10.15 Poll and comment

[ash48]

[Poll #2004397]



I really, really enjoyed that episode. I was on the edge of my seat for some parts and had my eyes behind my hands for other parts (yay! gory bits!). The cinematography was lovely and the pacing felt (mostly) good. The MoTW was possibly one of my favourites this season. It harked back to a past monster and introduced a new one (and I kinda love creepy worms inside of people!).

There was some solid Sam n Dean stuff and if we hadn't see it ALL before I would be on the edge of myself wondering what on earth will happen next. The fact that we are seeing an identical story line to S3 (Dean in mortal peril and Sam feeling helpless to save him) makes me feel a little weary of it all. But it's ok. I feel like I've turned a corner and my deep gloom for the Show seems to have lifted (hiatus is good for that!).

IF the show deviates from the predictable trajectory - Sam does something "bad" (you know, sleeps with a demon, drinks demon blood and kills and innocent nurse etc) to save Dean but fails (because there are others who will do that more successfully) and then spends next season making up for his failure - I will be bloody thrilled. It would be incredibly awesome if they take a surprising turn (one that I can't even imagine at this point) and do something that not only brings in Sam's past attempts at saving Dean, but also looks at Dean's choices when he's saved Sam I will be pretty darn happy. But, if it doesn't, I suppose I'll just have to enjoy lots of angsty Sam and Dean being influenced more and more by the mark. :) I'm afraid I won't enjoy seeing Sam fail again, but I am totally bracing myself for it. After all, it is part of Sam's blue print (*sniff*).

That all came about because at the end, when Sam felt such deep sorrow for not being able to save Kit (aka Dean), I had a mixed reaction of - "oh wow, we have a Sam moment!" and "seriously? How many meat suits have they killed without ever attempting to save them!? Why is he suddenly feeling bad about not being able to save someone now?!". I KNOW it's not about that and we're not supposed to think about meat suits as being human - but still, it was in the back of my mind. I also know it's about setting up Sam's worry-about-failing story line - so I know why we saw it (yes, I'm over analysing but that's just me...).

Aaaaanway. Solid ep. Dean sneaking the icing off the cake was glorious, as was the two of them working together so perfectly. I also love Dean getting on with the job and seeing the self reflection in the MoTW rather than through mirror gazing.

I often wonder if the show could survive (continue?) with simple MoTW eps, with an overall season arc (and baddie) and WITHOUT the brother angst. The two of them against the world, rather than against each other. Possibly not. Perhaps is the constant drama between them that makes it so compelling.

Comments

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

I kind of take issue with this idea that ~the writers are making the character so dumb. If Sam hasn't consciously wrapped his mind around what's happening, he's not "dumb," no more than Jemma is "dumb" for not wanting to give up on Kit. Jemma is in denial. Sam may well be in denial too. Lots of people whose partners put them at risk go into denial. This denial is a survival mechanism and it is not okay to say it makes them "dumb." Whether the writers are doing this intentionally or whether they are instinctively following the pattern of Sam's denial which has been in place for a very long time - the latter strikes me as unlikely due to the anvil-sized parallel of Jemma and Kit but whatever - is irrelevant.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying ... I do! But I'm not sure I subscribe thoroughly to the 'death of the author' idea. I mean, I do and I don't. Once the work is loosed upon the world, it's out of the author's hands, pretty much, and we can make of it what we will. But if the author has written something poorly and winds up retconning stuff, then their intention (or rather, lack of consideration or research or whatever) does matter. Will matter. SHOULD'VE mattered. Something like that.

Death of the author does not exactly make up for a lack of clarity, does it? I'm asking, in earnest. I'm not particularly scholarly when it comes to this stuff. I'd be eager to hear your take on it.

But yes, it seems as though Sam is capable of turning a blind eye about his own personal safety when it revolves around Dean. Just as Dean can't help but make decisions for everyone, whether he should or shouldn't. I still maintain that the writers are making the characters selectively smart (or dumb) depending upon what the plot requires--they can feel inconsistent--and sometimes that stretches credulity for me.

