#John Winchester Meta

[calibrationneeded]

John dehumanizes Sam and Dean in different ways, but both in the way a solider would to keep a “level” head in a situation, which I think makes a lot of sense, as John was a marine.

Initially, he seems to view Sam as someone might view the “good side” in combat, something that needs to be defended even if it means laying down your life, but there’s no actual emotional connection, a soldier who loves this country doesn’t necessarily love the people. Later on after the demon blood incident it’s like a switch is flipped for John, and all the sudden he sees Sam almost as a traitor who needs to be taken out. It kind of makes me think of in zombie media when a character is turned and another one kills them without hesitation because it doesn’t matter if they used to be their loved one, they have to kill them for the greater good.

With Dean, he treats him kind of like a subordinate or fellow officer. He cares about him, but in the throes of what he sees as battle, if his comrade is taken out, he can’t always stop to save them, he would have to do what’s best for the greater good in the situation. He would feel sad if Dean died, but he would justify it by saying that, that’s the way war is, and that Dean was a martyr (as if Dean chose to be in John’s Sudo army). I think this is also why John is so aggressively hard on him because he doesn’t see him as his son, he sees him as a soldier who needs to be harped on.

This is also reflected in the canon because there are several times where a character will assume that Dean was in the military, and he will answer along the lines of that he did serve, but he’ll be vague. To be perfectly honest, Dean did essentially serve when it comes to the emotional toll, but he was never in an actual military position. 

“Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy.” -Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, 1899.)

[ebenelephant]

thinking about how john still protects sam and dean from the grave via his journal, but how this, like everything else, is inextricably linked to hunting. he can only protect them as long as they're stuck in this life. he wanted them to some day be able to get out, they wanted to some day be able to get out, but he's only ever given them the tools to hunt.

[theboykingsmichaelsword]

it had to be dean who finally killed azazel not john not sam because dean is the family's core mary's ghost may haunt the narrative may have been what propelled this family quest but by virtue of her being dead she can't be home or hearth when john disappears on a hunt and sam's too young to feed himself in this month's crappy motel. when the moment comes john can help because he's the one who made mary's boy into his perfect soldier but john can't do the deed himself can't pull the trigger mary cocked the day her eldest son watched her kiss the demon wearing the father who made her a hunter no not john who wasn't born with killing monsters in his blood john who wasn't bred for it like mary campbell and dean winchester and it can't be sam either. sam can witness but sam has to be immobile relegated to mere voyeur as the demon who polluted his blood dies on the other end of his brother's gun because he's john's son and mary's son and dean's son and this is about him this is about parents righting a wrong against their child this is about a child killing the thing that wore his father before murdering him this is a wife killing what snapped her husband's neck this is a husband killing the demon who burned his wife this is a brother killing the monster whose schemes stabbed his brother in the back. life dragged them broken and bleeding to an eleventh hour where dean is father-son-and-holy spirit(mary) in a way sam is not of course it was dean it could only have ever been dean

[calibrationneeded]

This is kind of what reading John’s journal feels like. Every single page he keeps talking about how he knows that what he’s doing is unfair and wrong and how people warn him, but he’s just so blinded by his need to get revenge that he’s just like “it’s not that big of a deal. It’ll be okay in the long run.”

Reading John’s journal is a really uncomfortable experience because you do see him as a human being and you can partially understand why he does what he does, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that he was an awful father and sometimes you will read a page or a sentence and you will just have to stop because you get so angry at how he managed to talk himself out of a rational thought 

Thinking about early days on the road before John started leaving Sam with Dean and was still going around and talking to hunters trying to learn everything he could. Imagine you’re some hunter and you get a call that the new guy in town wants to meet at the roadhouse and talk demons or werewolves or witches or whatever, then he shows up with a 4-year-old and a baby. He’s real serious and writes down everything you say in his journal but he also has to get up halfway through to sing and bounce a cranky baby to sleep on his shoulder while the kid stares at you with a mouth full of French fries. No wonder every hunter in John’s generation seems to remember Dean and Sam whether Dean and Sam know them or not.

[anassemblageofpassions]

The thing abt john winchester is that he is too complex for the majority of the spn fandom and for a good portion of the writers on the show too.

Because at his core john is about love over everything else. When he looks up at his sons (yes, up, the fact that they’re both taller than him>>>>>), there is love seeping achingly from every single pore of his being even as he abuses them, as he destroys their souls beyond belief. He does it all entirely out of love. And he is so, so wrong for it. A part of him knows it. But he wants to keep dean alive, and he wants to keep Sam pure. And he loves them so much. And he damages them so horribly. John Winchester is the foundation upon which they are both built, they only become more of what he made them as the series goes on. Sam stops fighting it, Dean continues to mold into his image no matter how hard he tries to fight it.

Hell puts them both on steroids, but their individual trauma responses that influence this are the foundations that John built into them. No wonder azazel wanted sam to win so badly. John Winchester crafted his sons into alastair and Lucifer’s ideal victims, respectively, and dean was a better (worse) john than John ever was. John held out in hell. Dean acquiesced to his abuser despite all of his efforts to fight him, and he’s never been the same since.

Sam fought like hell, and he fought destiny, but at his core, he did what John always wanted him to by doing what dean wanted him to do, and then he stops fighting at all, loses the fire he showed john in adolescence that john immediately notices when he returns in s14.

