LOL! But you do that for me all the time too. Maybe I don't mention it enough. Sometimes you even do it via fic! Which really is kinda impressive.
But you STARTED IT with your SGA posts SO THERE!
*grin*
It is fun to debate things with someone I don't see eye-to-eye with. But it's also fun to discuss things while sharing a brain ... and sometimes you and I do that to a really alarming extent!
The sheer JOY on his face as he watched Sam and Jessica announce their engagement shows how much he really does want Sam to be happy for Sam's own sake.
See, to me, this is the very ESSENCE of love -- putting someone else's happiness above one's own. Being happy because someone you love is happy, without even thinking about yourself. It's the ideal that I assume most people aspire towards ... at least if they stop and think about it.
And your post is making me adore Dean all over again, because Dean is SO much that way. He's not needy, not dependent -- he's just an incredibly unselfish person. Which, er, reminds me that I owe you a fic, and I haven't forgotten; I've actually been working on it, but I'm having trouble working it into an actual PLOT. (I keep trying to write stories about Dean that mysteriously morph into stories about Bobby. Er ... wtf? and also, oops?)
Kinda funny that I didn't like Dean all that much at first, eh? Because I didn't see that in him. I saw him, at first, as someone dedicated to ideals over substance. But now that I've gotten to "know" him, I adore him so much because he's not a guy whose virtues are obvious at first glace -- at least not to me, I suppose. *g* He's not a paragon of virtue. He's rude, snarky, doofy, a ladies' man, just generally a guy who doesn't take himself seriously and doesn't expect others to do so either. And yet he's just about the most unselfish person you could ever hope to meet -- and if you're in trouble, Dean is absolutely the guy you want on your side to get you out.
*craves Season 3*
Oh wait, we weren't talking about Supernatural ... what happened? *g*
I actually think our current society has almost elevated selfishness to be a virtue - and it's kinda worrying. I mean, when women wear a T-shirt that says "It's all about me", people laugh. But there does to seem to be an acceptance of the selfishness expressed - like people think "well, there's a chick who knows what's what".
SO MUCH YES. And, honestly, I think this is very much the mistake that I made in the early episodes of SPN -- seeing Sam's struggle for independence as asserting his independence, a positive choice, whereas the more I got to know the characters, the more my sympathies fell wholeheartedly with Dean. But as you pointed out, our society (i.e. Western European/American-influenced culture) celebrates the individual while downplaying the importance of responsibility to family and friends and community -- rewarding and glorifying Sam's choices, not Dean's. Sublimating one's own needs for the good of someone else is not generally shown as a positive choice in media. It's unusual to see it as the action of a hero, which is weird because it SHOULD be, but (at least in American media) it's a lot more common to see a hero as someone who forges out boldly and performs spectacular acts of heroism, not someone who quietly sacrifices so that someone else can be happy.
no subject
But you STARTED IT with your SGA posts SO THERE!
*grin*
It is fun to debate things with someone I don't see eye-to-eye with. But it's also fun to discuss things while sharing a brain ... and sometimes you and I do that to a really alarming extent!
The sheer JOY on his face as he watched Sam and Jessica announce their engagement shows how much he really does want Sam to be happy for Sam's own sake.
See, to me, this is the very ESSENCE of love -- putting someone else's happiness above one's own. Being happy because someone you love is happy, without even thinking about yourself. It's the ideal that I assume most people aspire towards ... at least if they stop and think about it.
And your post is making me adore Dean all over again, because Dean is SO much that way. He's not needy, not dependent -- he's just an incredibly unselfish person. Which, er, reminds me that I owe you a fic, and I haven't forgotten; I've actually been working on it, but I'm having trouble working it into an actual PLOT. (I keep trying to write stories about Dean that mysteriously morph into stories about Bobby. Er ... wtf? and also, oops?)
Kinda funny that I didn't like Dean all that much at first, eh? Because I didn't see that in him. I saw him, at first, as someone dedicated to ideals over substance. But now that I've gotten to "know" him, I adore him so much because he's not a guy whose virtues are obvious at first glace -- at least not to me, I suppose. *g* He's not a paragon of virtue. He's rude, snarky, doofy, a ladies' man, just generally a guy who doesn't take himself seriously and doesn't expect others to do so either. And yet he's just about the most unselfish person you could ever hope to meet -- and if you're in trouble, Dean is absolutely the guy you want on your side to get you out.
*craves Season 3*
Oh wait, we weren't talking about Supernatural ... what happened? *g*
I actually think our current society has almost elevated selfishness to be a virtue - and it's kinda worrying. I mean, when women wear a T-shirt that says "It's all about me", people laugh. But there does to seem to be an acceptance of the selfishness expressed - like people think "well, there's a chick who knows what's what".
SO MUCH YES. And, honestly, I think this is very much the mistake that I made in the early episodes of SPN -- seeing Sam's struggle for independence as asserting his independence, a positive choice, whereas the more I got to know the characters, the more my sympathies fell wholeheartedly with Dean. But as you pointed out, our society (i.e. Western European/American-influenced culture) celebrates the individual while downplaying the importance of responsibility to family and friends and community -- rewarding and glorifying Sam's choices, not Dean's. Sublimating one's own needs for the good of someone else is not generally shown as a positive choice in media. It's unusual to see it as the action of a hero, which is weird because it SHOULD be, but (at least in American media) it's a lot more common to see a hero as someone who forges out boldly and performs spectacular acts of heroism, not someone who quietly sacrifices so that someone else can be happy.