Good or Evil? The Supernatural Question
Sam: I saw a dark room, some people, and a guy tied to a chair.
Dean: And I ventilated him?
Sam: Yeah. You thought there was something inside him.
Dean: What, a demon? Was he possessed?
Sam: I don’t know.
Dean: Well, all your weirdo visions are always tied to the Yellow-Eyed Demon somehow . . . so was there any black smoke? Did we try to exorcise it?
Sam: No. Nothing, you just plugged him, that’s it.
Dean: Well, I’m sure I had a good reason.
Sam: I sure hope so.
Dean: What does that mean? (beat) I mean, I’m not gonna waste an innocent man.
(SAM raises his eyebrows) I wouldn’t!
Sam: I never said you would!
Dean: Fine!
Sam: Fine! Look, we don’t know what it is. But whatever it is, that guy in the chair’s a part of it. So let’s find him, and see what’s what.
Dean: Fine.
Sam: Fine.
I find it telling that Dean is quick to defend himself as if assuming Sam is implying he’s a killer. Clearly Dean remembers his remorse from Devil’s Trap. Sam has a dual burden here, not only is he concerned that Dean may kill someone but he’s got his visions to contend with. Not fun. My point here is that by this time Sam is fearful he will become a murderer while Dean already is – ouch.
The stakes appear to get much higher in Born Under a Bad Sign when Dean is faced with overwhelming evidence that Sam has murdered someone in cold blood. Dean has just cause to fear just what he’ll do to save his family because here he’s faced with killing Sam in order to stop him from killing others and he can’t do it; he’d rather die. Sam for his part appears to have joined Dean as a Winchester that has taken a human life but in the end it is demonic possession and Sam avoids that nefarious baptism, for now.
His so-called innocence does not last long because Sam finally comes face to face with something he has feared since Nightmare; Sam kills Jake. Is it justified? Well, put the DVD in the player and check out the footage, sure seems justified…then again, it’s as justified as Dean’s murders in Devil’s Trap and Croatoan. The adrenaline was pumping, the danger was high, the stakes were high and in the end it’s possible that they could all be exonerated but then again it’s just as possible that they could all be convicted.
Dean could have let Meg continue to be possessed by the demon and live – not sure that’s the best option but it is an option. Dean could have tackled the demon-possessed man beating the garbage out of Sam and then shot him in the arm and run off. Dean could have locked the mother up in Croatoan and left her to be dealt with some other way…the point is second guessing is just that, second guessing. None of us knew that at the end of Croatoan all the sulfur in the blood would disappear and the mother likely would have been returned to her former state; we didn’t know and Dean didn’t either. Perhaps Sam could have shot Jake in the arm or the leg and not ‘plugged’ him center mass again and again. I don’t know, I wasn’t there – and hey, it’s fake anyway. The point is that if anyone is keeping score thus far, Dean has killed three human and Sam one, although I do give Sam partial credit for Meg. It was Sam who knocked over the altar in Shadow which freed the Daevas allowing them to fling Meg out the window and drop six stories to the pavement and it was Sam that completed the exorcism, on Dean’s orders, so that’s a shared death.
We’re not done though, Season 3 really upped the death count and Sam’s fears of becoming a murderer seemed to fade while Dean’s rose.
By the Christmas hiatus Sam has killed not one, not two, but three humans and a newly turned Gordon – he’s a vampire by then so I’ll give him a pass as for this article I’ve already considered vampires outside of the human realm. However, Gordon’s was the most personal, intimate and frankly scary as it was prolonged, deliberate. Sin City ups the count of likely alive human hosts, Magnificent 7 had a multitude of human hosts possessed by demons but it’s very difficult to tell whether or not those human hosts were still alive or not, same could be said for Sin City except that Casey showed some ‘fondness’ for her host’s body so that leaves that a bit more questionable. While Sam showed regret and shades of Season 1 Sammy after the two murders in Sin City he showed none after the CRD’s in Bedtime Stories.
I’ve explored a bit of Sam’s character development during this season in other articles so I’ll not repeat myself, however, I find it a logical progression for this character that he has gone from Season 1 Sam in Faith saying that ‘they don’t kill humans [as in Roy Le Grange] to fearing he’s to become a killer like Max and then Andy [that is when he thought Andy was doing the killing] and now has killed in fairly rapid succession Jake, Casey and Father Gil and now the CRD’s latest host. Keep in mind, I’m not judging Sam here, I’m simply showcasing how this character is being led, pushed, cajoled and in some ways forced as well as softened to killing humans. By now there are a minimum of five likely alive humans and/or hosts (again, Casey and Father Gil are suspect) that Sam has killed and aside from a comment at the end of Sin City, he’s not seeming to be bothered. In fact, he goes so far as to say in Malleus Maleficarum that the witches have to die and that he’s resigned himself to becoming more like Dean. So does that mean he sees Dean as a random killer? Does he see Dean as less concerned with the taking of a human life?
