have you been saying your prayers?

not done talking about this sorry. season 4 has a corruption arc for both sam and dean actually. dean's violent outbursts throughout the season aren't normal. that's not what dean was like pre-hell. it's a result of his time in hell. he tortured people. just because it happened in hell doesn't mean its not still a form of moral degradation. he comes back different. he comes back wrong. his willingness to turn his back on sam is a new and unprecedented thing about him. the scene where he's torturing alistair is textually a parallel to sam feeding on that random demon. the only difference is that sam sees dean as a victim because he thinks his big brother had no choice. meanwhile dean believes sam had a choice. ergo he's a monster.

samputation