(no subject)

[layne67]

Something Jensen said about 5.16 at the JIB con.

Dean is losing faith pretty much in everything lately. The necklace was a sentimental gift for Dean because Sam gave it to him instead of their father. So Dean feels like it's, along other things, the symbol of him being more than a brother to Sam, almost a father so when Castiel says that the necklace is worthless ...

From here.

I wonder whether that meant Dean felt like a failure as a "father" to Sam. He was Sam's main caregiver and him thinking that Sam's happiest memories had nothing to do with him, that together with everything else that had happened between them, to Sam, did he feel that he had no one to blame but himself? That he had failed spectacularly in "taking care of his brother?"

And speaking of the con in Rome, I'm loving every report and vid from it. The boys had never looked quite as beautiful as they did there! And apparently Jensen said that that con was one of the best he had ever attended?

He totally slayed me, singing this song.

And yay for The Amazing Race in Malaysia tonight!

/is excited.

Comments

[arabia764.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Jensen just stunning gorgeous at that con? So relaxed, so happy looking, and the singing.... he seems so at ease around Jason, he was at Asylum. That man loves having his friends close by!

God, I think he's gorgeous. I feel like a teenager with her first celebrity crush.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

The best thing was ( for me ), I didn't even realize there was going to be a con after that LA one, this was like suddenly being given a tub of ice-cream out of nowhere!

Have you seen the vid of them being interviewed in Italian? I love their expressions at the beautiful language. And I love seeing that Italian girl presenter :)

[arabia764.livejournal.com]

I have it bookmarked but haven't seen it yet, that's the perils of family visiting at Easter!

[rieyll.livejournal.com]

Finally got a chance to watch this. And OMG. How is that man even more beautiful than before??? Also? His singing voice sounds so different from his speaking voice!

Danneel is one lucky lucky girl.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

I love it when ho got all growly at one point - he sounded almost like Dean there!!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

You can tell Jensen was having a great time in Rome because I've seriously never seen him look so happy and relaxed at a con. Which of course meant that he also looked absolutely stunning. I also love that you can always tell when the show is done shooting for the season because he always lets his hair grow out a little!

[layne67.livejournal.com]

The Italian fans were extremely lucky to see him like that!!

[weird-fin.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was lovely. ^^

[layne67.livejournal.com]

He sang in the show too but when he sang as Dean, it was mostly out of tune!

[shadowc44.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you brought up what Jensen said at the con. I hadn't heard about that particular statement. I think that's quite possible, that it's one more way in which Dean feels like a failure, like maybe he thought he'd done a pretty good job raising Sam, and just realized Sam didn't see it that way. Not that Sam DOES see his childhood as a failure of Dean's, but if I look at it through the lens of Dean's "I'm worthless" self-image, I can see how he would see the necklace as a symbol of that.

To me, as a fan, it's a symbol of their bond, as brothers and friends,, and it feels to me like Dean's throwing away that bond, but it's possible we weren't meant to see it quite that way. Is it possible I'm overly emotionally invested in this show, and Sam in particular? :)

[layne67.livejournal.com]

When Castiel said the necklace was worthless, I think he meant it was worthless in his quest to look for God, but Dean being Dean, I think he also took it as a symbol of his own failure, that all he had done for the family was "worthless".

I was so depressed after that show that I went straight to bed, and I woke up in the early hours and couldn't go back to sleep, thinking about them. Yep, I'm overly invested too :/

[shadowc44.livejournal.com]

I'm positive Castiel meant the necklace was worthless to him as a means of locating God. That's the only purpose it served for him. I don't know that he's even capable of truly understanding what it once meant to both Sam and Dean.

But it could be that Dean feels it has no more worth to him, because (in his mind) Sam's notion of family and his are worlds apart, so maybe he's been mistaken all these years in seeing it as a really special gift.

I remember that Sam wore the amulet the whole time Dean was in Hell, then gave it back to him, as a symbol of what they mean to each other. I wonder if Dean remembers it the same way?

Yeah the episode depressed me, but I want to watch it again to see if I missed anything. Sometimes after seeing the entire episode, it's easier to see meaning in things I may not have paid enough attention to earlier.

You know one thing I've been thinking about a lot...in Lazarus Rising, when Dean said to Bobby, a bit too smugly, "What is there about that kid I don't know?" even at that time I knew that was going to come back to bite him in the butt. When you contrast that with Sam saying, by the end of that season, "You don't know me and you never will," that must have really cut Dean to the core. He thinks he knows Sam better than anyone else does, and better than he knows anyone else, but Sam keeps showing him over and over that there are things Dean doesn't know, and can't anticipate, and I can see how that would be just one more addition to Dean's Big Old Pile of Guilt he carries around. I'm surprised it even fits into the Impala, you know?

And Sam wants so desperately to be independent, to not be so intertwined with Dean. They love each other in different ways, that are hard for the other to understand. Sam wants Dean with him, but standing over there, a few feet away, giving him a little bit of space to do his own thing. In eyesight, but at arms length. Dean wants Sam standing right by his side, or maybe a little behind him, so he can protect his kid brother. Maybe he doesn't entirely see that the kid has grown up into a man, and doesn't need Dean in the same way his younger self did.

