Hi so I was scrolling through your blog, as i often do every few weeks cause i love your takes what can i say!
Anyway, i came across your take on why Bobby is more of a “father figure” to Dean than Sam and essentially how it’s because Dean is the primary father figure in Sam’s life and the character, as a whole, fights off any other potentials competing for that role (I am paraphrasing here, so feel free to add or subtract from this as you like).
This got me wondering, do you think the same idea also applies to the Sam-Mary relationship? I’ve seen so many people complain how Sam barely has any relationship with Mary and that she was even brought back as “wish” of Dean’s. To be honest, I feel the same way. She didn’t seem to extend that same, or even similar, warmth to Sam. It was like Dean’s mother back from the dead and more of Sam in a partner role, dare I say. Dean’s mom, hence by extension, Sam’s too—as one would typically see in a marriage or a partnership.
So, what I wanted to know was do you think this is a similar case as Sam-Bobby? By Dean’s own admission in 12x22, he’s had to be “more than just a brother” to Sam. In fact, he’s had to be “a father AND a mother to keep him safe”.
Can, then, the Sam-Mary conundrum be explained by Dean, consciously or unconsciously, edging Mary out of that parental role in Sam’s life that is reversed for him? Would love to know what you think!
Partially yes, and also not exactly. There are 17 chapters to Sam's Hero Journey and Mary is in chapter 7 and 8:
Chapter 7 is meeting the goddess/allies, which is metaphor of unconditional love
Chapter 8 is meeting the temptress to abandon his quest by picking on the Hero's insecurities
Your question on Mary's initial lack of warm towards Sam is because in season 12 Mary's role was the temptress to recruit Sam into the nefarious British Men of Letters. To be fair to Mary, she didn't know that Sam was having doubts in his own his abilities after meeting Magda and Ellie, they reminded him of his own tortured past when he was blamed for inherent conditions that he could not change. By joining BMOL, Sam temporality abandoned his original quest and free will.
You will notice in that post on Hero Journey that goddess/allies and temptress are sometimes the same people, such as Dean and Mary. In season 14 Mary is the goddess by providing Sam with unconditional emotional support because Sam's usual source of unconditional love is absent - Dean, due to possession by Michael. Mary will remain Sam's steadfast supporter as he is broken down by "the fathers" (Dean & Michael, Nick & Lucifer, and Chuck), which will eventually lead to Chapter 9 - the atonement with the father, the most emotional part of the Hero Journey. When Dean is free of Michael's influence (figuratively and literally) and reunites with Sam, Mary's role will fade. In this case it ends with her 2nd death.
Mary Winchester's main purpose on the show is the absent mother, which is a classic formula to tell the story of endangered children. Mothers represent home, security, comfort and unconditional love. When they are absent, either literally or figuratively, the world is thrown into chaos. Mary's first death completely upended the Winchester family forcing them from home to the endless road, mother-less children often described the feeling of being "adrift in the world". More importantly, Mary's death robbed her family the sense of safety. The loss of safety is most felt by Sam, and he tells Dean that he doesn't just want a normal life, he wants a safe life. Think of the Snow White story, even though Snow's father is alive, she was not protected due to the absence of her biological mother, and her safety was constantly in jeopardy. In Star Wars, the death of the mother puts Anakin on the path to the dark side and Padma's death put the lives of twins Luke and Leia in danger.
Similar to when John was alive, the newly resurrected Mary's function is to show Sam's feeling of not "fitting in". Sam meeting Mary was more like an adopted child meeting his birth mother for the first time when he's 35. Sam had some mild curiosity and interest in her, much like how Jack has curiosity and interest in his biological father. In Jack’s flashback Sam tells him he knows what it is like to feel like you don’t fit in. An adoptee once told me what drove his curiosity about his birth parents was a deep feeling of not “fitting in”. There are always arguments about nature versus nurture and while he picked up a lot from his adoptive parents, there was a considerable amount left “unexplained”. Sam told Mary in season 12 that he has blanks in his history that he was relying on her to fill in. The adoptee did meet his birth mother and while she was a nice lady, he found he didn’t have a deep connection with her because that kind of connection you can’t force.
