#samndean

No, I don’t see incest in the relationship between Sam and Dean. I think that if you honestly, earnestly, believe this was truly being written into the show … you need help I cannot provide. That being said, ship whatever you want. People ship all kinds of things. Just stop using the excuse they are “emotionally incestuous” as an excuse to do so pleeeeease. Emotional incest (or enmeshment as it is more properly called) is between a child and a parent where the child is used to fulfill the needs of the parent in terms of spousal availability and emotional support. This often manifests itself in the child not having age appropriate interests (because it would take the focus off the parent), being made to feel guilty if they do not 100% comply to the parents demands and being forced to give comfort to the parent over their perceived shortcomings. If any relationship in Supernatural reminds me of this it is the relationship between John and Dean not Sam and Dean. John’s speech to Dean in “In My Time of Dying” hits on at least two of these points but we just don’t (canonically) know enough to make this a concrete observation. What about Sam and Dean is “emotionally incestuous” when you use the actual definition? Not much. Sam even tells Dean thank you for “raising” him multiple times which once again points to the emotional incest being between John and Dean rather than Sam and Dean at all. In s14 right before the big fucking stupid “Welcome back JDM” episode Dean also admits to a lot of this and it’s clearly hard for him to talk about. Emotional incest isn’t sexual incest at all to be clear. I just wanted to clear up this common “misconception” that a lot of Wincest fans tend to use in an attempt to… sound smart I guess? Assume their fellow denizens of whatever platform they might be on don’t have a fucking encyclopedia? I don’t fucking know.

In terms of sexual incest I see (or used to see) a lot of people saying that Dean shows too much interest in Sam’s sex life. Which makes me wonder if these people have siblings? My brothers used to brag about fucking the same girl in front of their sisters (including me). They would joke about my youngest brother being a virgin. My dad used to joke with them about using protection and knocking girls up. All of my friends were the same. I’m not saying this HAS to be a part of a sibling relationship (and I am sure there are plenty of well adjusted people who know exactly nothing about their siblings sexual exploits and good for them) but pretending this is something that sets Dean and Sam’s relationship apart as particularly alien, strange and unusual is weird to me. When you add in that Dean is always playing a role to Sam as “the cool older brother” this becomes even sillier.

Then there is the heavenly exposition rationalizations which I find hilarious because almost all of these fans claim to hate the angels, hate the direction the storyline went in terms of it not being about Samndean hunting monsters anymore etc. Zachariah tells Adam that they are “erotically codependent” and while I absolutely do think this line was included FOR the wincest fans in the audience (Kripke looooooved making fun of them as a way of soothing his male ego that most of his fans were women lmao) think about it narratively in the story the show was trying to tell. Zachariah is an unreliable narrator at best and has been fucking with time and space (the memories in their respective Heaven’s being the most explicit example) to manipulate the players in the game into doing what he wants them to. If Zachariah can mack on Sam and Dean’s mom in heaven I don’t think he’s above manipulating Adam lmao.

Sam and Dean ARE codependent. I think they both struggle with this throughout fifteen seasons. Dean always feels like he has to take care of Sam (the very first words we ever hear spoken to Dean are ABOUT Sam from John ffs) and feels guilty when things happen to him outside of his control. This is very much due to being parentified as a child. He relates to Sam like he’s his responsibility. This is obvious even if you don’t consider the very explicit times Dean actually tells other characters (Gordon ffs!) that he can’t tell Sam how he’s feeling or show him how he’s feeling because he needs to keep up the front of being “okay”. In s3 (fuck s3 seriously) what a lot of Wincest aficionados use as proof of Dean involving Sam in his sex life reads more like Dean “proving” to Sam… again… that he’s just fine with going to hell. Don’t worry about me. Nothing to see here. Sam almost has a mythological reverence to Dean at times that manifests itself in grand gestures of devotion (Sam sacrifices people for Dean, not so much the reverse as people smarter than I am have pointed out) when Dean is in peril. This is one reason I find it so hilarious that some people act like shooting Emma was a startling development. No, that’s just Sam on a Wednesday. But all of this is with the caveat that Sam never really “gets” or wants to understand who Dean really is as a person. Not that it would matter since Dean only shows him what he wants to show. They fundamentally misunderstand each other on a pretty macro level throughout the show. They love each other but don’t particularly like each other. I find this fascinating. Because it’s so true to life of many sibling relationships and because it makes them interesting foils for each other. This is when I have to give Kripke some credit for the whole Michael/Lucifer plot because they are also siblings who fundamentally misunderstand each other (for different reasons but I do get where he was going with this).