rusty_halo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rusty_halo) wrote2012-01-14 09:34 pm
rusty_halo) wrote2012-01-14 09:34 pm
Entry tags:
Frustration with Supernatural and with Dean’s Arc Especially
I’m feeling very disillusioned with Supernatural. I’m in fandom for the squee, and this show is not making me happy anymore, so I think I have to move on. I’m so sad, because my interest is still there and I really want to keep loving it, but it’s just giving me nothing.
I’m primarily unhappy because:
* The writers are not taking the show seriously at all anymore. I always loved the irreverence and humor with which it was written, but it used to know how to strike a balance. Especially in early episodes like "Devil's Trap" or "In My Time of Dying" or "What Is and What Should Never Be" or "No Rest for the Wicked," but even really up until the end of season six, the show treated characters' emotions and experiences like they mattered and had consequences. This season nothing has real consequences and nothing really seems to matter. There's still no real sense of urgency that the boys are being hunted down, and the laziness of the writing is apparent in the time jumps in 7x03 and 7x11 and the lack of mourning for Bobby and Castiel. It's like the writers are purposely avoiding writing about anything that might actually be complicated or interesting.* The writers have absolutely nothing new to say about Sam and Dean. They're just spinning their wheels, regurgitating pale imitations of previous character arcs.
* Castiel was so good. The actor had so much charisma and such fabulous chemistry with Jensen Ackles, and there were so many interesting potential places to go with the character (evil!Cas on a rampage, Cas seeking redemption, Cas turning human, Cas and Dean rebuilding their relationship, the Wacky Adventures of Castiel and Crowley...). It could have gone anywhere and instead it was completely wasted, in favor of, apparently, nothing, because the writers have no other story to tell.
* There really does seem to be nothing left to say about Sam. Neither the writers nor the actor bring anything to the part. Watching him is like staring at a blank wall. I don't hate him, because how can you hate nothingness? But I resent him, because he's taking up space while characters like Ellen, Victor Hendricksen, or Castiel had such fabulous potential that was absolutely squandered.
* Dean. I love Dean so much. He is still my favorite character and is the reason why falling out of love with this fandom is upsetting me so much. I don't think his story arc has to be over--there are many places that the writers could still go with this character that would be new and interesting, and I'm certain that the actor would rise to the challenge. And yet the writers are doing nothing but regurgitating past character bits, and incoherently at that. Here's what I'm getting:
- Dean is too emotionally closed off and needs to express his emotions.
- Dean has suffered more loss and suffering than any human being can reasonably expect to endure and still remain functional, and yet...
- Dean is a whiny emo bastard who needs to shut up and realize how good he has it.
???
Here's my take, and why the show is frustrating me so much: Dean, from all the actual characterization we've seen over the course of seven years, is a caretaker personality who gains his strongest sense of purpose and meaning from relationships and family. He is never going to be truly happy hunting, because hunting is something he did because of relationships and family, never what he truly wanted for himself. He did it 1) to please his father, 2) to protect his brother, 3) because he had to to survive, and 4) because he believed he was too tainted to have the life he actually wants.
For Dean, hunting is a pathology. He doesn't need to "suck it up and realize how good he has it," he needs to recognize that this isn't what he wants to do with his life, and that he still does have a chance for a life that would actually make him happy. He just needs to stop listening to all these people telling him he can't do anything else, and fucking go do something else.
The fact that this previous episode posited that what Dean actually needs is a "purpose" is so fucking stupid I could scream. Dean's always had a purpose--to please Dad, to protect Sam, to hunt Azazel, to stop Lucifer. And he's grown increasingly miserable, because what we've seen that he wants and represses is not "purpose" but family and friendships and love and safety.
So it makes me upset watching all these characters coming in and telling him that if he just represses more and forces himself to pretend that hunting is all he wants out of life, eventually he'll believe it and be happy? No, eventually he'll suffocate his own soul and drink himself to death trying to be something he's not, while denying everything that he's actually ever wanted because he thinks it's impossible for him to have and feels guilty and wrong for wanting it.
And see what I mean about the show repeating itself? Dean already got this exact same tough-love-pep-talk from Zachariah in season four and Demian/Barnes in season five. It didn't solve anything then either because it doesn't address the core problem which is that Dean just plain is never going to be happy as a hunter and he shouldn't have to keep forcing himself to enjoy being one.
The complete erasure of Lisa and Ben and failure to deal with the consequences of Dean losing them is like the writers have carved a quarter out of the character and are writing around a blank spot. It's like they think they've written themselves into a corner, and that no one will notice if they just ignore it.
This doesn't have to be a roadblock--this could be the setup for something really interesting, if the writers would just try. Look, I know Sam and Dean have to keep hunting in order to keep the narrative moving forward. But good writers would be able to figure out a way to keep up the narrative momentum without freezing their lead characters in amber and refusing to allow them to grow or change or explore new situations and relationships and have actual new character arcs with lasting consequences.
Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.
no subject
Bummer that the writers aren't bothering to do anything with Dean's storyline. Maybe it's worth stepping back, letting the eps pile up, and finding out from others if they ever bother to go anywhere with his arc?
Seems like there should be some good fix-it fic, at least?
no subject
Doesn't surprise me at all!
Maybe it's worth stepping back, letting the eps pile up
I might. I don't really watch any other shows at all, and work is so stressful and miserable that I really want to have SPN to look forward to on Fridays, but if it just makes me unhappy I guess it's not worth it. I was really looking forward to this week's episode, but the whole stupid thing about Dean just needing to suck it up made me so angry, plus the complete waste of the back-in-time-in-a-film-noir potential was just terrible! (And Nick Lea was such a disappointment, while Jason Dohring was so good they should have done way more with him.)
I'll keep on the lookout for fic, but I don't know if anyone else has the same frustrations that I have? Plus it's that eternal problem that I don't really go for Dean/Sam fic (because meh Sam) but the Dean/Cas fic is way too focused on Cas for my interest.
no subject
Heh, why do they bother having good guest stars if they don't give them stuff to do? :P
I couldn't begin to guess where the Dean-arc-having SPN fic is at; I'm pretty much just reading whatever
no subject
It usually takes me around a year to find a new fandom. :( On the plus side I'll probably get a lot of reading done over the next 12 months.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-01-16 01:20 am (UTC)(link)I'm with you. The characters have hit a pot hole that they can't get out of. Dean was miserable in S5 and I felt really tied into it--that Dean was going to say yes to Michael or he was going to resist. The episode where he almost says yes but instead kills Zachariah and gets Sam (but not Adam :( ) out of the heaven room was one of the best of the whole series.
Now they have Dean on a downward spiral...but where is it going? I keep expecting Dean to have a total psychological break, because that's where they seem to indicate things are going. But so far, it's just more of the same every week. Dean puts another foot in front of the other with everyone telling him what a pussy he is.
And I hadn't placed my finger on it--but you're absolutely right. The leviathin thing seems like a far off distance. Even in the old filler episodes, Sam or Dean would say something like "Well, we're doing X, but why aren't we off chasing Lucifer/Yellow eyes/etc."
Also, I keep expecting Castiel to come back because you'd think a character with that much development would get a better send off than an explosion of black ooze and a left over trench coat.
So I'm with you, but I feel like I've been invested for so long, might as well see where things are going. However, I am no longer emotionally invested, which makes me sad.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-01-16 01:21 am (UTC)(link)