Souless Sam, Demon Blood, & how Sam beat Lucifer?

[yimhappy]

Really odd thought hit me.

Souless!Sam was fearless, felt no shame, and didn't care if others got hurt. Souless!Sam seemed to love being powerful. What would make Souless!Sam stay away from demon blood, without Sam's conscious or concern for others??

To my mind, Souless!Sam didn't have the qualities that made Sam able to kick the addiction.

Maybe Souless!Sam promised Dean??
I guess Souless!Sam never struck me as a promise keeper.
Also, in "Caged Heat", they were in a demon fortress, captured, Cas was gone, and Dean's life was in danger. Why not go for demon blood then??



The other thing I wonder about...
We see Sam split into 4 pieces
(1) Soul
(2) Sam's personality with his soul
(3) Souless Sam
(4) The Sam that remembered Hell

Which of these pieces had the strength to beat Lucifer?? I would have thought it was (1) or (2). But, this is the kind of thing I wish SPN would have answered or explored.

[yimhappy]

Interesting.
I always wondered what drove Souless!Sam to hunt, when he didn't care about saving victims.
Boredom? Feeling more powerful (that motivation would have tied in with DB)?

I always thought that Sam broke psychological part the addiction on his own before he beat Lucifer. I don't see how he'd had had the strength to fight Lucifer otherwise.

[sarahg6]

Jan 31, 2012 11:31:53 GMT -5 yimhappy said:

Interesting.
I always wondered what drove Souless!Sam to hunt, when he didn't care about saving victims.
Boredom? Feeling more powerful (that motivation would have tied in with DB)?

I always thought that Sam broke psychological part the addiction on his own before he beat Lucifer. I don't see how he'd had had the strength to fight Lucifer otherwise.

He did fight it through out S5, but ironically had to ingest the blood to take on Luci. Courageous, brave, vonderbar!

[Rose]

Famine did once say that hunger comes from the soul if you remember back in Season 5. With Sam being soulless, he wouldn't hunger for demon blood the way he did when he was affected by Famine.

[yimhappy]

Jan 31, 2012 21:58:34 GMT -5 Rose said:

Famine did once say that hunger comes from the soul if you remember back in Season 5. With Sam being soulless, he wouldn't hunger for demon blood the way he did when he was affected by Famine.

I forgot famine. That's makes some kind of sense. But I'm more confused than ever what the heck a soul is. A combination battery pack, moral compass, source of higher emotions?? How the hell could Sam think without one?

[yimhappy]

Jan 31, 2012 19:09:26 GMT -5 @sarahg6 said:

He did fight it through out S5, but ironically had to ingest the blood to take on Luci. Courageous, brave, vonderbar!

Ironic as hell. Maybe even a writing slip

Jan 31, 2012 21:48:32 GMT -5 puppydreams said:

Zach tells Dean that hunting was "in their blood." Take this literally - hunting is quite literally part of who they are. It is a biological aspect - part of each of their DNA. Neither one can stop doing it. It would be like asking them to stop breathing.

This theory works. Not obvious, and requires a lot of thought, but explains confusing loose ends. Thank you.

I'm tired of trying to make sense of this show though.

[isitfridayyet]

Jan 31, 2012 23:29:22 GMT -5 puppydreams said:

Jan 31, 2012 23:11:52 GMT -5 yimhappy said:

Ironic as hell. Maybe even a writing slip

This isn't how I saw it. The DB enabled Sam to take in the devil (strengthening/altering his body/vessel). Like when Dean freaks out on the plane in PT, and Sam tells him that he's leaving himself open to demonic possession.

So, the DB was necessary for Sam to ingest in order for him to be ready for Lucifer, and not "burn out" like Nick. Ruby didn't give a flip about what Sam could or couldn't do by ingesting it, she just needed to get him to do it. Exorcising demons in order to save people was just how she got him to drink. She was prepping him to take in Lucifer.

Sam was able to fight Lucifer because of his love for Dean. You feel love in your soul. Soulless Sam wouldn't have been able to do this, because he didn't feel love. He didn't feel anything.

The DB enabled Lucifer to enter, but Sam's soul was how he fought and won.

Good post puppy. I totally agree. Although soulless Sam was strong in the sense that he was an agile hunter and unaffected by emotional attacks against him, he was weak in the sense that his instincts were purely animalistic. He would have not had the inner strength that Sammy had to beat the devil.

@yim I think in SPN, a soul speaks not only to the moral compass, but inner strength and ability to exist forever. It's made of something stronger than the angel juice and demon powers supernatural beings have. It makes one unpredictable and allows the Winchesters to beat the odds because they aren't just animals or beings that become useless and ready to slaughter after losing their powers. It makes them special and will always give them the tools to beat whatever comes their way.

[yimhappy]

Interesting points Friday & Puppy.

I always thought it was Sam's soul that was especially strong enough to beat Lucifer.
Now I think it was all of Sam was needed to beat Lucifer, including his souless self.

I guess SPN can't spell this all out too clearly, or they write themselves into a corner.
But, this Sam situation does make me think Mo Ryan was right.
Inconsistent & unexplained issues lead to divisions among fans, since things can be interpreted differently.
SPN especially takes chances showing the heroes make uncool mistakes.

[pentadactyl]

Regarding soulless Sam and demon blood, I agree with puppy's analysis that the 'benefits' demon blood provided were just not things he was interested in.

The big factors, being able to kill however many demons before they got to their next victim and without destroying the person they were inhabiting, were no longer an issue for soulless Sam.

As far as personal safety, I think if he did a risk/reward assessment, as he was wont to do, he'd have figured that the chances that demon-blood-given abilities would save his life in a fight weren't worth the high probability of burn out. I don't think this is a realization that's unique to the soulless version of Sam. I think even normal Sam realized that ingesting demon blood didn't make him personally much safer and that demon blood was physically dangerous to him int he long, or even short, run. It's just that he was on a suicide mission at that time and didn't care about that aspect of it.

As to the allure of demon blood, the 'makes him feel more powerful', 'so wrong it's right', 'makes him feel less like a freak' etc, I think some of that fell victim to the lack of emotion in Soulless and the rest sort of fell under not getting fooled again. It worked the first time b/c it was new, b/c he didn't know where it would lead, b/c he didn't know how much of it was placebo. Now that he does, it's lost it's appeal.

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Regarding the IaTL failed brain wipe, it's possible that Zach did a purposely sketchy job to lead them to the conclusion he wanted them to take away. Also, they seemed to have done a patchier job with wiping Sam's memories (the dreams), seeing as he wasn't the main target of the exercise, and he's the one that was pushing for them to go back to their old lives.

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Regarding the nature of a soul, I'm not sure what I think yet.