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destielshippingnews · 2 years

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Edvard's Supernatural Guide: Dean Didn't Really Have a Problem with John The Denial of Dean's Abuse

The Cold Open (Wherein My Blood Runneth Cold)

I have made no secret of the fact that I see John as an abusive father. The exact nature of his abuse is up for debate, but surely nobody who has paid attention to the show can deny that abuse of SOME variety happened. There are simply too many references to ‘drunken rages’ and ‘child abuse’, too much evidence of disastrous parenting reflected in Dean and Sam’s behaviour, too much proof of neglect and malicious treatment for anybody to say John was not an abusive father. And certainly nobody who has watched the first twenty episodes with their eyes open can say Dean knew John loved him and did not have any issues with him.

Surely not. Surely!

Said Jensen in a podcast:

‘I always thought John was a ...hard love kind of dad.’

Dear. God. No! Jensen, you must be joking! You cannot seriously have played Dean for fifteen years and have that take. You must be pulling my leg.

Said Jensen in an interview with Variety magazine:

‘With Dean, I don’t think Dean was ever looking, necessarily, for his father’s approval in the way Soldier Boy was. He just idolized his father in a way that was unique, given their circumstances, given the fact that they lived in a world that was much, much different than a relationship would be. Also dealing with the fact that his dad was motivated by revenge and he was John Winchester’s mini-me, essentially. He was his little soldier. I think it was less about his approval, and more, ‘This is what I’m supposed to do because it’s what my father taught me to do.'

...Here comes a 7,500 word essay.

Introduction (Wherein I Pick Myself up off the Floor)

Jensen and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (John) appeared on Richard Speight Jr (The Trickster/Gabriel) and Rob Benedict’s (Chuck)’s Then and Now Supernatural podcast at the beginning of July 2022 to discuss 2x01 In My Time of Dying. As I was preparing to make notes for my analysis of the same episode, I tuned in hoping for some insight. What I got was something else altogether: a complete denial of all the accusations of child abuse levelled at John. I have written before about Jeffrey’s ignorance of the majority of the show and his claim that John loved his children (based on his acting choices and intentions, not John’s actual actions), and have duly dismissed it as not worth my attention. Little did I expect that Jensen – the Jensen, the Dean vessel – would spend a significant chunk of the podcast likewise defending John’s parenting.

As if that were not enough, in a recent interview with Variety magazine, he revealed he believes Dean’s issues with John were not especially deep, and compared them with his character Soldier Boy in The Boys. Soldier Boy’s father is never seen, and while what little the viewer learns of him certainly paints him in an awful light, little suggests he was, in Jensen’s words, ‘the worst father’. Jensen can tell us that, of course, and he might know more of his character’s story than the viewer, but the show has not shown us his father was the worst.

But that is quite beside the point: the point is John’s treatment of his sons is plain for the viewer to see on screen. I have pointed out much of this in my analysis of all the episodes of series 1, as well as the mass amounts of evidence shown in his sons’ behaviour (Dean’s especially). In spite of this, Jensen himself stated (and this is not verbatim) ‘Dean didn’t really have a problem with John’ in the podcast.

To be fair to Jensen, he is likely dissociated from Supernatural after fifteen years portraying Dean and roughly seventeen years of conventions and interviews For this reason, he could just be telling reporters what they want to hear, or – as is highly likely – making talking points his Amazon overlords tell him to. Or even more simply, that could be his honest interpretation. To be fair to him, he stated in his Variety interview that ‘the pedestal Dean put John on could be chipped at all day’ (not verbatim), but this felt like too little, too late, an apology for his apologia.

I take issue with this. I have seen what I have seen, and I can prove I have seen it. John was not a father trying his best and failing, or putting his sons first. If this were so, would he have left Dean to die in 1x12 Faith?

Would he have spent all his sons’ university funds on ammunition and weapons?

Would he have taken them along on his kamikaze mission to get revenge on Azazel?

John was a bad parent. He failed as an adult, a father, and a man, and his actions caused irrevocable damage to the sons he willingly exposed to danger and treated like – ironically enough – soldier boys. This is a part of the text, part of the story Supernatural told and showed. I bear Jensen no ill-will whatsoever, and anybody who has read more than one of my analyses should be well aware that he and Dean are the only reason I watch this show, but his statements show clearly that we have a huge disagreement. Here is a master’s thesis worth of writing to tell you why.

