yor
Home
Samfanatic
My men!
Posts: 2,171
|
Post by yor on Oct 11, 2008 2:44:31 GMT 1
See, now I agree that he had no control over what was done to him, but I do think he has control over what happens.I think we see him trying to figure out what to do with it... I could never blame him for experimenting with it... He is TRYING to control it. I think he needs to try another tactic with Sam--more talking
That's what I loved about the last scene... Dean tried and Sam shut down. Maybe Sam's done talking? Yeah, we've seen Sam deal with his demon side time and time again, BUT now GOD is worried about him. He HAS TO believe this guy could be saved. The ANTE is SO HIGH this time... GOD's on it directly! His salvation before was his belief in God, and now God is worried about his demon powers? Yikes! If God doesn't believe he can handle it... Whoa! Killing the dude depressed the hell out of him. The God factor is another reason the intensity for Sam was upped this time... made it different! You know, I would love it if one time, we could all be in the same room together watching, so we could actually talk to each other about the episode! Except we would NEVER sleep and we might get physical??? Defending our men and all...
|
|
|
Post by Silwyna on Oct 11, 2008 13:35:44 GMT 1
I loved this episode I thought it was strange they weren't addressing the headache. Makes me wonder if the headaches will get worse because he's blocking / avoiding the powers?That's where I always thought the headaches were coming from, because he was somehow fighting them. Travis was a bit odd to me. I don't like a hunter so friendly he's hug worthy? Why not just make him a casual, old acquaintance?I actually liked this. Another part from their childhood. As far as the rest of the episode goes, I feel like "been there, done that." We've already had an episode with Sam locked in a closet with Dean's life in danger,
I think though, the intensity level was SO much higher because everything was for the most part in the open now... Yeah, we've seen this before... But in the closet before, Sam used his powers. In this closet, he picked the lock. Of course Sam won't be able to ignore the powers, but I believe he will try... I believe he wants to.
I agree with YOR. I almost expected Sam to use his powers to get out of the closet and I loved that he chose to pick the lock instead. This shows that he's already trying to stay away from his powers. Dean and "God doesn't want you doing it"? Seriously, WTF? This is the guy who didn't believe in God two weeks ago? I will keep that strong belief that Kripke knows what he's doing with Dean here, because otherwise—I think Dean brought it up not because he suddenly believes in God, but because he knows Sam does. And his words did have one hell of an effect on Sam (awesone job from Jared!!!). You know, I would love it if one time, we could all be in the same room together watching, so we could actually talk to each other about the episode!I would love that!
|
|
mick
Home
Hunter
Posts: 2,081
|
Post by mick on Oct 11, 2008 18:01:34 GMT 1
Okay, I just rewatched the opening of the episode, and I was reminded of another TV show, in relation to what Sam said about using his powers for good. Now, keep in mind, it has been years since I've seen the episode of the other show, so my memory of it is vague, but I think I remember the gis of it. I know that some of you watched Stargate:SG-1. Do you remember that episode, where the Harcissus (sp?) child comes and touches Daniel's forehead and lets him see the future? In it, Daniel does something (I can't remember what, though ;D) that seems like is for the greater good. In the end, though, he gets too power hungry and even goes so far as to lock-up/kill (can't remember which) his friends. I think, if Sam keeps using his powers, this is how it could end up. Right now, he thinks he's helping people. I think eventually, though, instead of him controlling the powers, they will control him, and maybe even change him so much that he would use them against those he loves (Bobby, Dean). I know the two shows are totally different, but, like I said, for some reason, I see a similarity between that particular episode of SG-1 and SPN. Does that make any sense at all? ??
|
|
yannik
Potential Demon
Hunter
Posts: 171
|
Post by yannik on Oct 11, 2008 19:55:14 GMT 1
It makes sense, IMO. I didn't watch SG1 though. And even if it makes sense I don't thing the powers thing here will lead to that.
I see it more as - this way of sending demons back to Hell will have some disturbing repercussions. True, the knife kills the victim, but it also kills the demon, permanently. Exorcism sends the demon back to hell, and mind!exorcism does that too, but in a completely different way. I think there's something in that. Like it gives the demons some extra kick when they come back, makes them stronger, more vicious, I dunno.
|
|
yor
Home
Samfanatic
My men!
