fannishliss

Meta for issues up through 5.2

ROCK STARS, HUNTERS, AND THEIR ENABLING ADDICTIONS,
or, Blood, and What's Inside Sam that Scares the Hell out of Him

My husband’s favorite book is Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson.   In that book there is a character called Raven, who is the BMFW (baddest motherfucker in the world).  Not to go into why he becomes the BMFW, but one thing about Raven is the tattoo on his forehead: “poor impulse control.”

My husband and I, as not famous, small time, professional artists, have long joked about why people with a lot of good skills at strategic planning do not become Rock Stars.  It’s because, to become a rock star (we always say) you have to Throw Caution to the Wind.  You have to Believe Your Own Hype.  You really have to Know You’re Gonna Make It.  Otherwise, you would never leave home in your van and live in a freezing cold filthy apartment with terrified turtles like Dave Grohl did when he was rooming with Kurt Cobain.  I’m not saying Dave didn’t have a plan – for one, he’s a stellar musician – but really, you have to just throw yourself into it and embrace the life, for better for worse.   Like my husband just read in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, the Tipping Point, about the Ten Thousand Hour rule – the Beatles mastered their craft because they signed on for a crazy gig in Germany where they played for eight hours a day, every day, luring customers into a strip joint.  They gained mastery through those intense marathon days of song after song after song – but they became Rock Stars because they were crazy enough to sign the contract to leave Liverpool and go to Hamburg for this gig, sight unseen.

So becoming a Rock Star, we like to say, is a big part “Poor Impulse Control” and a big part “refusal to be made to plan ahead.”  Unfortunately, as I was driving along today listening to Jimmy Eat World, I think another part of it is “coping with the life through the use of heavy drugs.”  I’m like, even if you are crazy enough to believe that your destiny is stardom, and even if you are impulsive enough to sell all your stuff, buy a van, get in it, and drive – still, what keeps you going month after month, year after year?  The answer does seem to be:  heavy drug use.  (I’m sure there are clean rock stars out there too – more power to you!)

So then, as usual, my thoughts turned to Supernatural and to recent events in the lives of Sam and Dean, and I just wanted to talk a little more about what the Blood did (and possibly did not) do to Sam, and why.

My first question has to be, why did Sam start drinking demon blood, and when?  and then of course, the second question has to be, why didn’t he ever stop?

Most of the meta I’ve seen has focused on the Power Sam was able to wield after drinking the blood – he could expel demons from human hosts without hurting the human, which was very important to Sam for ethical reasons, and he could and did kill exceptionally powerful demons such as Samhain, Alastair, and Lilith, using that Power.

Here’s the Big Question though:  was it actually the Blood giving Sam the Power?  Or, was the Blood making Sam FEEL POWERFUL.  Please note this distinction, because here’s where my argument hinges.  I’m trying to argue that the Blood was primarily, for Sam, a psychoactive drug.  It made Sam FEEL POWERFUL, and, I think, it’s what finally helped him “flip the switch” to being able to wield telekinetic abilities (primarily, pinning host bodies) and controlling demons (two of the powers other Psychic Kids wielded, namely, Max and Ava).

Truthfully, I don’t know if there is concrete evidence pro or con that the Blood GAVE Sam powers.  What we do know is that Ruby insisted that Sam drink demon blood, and that after drinking, he was able to use Power – and that to kill Lilith, he would have to drain a whole person, and when he did, he was able to kill Lilith, whereas earlier, he was unable to kill her. We also saw Sam’s black eyes when he did it.

What Ruby says at the last is this:
 “Don’t hurt yourself, Sammy, it’s useless. You shot your payload on the boss.”
“The blood.... you poisoned me!”
“No.  It wasn’t the blood, it was you and your choices.  I just gave you the options and you chose the right path every time. You didn’t need the feather to fly – you had it in you the whole time, Dumbo. ...  You were the only one who could do it.”
“Why?  Why me?”
“Because it had to be you, Sammy. It always had to be you. You saved us.  You set him free.  He’s gonna repay you in ways that you can’t even imagine.”

What I think is that the feeling of confidence and power, the belief that Sam was the one strong enough to kill Lilith, came from the psychoactive effects of the blood.

We do have several very strong pieces of evidence that the blood is psychoactive – the strongest being the series of vivid hallucinations produced by his withdrawal from the Blood. Prior to his full-on withdrawal though, we see his psychological addiction in the conversation with Chuck:

Chuck:  "I was afraid it would make you look unsympathetic." 
Sam: "Unsympathetic?"
"Yeah, come on, Sam? I mean sucking blood? You gotta know that's wrong." 
Sam:  "It scares the hell outta me.  I mean I feel it inside me. I wish to God I could stop." "But you keep going back." 
"What choice have I got?  If it helps me kill Lilith and stop the Apocalypse--"
Chuck: "I thought that was Dean's job. That's what the Angels say, right?"
Sam: "Dean's not, he's not Dean lately. Ever since he got out of Hell, he needs help." 
"So you gotta carry the weight?" 
"He's looked out for me my whole life, I can't return the favor?" 
"Sure you can. I mean, if that's what this is."
"What else would it be?"
"I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger, more in control?" 
"No. That's not true."
"I'm sorry, Sam.  I know it's a terrible burden, feeling that it all rests on your shoulders."
"Does it?  all rest on my shoulders?" 
"That seems to be where the story's headed."
"Am I strong enough to stop Lilith tonight?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen that far yet."