Act 1: Death of the Actor

I discussed in my essay on interpreting Dean as bisexual the concept of ‘death of the author’. Simply put, ‘death of the author’ means that the author’s interpretation and intention with producing a piece of fictional media is no more important than any other detailed reading of a text. Any interpretation which is harmonious with a fictional text and does not contradict it is valid.

This same logic applies to actors in a television show or film, as discussed with the case of Elijah Wood and Frodo: their acting choices, their intentions, and their understanding of a character is to be given no especial weight.

Some people have criticised ‘death of the author’ as unethical (mostly in response to interpreting Frodo and Sam as anything other than heterosexual, which should tell you something about what they find ‘ethical’), but authorial intent – that is, interpreting a fictional text based on what the author intended and says – is flawed. One major flaw is that it presupposes the author understands or remembers everything s/he wrote and is aware of all the connotations of every single character interaction. We are, however, to hold this people to be the authority on their work, even if other people know much more about the mythology or psychology involved, and even if the author does not remember much of the work. To keep this simple, I will stick with actors.

Regarding three of the people in the podcast – Richard Speight Jr, Rob Benedict, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan – many fans would hold them to be the authority on this subject because they were involved in the show. However, the entire point of the podcast is that Richard Speight Jr and Rob Benedict have not watched most of the show, and are watching the whole thing for the first time. They have indeed been involved with Supernatural for well over a decade with Richard first appearing in 2x15 Tall Tales in 2007 and Rob Benedict first appearing in 4x18 The Monster at the End of This Book. However, their presence on the actual show is minimal with each appearing fewer than twenty times over 327 episodes. Jeffrey Dean Morgan appeared in far fewer, and has stated multiple times – in this very podcast, for instance – that he has not watched much of the show, and seems to find the idea of watching ‘twenty years of television’ an insurmountable task (fewer than 218 hours, actually. One episode a night will have you at the end in 11 months). I can safely dismiss anything they have to say as being unauthoritative on anything but their own performance in certain scenes. Jeffrey Dean Morgan portrayed John a handful of times, but my understanding of John goes far beyond his role in the show.

Which leads me to the real reason for writing this: Jensen. One of the reasons so many people identify with and stuck with this frustrating show is the depiction of Dean suffering crippling mental health issues, suicidal ideations and tendencies, his struggle for self-acceptance, and his refusal to give up. Dean is the reason I watched the show, but even given all this character, he would have been less compelling if portrayed by a less talented actor. Elsewhere I have likened Supernatural to Destiny’s Child: Jared is Michelle Williams, Misha is Kelly Rowland, and Jensen is Beyoncé.

It was Jensen’s performance which first got me into the show in 2008, and it was his performance in 2x01 In My Time of Dying which grabbed me by the viscera and refused to let go. He has not released his grip at all in the last 7 ½ years. His portrayal of Dean is so deeply nuanced, rich, and natural that I honestly barely recognise Jensen as Dean, so different are the two. If we stick with the episodes I have analysed so far, his portrayal of Dean’s suicidal, fatalistic malaise in 1x12 Faith was 100% true to life and had me worrying for him. His portrayal of Dean’s abandonment in 1x16 Shadow was portrayed not only with a teary expression, but subtlety in facial expressions and tone of voice.

His switch to Dean’s dissociated state in 1x18 Something Wicked when telling Sam of his John-induced trauma was so good Dean seemed like a different person. His vulnerability at the end of 1x21 Salvation, and his animalistic rage during the exorcism in 1x22 Devil’s Trap.

I get so much from his performances that I have gone and watched almost everything he has done. And I mean everything. I sat through the awkward episode of Wishbone where he had two lines of dialogue because that was where he first appeared. I made myself watch his episode of Sweet Valley High. I endure the low-budget production in 25 year old episodes of Days of Our Lives because I find 19 year old Jensen a joy to watch (and a better performer than a lot of older and more experience actors on that show). I sat through Jessica Alba’s awkward acting in Dark Angel and once again he stole the show as Ben and then Alec.

