Supernatural -- some thoughts
So I have been doing what I do when a new fandom catches my eye -- lurking around and reading a lot of fic and commentary and trying to figure out what I want and what I like, and as I read stories and character discussion, I started to notice something about the Dean Winchesters I was seeing.
A lot of people in this fandom think that Dean is very seriously fucked up. Words like "broken" and "damaged" are attached to him with (what seemed to me to be) surprising frequency. And I am not getting this.
I mean, at the end of "Devil's Trap" Dean is certainly a wreck, both emotionally and physically. But that's a pretty extraordinary situation: he's just had to keep his brother from killing their hopefully only temporarily possessed father while the thing busy possessing that father turned Dean's insides into a really cool jigsaw puzzle. (Whether or not this was the right call is neither here nor there; I'm not sure that either Dean or Sam is, at this point, capable of murdering their father, although Sam is clearly a good deal closer to that point. But you know, Oedipal issues aside, shooting your dad is kind of a big deal, as is having your Dad -- or something that looks a lot like him -- torture you.) And Dean's childhood was not exactly a bed of roses, although I think some fanon paints a rather grimmer picture than was necessarily the case; I kind of suspect that there was a lot about that lifestyle that Dean enjoyed.
And it may be that I'm looking at this funny because most of the characters I write about have made killing people for fun and profit their preferred lifestyle, but compared to Sark, for example, Dean Winchester is totally well adjusted. Underneath Sark's rather nice exterior is some very serious damage. I sometimes wonder how that guy manages to tie his shoes in the morning, because really, he is not at all a functioning human being. I think the finale of Alias made this very clear -- Sark has some inkling of a moral framework, but it's deeply twisted, and what's really fascinating is that he goes ahead and does the wrong thing even when he's pretty sure that it's the wrong thing. It's like he knows the difference between right and wrong but can't remember why it's important.
Whereas Dean in general strikes me as both happy and good. Does he like the hunting life because it's the only life he's ever known? I don't know, but he does clearly like it. And sure, he's an outsider with limited interpersonal skills (to be generous), but he seems to thrive on the contact he does get (both by flirting and by helping people); he's managed at least one medium-term romantic relationship, even if that did blow up in his face when he had to choose between hunting and Cassie (Kassie? which is it?). I think what I notice about Dean is that he's good at what he does, and he knows that he's good at what he does, and that also contributes to his sense of satisfaction in himself. The world is full of big, scary shit, and he is the guy who stands out there in front of it and takes it down. And a big part of Dean thinks that this is just about the coolest thing ever.
And the good thing feeds off of this. There are things that Dean does that are (to me) very clearly wrong, like credit card fraud and lying to people in ways that may hurt them. I think that Dean was raised to think that both of these are acceptable -- the credit card fraud, certainly, is a something he learned from his father, and the way they lived, moving around a lot and not being able to say why, would have encouraged the all to treat lying to outsiders as normal behavior. But a lot of what Dean does is motivated by a desire to help other people -- people to whom he has no prior connection -- even if it inconveniences him. He's surprisingly altruistic, really, and although John and Sam are clearly the most important people in his universe, other people matter too. I am not at all sure that this is true of Sam, on the other hand; I am starting to think that Sam's moral center is soft and chewy, and not in a good way. I think what's I'd say is that for Dean the difference between "us" and everyone else is quantitative but for Sam it's qualitative. It's not that I don't think that Sam is basically a good guy, but I think he's a lot closer to "n = serial killer" than Dean is. (Part of that is that Sam has suffered an immediate loss in a way that Dean hasn't, at least not since their mother died, and Sam's mission is focused inward, on himself, Jess, his family.
Also, really really not wanting your father and brother to get themselves killed is not a sign that there's something wrong with you, especially when it's somewhere past the last minute and you think that they're both very serious about making that kind of sacrifice.
So yes. There seems to be a lot of focus, in the fandom, on Dean's inner vulnerabilities, and I can sort of see why, because there are a lot of dramatic possibilities, and both hurt-comfort and character-torture are popular fannish genres. But it just doesn't always "ping" in character for me. Dean does clearly have his issues, but he's also pretty functional and (it seems to me) pretty well equipped to go ahead and lead a life which is, if not normal, at least one which he's happy with, especially if he can keep Sam and John from getting themselves killed but very probably even if he can't.
