15 years is a long time for a TV show. To put things in perspective, "Supernatural" first aired in 2005. YouTube was also created in 2005. When the show started, the characters were using flip phones. They used physical maps rather than GPS. "Supernatural" has been around quite a while.
In all this time though, I feel that there is one part of the show that all fans know
, but are either ignoring or normalizing: Sam and Dean are clearly codependent. And I don't mean that they care about each other deeply or rely on each other for their safety. I mean they need to seriously consider relationship counseling because of their codependency. Let's analyze their relationship.
SPOILERS START HERE.
The first time we start to see this dependency is season one. In the episode "Faith" Sam finds a faith healer to heal Dean's failing heart. Rather than doing research to find out how the miracles are happening, Sam basically forces Dean to go get healed. And Dean does... at the cost of another's life. It turns out the faith healer's wife was using a reaper to "trade" lives. One person gets healed, while someone she deems unrighteous dies of whatever the afflicted person would have died from. We'll let Sam off the hook for this one. He was desperate and had no reason to suspect the faith healer,
right?
Fast forward to the end of season two when Sam dies for the first time. After moping and decidedly not grieving, Dean runs off and sells his soul to the first demon he can find. He's given one year to live and then he will die and Sam will be all on his own. And thus starts the endless cycle of the brothers constantly sacrificing themselves for each other.
Dean was literally ready to let the world end rather than do anything to try and save it because his brother died. "He was upset!" Fine. He gets a pass for wanting the world to end because he was depressed.
I still don't think that selling his soul was the right thing. Didn't he just say earlier that season that...
Oh, yeah! Dean was super upset when he found out that his dad had sacrificed himself to save Dean. In fact, Dean convinced himself that he shouldn't be alive and was furious when discovered the deal his father made. So why in the world did he change his mind so swiftly? Because he's unhealthily attached to Sam.
We can see Sam's dangerous attachment in season ten when he was willing to sacrifice the entire world to the Darkness to save his brother... even after he was explicitly told not to by several other people. He was told all around that it was a bad idea by all objective sources. Of course, Cas and Charlie agreed, they are close to the situation. But Death had nothing to gain or lose with the situation. Sam ignored all the warnings and damned the world anyway. That's...
"They're brothers!" I'm sorry, Alec, but if you die, I'm going to grieve like a normal human and eventually I'm sure I'll feel happiness again. And to my sister, Elizabeth, again, I love you dearly, but I'm not about to trade my life for yours. Call me selfish, but I actually value my life and don't see anything wrong with not desiring to sell my soul for someone. And to my closest friend Katie, I will miss you so much, but I will survive.
"They're all the other has!" Is that supposed to be an excuse? You're not supposed to have only one friend in life. That's super unhealthy for this very reason: if your one support dies, what do you do? They should have been making more friends... Oh, wait! They did! Why is Castiel not enough of a reason to live? They both needs wives.
"Are they supposed to just let the other rot in hell?" No. But didn't we learn in season eight another way to save a soul from hell?
"Their situation is different!" Yeah, but that doesn't make the message any less sketchy. I don't agree with the whole sacrificing yourself for the other. I believe in equality. That there is nothing that makes any one person more or less worthy of life than another. In the end, we are all equally dead.
I love the loyalty the boys have for each other, but I really don't think that they should be so dependent on each other and nothing else. People need to be able to function independently from each other. What else makes you unique? What else makes you, you?
Lumiere figure at the Disney Store at the Ala Moana Shoppi… | Flickr
