(Amy, I did get your e. Real life ate me this week. I will e you back soon. Promise.)

Okay! Don't let real life eat you, babe. Have some cake. And some prtty boys.

Hey, keen!

I confess, I was thinking more specifically (Angel's deal for Connor compared to John's for Dean, and Dean's for Sam vs. Buffy's act for Dawn), but the general, it works, too!

Oh. Oops.

I can think about that, too. I think.

::snuggles Amy back. looks for more links::

Back to reading about the thinky.

Is it a sacrifice if it doesn't hurt?

I mean, okay, it hurts a little, but not the way removing himself from Buffy's life hurt Angel.

When Buffy throws herself into that void, there's nothing she wants -- there are only things she *doesn't* want anymore. She doesn't want to fight anymore, she doesn't want the weight of the world on her shoulders, she doesn't want to make do with ... well, making do, working at some sort of a normal life in between killing vampires and demons.

When Dean makes the deal with the demon, the only thing he wants is to have Sam back. The idea of losing his own life in a year isn't too much to sacrifice, because only one year *with* Sam beats even only one day alone, without him.

They're both selfish in this instance, although you can mitigate that by saying that they're saving their loved ones' lives. Is that a sacrifice then?

I think another difference it what's acceptable to them. I know Buffy loves Dawn, but for her the idea of living after *failure* is part of it, while for Dean (it seems to me) it's as simple as living not being worth it if Sam is gone.

Um... hi. Can I join the party?

I have the Season 1 dvds but I'm thinking I need to re-watch a few eps soon. I was catching up on the Season 2 eps that I'd missed (thank doG for re-runs) but I think I still managed to miss a few here and there. (Did they start airing S2 Ep1 at the beginning of summer and then stop somewhere in the middle and start from Ep1 again?)

I did see the S2 finale, though, so I'm not worried about spoilage.

Oh, and even though I've never really been into the light haired boys, Dean is sexy as all fuck. The boy simply crinkles his eyebrows and my brain turns to mush. There's just something about the tortured boys...

No Nicole, you can't.

Sorry.

PS MISS YOU

Oh, like your vote counts. Shut your cake hole.

eta - You can't add in nice stuff on edit.

Where the analogy between Buffy's leap and Dean's deal breaks down is that Buffy was giving up her life to save Dawn and the world--or at least this dimension, whereas Dean was giving up not just his life but his soul to reverse something which had already happened.

Factually, I'd say Buffy had by far the higher moral and ethical motivations. Buffy was exhausted, wrung out, used up and ready to go. If we look at post-death, she remembers being at peace, happy to be where she was after she died.

Dean has no real concept of what hell is, or how long eternity is, but as Amy says, he simply can't exist without Sam, or with the guilt of failing to save Sam. He's not saving Sam or the world from what Sam would have become had he accepted the YED's offer, so there's not really any comparison to the other side of the scales for Buffy's act of sacrifice. And rather than following Sam into death, where if there is a hereafter they would be reunited with each other and their parents, Dean makes the decision to bring Sam back, to life. There's nothing to suggest that death for Sam meant hell, and I'd speculate that on merit, that's not where he wound up.

So there's actually little basis for comparison between the two sacrifices. Buffy sacrificed a life she no longer wanted to save her sister, but beyond that, to save the world. And she wound up in "heaven," before she was brought back, we were given to understand, against her will

Dean mortgaged his soul in eternal damnation to ressurect a--as far as we know--peacefully deceased Sam, mostly out of guilt and terror at having failed at his duty.