Posts: 2,171
|
Post by yor on Oct 11, 2008 21:03:13 GMT 1
Good points.. Sam is only sending them back to hell. I know the SG1 episode you're talking about. For me, I think this issue is like the *gag* Starfart / Apollo issue. WHY does it always have to be romance? WHY can't men and women be friends? I have lots of guy friends... Why can't TV do that? Same thing here... Power DOESN'T have to corrupt... You can have drama, decision, etc, all without the evil. Sam can surely be tempted... He can struggle, but it doesn't ultimately have to be a bad thing. Dare to be different from every other show...
|
|
|
Post by Silwyna on Oct 11, 2008 21:42:27 GMT 1
I remember the episode as well. I think that it could lead to the same result for Sam, but I hope that he's strong enough to stop it before those powers corrupt him completely.
|
|
mick
Home
Hunter
Posts: 2,081
|
Post by mick on Oct 11, 2008 23:59:49 GMT 1
but I hope that he's strong enough to stop it before those powers corrupt him completely. Me, too. Okay, I have a question about the psychic thing--was Sam always going to be psychic, or was he born that way because of what the YED did? I've always thought that his powers were because of the YED. If that's the case, then his powers came from an evil source, which for me, anyways, makes it that much worse that he would even consider using them, especially since he's always ben worried he would turn evil. Now, if he was born with them, and the demon blood somehow enhanced them--I think I could be on board more with this storyline. Something that maybe started out as a natural gift, was tainted by evil. I don't really know what I'm trying to say here (except that I hate the whole powers thing!). Yor, unfortunately, I don't think this show is going to be any different. MAybe it's just my lack of faith in TV these days. I mean, I always thought that Starbuck/Apollo made great friends and was happy for once to see a show be able to have a male/female friendship where there wasn't any other feelings other than friendship, then the show went and ruined that for me. I would love to see Kripke take a different route, but I think we've been on this road for too long for it not to end up with the powers=evil (or almost evil). I honestly don't think Kripke will turn Sam completely evil, but I think it will be close. ETA: After reading some posts on other boards, there's something I read that I wish Sam would remember. In AHBL, he was with the other special kids of the YED's. They each had their own special power, and each time one of them opened themselves up to that power, it didn't end well at all. Guh! I hate this frakking power stuff more now than I did in season 2! Where are my human boys, driving in their classic car and hunting evil! I think I'm getting one of Sam's headaches...
|
|
|
Post by Silwyna on Oct 12, 2008 10:35:30 GMT 1
I don't think Sam was born psychic. All his visions were in some way connected to the YED and the special children, he never saw anything else (though I would love for him to be a psychic, having visions about bad stuff that have nothing to do with the YED and then trying to stop them).
I can understand that Sam is tempted to use his powers. He knows that it could lead to evil, but I think he believes he's strong enough to not let that happen. He truly believes that he can use them for good only.
The way I see it, powers always corrupt. You always go a step further than you ever thought you would, just because you can. Sam didn't want to use his powers, ever. Then he "accidently" used them to save his life when Lillith attacked him and he didn't turn evil. So he thought it was okay. At that point, he probably thought he would never go farther than that. And then he killed his first demon with his mind and safed the host. And he didn't turn evil. That was the next step. And it just goes on like this, or it could at least. Does that make sense?
But of course, I still hope and think that Sam is stronger than that and will stop before he fully goes dark side.
|
|
yor
Home
Samfanatic
My men!
Posts: 2,171
|
Post by yor on Oct 12, 2008 17:37:56 GMT 1
The way I see it, powers always corrupt. This statement honestly STUNS me coming from you. You ALWAYS see the good in people. It sounds much more like something I would say... Are we body switching?
|
|
|
Post by Silwyna on Oct 12, 2008 18:18:33 GMT 1
I do see the good in people as I always hope that one day, one person is going to prove me wrong. But so far ... that didn't happen.
|
|
yor
Home
Samfanatic
My men!
Posts: 2,171
|
Post by yor on Oct 13, 2008 12:25:15 GMT 1
Sooo... I was thinking about Sam last night. (no surprise, right?) When he 'handles" a possessed person, he seems to be killing them, not just sending them to hell. There is some confusion here. For example, Sam's powers wouldn't be needed if it was just a 'simple' exorcism... Plus the visual was very different. The whole red bubbly trip through the floor?