I tortured myself with Dawson’s Creek series 6 (including the awkward No Doubt episode). I endured Allison Mack’s weird facial expressions and the tepid writing of Smallville series 4. I subjected myself to Devour and Ten Inch Hero and I laugh my arse off through My Bloody Valentine every Valentine’s Day. I watched his Batman films and all of The Boys. I do not even like The Boys, but I watched it. I watched all of it because of him.

So I hope you know that I do not say this lightly: I do not value Jensen’s takes on Dean any more than a random tumblr or twitter blogger. The reason for this is that his statements show that either his understanding of the character he portrayed for 15 years is much shallower than I would have thought, or he is willing to ignore an enormous part of Dean’s story to make the protagonist of his new show The Winchesters more palatable.

I am well aware that I am a grown-ass man approaching his 31st birthday, but this was a hard pill to swallow. One thing which has got me through the last few years is the fact that Dean does not give up. If he can wake up every morning wishing he were dead, but chooses to keep going regardless, then what excuse do I have? Forgive me what might sound like hyperbole, but Dean was there for me in one of the hardest nadirs of my life. To then hear that the man who portrayed him does not even understand him, and worse defends and apologises for the character who was the main reason for Dean’s major malfunction floored me. For a moment, I felt like making my analysis of 1x22 Devil’s Trap my last. I enjoyed doing them, but had I made a fool of myself for seeing what was not there?

Then I saw this, and knew I could not stop:

But Jensen is not Dean, and his analysis of the character is worth no more to me than anybody else’s. He simply does not understand these arguments against John (if we take him at his word), and does not even seem to remember the story all that well, so his dismissal means nothing.

Act 2: Devil’s Advocate (Wherein John is the Devil, and Jensen is the Advocate)

I have made it clear over the course of analyses that I see John’s parenting as abusive. When I say ‘abusive’, I do not mean that John beat his children up every night in a drunken rage, but rather that he ‘misused’ them. The Swedish word for ‘abuse’ is misbruk and can be directly translated as ‘misuse’. The Finnish hyväksikäyttö can be translated as ‘abuse’ in English, but its meaning is more ‘using for one’s benefit’, or ‘exploitation’. I have made some claims in my analyses about the nature of John’s misuse, including neglect and abandonment, parentalisation, shaming and deferral of responsibility among others. Some of these are ones I will defend without hesitation, whereas others are claims I would be willing to cede.

I have also made note of some of the excuses people like to make in order to defend John. I do not believe that people doing so are doing so in order to consciously defend abusers, but perhaps many see John as a father who tried his hardest in unnatural circumstances, but failed spectacularly. This is indeed a point which Jensen and Jeffrey raise in the podcast, but the also try to excuse some of his bad behaviour with the tried and trusted reasoning that he fought in Vietnam and then saw his wife die. They even trotted out the reasoning that Dean and Sam would not have been able to fight monsters were it not for John. I have dismissed these claims elsewhere, but it bears repeating:

a) trauma from war is an explanation, not a justification

b) bereavement is an explanation, not a justification

c) John did not ‘try his hardest’. He raised his children to be weapons in his war and disregarded their autonomy, well-being, and safety. Worse, he knowingly endangered them.

d) without John’s grooming of them, Dean and Sam would indeed not have been able to defend themselves against monsters and demons, or save the world, but the ends do not justify the means. Other people are not tools for us to use, and Dean and Sam are not our scapegoats or sacrificial lamb.

e) parents make mistakes, but John made disasters and catastrophes. I do not believe he deserves forgiveness or understanding for that.

That said, the extent of John’s abuse of his children is up for debate. I have suggested John physically beat his children, specifically Dean, and the show itself implies John coerced Dean into being sexually abused, but these are not hills I will die on. These ones are circumstantial, and the evidence for them is shakey. I will cede these points if good arguments are made against them.

In contrast, I have no compunctions in claiming that John neglected and abandoned his children. I say ‘claiming’, but the evidence of this is clearly seen in 1x18 Something Wicked: John left his sons unattended in a motel room for days with insufficient food and money. In the podcast, Richard Speight Jr refers to this point, but in the fleeting, glancing manner of a person who has not actually read something in any detail, but wants to sound as though he has in order to dismiss it with an air of authority.