Fantastic article. I do think the writers have changed their tune quite a bit over the seasons, and then changed them back when they needed to. Bobby was very concerned for Meg in season one, but then rather calmly shot Ruby in “Sin City” to see if the colt worked.
So, do I think the boys are murderers? I think they’re killers, but when I think murderer I think of innocent unsuspecting victims and I’m not so sure that they crossed that line. Sam possibly with the nurse in Lucifer Rising, but she was still a demon so in most ways it really wasn’t any different than the knife.
Trina,
You bring up an excellent point regarding Bobby (and I hate to admit but he never entered my thoughts here — and I think Bobby is AWESOME!)
You are right though, he had great concern for Meg yet none for Ruby…wow…wow.
I agree regarding your thoughts on killers vs. murderers…would have made an even better title (sometimes I just get stuck on the titles, Alice even added to mine and made it better but Killer or Murderer would have been really cool.
I just love looking at the show from many angles…and with now only (Whee, ONLY) less than four weeks to go, there’s that much less time to look at the angels.
Thanks for commenting
Great article, Elle2! It’s an interesting look at the show.
I tend to agree with Trina, that “murderer” and “killer” are two different things. I’m inclined to think that if one takes a life in self-defence, that they are more aptly classified as a killer whereas a murderer is one who seeks an innocent person out to snuff out their life for the sake of killing. Even killer seems to be the wrong flavour – I wouldn’t consider someone who fought in a war to be a killer, though they likely had taken many lives. I don’t believe there is a truly perfect term for one’s who, like Sam and Dean in the Supernatural world, take lives in the course of warfare whether it is self-defence, defence of others or stopping serious evil. (By the way, I don’t mean to imply I condone warfare or justify it, I’m simply looking at circumstances and scenarios in which certain terms are more applicable than in other instances).
Hmm, tricky, tricky….
😐
Hi, Elle,
It is tricky, tricky, you’re right. THat’s the whole point of the article…well, at least one of several, is that there is no easy answer here. They boys are flawed, they’ve done unspeakable things (that we, of course, speak about) and some of the things they did were for self-defense, some because of pride (Dean’s and Sam’s) some because they were left with nothing left but despair (again, both Dean and Sam) and the list goes on and on.
Do I condone war? No, but I understand the necessity of it, however. And you’re right, what is the best term and is there even a ‘best’ term, killer, murderer, defender of good? And then who defines good…brings me back to my beginning, I believe in moral absolutes, some things are good and others are not, it’s how we discover those truths and then live them out that defines us.
I’m enjoying the journey of the brothers and from what I glean from the ‘teasers’ coming out about Season 5, it’s going to be an awesome year (again!)
🙂
In legal terms ” murder ” implies premeditation, if someone is trying to kill you and in the struggle to preserve your life you end up killing them it’s not murder. I know this sounds like so much sophist hair-splitting but I do think the circumstances leading up to an incedent have some bearing on the judgement of the incedent itself.
This all means jack shit when applied to demons and whatnot but it does make good nailbiting TV. I think you’re quite right that Sam and Dean have both ended up somewhere they never intended to be surrounded by the smoking wreckage of their moral code. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions … I’m looking forward to seeing how the writers shine them up again!
Interesting and thought provoking!
I, too, see a difference between murder and killing. For example, the police shot Ronald in “Nightshifter”. They were doing their jobs, murders? I think not, killers? Yeh, the guy did die.
Possessed Sam murdered Steve Wandell, not possessed Sam murdered Jake (there was no danger from Jake at that point and Sam could have just incapasitated him). I could list more “meat suits” that were probably ok and would have lived if not stabbed by the knife or shot with the colt.
I think Dean has become more sensitive to the human host than Sam (although Sam tried to justify his demonic exorcisms as being more humane…I think it might have been more a case of him lying to himself).
However, I do want to debate Meg. She likely died when she went out of the window. Sure you could say it’s all Sam’s fault for flipping the alter, but I think not. I don’t blame the boys for her death at all. And the “demon brother” shot her with the fake colt anyways, that also killed the human.
Hi, Alysha,
Great comments. It’s interesting, I too think Dean has become softer to the human ‘meat suits’ while at the same time telling Sam to use the knife to kill the demons which in turn, of course, kills the human…tis a quandry.
The Supernatural highway is littered with broken, battered and in many cases lifeless bodies…sheesh, what does that say about us fans who still adore it? 😕
Great post, elle2.
Another layer of complexity in the show is that the question is not just who you kill and why, but also how. For instance, if Sam hadn’t been using his psychic powers (and presumably, if he hadn’t been drinking demon blood to, as he thinks, enhance them), Dean would be dead and back in Hell (On the Head of a Pin).
Faellie is correct that it was Sam and not Castiel who saved Dean in “Head of a Pin”
And its possible the Alastair’s host was already dead from the angel torture, which was stated to have taken place off screen, and if not from them, then when Dean took over.