I interrupt you're regularly scheduled posting to have a serious case of WTF?! JDM is datin Hilarie Burton???? WHAT?! why??

okay. i'm done. dude has bad taste. (pick me!!)

I had no idea who she even was until I just googled. Huh.

From One Tree Hill?! Man, she is ... quite a bit younger than him. I do like her, though! She got her start winning a VJ contest for MTV, I believe.

As I'm reading -- and admiring the careful thought and eloquence of -- the thread on Sam, it occurs to me that many literary and TV/movie heroes are faced with challenges that compromise our positive perceptions of them.

I see parallels between Frodo Baggins and Sam. Frodo, under the influence of the ring and the Golum, was not very endearing. I see that with Sam, under the influence of Ruby and her blood, not to mention grief. Still, Frodo emerged a hero. I hope that'll hold true for Sam Winchester.

The redemption of Sam this season has been pretty spectacular to me. From the pilot, Sam was the idealistic, sweet and conflicted moral center of the show, evolving through the years into a vengeful, driven, power-hungry, demon blood addict completely suckered by heaven and hell into starting the Apocalypse.

He's emerged from this remorseful and determined to make things right and save the world. This year he's become self-aware, has seemingly made peace with his father and, given his gentle dealings with Dean in PoNR, he doesn't appear to be reacting angrily as he might have in previous years. In fact, I see Season 2 Sam here, the same Sam who didn't retaliate after Dean clocked him in Bloodlust, only a bit wiser and with an obscene amount of muscle mass.

Dean saved Sam by allowing Sam back in after his trip to 2014. Sam just saved Dean. In the last few episodes, he's returned once again the moral center of the show. And he managed to drag Dean with him. He's come full circle.

I. Love. It.

Show makes me happy.

Google has this Twitter result:

...hilarie burton is dating jeffrey dean morgan? why is peyton dating john winchester?! HOPE THIS IS FALSE.

tiggy, where did you see that? The only gossip I can find dates back to early 2009, and she's supposed to be married to some guy named Ian Prange.

Responses to responses to my earlier serial posts:

“It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” and “On the Head of a Pin” were two season 4 episodes where Sam technically saves the day, but isn't regarded as a hero.

ita -- He's continuing willfully on a path that's supposed to end with the end of the world. How heroic is that?

That first comment wasn’t from me, it was a quote from the lj meta. I think she meant that Sam was performing a necessary function at the time – just as necessary as what you refer to in MBV which is okayed by the text – in Great Pumpkin Mr. Hain had to be stopped and the magic demon-killing knife wasn’t doing it. Sam held him off with his mojo and then exorcised him. In OTHOAP Sam killed Alastair when Castiel wasn’t able to do so. I can’t see how stopping Alistair from getting loose could be construed as a bad thing – he had just beat the hell out Dean and was trying to kill Castiel.

(I’m not saying that being hooked on demon blood is a good thing. Definitely not. Yet at the time Sam was focusing on his goal of gaining strength, and the ability to pull demons without killing the hosts and the ability to kill major baddies like Sam Hain and Alastair isn’t completely a negative.)

Ailleann -- From the perspective of any of us, who had "normal" lives, Sam's choice to leave is what's best for his personal future. Of course Dean views it as selfish, because Dean never got to make (or feels like he never got to make) those kinds of choices. By the time Sam would have been leaving Dean would have been 22, and hunting was not only his whole life, but by then he was probably long past deciding that it would be his life's work.

I feel that it’s time to start thinking about scaling back on the whole ‘Dean sacrificed his entire life/ gave up all his options for the sake of Sam /everything was so limited because of Sammy’ belief system that fandom’s had going on for 5 years now. We’ve had it proven canonically that even as a youngster Sammy was no wilting flower and as he grew older he was self-sufficient. This isn’t to say he didn’t need Dean around; of course he would have needed Dean. They love each other and would have depended on each other and taken care of each other. I’m not trying to imply anything other than that. But…. once Sam reached his mid to later teens Dean would have had more freedom. Dean didn’t need to be there to cook for him or button his shirts or get him off to school or whatever. I’m sure Dean would have wanted to make sure he was okay, just like any other older sibling would, but he wouldn't have to be glued to Sam’s side until Sam turned 18.