This leads to a brief attempt at defending John’s actions, with the apparent misapprehension that John simply left Dean and Sam alone in a hotel (note they said hotel, not motel) for an afternoon with food and money while he ‘took care of business’. Jensen also said a few words about how viewers seem to be judging John’s actions from the perspective of the modern day (presumably referring to a world of mobile phones, internet, and constant surveillance), and that it was perfectly acceptable and expected for children to be left alone a few decades ago. They also try to dismiss claims of abuse with the justification that ‘John was hardly going to take his kids on a hunt’, thereby implying I am either short-sighted for not seeing that, or stupid (note: John taught Dean to fire a gun when he was roughly eight, and had him killing werewolves before he was a teenager).

This is a battle I can fight with the confidence of winning it (although I doubt the actors in question would cede the point). I was born in August 1991, and am therefore 13 ½ years younger than Jensen who was born in March 1978. We technically belong to different generations, with him being a young Gen X and me being an older Millennial, but the difference between us is only slightly bigger than that between my eldest sister (born 1985) and my youngest sister (born 1997). The world of his youth is slightly different than mine, but you are not talking to somebody decades younger than yourself with a wildly different experience of youth. I still remember well how things were before the advent of the internet and mobile phones. It was indeed expected that children go and play for hours by themselves, or to go camping with friends. On holiday, my parents occasionally left me with my older sisters in our chalet room in the late evening while they went to the pub. My three older sisters went into Blackpool by themselves without phones while my parents took me and my younger sisters swimming. All of this was done without mobile phones or the internet.

I remember this, but this is not what John did, not by a long shot. Sure he could not take his sons hunting, but for some unknown reason he did not take them to a responsible adult such as Bobby, Pastor Jim, or Ellen Harvelle. He neglected their basic needs by leaving them with insufficient food and money. He also did not leave them in a ‘hotel’ with a concierge, a bellhop and security in a respectable part of town: John left them in a motel. I have watched enough American telly to know that a motel is a seedy, low-rent establishment of ill-repute. He neglected to make real efforts to keep his vulnerable sons safe from harm, but rather exposed them to it.

Not only did he leave them undefended from the monster he knew was on the prowl, but there is good evidence to suggest he willingly endangered them – used them as ‘bait’ – in order to kill the shtriga. Whether or not he used them as bait is questionable, but the fact he left them undefended is damning evidence enough that he failed in his duties as an adult and a parent. Episode 1x18 is not the only evidence of this: 3x08 A Very Supernatural Christmas shows poco!Dean and poco!Sam once again abandoned is a seedy motel room for days, but worse is to come. 9x07 Bad Boys gives irrefutable evidence that poco!Dean was forced to resort to stealing in order to feed Sam, but on one occasion ended up in police custody. When John found out about this, he told the police to ‘Let him [Dean] rot.’

While Dean bore the brunt of John’s maltreatment, 11x08 Just My Imagination also showed us that eventually John took poco!Dean with him on hunts, and left poco!Sam alone for days. This had such a negative effect on poco!Sam that he got a literal imaginary friend.

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5x16 Dark Side of the Moon also reveals that on at least one occasion Sam ran away and lived with a ‘normal’ family for two weeks. The same episode also tells us that one of Dean’s happiest memories involved John moving out for a few days.

This is a fight I will have, and a hill I will die on.

Another tactic attempted in John’s defence is that he is a father from the 1970s (although he was a father in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, but whatever I suppose) and that men back then were different. Whilst it is fantastically refreshing to hear four adult men talking about the experience of being a man for a change, I have to concede I did not find much of value in what they said in John’s defence.

Certainly it is true that men in the western world did not talk about feelings much in the mid to late 1900s. This is largely due to the gay panic and death of ‘romantic’ friendships which came about due to the persecution of Oscar Wilde and the gay panic surrounding male emotions and intimacy: this led men to distance themselves from emotional intimacy with men, including their own sons. In addition to this, most people do not take a man seriously when he talks about his emotions and problems. (One of the reasons for astronomical male suicide rates is not that ‘men need to cry more and talk about their emotions’, but rather the fact that nobody listens or cares when we do).