Come on Kripke... Haven't you learned? We watch with a keen eye. You need to straighten this out!
|
|
mick
Home
Hunter
Posts: 2,081
|
Post by mick on Oct 13, 2008 20:09:16 GMT 1
I see it more as - this way of sending demons back to Hell will have some disturbing repercussions. True, the knife kills the victim, but it also kills the demon, permanently. Exorcism sends the demon back to hell, and mind!exorcism does that too, but in a completely different way. I think there's something in that.
Just had a thought about this after something I read--Dean was in hell when Sam started sending these demons back to hell, right? I don't imagine that they'd be too happy with Sam, and what better way to take out their anger than on his brother?
Oh, and I was reminded of something that Sam said in LR. He told Ruby he wasn't even sure that what he was doing (re his powers) was right. Does he think so now? It sounded like that in his arguement with Dean. When did his opinion change? Or was he saying it as a way of defending himself?
|
|
yor
Home
Samfanatic
My men!
Posts: 2,171
|
Post by yor on Oct 15, 2008 3:46:49 GMT 1
As always, my favorite reviewer... It's LONG, but I think good. www.supernatural.tv/reviews/s4reviews/meta.htmMy highlights... Supernatural has never been subtle about drawing the parallels between the external monsters the boys fight and their own internal demons. This is definitely ground we’ve covered before, and Metamorphosis might be dismissed as being simply a very heavy anvil retread of concepts already explored, sometimes more delicately, in Nightmare, In My Time of Dying, Bloodlust, Simon Said, Hunted, Houses of the Holy, and Fresh Blood, among others. We’ve dealt before with Sam’s fears about being a freak and having an evil destiny laid out for him by the demon, and with the question about whether creatures – vampires being a specific case in point – could successfully choose to act against their base natures and elect not to be evil, as an allegory for whether Sam might have the same ability to choose to evade the demon’s destiny for him. We’ve already seen Dean dealing with his hunter prejudices against non-human things and eventually setting them aside when they ran into either his love for his brother or his realization that what he’d always felt and assumed wasn’t necessarily true. In that regard, Metamorphosis does indeed revisit earlier themes, and in a blatantly obvious way.
I would submit, however, that it also takes us into new territory and advances the story of the Winchester brothers in important ways, because it gives us our first glimpse into what happened to Sam after Dean died, and lays the groundwork for understanding how much Sam has changed in the intervening time. Metamorphosis is only a small step along that path, but I think it’s an essential one, and that’s the point I intend to explore in this analytical discussion.When his powers initially appeared in the very first season, Sam was terrified by them. The dreams and visions brought crippling pain and forced him to ask why he could see such things, and why all of them involved death and destruction. He initially hid them from Dean because he knew Dean would be freaked out by them, and because he was afraid that Dean wouldn’t see him and love him the same way if he knew that Sam had abnormal abilities. When he did finally reveal them, Dean was freaked out, no matter how much he tried to deny it, but he didn’t love his brother any less, and was afraid for him, not of him.
When Sam learned at the end of the first season that the demon had plans for him and all the other psychic kids, he began to fear what those plans meant and to believe that they doomed him to some evil destiny he might not be able to avoid. That really was the theme of his quest during the entire second season, and played into what Dean told him about John’s admonition that Dean had to save Sam, and would have to kill him if he couldn’t save him. Both of the brothers wrestled with that destiny concept throughout season two, with Dean nearly losing his sanity before concluding that he would save Sam no matter what, and with Sam going through a phase in which he tried to do as much good as possible in order to stave off his fall. Ultimately, Sam learned at least the first part of the demon’s plans for him, and rejected it at the cost of his life; he chose not to kill Jake when he had the clear opportunity, and Jake instead killed him. Utterly defeated and bereft, Dean sold his soul to bring his brother back, and just reset the stage again.
In season three, Sam seemed to be free of his powers and to have stepped aside successfully from his purported evil destiny; the demons may have referred to him as the boy who would have been king, but he was secure in knowing that he’d dodged the bullet. With Dean facing a death sentence at the end of a year, however, Sam grew increasingly desperate to find a way to save him, and when Ruby ultimately dangled the reawakening of his powers as the only way to succeed, Sam was ready to accept them and damn the consequences. Only Dean’s adamant refusal to let him do it saved him from taking that step.
