=:)

For those unfamiliar, Sam&Max is a comedic franchise of a detective duo, both absolutely insane. Sam, the dog, appears to be more normal and tends to be the voice of reason, but he has a casual insanity to him. Max, the rabbit, is just insane without hiding any insanity. The two of them solve strange cases that nobody normal would ever try or would be able to solve. The franchise has comics, a TV show, a lucasart game, three seasons of telltale games (now completely remastered) and a VR game. They are included in two poker games too.

Sam and Max is a comedic franchise, it relies on humor more than anything else, but the heart of the series relies on the relationship of the duo. Despite it all, it is stated and shown again and again that the one thing Sam and Max care about and take somewhat seriously is their relationship. The two of them have been friends since they were kids and have never been apart ever since.

Let’s start with the obvious: Are Sam and Max gay? Short answer: yes. Long answer: I made a whole video about why yes, they are.

‘I thought this post was about them being aspec?’ Good news, aroallos and aceallos exist! You can be aroace and gay too! Amazing, I know. I am here to talk about how Sam and Max are both.

Sam and Max have a very unconventional relationship that breaks a lot amatonormative and hetenormative expectations. Let’s focus first on the idea that the duo are best friends first, then we’ll talk about them being a couple.

Like I said before, Sam and Max have been friends since they were kids. Ever since then, their friendship has always been their most important relationship. Sam has been implied to have dated before, but those relationships never really went anywhere and were never truly his focus, living crazy adventures with Max is what he seems to truly find entertaining.

Max is gay, often forgets he is gay and Sam has to remind him. The writers are always however not very willing to imply he has been in relationships with men before, maybe one time for a little joke, but unfortunately this being a bit of an old franchise means you’re not getting the best handling of a gay character (that they don’t even want to admit IS gay at all). While I do think Max probably has flirted with men, maybe dated one or two, Max is even less interested in dating than Sam is.

It is very obvious as to why that is because it is very easy to read Max as aromantic.

Out of the two of them, Max is the one that talks about his annoyance and disgust of romance in general the most. Sam has definitely made his share of comments, which makes it a possibility that he might be in the aro spectrum too.

There is a valentine’s day episode on the cartoon, and Sam and Max absolutely DESPISE valentine’s day, it is the running joke of the episode, they just can not stand it.

Sam’s distaste is more casual, but Max’s is complete repulsion to it. He panics, he screams, he throws up. They were not kidding about romance repulsion with this guy.

Throughout the franchise, Max makes comments from time to time about his distaste for romance, claiming he doesn’t see a difference between horror and romance, calling love ‘icky’, etc. I will go back to that last point later, but let’s focus on Sam now.

As I said before, Sam has been stated to have tried to date before, but it never goes right for him. Romance is not a focus on the franchise, it is often that a duo of cartoon characters will lead to one of them getting a love interest, but aside from one random valentine’s day drawing from the creator of the show, Sam and Max have never really had any love interest in their stories (aside from each other lol)

It’s sadly clear why they wouldn’t try a love interest for Max, but if Sam was in any other franchise he would have a love interest. Thankfully, he is Sam from Sam&Max, so he doesn’t.

Sam has made comments about trying to date, but it never really goes anywhere because frankly, it’s not like the guy is making any effort. Sam goes through strange cases every week of his life, his work is his life and that’s because his work is pretty much just spending his time with Max making each other laugh. Sam doesn’t want to change his life whatsoever, I really do not think he would be happy if he did, he has stated that before. Sam just seems overall very disinterest in romance, I don’t think he finds it disgusting, maybe unappealing, but I think mostly he finds it BORING.

The closest to Sam being in a relationship with someone that isn’t Max is with the random dog lady the creator drew a second time, where she joins BOTH Sam and Max’s families for Thanksgiving. Basically if Sam were ever in a relationship, it would only work if Max is included.

We are still talking about the best friend context, so let’s analyze that. The writers’ are never going to actually make Sam and Max a canon couple. However, even if Sam and Max are best friends and nothing else, they ALWAYS remain as each other’s main priority. Sam cares more about his friendship with Max than any other possible relationship, Max cares about his friendship with Sam more than any other crazy adventure. They would ALWAYS choose each other before anything else, before a possible love interest, before personal gain, before their own lives, before ANYTHING. We even see a future version of them once, and they still stay together until their last years alive.

I don’t think people realize that all of this is not just ‘power of friendship’, this genuinely is challenging amatonormativity and hetenormativity. This is looking at the idea that your priority should always be to get married to the opposite gender and have kids, and instead deciding ‘actually, my best friend is more important, im going to spend my life with him’. Even if you see Sam and Max as best friends and not a couple, that’s still confronting heteronormative and amatonormative expectations. Sam and Max is inherently just not cishetallo media. (Wait it’s not cis either? Have you look at Max, do you think he wouldn’t use every pronoun? Also Sam is a trans man, he told me.)

