasn't immortal and was likely to die sooner than later. I thought his reaction was pretty Dean-like.
As for Sam...I never thought of it quite like that, but I think that's a really interesting thought. And if he ever got that family...would he still hunt? Or just protect? Hmmm...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 04:05 am (UTC)Shut up. I'm still working on that mensa thingy that you posted the link to. Only four left... *sighs*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 05:36 pm (UTC)I thought "Faith" was actually a pretty well-done episode for two particular reasons. For the first time, the boys don't save the girl, and the writers acknowledged the boys' actions have some serious consequences. (See above, actively not-saving the girl, and the poor preacher who won't be able to understand why God will no longer work through him.) I thought those two points showed some maturation on the writers' part which was refreshing to see.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:27 am (UTC)By the way, yes yes YES to this entire post. You stated it all brilliantly.