We learned in Lazarus Rising that Sam’s desperation to get Dean out of Hell left him open to considering anything that would work; he admitted flat-out to Dean and Bobby that he’d even tried to open the devil’s gate and to make a deal, but failed at the first and couldn’t find any takers for the second. His failure to free Dean clearly tormented him. We also saw what he hid from Dean: that he was consorting with Ruby and had learned how to exorcise demons with his mind, but that was all we knew.
Metamorphosis finally let both us and Dean see a little bit into Sam’s mind. In his fights with Dean in the motel and on the roadside, he finally revealed that he had been every bit as bereft as Dean had been when he had died, but that because he hadn’t been able to get his brother back as Dean had done, he’d been forced to go on alone and make decisions alone. Dean had charged him to keep fighting, and that’s what Sam had done. We still don’t know – and I very much look forward to learning – exactly how Ruby returned and became his companion, but we can guess that she persuaded him that he could tap into his powers without being ruled by them in order to save lives, and that without Dean refusing to let him consider it, he’d elected to try.Dean clearly still has no conscious memories of his time in Hell. I believed him when he told Bobby in Lazarus Rising that he remembered being a hellhound’s chew toy, and then lights out, with nothing more until he woke up in his grave. I think that when he actually does remember more than just those flashing dream glimpses of terror and blood, he’s going to be overwhelmed by it with no way to hide what he feels, and it will probably come close to destroying him. For the moment, however, it’s as if no time has passed for Dean since his death; he died, he woke up, with nothing in between. Listening to Sam, I saw Dean comprehending for the first time just how much time had passed for Sam, and how hard it had been for Sam to be alone, especially carrying the guilt of his death and damnation. He had realized it earlier with Bobby and the liquor bottles, but I don’t think he’d really applied that knowledge to Sam until now.I also saw Sam having rounded a corner in his own mind, because what he admitted was that he had dared to use his powers, and nothing bad happened. Working with Ruby, he developed his control and learned to exert himself without the pain he always used to experience. Ruby found the way to convince him that his powers could be used for good, and that led to him actively pursuing and practicing with them. This was a far cry from his initial fear of them, and from his active distaste at thinking about what the demon had intended for him. He had learned from sweet, innocent Andy’s example in both Simon Said and All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1 that developing the powers in small ways didn’t necessarily corrupt the spirit, at least not immediately, but he’d never really accepted that idea before; after Dean died, he bought what Ruby was selling, turning off the little voice that warned about what had happened when Andy’s brother Anson and Ava and Jake had all developed their skills to the point where they no longer suffered pain when using them. All that remained of his earlier caution and fear was the remnant of shame at considering himself a freak contaminated by demon blood, and his innate understanding that Dean would never agree that using his powers was right. While the boys’ argument in the car about whether Jack could resist temptation echoed many other older debates, with Sam, as he had in seasons one and two, arguing in favor of treating Jack as an individual and giving him the benefit of the doubt and Dean reprising his attitude from seasons past of doubting that evil wouldn’t turn evil, I don’t consider it either just a rehash of issues or a retreat from the characters’ evolved perceptions. Sam had become more bloody-minded in season three, but saving people was still his rationale for hunting, so his defense of Jack rang true. Similarly, Dean didn’t insist that Jack’s redemption was impossible, as he likely would have done before his gradual conversion from single-mindedness during season two, but just made the argument that he needed to know where Sam would be if Jack did turn. The major change was that the fights in this episode constituted the first and only time I can recall, apart from their argument in Houses of the Holy, when Dean actually mentioned to Sam the possibility that Sam might be doing evil and need to be stopped. Every other time they argued about his putative destiny, Dean had always maintained that Sam had choice, that Sam wasn’t fated to become what he feared to be; this was the first time I can recall Dean asking Sam to think about whether he might be wrong and fail. Sam’s announcement at the end of Metamorphosis that he wouldn’t use his powers again was thus something more and different than just his earlier fear and rejection of them. It wasn’t simply rewinding the story to an earlier point and repeating earlier decisions. Before making this decision this time, he had graduated to the point of using his powers expertly without fearing them, and even justified them because of the good they