in fact, I have watched the pilot. I'm still right.

[pocochina]

I read through this post and would like not to let it pass without comment. In the first part of my response I will do my best to explain how Dean’s behavior toward Sam meets a lot of the criteria for intimate partner abuse, because the OP does not seem to grasp the argument we are making. I will assume good faith, though - this is a difficult

Comments

[awittyfool]

Not much to add except a big THANK YOU AND AMEN. I couldn't even get through the original post because I do not have the mental energy to deal with that much unthinking abuse apologism. But I did read enough to realize that the OP pretty much SAID that dean's behaviour towards Sam is not ok except for it is ok because Dean has ~reasons~. What. Just what.

[pocochina]

It's a surprisingly common attitude in SPN fandom, that Dean's behavior is above most or all criticism because he has reasons. Everyone has reasons. That doesn't necessarily mean their behavior is all as moral and/or sympathetic as they'd probably like others to believe it is, it just means they have reasons. I say it's surprising because I think this is something Supernatural has slowly gotten quite good about since the excellent decision to pull the rug out from under the audience about Bela in late S3. She had reasons. Lucifer had reasons. The rank-and-file angels had reasons given to them by Naomi, who had reasons of her own. We still acknowledge that they chose* to hurt people. Dean doesn't get to be a special snowflake because *he seems like such a great guy who had such a rough childhood.*

*I'm actually not sure how much all of the angels can be said to have chosen certain courses of action, but they are certainly considered to be accountable by fandom at large.

[cuddyclothes]

They're running a counter-programming at AMC, a "Walking Dead" marathon. Early in the first season, Carol has an abusive husband, and I immediately thought of all of these discussions. She's laughing with the other women while they do laundry, while her husband watches. He gets angry at her pleasure, and pulls her out. Another female character calls him out, and he throws wet laundry in face. The wife keeps pleading for the others to leave them alone, and her husband hits her across the face. Then one of the main characters comes and beats the living shit out of the husband. Several seasons later, she talks to the male lead about how she didn't want to be alone, how she was "weak." And she wasn't weak any more.

ETA: I have major PTSD but it hasn't made me repeat the pattern. I made that decision.

[pocochina]

I still haven't seen The Walking Dead, but generally, yeah, I think those narratives about the more cut-and-dried conventional presentations of abuse are valuable and I don't mean to suggest otherwise, but there's a lot to be said for this exploration of the thornier stuff that wouldn't make it on Lifetime. And part of that is that the choice to do better is there. It might be hard, but it's there, and it ought not be dismissed.

[cuddyclothes]

I didn't mean to say that about it being cut and dried...believe me, The Walking Dead is nothing like Lifetime! It was that I was reminded of the emotional dynamics we've been discussing between Sam and Dean. It was the husband's "who the fuck are you to tell me what to do" attitude that reminded me of Dean's angry bluster. As far as PTSD goes, both Winchester boys would have PTSD from the jump, between their father and what they had to deal with constantly. Nobody will ever change my belief that John was an abusive, controlling father. It was nice that he was sweet to the boys right before he died, but that does not make up for what he put them through prior to that

[pocochina]

Nobody will ever change my belief that John was an abusive, controlling father. It was nice that he was sweet to the boys right before he died, but that does not make up for what he put them through prior to that.

Oh, totally. Dean learned his bullshit somewhere. It doesn't mean he cannot help himself or that he's entitled to cause pain because of it (especially not to Sam, since even under the stupid ~cosmic justice~ rubric, John put Sam through quite enough as well). People adapt; sometimes those adaptations are perverse.

Dean came busting in saying THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING I WOULD PUT IN FRONT OF YOU when in fact we'd seen him do that for a good part of S8.

ha, yup. Dean's ~poor bruised fee-fees have been leaving Sam in the dust for a long time.

