#brodependency

[canonerarecsonly]

Do you think Dean ever saw a parent walk by with their child in a harness leash and thought “I wonder if they make those in Sam’s size?”

[winchestersingerautorepair]

Truth, Lies, and Battle-Cries

15x10 and Pep Talks

There’s been a lot of discussion on how Spn has been slowly chipping away at Sam and Dean’s toxic codependency. Subversion is a favorite plot device of our current writing team -- they demonstrate an understanding of the old narrative by flipping it on its head. What better way to establish the new than through the destruction of the old?

This is coming a bit late here, but I wanted to take a moment to point out a subtle (but fantastic) instance of this in 15x10, The Heroes’ Journey. Despite its considerable divergence from “normal” Spn, it still held a scene quite familiar to us: the bro-to-bro pep-talk scene. It’s a hallmark of the show. Nothing better embodies “you and me against the world” than the classic rallying cry of beating the odds because we’re the Winchesters, damnit. We’re the guys who save the world. (Funny enough, this scene was included in the “the road so far” compilation before 15x10.) 

Here’s Dean’s motivational speech while they were locked in the cells, awaiting the cagematch:

No, we gotta win.

We gotta win, man.

That's not gonna be easy, okay? But you and me? Not everything we did was because of Chuck.

It was us the blood, the sweat, the tears, man.

That's us.

We've been doing this our whole lives.

We're the best in the world.

So I say we go out there.

I say we go out there, and we kick some ass.

There we are, the standard Winchester call to arms. Familiar, predictable. Some things never change. Right? 

Wrong. 

Fast-forward a few minutes, and Sam and Dean are facing Madison Maul. Garth was just catapulted into a pickup truck.

Dean: Hey, did you believe me when I said I thought we could win this thing? 

Sam: Nope.

Dean: Yeah, me neither.

Voila. The truth at last. These grand affirmations, these appeals to a sense of glory in battle, haven’t been sincere in a good, long while. Priorities have shifted. This isn’t what the show is about anymore, and Sam and Dean would be the first to tell you.

[naruhearts]

14x11 promo is making me excited re: Dean’s Necessary Decision of All Decisions (keep in mind I don’t say “bad” decision this time - we lack any real knowledge of what’s going to happen, and so does Dean, but he’s definitely wearing the Red Shirt of Bad Decisions™. What matters are the choices he executes despite endless bad outcomes - yet we also know that locking oneself up, physically and psychologically, never bodes well in the long term - and the rich commentary of Free Will/Free Choice/Author of your Life themes carries over for the next 3 eps).

Dean’s going off on his own to see his mom for one-on-one goodbye time pre-sarcophagus, and he makes Sam stay behind. It’s like a lovely subverted redux of early seasons a la S3, where Dean’s “time of dying” used to involve heavy Sam-dependence. The Brodependency is literally “dying” with Dean after all the visual/plot narrative foreshadowing. I’m so surprised :P

At the same time, Dean’s once again hiding his predetermined plans from his family. Sigh. But again, to me this is final regression before progression (towards Dean’s “death” and subsequent resurrection of the self-actualized self via Michael plot) (like I said here, Dean’s symbolic burial links the ever-cyclical narrative back to Lazarus Rising on purpose); Dean will learn to embrace full honesty and transparency, especially when it comes to himself. Use your words.

And look: it’s deliberate darkness, speaking to Dean’s literal/metaphorical ‘burial’ of the Self. Interestingly, this dim setting even reminds me of a mausoleum from the camera’s vantage point.

The library table embodies who he is and whom he belongs with: Sam, Jack, and Cas. Home. Family.

So many important heart-to-hearts, optimistic conversations, positive strategization and general emotional unloading took place in the library alongside moments of betrayal, heartbreak, sadness, and disillusion (hello Light/Dark dualism). Here, it’s technically visually framed as the only focal point of literal/metaphorical light during Dean’s pre-darkest hours.

(So, on a D/C note: Dean’s “rough physical shape” in 14x12 makes me wonder if he goes through with locking himself up and he’s in dire emotional straits while telling Cas stuff OR Cas refuses to let him do it and certain words are exchanged OR a combo of the last two plus Dean finding out about Cas’ deal. Who knows? I just hope, as we all do, that BL’s tendency for non-subtle subtext works in D/C’s favour.)

Gotta love Dabb Era silent storytelling...

[charlie-minion]

What are your thoughts on how the show handled the toxic brodependency this season?

Hello,dear! I’m so sorry it took me forever to answer this ask, but I’m currentlywriting my master’s thesis and that has proved more time-consuming than Ithought it would be.

I thinkthere’s still some level of brodependency between Dean and Sam, but they’re getting rid ofit a little more every year. 

