your heaven is somebody else's thanksgiving. like the memory is not abt him fitting in okay it's not about belonging he's a stranger he's a guest. flagstaff. I was on my own for two weeks I lived off funyuns and mr. pibb. runaway squatting in a room full of travel postcards. wait a minute this is the night you ditched us for stanford. this is a happy memory for you? ur 18 and newly estranged from the only support system you've ever had and suspended in between lives and wait a minute this is your idea of heaven? sam winchester the changeling that you are...
I actually really dislike the caveat ppl tack on of oh but that was just the angels manipulating Sam's memories to hurt Dean's feelings I think that's the coward's way out. there's something so gorgeous abt the contrast between heaven (a place about stasis and being frozen in pretty memories) and sam's wish to be Elsewhere (a wish about movement and being complete as an individual). that's a painful wish and it's not a wish that Dean or the narrative can really stomach. bc it compromises the sanctity of the Family. after all, If you really love me, why would you ever want to go away? and critically it DOES NOT mean Sam loves Dean less, but he does also have within him that instinct to go away. love and existing as an individual are values that should not inherently contradict each other but in the moral universe of SPN they DO and that should tell you something abt the way that moral universe is constructed.