Sam can never understand family the way Dean does, because he doesn't have any memories of two parents. From what I understand of early childhood development, by the age of four, pretty close to five, Dean would have had sufficient time to develop a good sense of self, his place in the family, and some security in his parents love, even if he realized his parents had problems. Sam had none of that. By the time Sam was old enough to really get to know his father, John was obsessed, drinking heavily, and in Marine Drill Sergeant mode. His brother was not only acting like a father a lot of the time, but he was also Sam's substitute mother. It's no wonder he and Dean have very different impressions of "family".

Dean was old enough to understand what he'd lost when his mother died and his dad changed, and Sam never really knew anything before that time. But when Sam encountered other kids at school, and most of them had a mom as well as a dad, and lived in the same place all the time, and maybe had pets and new clothes and material things, he could really see the contrast. I don't know why that stuff didn't bother Dean as much, but it seems like maybe he saw a lot of the hunting life as an adventure, and didn't want the same things other kids had.

Poor Dean. Poor Sam. I wish they could spend an entire episode trapped in an elevator, or the Impala, with nothing to do but talk and try to hash out some of their problems. Anything where they're forced to try to really listen to each other.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting that. It's wonderful to see him having such a good time and looking so good.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

Took him long enough! Yup, 5 years of cons before he finally, finally, screwed up his courage to sing in front of fans. Go Jensen! :)

[chloe-amethyst.livejournal.com]

I think perhaps Dean is feeling that nothing he has sacrificed so long and so hard for has stood the test of time or given him as much as he has given up. He lost his childhood, innocence, then his idolized view of his father, lost his father to a demon, and then lost Sam to demonic forces so his sense of family unity was completely destroyed as well as the chance to have his own family. Then he lost his belief that "saving people, hunting things" was enough to keep him going. And now whatever burgeoning ideas he had about God or heaven giving a damn has been wrecked, too.

So while he was definitely in the father role raising Sam, I don't think it's the sense of failing as a father behind his despair as much as the utter hopelessness wrought of losing everything one has ever believed in or sacrificed for and the hope that anything good will ever come from any of his sacrifices. I think throwing the necklace away was the recognition that the last two things he was holding out hope for are also hopeless. He just seems utterly bereft.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

That's a very thoughtful analysis, and it makes sense to me too.

[chloe-amethyst.livejournal.com]

It's so sad! *waaaah*

[chloe-amethyst.livejournal.com]

oh, and I wonder what will happen now because it was Dean's optimism and can-do attitude no matter what was thrown at the boys that kept pessimistic Sam going for at least 3 of the years they've been hunting together. What is Sam going to do with Dean and Castiel who are now without hope? I think it makes him even more vulnerable to Lucifer's influence because disconnected Sam is really dangerous. When there's nothing grounding him (i.e. his big brother), that's when the vengeance and anger take over (Mystery Spot and all of season 4) and Sam's better judgement flies out the window. It's interesting how Dean is a bad-ass, but actually has kind of a mellowing effect on Sam.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

Or ... now's maybe the time for Sam to take over - show his mettle, so to speak.. He "took over" for a while in season 4, that time when he was saying Dean was weak and all but Ruby was there and he was consumed with revenge then. Now that Ruby's no more, hopefully Sam'll take his strength in the right direction.

[shadowc44.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking, that it might be a bit of a role reversal, with Sam having to be the cheerleader every time Dean doesn't seem motivated enough. And if he has to keep pessimistic Bobby and disillusioned Castiel in "Go Team Free Will!" mode, too, he's going to need to change his attitude as well. I think it will be good for him.

Or I wonder if Team Free Will is going to just end up going their separate ways, if they don't think being a team is working out.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

Or I wonder if Team Free Will is going to just end up going their separate ways

Oh I don't think that's going to happen. Not after what Dean had seen in 2014. I think he'd want to keep Sam by his side, even if that probably wasn't what he really wanted to do.

[shadowc44.livejournal.com]

I don't know which is worse, one of them leaving the other, or staying together because they think they have to, when they momentarily can't stand being around each other. There's so much that's been dividing them lately, it's hard to see how they'll ever go back to fully trusting each other.

I do think this episode did a marvelous job of pushing them apart. Sam didn't seem any happier about seeing Dean having happy memories of Mom, than Dean did when he saw Sam happily on his own with a dog.

[ala-tariel.livejournal.com]

I heard he's singing at the Con as an apology for being "bitchy" before. :D

[layne67.livejournal.com]

Oh he said that?

[ala-tariel.livejournal.com]

I read he made an apology. I'm not sure the exact words though.

[essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com]

it's so cute because he's so shy -- and he just STEAMROLLS over jason manns.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

I love it when he got into his groove and really getting into it. I had a feeling that he wanted to go on singing!!