The Truth About Supernatural Girls and Boys: Death Tally
Spoilers for every episode of the first five seasons below. Nothing too specific -- nothing you wouldn't already know if you spend much time on LJ, I think -- but spoilers, nonetheless. You've been warned. NO SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6 AT ALL.
Hi all - It's been awhile since I've been around. I just finished watching the season 6 premiere. But that's not what I'm here for today.
The reason I'm only just watching the premiere is that I've spent the past few weeks rewatching the entire series thus far, and I got a bit behind schedule and didn't want to watch the premiere until I'd gotten to the end.
The reason I've been rewatching the series is ... well, one, because I wanted to. It's been fun. But second because there was so much griping all last year about whether or not Kripke and the Supernatural team hated women or not. It kind of got tedious to read about it in every single post after every single episode. Especially since I didn't really believe it was true. I've said it before and will say it again: everyone dies on Supernatural. Not just women.
But why should anyone listen to me? Because now I've done the numbers. As I rewatched series, I made a detailed list of every death. I can tell you how many boys and girls died in each episode and, with some degree of detail, who they were. It's not perfect. I've found a couple that I missed just writing this. But I think the margin of error should be pretty good.
I had some rules, of course. It is Supernatural, so you can't just count every corpse or ghost on the screen. But they were pretty generous rules, and when in doubt I tried to err on the side of counting a woman over not counting her, since I'll admit that I was somewhat biased. But in general the rules were:
1. Ghosts don't count -- they're already dead. (I.e., Constance Welch didn't count.)
2. Creatures do count. I'm making judgment calls as to their gender. For instance, the rawhead looked male. The wendigo looked male. Shapeshifters, I trying to go with what they died as. In some case, though, I went with what they appeared as most often, even if they died as something else. Again, I tried to err on the side of counting it as a female. So, in Skin, I counted it as male because it died as Dean and spent most of its time as a male, even though it was Becky for a little while. But for Sex and Violence, I'm counting Nick as a woman -- even though he died as a male, he seemed to spend most of his time before that as a female.
3. Demons count, and their genders are determined along the same lines. They don't count if the demon is just exorcised and the host lives. But they do count if they're killed with the Colt or Ruby's knife. And the host counts if it dies after the demon evacuates. (I'm not absolutely sure I got all of these. Sometimes it was hard to tell.)But if the host and the demon die at the same time, they only count as one. There were a couple of cases where I didn't count the meat, though: Lilith when she left her body in Sam's motel room, because she showed up in that body again later. And Meg when she left after Bobby got stabbed, because she showed up in it again later. Lilith's got counted when she really died, but Meg's hasn't yet. (Though Meg's first body did get counted.)And Ruby's second body ... I guess I could have counted it when it flatlined, but I just waited until Ruby died at the end of the season. Ruby's first body did get its own count, though.
4. You only get one death. Dean gets one for all of Mystery Spot. Sam and Meg and Ruby and Cas and Adam all get one. No more, no less, no matter how permanent or impermanent it might be.
5. Flashbacks count. Mary's death in the Pilot counts, as does Samuel's and Deanna's in The Beginning.
6. And I went ahead and counted flashforwards, as well. (Though not visions if they didn't come true.) So Dean's friends in The End count, though some of them had already had their one allotted death.
7. If it happens before the Winchesters get into town or completely off screen and we never meet the character or care about them in any way, it doesn't count. This one's a little slippery, and I admit it was sometimes a judgment call. Again, I tried to err on the side of counting women. But, for instance, the kid who dies in Jericho in the Pilot counts because we see it, even though Dean and Sam hadn't arrived yet. The vampire Gordon kills at the beginning of bloodlust counts, even though it's before Dean and Sam get there and we never learn her name. The elderly mother in Sex and Violence counts, even though we never see her (because we hear it on screen). But the librarian serial killer's victim in House of the Holy doesn't count, even though we see its skeleton, because we never saw it or knew them in any way. And in Shadow, the girl from Lawrence counts because we see her death, but the man from Lawrence doesn't, because Sam just learns about it later through research. All the women they say died in the building in No Exit don't count -- only the first one who died on screen. The dead woman (grandmother? babysitter?) in the hallway in No Rest for the Wicked didn't count, even though we see evidence of her death, because it happened before we got there and we never knew her in any way.
