Season 3 is the only finale with an actual brotherly death, isn't it? 1 didn't quite get that far and 5 technically skipped the death part and went directly to Hell.

OK, I know that the character of the boys is what the writers say it is, and I don't get to decide. But they still have not sold me on this Sam. My head canon is that the Sam who chose to be locked up alive with Lucifer in the worst part of hell would not give up closing the gates of hell to stay alive. He'd be glad that his older brother loved him, but that would be another reason to do what it took to ban demons from earth forever. I just can't see Sam NOT seeing this as worth dying for, and I can't see him letting Dean talk him out of it.

Also, I can't see him saying (major paraphrase) "it is OK me to die cause you don't respect me anyway" as his dying speech to Dean. It would be more along the line of "dying sucks, but it is worth it to beat the demons once and for all". Which would not leave the opening for Dean to talk him out of dying on the basis that he loves Sam more than anything. Again, I don't get to decide canon. But this latest canon is NOT consistent with past seasons Sam IMO. If Sam had died then next season would have been Dean coping with the fallen angels while working to rescue Sam from heaven. Which might be possible, given that M is the only angel left in heaven. Plus, there are a bunch of fallen angels around to serve as information sources about weaknesses and back doors.

Season 3 is the only finale with an actual brotherly death, isn't it?

This is my point! Even if you think Dean died to go to Purgatory and Sam died going into the Cage (I rather strongly do not), that's not even half the episodes.

Apparently Dean being in critical condition/coma means he was a) brain dead and b) didn't survive the finale. Neither medicine nor English works that way. Apparently Sam being killed the week before means he didn't survive the finale to season 2. Again, NOT HOW WORDS WORK.

I doubt there's another show where the deaths of the lead are stacked so heavily into the middle of the season, but come on! The drove off together at the end of S2, were transported together at the end of season 4, and were standing in the same room with Castiel and Bobby at the end of season 6. "I didn't much like season 6" is also not much of an excuse for such a hyperbolic inaccuracy.

Someone else said it was the first finale where "no one" died.

Well, except for the dead person, right? Naomi kinda poignantly bit it.

WHERE WERE YOU???

I swear, I don't remember LJ rewarding this kind of totally missing the point, but it was a less impulsive medium, plus one in which you come across fewer original posters you wouldn't choose to read anyway.

They are words. With definitions. Just because Humpty Dumpty knew how to be master doesn't mean you're doing anyone or anything any favours by redefining as you go.

Sam's putative exit speech was off in that I think emotion, not sense, would prompt him to call Cas a replacement for him. But feeling he failed Dean? Given how much of the front end of the season I spent telling myself the same thing, makes sense. Given how much of a shit Dean was to him before he went in to confess? Made sense. Given he is talking about having felt impure and unworthy (I think it's interesting how his insecurity is different from Dean's, which is pretty much a vacuum of self esteem, and not the same in tenor) since he wa a toddler? That all burst out right now.

If he felt no guilt about not hunting for Dean or hunting for anyone, if he felt no rancour for the Benny thing, if he wasn't so clearly addled by the cumulative trials, if he hadn't talked about the end (as opposed to The End, which should be in the back half of next season) so portentously, if he hadn't been the guy who gave the "I am the least of all of" speech in season five, if we had any reason to think that he's been disabused of that horrible voicemail at the end of season six....

There's just so much there on top of wanting to close the gates.

But since they were closing the gates with false assumptions, I think balking at the last minute makes sense over and above don't leave me which was pretty much all Dean was saying. Also, if Dean is left alone and can't hunt any more, is that a net win for the fight against evil? I think it's hard to say, and if we're mad at Dean for being that selfish (::coughCharlieJanecough::) then you'll need to point out to me where in his arc he stopped being that guy. Was it before or after he killed his grandfather and second-closest friend to save Sam's life?

Oh, hey, let's draw SPN: [link]

I love the fic part of that challenge -- 666 words max, and within the last 67 you must mention either the Impala or "the road so far."

That seems to be a riff on the Sherlock 221B challenge--221 words, fic ends in B. I guess that's a thing that preceded the art challenge? That's kinda pressure, to translate it into another fandom.

Here's the Sherlock range of results: [link] I didn't look at any of them in detail, but since I'm Little Miss Literal I wanted to see how unliteral non-robots would be.

I buy Sam's "So?" I buy it because on top of all the points ita ! made, the amount of pain he was in would absolutely play into his mental state. Besides, he seemed driven to it:

Sam: How do I make it stop?
Dean: Just let it go.
Sam: I can't. It's in me, Dean. You don't know what this feels like.

Makes complete sense to me.

I agree with both ita and Marcia. It broke my heart when Sam said that, and I totally bought it. He was exhausted and heartsick and broken. He probably wanted to die in that moment.

I lost the link to the tumblr post that came across my dash with a number of times Sam had said he'd die to get revenge on evil, and often with Dean telling him no, stay with me (the "I'll have to bury you and Dad" speech).

I loved when Dean said that to Cas! "What show have you been watching?" Heh.

This!