Is Sam Winchester Too Stupid To Live?
When we first meet Sam he’s living a somewhat idyllic life, senior in college, about to score his law school dream, has a girl he loves, friends; I don’t think he’s thinking at all about his family other than he’s where he is and they are where they are. I understand that level of separation, it’s not hate, it’s more of an understanding that he’s here and they’re there and life is just better that way. Fate intervenes, for Azazel was not about to let one of his ‘special’ children escape him. We must remember [since now we know] that this is 30 years after Azazel received his marching orders from Lucifer, he’s made plans and Sam going to law school is not part of those plans.
Did Azazel envision Dean coming to get Sam and taking him off on a hunt? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters though because we’ve seen that Azazel can get to who he wants when he wants. Ava had her fiance and Azazel still took her when he was ready for her. Dean coming to get Sam that fateful weekend in November 2005 likely had no bearing on what Azazel did; he wanted Sam back in the game and he knew what he had to do”¦sorry Jessica.
For much of season one Sam is focused on one thing, revenge for Jessica’s death. He goes along with Dean on the other hunts but there is forever that urge to find dad. He’s burdened with guilt in Bloody Mary over his dreams but it’s Asylum that finds him angry with Dean that they have had no contact with dad, going so far as to suggest that perhaps dad is dead. Good thing John decided to chime in at that moment with some further coordinates and off to Rockford, Illinois they go.
It’s Scarecrow when things really get interesting, enter Meg. Meg is sent, we learn later, by Azazel; but not to kill the Winchesters. I suggest she was merely sent to see what mindset Sam was in at the time. It’s interesting to note that Meg appears after John made contact with the boys and warned them that it was too dangerous, even talking on the phone. It is also interesting to note that Meg appears to Sam once he’s away from Dean.
She presents a guise that shows just how aware she is of who Sam Winchester is and what are his thoughts, “because my family said so I’m supposed to sit there and do as I’m told, so I went on my own way instead.” She’s got your number, Sam. She appeals to his mindset at that moment and thus she’s cast her line. Too bad a speed bump arises that causes her to revise her plan, enter Sam’s loyalty and love to his family.
It’s revealing that it wasn’t that Dean came and got Sam that caused Sam to go back to hunting. I surmise had that happened Sam’s stubborn pride would have caused him to go to California out of anger and spite. Not that Sam’s petty but that he is his own person and not wanting to be ‘hauled around like luggage.’ Sam chose to go back to Dean. Scarecrow really didn’t have the brothers that at odds with each other as they exchanged a phone call about the hunt. The substance of that phone call is crucial. Dean’s willing acceptance of Sam’s individuality took a lot of pressure off of Sam. Now, no longer needing to defend his own choices he was able to focus on the larger picture. When Dean became inaccessible by the phone, Sam never gave a second thought to his plans of traveling to California to find John.
Meg learned a valuable lesson, Sam’s love and loyalty to Dean outweighs his need to find dad and enact revenge, the next time we see Meg she’s got a different plan, more devious than the first.
Meg’s next appearance is a trap laid out purely for the Winchesters. Again she appears harmless but quickly attempts to drive a wedge between the brothers; it works for all about a minute and a half. Her plan is wider though, it appears her desire is to kill John. Meg learns once again something we in the fandom have known all along, the Winchesters are at their best when they are together. It also proved to Meg what she already knew, John will come when his sons are in danger and he is vulnerable. Their plan almost worked, almost.
Meg learned a hard lesson though, the Winchester men are plenty bright and darn those Daevas will bite the hand that feeds them. She’s a lot less subtle this time, willingly baiting the brothers and not at all caring to be hard to follow. She could have shaken Sam when he was following her but she had no intention of doing that. Her next few encounters with the Winchesters don’t appear to do that much but in hindsight they do quite a lot. Sure, she ends up exorcised and sent back to hell but what did she get for her father in return? John served up nice and pretty on a platter and the Colt handed to him. Yeah, Azazel held all the cards on that one.
Sam really is his father’s son, he has a single-mindedness about him that would have, and likely did, make John proud. It’s also likely what frustrated John and Sam with each other; they were so very much alike. Sam may not have openly admitted to wanting to be like his dad, Dean carried that torch, as it were. The proof is there though that Sam cared very deeply what his father thought about him and he openly voiced it in ELAC; “For all I know he died thinking that I hate him – what I’m doing right now is too little too late. I miss him, man, and I feel guilty as hell.”
Guilt is a powerful weapon and here it served to turn Sam’s thought completely away from anything other than hunting. Season two has Azazel planning things a bit differently, instead of openly confronting Sam via Meg, he subtly pushes him in the directions he wants him to go, first through visions and encounters with more ‘special children’ [Simon Said] but also through exploration of his readiness [Croatoan]. BUABS is still one where I’m not 100 percent sure the plan, was this a two-fold attack? If it was it was quiet brilliant. Imagine being trapped inside your own body watching yourself do things, kill people, torture your brother. For someone like Sam, very much into being in control, what would that have done to him.
