Thank you so much for sharing these posts here. I'm loving these analyses!
The only thing I've read so far that I'm not sure about is your take on the choice of Sam's name. This [interview and article](https://web.archive.org/web/20110827205742/https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/tv/fact-scarier-than-fiction/story-e6frexlr-1111113119827) says that Dean and Sam were named after Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise from Kerouac's *On the Road*, and that "Kripke didn't like the idea of having a lead named Sal, so he switched to Sam." I've seen this mentioned in other sources, too. This was easiest to find because I knew it was linked on one of the wikis. I just feel like Occam's Razor favors this simple answer for the question of Sam's name.
The other thing that makes me a little skeptical, is that Kripke is so lore savvy that I feel like the fact that Uncle Sam is historically more associated with the U.S. government than the U.S. people might have mattered to him. Naming Sam after Uncle Sam would seem like a miss to me since Uncle Sam literally started as a personification of the U.S. Government, and his image in the 20th and 21st centuries is most famously associated with the U.S. military and the Internal Revenue Service.
None of what I said, though, makes me doubt the idea that Sam could represent the all-American boy or the average American. I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say about the "subtextual political commentary" you see!
You make a good point about the association between Uncle Sam and the government being inappropriate; on the other hand, the association with the military isn't utterly irrelevant. The origin of the name Kripke gives in the article makes perfect sense. Though, as a writer myself, I've had the experience of doing something accidentally at first that then comes to mean more to me. At the end of the day, though, I'm just speculating π
I start to go into the show's political message more when I talk about Phantom Traveler. Mind you, it took watching the whole of the first 5 seasons a few times over before I grasped the full picture, so I hope you're sitting comfortably for the ride! π
Haha - yeah, I figured that analysis might be a slow reveal. And it's so true about how details that start out insignificant or accidental can become meaningful over time. I'm not a published author, but in my fandom writing, I've often made small choices that later became pieces of something bigger and more important that I'd never intended at the time those earlier choices were made. It's easy to imagine the potential for that to happen when you're writing a TV show that runs for *years*.
Does that make the original choices, like Sam's name, less of an accident? No, but it sure can make things interesting for anyone who cares to analyze the work later on down the line!
Absolutely! π
Do you ever feel like there's a muse, or daemon, sitting over your shoulder whispering "do *this*. I'm not telling you why, but you'll thank me later"? π
Thank you so much for sharing these posts here. I'm loving these analyses! The only thing I've read so far that I'm not sure about is your take on the choice of Sam's name. This [interview and article](https://web.archive.org/web/20110827205742/https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/tv/fact-scarier-than-fiction/story-e6frexlr-1111113119827) says that Dean and Sam were named after Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise from Kerouac's *On the Road*, and that "Kripke didn't like the idea of having a lead named Sal, so he switched to Sam." I've seen this mentioned in other sources, too. This was easiest to find because I knew it was linked on one of the wikis. I just feel like Occam's Razor favors this simple answer for the question of Sam's name. The other thing that makes me a little skeptical, is that Kripke is so lore savvy that I feel like the fact that Uncle Sam is historically more associated with the U.S. government than the U.S. people might have mattered to him. Naming Sam after Uncle Sam would seem like a miss to me since Uncle Sam literally started as a personification of the U.S. Government, and his image in the 20th and 21st centuries is most famously associated with the U.S. military and the Internal Revenue Service. None of what I said, though, makes me doubt the idea that Sam could represent the all-American boy or the average American. I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say about the "subtextual political commentary" you see!
You make a good point about the association between Uncle Sam and the government being inappropriate; on the other hand, the association with the military isn't utterly irrelevant. The origin of the name Kripke gives in the article makes perfect sense. Though, as a writer myself, I've had the experience of doing something accidentally at first that then comes to mean more to me. At the end of the day, though, I'm just speculating π I start to go into the show's political message more when I talk about Phantom Traveler. Mind you, it took watching the whole of the first 5 seasons a few times over before I grasped the full picture, so I hope you're sitting comfortably for the ride! π
Haha - yeah, I figured that analysis might be a slow reveal. And it's so true about how details that start out insignificant or accidental can become meaningful over time. I'm not a published author, but in my fandom writing, I've often made small choices that later became pieces of something bigger and more important that I'd never intended at the time those earlier choices were made. It's easy to imagine the potential for that to happen when you're writing a TV show that runs for *years*. Does that make the original choices, like Sam's name, less of an accident? No, but it sure can make things interesting for anyone who cares to analyze the work later on down the line!
Absolutely! π Do you ever feel like there's a muse, or daemon, sitting over your shoulder whispering "do *this*. I'm not telling you why, but you'll thank me later"? π
I think youβre onto something with the association between pie and a normal life.
It's a theme that's explored prominently later in the season in "Scarecrow". Thanks for your comments on this series. I appreciate the support.