Comments | chasingtides: The Thing That Should Not Be: Dean Winchester, Metallica, and H. P. Lovecraft

chasingtides

The Thing That Should Not Be: Dean Winchester, Metallica, and H. P. Lovecraft

Jun 06, 2011 00:05

I have a whole big complex meta I'm writing on class and words and meaning. But that's not a post for midnight before my weekend begins.

No, my post right now is about Dean Winchester.

( From Call of Ktulu to the Hetfield crying Not dead which eternal lie/stranger eons Death may die, I find this entirely too hard to buy )

meta, spn

Comments 10

monicawoe June 6 2011, 11:05:25 UTC

I'm convinced this was just a case of Dean pretending he didn't know about something, becauee yeah Metallica has WAY too many Lovecraft references for Dean to have not noticed!

fannishliss June 6 2011, 13:59:03 UTC

I don't know... I'm a big Metallica fan and also a big SF fan, but I've never actually read any Lovecraft. I think if you said "arkham" to Dean he'd think "Batman" -- and if you said "Chthulhu" he'd think "Ktulu" and then his mind would start running the song and that would be the end of it.

I mean, I do know who Lovecraft is, but then, I also know who Lord Dunsany and Sheridan LeFanu are. (still haven't gotten around to reading them tho :P )

The Chthulhu stuff is also big in D&D which I bet Dean avoided like the plague.

There are some mysteries to Dean's self-imposed ignorance -- not just his claim that he's never heard of Lovecraft, but like in Bedtime Stories, not knowing the basic plots of fairy tales? ...

chasingtides June 6 2011, 14:09:41 UTC

Oh, he may well not have read Lovecraft. But he'd know who he was/have an inkling of what he wrote.

As for fairy tales.. it's harder to believe, considering he'd had four year with a stable family life before Mary died. On the other hand, maybe hunter's have their own fairy tales, and Mary didn't read him the normal ones?

itcomesinphases June 7 2011, 01:41:05 UTC

If that's the case then how would Sam be familiar with them? I really don't see John reading them bedtime stories on a regular basis. Though I can see Sam realizing that he doesn't know a lot of the stuff that other kids his age know and devouring the fairy tale section on principle.

Also, I don't think John knew that Mary's family was hunters. I doubt she'd read unusual fairytales to Dean. Though I can see her avoiding anything by the Brothers Grimm on account of it being far too close to reality.

chasingtides June 7 2011, 02:18:33 UTC

I was thinking more that hunter's fairytales are closer to fluffykins and rainbows because reality sucks giant donkey balls. You wouldn't tell regular fairytales because the regular stuff is adult life. And I doubt pre-hunter John would be like, "You need to harden up our three year old. Stop telling him tales of happiness and joy."

Thread 6

kissedyouonce June 6 2011, 21:02:38 UTC

That's really interesting. I'm a Metallica fan, but I'm weird fan - I can't say I've ever paid particular attention to what they're singing about. I tend to do that with metal in general, though I can't really tell you why - maybe I concentrate less on the words and more on the way it sounds. I think most people I talk to about metal kind of share that viewpoint. Now I do know who Lovecraft is, but only because of people talking about him online. I've never discussed him with a metal fan IRL. Tolkien yes, but not Lovecraft.

One possibility I've got is that Dean does read, but since school wasn't terribly important to him/he's pretty stubborn about making up his own rules about what's cool or isn't, what he reads is stuff he discovered on his own, and is probably pretty varied. Then again, I think Dean does feign ignorance from time to time, for reasons only understood by him and his complex system of measuring infallible masculinity. ;) So maybe he's secretly a Lovecraft fanboy and has deemed it unacceptable for some reason.

itcomesinphases June 7 2011, 01:17:03 UTC

I think Dean does feign ignorance from time to time, for reasons only understood by him and his complex system of measuring infallible masculinity THIS EXACTLY.

In my headcannon, Dean is totally in the closet about being a giant dork. The whole "I don't know nothin' 'bout no classic literature" is just a contrived facade. He can't have spent all his time chasing tail. It's just not feasible. So when he wasn't wooing the ladies he was tearing up the science fiction/fantasy paper backs. Hell, they're right next to the westerns and it's cannon that he's got a thing for cowboys.

randomstasis June 7 2011, 13:57:53 UTC

Well- Dean often downplaysvhis own intelligence, probably a habit formed in school to reduce expectations, nowI think in general to keep it as his own ace in the hole or sometimes just to let Sam shine. I can also see him mining the fairy tales for details, and ignoring the non ritual aspects of the plot-especially the Disney version ( ... )