The other side of the attack appears to be Meg’s more openly stated plan, push Dean and see if she could get him to waste Sam. Believing that Meg still had some attachment or loyalty to Azazel I find it hard to reconcile that she would have actually allowed Dean to kill Sam but it did serve a purpose, she got to torture Dean, physically and mentally, got Sam to doubt his ability to control his future, and had each brother wondering at their ability to protect the other, diabolical.
If Sam is to stupid to live then I think the rest os us should be dead a long time! After all no one is perfect, and Sam and Dean are “normal” people and, very important, humans like the rest of us (let’s face it if they were perfect this show would suck, and would not be going for season 5), we all make mistakes, we all make choices every day some good some bad/wrong, so, where does it say that making a bad/wrong choice or a make a mistake equals being to stupid to live??!!
Now serius, ‘Saint Dean’?!’Demon Sam’?! some call Dean the Jesus Christ of the Supernatural?! Can I say bunch of crap!!! Give me a break people!!
Now that i got it out….
Great article Elle2! Loved it all the way and agreed whit all you’ve wrote, thank you for this one 🙂 , and you can keep it comming after all we’ve still got 79 days of hellatus to “kill”…
See ya…
Thank you.
I am so very, very tired of people going on about how Sam is evil and Dean is a paragon of saintly virtue and has no faults. They’re BOTH human, good persons at the core but with plenty flaws like everyone else. Jesus. If you want perfect, flawless characters, go read Jean M. Auel’s books about Ayla.
I love BOTH boys and I love the show and I can’t wait for S5.
Hi, Dany and Jojo,
I get so tired of the ‘fans’ raking the show over the coals and narrowing their vision saying that one brother is good and the other is bad. Sure Kripke has the theme of good vs. evil going strong in the show but he also keeps blurring the lines…Lenore is a good example and so is Casey from Sin City. Sure sure was a demon but I kinda liked her…aside from the whole possessing of an innocent person that is. Then again there’s the ghouls and it’s hard to decide if they’re bad or not…sure they’re bad when we met them but what pushed them to decide to take revenge and go after ‘fresh meat’…John Winchester…wow, talk about a full circle there. THere were more points I wanted to bring to bear in this article but I’ve learned that when I go too big in an article, I lose my point of reference so I simplfied and laid out what you’ve read. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I like flawed characters, especially ones that learn and grow. I see a lot of growing for Sam as well as Dean in S5…it’s gonna be great. Thanks for reading
Nicely argued, Elle2.
Sam was tricked by a master of the art, that doesn’t make him stupid. The angels tried to stich up Dean and would have managed it too if Cas hadn’t come through at the eleventh hour so they both got played by creatures they thought they could trust … Stupid? Nope, just human …
Hi, Suze,
Yep, that’s my point, a master of deception who played on all of Sam’s insecurities. We knew all the way back in Devil’s Trap he knew things about the boys, remember all he taunted Dean with as he tortured him. Makes sense he’s know all the right buttons to push on his ‘favorite’. Sam never had a chance…but now that he knows….
Ever since the pilot it has been shown that Sam has control issues. Not control over other people, but control over himself and his destiny, which is something we all want. It is also something that he has never been able to achieve. Along comes Ruby with the means for him to take that control, or so she wanted him to believe. Not only to take control, but to make all the tragedy and pain that came before mean something. Like elle2 said, Sam never had a chance.
Regarding the section of fandom that refuses to see anyone’s point of view other than their favorite brother, well it makes reading message boards easier because I can just skip right over those posts. People have every right to watch this show from the perspective that Dean (or Sam) is the most perfect example of perfection ever created. I just choose to ignore them because if the show actually took that view it would have been cancelled years ago. Perfection is unlikable and boring. This season has seen a rather remarkable increase in attention because these characters have been shown to be imperfect people who react to extraordinary situations in very human ways.
Wonderful article elle2!
I agree with JOJO. The characters of Sam and Dean are human complete with all of humanities faults. If people want to believe that Sam is too stupid to live then you can say the same about Dean. If he is such a saint (and I wouldn’t want him to be) then he wouldn’t have subcumbed to Alistar’s torture and broke the first seal. If that seal couldn’t be broken then there wouldn’t be any reason for Ruby to continue to manipulate Sam. Sam could want to get all the revenge he could on Lillith but what good would it do if Lucifer couldn’t rise because the first seal wasn’t broken.
Anyways, history is full of good people who’ve made bad decisions even though they thought they were right at the time.
Hi, Trina and Eileen,
Thanks for the comments and sharing your views. Trina, you’re right, it’s easier to skip those posts/threads and the people that start them as I’ve learned who some of the people are who have very little good to say. I used to be one on antoher show and another forum so I’m not bashing them, simply saying as a reformed former show basher (of another show altogether) that lived in misery and loved to post my misery…this is soooo much more fun. And, I truly believe what I say so that makes it more so.
Sam is a control person, perhaps becasue he ‘woke up’ as he once stated, into this life of hunting and felt he never had any say in his life. That’s a great place to start having control issues, I’d say.
