Um…kind of think Kevin has the right considering that violation resulted in his death. Just sayin’…Kevin isn’t mad at Dean and he is dead. Sam is still alive, yeah, Dean crossed a major line, but, if the dead guy can forgive, I think Sam can too.
Still doesn’t mean Sam should react the same way Kevin does. They have very different histories. It’s not fair to say that just because I didn’t think it was a big deal nobody else should either.
Yeah, it’s a dangerous misreading and oversimplification to say that because Kevin suffered the most extreme consequence of Dean’s actions (death), he has the right to set the terms of forgiveness. For one thing, Kevin’s death was an accidental side-effect of Dean’s decision, Sam’s violation was not. Dean didn’t deliberately choose to murder Kevin. He did deliberately choose to violate Sam. So I would say that despite the fact that Kevin suffered the most final consequence, Sam was more and more directly wronged by Dean.
Moreover, when it came to Kevin’s death Dean acknowledged the injury to Kevin, expressed regret, and apologized. I don’t have huge faith in the idea of the magic apology, and I’m not sure that Dean had really distinguished the things he himself truly was responsible for in Kevin’s death from the primary responsibility of Metatron and Gadreel so as to get past his own tendency to use guilt to evade responsibility and change, but at least there was some groundwork on Dean’s side for forgiveness. When it comes to the violation of Sam, Dean’s last word on the subject as of Captives – and that hasn’t changed as of now, since Dean’s closest (not-very-close) approach to an apology in 9.23 only covered the last couple of months, not the Gadreel possession – was that he was right and would do what he did again.
The message that Sam and Dean are both still alive and therefore there still exists the hope that they can resolve the issues between them and move on to a better relationship isn’t a horrible message. But the idea that that could be accomplished by Sam, who was the injured party, forgiving the noncon possession, mindwiping, and gaslighting and moving on is both meaningless and distasteful. There are some circumstances in which unilateral forgiveness is a healthy thing, but when we are talking about an ongoing relationship and an injurious behavior that the perpetrator has explicitly reserved the right to repeat, ‘forgiveness’ would in this instance be Sam acquiescing in his own abuse.
(I am very, very doubtful about the prospect of canon ever really dealing with this, so I think the central relationship of Spn is going to continue to be a queasy horror show, but even if Kevin in Captives does represent authorial voice, that doesn’t make it right. It makes it all the more terrifying.)
artherra 