Sam is going through his teenage rebellion phase!

You're probably thinking "but Zaira, he already had that when he was an actual teenager"!

Yes but that was rebelling against his biological father. But now he's finally able to rebel against his actual parent.

And why is this? Because the trials catapulted them both back into their parent-child relationship. Because from the second that Dean picks up on the fact that the trials are making Sam sick, Dean slides into parent mode. He starts to make decisions pre-emptively to keep Sam safe and relaxed when a caretaker!sibling would ask if the injured sibling would ask if they're good to keep working. He prepares and brings food/drink to Sam repeatedly when a sibling would ask if the injured sibling wants something to eat or drink. At this point, sibling!Dean has gone dormant and parentified!Dean has reawakened.

Because Dean has reverted to this programming, he has reverted to the desperate need to do anything to keep his child alive, even if the child hates him. A mindset that parents are trapped in.

The first sibling thought that Dean has had is to leave to give them both distance to recover and give Sam space.

Where Dean is acting like a parent, Sam is acting like his child.

It is completely reasonable for Sam to be upset over how Dean saved him and to keep making decisions for him. But it's how he's going about being angry at Dean is rather childlike or teenager like. Not childish, but childlike.

He's moody and hurt when Dean leaves even though Dean explains it to give Sam space. A few episodes later, they're working on a case and Dean tries to do it by himself so Sam can be comfortable but Sam gets upset at Dean for abandoning him. Dean finally caves and admits he wants to be near Sam. Sam says he wants that but also states that they're not brothers anymore right now.

This setup is why I'm saying that Sam is acting a bit in a childlike manner. Because even though he's rebelling against Dean and pushing away him away (which is reasonable) but also needs Dean to be near him (abused children can have a confusing, clingy relationship with their parent even if fighting). Sam wants him close (physical proximity and possibly emotionally) but also keeps throwing up barriers that Dean doesn't know how to navigate.

He wants Dean to talk honestly with him (which Dean tries to be) nd see reason but then when Sam explains himself he's still being vague in his answers. Saying things that are honest but also worded in a way that will purposely cut at Dean's soul. When if Sam added more detail to responses, Dean would still be hurt but understand more clearly. Dean has a lot of insecurities and anxieties, he has an incredibly brittle core, he needs deeper details in order to get an actual picture of what Sam is feeling.

Like when they're in the kitchen, Dean tells Sam that he'd do anything to get Sam out of a coma. He says that Sam would do the same. Sam's like "no, I wouldn't." Dean is visibly injured by these words as Sam leaves. This answer feels petty and childish because he obviously wants to injure Dean, to lash out in retaliation.

A more mature way (which sam usually is) of saying this , is to explain why he would let Dean pass away. He could have said something like "because you deserve to rest", "Because it's cruel to force you to keep going", "Because you've already done so much for everyone", etc. Anything to explain why he would let it happen so that Dean isn't left feeling gutted.

What I'm trying to say is that this season, both Sam and Dean are emotionally injured. That injury has regressed them to the default setting John programmed them to be: Parent and Child.

This programming makes it nearly impossible for them to find their footing as equal brothers because they're instinctively finding themselves in the power-imbalance of a parent-child relationship.

I was thinking about MBTI as I tend to do constantly nowadays and realized I never really got into it while I was watching Supernatural. So I was thinking of how Sam is an INTP and Dean is an ESFJ while I was scrolling through my dashboard... and then I saw a post about Soulless Sam and my heart stopped. 

Did losing Sam’s soul change his MBTI? Avani and Christie pointed out to me that suffering trauma can sometimes result in changing how your brain processes things and therefore would change your Typing, so I am wondering if this would apply to having your soul ripped out of your body when getting dragged out of Hell. YOU GUYS THINK MAYBE???? 

Okay, wow, I was surprised I forgot how this conversation went down, haha. I didn’t realize to what degree Dean declares he’s giving up this early in the season (I thought maybe it was just the side comment from before) but man was I wrong. Dean goes into an entire speech about how after literally only 2 episodes of trying, he’s done.

SAM: Dean, Cas is so close. DEAN: To what? We don’t even know if there is a cure. So far, we’ve got nothing. We have found nothing at the Men of Letters library. Metatron may or may not know something. And maybe Cas is on to something with Cain. SAM: Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Nothing is guaranteed, Dean. So what? We can’t just stop fighting. DEAN: Yes, we can.

I don’t know at what point in the season this script was written (the ep aired in February), so I don’t know if Jared had already done his first Always Keep Fighting campaign or not, but this dialogue here seems to touch on that. After the horrible year Sam went through trying to help/save/cure his brother, I can’t imagine the blow it must be for Sam to hear his brother say he wants to stop fighting, flat out. This does ring like a man who is ready to accept death, but the issue is Dean’s life isn’t the one in danger. It’s anyone’s life around him. He can’t ask that everyone just be okay with Dean accepting his peace in exchange for the safety of anyone who comes in contact with him once he’s overtaken completely. How is this fair?