It is of course true to character and perfectly believable that John not talk about his feelings much, admit his mistakes, or be free in saying ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you’ to his sons. Jensen is right to point that out (if indeed it was Jensen who said that: I do not want to subject myself to listening to the podcast again). Jensen’s father was born in 1948, only 7 years before my father in 1955. We both have similar experiences of what fathers from the mid 1900s can be like: taciturn, reticent, tight with displays of affection or pride, themselves the products of men and women’s poisonous expectations of and demands on men. Jensen is not talking to somebody from a different planet to him, and so this attempt at apologia does not work at all on me.

My dad shares some experiences in common with John. He was born in the mid-1950s at the peak of the Baby Boom, and he was deployed in both Cyprus and Northern Ireland with the army. He does not talk about his experiences in the army much, and I do not pry, but I expect he saw some nasty stuff. He is far from perfect, but he would never for a moment have allowed his children to be exposed to anything that could cause them serious harm.

John’s behaviour cannot be dismissed as ‘a father being unable to say he is sorry’. Roughly 17 years after John let Dean take the blame for Sam’s near-death at the hands of the shtriga, he still allowed Dean to believe he was to blame, actively rubbing his face in it by sending him after it.

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This is not to mention the speed and glee wherewith John proceeds to wear Dean’s confidence and independence down as soon as they are united. Mere minutes after John’s reintroduction in 1x20 Dead Man’s Blood, he takes his anger at Sam out on Dean by implying Dean is incompetent to keep his own car clean. Sure this is only one throw-away douchebag remark, but the look on Dean’s face afterwards states plainly that this was far from the first time, and that it was not the comment itself which hurt, but the fact that it was part of an endless parade of digs, cuts, and jibes aimed at dissolving Dean’s self-esteem and worth in order to make him – as Jensen so brashly stated – John’s ‘mini me’.

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Act 3 Dean is the Smoking Gun

Jeffrey Dean Morgan played a tiny role on Supernatural, appearing in a handful of episodes at the beginning of its run, and then making one reappearance towards its end. I understand that the way he played John was that John loved his children – Dean especially – and that he did not portray him as abusive. However, actors’ intentions and perspectives while acting are of little interest when analysing a show or a film because these are not themselves part of the final product. We cannot see Jeffrey’s intentions or interpretations, only what he puts into his performance, what the editors choose to show us, and how this performance fits in with everything else.

John was hardly in the show, but as Jensen clearly states, he was. He was in every single episode, and by his own admission read every line of every script. Dean was present in every episode, and he gives us a very clear indication of how one person in particular might have treated him.

In my analysis for 1x12 Faith, I wrote:

We see little direct evidence of John’s mistreatment of his sons, the elder in particular. However, the other side of Dean presented in 1x12 Faith is all the negative image we should need. His facade falls away to reveal a weak, small, broken, and very human man. His eyes are sunken, his skin is grey, his jokes fall flat, he sits like a sick man with breathing problems, and the viewer is forced to look at the man behind the mask. The choice of attire for Dean in this episode is also striking is its divergence from his usual garb: a hoodie and outer coat reminiscent of Tom Hanniger in My Bloody Valentine. This makes him look smaller, younger, and much more vulnerable.

This is the part of Dean he hates other to see. If they see him as weak, they see him as less capable, and less valuable. They see him as disposable. As his entire motivation is centred around being valuable to others, this is incredibly difficult and scary for him. Worse, perhaps, is the fact it was not a monster who did this to him, not really: it was an accident involving electricity. It was a reminder that simply being alive is a risk, and being alive is a threat to Dean’s usefulness.

His resistance to Sam’s offers of help also suggest a certain view of himself: that he truly is worthless and does not deserve to live if he is weak. Thanks, John.

The true evidence for John’s treatment is therefore not in what we see John do, but rather in the effect of his actions. One might be tempted to dismiss what I wrote as simple extrapolation or even projection, and admittedly though what I wrote fits Dean perfectly, it is a deduction based on observation rather than a 100% proof-positive description of Dean.

