#if I'm ever forced off testosterone believe me I will find a way to get back on it even if it kills me

[shamebats]

[awed-frog]

So hi again, if I'm being annoying just let me know bc I come again to you bc of a discussion with the same friend of last time. The thing is that he said that Dean was more like Jhon than Mary, And I said that he was more like Mary but that he acted like Jhon bc he was the only parent figure Dean had when he was a child. I wanted to know your opinion again bc it's very interesting And I love to read What you have to say ❤

Hi! Don’t worry, you’re not being annoying at all. Thank you for all that - I’m sorry I could not answer this right away - real life and things.

Honestly, if you’d asked me last year, I would have agreed with you all the way. After all, we started the series with the idea that Dean was so much like John as to be basically John’s shadow, and Sam was this rebellious third party who had nothing to do with his family and whatever, and then the show turned it around so that we realized Sam was a lot more like John than we ever expected, and Dean - our reluctant, gentle hero - must be more like Mary, this figure of legend made up of sweetness and love we basically knew nothing about.

Now we’ve actually seen Mary, though, I have to say I’m confused. Sure, they did try to draw superficial parallels between Dean and Mary - their love for fast cars and loud music and unhealthy food, for instance - but I’m not exactly convinced. I’m now starting to think that John and Mary have a lot more in common than we thought - that Sam has a lot in common with both, and Dean - who even knows. In fact, the more I think about John, the more I wonder if we even know anything about who he was, because during all the time we knew him, John was broken. In Mary’s memories, John is that sweet guy Dean met in the Seventies - someone who presumably came home scarred and defeated from Vietnam (because who didn’t), who was a bit goofy around girls, especially pretty ones, who was determined to be a good family man (it was Dean who forced his hand and convinced him to get the Impala, remember?) and who was devoted to his wife and kid. We know Mary and John were isolated - the Campbells were dead, and John’s parents, or extended family, are never mentioned, which leads me to believe they were dead as well, and in twelve years, and despite the fact the boys have been based in Kansas for some time, we never met anyone who knew John and Mary - neighbours turned friends, moms who attended some pregnancy class with Mary, John’s colleagues - there’s nothing. Which could be normal, considering the low population density of the US, or a narrative ploy, or simply something the screenwriters forgot about, or didn’t know how to fit in. In any case - if they were isolated, John’s life must have been very difficult. We now know Mary was not this ‘Madonna’ ideal he painted for his kids later on; on the contrary, Mary was still an active hunter even after Dean’s birth - she was someone who up and disappeared for days, if not weeks at the time, without telling John where she was or why. Presumably, she kept stashes of weapons in the house (which he must have found at some point) and came back with her car half broken, half her clothes missing (blood is a pain to wash off, and hardly worth it if you’re wearing cheap flannels). I want to think this is why they started fighting, and that John’s drinking came after (and what happened to Dean while Mary was away? did John bring his toddler son with him to work, did he leave Dean with some neighbour? or had he already stopped having a regular job by then?). In this sense, Dean is perhaps most similar to what his father was before life happened to him, and the person Mary was fooling herself into thinking she could be when she married John.

Ultimately, though, I think there’s a big difference between Dean and both his parents: Dean is, in his heart, a carer, where neither of them were. This is a personality trait which is, in fiction, traditionally associated with women (I doubt things are that clear-cut in reality, though there is a case to be made for testosterone and all those things), which is why it’s significant that Dean is like that and Mary isn’t. Those were bold choices, and one of the reasons I like the show and those characters. And I should clarify - I don’t think it’s got anything to do with love - Mary loved her children, and so did John (despite what his behaviour sometimes indicates). It’s simply a question of who we are - Dean loves taking care of other people, he loves being around kids, he’s at ease and knows what to say and all he wants is a family of his own. And Mary, and even Sam - they’re not like that. They need something else in their lives - they need, perhaps, to make a difference in a grander way than ‘just’ be there for a child. 

(Which, again, is good - if we had a society made up entirely of carers, nothing would ever get made - not books, not monuments, and certainly not revolutions.)

John, I think, potentially was a person like that - we’ll never know - before it got snuffed out by the horrifying realizations waiting for him at every turn (his wife is this weird, secretive person, his wife is dead, a demon killed her, demons are fucking real, so is a bunch of other stuff, and Jesus Christ they’re all gunning for baby Sammy and I may have to kill him myself one day).

And I don’t know how much this has to do with your question, but I think you could see this difference between Dean and Sam very well in the latest episode - when Claire expressed what was basically a death wish, Dean’s ‘Back me up’ reminded me a lot of Molly Weasley’s ‘Back me up’ to Arthur when they were discussing Harry’s role in the Order. Because it’s in Dean’s nature to care and love how a mom would, which is why he was ready to steamroll over Claire’s (stupid) decision without a second thought (hence the immortal parenting phrase, ‘It’s for your own good’), but Sam - Sam’s different. Obviously he loves Claire, but in a more detached, traditionally masculine way, which is why he’s able to make the ‘Head Choice’ and admit that no matter what he himself thinks about the situation (and, come on, Sam ‘logic&rationality’ Winchester knows losing odds when he sees them), Claire is technically an adult, and not their kid, anyway, so the choice is hers. 

In real life, as I said, you need both types to build a functioning society; fiction normally has no middle ground, and strives to glorify either one kind or the other according to period and genre. As for Supernatural, it’s still not clear what kind of message they want to get out there, but it’s likely finding some kind of balance will be crucial, because, well, it’s crucial for everything.