What I like most about this conversation is how calm, sympathetic and understanding Chuck is.  As a person who is himself using an addictive substance as a crutch, he has more empathy for what Sam is feeling.  The key parts of the conversation for my argument are these:
1.  Sam knows sucking blood is wrong – he tacitly admits that to Chuck when he doesn’t contradict Chuck’s statement.

2. He feels a lot of reluctance toward his need for the Blood: "It scares the hell outta me.  I mean I feel it inside me. I wish to God I could stop."  To me, this is a sign of his addiction, that he feels he really should stop, but actually can’t.  (Note here, that even after he is supposedly Detoxed, he says the exact same thing in 5.2: “There’s something in me that, it scares the hell out of me Dean.  The last couple days I’ve caught another glimpse”  -- suggesting, I think, that the Blood is in fact amplifying something that’s already inside Sam. )

3. The next several pieces are to me the full-on psychological effects of what the Blood makes him feel, especially when Chuck says “Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger, more in control?"  (This is very strongly echoed by War in the most recent episode.)  And Sam denies it in such a way as to immediately make the audience believe he’s deceiving himself: "No. That's not true." 

I also think that thoughout s4, Sam’s use of the Blood gives him an elevated sense of his own Power, especially in how he sees himself in relation to Dean.  Let’s go back to the beginning with this one because I think it’s really key.

After Dean’s death, Sam is nearly destroyed by loneliness, grief, guilt, despair, fury – the works.  He tries to deal and the demons won’t take him; after all, they have their key players right where they want them.   After Sam is  broken down to nothing, Ruby offers him the opportunity to get strong, kill Lilith, and save the world (he thought). What has he got to lose?  Only himself – which he’s already tried to barter, and was refused.   In this very vulnerable position, I think, Sam first made the choice to cave to Ruby and drink the blood, doing whatever he was told would make him stronger, in order to kill Lilith. 

Here’s the next important bit:  once having started down this path with Ruby before Dean got back, how could he choose otherwise?    On the one hand, he’s bolstered up by this feeling of power, strength, and assurance (superiority, War reminds us).  On the other, he is demonstrably able to control and expel demons now, perhaps even to destroy them. 

As he says to Chuck, "What choice have I got?  If it helps me kill Lilith and stop the Apocalypse ... Dean's not, he's not Dean lately. Ever since he got out of Hell, he needs help." "He's looked out for me my whole life, I can't return the favor?" 
"Sure you can. I mean, if that's what this is." "What else would it be?" "I don't know.”

Once hooked, I don't see how Sam could've gotten off the Blood without the terrible detox in the panic room, which may very well have killed him.  He wasn't NOT going to kill Samhain, or Alastair, when he had the power to kill them.  In short,  killing Lilith was always a done deal for Sam, as soon as Ruby came to him after Dean's death.  I just don't believe that there was anything that anyone could have said to sway Sam from that path once he dispelled the first demon.

Sam has to weigh between what Ruby has told him about the power he can wield (power he had seen firsthand, and if it’s still not enough to kill Lilith, at least he went down swinging) and what the demon blood is making him think (that he is stronger, more powerful, more decisive than Dean -- the general tenor of his personality after Blood), and what the Angels say -- that Dean will stop it. Chuck’s indecisiveness about Sam’s eventual role doesn't help, and he is in adamant denial that the Blood is making him feel stronger and more in control, which, as the prophet said it, is most likely the case.

Let’s skip ahead then, to 5.2.  In this episode, we see that Sam still craves the blood, and then we get a nice synopsis from War:

“I’m jello shots at a party. I just remove inhibitions.”
“I’m gonna kill you myself.”
“Oh, that’s adorable, considering you’re my poster boy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“You can’t stop thinking about it.  Ever since you saw it dripping off the blade of that knife.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Save your protests for your brother. I can see inside your head. And man, it is one track city in there. Blood, blood, blood. Lust for power. Same as always. You want to be strong again. But not just strong. Stronger than everybody. Good intentions, quick slide to Hell, buddy boy.  You feel bad now?  Wait till you’re thigh deep in warm corpses, because my friend, I’m just getting started.”

