Sam and Relationships

k-vichan:

Dean has been the primary POV character for a very long time. The show is certainly from both brothers’ POVs, but there’s been a tilt towards Dean for years.

And
it feels like this season has a definite Sam tilt. FINALLY. I
freaking love it. I want to get into Sam’s head. Although I won’t
deny that part of why I want this is to get Sam’s view of Dean
(reminder: am Dean girl), that’s not even close to the biggest
reason why.

Sam’s
comment about not having the relationship to their mother that Dean
did wasn’t just about Mary. It’s that, but it’s also pretty much everything else, too. @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper was saying that here, which is what got me
started on this whole line of thought.

Sam
feels like Dean has all of the close relationships. I completely and
totally agree with this. Perception or not, Sam has a reason to feel this way. 

Crowley, obviously Cas – their friendships with the
Winchesters were based around the relationships they’d built with
Dean. Sam was their friend by extension. I feel like that’s
undeniable.

Mary
is different. Mary is mother to both Sam and Dean. And Mary was
afraid to even face Sam, and Sam seemed to rarely reach out to her –
at least not in the same way Dean did. There were faults on both
sides, but the result is that yes, Sam is right – Dean had more of
a chance to build a relationship with Mary while Sam didn’t. The
season was bookended with close Mary and Dean moments.

And
this isn’t new. At all. Last season when Dean broke his phone, Sam
made a quip and about how he needed to contact Cas and their mother,
letting them know to get a hold of him rather than Dean.

Dean’s
the one Sam looked to every time Cas or Crowley needed a phone call.
It was never the other way around.

When
Sam tried to trust a demon and work with a demon, Lucifer was set
free.

(Which
is kind of another layer of screwed up because Cas and Crowley were
both directly responsible for Lucifer being loose, dying as a
consequence, but they’re both still mourned as lost family and
friend because it wasn’t a direct betrayal of the Winchesters… and this is a thing I don’t really wanna get into right now.)

But
let’s go back farther. Bobby, under the influence of Dean’s truth
curse, said that Dean was his favorite.

You
know the only being that’s called Sam his favorite and 100% meant
it? Azazel.

And
this has been going on in subtler ways, too. Benny. Charlie. Kevin,
to an extent.

But
let’s just go ahead and go back to the very beginning of the
fucking show. Sam was pretty much exiled from the family just because
he wanted to go to school.

Sam
is always on the outside looking in.

When
he tries to build relationships outside of Dean, they generally get
ripped away pretty quickly. Like Amelia. Like Magda. Like Eileen.

He
HAS tried to reach out to people, and it never works out in his
favor. Ever.

Mary
is different, though, because she is undeniably directly connected to
both of them. And this is exactly why Sam wants so hard to
believe she’s still alive. This is why I want her to come back and
finally connect with Sam. This is why I have such high hopes for Jack
having a good relationship with Sam, and why I want his relationship
to the Winchesters to be focused on Sam. Not Dean.

Sam
needs a friendship that he’s built on his own. He’s tried, and it
winds up hurting him every single time.  

Dean
wants Sam to share his emotions. He did this repeatedly throughout
last season, wanting both of them to be angry with their mother, and
then later with Cas.

Dean
defines himself by his relationship to Sam; it’s entirely possible
that from his viewpoint, any relationship that’s ‘his own’ is
by extension, also Sam’s. If you have a relationship with Dean, you
have a relationship with Sam by default. (Which is pretty much true.)

But
from Sam’s viewpoint?

Holy
shit, that fucking hurts.

The
lack of significant Sam POV over the past several years may have just been an oversight in the
writers’ room, but it’s intentionally or unintentionally resulted
in a completely different story. 

That story is SCREAMING to be told.