However, the devs also don’t want to discourage fans from seeing the duo as a couple. Because of this, when the question has been asked, we receive some really good answers. My favorites are the ones that describe their relationship as being beyond the concepts of dating and relationships. Which um… I don’t think they realize that with that answer you are making them gay AND aspec.

Sam and Max being in a committed relationship with each other, without any label to describe it, with both of them being either very disgusted by romance or very disinterested in it, while at the same time also being very gay and very bi respectively… You are writing aroallo characters, you know that, right?

There is also an asexual reading to the characters. One of the primordial rules of the series, stated by the creator in the series bible, is that Sam and Max do NOT care if someone is attractive. A pretty face will not work on them. When Steve Purcell decided it would not be funny if the duo went cartoon crazy stupid for pretty ladies and instead it would be way funnier that they did not give a crap he 1) Made the best funniest decision I’ve ever seen in a cartoon franchise and 2) Accidentally made the characters even more aspec.

I don’t think I need to explain why Sam and Max not actually caring about someone being attractive works very well through an asexual analysis.

Max hates the idea of being held, or his hands being held, etc. Just get away from him. Not a big fan of kisses either

Sam is the one exception however, he usually is with everything.

I like giving Sam the ace headcanon just cause in Poker Night 2 his card is the Ace, and because I like the aroallo and aceallo duo concept. Aside from the series bible, the only other proof Sam can be read as ace is that in one easy to miss dialogue from season 3 episode 4 of the telltale games, where Max says that Sam has told him making babies is ‘icky and expensive’ before, which is funny but also I know what you are Sam.

Now, when it comes to seeing Sam and Max as a couple, that’s just how I’ve always seen the characters. Sam and Max are definitely dating, well actually, they have gotten married a few times. Believe it or not, this does not eliminate their aspec reading, I think people forget about the ‘aspec can date’ when it comes to characters that have not been confirmed to be aspec on twitter, aspec interpretations of married characters would kill them.

But Sam and Max’s relationship is unconventional, they aren’t all lovey dovey, they aren’t romantic. They’re two insane grown men that showcase their love and care for each other by being funny together and almost dying in insane adventures. I always joke that if relationships in media were written like Sam and Max’s I would actually not mind romantic sideplots, but I guess I’m just asking to make everyone aromantic.

But speaking of love… I do have one last interpretation for one of them. As a loveless aro myself, it is very easy for me to see Max a loveless aro, hell, Sam can be a bit on the spectrum too.

Even if it’s played as a joke, Max is often demonized for his ‘lack of care for others’ and for some of his very clear neurodivergency. Don’t get me wrong, both Sam and Max are jerks and can do terrible things, but Max having low empathy or not expressing his care for others the same way as everyone does not make him a bad person. I’m not saying every loveless person is loveless because of low empathy or neurodivergency, but sometimes these topics do intertwine, I myself am neurodivergent and loveless, and I like analyzing this theme through Max.

Max can be seen as uncaring by everyone, even to himself, to the point that, without getting into spoilers, he believes his own life isn’t really worth it. It is only when he saves another person’s life that his brain believes his life is ‘worth saving’. His brain really believed that because he doesn’t show his care for others like everyone else then it must mean there is something wrong with him, and only through an extreme life or death scenario he can proof to himself that that’s not the case.

I know the demonization of your own lovelessness way too well, and Max showcases some signs that the way people view him does actually affect him. Him thinking so little of himself IS a problem, not a joke and not a ‘he learned how to love!’ character arc. You know why? Because at no moment Sam thinks his life is not worth saving.

He already knows Max cares, he doesn’t have to be like everyone else. He doesn’t need to love like everyone else, he doesn’t have to be affectionate like everyone else, Sam likes him either way. This reading of the character makes me so emotional I want to explode.

As silly as it might sound, Sam and Max have been a great source of comfort for a lot of people in the lgbtqia+ community. I have seen plenty of people talk about how these two characters being gay means to them, so I wanted to also be thankful through an aspec perspective. I have said this before, but Max himself is the reason why I started using the aro label for myself, because he WAS the first romance repulsed character that felt genuine that I had ever seen. I gave him the aro headcanon, projected a lot and decided to use the label myself.

I often see characters that are widely headcanoned as aspec, but I barely see Sam and Max included in that, so I thought it would be neat to write a long essay analyzing the franchise through aspec lenses. Thanks for reading everyone :)