This season proved that having Sam alive and wellis not enough for Dean anymore. The first 5 episodes showed that Dean reached avery low point and it had zero to do with Sam. If we want to ignore the Destielsubtext, we could say that Dean’s low had to do with loss in general (Cas,Mary, and even Crowley).

However,that way of thinking negates the existence of canon. For example, in 13x06 Deandid a 180 re: his mood and behavior, and the only variable that changed wasthat Cas came back. And in 13x11, Dean tried to be there for his brother, thesame way Sam had been there for him (unsuccessfully) in episode 5.

In that ep,they had already lost Jack and knew that Mary was alive and possibly interrible danger. Dean himself said that he thought about them all the time,too, but he told Sam not to let that eat him up and compared Sam’s mopping towhat he himself had been feeling before (When exactly? When Castiel was dead!). 

Any way you choose to interpret it, with or without Destiel, Dean needs morethan his brother to keep going and that was an interesting thing the first halfof season 13 gave us. The second half, on the other hand, was about Dean facing his worst failure and succeeding this time. 

Dean hadsome sort of closure last season when he faced Mary and admitted that it wasn’tfair he had to be Sam’s parent. That doesn’t mean he stopped loving his littlebrother or that he will ever stop trying to protect him, but it does mean that he’s somehow learned hecan still live without Sam (not that he’d like to, but that he could if thatcame to pass). To be sureof that, though, Dean had to experience it firsthand. 

There were a few epswhere his life mission to keep Sammy safe got triggered. At the end of 13x20,for instance, Sam talked to Dean about it and said that Dean was treating himlike he deserved to be at the kid’s table. (Meaning:You’re treating me like your child again, not like your brother, your equal).

What wasDean’s answer?

Deanfurther explained that the last time they had to face Lucifer and Michael, Samhad died and gone to hell. Do you remember when was the last time Dean mentioned that?Precisely the time he faced Mary in 12x22.

“And I… Ihad to be… more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be amother, to keep him safe. And that wasn’t fair. And I couldn’t do it. And youwanna know what that was like? They killed the girl that he loved. Hegot possessed by Lucifer. They tortured him in Hell. And he lost his soul.His soul.”

Deanadmitted that he failed in keeping Sam safe last season when talking to Mary.The failure he mentioned happened during the apocalypse, so it’s not toofarfetched to think that Dean’s fear of failing again got triggered becausethey were about to face another apocalypse.  

His failureback then was so present to Dean that he repeated the words he’s always toldhimself: 

“I don’t care what happens to me. I never really have. But I do care what happens to my brother.”

Sam, ofcourse, was not ready to accept Dean’s parent-child dynamic with him. He wantedthem to deal with stuff together and save their family together, even dietogether if that was what it took, but he didn’t want to be treated like a littleboy; he wanted to be treated like an equal, like someone who could make his owndecisions and risk his life just as much as Dean felt he had to.

In thiscontext episode 13x21 happened and it was shocking to a lot of people (meincluded). We’ve learned to expect Dean to give up his life for Sam, no matterwhat, mostly after a speech like the one he gave in ep 20. So, thefact that Sam died in ep 21 and that Dean had to leave Sam behind (howeverpainful it was to him) was exactly to prove that he’s CAN keep living without hisbrother.

Think of it this way:

What wouldyou do if a beloved sibling died? Would it hurt? I’m sure it would; you wouldgrieve a lot and cry, and you would find a way to go back and retrieve theirbody (if your were in Dean’s situation).

But would you kill yourself to bring them back?

There’s abig difference between loving someone with all your heart and grieving theirloss and being unable to keep living because you feel your life has NO VALUEwhatsoever without the other person.

There wasan interesting moment between Dean and Mary when she asked about Sam and Deansaid nothing. There was the mother, Sam’s mother, the one whoshould be responsible for keeping Sam safe, not Dean.

Sam’s temporarydeath in ep 21 served a very interesting purpose in Dean’s story arc.

Now, whathappened in 13x23 re: Dean saying yes to Michael has many reasons. Dean was motivatedto save the world, to save Jack, and to save Sam, but I honestly think therewas another big motivating factor: Dean wanted to kill Lucifer.

He got possessed byLucifer. They tortured him in Hell. And he lost his soul.

Dean’sbiggest failure in protecting Sam was thanks to Lucifer. Everything startedwith Mary and her deal, but Dean faced that in season 12. Besides, theapocalyptic world in season 13 was there to prove that whether Mary made thedeal or not, Lucifer and Michael were gonna bring the apocalypse one way or theother. In the end, Mary was just a victim, too. The real evil were the archangels;the real threat to his brother was Lucifer.

Dean wouldhave said yes to Michael a thousand times if it meant to get this smile ofrelief from his little brother:

I think season 13closed the cycle for Dean. He fixed what he considered to be his worst failure,so now he’s done protecting Sammy like a child.  

Season 14 will hopefully give Sam the chance for closure, too. 

