Sarah Connor is on television. And she is often my alternate example regarding how John Winchester had to raise Dean and Sam hardcore and not coddle them. If Sarah had coddled John Connor he would have been dead quick. Same deal with John Winchester and his boys.
Sometimes parents have to make hard decisions. Sometimes loving your child isn’t about kissing booboo’s - it’s about telling them that even though that shit hurts they need to keep fighting. And for the love of everything, do not waste bullets!
You know what? Since you’re including the other John Fans in on this I’m just gonna go ahead and make this a joint reply between me and Casey2y5 because, out of all the John Fans that aren’t on hiatus right now, she and I are currently the main regulars of the tag. The others generally accept the two of us speaking on behalf of the group.
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People are welcome to their opinions. I’m not going to sit here and say you can’t dislike John. You have a different perspective on it than I do, and so view the character differently. However, as John fans we cannot go into the tag without seeing hate. Cannot. It’s not there sometimes or occasionally. It’s every damn time. I’ve been called everything from a bitch to a liar to an abuse apologist. I’ve had people come into my inbox telling me I should be reviled for liking John. And you know what that kinda hurts.
Fun fact. I’ve been an abusive relationship and I would never wish abuse on anyone. Hell, in real life I wouldn’t condone John’s actions. However, what we’re talking about is fiction. Everything that happened is fiction, and should be viewed from that point of view. I relate to John. I find him fascinating. I find his way of caring interesting because that’s how I care about people from a distance. People telling me I deserve to die, telling me I’m scum because of a fictional character I like is bullying.
People are allowed to have opinions. I’m saying that again. We aren’t sitting around saying love John or else. We’re taking apart the posts in our tag, and saying here’s another perspective, here’s a different way of looking at it. And getting thrown under the bus for it.
Tagging hate is never, ever ok. I don’t what character, what ship, what thing it is you’re talking about. There’s other ways to handle it. You go to a tag to see not negative things about stuff. The best example I’ve seen is say you’re at a pasta convention. Where there’s presumably people who like pasta and are there to celebrate pasta and you yell I hate pasta and then when they get mad at you you say well, it’s a pasta convention and what i said was about pasta. It’d be absurd right? Tagging hate is the same thing.
We’re reasonable people, and we know we’re in the minority. There’s this lovely tag- ‘john winchester for ts’ that’s great for tagging negative stuff about John. We know there will likely always be hate in our tag. But we’re sick of seeing it and we want to minimize it because we shouldn’t celebrate when a ‘good’ day is only 1/3 of the new posts being hate. So basically opinions good. Tagged hate not good. Have your opinions, discuss them, just please don’t tag your hate and don’t say what we go through everyday.
And let’s not forget the actions of the rest of the fandom. They’re going at us with such viciousness that a handful of us John Fans took a hiatus to get away from the harassment. Think about that for a moment. The Supernatural Fandom, which is applauded for charity work and getting things done, is harassing its own members to the point that they have to leave the site for their own well-being. If that doesn’t indicate how terrible the treatment of the John Winchester Fans is, then nothing will because you’ll be too blind to see it.
John Winchester
A lot of people call him a “Dead beat Dad” which is true in that Hunting was his life and he wasn’t there for his kids outside of it. But, i really can’t stand how a lot of fanfiction turns him into a physically abusive monster: while John was a ‘dead beat’ he wasn’t one that didn’t love his kids. He really loved them, there is a lot of hugging and smiles between them on the show: he died saving Dean. If he was an abusive monster Dean and Sam wouldn’t have such a conflicted relationship with him: the would have loathed him. They wouldn’t have even gone searching for him in the first place: Sam would never have come back into the life to look for John.
It just bothers me how this character is being transformed.
Friendly reminder that John Winchester crawled out of mother-truckin’ hell to save his sons and let them know with just a look how proud he was of them and how much he loved them one last time.
Okay, I plan for this to be my final John Winchester post, but listen:
If John had been as abusive toward the boys as so many people’s headcanon have him being off-screen, I can’t see Sam just getting over it and forgiving John so easily and sharing a laugh with him about how he spent Sam’s college fund on ammo.
Seriously, I just can’t see anyone getting past and forgiving a lifetime of the kind of abuse so many people insist must have happened off-screen on the basis of a few clips of dialogue.
And Sam is a highly-educated guy who has probably had to take courses in things like abnormal psychology for his degree, and who has had to study case law. It’s not like he’s not going to recognize abuse for what it is. His big complaints are that John wasn’t around enough, that he was disapproving, and that he treated the boys like soldiers.
But Sam forgives John for whatever John did. Ergo, John could not be as bad as a lot of people want to believe.
People can, and will, extrapolate and project, based on John reminding them of someone in real life, and based on him being an asshole and a lousy dad, but if Sam can forgive John so easily, there’s no WAY he could have been the kind of monster a lot of people have made him out to be in their headcanon.
We can speculate about what happened off-screen all we want, but canonically, Sam understands John’s reasons, doesn’t see him as a monster, and forgives him for the things he did wrong.
TL;DR:
Sam’s not the most forgiving guy.Okay, so Sam’s a fairly understanding guy, but still, if he can forgive John, I think that’s a pretty good indication that John was never as bad off-screen as he’s been made out to be, ‘cause I’m pretty sure even Sam would have had a hard time with that.
-cracks kuckles- let’s do this shit
First things first. I identify with John. I have no emotional vocabulary. Like I am genuinely awful at expressing myself verbally- I generally show I care about someone by doing. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve said I love you to and meant it. I get what it’s like to love someone so much and then lose them and not know what to do with yourself for, well, the rest of your life. But let’s put aside my personal feelings towards him and just look at his character.