And I just want to briefly touch on what Dean says about Cas being close: they have spent full multi-season arcs trying to undo seemingly impossible things, but 3 episodes with no results is too long? I understand that this may just be to emphasize how “far gone” Dean is supposed to be or something, but it’s hard for me to buy into. Maybe this is supposed to be kind of like a statement of an addict trying to find a way back to his addiction without raising questions? I don’t know. I’d love to hear thoughts on this.  

No matter what, it’s sad to compare this Dean to the Dean of s3 who wouldn’t give up, no matter how how hopeless things seemed.

SAM: So, this is it? Y-you’re just gonna – you’re just gonna give up. DEAN: No. No, I’m not just gonna give up. I appreciate the effort, okay? I do. But the answer is not out there. 

Basically what just happened here is Sam identified what Dean is doing (giving up) and Dean replied by saying “No, that’s not what I’m doing. It’s just not what I’m not doing.” Also, he doesn’t KNOW the cure is not out there. I’m not sure why he thinks making a statement like that with nothing to back it up will convince Sam that it’s true because there is no way he could know that.  

DEAN (con’t): It’s with me. I need to be the one calling the shots here, okay? I can’t keep waking up every morning with this false hope. I got to know where I stand. Otherwise, I’m gonna lose my freakin’ mind. So I’m gonna fight it til I can’t fight it anymore. And when all is said and done… I’ll go down swinging.

I appreciate this sentiment that Dean needs to heal from the inside out, or whatever (even though I wish how he’d  “follow her lead” would be to clear the air with SAM instead of ... just.. himself, but I digress...), except this turns out to be a way for him to take back the power in the dynamic rather than to be actually introspective (because if he was actually being introspective, he may have actually tried to apologize to Sam here instead of... okay, I digress). He isn’t saying that he needs to dig deep to overcome this thing on his own. He’s just saying he needs to take point so he’s in control of what happens no matter what that is. Since Sam and Cas and Charlie looking for a cure is out of his control and may or may not produce surprises he cannot foresee, he needs that to stop. He needs to be in control. 

He’s pretty much saying “I’d rather ignore this problem and let it consume me completely, putting everyone who ever loves me --or even just meets me-- in immediately danger rather than actively seeking a possible cure, because at least then I already know the outcome. Me having to feel false hope is WAY worse than me accepting that I will definitely become a murderous monster in the near future, and we all know my feelings are most important.”

Dean literally knows how the Mark is going to play out! And that’s WHY he chooses to stop searching for the cure, so it will play out just how he knows it will! Because he’d rather be on a path he can see clearly, even if it means death to everyone around him.... I am just.. stunned by this and that somehow this speech was spun as a way for the episode to end with the audience supposedly feeling bad for DEAN. Or worse... INSPIRED according to the music ???? 

Oh I’m SO bad at this SO SO bad, haha. I think he’s definitely introverted, but that’s where I stop.

But I think I’ve had this question before and others on my dash discussed it in depth, so maybe they’d like to add something here by reblogging? 

Awe, this is interesting. I need to rewatch that scene, tbqh, because in the moment I don’t remember thinking Sam was sad. But all the screen caps and gifs sure do make it seem like he was, hahaha. 

But I like your reading of it, because I really love Sam and Castiel’s friendship and it’s clear that just in 10.17 they got more done in a day and night than Sam and Dean have been able to do in months, hahah. I think it is because Sam will listen and trust Sam in a way that Dean will not, so things go smoother and in turn this makes Sam feel more confident in himself because he’s not being questioned at every turn or watched because his partner is constantly worried he’ll get in the way. 

I think there’s a lot to be said about the Samsel in Distress trope that has started in the last few years. It’s something that makes a lot of Sam fans angry (myself included a lot of the time), but I also think there’s an in-universe explanation for it. When there’s a relationship like that of the Winchesters’, where one is constantly expressing doubt and criticism of the other, even in the most subtle of ways, it’s not odd for the other to start doubting themselves too, which would then affect his performance in the field. It’s kind of like when you may be totally capable to live on your own and be an adult, yet as soon as your parents visit, you spill the tea you planned to serve and burn the main course at dinner. 

I just saw a post about Sam’s faith and how Sam’s faith was exemplified in last night’s episode when he was reading the Bible while waiting for Dean, but I have to say I totally disagree with this reading (I do think it’s true Sam does have faith in goodness and faith in humanity in general, but not religious faith). I think he was reading because he enjoys reading and there was a book in front of him, and if it were any other book from any other faith, he would have picked it up just the same and read that.

he is gorgeous and i think Dean is an ENFP (although a beaten down one)

Sam and Dean watch and review a bootleg of Newsies OBC.

I think I accidentally wrote Dean still drunk. And also I hope Sam's parallels come through, guess we'll see!