This fact means that several of my accusations against John do not have conclusive, stable evidence to support them, but rather rely on deduction and circumstance. There is indeed cause to believe John physically abused Dean, but we see no direct evidence of this, only inferences, deductions, and extrapolations. Max in 1x14 Nightmare is suggestive if understood as a Dean mirror, and Dean’s less-than-happy reaction at the end of the episode when Sam says ‘Things turned out alright, considering.’ Dean’s response is so reticent and enigmatic that one cannot help drawing certain conclusions, but this is not hard, direct evidence of anything, only a tantalising suggestion.

There is also textual evidence to support the conclusion that John hit Dean. By ‘hit’, I do not simply mean a smacked bum for crossing the road without looking both ways, but the kind of hitting which involves bruising, severe pain, and blood.

The best piece of evidence for this comes from a statement Dean makes in episode 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon. After a discussion of a time Sam ran away for two weeks and lived with a ‘normal’ family, Dean recounts looking for hours to find Sam, and eventually believing he was dead. ‘And then when Dad came home…’ The look on Dean’s face as he said that last part tells a story. It tells all the story I need to know: Dean was remembering something horrific, terrifying, and likely violent. No 31 year old man wears a look on his face like that remembering a parent merely shouting decades earlier.

It is not likely John hit Dean often, and probably never in front of Sam (at least no more than what could be passed off as socially-acceptable spanking or the like). If he did it in front of Sam, Sam’s treatment of Dean would be different: more compassionate and understanding. Or at least it should be.

I am by no means the first person to think John might have sexually abused his children in some manner, as Viktor Henriksen himself claims this in 3x12 Jus in Bello:

‘HENRIKSEN: Aw. Where’s that smug smile, Dean? I want to see it.

DEAN: (Shakes his head, disbelief) You got the wrong guys.

HENRIKSEN: Oh, yeah. I forgot. You fight monsters. Sorry, Dean. Truth is, your daddy brainwashed you with all that devil talk and no doubt touched you in a bad place. That’s all. That’s reality.

DEAN: Why don’t you shut your mouth?’

I also mentioned in my analysis of 1x18 Something Wicked that the shtriga is a metaphor for John: it drains children of their energy and leaves wounds which last for decades. I also hurried past the fact that it creeps into children’s rooms at night because it was getting too far into the realm of speculation and abstraction. It is a tree without roots, and I do not want to go climbing in it.

That said, evidence suggests Dean’s relation to sex and punishment might be twisted. He sexualises himself in front of authority figures, such as his reference to ‘squealing like a pig’ (i.e. a reference to men being raped in prison) whilst being interrogated in 1x01 Pilot. He is also very flirty with the camera operator whilst having his mug shot taken in 2x19 Folsom Prison Blues, to name just two examples. This could be seen as a Devil May Care attitude, or as evidence of behaviour he learnt to avoid other punishments. This coupled with the very strong evidence that Dean was forced to use himself as bait (involving probable sexual violation) as evidenced in 1x20 Dead Man’s Blood and 14x14 Ouroboros suggests some kind of sexual misuse or coercion of Dean by somebody in authority. However, this can be explained satisfactorily in other ways, so I will not die on this hill.

We do not need to pile traumas upon Dean which are not explicitly referenced or heavily implied in the text. Dean’s behaviour and beliefs about himself are enough: his willingness – nay, urge – to sacrifice himself for Sam in 2x21 All Hell Breaks Loose Part I, how closely his statement about being too tired to keep fighting in 2x09 Croatoan resemble that of somebody suicidally exhausted, his fatalism and hopelessness in 1x12 Faith. 2x20 What is and What Should Never Be shows that Dean’s dream life does not involve John, but he still cannot make himself believe anybody really cares about him. 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me (discussed more below) presents the viewer with exactly how low Dean’s self-worth is, and strongly implies he truly hates himself. It fits with his view of himself as not believing he deserves to be saved, as Cas so perceptively saw in 4x01 Lazarus Rising. All this and mountains more. It is in complete harmony with the rest of the text and contradicts nothing, therefore it is a valid reading supported by evidence within the text.

