SPN sorta-meta
Jan. 12th, 2007 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraI was going to do this tomorrow. But then it happened tonight.
My first reaction to this episode was squee, because c'mon people, it's been a long time.
My second was a bit more measured and is still working itself out as I’m writing this. Dean reveals the "secret" and Sam has a completely disproportionate reaction. So far this season, Dean's angsted about his father, about the fact that his father sacrificed himself for Dean, about the job. Buried under all that is the idea that Sam could turn evil, and that it's Dean's job to protect him, up to and including killing him if necessary.
Which could be an interesting, disturbing, exciting secret. Except it's not.
It’s not even really a secret.
The demon, in one of the most-quoted lines of last season, talks about Sam and all the children like him. He's clearly planning something. He's not planning to plant daisies. Therefore, he's planning to use non-daisy-planting Sam for his own goals.
I'm going to assume the demon isn't stupid. (Disclaimer: What they say about assuming, etc. Maybe the demon is stupid, in which case, disregard following.) I'm also going to assume that he's done his homework. If the storm or war or whatever you want to call it is coming, it's because he knows who to call up, who's going to be useful to his ends. He knows Sam can be turned, and he has a plan for how to bring it about.
Something I wanted to point out before getting started on this: Sam, as far as I can tell, doesn’t think he really has powers per se. He thinks he has either a passive role in which he receives input from a variety of sources, some reliable and some unreliable, or he’s consistently being toyed with by the demon. He can’t decide whether he wants to receive visions, and he doesn’t have a power he can use, like telekinesis or mind control or, y’know, flying or bending time or something.
As far as I can tell, the visions have either been consistent and not always plot-forwarding, or plot-forwarding and inconsistent. The first ones we know about are the ones Sam has about Jess, which were intense and let him know in plenty of time. Conclusion: either he’s clairvoyant or the demon wants to play the guilt angle later. Later, he sees Jess as a...vision? Hallucination? In that scene where she disappears behind the light post. Conclusion: either he’s grieving pretty intensely or the demon is messing with him.
ETA: I had a paragraph about Home and then I cut-and-pasted it to the bottom to work on it and ended up leaving it out altogether. Oops. Home. Sam gets a vision of a woman in his old house, clearly in distress, clearly in need of help. He swallows his pride, his worry, and tells Dean. They drive to Lawrence; they save the day. But the episode does two interesting things: it introduces Sam to and contrasts him with another "psychic," Missouri, and it follows up on the visions Sam had of Jess before she died. Conclusion: Sam can't see inside other people's heads like Missouri can, but he can see the future. This may or may not have anything to do with Yed. After all, the house is scarred because of Yed, but he doesn't have anything to do with the poltergeist directly. Probably.
The season progresses until Nightmare. The vision that brings Sam to Max (and the other two in that episode) seems to forward the clairvoyant theory--he knows what’s going to happen, and although he can’t always prevent the events from taking place, they aren't, as far as I can tell, a huge demon set-up. In that episode, he also moves things with his mind. Which he doesn’t repeat, and hasn’t shown signs of trying to repeat, but which Max can do effortlessly. Max, on the other hand, doesn’t mention ever having had visions. Conclusion: either Sam’s telekinetic or he can somehow tap into other people’s powers.
The show leaves the visions alone for a while, but returns to them in Simon Said. They're similar to the ones in Nightmare--they show another kid, other deaths. Again, this kid has powers he doesn’t, but doesn’t have the visions. While Andy and Webber can make people do things by speaking or thinking at them, they aren’t telekinetic. Their gifts don’t affect Sam, but he also can’t use them, even when Dean’s in imminent danger. And Webber, the one who’s evil here, breaks the dead mom on the ceiling pattern. So we’re basically to square one, but in a more complicated and interesting way.
