Of Vegeterian Vamps and Baby 'Shifters
Watched "Bloodlust" while having breakfast this morning. Oh, the character development. Dean's is so rich and chewy that I don't have the words to properly describe it. It's like an angsty nougat wrapped in the delicious dark chocolate of determination and perseverance, all surrounding the soft peanut butter center of Dean's heart. Or something.
Anyway . . .
I think I've written about this before, but I'm struck by Dean's emotional development regarding John, and that development vis-a-vis Sam's development. With John's parting words to Dean, John made Dean reconsider just how right John was in the way he raised the boys. Dean is hurting and empty, and the solidity of his first foundation as been called into question. Dean starts to doubt John, while at the same time, Sam starts to understand John.
At the end of "Bloodlust," it's Sam who is standing up for John, with "He did the best he could." Dean agrees, but wonders how many things they've killed not because the things were evil, but because he and Sam had been raised to hate them.
And all through this scene, I kept thinking about Dean and the baby 'shifter some four years later. How Dean was not ready to call it a "monster," because it was just a baby. How protective he was of the baby. Because he didn't see it as an evil monster to be dispatched; he saw it as a baby that needed protection.
And there aren't coherent words for me to talk about how Gordon kept telling Dean "You're a killer," and how Dean turned torturer in Hell, and the guilt he felt about that, and then coming to the conclusion that even though he wants a family, he's a killer, and that's that.
Oh, Dean, your emotional arc, it makes me want to cry.
Oh, Winchesters, you break my heart into little bitty bits.