CCFF33: siblings to utopia along the Blue Highway: a brief look at the first seven seasons of Supernatural: 05/09/19

The next way for siblings to reach utopia is via the Blue Highway. For this spot in the spectrum, I will be speaking about the television series Supernatural. Specifically, I'll be talking about seasons one through seven, essentially the pre-Men of Letters Bunker portion of the series. The bunker changes the fundamental balance of Sam and Dean's travels which I will cover later when I begin a more in depth analysis of the series.

In the early days of Supernatural it was presented as a blending of Route 66 and Jack Kerouac's On the Road, though I will argue that Castiel's character comes from Desolation Angels. That too is an essay for a later date.

In season one, Dean has picked up Sam at college because their father is missing. When Sam's fiancée ends up murdered by the yellow-eyed demon, he has nothing else to lose and agrees to go on the road for however long it takes to find their father.

From the very beginning, Sam and Dean are presented as adults. They are in their twenties and compared to the more grizzled Sam and Dean at the close of the series, they appear very young. What is driven home nearly episode, especially early on, is that they are brothers. So here they are as adult examples of the sibling traveler.

Most of the utopias I've described so far have been magical places outside of known areas. In Supernatural's case, especially in the first seasons, utopia is more metaphorical. Sam and Dean go place to place either following clues about their missing father or to chase down supernatural events so that they can hunt the monster behind the event. These places are always given in terms of a known state but most of the time these places are completely fictional.

Being a fictional place doesn't automatically make it a utopia. But taken all together, if one were to map (or attempt to map) all their destinations in episode order, they don't make sense. Or rather, they make as much sense as the route taken in The Magic Cornfield by Nancy Willard which is an orphan to utopia via the cornfield (FFFFFF) story.

But Sam and Dean don't usually go through cornfields. There are exceptions to this, "Scarecrow" (season 1, episode 11), for example. But their main method of travel in these early seasons is via the Blue Highway.

The Blue Highway for the horror end of the road narrative spectrum takes travelers to small towns and forgotten corners where the monsters hide. As Sam and Dean have been raised to hunt monsters, it makes sense that their preferred routes would be on the Blue Highway.

Comments  (2)

Comment #1: Monday, May 13, 2019 at 20:57:27

J

Like.

Comment #2: Monday, May 20, 2019 at 21:14:00

Pussreboots

Thank you.