lunabee34

So here's the thing: I have been pleasantly surprised by this season of SPN. I didn't really care for season 6, and I was expecting to be bored and disappointed with season 7. Joy of all joys, I am digging the show again. Last Friday's episode with James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter was a heck of a lot of fun in particular.

And yet. And but.

I realize this resembles nothing so much as a whine, but is this really where the show is going with Dean? Is he really going to get zero character development in SEVEN SEASONS?! I do not get it.

From where I'm sitting, there's a couple themes that have run through all the seasons of SPN:

1. The world cannot be viewed in stark shades of black and white. Sometimes the vamps don't want to eat people, and sometimes the hunter is the one letting his brother be bitten. Angels want to smite you, and demons have your back in a fight from time to time. The world is grey.

2. You can transcend who you are, what you've done. People can change.

Now, I know that sometimes we the audience get to learn these lessons while Sam and Dean do not. Bella, anybody?

And the show is full of examples where Winchester & Co. take the most absurdly black and white stance on an issue (and by issue I mostly mean non-human entity). And when they don't, the preponderance of times that stance has been about Sam himself. How he's worth saving, worth forgiving, no matter what he's done.

But I have seen gradual character development on this front, a slow erosion of the John Winchester version of hunting in which the hunt itself is sacred and pure and revenge is the only salvation, and the growth of something more nuanced and grounded in the world they live in.

Sam really seems to have accepted that hunting isn't a black and white gig now. I'm really liking this season 7, grown-up, mature, I-accept-what's-happened-to-me Sammy. I think he's always been more willing to see life this way than Dean, but I've seen changes in Dean. I mean, what else is Sam besides a metaphor for the whole wide world? Surely Dean possesses the capacity for extrapolation?

Dean did not have to kill Amy. Now, please, do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that in real life I condone the killing of grifters to maintain Amy's child's biological need for BRAAAAAAINS to survive. Within the context of the show, however, Amy has behaved admirably. She has chosen a profession that allows her to feed her need ethically and safely. Since this is her first kid and her mom wasn't exactly portrayed as the sharing and caring type, I'm not surprised that she didn't know that fresh ingredients are necessary to cure serious illness in children (or perhaps that children need fresh ingredients to survive and that *caused* his illness). She then did what was necessary to save her child, no more, and she did not revel in killing.

I just can't stand the hypocrisy, I guess. If Sam went pyscho on a couple of grifters, Dean wouldn't put him down like a dog. I'm not sure Sam could do anything so heinous that Dean couldn't ultimately forgive. Not to mention, I think Dean could justify putting down a couple people himself to save Sam. Or Lisa. Or Ben. Or Bobby. And I shudder to think the mayhem Dean Winchester would wreak for a child of his own body.

I think it adds insult to injury that in the last episode (which was fantastic, BTW) we've got evil, murderous James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter who are killing people for very different and petty reasons than Amy. They revel in the death and destruction they cause, and there's every indication that they will behave in this way again and again and again and again. But at the end of the episode, Sam and Dean are hightailing it out of town ahead of the swarm of bees with no, "We've got to go back and kill them, Sammy. You know they'll kill again. We just have to be better prepared. The world and also justice and possibly rainbows and kittens NEEEEEEEED us to kill these evil witches, Sammy." None of that.

Dean is still guilty, and I say good. He should be. He deserves to be.

I guess I just don't get what they're doing with his character. If the point of the last seven seasons is that Dean is a hypocritical dick, well, okay then. Fair enough. I wish I had realized that was going to be the point from the beginning.

I don't need my characters to be perfect. I don't need them to even be good. I do need them to be dynamic. And, maybe I'm biased, because I do enjoy when characters become more than who they are, when they learn from their experiences, when they have to deal with painful truths and realities.

Case in point: The Rodney McKay who is willing to let Teal'c die in the Stargate vs. the Rodney McKay who is willing to die for his teammates.

So, what I'm saying apparently is that I want Dean Winchester to be more like Rodney McKay. Naturally. LOL