That response of Dean's really angered me, because it did not seem to come from a truly loving place. Screaming at someone who is that vulnerable is showing love? I don't think so.Yes, exactly. It takes a pretty special kind of asshole to make "I don't want you to die" be just blatantly

[nicole2686]

While they are both troubling characters Dean is far more over the edge than Sam will ever be. You are right when you say that they have an abusive relationship and when Sam was drinking demon blood part of the reason he became addicted was purely because of the power; the blood gave him an ability he hadn't possessed up 'til then. He now had a choice. He could listen to Dean or go his own way and part of the reason things went the was they did was because of their abusive relationship. Sam, in the end, refused to listen to Dean, and I didn't blame him. I don't really know what else to say. This post was great. A look at the brothers relationship in a way which I think makes most people uncomfortable but needs to be addressed none the less.

[pocochina]

S4's resurgence of importance to fandom discourse lately has been very telling, I think, because it is reflective of another very nasty way that real abuse is discussed. Like, there's really an expectation that "once a fuck-up, ALWAYS fair game for anything someone we like wants to dish out." It's closely related to "Dean's past pain gives him Suffering Capital to dish out whenever he sees fit" - it's about how we can convince ourselves that the status quo is fair, rather than accurately assessing and describing the status quo.

And yes, I've always found it very telling that Dean's admission of culpability for his part in the apocalypse is about something he was forced to do and that he knows nobody blames him for, and not at all for his part in increasing Sam's vulnerability to Ruby's manipulations and gaslighting with the shocking uptick in his own abusive behavior. (As much as I admire Sam for wanting to step up and make things right, IMO he would be entirely justified if he had decided to blame pretty much anyone else for his

[ash48]

I'm curious to know whether you think the writers have deliberately written Dean has an abusive character? Over the years they have added canon to suggest that John was possibly abusive - certainly neglectful. Do you think they've just added canon over the years that have built up a picture of an abusive person or that they've deliberately set out to make him one

[pocochina]

OKAY THIS IS A NOVEL AND I WILL DEFINITELY NOT BLAME YOU IF YOU DON'T CARE TBQH. I...have apparently thought about those same questions more than I realized.

I'm curious to know whether you think the writers have deliberately written Dean has an abusive character? Over the years they have added canon to suggest that John was possibly abusive - certainly neglectful. Do you think they've just added canon over the years that have built up a picture of an abusive person or that they've deliberately set out to make him one?Authorial intent is slippery, and I don't think I really read enough interviews to go as far as one can with it, so all of this comes with a big HIGHLY SPECULATIVE disclaimer. On top of that, this is the kind of thing that happens slowly and people don't usually notice IRL, otherwise everyone would bail on abusers quickly and with ease, and I think it also got worse and worse over time and the people who lived with Dean in their heads could easily have been lacking in perspective in a similar way

[pocochina]

VOLUME 2

The one where they work together, they make each other human, they share the crappiness and they appreciate the sacrifices each other has made. The one where they prank each other, share a laugh, a beer and a joke. I've seen many say this relationship is dead.I don't think it's dead, so much as I think we're finally acknowledging that it wasn't what it looked like. It wasn't an equal give-and-take partnership. It's just that the power imbalance was buried - Dean wants to hunt, Sam doesn't want to hunt, the show is about hunting so we take it as a given that Dean will get his way 100%. Dean really didn't appreciate the sacrifices Sam has made, not nearly so much as Sam has made a point to appreciate him, but nobody articulates that point so it skates by the audience. Sam is always `~learning some lesson~ about the relationship between John and Dean, while Dean still refuses to acknowledge that John was extremely abusive to Sam as well - and people still take Dean's skewed POV as evidence that John objectively was a loving

[ash48]

Thank you so much for your detailed response (it turns out that I do care..;D

[anonymous]

Thank you so much for this. Seriously. I get so disgusted with the fandom sometimes and their view of "Oh, but he's Saint Dean. He can do no wrong."

[pocochina]

Thanks for reading!

And yeah, fanon-Dean is frustrating because he is so wildly different from canon-Dean.