"Dean's Got It." - John Winchester

[itsnotmymind]

Brief exchange from Dead Man's Blood, while Dean is off getting the blood:

Sam: It shouldn't be taking this long. I should go help.
John: Dean's got it.

It cracks me up at John, who much of fandom is convinced had no respect for his older son, has absolute faith in Dean here. It really flies in the face of the two-dimensional take on John and Dean's relationship that many fans have.

The Winchester family dynamics are far more complex in those first couple of seasons than most people remember. Even the show writers themselves - Bad Boys fits in better with popular fanon about the Winchester than with family than what we saw in S1.

Don't get me wrong - I think John was a lousy father. I think his behavior in Something Wicked was criminal. But the fanon 2D monster who was unambiguously awful, who hated one or both of his sons, who was so neglectful as to leave the boys no better off than orphans...that has nothing to do with the man I saw on the screen in S1 and S2. It has nothing to do with how he interacted with his sons, and they with him.

Comments

[supernutjapan.livejournal.com]

I agree that John in Season 1,2 is not what he is made out to be in future seasons - I've heard that the writers made him out to be a bad dad only in future seasons and that was never the intention in the beginning.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I've heard JDM complain as much in an interview, that he wants to come back to the show and put things right because he feels like the writing for John got really messed-up later on. It still confuses me as to why that never happened, especially when he still seems very friendly with both Jared and Jensen. I understand his schedule being busy, but you'd think they could have worked out a single episode appearance in the past 9/10 years

The impression I get was that the writers became very attached to the Bobby character, so writing him as surrogate dad, as well as not having JDM available for filming, all added up to John losing out every time when it come to the "Winchester Dad" comparisons

I wasn't the characters biggest fan, but he went out on a good note in season 2 IMO, and his last interaction with Dean was very positive and an attempt to make amends, so it is a shame how one-note the writing has become for him since then. Aside from appearances with younger John I guess

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised to hear JDM wants to come back. I assumed he wasn't interested, and that was why he didn't return. There's no doubt his return in some form or another would be good for the show. The flashback episodes alone have been constantly undermined by having to have John absent or off screen.

I am not a fan of Bobby as a surrogate Dad. He clearly wasn't a father figure when they were growing up, and he doesn't even relate to them as a father when they are adults. Yes, he says he's their father, and Dean says it, too, but they don't treat him like a parent. They treat him like just another adult.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

John in Dead Man's Blood tells Sam, "I stopped being your father" (after their mother died), and apologizes in depth to Dean in In My Time of Dying. I think John was always supposed to be a complex character who had done poorly as a father, but it seems like the complexities got lost at some point, and amnesia set in with many fans and some show writers.