That said, I must also cede that Jensen’s reading of Dean as idolising John, of putting John on a pedestal, and wanting to be like him is also valid. In a sense, Dean was even John’s ‘mini me’. As well as that, John was the man in Dean’s life, and the only male he could rely on in any capacity whatsoever. Of course Dean partially wanted to be like him, but this was not a good state of affairs. Dean had no sense of his own identity due to John’s control, and he wanted to become like John to be worthy of John’s love. The image of John’s hateful glare from 1x18 Something Wicked was burnt into his mind and he longed to feel John loved him and valued him.

I do not believe John ever showed Dean he loved him until 2x01 In My Time of Dying, and regardless of what Jensen said, the suggestion that Dean knew and felt that John loved him simply contradicts far too much in the show for it to be valid. Yes, I said it right here: Jensen’s own take on Dean is an invalid reading because it contradicts too much.

Okay, to be fair to Jensen, he might have been referring specifically to his final scene with John, where indeed John did tell Dean he was proud of him, and where he showed that he loved him. Other than that, Dean’s behaviour cannot be satisfactorily explained as the behaviour of a man who knew his father – the most important person in his life – loved him. Would he value his life so little, and be so willing to embrace death in 1x12 Faith, if he knew this? Would he be so broken and shamed in 1x18 Something Wicked if he felt his dad loved him, as opposed to his dad thinking him a failure and a disgrace, no better than a tool?

Jensen, I love you to bits (or the version of yourself you show the public), but I am afraid I have to dismiss this. It looks like either a weak attempt at damage control before The Winchesters airs, or simply the take of somebody who does not remember most of the show.

This is not to say that John never loved Dean, but a reassessment of their relationship following this travesty of a podcast is that I see it as resembling Denethor and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings. Denethor might have loved Faramir deep down, but he certainly did not act like it, nor did he show it in any way. Boromir was the son he doted on, and Denethor hesitates not at all in saying directly to Faramir’s face that he wishes Faramir had died in Boromir’s stead.

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Faramir rode straight towards certain death – in what might have even been a suicide metaphor – believing his father did not love him in any way and wished he were dead. I have had Gandalf’s words in my head for the last few days, and I believe they fit here: ‘Your father loves you, Faramir. ...He will remember it, before the end.’

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And indeed, Denethor realised he loved his son Faramir upon seeing what he believed was his dead body. As he intended to burn himself and what he believed was his son’s dead body on a pyre, so too does John choose death rather than living without his son. So yes, I can cede that in their final scene Dean might very well have known and felt love from John, but one short conversation followed by dumping an incredible weight and the responsibility of fratricide on Dean does not in any way make up for the lifetime of neglect, mistreatment, mental and emotional abuse, nor does it undo any of the damage wrought on Dean by his father.

I have dismissed Jensen’s claims various times in this piece (and I hope it is clear I do not do it out of dislike for him. In fact, I spent about two hours listening to him singing at conventions yesterday evening. I certainly have no ill will towards him) as being superficial takes from somebody who has a wildly different conception of Dean than I have. One thing I simply cannot understand is how it is possible for Jensen – the man who portrayed Dean – to have had lines of dialogue like the following taken from 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me and to still say Dean had no real issue with John.

'DREAM DEAN

No? What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car: That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket: Dad's. Your music: Dad's. Do you even have an original thought?

DEAN scoffs, not wanting to admit to anything.

DREAM DEAN No. No, all there is is, "Watch out for Sammy. Look out for your little brother, boy!" You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you?

He motions with the weapon to his head.

DREAM DEAN

Clear as a bell.

DEAN

(smiling)

Just shut up.

DREAM DEAN lowers the gun.

DREAM DEAN

I mean, think about it …

He begins to walk towards DEAN, whose smile is fading now.

DREAM DEAN

... all he ever did is train you, boss you around.

They're now standing face to face.

DREAM DEAN

But Sam .... Sam he doted on. Sam, he loved.

DEAN

I mean it. I'm getting angry.

DREAM DEAN

Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument.

(angry)

Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN

(angry)

Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN

(screaming angrily)

My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN

All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN

He's the one who let Mom die.

DEAN pins DREAM DEAN again.

DEAN

– who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me.

He backs away from DREAM DEAN.

