Flashback

[sistermagpie]

I'm reading the reactions to the SPN finale and having total flashbacks to HP. Usually I don't think of those canons being very similar, but they both have characters with strong personalities that color all their reactions. They can get hurt by someone saying something not intended to hurt them, or do something that's hurtful to someone else without thinking it's hurtful. They can do obviously the wrong thing while thinking it's totally the right thing.

It makes the interactions fun to analyze to tease out how the characters are talking past each other or influencing each other in ways they can't understand, and makes every character an island where they can't ever truly understand the other person. I mean, they can understand them based on familiarity with their behavior, but if you asked them to analyze the other person it would probably bear no resemblance to how that character saw themselves.

But this leads to a fandom with a lot of different factions who see one character as right or sympathetic and other characters as wrong. And along with that go assumptions that if you disagree with someone on which character deserves understanding it must be because you're a stan of that character and so completely biased, rather than just seeing a grey area a little differently than the other person. The show serves up a sad, tragic situation that mixes love and resentment or has characters having a bad influence on each other without meaning to, it is guaranteed to cause fury!

Not generalizing the whole fandom with that there. There's plenty of people not doing that and writing about it, I've seen it. I'm just totally not surprised that after that finale there's a lot of fury going on, with different groups complaining that their character was dissed and hated on by the writers and will continue to be so while other characters unfairly elevated. The messiest fictional situations inspire the loudest insistance that it's all very clean and simple.

Comments

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

along with that go assumptions that if you disagree with someone on which character deserves understanding it must be because you're a stan of that character and so completely biased, rather than just seeing a grey area a little differently than the other person.

Oooh boy yes. SPN fandom has descended ever more sharply into factions this season, with tumblr as kind of the extreme embodiment of those kinds of conflicts.

SPN does so much with mirroring and parallels and shoutbacks, I find it hard to outright condemn any of the characters who have been position as the heroes, because another hero character gets caught in that condemnation. They repeat and share each other's mistakes. It is messy.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I remember once talking to somebody about how it was somebody's fault that X happened in the first place and it was like...well, yeah but you realize that you can continue tracing that back to the first scene of the pilot? This really is a show where people in a claustrophobic world continue to do things that influence each other or change the course of events. You can never just pick some arbitrary part and start there.

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

This (ok, and also the fact that I stopped watching because I kept forgetting and then not catching up) is why I stopped participating in SPN fandom so much. You cannot say ONE GOOD THING about any character without somehow having automatically said something horrendous about another character. And of course that's what was always so interesting to me about SPN - the characters were so flawed both in terms of just how they are and, also, as you say, in how they view each other. I mean, outside of Ruby's bad acting, I LOVED season four because it was just really well-structured, I thought, in terms of each brother's botched reaction to a certain situation. But the moment you suggested that Dean and the way he viewed Sam bore ANY responsibility whatsoever for Sams' decent into addiction, you got wanked on hard. Which sucks because then not only do you have to defend yourself but, at least in my case, I tend to end up then going to the extreme just to defend my PoV which then makes you just as bad as everyone else.

Bleh. Was it any good, though? The end of the season as compared to the beginning? If I have time before my job starts, I may pick it up again. The Glee fandom, though, is the same way as the SPN fandom, only it's worse because everyone projects like crazy. It's harder to project in SPN, I think, because so many situations are situations that could never happen to most people watching but everyone has a high school experience to draw on. As much as I understand that bullying can be traumatic, I'm sorry, but deciding that Kurt must somehow be traumatized because others have been when the shows creators clearly haven't made that the case is just irritating.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was a very good season at all. There seemed to be a lot of things that went nowhere. Though there were good moments and personally I thought the story in the finale was the most laid out. It just happened off-screen with fairly subtle hints. I think if you go back and look at earlier scenes you can see a progression, but at the time it wasn't the most important thing going on by a longshot.

