#ellen and bobby act as foils to refute the argument that what john did was necessary or unavoidable due to his trauma

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The weirdest take I've seen on Reddit is that the show made John Winchester a worse father in the later seasons than he was initially. That the worst he did early on was being a bit distant and training his sons from a young age. And of course, that stuff wasn't that bad because it was necessary to keep them safe.

Just off the top of my head here's what we get from season 1 alone. Dean being traumatized by John's treatment of him following the shtriga attack. John disowning Sam for going to college. John refusing to pick up his phone when Dean is literally dying. John physically intimidating Sam during an argument - one that started simply because Sam refused to go along with whatever John said to do without asking questions. Dean having to physically get between the two of them and having to physically pull them apart before they attacked each other.

There's a load of other stuff from the first 3 seasons as well. If anything, the show took a stronger stance regarding John's terrible parenting in those seasons than any of the later ones. The longer John was dead, the fonder the boys became of him.

#john was shown as controlling and emotionally abusive #he created a cult like family environment and isolated his children far beyond what was warranted for their lifestyle #he turned dean against sam to further isolate sam when he wanted to do something else with his life as a way to control him #ellen and bobby act as foils to refute the argument that what john did was necessary or unavoidable due to his trauma #both were hunters with similar backstories to john who managed to be better parents #dean himself had some choice words to say about john's parenting in season 3 #and tbh i don't know how anybody can say john ever hitting his kids is unthinkable #after the fight between him and sam in dead man's blood #john is VERY quick to use physical intimidation against sam and neither boys seem at all surprised by the reaction #and i'm sorry but that is very much not an acceptable way for a father to approach his son - no matter how old the son is #yeah their childhood wasn't full of them cowering from their dad who beats them daily for kicks #but i don't know how anybody can watch s1 and firmly say that john would never even dreamt of decking one of his boys for mouthing off #the way sam and dean speak about their father is incredibly similar to all the men i've known who were hit by their dads #but who don't see it as abuse but as something that made them behave properly #the spn reddit is weirdly huge on minimizing john's abuse and it's soo uncomfy #because the emotional abuse was pretty severe and clearly traumatic to both boys #and the way fans who interpret physical abuse as having occurred are put down as just having read to much fanfic #or wanting to make john a monster with zero textual support #is fucked to me #like look at the show #look at the way john interacts with sam when they argue #look at the way the boys argue with each other #look at the way dean argues with other people #spn #anti john winchester #john winchester's a+ parenting