4.09 - I Know What You Did Last Summer

Trying to invalidate Sam’s respect for other people’s autonomy by saying that If the situation were reversed, Sam would have let an angel possess Dean literally doesn’t work. He wasn’t lying about the “same circumstances” thing. Furthermore, It’s not incontrovertibly true just because Sam is “unstable” when Dean dies (spoiler: grief is not always “stable”) or because Sam is “never okay” with Dean dying (is anyone “okay” after losing a loved one?) or because Sam has not dealt with Dean’s death in a “healthy” way (except with Amelia? and even if that weren’t true, unhealthy coping still does not by any stretch of the imagination = forcing possession).  

N.B.: Allowing his brother to be possessed does not logically follow from Sam’s grief or his unhealthy coping or his “not-okayness.” Sam wouldn’t have logically “done the same as Dean” just because circumstances were dire. Sam has been in dire situations, and he respected Dean’s choice to die.

Dean vetoed using Doc Benton’s immortality formula in “Time is On My Side.” Sam accepted it, even though Dean’s deal would come due very soon and it was the only solution he knew of. He did not force Dean to become immortal. He let it go.

In the next episode, Dean vetoed another potential solution (Sam using his powers). Sam respected Dean’s decision even when that decision had to do with Sam’s body and choices rather than Dean’s own.

In the most recent season finale, Dean said he needed to do the soul bomb, and Sam listened even though he understood what would happen. Sam wasn’t okay with it, but he respected it.

That’s three times that Sam has deferred to Dean’s decisions about his life and death.

And as for the times when he was desperate to bring Dean back: His actions in s10 are not comparable to the situation in season 9. Thanks to Dean’s note, Sam knew that Dean was “alive” (or possessed) and was looking for him. It’s certainly evidence of the extreme lengths he will go to in order to save Dean, but it is entirely irrelevant to the unsupported claim that Sam would force possession on his brother.

Likewise, Mystery Spot is excellent evidence that Dean’s death (or hundreds of them) can make Sam do uncharacteristic things. But shutting down his emotions, shunning human connection, and becoming self-destructively obsessed with finding Gabriel are entirely unrelated to Sam ignoring his brother’s consent. Sam removing the Mark also isn’t an effective parallel.

Dean’s death always profoundly affects Sam (and vice versa), but there’s no evidence to support the claim that Sam’s grief could ever drive him to force a possession. If anything, the evidence says the opposite.

I’m not trying to stop anyone’s flood of brothers feels. People are welcome to love their complicated and destructive and knotted up relationship. It is, after all, central to the show. Sam and Dean will die for each other and kill to protect each other. Fact. And you know what? “Greater love hath no man.”

I'm the one that remembers Hell.

Supernatural S5E06 I Believe the Children Are Our Future

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