And the sad thing is. They filled their roles so well that John is saddened by what they’ve become. He didn’t want dean to break. He didn’t want Sam to be dimmed. He’s sad to see what Sam is like in s14. In the process of recovering his wife, he ensured he would mold his sons into what he wanted them to be, and when he got what he wanted, he was devastated.

John Winchester is so driven by love and grief and he’s so filled to the brim with both that it’s painful to watch him on screen because he destroyed his family because of it. And he wanted this all along but he didn’t realize what he’d have to give up to get it.

[t00muchheart]

you ever think about how john winchester had three sons who were alive and needed someone to look after them and yet he neglected them all in different ways to chase after revenge

[castielsparkle]

☆ john winchester's journal | 1x12 - faith | 4x01 - lazarus rising | 12x19 - the future | 5x04 - the end | 6x20 - the man who would be king | john winchester's journal | 12x02 - mamma mia | john winchester's journal | 2x04 - children shouldn't play with dead things | john winchester's journal (x3) | 2x20 - what is and should never be | 6x20 - the man who would be king | supernatural season 5 disc 6 special feature commentary

[winchester-co]

I just know Sam was covered in scars from hunting when he got to Stanford. What did Jess think of it all, the swathes of marred skin? She knew he had a bad relationship with his Dad - she knew he had a brother he didn’t call. What good conclusion could she possibly come to, when he refuses to talk about his family?

No wonder she didn’t want Sam to go with Dean.

[creatorofarcadia]

Literally replace hunting with any other risky profession and the idea Sam is selfish for not wanting to hunt kind of collapses. No one would ever suggest someone who doesn't want follow the family tradition of joining the military is selfish because hypothetically, them joining could result in someone not dying. It's absurd.

Season 1 John and Dean are really like, you don't want to die painfully in your 20s/30s after a life of constant fighting with no outside connections? Is this? The height of selfishness?

[passengerseatsam]

He'd be furious that I wasted a bullet. He wouldn't be proud of me. He'd tear me a new one.

When Dad isn't really Dad. 11x04 Baby || 1x22 Devil's Trap

[lynntheninja]

I never thought of that 🤔 That's a plausible explanation, and I agree it makes more sense than "teaching Dean a lesson."

(Also, John did leave enough $$ for food. Dean lost it gambling.)

Random John Winchester headcanon:

John didn’t leave Dean at the boys’ home to “teach him a lesson.” That’s always seemed OOC to me—what lesson is a boys’ home going to teach him that John doesn’t think he could do a better job teaching Dean himself?

He left Dean at the boys’ home because he was short on cash. Room and board for a 12 year old and a 16 year old isn’t cheap. Maybe a couple credit card scams got denied and he was stretching whatever he had left until something went through. That’s why he didn’t leave enough $$ to cover food and Dean had to resort to the five-finger discount in the first place. And that’s why John didn’t pull him out of there immediately. Easier to feed one kid. Easier to have one kid sleep in the back of the car or crash at another’s hunter’s place.

[xyberangelzparadise]

I'm thinking about a s12 where John comes back instead of Mary. Sam still gets taken by Lady Bevell but instead of Mary its Dean and John that come to his rescue.

When Sam first sees John after he gets past the initial shock he just feels ashamed. All throughout his childhood he constantly was told that he wasn't strong enough to survive on his own and that he needed to be looked after and taken care of. Its been over a decade since he last saw his father but nothing has changed. Dean hadnt even been dead for a day and thats all it took for him to get captured. Hes a grown man now and yet here he is tortured, restrained, and helpless waiting for his dad and big brother to come and save him.

[starlite-png]

Sometimes, I think about that journal entry of John's where he took dean hunting and dean couldn't bring himself to shoot a deer, only for Sam (who was a young child at the time) to shoot the deer himself because he thought it was going to hurt dean. Then, I immediately think about Bobby killing his abusive father to protect his mother, and, you know, I kinda lose my mind a bit.

[girlwithonegoal]

can we talk about how over the course of spn dean becomes john (the angry god) and sam becomes dean (devotee sacrificing himself on the altar of said god). it makes me insane how they are never escaping the cycle of abuse!

[sammygender]

i’ve never been as angry on behalf of a character as i am for sam winchester

[rainbow-motors]

Dean and Mary | SPN 2.20

Some thoughts about this scene under the break...

There's so much to unpack in this episode. I love how the story progressively reveals clues that this djinn-induced fantasy is not an ideal wish world: John's death, references to Dean being an alcoholic cad, the spectre of the young woman imprisoned by the djinn, Dean and Sam's estrangement, and the deaths of all the people they had saved as hunters.

Dean's seeming alcoholism is a handy plot device to keep others from questioning his odd behavior. And, especially with JDM not guest starring, I understand that John's death is a convenient way to explain his absence, and the story would naturally move on to the other plot points. His death is downplayed since it's natural instead of supernatural.

But while there may have been practical reasons to tell the story this way, as a fan invested heavily in Dean and John's relationship, I do find Dean's (as scripted: "that's great" !!) reaction surprisingly unbothered. Given that till now we've seen Dean wanting the family to be together at all costs, it's interesting to me that here with his Mom alive and presiding over his safe and happy home, he doesn't seem to miss John being present at all, or worried that Mary is alone. It gives me a lot of headcanon fodder, especially since in later seasons they show that Mary and John's relationship was at times rocky. This world was formed by the wish of Dean's inner child, a desire for a time before he lost unconditional love and safety, and how fascinating to find that John isn't in it.