8. Anonymous masses of people don't count. For instance, all the plane crash victims in Phantom Traveler. I did try to count as well as I could during fight scenes with lots of people. This really only happened during season 5 (except for maybe Jus in Bello, with the explosion scene), and I can't be sure that I was accurate, but I did my best. (And season 5 had such a huge imbalance on the man-to-woman ratio that it shouldn't matter if I was off here and there.)
9. I also made some judgment calls on whether or not people actually died. For instance, I counted Bella, even though we didn't actually see her die. I was probably fairly inconsistent here -- sometimes I was optimistic, sometimes I wasn't. But I tried to be fair about it. (And I tried to include my rationale in my notes on each episode.)
I think that's it. If you have questions about what I did or did not count or suggestions on how it should have been done, I'd be glad to hear them.
But without further ado, the totals:
Season 1
54 deaths, total
17 women (31 percent)
37 men (69 percent)
Season 2
58 deaths, total
17 women (30 percent)
41 men (70 percent)
Season 3
61 deaths, total
18 women (30 percent)
43 men (70 percent)
Season 4
70 deaths, total
28 women (40 percent)
42 men (60 percent)
Season 5
135 deaths, total
29 women (21 percent)
106 men (79 percent)
Series Total (not counting 6.1)
378 deaths, total
109 women (29 percent)
269 (71 percent)
So. A few things:
1. Excel did the math for me. I'd be glad to send anyone the spreadsheet. Or if someone knows of an easy way to post it on here, I'm happy to share with the group. I did do my own rounding, however, so if the percents are a point off, that's why. Point it out and I'll correct.
2. Why this isn't the final word: Most characters on Supernatural are boys, and since everyone dies on Supernatural, there are going to be more boy deaths. But I didn't have the wherewithal to try and count out all the characters, divide them into male and female and see what percentage of total females died compared to what percentage of total males. Someone else is welcomed to do so, and I will bow to them. This was the best *I* could do.
3. Another very valid point is that it's one thing to count the demon extra #3. It's another to count Jo. So I also tried to tally up the important men who died versus the important women. This is very subjective, obviously, so it definitely doesn't prove anything. Who decides who's important? I counted Sam and Dean and Jo and Ellen and Mary and Jess and John, obviously, but I also counted Pastor Jim and Caleb and all the special kids and angels and important demons. There were people I could have counted and didn't: Nancy the jail secretary. Gordon's Jesus Freak Hunter Friend. I can't really say what my rule was, but it was something along the lines of, if they were a recurring character or their death was very emotional (that's how Pastor Jim and Caleb got in, even though the old hunting friends from Metamorphosis and Free to Be You and Me didn't) or they were a part of the mythology. So Uriel, Madison and Weber all counted. But just people they were sorry to see go, like Ronald, didn't.
So, my list included (in order of appearance/death):
Season 1
Mary
Jess
Max
Caleb
Pastor Jim
Meg (the meat suit)
Season 2
John
Webber
Scott Carey
Madison
Ash
Lilly
Andy
Ava
Sam
Jake
Azazel
Season 3
Gordon
Dean
Henriksen
Bella
Season 4
Samuel Campbell
Deanna Campbell
Pamela
Uriel
Alastair
Adam
Lilith
Ruby
Castiel
Season 5
Jo
Ellen
Anna
Zachariah
Bobby
Which comes to a total of:
36 important characters, total
14 women (39 percent)
22 men (61 percent)
OK. That's all I have. Like I said, I'd be glad to share the Xcel spreadsheet with the whole group if there's a way, or with individuals who want me to e-mail it to them.
Discuss. I'm certainly happy to adjust if you can convince me that I've done something incorrectly. I hope this helps settle things. I'm all for standing up for feminism when there's just cause, but I think it's a bad idea to go on a witch hunt when the cause isn't really there. That's why I did this. I guess it might not sit well with some people, but at least I feel justified in my opinion, now.
