Crack Theory that could turn out to be a spoiler:

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Crack Theory that could turn out to be a spoiler:

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You think that Sam's punch in 14x12 was ooc?
Before I say anything, let me say that I havenât watched since early season 14, so Iâm a bit behind. Iâve been keeping up on spoilers and gifsets and such, but without actually watching the episodes minute-by-minute, I could be missing important stuff. Most of my analysis will come from Sam up until mid season 14. There may well be extenuating circumstances that make his actions make more sense.
Let me say, firstly⌠it shocked me. It definitely did. It is vanishingly rare for Sam to throw the first punch, ever. Both brothers have done some things while possessed or under supernatural influence, and I donât count those against either of them. Sam went the first four seasons without throwing the first punch at Dean, despite many heated arguments.
And, to be entirely fairâSam was under supernatural influence when he threw the first punch at Dean in âWhen the Levee Breaks.â On top of that, he was fresh off a detox that nearly killed him, one that caused him to hallucinate Dean saying some pretty painful words. Dean accidentally echoed the sentiments of his hallucination before that intense fight in the hotel room. So I think itâs fair to say that it takes an overwhelming intensity of feeling for Sam to respond with violence, never mind initiate violence.
So, yeah. I was surprised.
But Iâm not sure if I can say it was out of character. I generally try not to call things OOC, because it doesnât really help me or anyone. As soon as it happens in the show, itâs part of the showâs canon.Â
Sam punched Dean.Â
I canât change that, and calling it OOC doesnât help.
What I can do is try to make sense of it. Hereâs what I have. Correct me if Iâm making any incorrect assumptions about the episode. Iâm going off gifsets and spoilers here. Is this more or less what happened?
Dean is planning to throw himself inâdo I have this right?âin the ocean (???)Â in some Very Special Box/Prison/Casket with Michael. In previous seasons, whenever anything happens to the universe/happens to Sam, Dean is right there with his steadfast assurances that âWeâll figure this out.â Not this time. In typical Dean fashion, when Dean sees himself as part of the problem (or part of a very extreme solution), heâs ready to toss himself into outer space/somewhere more mysterious even than outer space (A.K.A the unexplored depths of the ocean.)Â
Sam has tried to be level-headed about it, but itâs killing him. He really doesnât want Dean to do it. He doesnât want to lose Dean.Â
Finally his emotions over any number of recent occurrences overflow. He hits Dean, states his belief, and begs to know why Dean doesnât believe in them/their ability to fix this together.
Sometime in the last few episodes, he has faced Nick, whose face Lucifer wore.
Itâs pretty safe to say Samâs possession-related trauma is fresh.
Sam loves his brother.Â
Historically, losing Dean has absolutely destroyed Sam. It usually comes out in suicidal actions/suicidal recklessness.
I could see Sam actually being driven to throw a punch in a situation like this one. Hereâs what I have:
Sam has been willing to let Dean give up his life before, even though it nearly killed him. But the circumstances were different. Sam could tell himself that Dean might end up in Heaven, or at least some quiet, sleepy emptiness. This time, he canât. That leaves us with,
Hell. Sam did the same thing with Michael and Lucifer, and he was trapped with them for anywhere from 200-ish years to several millennia. He was tortured until his very soul was literally âflayed to the raw nerve,â in Deathâs words. The torture damaged his soul. In Supernatural, souls are literally immortal currency. Consider that. Consider the kind of pain it would take to warp a soul.
Sam remembers the Cage. Just last season, he admitted to Rowena how much Lucifer still terrified him. He remembers the things that happened in the Cage, and Lucifer wasnât the only one there. Michael was also there.
Sam likely knows intimately the kinds of horrifying tortures Dean may endure. He knows firsthand that archangels will use their powers to make sure you never die. They will hurt you in ways a body should never be hurt and they will never, ever stop.
And Sam? The person he loves most in the entire world is about to subject himself to the torture that brings such shame and terror Sam can barely speak of it to others except in the most abstract terms.Â
Iâd throw a punch, too, if I had even the faintest hope it might save my loved one from that horrible fate.
[1/6]Do you think Castielâs aversion of violence and conflict after he took on Samâs âmadnessâ in S7 might be more than just a product of the horror and death that Godstiel caused but also a reflection of Samâs Cage trauma? Cas said that he at first used to hallucinate Lucifer just like Sam but that changed after a while to whatever his own mind concocted and it got me thinking, what if there were other more subtle imprints of Samâs experiences that didnât fade or manifest differently but âŚ
[2/6]⌠were still present in Casâs crazed mind? Like wanting to run away from conflict? Again, Cas has plenty of reasons to get there on his own after the whole Godstiel situation but when âEmmanuelâ remembered his past, he was deeply troubled and disturbed but it didnât drive him to lose his mind. Taking on Samâs hell memories induced hallucinations did. It does stand to reason that we can deduce some things about Sam from what we see from Cas afterwards, right âŚ? I mean, it makes sense to âŚ
[3/6]⌠me that a guy that has been brutally tortured for a minimum of 180 years would want to avoid all and any possibly hostile/violent/bloody situations. But Sam couldnât get away from any of it because he got his hell memories back when they were in the midst of an apocalyptic level crisis that wouldnât let up until it left him completely alone and I canât help but wonder if he was white knuckling it through his repulsion and aversion of conflict/violence and just running on fumes âŚ
[4/6]⌠(plus EVERYTHING else he was going through) for the sake of those who needed him despite wanting to run for the hills from all the bloodshed of the hunter life and then did precisely that the minute he lost all his reasons (Dean, Bobby, Cas) for hanging on? And this is a guy who already never liked the hunting life and is still the character least inclined to use violence unless he absolutely needs to. What if even his becoming less and less verbally confrontational in the later âŚ
[5/6]⌠seasons, even in situation where his anger is justified, has less to do with him becoming more mellow/diplomatic and rather more to do with an unexamined and reflexive deeply embedded need to avoid conflict in whatever capacity the hunter life and his family dynamic will allow him? I am soooooooo sorry! This is such an incoherent half thought-out word salad! And I know that this is probably even too far-fetched to be called a headcanon, let alone it be substantiated by Canon, so do feel âŚ
[6/6]âŚfree to mercilessly quash down my mad ramblings! Just wanted your opinion since you are far more perceptive than I can ever hope to be so ⌠thoughts? *sheepish grin* :D
Pshh, no way! Youâre super perceptive and wonderful, and Iâm honored that youâve chosen to share your awesome thoughts and theories with me!Â
I donât know if Castielâs reaction to taking on Samâs hell memories had anything to do with Sam. Itâs possible that having all that violence bouncing around in his head made him particularly averse to conflict, but even though Castiel is a powerful warrior, he has cared deeply for people from the beginning, and what happened to him when he took on Samâs memories may only have been that part of him magnified by the trauma he took on. I honestly donât know...