Croatoan is problematic. There, the visions bring Sam specifically for the purpose (I think?) of seeing whether he can be infected by the demonic virus. This is an issue for a few reasons. First of all, doesn’t the demon know whether Sam can be affected? What exactly is the virus and why does it disappear from the blood samples after a few hours? Are the people now part of the demon army? Do they have powers? Was Doctor Lady working with Duane and Yed all along? Conclusions:Kripke Yed either has no idea what he’s doing or is doing something so subtle that even those of us with the luxury of futons and wireless internet can’t figure it out.
Now, in Hunted, the visions bring Sam together with other psychic people. Or more accurately, they bring other psychic people together with Sam, because this time he doesn’t actually get the visions. Scott can electrocute things with his hands (which is totally a cool power--you know those little rings you wear that shock people when you shake hands with them? Multiply that by six million. Yeah. Anyway.) But Ava, Ava has visions of people dying.
Finally. Someone who has Sam’s power. Someone who might be able to help him understand his power. Someone he might be able to play off of and talk to and work with.
But then she murders her fiancee and takes off or is abducted by a demon who murders her fiancee and takes off.
I don’t get it.
I’m just going to put that out there, lay it down, and stop feeling stupid about it. Because I don’t. Get it.
I’ve come up with a few possibilities, but none of them quite work for me. First, maybe this is foreshadowing. Look, the girl with the visions is sort of like Sam with visions and she went ambiguously evil and so will he! The problem with foreshadowing, though, is that you can only recognize it in hindsight. So it’s an option I’ll leave open but one that will only be possible to prove in the future.
Second, maybe this is part of a master plan. That seems pretty heavily implied, what with all the war talk and army-building. But what’s the point? What’s the demon fighting for? Is Yed an actual character, or is he just Chaos incarnate, messing with people because he can? If he is just Chaos, then why is Sam important? Is Sam only important to us because we’ve gotten to know him?
Third (and my favorite) is that Yed has a plan whose details are not quite together yet. So he’s putting together an army. And he’s got these kids. But he doesn’t have leaders within the group--he needs officers, generals. People who have the skills to see what’s going on, to react to it, to deal with it. Which is where people like Sam and Ava come in. They hover above the fray, watching it, monitoring it, giving feedback where necessary, and enabling the people with hands-on powers to do the dirty work. But in that case, why doesn’t the demon just possess Sam and be done with it? Are the powers outside his control? They seem to be under his control in Croatoan, but were those “visions” just masquerading as real ones for the strange obscure virus test?
I’m sure other people have opinions and thoughts on this--I’d love to hear them. Am I missing something large and obvious?
My first reaction to this episode was squee, because c'mon people, it's been a long time.
My second was a bit more measured and is still working itself out as I’m writing this. Dean reveals the "secret" and Sam has a completely disproportionate reaction. So far this season, Dean's angsted about his father, about the fact that his father sacrificed himself for Dean, about the job. Buried under all that is the idea that Sam could turn evil, and that it's Dean's job to protect him, up to and including killing him if necessary.
Which could be an interesting, disturbing, exciting secret. Except it's not.
It’s not even really a secret.
The demon, in one of the most-quoted lines of last season, talks about Sam and all the children like him. He's clearly planning something. He's not planning to plant daisies. Therefore, he's planning to use non-daisy-planting Sam for his own goals.
I'm going to assume the demon isn't stupid. (Disclaimer: What they say about assuming, etc. Maybe the demon is stupid, in which case, disregard following.) I'm also going to assume that he's done his homework. If the storm or war or whatever you want to call it is coming, it's because he knows who to call up, who's going to be useful to his ends. He knows Sam can be turned, and he has a plan for how to bring it about.
Something I wanted to point out before getting started on this: Sam, as far as I can tell, doesn’t think he really has powers per se. He thinks he has either a passive role in which he receives input from a variety of sources, some reliable and some unreliable, or he’s consistently being toyed with by the demon. He can’t decide whether he wants to receive visions, and he doesn’t have a power he can use, like telekinesis or mind control or, y’know, flying or bending time or something.
