Good god, I’m finally able to verbalize what rubbed me wrong about the finale and, as usual, it’s all about Sam.
The scene at the end, where Dean seems to decide that killing Death is a great fucking idea, seems to have been interpreted by fandom in two different ways. First: it is a sign of great love and trust between the brothers than Sam would trust Dean to kill him and that Dean, in response, would decide that killing Death is a great fucking idea. Second: it is a sign of exactly how fucking toxic the codependency between the brothers is that Sam would trust Dean to kill him and that Dean, in response, would decide that killing Death is a great fucking idea.
(This is ordinarily where I’d say both of these interpretations are equally valid, but since the interpretation (read: rant) I’m about to put forth actually disagrees with both of them, I’ll resist. Plus, they’re sort of perpendicular to one another.)
First of all, I want to say that yes, Sam and Dean love each other a tremendous, world-shattering amount. And yes, the toxicity in their relationship is also tremendous and world-shattering. We had proof of that before the darkness went kablooey. We didn’t need more, and I certainly didn’t ask for more.
That scene wasn’t about Sam+Dean. That scene wasn’t about Sam and Dean, or Dean and Sam, or even just Dean.
That scene was all Sam.
Sam’s my baby, okay? He was my favorite from day one. (It’s one of the reasons I write him so little. I’m terrified I’ll fuck him up.) It’s funny, because Sam and I aren’t similar at all - I’m much more of a fusion of Cas and Dean - but he’s the one I resonate with. He’s the one I feel possessive of, the one I want to protect. And this is coming from a great place of love and affection, a place of recognizing this one thing that Sam and I share:
He’s broken.
Clean, down-the-middle shattered. If it wasn’t his fucked-up childhood that did it, it was Jess’s death, and if it wasn’t that, it was Dean’s deal. If it wasn’t that, it was Ruby, and if it wasn’t that, it was literally throwing himself into Hell to save the whole fucking world, thank you very much. And after that there was the soullessness, and then the memories, and then the hallucinations, and then the guilt from Cas taking said hallucinations on (because Sam feels guilty about everything, which is something else he and I share), and then losing his brother in Purgatory, and then choosing to leave Amelia, and then the trials, and then the angels falling, and then Gadreel, and then Kevin, and then losing Dean again, and then finding out his brother was a demon, and then Charlie, who he firmly believes is dead, even though I’m still in denial.
The show is literally a record of Sam’s trauma. Sam, who has been lost and lonely and abused for as long as he can remember, who has sacrificed himself over and over and over again, who has lost everyone he loves, many of them more than once, who’s been suicidal since the middle of season eight (and oh god, I’m crying now), who has bowed his head to Death’s mantle so many times and said “take me,” and who, when he came back, kept fucking fighting - who was made to bow and suffer and bleed so many times (the number of times this show has bled him out), who is used to having people say close your eyes, Sammy and closing his eyes and dying or losing or hurting or being hurt, Sam, the Sam we all cherish and love and laugh about and cry over -
Sam.
In that scene, Sam did not bow his head out of love. Not the phenomenal brutal kind, but not the boiling toxic kind either. No. It had nothing to do with Dean being on the other end of that scythe, and everything to do with the history of trauma and abuse he has suffered.
Sam bowed his head - our Sam bowed his head - because he knows what happens to him and to the people he loves when he doesn’t.