The fights about the finale actually remind me a lot of the S4 Sam disagreements because the stories are pretty similar. There's a lot of oversensitivity, imo, about people looking at times when characters were influenced by events or other characters and translating that into glossing over the terrible thing the characters did, omg! I've seen some accusations of people saying that others are blaming Dean for what Castiel did when to me it read more of what you're describing, where it's just saying okay, now that we know where the other character was at in his head you can see how Dean would have come across to him. It doesn't make it Dean's fault, it's more like looking for the lost opportunities. Like maybe he would have come clean here but here's the moment where he shuts down again or whatever.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing the same thing. IMO, a lot of the fury tracks back to fans who are so vested in their favorite character and/or favorite ship that they can't accept what they've seen on screen because it doesn't match the idealized version of the characters that they've vested so much love and energy on. Lots of viewers are watching the show through a fanon filter instead of watching what is actually playing out on screen. None of this is helped by the fact that the writing this season has been sub-par to awful for the most part, IMO. Most of the post-finale angst in the SPN fandom that I've seen relates to Castiel. It's unfortunate that Sera Gamble and her writers kept Castiel's storyline almost entirely off screen because viewers this season didn't truly get to see what led to his actions in the finale. It was erratic and shoddy, IMO. The season's best moments all seemed to be pure fan service, from the 'haha look Cas is watching porn' to time traveling to the old west to the funny but pointless breaking the 4th wall, mocking the entire series episode.

I'm seeing this same sort of rage in the Hawaii 5-0 fandom right now. It's a new show, only in its first season, but lots of that show's Danny Williams fans and 'McDanno' McGarrett/Danno slash fans are already up in arms over that show's finale too, because it didn't match their expectations of what this character chose to do.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

This, yes, completely. I think if you go back and look at all of Castiel's scenes you'll probably see Misha Collins playing this story, and a lot of the lines iirc refer to the things that came to a head in the finale, but of course not everybody would be picking up on that as it goes along. There is a high standard for the characters and relationships that people get angry when it's blatantly not there. And also sometimes there are anti-fans of something who need for the ep to have proved them right that X character or X relationship was never anything like what the stupid stans thought it was, and that's not really true either.

Interesting about H50. I saw the finale but now I'm trying to remember the details. What was the big problem in fandom with fans there in terms of their expectations?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was a very good season at all. There seemed to be a lot of things that went nowhere. Though there were good moments and personally I thought the story in the finale was the most laid out.

I completely agree here! It's been a haphazard season, hasn't it? Plenty of threads dropped completely, or dropped for a while only to be picked up unexpectedly weeks later. There've been plenty of memorable moments and likable episodes this season, but it feels unsuccessful, to me, because the writers failed to bring out a cohesive through-story, and then (1) stick to it, and (2) tell it in a way that felt progressive. It seems like it's been one "...meanwhile, back at the ranch..." after another.

(That said, I'm kind of interested to go back with the finale in mind, and see if I can't see a progression a little better.)

I also agree with the main thrust of your post. I read a bunch of fan reactions and then mentioned to a friend that you could, in almost every case, tell the character the writer was most invested in -- and the funny part of it was that it didn't matter which character that was, they were unhappy. I can count on one hand the number of reactions I read where the writer didn't feel that her particular fave wasn't Hard Done By, sacrificed to better tell the others' stories.

Oh, fandom.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I found that same thing--that no matter which character it was, the person was likely to be unhappy. I remember one person saying it wasn't fair that Sam was so neglected and someone else who felt like there was too much of him was like "Did you miss the part where there were 3 of them onscreen for many scenes?" and the first person was like...but he didn't interact with other people!

It really did feel this season like there were just these things going on that had to go someplace important and then didn't. My vote for the weirdest goes to the Campbell storyline--why did they bring Samuel back from the dead? No good reason!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Oh, you know, that Danny and Rachel get back together. Sort of. In this way where they're sneaking around. I feel like the show did show that Danny wanted it (but we know he doesn't like change much), showed that Rachel wanted it (but we also know that her marriage was breaking up) but didn't show very well how their being back together would actually be a good thing for either of them. All that fighting from early in the season seemed to be about how they weren't particularly good for each other. Anyway Danny doesn't show up at the airport so it isn't as pat as that.