As far as I can tell, the visions have either been consistent and not always plot-forwarding, or plot-forwarding and inconsistent. The first ones we know about are the ones Sam has about Jess, which were intense and let him know in plenty of time. Conclusion: either he’s clairvoyant or the demon wants to play the guilt angle later. Later, he sees Jess as a...vision? Hallucination? In that scene where she disappears behind the light post. Conclusion: either he’s grieving pretty intensely or the demon is messing with him.
ETA: I had a paragraph about Home and then I cut-and-pasted it to the bottom to work on it and ended up leaving it out altogether. Oops. Home. Sam gets a vision of a woman in his old house, clearly in distress, clearly in need of help. He swallows his pride, his worry, and tells Dean. They drive to Lawrence; they save the day. But the episode does two interesting things: it introduces Sam to and contrasts him with another "psychic," Missouri, and it follows up on the visions Sam had of Jess before she died. Conclusion: Sam can't see inside other people's heads like Missouri can, but he can see the future. This may or may not have anything to do with Yed. After all, the house is scarred because of Yed, but he doesn't have anything to do with the poltergeist directly. Probably.
The season progresses until Nightmare. The vision that brings Sam to Max (and the other two in that episode) seems to forward the clairvoyant theory--he knows what’s going to happen, and although he can’t always prevent the events from taking place, they aren't, as far as I can tell, a huge demon set-up. In that episode, he also moves things with his mind. Which he doesn’t repeat, and hasn’t shown signs of trying to repeat, but which Max can do effortlessly. Max, on the other hand, doesn’t mention ever having had visions. Conclusion: either Sam’s telekinetic or he can somehow tap into other people’s powers.
The show leaves the visions alone for a while, but returns to them in Simon Said. They're similar to the ones in Nightmare--they show another kid, other deaths. Again, this kid has powers he doesn’t, but doesn’t have the visions. While Andy and Webber can make people do things by speaking or thinking at them, they aren’t telekinetic. Their gifts don’t affect Sam, but he also can’t use them, even when Dean’s in imminent danger. And Webber, the one who’s evil here, breaks the dead mom on the ceiling pattern. So we’re basically to square one, but in a more complicated and interesting way.
Croatoan is problematic. There, the visions bring Sam specifically for the purpose (I think?) of seeing whether he can be infected by the demonic virus. This is an issue for a few reasons. First of all, doesn’t the demon know whether Sam can be affected? What exactly is the virus and why does it disappear from the blood samples after a few hours? Are the people now part of the demon army? Do they have powers? Was Doctor Lady working with Duane and Yed all along? Conclusions:
Now, in Hunted, the visions bring Sam together with other psychic people. Or more accurately, they bring other psychic people together with Sam, because this time he doesn’t actually get the visions. Scott can electrocute things with his hands (which is totally a cool power--you know those little rings you wear that shock people when you shake hands with them? Multiply that by six million. Yeah. Anyway.) But Ava, Ava has visions of people dying.
Finally. Someone who has Sam’s power. Someone who might be able to help him understand his power. Someone he might be able to play off of and talk to and work with.
But then she murders her fiancee and takes off or is abducted by a demon who murders her fiancee and takes off.
I don’t get it.
I’m just going to put that out there, lay it down, and stop feeling stupid about it. Because I don’t. Get it.
I’ve come up with a few possibilities, but none of them quite work for me. First, maybe this is foreshadowing. Look, the girl with the visions is sort of like Sam with visions and she went ambiguously evil and so will he! The problem with foreshadowing, though, is that you can only recognize it in hindsight. So it’s an option I’ll leave open but one that will only be possible to prove in the future.
Second, maybe this is part of a master plan. That seems pretty heavily implied, what with all the war talk and army-building. But what’s the point? What’s the demon fighting for? Is Yed an actual character, or is he just Chaos incarnate, messing with people because he can? If he is just Chaos, then why is Sam important? Is Sam only important to us because we’ve gotten to know him?