[dimples-of-discontent]

I recently rewatched the episode where Dean has to convince Sam to let Ezekiel/Gadreel in, to say yes. Gadreel says to Dean “he won’t say yes to me but he will to you.” Next we see Dean convincing Sam to live. This is where he says “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you”... but upon rewatching- was that actually Dean speaking or was it Gadreel appearing to Sam as Dean? As soon as Sam says yes, Dean turns into Gadreel. So was that speech to Sam actually Dean or Gadreel pretending to be Dean?

Hey friend! You have hit upon a moment that is known to be contentious in the community for its bronly/Wincest vibes. I want to say first that I am happy to let people ship and let ship and if you are in that camp of people but you’re just off in your own spaces, being happy about it and not attacking or bothering anyone else, I have no problem with it and you can go on doing you. I also know not everyone feels this way, but I wanted to make it clear that I’m not condemning shipping, even of a ship I personally find off-putting, but that I’m interpreting what I see as canon here.It’s clear to me that it was absolutely Gadreel looking like Dean who said that. It has to be, because for Gadreel to possess Sam, Sam has to yes to Gadreel. Angel possession cannot work on someone else’s behalf, i.e. Dean can no more be a proxy for Gadreel than he can for Sam (and we are told he can’t consent for Sam). Angel possession is a contract between vessel and angel and it can be revoked; this element of consent is crucial to angel possession vs. demon possession. Although we see here, and have seen numerous other times, that what is technically consent can result from coercive or manipulative tactics (e.g. Zachariah giving Sam stomach cancer). So for the possession to happen it must be Gadreel in this scene and not Dean.

It’s also clear that it isn’t Dean from the way in which the figure morphs into Gadreel as he puts his had on Sam’s shoulder and takes possession of him. (Watch it here if you want.) What’s more, as you said in your ask, the conversation Dean and Gadreel have before he goes into Sam’s head makes it clear that Gadreel will use Dean as a disguise because Dean is aware that it’s the only way to get Sam to say yes. 

Would Dean have said that line anyway? That’s a more complicated question. I have never been more upset with Dean than when he stopped Sam from closing the gates of Hell in “Sacrifice.” I mean that from an emotional perspective since, structurally and for the story, I can see some of the motivation and the benefits of the decision. This isn’t meta it’s my personal emotional response. Disregarding Sam’s free will like that really got to me for a number of reasons and this episode really just continues that betrayal by tricking Sam and literally letting the enemy in the door. Yes, there’s the rhetoric of why, but the fact is that Sam was ready to die in 8x23 but Dean wasn’t ready to let Sam die. When we talk about “toxic codependency” (or even “brodependency”) this is what I always come back to. Sam should absolutely have been allowed to choose death, both in the church and in the scene in his own head where Gadreel takes over.

Dean was still very, very much in the throes of codependency at the point of 9x01 and so, sadly, even though it’s Gadreel who says that line I have to admit that I think it would have been in character for Dean to say too. It seems like Gadreel is borrowing Dean’s memories (he knew what Dean said to Sam in the church even though he wasn’t there) so maybe he’s able to see inside Dean’s mind and borrow his thoughts and fears as well. Essentially, Gadreel functions as an externalization of Dean’s dependency: possessing Sam without his consent and directing his actions, sending away the other person in the world Dean cares the most for (Cas, in case that wasn’t clear) and isolating them as a unit, holding Sam hostage and ultimately using him to murder their friend and undermine their own relationship. That’s just a mini-reading and I should probably write it more fully, but I think that’s already a longer answer to your question than maybe you wanted so I will stop here. Thanks for bringing back S9, which I adore…always fun to talk about it!

[castielslostwings]

So exactly what about that did Dabb think was so unpredictable? 🤨

[thedogsled]

The other J2 and Deconstructing Brodependency

I love this scene. So okay, Jenny (The Sam mirror in this ep) is the bookish one who’s having a crisis of faith about the spell, because the two sisters are fumbling along trying to make this thing work to get their mom back. (heavy handed much?). Jamie (the Dean mirror) is trying to encourage her. She can totally do it because empty epithet about how great they are! I’m just going to post the dialogue mostly because, like the witch girls, Yockey and Tapping literally use a hammer on the starstruck audience in this episode.

Okay, so hammer to the head:

“So we were maybe too optimistic.”

“Don’t bail out now, Jenny.”

“I’m not, but if this goes wrong who knows what could happen.”

“Look, if you don’t think you can do this then it’s time to make a phone call.”

“No. I’m not asking for help.”

TRAIN WHISTLES

“We’re doing this for mom. She taught us everything, sacrified so much for us; sacrificed so many people for us. She was an amazing witch and she deserves to be alive, and gorgeous, and with us, and with this book we can absolutely bring her back.”

“I know. Just...just don’t yell at me.”

