rusty_halo

I wrote a (somewhat poorly thought-out) post earlier about Sam's love for Dean. I got some really interesting responses (on DW and my blog), and I think what I was actually looking for in that post was an understanding of why other people find Sam's love for Dean compelling. I don't dispute that Sam loves Dean or even that Sam's love is healthier than Dean's; it's just that I don't really care very much. When people write stories about how Sam's love for Dean is all-consuming, I don't really buy it, and when I read meta about how people can't get into season six because they don't see Sam's love, I don't understand why it bothers them.

I think there are two primary reasons I'm not drawn into the "Epic Love Story of Sam and Dean" from Sam's side. The first is that Sam's love doesn't drive the narrative or drive Sam's character the way that Dean's does. Sam story is driven by ethical struggle and by emotions related to anger, vengeance, and control, whereas almost everything about Dean's character and arc is directly related toward his love for Sam (a love tied up in all kinds of messy insecurity, need, and guilt, of course).

The second reason is that Sam's love for Dean is very much like a child's love for a parent (one could easily argue that the arc of Sam and Dean's relationship is an evolution from a pseudo-parent/child relationship to a relationship of adult equals). So on one level Sam takes Dean's love for granted, because he's always had it, while on another level Sam cares very deeply about what Dean thinks of him*. But both of these ways of loving are actually about Sam and what Dean does for him or thinks of him, not really about Dean at all. (Not that Sam doesn't also love Dean in the regular old way that you love a family member, but, eh, what's so exciting about that?)

*This actually is something I would love to see explored more deeply; we had a bit of it at the end of season four, where Sam was devastated when he thought Dean thought of him as a monster. I'm not sure how Sam could've possibly bought that after Dean 1) sold his soul for Sam even after John told Dean he might have to kill Sam and 2) the whole of "Born Under a Bad Sign" in which nothing possessed!Sam did was enough for Dean to lose faith. But it's an interesting idea, to suggest that Sam's sense of self is so tied to Dean despite how intensely Sam has attempted to assert his independence.

I also think my lack of investment in Sam's feelings for Dean comes from the fact that I still agree with season-one-Sam that they'd both be better off apart, living their own lives and having relationships with other people. Dean's relationship with Lisa is massive progress for him; I would like to see something similar happen with Sam. This seems to put me in a very different position from the rest of the fandom, who want to see the boys back together. I just don't see how that could be healthy, unless the boys are able to find a way to be together while not being everything to each other. To not revert back to their previous problematic patterns, they still need to develop significant relationships with other people in addition to with each other. (Not that they necessarily need perfect white-picket-fence fantasies, just that the show has shown clearly that having your entire life wrapped up in just one person with no significant external relationships is not healthy.)

Not that I think that stories need to be healthy stories about characters growing emotionally; I'm pretty happy with dark stories about characters mired in their psychological problems. (See: Supernatural seasons two, three, and four.) But I think it would be a bit dull for these characters to revert to the same old psychological problems instead of reveling in some new ones for a change. ;)

But anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for commenting and helping me clarify where I was coming from with that earlier post. More comments are welcome; I am still intrigued by how much other people seem to be invested in the Sam/Dean relationship from Sam's side, and I would still like to be able to feel emotionally involved in the story from that perspective as well.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.