Third (and my favorite) is that Yed has a plan whose details are not quite together yet. So he’s putting together an army. And he’s got these kids. But he doesn’t have leaders within the group--he needs officers, generals. People who have the skills to see what’s going on, to react to it, to deal with it. Which is where people like Sam and Ava come in. They hover above the fray, watching it, monitoring it, giving feedback where necessary, and enabling the people with hands-on powers to do the dirty work. But in that case, why doesn’t the demon just possess Sam and be done with it? Are the powers outside his control? They seem to be under his control in Croatoan, but were those “visions” just masquerading as real ones for the strange obscure virus test?
I’m sure other people have opinions and thoughts on this--I’d love to hear them. Am I missing something large and obvious?
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:10 pm (UTC)excellent meta. and all good questions. i like the third option as well. does yed want sam to be a general? is ava out recruiting? i can't wait to find out.
also, i'm sad that scott had to die. i liked his conflicty! self.
thank you for sharing thinky thoughts.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:12 pm (UTC)That's all I got.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:15 pm (UTC)and it could be that Ava was sent by the Demon to PROTECT Sam from Gordon.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:42 pm (UTC)Wouldn't that be awesome? I think she's probably possessed, considering the manner in which her fiancee was killed (the throat slash technique has thus far been mainly a demonspawn thing.) But I don't know, and I can't wait to find out.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:50 pm (UTC)I think the key issue here is and will be whether the powers are an internal thing (the demon is recruiting people who already have them) or an external thing (the demon gives them to people he thinks he can use). If the demon's, say, psychically connected to some of these people, as he seems to be if he can get around in dreams, it's quite possible that he could've seen Ava's vision and used it to protect Sam. Or set up the whole thing with Gordon. So many maybes.
It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out, especially since Dean seems to think it's inevitable that Sam will at least be threatened by the dark side, and not in a possession kinda way.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 06:56 pm (UTC)The idea that Ava was sent to protect Sam is an interesting one; maybe the demon's much more highly aware of the big picture than is obvious.
Right now, though, it feels like one of those knots you know you can unravel, if you can just find an end.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 12:58 am (UTC)I keep wanting to think Sam is a cut above the other "special children" because he's the only one so far to exhibit the use of multiple abilities: psychic, visions/dreams, and telekinesis--it still counts, and I don't think he was pulling a Peter Petrelli and absorbing the power, though maybe being around someone who that ability ignited the simple dormant potential into something workable for a short time. But again, it's all speculation. Fun speculation, granted, but I don't have a lot to back it up (especially since Sam and Dean seem to have all but forgotten about the telekinetic incident since it happened). Regarding his visions, I'm thinking it's a mixture of "real" prophetic visions and ones being sent from the Demon. I wonder if the time frame of his visions mean anything as well, i.e. the dreams of Jess burning for weeks before she died compared to Andy's real mother killing herself just as Sam receives the vision of it happening. (IMO The Demon can control some of what Sam sees because Sam has pretty much refused to take a more active role is controlling his visions. I would bet money that if he did the Demon would have a harder time confusing him with faux!visions)
Despite my rambling with little evidence to support it, I'm cautious about theorizing Ava's role yet. I want to believe she's been kidnapped and is still essentially good, but her exit is a little troublesome. But I agree and support the idea of the "special children" with defensive/passive abilities being the leaders to those children with offensive powers being soldiers. But soldiers for what? OH GOD THE CIRCLES! *brain implodes*
So yeah... thank you for the thought-provoking meta! ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 01:43 pm (UTC)tapping into other ppl's power... wow that would be the most powerful weapon any demon could hope for. what make it even better is that he is immune to others.
