Good or Evil? The Supernatural Question
Are Sam’s killing less justified than Dean’s prior ones? Uh-oh, this is dicey territory here ‘cause some may think I’m pitting one brother against the other. Not. Going. To. Happen. Sam’s are no more or less justified than Dean’s. If you want to pick a killing on each side that perhaps could have been averted, I’ll pick Dean’s killing of the mom in Croatoan as the most suspect and put it alongside Sam’s killing of the CRD in Bedtime Stories. Both situations had other options, neither brother took the option. Move on.
The rest of Season 3 had pagan gods and demons killed aplenty. Sam killed Jeremy who was intent on killing him, self-defense, very likely. And there were plenty of human host deaths in Jus In Bello as well as No Rest For The Wicked, impossible to tell how many were still alive at the time of the knife being employed. Also, by this time Sam is no longer fearful of killing, he’s not longer questioning it, neither is Dean; they pick up the knife, plunge it into demon/host and move on. The only time we see the characters struggling with the death of a human is Jus In Bello and not surprisingly both brothers had differing ideas.
Season 3 got shortened so that storyline shut down for that season but it picks back up again with a vengeance in Season 4 and it’s a return to the Sammy we know and love, but is it for the better or is there something darker lurking?
In Season 4 we see Sam employing his demonic abilities and perhaps after all the carnage he left in his wake in Season 3 he has a strong justification for it…he’s not killing humans this way. In looking back over the seasons and remembering how Sam feared becoming a murderer and then actually seeing him become one I find this line from Metamorphosis even more telling and see how Ruby was so able to manipulate and why Sam was as willing as he was.
Sam: I’m sorry, Dean. I am. But try to see the other side here.
Dean turns around and faces him.
Dean: The other side?
Sam: I’m pulling demons out of innocent people.
Dean: Use the knife!
Sam: The knife kills the victim! What I do, most of them survive! Look, I’ve saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year.
Ruby got him and while on the outset it turns him away from murder, justified or not, in the end it was so much worse and the body count started to rise around him again.
Dean may not have been slaying so many humans during this time but we are very aware that in at least one instance he was beyond the Dean we know, On The Head Of A Pin. Since the body that Dean tortured in OTHOAP is the one that Alastair employed for only a short time, seeing how he was in a different meat suit at the beginning of Death Takes a Holiday and by the end of that he’s captured by Castiel, there is every reason to believe that host was very much alive. I’m not sure there is any justification to what Dean put that human host through during his torture of Alastair. Sure, there’s the whole angels are being killed and Alastair knows the who and the what or so we’re led to believe, however, at the end Sam hit the nail on the head [oooh, that’s quite clever…On the HEAD of a Pin, hit the nail on the HEAD – I slay even myself *rolls eyes*] Sam’s statement below is accurate in so very many ways…
Sam: This whole thing was pointless!
Yes, Sam, it was pointless. It was pointless to trap Alastair thus allowing Uriel to attempt to kill Dean and exposing himself as the killer of angels. Yes, Sam, it was pointless for Dean to torture not only Alastair but his human host. Yes, Sam, it was pointless for you to drink Ruby’s blood in order to be strong enough to kill – and by the way you seemed to have no regret over killing Alastair’s host, thought that was the very reason you justified your use of your abilities, so that human’s didn’t die – and thus exposed your abilities to Castiel. Yes, this whole thing was pointless…except it wasn’t.
OTHOAP showed the depths both brothers would and have gone to. We saw the true magnitude of the horrors Dean experienced in hell while we witnessed the brutality in which he inflicted those same horrors to a human knowing that he spent a decade in hell inflicting those very same tortures that he had suffered for thirty years prior just overwhelms. We also witnessed a major turning point for Sam who was attempting to right some wrongs in the past (perhaps) of killing demons and their hosts to now freeing the hosts while sending the demons back to hell. Now, however, that seems to be mute as he willingly kills not only the demons but their human hosts. It’s a huge slide down the hill for both brothers, Dean is at his lowest point here as he faces what he’s done and what he’s become square on, Sam still has further to fall but he’s getting there fast.
The Rapture gives us another plunge down Sam’s tumbling slope as he kills a demon for her blood but then his conflict shows as he saves Amelia while sending the demon far, far away. That little bit of relief is short-lived as he takes the final plunge down the hill in Lucifer Rising when he kills the nurse by sucking her dry. It’s premeditated with plenty of time to come up with another option which Sam doesn’t take for he sees the ‘greater good’ at stake; stop the final seal from being broken, stop Lilith.
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.