No, but I think it’s really interesting that Sam being upset by not having had a relationship with Mary is pretty obviously the show retro-patching a writing mistake. Because Sam’s difficulties are in some ways very meta: what is it like to live in a universe that’s constituted from someone else’s emotional POV? How would that shape someone? How do you survive as a convincing, functioning character in that world?
And, despite the occasional really heartbreaking moment like that one in 13.4 or like 8.23, the answer is NOT that it makes a character a woobie. Sam at core is an immensely adaptable, immensely skilled survivor. I keep coming back to soulless!Sam for that: soulless!Sam chose to hunt and took numerous unnecessary physical risks, he wasn’t about self-preservation in that sense, but he reacted extremely to an existential threat against his existence as a self, the possibility that he’d be canceled, or left in a vegetative state. Sam’s had a fair number of canonically suicidal periods and self-destructive arcs, but his adaptive resilience almost never really disappears.
Soullessness was an accidental and unchosen maiming of selfhood, but a lot of Sam’s selfhood is underground a lot of the time – his empathy, genuinely admirable though it is, often doubles as dissociation – and I don’t think it’s because Sam is selfless in some cloyingly sentimental sense. I think it’s because he’s obliquely, cannily if unconsciously, hardy. It’s part of the reason why my brain tends to go in weird natural history directions when writing Sam fic. Things that look bizarre make sense when you think of them as about functioning in an environment.
To clarify the “not a woobie” thing: I do absolutely think that Sam is a victim, and that Sam is often Dean’s victim, and I’d hesitate to say that just because some of his responses to that are coping strategies, things SAM does, that that means he “lets” the ways in which he’s a victim happen. That would have very unfortunate implications to me.
I always have trouble phrasing my perception of Sam in a way that doesn’t make it sound as though I think Sam is invulnerable. Sam’s survival mechanisms are adaptations to damage; the fact that damage is so constitutive of his environment that he’s evolved into a creature who is incredibly, multifacetedly efficient at living in damage is quietly horrific. And, of course, all those elaborate spiny things and interesting bits of armor don’t prevent a creature from being periodically smashed.
(More lightheartedly, if you define woobie as “character whose responses to trauma tickle your id” then Sam’s very lack of woobieness is certainly id-tickling enough to me to qualify him for me. Or if you define it as “a character who is damaged in very sympathetic ways” that, too, applies.)
The way that I understand is that both Dean and Sam are the product of a highly enmeshed and rigid family system. In an enmeshed system, who you are, how you feel, what you believe, and what you do, is everyone’s business. In a rigid system, you have to comply in order to be a part of the system. There are tremendous forces in the system that with either force you to submit to the system or, if you don’t, will expel you from the system. Someone who is part of that kind of a system is forced to excise portions of who they are in order to remain a part of the system. That is the price they pay in order to “stay safe,” aka keep the system intact.
Dean cut off large portions of himself from very early on, particularly after the flashback events with the Shtriga from “Something Wicked” in season one. He learned that if he didn’t, he was going to lose his father’s regard and his brother’s life. So, in between John giving Dean the role of protector and these kinds of lessons, Dean most often takes on a homeostatic role. His characterization has become more complex over the seasons, but he often does things that keep the family stable as defined by John: rigid, enmeshed, and adherent to the principles of “Saving people, hunting things, the family business” and “Keep Sam safe.”
Sam, on the other hand, lost control over his life trajectory because of being the object of “Keep Sam safe.” That’s a very passive, disempowered role. Ever since childhood he seems to vacillate over that line – feel empowered, want things, and take action to get them = be expelled from the family, shamed, fuck up. Want college – get shamed for not sacrificing enough of yourself and expelled. Want a dog? Get shamed. Avoid sacrificing a part of yourself (like attempting to sell your soul, or get involved in dark, dark things) in order to get your family back? Get shamed. Get mad that your brother violated your physical autonomy? You lose your brother and the family falls apart. And then swing to the other side: comply, fully commit to being a hunter, do things that cross a line into dark, dark territory? Also get push back, because “Keep Sam safe” also means “don’t let him turn into a monster.” Sam’s role to fit into this particular system is to be the passive, disempowered one – the only way to fit that role is to cut off very large parts of yourself slowly over time. It prioritizes the needs of the system over the individual.
If you want to be a part of that kind of a system, then you must get rid of anything that reeks of autonomy. The “woobie-Sam” image makes me very uncomfortable. At it’s core, it’s martyrdom, prioritizing others’ needs at the cost of your own, until you have very little self left. We tend to glorify that kind of martyrdom in our society, but it is dark, scary stuff to be a part of a system that requires it of you.
Hearseeno 