Honestly, Wendigo remains one of my favorite episodes. I knew we were friends for a reason. *G* I love this one, but it seems terribly underrated among the fandom in general. It sets up so, so many patterns for the future - everything we need to know about the brothers and their situation is right here, way more so than in the Pilot, which was all about establishing the premise more than anything.
Wow, you've got a lot of meat in this comment. ♥ Awesome. I agree with every word.
how much Dean means it from the bottom of his whole soul. He really does. That's what makes his loss of faith in season two so sad, because it was the one thing in his life that really made sense to him, the one thing he had to hold onto when everything else was falling apart: that he had this mission and this purpose that was bigger than him and that it meant something. So then it really hurts when he loses that belief and is left floundering.
Sam has proven he can hold a grudge like nobody's business, and yet he's got this outer calm that doesn't extend to his inner self. And Dean has all this belligerent, cocky outward attitude, but...has this solid, inner calm that lets him do what he does and know he's doing the right thing, so he stays on kind of an even keel. That's such a good way of putting it! And so true. Sam is better at outward appearances than Dean is, but has far more inner conflict - at least until Dean had that loss of faith we just mentioned. Whereas Dean, who struggles to present an acceptable face to the outside world, and struggles to really believe in his own self-worth, does at least have the surety of knowing his place in the world to keep him grounded. It's the difference between looking out and looking in that I've talked about a couple of times recently. Sam is always looking out, always looking for answers and explanations, for something more, and so can never be satisfied with what he already had. But Dean looks in, takes comfort from what he has, and never looks for anything more than he has already been given.
I love so much that Dean is so good with his body - and not like that! I was reading something somewhere that Dean experiences the world physically - he likes to touch and taste and feel, whereas Sam experiences it more spiritually, preferring to keep his distance and think things through. He really does - Dean touches or tastes absolutely everything, if at all possible. And Sam really doesn't like to touch, given a choice, prefers to remain aloof and observe from distance. They really are chalk and cheese.
And I wonder sometimes if part of the reason Sam is so good with the research is because he was - at least when he was little - trying to make up for maybe not feeling he was as good as Dean at the weapons part. We found out that Sam didn't find out about the hunting until he was 8, but Dean knew how to shoot that shotgun when he was 10. That's a whole lot of catching up to do, especially for someone who probably didn't want to do it in the first place. And I think maybe he read a lot, just in the hope he'd find some random bit of knowledge that would make his family even a little safer. It's a good point. We know that John started teaching Dean to shoot when he was only six or seven, and that he was a natural at it. Of course, the striga incident only inspired him to greater efforts, and we also know that Sam considered his brother to have set a standard of perfection that he could never hope to aspire to himself. Dean is good at anything practical, but he isn't the slightest bit intellectual, and I doubt he ever was. But Sam is a natural with the books, so yeah, I can see him latching onto the research as the only avenue open to him for distinguishing himself somehow, for stepping out of Dean's shadow.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-01-19 06:14 pm (UTC)I knew we were friends for a reason. *G* I love this one, but it seems terribly underrated among the fandom in general. It sets up so, so many patterns for the future - everything we need to know about the brothers and their situation is right here, way more so than in the Pilot, which was all about establishing the premise more than anything.
Wow, you've got a lot of meat in this comment. ♥ Awesome. I agree with every word.
how much Dean means it from the bottom of his whole soul.
He really does. That's what makes his loss of faith in season two so sad, because it was the one thing in his life that really made sense to him, the one thing he had to hold onto when everything else was falling apart: that he had this mission and this purpose that was bigger than him and that it meant something. So then it really hurts when he loses that belief and is left floundering.
Sam has proven he can hold a grudge like nobody's business, and yet he's got this outer calm that doesn't extend to his inner self. And Dean has all this belligerent, cocky outward attitude, but...has this solid, inner calm that lets him do what he does and know he's doing the right thing, so he stays on kind of an even keel.
That's such a good way of putting it! And so true. Sam is better at outward appearances than Dean is, but has far more inner conflict - at least until Dean had that loss of faith we just mentioned. Whereas Dean, who struggles to present an acceptable face to the outside world, and struggles to really believe in his own self-worth, does at least have the surety of knowing his place in the world to keep him grounded. It's the difference between looking out and looking in that I've talked about a couple of times recently. Sam is always looking out, always looking for answers and explanations, for something more, and so can never be satisfied with what he already had. But Dean looks in, takes comfort from what he has, and never looks for anything more than he has already been given.
I love so much that Dean is so good with his body - and not like that! I was reading something somewhere that Dean experiences the world physically - he likes to touch and taste and feel, whereas Sam experiences it more spiritually, preferring to keep his distance and think things through.
He really does - Dean touches or tastes absolutely everything, if at all possible. And Sam really doesn't like to touch, given a choice, prefers to remain aloof and observe from distance. They really are chalk and cheese.
And I wonder sometimes if part of the reason Sam is so good with the research is because he was - at least when he was little - trying to make up for maybe not feeling he was as good as Dean at the weapons part. We found out that Sam didn't find out about the hunting until he was 8, but Dean knew how to shoot that shotgun when he was 10. That's a whole lot of catching up to do, especially for someone who probably didn't want to do it in the first place. And I think maybe he read a lot, just in the hope he'd find some random bit of knowledge that would make his family even a little safer.
It's a good point. We know that John started teaching Dean to shoot when he was only six or seven, and that he was a natural at it. Of course, the striga incident only inspired him to greater efforts, and we also know that Sam considered his brother to have set a standard of perfection that he could never hope to aspire to himself. Dean is good at anything practical, but he isn't the slightest bit intellectual, and I doubt he ever was. But Sam is a natural with the books, so yeah, I can see him latching onto the research as the only avenue open to him for distinguishing himself somehow, for stepping out of Dean's shadow.