I guess I would just say, you know, that the comment sort of proves some of what you were saying? I can enjoy McDanno and not be in love with the Danny/Rachel storyline, and those can be separate thoughts. It's not like if I didn't like it, I must be a McDanno person who's mad about something standing in the way of my slash. The show hasn't shown me why this might be good for Danny, or contrary, why this is probably a bad idea but it's what Danny wants to do for several reasons. (And the end of the season brought together some things that yes, it built up to for a while, and some things it really, really did not, like the Chin stuff which had been going on since the start of the season but got wrapped up in like, two episodes and suddenly he's back on HPD, with a promotion, where before he'd been persona non grata.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I love that it totally didn't occur to me that that was what it was about. My view of that storyline is pretty much exactly the same as yours. It seems like they broke up for a reason and that reason still exists, so it doesn't seem like a good idea. But I don't feel like it breaks up McDanno.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

We could definitely tell that something was up with Castiel. Misha Collins did a decent job with the material he was handed. I'd been expecting Castiel to become the new Big Bad ever since last year. They were pretty blatant about it, IMO. But then, I'm not a Castiel fangirl who regards Castiel as an adorable, childlike woobie, or Dean's gay lover, or the show's comedy relief. I take him at face value. He's an angel who became entranced by the idea of free will. Problem is, angels weren't created to have free will. They are designed only to serve God, not to act or think for themselves. Rebelling against that is why Lucifer fell. The fact that Castiel embraced free will out of some giddy idea that it would be good for Heaven doesn't change the outcome for him or the other angels.

On the surface, that was an amazing setup for a tragic storyline, but this writing crew bugled it dreadfully. I'm sure that budget constraints prevented them from showing the war in Heaven, but they still could have talked about it. This show excels at exploring character pathos. They could have got even the most diehard Castiel fans fully vested in that finale if they've written it properly. Fans could have been weeping at watching their glorious angel fall for what seemed like all the right reasons.

But no. Sera Gamble overstepped and somehow got it into her head that she was writing a noir mystery. Honestly, I know what Sera Gamble thought noir was, but it wasn't SPN S6, that's for damn sure. This season felt like a bunch of D- screenwriting students and bad fanfic writers took over the show. It was a rambling, disjointed, often to me offensive mess. The finale felt cohesive because Kripke came back to clean up the mess that Gamble made. Likely they'll keep him around in a more hands-on manner for S7.

Personally, I think the show went completely off the rails midway through S5 when it was announced that the show would be renewed instead of ending as planned. The Apocalypse storyline had been seeming to be leading to having Sam and Dean become the vessels and then ending the war with both of them sacrificing themselves. Suddenly the network announces that the show was renewed, the show faltered for a few episodes, and then we got a whole new Winchester brother out of the blue and a meaningless ending that was robbed of any real importance. In terms of the 5 year story that we'd been given, S6 should never have happened, much less S7. Sera Gamble and her writers wrote a bad zerox of the show. I'm done with the show, not because I was unhappy with Castiel's 'all shall worship me and despair' moment, but because I just can't stand such craptastic writing.

As for the Hawaii 5-0 fandom, there is s rabidly vocal component in the fandom that is practically calling for the Danny Williams character to be branded with a Scarlet A and then tarred and feathered because he *gasp* slept with his still married ex-wife. I don't think I've seen this much finger pointing and petty, sanctimonious blather ever, in any fandom that I'm familiar with. Despite the fact that this character has been saying all season long that he prefers his home state of New Jersey and is only in Hawaii to be near his daughter, these viewers chose to see and hear only the breezy 'bromance' between Williams and McGarrett. I totally dig the bromance on the show too, but I still saw this ending coming a long way off.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that this character has been saying all season long that he prefers his home state of New Jersey and is only in Hawaii to be near his daughter, these viewers chose to see and hear only the breezy 'bromance' between Williams and McGarrett. I totally dig the bromance on the show too, but I still saw this ending coming a long way off.

I find it interesting that you say this in response to a post in which Meg has said:

And along with that go assumptions that if you disagree with someone on which character deserves understanding it must be because you're a stan of that character and so completely biased, rather than just seeing a grey area a little differently than the other person.

