denugis:

I’m seeing conversation about lying and the Gadreel situation going around my dash again. I’m not up to date on s10, like, at all, but it seems like an opportune moment to repost something I posted on LJ at the mid-point of s9, because it’s still the fundamental thing that needs to be resolved for me.

Here beginning the c&ped LJ post: I’ve seen a lot of people describe the storyline of s9 as being about keeping secrets, or lying. I’ve seen people suggest that Dean wasn’t wrong to do what he did, only to lie about it.

That’s technically true, in a way. If Dean hadn’t lied, and if he hadn’t lied at one remove by approving Gadreel’s trick, Dean wouldn’t have done anything wrong. But that isn’t because Dean’s moral misstep was dishonesty. It’s because lying was the means of what he did wrong, and he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that wrong without the lies. Dean didn’t do something and then lie about it, he did something (continuously and repeatedly) for which lying was the necessary instrument. It’s like the concept of the speech act: certain kinds of speech aren’t speech about something, they are speech as action: taking an oath, for instance. Dean’s lies in s9 weren’t lies about what he did, they were lie acts that accomplished what he did.

What Dean’s lies accomplish is the taking away of Sam’s consent. When Uther appears to Ygraine in the form of her husband because Ygraine would not have had sex with him or conceived Arthur if she had known he was Uther and not Gorlois, Uther’s crime wasn’t dishonesty, it was rape. When Gadreel – with Dean’s knowing authorization and collaboration – appeared to Sam as Dean to get Sam’s consent to something Sam didn’t know he was consenting to, what he accomplished, and what Dean knew he would accomplish, was access to Sam’s body and mind without Sam’s consent. The lie was only an instrument to a multilevel, controlling invasion of a person’s selfhood.

Dean went into the plan intending to tell Sam right away. Gadreel persuaded him otherwise. Gadreel persuaded him not by holding his control of Sam’s body over Dean’s head in a hostage situation (that was a card Gadreel played only once before the reveal, over the question of kicking Cas out of the bunker), but by threatening Dean with what SAM would do if the possibility of consent were returned to him: Sam would choose to throw Gadreel out and would then die. Gadreel’s argument didn’t change, from 9.1 to 9.8. I’ve seen several discussions of 9.8 that claimed that Dean tried to tell Sam but Gadreel prevented it, but that isn’t really true: Gadreel persuaded Dean not to tell Sam, again, and he used the exact same argument as ever: giving Sam awareness would return power over his body and his choices to Sam. Dean chose again not to allow that.

It has been argued that Sam was in a coma, and Dean was authorized to make decisions regarding his body, as a loved one is in a real world medical circumstance. That analogy doesn’t hold. Sam was aware, and was capable of making an informed decision whether or not to move on. Dean knew that; he eavesdropped on part of Sam’s conversation with Death. Nor was Dean making a decision in ignorance of what Sam’s wishes would be. He explicitly believed, not that Sam wanted to die and would refuse all measures, but that possession by an angel was a specific measure Sam would specifically refuse. And Dean had a means of communicating with Sam. The same access he had to Sam’s mind through Gadreel could have been used as effectively to tell Sam the truth and let Sam choose whether to let Gadreel in as to trick him. Finally, since the ruse of Gadreel impersonating Dean depended for its success on Sam being willing in general terms to choose to live, Dean’s decision can’t be seen as the prevention of suicide.

So, no, it’s not enough for Dean to regret dishonesty and agree to be honest in the future. Dean doesn’t have a right to exercise control over Sam’s choices, Sam’s consent, Sam’s mind, Sam’s body, or Sam’s memory. He doesn’t have a right to do it by means of lying, but nor would he have the right to do it by means of more honest force. Sam belongs to Sam. And no one, ever, should have a person in their life who doesn’t accept their most basic autonomy, their control over the most fundamental boundaries of the self and the most basic decisions regarding what happens to the self. The earning back of trust, if it’s going to happen, can’t just be a matter of Sam being able to believe that things Dean says to him are true, it has to be a matter of Sam being able to believe that to Dean he is his own subject, not an object Dean can’t bring himself to let go of and therefore usurps power over. There’s nothing beautiful about a love that erases the subjecthood of its object, and the sentimentalization of roofies and noncon as “Dean just loves Sam too much” frankly makes my blood run cold.

This isn’t to say that Dean is irredeemable, that the evil thing he did was done out of malice or was incomprehensible given Dean’s damage and issues, or that his relationship with Sam can never be repaired. But the attitude that “Dean will always save Sam – never change!” well, I can see it in a way, but it would be a dark future for Spn, a future in which Dean’s love would be the monster, the Big Bad. It would be a damn effective horror story. In the end, though, I’d prefer the more optimistic version in which Dean can change, must change, and does change.

Yep, these are exactly my issues with the dynamic between Dean and Sam, particularly in the last few seasons.  

Sam was initially defined as the object of "Watch out for Sammy,” a thing – a valued thing, but a thing nonetheless – with no regard for his autonomy.  Dean’s actions are an outgrowth of the family values that John put into place in order to cope with the situation they were in. And perhaps they were key to surviving the angelic and demonic plans for them, but holding on to these values and ways of seeing each other have very significant costs. 

We’re talking a lot about Dean, but I also have to wonder about the cost to Sam that we’re continuing to see played out here.  I have to wonder how much of “I don’t want to do this without my brother” is informed by Sam buying into the old family view of himself.  

If Dean has subsumed responsibility for Sam’s bodily autonomy, the converse would be that Sam doesn’t exist outside of his relationship with Dean.  And so, when I see Sam forgiving his brother time and time again, being emotionally supportive regardless of the path Dean is taking, and being so hyper vigilant to the times he has let Dean down, I always have a bit of a twinge.  While on the surface, Sam’s behavior is laudable, I just keep wondering about how easily he sells off these bits and pieces of himself in order to maintain his relationship with Dean, simply because he wouldn’t exist as a person if he didn’t.