I'm not asking for realism from the show, but I want to believe just a little bit!

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

I've talked about this a lot, actually, so I'll try to keep it brief.

I just fundamentally disagree that "bad writing" is actually the issue most of the times that I see it? I think a lot of times people mistake their preferred take on one aspect or another of a story for being the objective and definitive canon when it really isn't. Emmram has put it really well in saying that bad writing should be the last explanation for something which strikes us as being strange, and fandom has a tendency to go to it first. "Bad writing" is where there's no in-universe explanation, not where there's one or several in-universe explanations which people don't necessarily like.

I find "lack of clarity" to be particularly suspect as a complaint because it's weirdly popular in discounting some of the things which are most consistent about the narrative. frex, the narrative condemnation of the Gadreel thing could not have been more clear if there had been a ticker running across the bottom of the screen - but it didn't suit fandom's preferred construct of the Winchesters' relationship, so obviously it was THE RITURZ falling down on the job.

I still maintain that the writers are making the characters selectively smart (or dumb) depending upon what the plot requires--they can feel inconsistent--and sometimes that stretches credulity for me.

But do you actually know a single person who isn't "selectively smart or dumb"? Or do you know people who are smart about some topics and not about others, or who are academic-smart but not good at understanding situations they're in, or who are generally smart but have off-days when they're tired/frazzled/have someone deliberately screwing with their heads? People are inconsistent, or at least, we seem that way if taken at face value.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think SPN's issue might be that there are sometimes too many possible in-universe explanations for instances that feel like there's (theoretically) "bad writing", all existing simultaneously and conflictingly. (I easily call to mind Sam's 'Does he or doesn't he want to die?' situation, beginning with his "Light at the end of the tunnel" speech when he took on the Trials right up to the "But I was ready to die" Gadreel possession.) We could come up with a dozen in-universe reasons why he'd say either of these things -- hell, we've got 7-8 years of backstory to rummage through -- but it still doesn't make it any less inconsistent and muddy for me.

And this feeds into my "lack of clarity" comment, which I find neither weird nor particularly popular. I don't read a ton of meta or reviews so if I've hit on something that a bunch of other people have also noted, maybe it's not so much popularity as valid observation? We may not be able to spell it out in academic, studied terms, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate it. (BTW, I actually have no problem with Gadreel himself, or Dean's decision to go along with the angel's plan to possess Sam. Nothing about either of those two characters in this scenario surprised me.)

It's kinda like someone being asked to define porn: not sure exactly what it is, but I know it when I see it. Something fell down in the storytelling (or has been falling down) and I'm not altogether certain it isn't the writing. This might also be the evolution of an episode from script to finished product; some scenes might have wound up on the cutting room floor that would've made a given sticking point more clear. The writers still have it in their minds that something came across perfectly clearly when in fact, it did not. (As someone who betas a lot of fic, I know this happens all the time.) Or they haven't watched the episodes they didn't write in order to better sync up a character's headspace.

It's entirely possible everything I'm chalking up to "bad writing" is, in fact, wobbly showrunning. I don't envy show runners! It's a HUGE job, overseeing such a complicated machine, and SPN is maintaining solid ratings for a show of its age and it hasn't lost me yet, so they're clearly doing many things right.

Re. the "selectively smart or dumb" thing, of course people are inconsistent, but when it draws attention to itself, when it doesn't feel organic to the character, it's either been poorly written or we hope this is intentional on the character's behalf and actually leading somewhere. (Yes, this is very subjective, but every creative field is subjective.) When it feels clumsy and doesn't lead anywhere except to facilitate a plot point, the writer has failed the character.

The best analogy I can make is to creating photorealistic art (which I do.) Sometimes, you can duplicate a photo exactly, but in the translation of 'reality' into something designed or man-made, it looks wonky. It can either suffer from the uncanny valley effect or fail with awkward foreshortening, tangents, lens distortion, yadda, there's a bajillion things that -- while technically accurate -- don't work when it comes to making the art. It's up to us as creators to select what we do or don't include for a successful piece. So, again, subjective but if enough folks squint and think there's something amiss, maybe there is.