DEAN

And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

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These do not seem to me like the thoughts of a man who knows his father loves him, or who had no real issue with his father. On the contrary, this entire scene is similar to Shifter!Dean in 1x06 Skin in that it is a way of letting the viewer know exactly what Dean thinks of himself and why. Dean is his own worst enemy, and hates himself because of what his father did to him. This comes – might I remind you – after Dean willingly condemned himself to Hell in order to bring Sam back to life. He did so because John had instilled in him the idea that his only worth was in keeping Sam alive. He even references that here with the ‘Watch out for Sammy. Watch out for your brother, boy!’ Nothing else Dean did mattered to John.

This is just one instance of Dean saying such things. I will not list them all because a) it would take a very long time to find them and b) this is already longer than I intended it. But this coupled with myriad other lines, references, comments, and behavioural traits in the show build up an unmistakable picture of John’s treatment of Dean, and it was not the treatment of a loving father who occasionally had to give his sons a bit of ‘tough love’. As Dean himself said (and Jensen has clearly forgotten), ‘My father was an obsessed bastard!’ Obsessed indeed, destructively so, and Dean is all the evidence we need.

Did Dean love John, though? Almost certainly. One of the things which makes child abuse so hard to recover from is the fact that children are hard-wired to believe that their parents love them, and that everything they do comes from a place of love and care. If the parent does something bad to the child, it is the child’s natural reaction to blame him-/herself and to believe that the fault is what the child has done, or in what the child is. One of the difficult parts of coming to terms with having been abused is accepting that somebody who was supposed to protect, guide, and shelter you in fact mistreated, misused, and exploited you. A child’s default setting is to love his or her parents, and it takes a lot to undo that. Dean loved John, but this in no way means that their relationship was good. Abusers often love the people they abuse, and the abused often love the people who abuse them. Love can be mixed with hate, fear, and resentment, and this is the relationship Dean has with John.

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Conclusion

Jensen did an incomparable job portraying Dean, but his understanding is wildly at odds with my own and indeed seems to contradict the show. This includes many lines he has delivered himself. He is currently producing a show with John as one of the main protagonists, and he believes that John was not so bad and can be redeemed. Perhaps this colours his statement, perhaps not: after all, how could he sell a show with a narcissistic abuser as the main protagonist?

My take on this is that Jensen has forgotten much of Supernatural, and perhaps never really thought about Dean’s relationship with John much at all. It was, after all, a job for him. For sometimes 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year for 15 years, he went to work to bring Dean to life. He cannot possibly remember every line of dialogue, or have been paying attention to the overall plot or every single character interaction for the whole of that time. He also cannot be expected to watch the whole show several times or read detailed analyses of every single episode, let alone write them. If his take-away from the show is that Dean did not really have any problem with John, then that is his business.

However, as fair as it is for him to hold that view, it quite frankly contradicts far too much in Dean’s own behaviour for me to view it as a valid reading. The sad thing is that as with Castiel’s confession of romantic and sexual love for Dean in 15x18 The Truth, the story as depicted on screen is being misrepresented and denied. I saw John’s treatment of Dean, and I saw the effects it had on Dean over 327 episodes. You cannot tell me that I did not see what I actually saw and expect me to forget it.

The podcast has a far greater reach and influence than my little blog, and far more people will listen to these actors dismissing and denying events as they happened. As most people unfortunately subscribe to the authorial intent school of analysis, they will see these actors’ statements as authoritative, and for them that will be the end of things. But by the actors’ own admission, they do not know or do not remember most of the show, and my man Jensen’s own take is in complete discord with the character he played. If these people are the ‘authority’ rather than people with detailed understandings, analyses, and readings of the show, then ‘authority’ truly means nothing any more, as 15x19-15x20 show that canon is nothing more than the officially accepted version of events.

The actors are therefore metaphorically dead in the same way the author is. I value what Jensen has done in bringing Dean to life, as well as the hundreds of hours of entertainment everything else he has done has given me, but he is not Dean and does not speak for Dean. Only Dean can do that, and he speaks loudly and clearly enough for anybody paying attention to hear.

#Youtube #edvard's supernatural guide #dean winchester #john winchester #sam winchester #child abuse #spn 3x10 #spn 5x16 #spn 9x07 #spn 1x20 #spn 1x18 #death of the author #jensen ackles #jackles <3 #spn meta #meta analysis #john apologism #john fucking winchester

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