Thanks for the link. Another excellent essay, though I don't completely agree on a couple of points but it was very well thought out.
They sent Dean to hell more for the shock value than anything else, and then didn't have any clear vision for where to go after that. Sam's arc for the season was already pretty much mapped out - an elongated version of what they had originally intended for S3, pre-strike, but Dean actually going to hell had never been in the game plan. So they came up with this creative way of getting him out and tying him to the mytharc, but from there on out they were just making it up as they went along, and got so carried away with the excitement of the shiny new toys they'd given themselves in the form of angels and apocalypse, Dean's story kinda got lost along the way. Over the course of the season, his progression is very stop-start, jumping around all over the place. The writing is inconsistent - it shows that JA had no clear idea of where the character was going. And it's disappointing, because the character had always been so well served before, and deserved a hell of a lot better.
Yes I think you're right in many ways. Your friend made the very the excellent point that they spent too much time focusing on Dean as torturer rather than Dean being tortured which robbed him and the other characters of the opportunity to show him any real sympathy.
I also think part of the reason for this is because they really could not come up with a realistic way for Dean to express what really happened while he was a victim and then have him pick up his shotgun and go hunt down the next demon. Fixing that would likely require institutionalization and years of therapy, so they basically just went la-la-la, we're not talking about that anymore.
The other thing I think, is that by the time they revealed Dean's memories, they were gearing up for Sam's downward spiral. As it was, Sam would already look unsympathetic for becoming more and more disdainful of his brother, so they couldn't have it happen at the same time that Dean was suddenly having flashbacks of being dismembered or raped, etc. Sam being unable to show sympathy for that would have made him completely unredeemable in many people's eyes. As it is, I think the blood addiction storyline was their get-out-of-jail-free card when it came to the break down between the brothers.
I think there was an issue of pacing here where they took too long to reveal Dean's time in hell. If they had moved that reveal up, there would have been time to let Sam show some comfort before he started drinking blood again and started to get all twisted up and resentful of his brother.
I guess we'll never really know for sure but it is fun to speculate. ;)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 04:38 am (UTC)Yes I think you're right in many ways. Your friend made the very the excellent point that they spent too much time focusing on Dean as torturer rather than Dean being tortured which robbed him and the other characters of the opportunity to show him any real sympathy.
I also think part of the reason for this is because they really could not come up with a realistic way for Dean to express what really happened while he was a victim and then have him pick up his shotgun and go hunt down the next demon. Fixing that would likely require institutionalization and years of therapy, so they basically just went la-la-la, we're not talking about that anymore.
The other thing I think, is that by the time they revealed Dean's memories, they were gearing up for Sam's downward spiral. As it was, Sam would already look unsympathetic for becoming more and more disdainful of his brother, so they couldn't have it happen at the same time that Dean was suddenly having flashbacks of being dismembered or raped, etc. Sam being unable to show sympathy for that would have made him completely unredeemable in many people's eyes. As it is, I think the blood addiction storyline was their get-out-of-jail-free card when it came to the break down between the brothers.
I think there was an issue of pacing here where they took too long to reveal Dean's time in hell. If they had moved that reveal up, there would have been time to let Sam show some comfort before he started drinking blood again and started to get all twisted up and resentful of his brother.
I guess we'll never really know for sure but it is fun to speculate. ;)