“Listen. I’m sorry. I know I’m the big sister and I’m supposed to be the strong one or whatever...”

“Yeah?”

“I just really miss her.”

“I do too.”

“I know. And I like really believe in us.”

“Jamie...I just want her back so bad.”

“And we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and crush the skulls of like a million people to make it happen.”

Let me remind you of how we opened. Dean brings Sam a bunch of books (just as Jamie gets Jenny the Black Grimoire:

“So this is everything that even mentions some alternate reality, so there’s bound to be something in here that talks about the apocalypse world, right?”

“Yeah maybe.”

“Dude.”

“I’m just saying, Dean, Jack was our way over there, obviously, so with him gone...”

“Okay well Jack’s been gone before. We found him once, we can find him again.”

“No no, he didn’t run away. He is literally in an alternate reality.”

“Okay so we’ll just come up with a plan B. You said it yourself, we just keep our heads down and do the work.”

“You said that.”

“And I was right. Yeah. You read, do your Sam thing, and I’ll go for a beer run.”

“Yeah.”

“We should probably loop Cas in at some point.”

“We’ll fill him in when he calls, he checks in every day.”

Okay, so what I’m saying is that the two conversations mirror each other, and are meant to. Jenny/Sam want their Mom back and are looking in old spell books. Both are willing to do almost anything to achieve their goal, but with the girls, their mother also held a sort of John role as well. It’s funny, because you see, just as John impressed a ‘you do anything for your family’ ethos in the boys, clearly Jenny and Jamie were given a similar ethos from theirs, only instead of breaking the law, witch girls count love in the number of bodies dropped.

The spell books aren’t the solution, of course, and doing the spell without Rowena/Jack/Cas is pointless, and it’s not going to get your mom back, it’s going to make it a thousand times worse. (i.e. you need to learn to depend on people who aren’t your sibling)

So Jamie/Dean, while being the grown up/older sibling, are holding things together for the sake of the younger, who at once bears all the load of having to do the work. Jenny/Sam are stubborn and prideful, because they’ve been taught to value their independence (”There’s no I in Team” Lucifer says to Cas), but the older sibling also depends on them having their shit together, and is more fragile than they try to make out. Jamie saying “I just really miss her” is transposed to Dean, effectively, because even though he’s not showing it - he’s being strong for Sam’s sake - we all know he didn’t react well to finding out Mary was being tortured in hellworld.

So Jamie/Dean both suggest bringing in help, and Jenny/Sam refuse. And Jamie/Dean both use empty epithets and encouragement to drive them along: “I like really believe in us--and we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and crush the skulls of like a million people to make it happen.”/“Okay well Jack’s been gone before. We found him once, we can find him again--Okay so we’ll just come up with a plan B. You said it yourself, we just keep our heads down and do the work.” These are empty. They’re “I believe in you and that’s enough” when that only ever leads to zombie moms (or the release of the Darkness, or Sam almost dying, or--well, you get the point).

Jamie and Jenny really screw up, and they rely on the thinnest of good luck in their experiences to get them through life. Hell, they cheat their way across the country and leave a trail of bodies behind them using only the things their mother taught them. Three rules. They don’t pay for their own gas. It leaves such a thin line between this J2 and the Winchesters that the whole thing is impossible to miss.

And where does their codependency lead them? To stabbing each other to death. That’s where it leads--to a point where they can’t take it any more, and where their luck runs out. They get outmatched, someone else wins the damage roll, and that’s it, lights out.

I’m sure there’s a lot more mirroring them in this ep, but I wasn’t able to appreciate just how much until the rewatch, and I wanted to come and scream it at everyone a little bit. It’s so clever. (I would also be screaming about Rowena’s relationship with the boys but it seems like folks have got that covered, haha, I’m taking a back seat to enjoy all that for the time being.)

Besides, episodes which tear apart the brodependency are wonderful. As much as I love Dean and Sam together, I want them to be independent units who won’t shatter into pieces if they’re not, you know? But also I don’t want them to stab each other to death with knives...

Incidentally, that’s two episodes in a row where Sam is SO FRAGILE and yet ready to fight to defend himself that it’s actually shown to the audience via. his clothing. Pics under the cut:

^exposed throat, sleeves rolled back. I really have a thing about how they use this to express vulnerability in this show... I want to sit and take apart Castiel’s longsuffering approach to confinement, too, but that’s for another time.

[missjackil]

Brodependency

The scene at the end of Unfinished Business, where Dean tells Sam he wont appologize for protecting him, recounting how the last meet up with Lucifer and Michael ended in Sam’s death, and Dean saying he diesnt care what happens to himself, but he cares what happens to Sam, along with Sam telling Dean whatever happens, they’ll do it together, even if it means dying....is the show reinforcing the Wincheter Brodependency is alive and well. Now please stop listening to the rantings of delusional Hellers..  That is all