Eileen, you’re right, if Sam is too stupid to live than Dean should have been stronger and not broken in hell. But that isn’t the case, they’re human and they broke. And for those out there wondering how John survived in hell and didn’t break I have two thoughts…first, I’m not sure I trust Alastair and that John didn’t break…demons lie; further, if John knew Azazel’s plan and that Lilith would try to break him to break the first seal…well, he’s hang on just to spite them. We all know John has a stubborn streak, a big stubborn streak.
On the other hand, if John did break (and that would help explain how/why he was free to ‘walk’ out of hell when the devil’s gate opened) then perhaps he didn’t have the righteousness that Dean had. Perhaps it’s John’s revenge obsessed nature that cancelled out that aspect of righteousness that Dean apparently had. When has Dean shown the level of revenge/obsession of Sam or John? Perhaps that’s the answer.
I agree, Sam and Dean have made the best decisions they were able to make at the time, either not enough intel (as Meg claimed in Are You There God and thus she was killed rather than depossessed) or too much intel (As in Dean knowing John had made a deal with the CRD and thus he felt justified in doing the same) and the list could go on.
Thanks for the comments.
Well argued and I agree completely!
Also, I may just love you forever for the paragraph saying Sam is not ignored and Dean is not a paragon of virtue! I have always felt the same way, but not brave enough in the rabid sectors to say so x
Hi, Peek-a-boo,
Thanks for braving the sector here! It amazes me sometimes the things people say ’cause I often wonder…what show are they watching? Then again, if it’s not ‘in your face’ and totally explained I guess they miss it.
Glad you ventured out to peek and then speak (Lame, I know, I couldn’t help myself!)
Thanks for the comments
You are right….I think about everything.
Hi, Wicca,
Hey, thinking is good, very good. Thanks for the comment.
😎
Needless to say, SN is all about gray…how many times have they made us question just how evil or non-evil their baddies were?
I really believe in balance, so I think every good story has to have some element of good vs bad, but then again when it’s clear cut and in your face that ‘this is good’ and ‘this is bad’, it gets boring. Enter SN with all it’s..well, grayness. SN takes human weaknesses, flaws that all of us have, and uses that as a platform to explore the lines between good and evil. And that is why SN is so wonderful…Sam and Dean are not superheroes of cold steel, they are human superheroes. They have their own flaws that if anything just make us love them even more.
(And Elle2, I’d totally love to hear what you have to say about the ghouls…they sure beggared some good questions)
Sorry to double post, but I forgot to mention that HELL NO Sam is NOT too stupid to live. On the other hand, Ruby is too skanky to live.
Hi, Narcissus — double post and all. 😛
First off, ROTFLOL re: Ruby too skanky to live — great.
This is why I think S5 will be even more awesome with both Sam and Dean having dual ‘guilt’ or whatever regarding the breaking of the seals neither has anything to hold over the other (not that they would but in the fandom realm there will be those that try). Dean perhaps has him moral compass back, something he lost in S2 and had on hold in S3 ’cause he only had one year to love, so for Dean this will be (I think) helpful in reestablishing some of his confidence. As for Sam, hey, heroes sometimes take a big, big, gigantically big fall; what they do afterwards is the measure of their character. I read a lot, lot, lot of growth and angst and self-doubt followed by maturity and regaining of self for Sam in S5 and I’m all for it. Castiel has some gray lines to work around and if Anna returns and if Zach returns it will be interesting to see what their characters do, learn, act, bring to the table. They gray the lines as well.
As for the ghouls…well, perhaps I’ll dredge up my other part to an earlier review I had in which they played prominently (I think it was the review of Jump The Shark) and I had some thoughts on that and the whole graying of lines.
I’ll set my mind to it and see what comes of it.
🙂
what a fantastic article! thanks for the sanity in such an insane world that is the fandom… 🙂
Great analysis, Elle2. I completely agree that the lines are constantly blurred on the show and I love that each brother struggles between the light and dark parts of their psyche. I honestly don’t get how fans can get so polarized on a show that is about the both brothers and their fears, hopes, struggles, personal demons (pun fully intended) and the most pivotal of all, their relationship with one another. I cannot wait to see what is in store for the Winchesters in Season 5!
Hi, dreamalittledreaimofsam and jennifoofighter (BTW, big wave to Jenn who has written some really awesome Without A Trace fanfic that I absolutely adore *wave!*
GLad you both liked the article. I truly do not get how so many people say they are fans and then trash one or both characters or the show, the direction, the mytharc, the MOTW…you get the point.
I know some people have their preferences (I”m sick, I doooo like hurt/sick/Dean in the hospital) but I also adore conflicted Sam who is torn between right and wrong and sacrifice and believing he’s cursed and trying to do the best he can with it…oh, how many days until September 10th? Quick, where’s the clock.
Thanks for the commeents guys…personal demons…buyah!!!!
Waves back to Elle2! Thanks for the welcome and shameless plug. LOL.