I think that you can not feel that the Danny/Rachel reconciliation wasn't written particularly well (I didn't, even if I did see it coming) and that can be separate from how you feel about Danny/Steve. There can be very vocal people who have a lot of problems with a lot of things, but I am hesitant to paint an entire fandom or an entire pairing with that same brush, or to brush off some people's legitimate problems with the way the Danny/Rachel was handled (and after all that, and all his "I'd rather be in Jersey with my daughter" we know he doesn't get on that plane, for example) as being merely butthurt slasher objections. I think that's what Meg is actually trying to say in this post, or at least what I thought one of her major points was, that dismissing how people might feel about some plot point as just their being a fan of one character or another can be a problem.

(For the record I also found the Chin covering for his uncle storyline tedious and while I was glad it ended, having it warpped up in two episodes with Chin being promoted was a bit much. Also I love everything that Jenna Kaye chooses to be, and am hopeful for a deluge of Kono/Jenna since everyone's been just waiting for someone to slash Kono with.)

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I apologize for giving the impression that I believe that all fans think alike.

I do not.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say, regarding the Castiel fans... The writers also did them a disservice by so openly playing up all the slashy, fannish tropes that much of the Castiel fandom is so vested in. Everything from pointless scenes of Cas watching porn (allowing for some tasteless, on screen jokes at his expense), to having people on the show comment that Castiel is in love with Dean, to truly - to me - ridiculous and offensive comments, such as Dean saying, 'Castiel get out of my butt' or whatever. That was all fan-service. I'm acquainted with some ardent Dean/Castiel slashers. They keep track of anything on screen that even remotely could be interpreted as validating their slash pairing. When the writers just openly manipulate this fandom in this way, but then quite suddenly, out of the blue turn Castiel into Galadriel on crack, it's no wonder that the fandom feels betrayed. They have every right to be furious.

So far as I'm concerned, the minute any show starts to stoop to such outrageous fan-service is a sign that the show has run out of creative steam. This writing team proved that they don't have the chops to plot out decent story arcs of their own, so they settled for trolling through bad fanfic and dishing that back to fans. Fans rejoiced at seeing the show canon validate their fanon interpretations, only to have all of that yanked out from under their feet. It was sloppy and unfair.

Fortunately(?), it's nothing that can't be undone... which leads me to another of my primary complaints about this show. There are no real consequences any more. People die and then come back. Anybody can go to hell and come back. Nothing actually matters any more.

The only thing they did all season that I actually was relieved to see was that they didn't kill off Lisa and Ben. Most of fandom wanted to see Lisa dead for no other reason than that she was Dean's girlfriend. Hell, they didn't even have the courage to stand up to fandom and actually call her Dean's girlfriend or say that he loved her. Even so, this show is so horrifyingly misogynist. No female character survives on this show. Thankfully, they let Lisa live. That will likely be the last time that we ever see Dean get involved with any woman.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! I'm laughing at the idea of Danny being yelled at for sleeping with his still-married ex-wife.

But also yes, that was completely my view of SPN all season. Clearly Castiel was going off the rails, and I think the logic was there in the character. I was saying something similar about the angel thing the other day--he's an angel. Angels are created to love and serve God. Not only does Castiel not have any experience with shame (since he's used to all his actions being God's will and his first free will actions were all things he thought were right) but he has no experience with isolation. One of the things that was annoying about the ship teasing was that it obscured the important point that was there, which was Castiel often talking about doing things "for Dean." Which isn't about slash, but reminds you that Castiel's spent his life following God, and in some ways he replaced God with Dean. Not as somebody to love and worship, but as someone to be connected to. His two motivations in last week's ep and the finale was him following his plan and also trying to stay the Winchester savior.

