#trapped in. it's recognized as a red flag; john's behaviour sans its supernatural element is enough for their peers to raise eyebrows

[professuntothelord]

thing is, and again take this with a grain of salt if you'd rather take the fiction for what it is (fiction), but the childhoods of dean and sam can be such a compelling parallel for real-world childhood abuse that it does make for a wildly interesting analysis.

you've got this perfectly crafted scenario in which these children, dean particularly, are faced with a knowledge much greater than them - weight of the world type inappropriate for their age groups - but they can't tell anyone. they are fundamentally cut off from their peers in this knowledge. of course, the knowledge in question largely stands for the world of hunting and the monsters therein, but it's very much the abuse wrapped up within that, as well. dean's going to school, trudging through because he's a keeper of that information, and boy doesn't the world and the knowledge of your peers take on a scary triviality when you know that vampires exist, that demons make deals that take lives. it's a loss of innocence and the disconnect that stems from it. when you have to steal to better provide for your baby brother, sitting through algebra feels laughable.

and again, john's got this perfect narrative going for him in that save for bobby (perhaps best regarded as a healthier father figure, certainly not peer-level) and a few others, the boys cannot share their knowledge of monsters and thus they cannot likewise share the extent of their abuse or neglect. take it further, it's wrapped up in a bow of 'it's a greater good - this is why your mother died.' and you'd listen and you'd take it because why on earth wouldn't you? you love your dad, he loves you, and yeah, everything's gone to shit since mum died. when that's what's on the line, what else is there to do

it's an extraordinary compiling of trauma but despite its supernatural origins it does a shockingly interesting job as a parallel (though again, this is fiction, grain of salt) to real-world abuse

#i think that scene btwn dean and the girl in hs is a brilliant reflection of how the real world understood the bubble that dean and sam were #trapped in. it's recognized as a red flag; john's behaviour sans its supernatural element is enough for their peers to raise eyebrows #why wouldn't dean turn to sex and hook-ups #they're perfect. he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders; a knowledge that deems so much trivial. that causes an undeniable #disconnect from his peers. and here's sex- an outlet a release it's fun AND it doesn't cross the boundaries of relations #cw abuse #cw childhood trauma #spn thoughts