Supernatural University: What Makes You Who You Are?

[bardicvoice]

If you are avoiding any spoilers or spoilery discussion concerning the May 3, 2007 episode of Supernatural - What Is And What Should Never Be - please exit the classroom now and return after the Thursday show. Time-shifting this class to avoid potential spoilage will not reflect on you adversely in any way. Thank you.

The debate about what makes us

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Nicely laid out, and as it turns out quite on the mark. I think this:

And would Sam choose differently than Dean, if he had the chance?

is a particularly fascinating question. I also rather wonder how having John alive in that AU would have affected Dean's decision (since John may not have understood his reasoning and Dean finds it very hard to go against his father's wishes) or Sam's, since Sam may have discovered what it was like to have had a largely different father than the one he knew.

[bardicvoice]

It would have been fascinating to see Dean interacting with AU/John, and I think it would have been a very different show ... although in the end, I believe Dean would have chosen the same, precisely because AU/John would have been almost unbelievable for him. I suspect he would have cast AU/John as being as disappointed in him as the rest of his AU/family seemed to be, meaning that in the AU world, he wouldn't have been as close to John, either. Even if he had been, I would guess that AU/John's difference from the father Dean had known would have been extremely troubling, something he felt he himself didn't deserve and couldn't believe would be real. That might have been the critical break, rather than just seeing the girl over and over again

[yourlibrarian]

I would guess that AU/John's difference from the father Dean had known would have been extremely troubling, something he felt he himself didn't deserve and couldn't believe would be real. That might have been the critical break, rather than just seeing the girl over and over again.

Yes, I could see that being true, especially given his realization in Devil's Trap. I don't know if the writers would have seized that opportunity, had JDM been available, but I think it would have been a more meaningful episode in that way. I could see Dean, especially when younger, longing to have that more loving, relaxed father back. Yet by the time he actually meets him, he can no more believe it than other fantasies children are told. I think the result might also have been different -- rather than feeling such despair as he actually did, he might have felt more confident than ever in the direction his life has taken. By abandoning that childhood hope, he might actually have come out more hopeful.

It would have been fascinating to see how Dean

[bardicvoice]

Ooh, this is deliciously provocative. I'll have to see where my mind runs with this, but ... it might be fun do do a couple of fics, one being the version of WIAWSNB where Dean dreamed John still alive, and the other one being what the episode might have looked like had Sam been the one ensnared by the djinn. Hmmm. Thinking.