But oh god, the noir season. I was thinking back on it and there were all these things thrown out that were noir tropes but didn't go anywhere, and most of the best noirs are pretty tight narratively. But that stuff with the Campbells--wtf was that about? And even Sam's missing soul just didn't go anywhere. Sam honestly had no reason to be running around putting himself back together since compared to other seasons he really wasn't suffering much guilt. So we wound up with all these things that seemed really important and then they just got dropped. The silliest for me still being bringing back Grandpa Campbell because that's such overkill for what they needed him for.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

Bringing back creepy Grandpa I view as a good idea/bad execution. This show has done daddy issues to death. The Winchesters also have mommy issues. I think that Sera and gang wanted to prove that they knew their show canon by exploring mom's side of the family and revealing that it was massively screwed up.

In theory it was an interesting idea. Like everything on this show, it was poorly executed.

As for Sam... did I blink and miss something there at the end? His entire season arc was 'Sam comes back from Hell but if he gets all his memories of Hell back he'll go completely insane so lets but a wall in his mind...etc.'

Then Sam did get his memories back and he had to put himself back together, with the last hurdle being, can Sam face getting back his memories of hell [with that version of him saying that he can't deal with it]... Sam embraces those memories and ....

Nothing. Whatever reaction he may have had was off screen, and the next time we see him, he's zooming up to join Dean at the end.

Did I miss something here or was that entire plotpoint resolved off screen?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the good idea was part of the problem. It seemed like it had to be important since they were Campbells and one was back from the dead. Then there wasn't any good reason that Samuel was brought back and they all got killed out really fast and we didn't really explore anything!

As far as I can tell...that was Sam's whols story. There were all these warnings about how he couldn't handle the memories and then Sam was fine. A little manly wincing and that was about it.

[swan-bite.livejournal.com]

yeah, basically Castiel is Draco and/or Snape (Sam used to be Draco and/or Snape) while Dean is Harry-- which is weird because i would have thought that Sam would Harry, but i don't think he is. =/


though again, some other fan might think that's totally opposite. ;D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--that's always the way, that other fans would see it differently! I just thought it was funny how I'd realized it had been a while since I'd been in a fandom where people were having this kind of argument. The HP books were full of them. I remember somebody once did a poll where they listed a bunch of things that happened in the books and had people vote on who was right and most of them were pretty neck and neck.

[trobadora]

OMG, that is so true. SPN is splintered into character-loyal factions to an extreme degree, and why the similarity to HP never occurred to me I don't know. Everyone seems to think they have to defend one person at another's expense, or that if you sympathise with one of them the other(s) needs must be EEEEVIL and EVERYTHING'S THEIR FAULT. *sighs*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Isn't it weird? I had never thought it up until this moment either and yet now it seems so obvious! And I think there's something in the canon that does it too. Both canons have these sticky interactions with characters that people are going to be on different sides about. Making people argue is probably one of the biggest draws of both series.

[trobadora]

Oh yes, absolutely - it's definitely in the canon. Tricky situations and ethical dilemmas with no clear solutions, characters in conflict - and on top of all of that, characters who consistently talk past each other. *g* (Sometimes you want to hit them ALL over the head!)

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

I mean, they can understand them based on familiarity with their behavior, but if you asked them to analyze the other person it would probably bear no resemblance to how that character saw themselves.

I love writing like that!

You know re: sympathy for characters? I could feel sympathetic to anybody that last ep or so, and I really enjoyed that. I could see everybody's motivations, for the most part, making sense to them. They made really bad choices, some of them! But for the most part I bought those bad choices. Which... thank you show!

I even thought that the woman who was Bobby's friend? Dr...(I had to look it up)Visyak? The woman who took over the old man's mom's body when she came out of purgatory. Even she was sympathetic. But Cas was okay with killing her. Means to an end and he'll fix it later. And THAT reminds me: so much torture these past few eps and actually this season, even counting the electric torture with the Khan worm. But Castiel tortured recently and Dean tortured recently (without the worm excuse) and that has got to be on the slippery slope, even if they both felt the end justified the means.

And I just flashed on that ep Children are the Future, where Castiel and other angels (iirc--Castiel at least) are okay with killing a kid. It's kind of like (to me) that he's thinking a little hard in black and white right now but he always, kind of... has, maybe? I can't decide. It seemed like he was coming along and now he's not. And idk but I still can see him currently thinking he's thinking in shades of gray when... he isn't. Oh, Smitey. Okay this last paragraph got way off track. Sorry! But I still totally sympathize with his motivations!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I really am impressed by people who can do that--I don't think I've ever managed it myself!