Thanks,
Deanish
Hi all - It's been awhile since I've been around. I just finished watching the season 6 premiere. But that's not what I'm here for today.
The reason I'm only just watching the premiere is that I've spent the past few weeks rewatching the entire series thus far, and I got a bit behind schedule and didn't want to watch the premiere until I'd gotten to the end.
The reason I've been rewatching the series is ... well, one, because I wanted to. It's been fun. But second because there was so much griping all last year about whether or not Kripke and the Supernatural team hated women or not. It kind of got tedious to read about it in every single post after every single episode. Especially since I didn't really believe it was true. I've said it before and will say it again: everyone dies on Supernatural. Not just women.
But why should anyone listen to me? Because now I've done the numbers. As I rewatched series, I made a detailed list of every death. I can tell you how many boys and girls died in each episode and, with some degree of detail, who they were. It's not perfect. I've found a couple that I missed just writing this. But I think the margin of error should be pretty good.
I had some rules, of course. It is Supernatural, so you can't just count every corpse or ghost on the screen. But they were pretty generous rules, and when in doubt I tried to err on the side of counting a woman over not counting her, since I'll admit that I was somewhat biased. But in general the rules were:
1. Ghosts don't count -- they're already dead. (I.e., Constance Welch didn't count.)
2. Creatures do count. I'm making judgment calls as to their gender. For instance, the rawhead looked male. The wendigo looked male. Shapeshifters, I trying to go with what they died as. In some case, though, I went with what they appeared as most often, even if they died as something else. Again, I tried to err on the side of counting it as a female. So, in Skin, I counted it as male because it died as Dean and spent most of its time as a male, even though it was Becky for a little while. But for Sex and Violence, I'm counting Nick as a woman -- even though he died as a male, he seemed to spend most of his time before that as a female.
3. Demons count, and their genders are determined along the same lines. They don't count if the demon is just exorcised and the host lives. But they do count if they're killed with the Colt or Ruby's knife. And the host counts if it dies after the demon evacuates. (I'm not absolutely sure I got all of these. Sometimes it was hard to tell.)But if the host and the demon die at the same time, they only count as one. There were a couple of cases where I didn't count the meat, though: Lilith when she left her body in Sam's motel room, because she showed up in that body again later. And Meg when she left after Bobby got stabbed, because she showed up in it again later. Lilith's got counted when she really died, but Meg's hasn't yet. (Though Meg's first body did get counted.)And Ruby's second body ... I guess I could have counted it when it flatlined, but I just waited until Ruby died at the end of the season. Ruby's first body did get its own count, though.
4. You only get one death. Dean gets one for all of Mystery Spot. Sam and Meg and Ruby and Cas and Adam all get one. No more, no less, no matter how permanent or impermanent it might be.
5. Flashbacks count. Mary's death in the Pilot counts, as does Samuel's and Deanna's in The Beginning.
6. And I went ahead and counted flashforwards, as well. (Though not visions if they didn't come true.) So Dean's friends in The End count, though some of them had already had their one allotted death.
7. If it happens before the Winchesters get into town or completely off screen and we never meet the character or care about them in any way, it doesn't count. This one's a little slippery, and I admit it was sometimes a judgment call. Again, I tried to err on the side of counting women. But, for instance, the kid who dies in Jericho in the Pilot counts because we see it, even though Dean and Sam hadn't arrived yet. The vampire Gordon kills at the beginning of bloodlust counts, even though it's before Dean and Sam get there and we never learn her name. The elderly mother in Sex and Violence counts, even though we never see her (because we hear it on screen). But the librarian serial killer's victim in House of the Holy doesn't count, even though we see its skeleton, because we never saw it or knew them in any way. And in Shadow, the girl from Lawrence counts because we see her death, but the man from Lawrence doesn't, because Sam just learns about it later through research. All the women they say died in the building in No Exit don't count -- only the first one who died on screen. The dead woman (grandmother? babysitter?) in the hallway in No Rest for the Wicked didn't count, even though we see evidence of her death, because it happened before we got there and we never knew her in any way.
