What makes Sam Winchester special to me?
This question can´t be answered without addressing the question of what makes Jared Padalecki special to me.
I watched a TV Show (which was in it´s 10th season at that time) and I immediately was absolutely captured in the story. I connected with Sam Winchester right away, watched the story through his eyes, felt with him, feared with him, loved with him, cried with him. He was the character that took me by the hand and lead me into the story and all the way through it, like a well written character in a good story should do. Every good story has several characters to identify with – so that the audience can choose whom they connect with the most. And I connected the most with Sam. But what made him just so special to me? Why is he so much more to me than any other character I connected with before?
As I said: I watched a TV Show. And then I discovered a fandom. A fandom in which all the cast and crew is really close with the fans. Not only there to entertain onstage and putting up a good show. No, all of them are open, connected with the fans and genuinely themselves. So genuinely that I can feel it even if I have never met any of them in person and only see and hear from them on social media.
And yet I got the feeling that I really got to know the person behind Sam Winchester.
And I immediately felt that I could connect to you, Jared, as much as I could connect to Sam. Where Sam took me by the hand and let me through an amazing story I feel like you are taking me by the hand and lead me through real life.
Sometimes I feel like Sam and Jared together are representing everything about my personality. (And isn´t that what makes us connect to a character/person? That we find parts of ourselves in them?) I´m a fighter and an endless optimist like Sam, but I´m sure as hell not as quiet as he is. J I´m chatty and always and easily connecting with people as you, Jared. I know depression and self harm (like both Sam and Jared) and I pulled through it (long before I got to know you Jared; could have used your advice so much back then, but I basically learned the same as you did – get help, keep fighting, you are worth it, it get´s easier) and I fought my way through it (like both Sam and Jared).
I´m LARPing and I´ve found that, no matter what character I play, I always bleed something from my real personality in it. And I think that is exactly what’s happening with Sam Winchester. There is a lot of Jared Padalecki in it.Sam´s strength, Sam´s love, Sam´s passion for people, Sam´s will to always keep fighting. It may have been created by the show, written by the writers, but it´s brought to live onscreen by you, Jared, the real live person behind the fictional character.
And that’s why Sam Winchester means so much to me. He´s more than a character in a story. He´s like a mirror to me, as are you. And I like what I see, when I look into that mirror. It gives me strength and passion. For that I thank both you and Sam with all of my heart!