#also thank you robbie thompson you gave us 7 total gays and did not kill a single one

[scoobydoofenshmirtz]

LGBTQ Supernatural Character Breakdown

Okay so yesterday I posted this lovely screenshot of yet another stupid reddit post about spn that I thought was funny and shrugged off as another reddit dudebro thing. However, then @thehappyearth went and actually read through the thread and reported back with results. The opinions of OP were unsurprising, but they got me thinking. Part of the post reads "I would prefer a neutral show that doesn't aim to include LGBT people in nearly every episode.. its unrealistic unless they are in a location where this holds true..example (California)". Now that's ridiculous for a lot of reasons. 1) Not having LGBT people in a show does not make it "neutral." Cishet is not the default human experience, neither is male, nor white nor able-bodied, etc. 2) It's not "unrealistic" to have LGBT in literally any location in the world. We exist everywhere you go. Yes, certain places tend to attract LGBT adults and families due to their culture, legal protections, history, etc. but it's not like there's something in San Francisco water that just makes people there gay at a higher percentage. I assure you, reddit user, there are LGBTQ people in every single place Sam and Dean have visited in the show. 3) like literally it's just homophobic shut up reddit bros. ANWAY...

But what really got me thinking was the "nearly every episode" comment. Like, dude. What show are you watching? But then I thought...wait how many LGBTQ characters actually are there in Supernatural, so I did a little digging and compiled this list (google sheets) of every LGBTQ character to appear on screen. This doesn't include characters who are only mentioned (although there aren't many to add with that anyway). I looked into some different criteria and I included each character, the number of episodes they appeared in, their first and last episode, how many episodes they appeared in as a confirmed LGBTQ character, their sexuality, if they speak or not, and if they died. I also included a description and notes, and noted which characters were in episodes nominated for GLAAD awards. I also included "ambiguous" characters who I either felt weren't "confirmed" as LGBTQ (like the man who is possibly a gay porn star or the sassy yorkie) but in that realm, or characters where there were bigger issues that make it more complicated (Dean, Crowley, and Rowena).

And then I got curious and made a whole second spreadsheet with a list of all the episodes featuring confirmed LGBTQ characters. I included which characters are featured, if it includes an LGBTQ couple, if it features an LGBTQ storyline important to the plot, if it features a recurring LGBTQ character, if any LGBTQ character dies, if it was nominated for a GLAAD award, and my opinion on if it's homophobic. I only included episodes where a character was confirmed LGBTQ when it aired, however I did include retroactively LGBTQ characters when listing what recurring characters are featured.

Some findings under the cut:

I counted a total of 32 on screen (reasonably) confirmed LGBTQ characters in all of Supernatural (for the purposes of this I have counted Charlie and apocalypse Charlie as separate characters). Now when I say confirmed this is a range from Charlie to characters who had a same sex kiss in the background. There is a chance I have missed some, so if you look through this and notice someone missing, please let me know. (Also sidenote I say LGBTQ but there's no confirmed trans characters as far as I could tell). That's an average of 2.13 per season. There are 9 recurring characters and 23 that only appear once. There are 6 with 3 or more episodes. The only characters that appeared in more than 2 episodes while confirmed as an LGBTQ character are Charlie (apocalypse world and regular) and Chuck. Of all these characters 10 are dead (with three of these presumably resurrected off screen) and 22 survived.

If we break it down by era Kripke had 4 with 0 recurring characters and half and half dead/alive. This is .8 per season average. Gamble had 3 and (at the time) none were recurring and none died. This is 1.5 per season average. Carver had 10 including making Chuck bisexual. Charlie also became a recurring character (then she died). This is 2.5 per season average. Dabb has 15 including Castiel and Claire. This included 7 recurring characters and 8 one offs, and 8 alive and 7 dead. This is 3.75 per season average.

As far as sexualities go, we have 3 (presumably) lesbian characters (2 Charlies and Donna's niece) 3 gay characters (Max Banes and 2 one offs who die) and 2 bisexual characters (Chuck and Noah the gorgon). No single character ever refers to themself by any sexuality as far as I can tell, but Alan J Corbett (Ghostfacers intern) and Conner (from the church) are both referred to as gay by other characters. Everyone else I based on context. All the other characters were unspecified as to their specific sexualities.

In terms of episodes with confirmed LGBTQ characters (so characters who at the time the episode was written were reasonably confirmed as LGBTQ) we have 39 total, a bulk of them being episodes that feature either Chuck or Charlie. That's about 12% of all SPN episodes. If you take out episodes that only include either Chuck or Charlie as the confirmed character you have 20 left which is 6.25% of all SPN episodes.

There are 12 episodes that feature an LGBTQ couple, 3.75% of all episodes. There are, by my count, 9 episodes with an LGBTQ storyline important to the plot or 2.8% of episodes. I know this is more subjective but I included Ghostfacers, Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo, LARP and the Real Girl, Sacrifice, The Chitters, Wayward Sisters, Ouroboros, Gimme Shelter, and Despair.

If we break down writers from who has the most episodes with confirmed LGBTQ characters Robbie Thompson comes in the lead with 9, Buckleming next with 6, Bobo and Dabb with 5, Yockey and Glynn with 4, Davy Perez with 3, and Nick Vaught, Nancy Won, Nancy Weiner, Eric Kripke, Jeremy Carver, Sera Gamble, Brett Matthews, and Bed Edlund all having 1. As far as writers who introduced new LGBTQ characters or canonized previously existing ones we have again Robbie Thompson in the lead with 7, Dabb with 6 (although 4 were from co-written episodes), Berens with 4, Yockey and Glynn with 3, Brett Matthews, Davy Perez, Nancy Weiner, Eric Kripke, and Nancy Won all with 2. Gamble and Edlund each have 1 and Buckleming sort of have 1 since they introduced apocalypse world Charlie. All of this is quantity not quality, so keep that in mind.

As far as deaths go, Bobo has the most with 3.5. 3 of those are from Despair where the characters were all (possibly) resurrected and the .5 is for Kaia who later turned out to not actually be dead. Yockey has 2 (both from Ouroboros). Edlund, Glynn, Perez, and Gamble all have 1 and Dabb also has .5 for cowriting Wayward Sisters.

The LGBTQ character who appears in the most episodes is very obviously Castiel who appears in 142 total episodes. Chuck is next with 19 and then Charlie with 7. Chuck has the most episodes as a confirmed LGBTQ character with 12 total and Charlie has 7.

Apologies if any of the math on this is wrong or if I left anyone out. Feel free to let me know and I'll correct the documents.

So really I don't know why I did this but basically yeah I don't know what fantasy world those reddit dudes are living in with LGBT people in nearly every episode (unless he's counting Castiel which...win for the gays I guess?). Nothing about this was particularly surprising but it's interesting to see all these things laid out and play around with the categories. Um...hope you enjoyed this i guess. lol