“sam was tortured for around 200 years at least” you meant 1200, right? if i remember correctly, one earth month = 10 hell years (according to dean in season 4), and sam was gone for roughly a year

semirahrose:

I did mean 200, but… you’re right that it gets complicated. 

As you said, one earth month is about 10 Hell years. Sam was in hell for over a year and a half. 18 months x 10 years per month = close-ish to 180 years, give or take, or “around 200 years.”

Unfortunately, the show hasn’t really nailed down whether time dilation works differently in the Cage than it does in regular Hell, but regardless, it was Bad™. Dean spent an unimaginable 40 years in Hell and came back with PTSD that rendered him unable to sleep much (if at all). 

Sam… well. Sam’s literal soul was “flayed to the raw nerve” and could not be returned to his body without the oldest being in the known universe building a psychic wall that still wasn’t strong enough to entirely suppress the damage.

So 180 years and change is certainly bad enough, but it could be worse:

Because of course there’s also that scene in season 6 where Sam’s wall is crumbling and he has a seizure and experiences Hell memories. The show makes a point of having Dean say that Sam was out for 2 or 3 minutes and then asking how long it felt like to Sam. He says it felt like “a week, give or take.” 

(And knowing how Sam treats his own pain, I’m gonna guess it was leaning closer to give than take, so it could very well have been longer than the numbers we end up with, but for the sake of convenience, we’ll say a week.)

There are a lot of problems with accepting it as an accurate measurement of Sam’s hell time, but it’s certainly possible. 

Let’s entertain the idea, for a moment, that Sam was right, and three minutes on earth is a week in the Cage.

This is where it gets scary. Thornshrike posted an excellent breakdown of what it would be if Sam experienced Hell with that sort of time dilation, but to summarize: 

• 3 minutes = 1 week.
• One day (1440 minutes) = 480 weeks
• One year = 52 weeks. 480/52 = 9.2 years
• One day topside is 9.2 years in the cage.
• 9.2 years per day x 548 days (1.5 years) = 
• Over 5000 years.

But let’s try again. Dean said it was two or three minutes, right? Well, what if it was two?

• 2 minutes = 1 week
• One day (1440 minutes) = 720 weeks
• One year = 52 weeks. 720/52 = 13.8 years
• One day topside is 13.8  years in the cage.
• 13.8 years/day x 548 days (1.5 years) =

7,587 years

I did a very painful thought exercise many moons ago when I was new to the fandom and liked to hurt myself. If you want to suffer, you can check it out. It is aptly titled, I accidentally crushed my soul.

But I mean… even if Sam’s estimation of his experience of Hell isn’t right and we just go with Dean’s, Sam was tortured in the Cage more than five times as long as he has been alive.

So regardless, it’s horrifying.