8. Anonymous masses of people don't count. For instance, all the plane crash victims in Phantom Traveler. I did try to count as well as I could during fight scenes with lots of people. This really only happened during season 5 (except for maybe Jus in Bello, with the explosion scene), and I can't be sure that I was accurate, but I did my best. (And season 5 had such a huge imbalance on the man-to-woman ratio that it shouldn't matter if I was off here and there.)
9. I also made some judgment calls on whether or not people actually died. For instance, I counted Bella, even though we didn't actually see her die. I was probably fairly inconsistent here -- sometimes I was optimistic, sometimes I wasn't. But I tried to be fair about it. (And I tried to include my rationale in my notes on each episode.)
I think that's it. If you have questions about what I did or did not count or suggestions on how it should have been done, I'd be glad to hear them.
But without further ado, the totals:
Season 1
54 deaths, total
17 women (31 percent)
37 men (69 percent)
Season 2
58 deaths, total
17 women (30 percent)
41 men (70 percent)
Season 3
61 deaths, total
18 women (30 percent)
43 men (70 percent)
Season 4
70 deaths, total
28 women (40 percent)
42 men (60 percent)
Season 5
135 deaths, total
29 women (21 percent)
106 men (79 percent)
Series Total (not counting 6.1)
378 deaths, total
109 women (29 percent)
269 (71 percent)
So. A few things:
1. Excel did the math for me. I'd be glad to send anyone the spreadsheet. Or if someone knows of an easy way to post it on here, I'm happy to share with the group. I did do my own rounding, however, so if the percents are a point off, that's why. Point it out and I'll correct.
2. Why this isn't the final word: Most characters on Supernatural are boys, and since everyone dies on Supernatural, there are going to be more boy deaths. But I didn't have the wherewithal to try and count out all the characters, divide them into male and female and see what percentage of total females died compared to what percentage of total males. Someone else is welcomed to do so, and I will bow to them. This was the best *I* could do.
3. Another very valid point is that it's one thing to count the demon extra #3. It's another to count Jo. So I also tried to tally up the important men who died versus the important women. This is very subjective, obviously, so it definitely doesn't prove anything. Who decides who's important? I counted Sam and Dean and Jo and Ellen and Mary and Jess and John, obviously, but I also counted Pastor Jim and Caleb and all the special kids and angels and important demons. There were people I could have counted and didn't: Nancy the jail secretary. Gordon's Jesus Freak Hunter Friend. I can't really say what my rule was, but it was something along the lines of, if they were a recurring character or their death was very emotional (that's how Pastor Jim and Caleb got in, even though the old hunting friends from Metamorphosis and Free to Be You and Me didn't) or they were a part of the mythology. So Uriel, Madison and Weber all counted. But just people they were sorry to see go, like Ronald, didn't.
So, my list included (in order of appearance/death):
Season 1
Mary
Jess
Max
Caleb
Pastor Jim
Meg (the meat suit)
Season 2
John
Webber
Scott Carey
Madison
Ash
Lilly
Andy
Ava
Sam
Jake
Azazel
Season 3
Gordon
Dean
Henriksen
Bella
Season 4
Samuel Campbell
Deanna Campbell
Pamela
Uriel
Alastair
Adam
Lilith
Ruby
Castiel
Season 5
Jo
Ellen
Anna
Zachariah
Bobby
Which comes to a total of:
36 important characters, total
14 women (39 percent)
22 men (61 percent)
OK. That's all I have. Like I said, I'd be glad to share the Xcel spreadsheet with the whole group if there's a way, or with individuals who want me to e-mail it to them.
Discuss. I'm certainly happy to adjust if you can convince me that I've done something incorrectly. I hope this helps settle things. I'm all for standing up for feminism when there's just cause, but I think it's a bad idea to go on a witch hunt when the cause isn't really there. That's why I did this. I guess it might not sit well with some people, but at least I feel justified in my opinion, now.
Thanks,
Deanish