could do. He was well on his way to accepting them and losing both his fear of them and whatever residual distrust he felt for Ruby, and actively defended that position to Dean. It took hearing that an angel had told Dean to stop him, together with seeing yet another good person pushed over the edge by the pressure of evil, to make Sam decide that he had to set temptation aside. I do believe that Sam was in earnest in what he said, and was not trying simply to mislead Dean into thinking that he had changed. His decision is also different than his earlier ones for another reason. Previously, even when he desperately decided to access and use his powers consciously despite his fear of them, he had never been able to because he didn’t know how; hence his total inability to oppose the Yellow-Eyed Demon when Azazel had taunted him and tortured Dean in front of him in Devil’s Trap, or to do anything actively to prevent Dean’s death in No Rest For The Wicked. I do believe that Sam told the truth when he told Dean than the only things he had learned to do involved holding and exorcising demons; otherwise, I think he’d have deliberately used the telekinesis he’d tapped unconsciously in Nightmare to open the closet door and stop Jack from killing Dean. I think that Ruby was constrained in training him to delivering only the forms of knowledge he was willing to accept, and that he hadn’t yet gotten to the point of being willing to do overtly non-human things with regard to anything but demons. I would guess that telekinesis had too often been a demon’s weapon against him for him to have felt comfortable in using it, especially knowing how using it had played out for Max in Nightmare. Now that he knows how to access and use at least some of his abilities consciously, however, and that he can do so without automatically becoming overtly evil, I think he will have a much harder time resisting the temptation to use them in desperate situations. I suspect that his resolve will be tested when he and Dean come up against a demon who gets the upper hand, especially if Dean is in danger. I believe that what happened to Jack is a clear and very anvil-obvious foreshadowing of the principal danger to Sam: that if he’s pushed hard enough, particularly by a threat to the one person he loves the most, he may accept his power in order to defend what he most values, and that he might do it even knowing that his humanity would be the price. Had Travis not threatened to kill Michelle, and to do it horrifically by burning her to death, Jack might have remained human; we’d seen that he had the will to resist his urges, once he understood what they were. Saving Michelle, however, was his irresistible temptation, and delivered him to evil even as he tried to prevent evil to her. Dean accepted death and Hell to save Sam, and we know that Sam is more than willing to do the same to save him. And if using his powers hadn’t warped him yet, suggesting that, unlike Jack, he could take a bite without automatically condemning himself, holding to his resolve not to use them may be all the harder. OK, I'm just copying the WHOLE darn thing... It says EXACTLY what I believe about the episode, but in a much more clear and better way... Course, you may still disagree... I thought the points were pretty well defended. But here's more... Loose EndsOn another note, Dean’s acceptance of Castiel as an angel and of the concomitant existence of God appears to be certain following his journey into the past. Dean referring to God and an angel so matter-of-factly – not to mention his having given his angel a nickname! – marks a major turning point for Dean. He may not yet have faith – he may still require overt demonstrations of power and specifically designated orders from a being that he can see – but he’s come a long way from the man and boy who’d bitterly dismissed in the aftermath of his family’s destruction his mother’s gentle promise that angels were watching over him. That Sam still believes was reflected in the look of loss on his face when Dean reported that Castiel had said that if Dean didn’t stop Sam, Castiel would; Sam still desperately wants to do good and had justified the use of his powers because he was saving lives and doing good, and hearing that an angel abjured him for it was a body blow.
On the matter of secrets, it’s clear that there are still things that the brothers are keeping from each other. We know that Dean shared a lot of information concerning his trip to the past, but we also know that he had deliberately withheld the information that the demon had fed Sam demon blood. I would bet that Dean was trying to protect Sam from that specific piece of knowledge, understanding at least a little how he would feel about it and not wanting to admit himself how much it revolted him. Learning that Sam already knew and had been deliberately hiding the knowledge from him for a whole year just damaged the trust between them further. We don’t know whether Dean told Sam all of the rest, particularly that Mary made a deal and that she had made it to bring John back to life; we only know for certain from what was said in the car that he told Sam that the Campbells had been hunters, and that the demon had killed them as part of its plan.