I really love your analysis of Sam! âAnd this is a guy who already never liked the hunting life and is still the character least inclined to use violence unless he absolutely needs to.â <--- True! I imagine itâs possible that inflicting violence might have been especially hard after s7, but like you said, Sam has never really enjoyed the hunting life. Even though he is good at hunting and understands the necessity of it and the way it can help people, he has never gotten the same sense of fulfillment Dean gets from it. Dean seems to enjoy the thrill of taking down the bad guys. He doesnât particularly savor the tough bits, like dealing with moral ambiguity and philosophical questions. Sam, in contrast, seems to enjoy the thrill of research and discovery. (He really would have made a great lawyer--Sam, going at the books for days on end, would have been perfectly at home.)
LOVE LOVE LOVE your theory about how Samâs Hell experience might have been part of the reason why he became more passive and less verbally confrontational in later seasons. I think thatâs a part of it, and I think the events of season 8 exacerbated it. Sam ended the season literally suicidal in his attempt to atone for his imagined sins against Dean. What happened with Gadreel and when Dean had the Mark only made it that much worse. Only in seasons 11 and 12 (inexplicably, without accompanying character development), have we seen him return to asserting himself.
What if even his becoming less and less verbally confrontational in the later seasons, even in situation where his anger is justified, has less to do with him becoming more mellow/diplomatic and rather more to do with an unexamined and reflexive deeply embedded need to avoid conflict in whatever capacity the hunter life and his family dynamic will allow him?
I agree with this absolutely, and well-said! <3 Please let him express negative emotions without being vilified. I imagine his belief that heâs âalways angryâ has also led him to respond by always trying to be reasonable and calm, even in cases where, like you said, anger would be perfectly justified.
Thanks so much again for sharing your thoughts! I really like your analysis.
I was reading your comments on Sam's apology and I agree wholeheartedly. I was also somewhat put out by Dean's attitude about the car. I know it was played for laughs, but it sort of irks me that over the years, Sam just doesn't drive it unless Dean isn't there. They made such a point of it supposedly being their "home" in "Baby", but it isn't really anymore since they have the bunker. And it's never been Sam's even when Dean was dead or gone. That was made clear when he came back both times.
I had a huge huge reply written about this, but then I accidentally pressed a key (???) Â and it redirected me to my dashboard, so I lost everything. *sobbing* Take two:
Yes, I felt a twinge at that line, too. I know it was funny to both brothers and was supposed to be funny for viewers, but it did sting a bit.
The thing is, I donât doubt that Sam may still see the Impala as home, because other than his living family members, it was his only constant during his formative years. So whether he liked the music or the ways he could or could not personalize it, Iâm absolutely certain that it left a mark on him, just like he and Dean left physical marks on it by carving their names. The car is his childhoodâthe only thing that remained the same.
The thing that stings, I guess, is that, unless weâre being generous and assume all the art in his and Jessâs apartment was his and not Jessicaâs, he likely has very little experience with personalizing his own spaces. The Impala was the only one he really identified with, but he had no control over what music it played or how it played that music or what went inside it. He never got to drive it until after Stanford, and he very rarely drives even then. (Though, to be fair, itâs possible that he doesnât enjoy driving like Dean does. Iâm the same; driving does nothing for me.)
And that sorta makes me wonder if thatâs why it took him seasons to personalize his room in the bunker even a little. The only thing at Stanford that we know was his was that photo of John and Mary. For the longest time, his room in the bunker was just the place he slept. It probably felt like an extended-stay motel to him. Finally, in s11, we learn he has a memory box, and thatâs HUGE for him.
Dean had four years as a regular kid with a home and a loving family. He has the memories to long for those things and know how they work, but Sam has never experienced that sort of permanence. Unlike every other hunter weâve met, he may not have been informed of what they were moving around for, but he has always lived the itinerant life of a hunter. And thatâs kinda painful, I guess?
Maybe seasons 8-12 have been about Sam learning how to even have a home. Maybe it took that long for him to believe in its permanence and its safetyâthat it wouldnât just get snatched away or cause problems for the people he loved. He said it himself:
 âLook, I never had what you had with mom and dad, okay? [âŚ] I donât have any memories of home. And whenever Iâve tried to make a home of my own, it really hasnât ended well.â (9.04)
This episode just reminded us that the one place that was constant in his lifeâthe Impalaâwasnât one that he could change in any real, visible, permanent way because while it was his, it didnât belong to him. And thatâs kinda mind-blowing.