whats weird though is that there are only four ppl who fits Sam's profile. Two of them are already dead. Andy is alive and safe (i hope..i like him!!pls kriple dun kill him..) Out of these four only one claim that the yellow-eyed demon, well its two if you add in webber who is technically in the group cos of his connection with Andy. So is it safe to conclude that the demon has "marked" his generals. All of them have different powers, each to command a different battllion. Four different batallion, the 3 core groups of Land, Air, Sea and a for all the underground work, Special Intelligence. Sam is especially marked (cos the demon went after Jess, unlike the others)cos of his background. John was in the Marines, he had taught everything he know about going on war. He also had show some mental toughness compared to the rest lacked. Sam is an important part of the demon's plan. hell maybe he's building an army ard him.
i don't think, Eva killed her fiance. maybe another demon did ..like that kid from croatoan.
mind me!! maybe some of the stuff have already been said but, its becoming more certain that Sam is a force to be reckon with. its only a matter of which side he choses. With Dean on his side, all the pain of losing his mom, dad and jess and all the morality in him (bloodlust) i just don't think he would turn bad. but then again i might be wrong...
ok i shall shut up now.. >_
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 05:35 pm (UTC)P.S. Reading through your meta, it took me a long time to realize that "Yed" was "yellow-eyed demon." I was really sitting there going, "Wait, Yed? Did I miss Yed? Who is Yed?" I think the capitalization threw me off. *is unbelievably freaking tired*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 05:48 pm (UTC)It's interesting that you bring up Sam's passivity with regard to his visions, because that's been niggling at me for a while now. Obviously, I'm not him, and I only have visions after fourteen-hour work days and several pots of coffee, so I'm not sure what I'd do in his position. I think I'd be a little more interested in finding out what's going on, though, and I think I'd be using Missouri, as the only neutral person I've met so far, to help out. (As an aside: apparently, all supernatural stuff = bad. Missouri is not "bad," as far as I can tell. But if she, say, introduced herself as a psychic at the roadhouse, would she be in danger? Are there different, more and less educated, branches of the hunting community? But that is meta for another day.)
I'm cautious about Ava, too. All I know is that I want her back. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 01:48 am (UTC)With Sam, it is a matter of which side he chooses. And that choice is very important, because it will be a decision he makes consciously; I don't think either side could deceive him into joining.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 01:49 am (UTC)*runs off to your journal to check out the response*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 12:06 pm (UTC)lol. my thoughts exactly.. pretty stupid thing to do really. wasted energy as well.. >_< unless he short listed the four and picked one who shows the most potential then again there a lot of possibilities. god! my head hurts!!
Ash a double agent? intriguing.. Hmm
Yeah.. his cerebral capacity will keep him grounded yes. gosh can't wait for the next episode!! *trembles with excitement*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-15 07:13 pm (UTC)See, I'm wondering if this is true. Ash seemed . . . different in this episode. While in the past he seemed to revel in his ability to figure stuff out, he seemed put out in this episode (compared himself to a dancing monkey). And I think it is significant that Sam commented on how quickly he completed the search. Makes me think that Ash might be Gordon's Roadhouse connection and maybe had run a similar search for Gordon before. If that is the case, then Gordon wouldn't want Ash to tell Sam that there are, say, 100 other children like him. He would want Ash to tell him about 4 of them - 1 of whom is Sam himself, 2 that Sam already knew about (1 of whom is already dead) and thus would not have to check out, and 1 new one (who Sam would presumably want to check out even though he was already dead). So with only 1 new *child* to check out, Gordon would know where Sam was going to be - heck, if he is in cahoots with Ash, he basically lured Sam to Lafayette, where he was waiting. And obviously Gordon knew about the kid in Lafayette before Sam did - he killed him. I wonder if he initially learned about Scott from Ash? He mentioned that the junior demon he exorcised told him about Sam - he didn't mention that he learned about Scott from that demon.
Hope this makes sense.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 12:38 am (UTC)Watch us be so totally wrong now. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 03:25 am (UTC)