Also? Dean’s choices are Dean’s choices. Sorry, but they are. Situations can narrow options dramatically but he has said over and over and over that this is what he wants to do. Given the events of the past couple of months and how exhausted he is he may have recently changed his mind, but when he was 22 he idolized his father and seemed to love running around saving people and hunting things. If he had wanted to be a mechanic or a firefighter or an EMT or join a SWAT team or whatever it would have been up to him to say something to his father and do something about it.

Plei -- They didn't drop it so much as fold it into the Azazel story, at some point making it explicit that his dreams were all somehow connected in a Rube Goldberg fashion to it.

This is one of those things, like Angel’s gypsy curse, that never made sense to me. Why would Azazel want Sam to have a power than enabled him to help people? The kid who electrified people, or Lily who also electrified people, those make more sense. Like Andy’s evil twin. But the benign powers mystify me.

Perkins -- John was the one that told him to not come back if he left. (Which I don't totally blame John for either--while I know some of what John said was based on anger, I also think some of it was based on a desire to get Sam out of the life/out of harm's way).

I find this inherently contradictory – we’re led to believe this was a cataclysmic fight in the (continued...)

( continues...) Winchester household, with John and Dean on one side insisting Sam stay, and Sam on the other telling them he’s leaving. Supposedly John’s fighting to get Sam to stay, so you’d think John would think Sam is safer with them. So telling Sam not to come back, because he’d be safer if he doesn’t come back, doesn’t track.

Amy -- I wish Kripke hadn't decided to make their destiny predestined -- I think it would have been interesting if their choices were solely based on their upbringing, their perspectives, the differences between them.

That said, I like the way they're handling their decisions to fight that destiny, too.

Oh, me too. Particularly since the destiny keeps getting wrapped awkwardly around mashups of comic book theology. I wish they’d allow the boys a bit more agency of their own.

Beverly -- But you haven't answered the question of how you wanted to see his character used. What do you think his path should have been, and where and how would you have changed things? Outline for us the show you wanted to see, the show as you think it should have been.

I will try to do this tomorrow (or later today, I guess), I promise. I have repair people coming and their arrival “window” opens in less than 6 hours. (Doesn’t anyone just give an arrival time any more? They all give 4 hour approximations.) Anyway, I need to try to get some sleep before they show up.

that google search is funny because that's actually where i heard it, aurelia. that's a friend of mine.

tiggy, where did you see that?

twitter, but look. [link] [link] [link] [link]

some of the blurbs that are popping up are saying she's pregnant too. *boggle*

I feel that it’s time to start thinking about scaling back on the whole ‘Dean sacrificed his entire life/ gave up all his options for the sake of Sam /everything was so limited because of Sammy’ belief system that fandom’s had going on for 5 years now.

Just because Dean didn't "need" to do it wouldn't mean that he wouldn't. I think it's a pretty clear character aspect of Dean's that he's willing to give up his own desires for what he feels he "should" be doing. I think that instinct is what makes him so protective of Sam (because that's his "job"), and what at first made him so committed to the hunting lifestyle (because it's "the family business"). I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Dean probably overcompensated A LOT in his role as "parent" to Sam, and that skews their adult relationship now.

And I don't think it's just fandom, I think it's a function of Dean's character. It's only now that *his* view of Sam and their relationship is shifting that he's starting to see Sam as an equal. He said as much himself. Changing those behaviors is not an overnight process.

Also? Dean’s choices are Dean’s choices. Sorry, but they are. Situations can narrow options dramatically but he has said over and over and over that this is what he wants to do.

It's sad that canon doesn't really cover those years, when Dean became an "adult", and when (I would guess) John started treating him more as an equal and a hunting partner, rather than a son. It's my personal fanon that when Dean reached that age, he realized that, while he felt committed to the family business and his father, he also enjoyed and was good at saving people and hunting things.

I think that there is where Dean's tough decision came when it comes to Sam's decision to go. I think Dean would have been aware enough to know that while he loved the life, Sam really really didn't. And he would know that Sam was intelligent and capable, and would do okay on his own. I feel like we see that at the end of the Pilot (just before Jessica meets her unfortunate fate). Dean sees his brother again after two four years, and sees that he's successful and happy with his life. Dean misses his brother, basically the only family he's had other than his dad his whole life, but he's willing to let him go because it's what's best for Sam.

And, as always, there is a world of difference between what one knows objectively, and how one feels subjectively.