I think what all this points to is that a big effect of the Blood was simply to make Sam feel more confident, powerful, and stronger than everybody --   perhaps the Blood also carried some power, but that psychoactive effect was important for what it spurred Sam to believe and therefore affected the choices he could make.  What War says here is that Sam is the poster child for what happens when the inhibitions against our violent tendencies are removed – that Sam wants to be strong, stronger than everybody.

But, wait.  Of course he wants that – he’s a Hunter.  It’s kind of what you want – to be stronger than pretty much anything you might go up against.  That’s why he drank blood in the first place.

Except now, of course, he isn’t a Hunter – at least for the time being – he has to step back from the Hunt.

On the one hand, we assume that he’s making the sensible choice to remove himself from the sources of his addiction.  Like when the Rock Star quits the band and goes into Rehab.

But what I think is actually going on is that, but a little more – I think that off the blood, Sam is wondering what the hell he is trying to do as a Hunter.  He and Dean are trying to STOP LUCIFER.  WTF?  How could anyone reasonably believe this to be possible?  I think that for the first two seasons, Sam was a guy who didn’t want to commit to the Hunt – he thought it was important to find and stop Jessica’s killer, but he always believed he would go back to normal life.  He wasn’t trying to become a Rock Star at all.
But then, Dean made the Deal – and also got killed by the Trickster – and they went up against Lilith – and Dean went to Hell.  So Sam’s idea of returning to a normal life went up in flames – utterly taking a back seat to his need to save Dean. Then, throughout s4, what we saw was a slightly changed Sam – still with his moral compass, still motivated by love for his brother, but viewing the world through the haze of this crazy making Blood, that was allowing him (whether it was the source or not) to access crazy amounts of Power, but also making accessing that Power irresistible to Sam.  It broke down his inhibitions and made him believe in himself as a Hunter for the first time ever.

Now, without the Blood, he doesn’t think he is strong enough to be a Hunter any more; plus, even though he’s not in physical withdrawal, he fears that he’ll drink Blood again, to get back that crazy sense of Power he doesn’t feel anymore.

All this is just to say, that I really feel for Sam.  I think that when he was at his lowest, with nothing left to lose, Ruby tempted him to drink and he did. Not only was he then able to access greater and greater Power (just like flipping a switch?) but the Blood made him feel confident and sure he was the One.

Now in s5, I hope we’ll get a true reset to who Sam is.  Dean is not exactly safe, but at least he has an Angel watching over him, so Sam is able to make the argument that he needs to take a step back: “I know you don’t trust me. Just now I realize something: I don’t trust me either. From the minute I saw that blood the only thought in my head--- And I tell myself it’s for the right reasons, that my intentions are good, and it feels true, but I think underneath, I just miss the feeling.  I know how messed up that sounds, which means, I know how messed up I am. Thing is, the problem’s not the demon blood, not really, I mean what I did I can’t blame the blood, or Ruby, or anything.  The problem’s me. How far I’ll go.  There’s something in me that, it scares the hell out of me Dean.  The last couple days I’ve caught another glimpse.   I’m in no shape to be hunting.  I need to step back, because I’m dangerous.  Maybe it’s best we just go our separate ways.”

As for Dean, he is the picture book of Poor Impulse Control.  His whole life has been dedicated to Hunting – training, Hunting, and letting off steam through a complex of suspect coping mechanisms is pretty much life for Dean.  He runs the gamut from the adrenaline high of the Hunt to the lows of despair, periodically. As much as I love him, Dean is heading straight for Sad and Bloody.  Now, though, I think he has a chance to reassess for himself, as well, why he’s in the Hunt.  He has to stop the Apocalypse, sure – but not as a tool – on his own terms.  And without Sam right there for the Angels to torture, he has one less thing to worry about.

So, I’m not exactly in favor of this split – I feel really dubious about the wisdom of them splitting up with the Apocalypse and Lucifer after them – but I do think Sam needs desperately to stand down and see that he’s more than just the Boy with the Demon Blood – whether it’s the blood he’s sure to encounter fighting demons or the blood that Azazel originally fed him – or some other, more theoretical blood that is hinted at by this year’s title card.  

Likewise, Dean has also reached a turning point – so let me just close with one last quotation: Ellen says “what’s your instinct?”  “My instinct is to call Bobby and ask for help – or Sam. ”  “Tough!  All you got’s me and all I got’s you, so let’s figure it out!”  (editorial note – DID ANYONE ELSE THINK ELLEN AND DEAN WERE SO HOT TOGETHER IN THIS SCENE?!?!)  Dean then cracks a book and figures it out—yay!  Dean has to learn to rely on himself and his own moral compass – not to just knee jerk try to save Sam. Sam is doing the work to save himself.

Thanks for reading.  Here’s to a little retreat time for the brothers – after working through this meta, I see what they are up to.  And thank goodness Dean offered Sammy the Impala:  he loves his brother still.