---
And another thing about Supernatural:
Given that full-ride scholarships to Stanford Law do not exactly grow on trees, is it pretty safe to assume that the interview mentioned in the first episode of Supernatural was with Wolfram and Hart vel sim.?
A lot of people in this fandom think that Dean is very seriously fucked up. Words like "broken" and "damaged" are attached to him with (what seemed to me to be) surprising frequency. And I am not getting this.
I mean, at the end of "Devil's Trap" Dean is certainly a wreck, both emotionally and physically. But that's a pretty extraordinary situation: he's just had to keep his brother from killing their hopefully only temporarily possessed father while the thing busy possessing that father turned Dean's insides into a really cool jigsaw puzzle. (Whether or not this was the right call is neither here nor there; I'm not sure that either Dean or Sam is, at this point, capable of murdering their father, although Sam is clearly a good deal closer to that point. But you know, Oedipal issues aside, shooting your dad is kind of a big deal, as is having your Dad -- or something that looks a lot like him -- torture you.) And Dean's childhood was not exactly a bed of roses, although I think some fanon paints a rather grimmer picture than was necessarily the case; I kind of suspect that there was a lot about that lifestyle that Dean enjoyed.
And it may be that I'm looking at this funny because most of the characters I write about have made killing people for fun and profit their preferred lifestyle, but compared to Sark, for example, Dean Winchester is totally well adjusted. Underneath Sark's rather nice exterior is some very serious damage. I sometimes wonder how that guy manages to tie his shoes in the morning, because really, he is not at all a functioning human being. I think the finale of Alias made this very clear -- Sark has some inkling of a moral framework, but it's deeply twisted, and what's really fascinating is that he goes ahead and does the wrong thing even when he's pretty sure that it's the wrong thing. It's like he knows the difference between right and wrong but can't remember why it's important.
Whereas Dean in general strikes me as both happy and good. Does he like the hunting life because it's the only life he's ever known? I don't know, but he does clearly like it. And sure, he's an outsider with limited interpersonal skills (to be generous), but he seems to thrive on the contact he does get (both by flirting and by helping people); he's managed at least one medium-term romantic relationship, even if that did blow up in his face when he had to choose between hunting and Cassie (Kassie? which is it?). I think what I notice about Dean is that he's good at what he does, and he knows that he's good at what he does, and that also contributes to his sense of satisfaction in himself. The world is full of big, scary shit, and he is the guy who stands out there in front of it and takes it down. And a big part of Dean thinks that this is just about the coolest thing ever.
And the good thing feeds off of this. There are things that Dean does that are (to me) very clearly wrong, like credit card fraud and lying to people in ways that may hurt them. I think that Dean was raised to think that both of these are acceptable -- the credit card fraud, certainly, is a something he learned from his father, and the way they lived, moving around a lot and not being able to say why, would have encouraged the all to treat lying to outsiders as normal behavior. But a lot of what Dean does is motivated by a desire to help other people -- people to whom he has no prior connection -- even if it inconveniences him. He's surprisingly altruistic, really, and although John and Sam are clearly the most important people in his universe, other people matter too. I am not at all sure that this is true of Sam, on the other hand; I am starting to think that Sam's moral center is soft and chewy, and not in a good way. I think what's I'd say is that for Dean the difference between "us" and everyone else is quantitative but for Sam it's qualitative. It's not that I don't think that Sam is basically a good guy, but I think he's a lot closer to "n = serial killer" than Dean is. (Part of that is that Sam has suffered an immediate loss in a way that Dean hasn't, at least not since their mother died, and Sam's mission is focused inward, on himself, Jess, his family.
Also, really really not wanting your father and brother to get themselves killed is not a sign that there's something wrong with you, especially when it's somewhere past the last minute and you think that they're both very serious about making that kind of sacrifice.
So yes. There seems to be a lot of focus, in the fandom, on Dean's inner vulnerabilities, and I can sort of see why, because there are a lot of dramatic possibilities, and both hurt-comfort and character-torture are popular fannish genres. But it just doesn't always "ping" in character for me. Dean does clearly have his issues, but he's also pretty functional and (it seems to me) pretty well equipped to go ahead and lead a life which is, if not normal, at least one which he's happy with, especially if he can keep Sam and John from getting themselves killed but very probably even if he can't.
---
And another thing about Supernatural:
Given that full-ride scholarships to Stanford Law do not exactly grow on trees, is it pretty safe to assume that the interview mentioned in the first episode of Supernatural was with Wolfram and Hart vel sim.?