I found Visyak so interesting because there's so many times that if somebody's not human they have no problem killing them--especially Dean and maybe Bobby, but here she was one of them that Castiel was going after. Castiel had also tortured in Mommy Dearest, hadn't he? I think maybe after Dean called him a baby too. I think on this show it's rare that somebody does something bad that doesn't echo something that somebody else (or more than one person) did when they went bad.

Someone was saying that Sam had learned a lesson about not killing people and that's why he stabbed Cas but I thought the opposite--I think it's still supposed to be Sam's character that he wouldn't kill a person because they have the potential for destruction.

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

Yes, Mommy Dearest! Cas tortured. I have to wonder if he learned it from Dean, you know? And yep. Same ep Dean called him a baby. Omg I think yeah, it's all echoing each other. Learn up, guys! Hurry!

Wait, what? I don't think Sam would kill a person if he was in his right mind. I... don't know what I think that means about killing Cas though! Or trying to. I wonder if he is thought to not see Cas as a "person" in that scenario?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Could be, but then isn't Sam the person who usually looks at non-people as people? Like he was the one who didn't want to kill the anti-Christ or the vegetarian vampires.

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

Okay, first of all? My god I was a little incoherent up there. Must stop typing like I talk!

You're right, of course. Hmm. I don't even understand how stabbing Cas could show that Sam's learned about not killing a person. Meaning he's now okay with killing a person (angel)? Wonder if the person meant that Sam has now decided that means justify the end. Dean and Cas have... in their own ways.

I didn't mention this last time but I love this: The messiest fictional situations inspire the loudest insistence that it's all very clean and simple.

So true and so interesting. One thing it made me think of (especially since I'm not in HP) is Bat arguments. For example? War Games.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, in WG it's just that people won't give Batman the responsibility he deserves. Like, all of it. It's all his fault Stephanie didn't erase crime!

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

It's always his fault. Such a jerk, that guy. If only he could learn about "fun" and lighten up a little. Why, that'd light up aaaall of Gotham!

[khilari.livejournal.com]

I'm not in Supernatural or HP fandom. But although Norse mythology fandom's too tiny to have factions I'm having a similar problem with it. It seems like almost everyone either demonises Loki as a villain who tricked his way into Asgard and then took advantage of that trust to destroy it, or they think he's an innocent victim who snapped under the other gods' unwillingness to accept him.

Whereas I'm actually pretty fond of everyone, even if I disagree with Odin's methods sometimes.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I love that this happens with Norse mythology! But it makes sense because it seems like it's a very similar set up where some people are going to see one character's pov above all others.

[khilari.livejournal.com]

I think part of it, and I wonder if this applies to JK Rowling's writing style in some ways as well, is that the old Norse writing style only gives actions. The reader is meant to fill in the motivations for themselves so it's very easy for people to see an action in completely different ways

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Or maybe characters defined through actions. Like in HP we get motivations behind the actions, but I'd say the characters are probably based on what they do in the text. Like there's something a certain character needs to do in the text, so their personality is all about being the kind of person who would do that thing.

[khilari.livejournal.com]

That's a very good way of looking at it. And one that's going to apply to any mythology - Thor's purpose as a god is to defend Midgard from giants so he's the sort of person who would spend his whole life fighting giants. Loki's purpose as a trickster is to stir things up so of course he does.

There's something almost mythical about HP. People, including me, were always comparing it to mythologies they were familiar with. But I think it's that way people are characterised by what they do, and the way so many of them are really archetypes, rather than JK Rowling actually drawing on those mythologies.

idk about Supernatural, I only watched one and a half seasons and that was a while ago, but I think that draws on archetypes as well? There was an American Gods crossover I read in which Sam and Dean become gods, or folk heroes maybe, and I think the fact that it worked says something about how Sam and Dean are defined in canon.