[ SECRET POST #2427 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2427 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 068 secrets from Secret Submission Post #347.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[darkmanifest]

Yeah, you're probably right. The last time I was watching it was was Dean's turn, so I was left with the impression that it's always Dean's turn.

[(Anonymous)]

Dean hasn't had a storyline in years, to be honest.

[(Anonymous)]

da

Eh, S5 wasn't that long ago. And even if Dean was written out of the plot completely by the end of the season, he had a storyline for at least 3/4s of that year. S4 was the crowning glory of Dean having a storyline though. S4 was a good season. :D

But I think "storyline" isn't necessarily what's at stake here? Dean hasn't had his own plot in years, it's true, but he tends to have more interaction with side characters. And Dean's emotions are almost always better handled, I think. More delicately, maybe? I mean, compare Dean's eps in S8 to Sam's. They had pretty equal representation last season, IMO, but Dean's episodes were almost always much better written. Poor Sam had to deal with clunkers like the second trial which should have been an amazing opportunity for emotional exploration and development but which fell flat as a lead balloon.

IMO, that's why people tend to think it's "Dean's story" even if it's really both of them. Sam's eps tend to be more forgettable* and so people default to remembering Dean centric stuff more often, ergo Dean's the only one telling a story.


* Caveat here being that Sam's eps recently have been more forgettable. Sam's had amazing eps in the past: Mystery Spot, Heart, Metamorphosis, plus a bunch of others! But I can't think of any really great ones he's had over the past two seasons and his emotional storyline isn't treated as dynamically as Dean's. Look at Dean and Benny vs. Sam and Amelia, for instance. I liked Amelia and liked her with Sam but those scenes were far more bland than the Purgatory ones just by the nature of "Purgatory" vs. "Domestic Bliss" when the show is Supernatural.

[(Anonymous)]

My problem is that all of Dean's storylines are dropped. Sam gets mytharcs and emotional arcs that have startings and endings. Dean has mytharcs and emotional arcs that are abruptly dropped so he can go be a caretaker to Sam. I mean, I actually love Sam and his storylines. I just wish Dean could get one for once. One that actually has meat on its bones.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's the Dean Show now. Even if storylines might be about Sam, they're usually about how Dean is coping with the Sam storyline more than how Sam is affected by the storyline. That's just me.

[(Anonymous)]

da

But that gets into a circular argument, doesn't it? Is it really the Dean Show if Dean does nothing but react to what's going on with Sam?

Personally, I want more of Sam's reactions and more of Dean doing stuff that's related first and foremost to Dean himself, not Sam or Castiel. S7 and S8 both had more Sam POV than S4-S6 imo and it's a step in the right direction. Now they just need to give Dean something to do and then maybe take the novel approach of showing Sam's reaction to it.

[(Anonymous)]

da

Last season was definitely not Dean's turn. He and Sam had equal treatment in storyline and plot in the first half of the season, then Sam took centerstage for the second half. I'd argue that S7 was more Sam's story than Dean's because he had the Hallucifer stuff going on while Dean didn't really have anything, but that was so terribly mismanaged that it almost feels like it shouldn't count. Besides, it was more Bobby and Cas' story by the end of the season than anything else.

Before that point though, I agree with the other anon. Neither of the brothers gets the full focus and really it's split between them. It also depends I guess on how you are defining whose story it is? If you're talking plot, Sam's going to win out nine times out of ten. Dean only had the plot arc one season really. But if you're talking emotional POV, then Dean wins out a lot more than Sam does.

[(Anonymous)]

This is exactly what I think. Sam's story is more plotty while Dean's is more POV. But I think the last couple of seasons Sam has gotten the POV as well. Season 6 was the last season that was Dean-heavy, I think, and even then it was about evenly split rather than being more one or the other.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I agree that Sam's had more POV recently. He had a lot in the first three seasons as well. S4 was really the first season that stopped having a lot of Sam POV and that was because they were playing of the mystery of what Sam was doing.

S6 was pretty Dean-heavy in terms of POV, I agree. I'd argue though that his POV was 100% focused on either Sam or Cas (or more rarely on Lisa and Ben). Bobby even scolded him for not focusing on Sam.

(OTT for this thread but I've got some serious issues with Bobby. He's done just as much damage to Dean as John ever did when it comes to cutting Dean off at the knees if he ever wants something for himself or chaffs under the burden of looking out for Sam. I really don't get why Bobby gets a free pass - is even celebrated for being an ideal father figure! - when John is slammed for doing the same things that Bobby did all the freaking time.)

As a result, it doesn't feel to me like S6 was actually Dean-heavy? Just that it had a lot of his POV. S6 did feel like the last season where we got some significant exploration of Dean as an individual though. We had more references to Dean's time in Hell in S6 than in any other post-Hell season other than S4. We got to explore at least a little about Dean's fears about turning into a father like John, even if that was cut off in a way that didn't make any sense and Lisa and Ben were written out painfully early. It was a bunch of little things but it made me feel like there was someone who actually understood Dean on the writing staff.

In contrast, S7!Dean just felt like a jerk to me. Like all the skillful handling of his character had been sucked away. S8!Dean is far less of a jerk but he still feels somehow hollow. It's like watching fanfiction!Dean, almost - like he's being written by people who don't quite get him. (Which really wouldn't surprise me given that the writing staff has admitted that they haven't watched all of the episodes of the show. :/) Sam has that same hollow feeling for me too, though I feel like that started with him back in S6.

Sorry, I ramble. Point being, yes. Fully agree.

[(Anonymous)]

Bobby and John did share some traits and attitudes that I think are actually pretty common among hunters generally. The whole "This is how it is, suck it up and quit whining" thing is I think probably what happens when people have been forced to accept that the world is horrible in ways they never imagined and there are no end to the bad things that can and do happen, and that the only way to prevent at least some of them is to keep moving and not get caught up in grief, self-pity or wishful thinking.

However, in Bobby's defense, he never obsessed about revenge the way John did (at least until he became a spirit,) he did give Dean affection and attention much more often and openly than John did, and he was always, always there for the boys. I don't think he ever asked Dean to do anything for Sam that he wouldn't have done for both boys, or anyone else he considered family, himself.