#can't wait until i hyperfixate on something else but in the meantime this is what you get

[bimbonaparte]

daddy lessons (parenting in spn vs. being human)

I have not been able to stop thinking about this for weeks and it’s making me insane, so apologies to all but here we GO. McNair (Being Human UK) and John Winchester (Supernatural) both raised their sons to be weapons in a secret war and did unforgivable things in the process, but thanks to some key differences in their parenting approach, we get wildly different kids out of the equation. To recap the middle bit of the Venn diagram here, both fathers:

Dragged their kids around the country, raising them like soldiers to fight a supernatural enemy; it’s unclear when anybody’s first kills took place, to my knowledge, but we can safely say that they were at way too young an age

Weaponized the memory of a dead mother as an excuse for their crusade

Moved them around constantly and denied them almost any outside connections; by design, their whole world is wrapped up in each other

Raised their kids (Tom and Dean most successfully*) to have little identity outside of hunting and to be entirely beholden to the cause, leading to a very upsetting self-sacrificial streak

Demanded military-esque obedience; some questions may be allowed here and there, but ultimately dad is the superior officer and it’s his call

Lied repeatedly to their kids “for their own good” and kept them on a need-to-know-basis, even for stuff that they REALLY needed to know

*(I’m generally focusing on Dean & Tom in this analysis, since I think Sam escaped some of this by rebelling against the notion of a “good son”)

Hell, they even had similar deaths (i.e., made the decision to keep their kids in the dark -- rather than, say, explaining anything or asking for help -- and walk into a confrontation with an old enemy that they knew they wouldn’t survive). But despite all this overlap, we end up with two wildly different characters: jaded & emotionally volatile Dean, who drinks & throws punches to cope with feelings and performs toughness as if there’s a panel of judges in the corner at all times; and sincere & emotionally vulnerable Tom, who is also quick to throw a punch but who talks about his feelings, cries easily, and is totally unconcerned with whether or not he’s perceived as tough or masculine. I literally can’t stop thinking about it.

If you ask me, the two diverge thanks to some key differences between the McNair and John Winchester school of parenting. Despite the NUMEROUS mistakes McNair made in Tom’s upbringing, we have to give credit where credit is due:

McNair loved Tom. Unequivocally. Thought he was the best person to ever exist. Told him this daily. Told any given random stranger who stood still long enough in Tom’s general proximity. Reinforced it with physical affection and affirmation. Tom never had cause to doubt this for even a second during his entire upbringing, and it shows.

McNair must have realized at some point that Tom was different, that his take on the world was always going to be a little bit naive. Instead of trying to change this or toughen him up “for his own good” (which I can very much imagine being the John Winchester approach), McNair seems to have thoroughly embraced this aspect of Tom’s nature.

Part of that is expressed through the "code.” McNair raised Tom to live by a strict code geared towards a) survival as nomad werewolf vampire hunters, and b) survival as Tom, specifically, who has incredible physical aptitude but struggles with other kinds of learning & social cues. The code has its downsides (namely the unquestioning obedience bit mentioned above), but otherwise functions as a sort of framework that Tom can follow for navigating the societal rules & interactions he doesn’t fully understand. (There’s also the whole “teaching Tom to respect others” thing, which I could honestly write an entire dissertation on).

Beyond the rules McNair thinks they need to survive, however, McNair seems to delight in Tom simply being Tom. This shines through most with Tom’s disarming sincerity -- which he retains largely because McNair (and society at large) never tried to train or polish it out of him. There are a dozen examples where Tom cuts through layers of conversational propriety and is just genuine, because it doesn’t occur to him to be otherwise. Where other characters (like Hal) can’t help laughing at him at least a little, we see McNair take him seriously, respond with encouragement, and even match his sincerity (see: “You’re perfect”) despite the fact that McNair was raised in a society that would frown on men talking like this to their grown sons.

We therefore end up with a Tom who earnestly says things like “virginity is like a flower” with zero self-consciousness. Who would have come along to tell him men don’t talk about sex like this? McNair certainly wouldn’t have; his top priority throughout is supporting Tom as-is, not molding his personality into some idea of what a man is or should be.

The end result of all this is a very sweet, very straightforward, emotionally vulnerable killing machine. “Always be polite and kind and have the materials to build a bomb,” indeed. Tom is obsessed later on with being “a success” in a very performative way, but -- as all the characters around him repeatedly remind him -- this is not something that McNair ever cared about or put on him.

What I would love to do next is a) also acknowledge the incredibly profound ways that McNair wronged Tom (starting with killing his parents, which cannot be glossed over) and how this fucked him up; b) contrast all this with the John Winchester approach to raising child soldiers (SIGH) to see how it is that we ended up Dean; and c) look at Dean and Tom’s perception of their respective fathers. BUT. I unfortunately have to go do actual work stuff or I am gonna be in big trouble (plus this is getting LONG), so I’m gonna be revisiting this another time. In conclusion tho: Tom McNair fascinates me beyond measure, I cannot get over this, and I do not want to. TBC.

#being human uk #supernatural #meta #i'm so sorry this is SO niche #but i just love them so much #dean winchester #tom mcnair #john winchester #john winchester's A+ parenting #can't wait until i hyperfixate on something else but in the meantime this is what you get #tried to add gifs to this but i don't know howwwwww :(