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[charcubed]

What do you think about dean and jack? Was he a bad parent?

Hello Anon!

What I think about Dean and Jack is that I am currently in progress of writing thousands of words on that topic (as part of the Chuck won meta) lmao

But! But

For you, I will try to address this specific bit here anyway. No idea if I'll do justice to the topic divorced from discussion of the wider frameworks but whatever.

Was Dean a bad parent to Jack? Depends on when/what you're talking about. It's complicated. Was Dean a bad parent in the end, when it counted most? Yes, but here's the thing: that's not an indictment of Dean, or something to cite as a failure of his that happened in a vacuum. To see it as such is to miss the big picture, and the big picture is the reason for it.

He is a man pushed and molded and manipulated and strong-armed into emulating his father, for the sake of a story. Over the course of years, he resists it repeatedly, including in relation to Jack; in particular, he drops the gun in "Moriah"; and then, he's forced into metaphorically picking the gun back up again when his very freedom and thus his sense of self is thrown into question.

The entire thing is a test, and it keeps happening. It's a spiral. It's about the tension of Dean always, his entire life, avoiding becoming John... which, unbeknownst to him, is the very thing Chuck needed and wanted him be, and so he pushes him into it by design.

Take a look at some big instances:

S13's grief arc is a parallel to the original Winchester family drama: Your child is cursed, and he is the reason the love of your life is dead. John loses Mary indirectly because of Sam, and becomes a shell from grief, and a horrible father as a result. Dean loses Cas because of Jack–and loses Mary, to drive the layers home–and becomes a shell from grief. What resets these events is that Cas returns, allowing Dean to become a true parent to Jack. He's able to tell Jack he's not a monster. They become a family... but that family is fractured because the origins of this intergenerational trauma cycle–Lucifer and Michael–coming back into play. (That's a whole thing of its own, but it relates to this topic.)

End of S14: Your child is cursed, partially because he sacrificed himself to save you, having (unfortunately) learned from your example. Sacrifices and deals are never without cost, and this is the result. You lose your mother again. Metaphorically, you lose the love of your life, who you blame for this happening because he kept secrets from you (as Mary kept secrets from John). Your kid's a threat to you and everyone you love, and a threat to the whole world... and still, at the very last moment, even with God in his ear, Dean doesn't kill him. Still, Dean resists becoming the worst parts of his father. Witnessing this, Chuck is in disbelief.

What changes after this is the amount of pressure placed on Dean, and the type of pressure, and it's by design.

Dean's suddenly realizes he's been trapped his entire life, and everything he's ever experienced or ascribed to himself has been called into question. For the first time in years, he's spiraling backwards, regressing and wondering who he even is. He is certain of nothing. The identity he's built for himself, that he's FOUGHT to form, that diverges from John in the most important ways, is no longer something he can fall back on. Because he's learned of Chuck's control, he loses the very thing that helped him defy that control in the ways that counted most: he loses the certainty in his personhood. Cas tells him, "What about all of this is real? We are," but Dean isn't ready to hear it yet. He's lost himself.

Season 15 is the struggle of him trying to regain his sense of self, after having had it ripped away. That struggle is what holds him back, and also the fear of never regaining himself fully is what keeps him holding Jack at arm's length. He does not yet realize that he is and has everything inside himself he needs, because he can simply refuse to play Chuck's games.

Notice this, too: by halfway through the season, Dean's re-centering himself. He rediscovers core parts of his personality and identity in 15x07. He regains hope in 15x08, and though Sam loses his in the next episode, Dean fixes his relationship with Cas and is open and honest. He's on the path to healing and purpose. And then, immediately afterwards, this healing is halted through cosmic machinations, and his son is dangled in front of his face as a weapon as he's told that's the sole key to his freedom.

It becomes a lifeline. He cannot let Jack back into his heart–he cannot forgive him again, he cannot allow himself to tell him he's not a monster again, though he's done it before–because if he does that here, now he'll still be wondering... Who am I? Will I ever truly be free?

If you feel like an empty shell, how can you parent a child? If you don't know who you are, how do you know what part is real and what part is controlled by someone else?

Simultaneously... Jack, his son, is a Winchester: he seeks his father's approval. He decides to take on the burdens of his parents again. He feels he has no choice. He needs to be told that that isn't his job, which is the only way to break this cycle. But Dean, unmoored from his sense of self, is unequipped right now to teach him that.

It just gets worse as Chuck tightens the noose. But when Dean's at the very edge, spiraling out of control, the most desperate he's ever been... his family brings him back from it. Sam reminds of who he is, when Dean's so unmoored he has him at gunpoint. Cas gives him an immeasurable gift in his confession speech, telling him "this is who you are, and who you are is made of love." Dean then loses Cas and is devastated by grief again, but it's a grief filled with so much love that he can look at Chuck and tell him with confidence "that's not who I am." He's re-centered. He can think clearly. He is made of love; he can live as such.

But the problem, and the ultimate tragedy? It's too late for Jack. From the moment Jack absorbs Adam's rib in 15x17 to complete the ritual, the wheels of his death are set in motion.

He's been sacrificed, according to Chuck's framework and plans.

Dean thinks they win, and in the end, he just wants his son to come home. But Jack's already gone. And it's a loss in every sense.

You cannot divorce the way this narrative goes from the fact that Chuck's frameworks and machinations are the reasons Dean loses his sense of self. And Dean losing himself is the reason he is not able to be that good parent just in time for one last victory.

And Chuck's frameworks are also the network's frameworks... art imitates life, and life imitates art... etc. etc. wait for the meta lmfao

TL;DR:

Was Dean a bad parent in the end? Sure. But the tragedy is he was forced into it, in all ways, because he wasn't given the space to be or allowed to be anything else.