Supernatural Meta Comparison
Come chillin, gather 'round while I tell y'all a story. Get comfy, it might take me a bit to get the whole thing out.
This here story is about a Man, a widower, with two young sons. His wife died when his youngest was very small, and he's doing his best to raise his boys alone. It's not easy, but nothin' worth doin' ever is, is it? And he did have some help in that his older son, in the way of things, took after caring for his younger brother after their momma died.
Somewhere along the way, this Man is told the truth of this world, learns that real evil exists, that the final battle is coming and that there are Demons that must be exterminated for the good of all Men. He learns how to hunt these Demons, and how to kill 'em, 'cause that's what a real man does when he's told the Truth about what's really out there.
Y'all following me so far?
One of the Man's sons, the Good Son, adored his Daddy, listened to every word the Man ever spoke and took each one of them as Gospel. The Good Son believed that killin' Demons was good and right, and all he ever wanted to do was follow in his Daddy's footsteps. He learned his lessons well and by the time he was a Man, the Good Son was the best damn Demon killer ever was, aside from his Daddy.
Then there was the Bad Son. You know him. He's the kid that can't have a conversation with his Daddy that don't lead to an argument. He's the one that wants out of this life of hell, to get away and find a normal life somewhere out there in the world. The Bad Son fights his Daddy every step of the way, questioning every decision until the Man is forced to come down hard on the boy. It isn't easy, no siree, but there's a way things ought to be done, and it's the Man's job to teach it to his boys. Dad is bound and determined to save the Bad Son any way he can, but if he can't do it, he knows the boy is gonna have to be put down just like any other Demon. In the end that job is just gonna to have to be done by the Good Son, a secret passed along just before Daddy died.
Story sound familiar yet?
Fast forward a few years and we find one of the sons sitting in an FBI office, tellin' his own story. Tellin' how his Daddy fought Demons, but now his Daddy's dead, and his brother has taken over the family business, savin' people, huntin' Demons. How he walked away from the hunting life because he knew it was wrong, but how his brother's still trapped in that life, believing the lies told to him years ago by a crazy Man, their Daddy. A Man, the son says, he was forced to kill in order to save his own life.
What's that? Not quite the way it happened? I got the story wrong?
Maybe you just got the wrong story.
See, I'm not talkin' about Supernatural and the Demon Hunter John Winchester, about the Good Son Dean, or the Bad Son Sam. I'm talking about the movie Frailty and the Demon Hunter Daddy Meiks, the Good Son Adam, and the Bad Son Fenton.
But I had ya goin' for a while, didn't I?
For those of you who haven't seen Frailty, it's the story I told you above, with quite a bit more to it I won't get into for the risk of spoiling it more than I already have. What does this have to do with Supernatural?
Frailty is what might have happened if John had gone crazy after Mary's death. If he'd wanted so badly to see Demons that he saw them where none existed. And I have to ask myself what might have happened had John seen only what he wanted to, and not the world that was? Would Dean still have followed him just as blindly? Would Sam still have rebelled against his father, maybe killed him as Fenton Meiks killed his own father? Or would their roles have reversed and Dean become the Bad Son while Sammy grew into the Good Son?
It's a good thing we'll never know.