Sam still hasn’t told Dean how Ruby came to be working with him, or any of the specifics on what they’d been doing together. I suspect that at least some of Dean’s rage and disgust at discovering Ruby was recognizing her as the girl who’d been in Sam’s hotel room in Lazarus Rising, with the intimation there, deliberately cultivated by both of them, that they had been sleeping together. I suspect that wasn’t actually the case – I do think that Sam would draw the line at sex with a possessed host, or at least, I devoutly hope he would – but the idea was inescapable. And given that Sam lied so fluently and easily about not using his powers, it will take time for Dean to be able to trust his word again, even when he is telling the truth. Facing that constant skepticism will doubtless breed resentment in Sam, opening another dangerous potential for a rift between the brothers.
Finally, the situation with Travis opened up some interesting issues. The story established that Travis hadn’t seen the Winchester brothers for at least ten years, since they’d been boys hunting with their dad. How Travis got Sam’s phone number, and why he would have sought out Sam rather than some other hunter to help in his rugaru hunt while he dealt with his broken arm, are niggling questions, although I could guess that Travis might have called Bobby for help and been referred to Sam and Dean, since they were relatively close and he already knew them. More interesting, however, was Travis’s clear ignorance of Dean’s death and resurrection, which suggests that the hunter world at large is not generally aware that Dean had died, much less gone to Hell and been subsequently resurrected. I had wondered about that. Bobby had clearly told Pamela, the psychic, since he needed her help to find out who or what had brought Dean back, but the question remains whether either Bobby or Sam had told any other hunters what had happened to Dean. That Travis had once been a friend but didn’t know suggests that neither Bobby nor Sam had spread the word, even to others who had known and might have mourned Dean. I was wondering whether Dean might become the subject of hunts given the unnatural nature of his return, but it would seem that, unless demons have been talking to hunters out of turn the way one did to Gordon about Sam, Dean won’t become a target for other hunters simply because they don’t know he was dead. I do wonder whether any others who had really been close to the boys – and I’m specifically thinking about Ellen and Jo here – or who had a peculiar penchant for knowing things, like Rufus Tanner, might have been told or found out that Dean was dead, and whether we’ll ever learn their reaction. This hadn’t been as much of an issue in my mind with respect to Sam’s death precisely because so little time had passed before Dean had gotten him back, but given that Dean had been dead and buried for months, I had expected that other hunters would have known about him. Surprise.
|
|
mick
Home
Hunter
Posts: 2,081
|
Post by mick on Oct 15, 2008 4:34:57 GMT 1
that if he’s pushed hard enough, particularly by a threat to the one person he loves the most, he may accept his power in order to defend what he most values, and that he might do it even knowing that his humanity would be the price
I would have to agree--I think Dean being in danger is what's going to bring the powers out.
As for Dean starting to believe in God, I had thought that the reason he has said that was to get to Sam, because Sam believes, and at that point he was trying to do whatever he could to get through to Sam. I'm not 100% sold on Dean having faith just yet.
I had also wondered if the rest of the hunting world heard through the grapevine about Dean's death/resurrection and what that would mean, but I guess not (when they first saw Travis, I was almost expecting him to make some comment about it).
And I can buy Sam being so distraught that Ruby coming in with words about how he could possibly save his brother would be like water to a man in the desert, but now that his brother's back, why is he still doing it? Why is he leaving Dean sleeping in the middle of the night? I mean, he left Dean, what, the first or second night he was back? I would think he wouldn't want to let Dean out of his sight, but he seems to have no trouble with it. I'm guessing that the writers are doing this to show us how far Sam has fallen. I also think that the powers are almost like a drug to Sam--he had no control over Dean going to hell, has had no control pretty much over anything that happened in his life (his one chance, going to Stanford, he lost), but his powers, he feels, is the one thing he can control (for now, anyways).
From what I remember of the scene, there's no way for me, personally, to say that Dean wasn't going to tell Sam about the demon blood; unfortunately for Sam, he jumped in with the info before the viewer got to know if Dean would tell. There was some discussion I read about how much Dean told Sam, and the consensus was that in order for Sam to understand everything, and to get to the point where he let it slip that he knew about the demon blood, Dean told him about Mary's deal. I guess all that is left up to speculation, since the writers (whether meaning to or not) left it open.
Man, how are these boys going to take care of each other when they have to deal with everything they themselves are going to have to deal with (Sam and the powers, Dean and hell)?
|
|
|
Post by Silwyna on Oct 15, 2008 11:41:38 GMT 1
I agree with everything the reviewer said. Excellent thougths! (and man, I wish I could express myself like that!).
|
|