John is one of the most human characters on the show. He fucks up, and he fucks up a lot and badly. He loves his kids and wife. Do they fight? Yes. Did he say things he probably didn’t mean? Also, yes. John does a lot of things no one would be proud of. He does leave his oldest son in charge of his youngest for days at a time. He tells his youngest son to not come back after he gets a full ride to Stanford. He avoids his kids instead of telling them what’s happening. But the thing is, he does it because he loves them.
John was terrified after Mary died. Everything he thought he knew in the world was suddenly different, and he still had these two little boys to take care of. Dean saw Mary on the ceiling and he had to explain to a four year old about the Supernatural. He suddenly had a baby to take care of. And the world wasn’t just crossing streets and stranger danger anymore- there were things that wanted to kill them.
He lets his anger get the better of him sometimes. He’s so scared, he spends years being terrified of what’s out there. When he put together the demon’s pattern, when he realized Sammy was one of the children he probably freaked out. Everything he had done to keep his kids safe, everything he had sacrificed was still for nothing, because of a deal his wife made (though we don’t know if he knew that). John felt like even then he couldn’t protect his kids.
Azazel was a Knight of Hell. From what I gather he was more or less running Hell. Azazel was so powerful holy water didn’t effect him. Basically he’s one of the most powerful demons ever. John overcame possession by him because his boys needed him to. He loved them that much.
At the end of season 1 they were not far from killing Azazel. John was not only about to get his revenge, but be able to protect Sam. When Meg started killing his friends he didn’t keep pressing it. He stopped hunting Azazel. Just stopped. Went to Nebraska to hand over their one weapon. It wasn’t the real one of course, but when push came to shove he did stop. And then he didn’t just stop, he made a deal with the thing that destroyed his family to save Dean.
He told Dean about Sam because he had no other choice. He had spent months if not years hiding it, precisely because he didn’t want to burden them. And then he spent 120 years in Hell and didn’t break. John was supposed to be the Righteous Man, except he was too good. He refused to torture anyone after over a century in the Pit and then he crawls out to save his boys.
Sam, especially, spent a long time being mad at John, but eventually he forgives him. So does Dean. I’m not going to sit here and try to argue that John was about to get any father of the year awards. But John was a man who lost everything, fought in Vietnam and still believed good existed in the world, and then spent his life fighting things that were never supposed to exist to protect his kids only to sacrifice himself for them.
John had secrets, secrets he maybe shouldn’t have kept. He fucked up a lot. But he loved his boys more than anything in the world, enough to climb out of Hell for them. He didn’t hold grudges against anything except the thing that killed his wife. He checked up on Sam. John Winchester wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t emotionally available, but neither am I and I don’t think that makes him a bad person and certainly not a bad father. Here’s a few more posts that are probably more articulate than I am (x,x)
People often get angry with John because in “Devil’s Trap”, Dean recognizes Azazel because he states he’s proud of Dean for using the Colt to save Sam. Dean thinks John would be furious, for wasting a bullet…
But the fandom fails to realize that this is just Dean’s opinion. And not at all factual.
Just a few episodes before the finale, John himself “wasted a bullet” saving Sam’s life. He shot Luther, the vampire, with the Colt. And in the season premiere of S2, he gave up the Colt entirely, to save Dean.
Dean may have thought his dad would be angry. But he was wrong.
sierranic-deactivated20140807:
“You gotta understand something. After your mother passed all I saw was evil, everywhere. And all I cared about was keeping you boys alive. I wanted you…prepared. Ready. Except somewhere along the line I ..uh…I stopped being your father and I….I became your drill sergeant. So when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone. Vulnerable.”
Every time I look on the John Winchester tag I see a shitload of hate. Why? Because basically can’t stand the character and try to make up facts to hate him. A normal person can’t even argue with these haters, because it’s like talking to a brick wall. They hide behind their (made up) facts and want to convince everyone from their opinion. For example there was never a proof that John beat his kids but they’re still convinced that he did. Of course, for them John was worse than Satan and everything bad that ever existed.
I personally can’t stand these people because they’re not even trying to understand the complexity of this character. That’s why I consider myself as “defender” because this character gets so much hate like no other character in the Supernatural universe.
You can’t tell me that John is worse than Metatron. If you think so, you can get right out of my face.
Every time I look on the John Winchester tag I see a shitload of hate. Why? Because basically can’t stand the character and try to make up facts to hate him. A normal person can’t even argue with these haters, because it’s like talking to a brick wall. They hide behind their (made up) facts and want to convince everyone from their opinion. For example there was never a proof that John beat his kids but they’re still convinced that he did. Of course, for them John was worse than Satan and everything bad that ever existed.
I personally can’t stand these people because they’re not even trying to understand the complexity of this character. That’s why I consider myself as “defender” because this character gets so much hate like no other character in the Supernatural universe.
You can’t tell me that John is worse than Metatron. If you think so, you can get right out of my face.
“John Winchester apologists” woah there friend, let me correct you on that one, we are ‘John Winchester fans’ just like 'Dean Winchester fans’, 'Sam Winchester fans’, 'Castiel fans’, 'Abaddon fans’, or is that what the fanbases are calling themselves now? Dean Winchester apologists? Sam Winchester apologists? Castiel apologists? Abaddon apologists? If so then I’ll roll with it, otherwise refer to us as 'fans’. thank
My friend was trying to tell me that John wasn’t that bad of a character and I got a little passionate…
Her: Sure he left them home A LOT but that was only when it was too dangerous to take them with him…
Me: He left them alone constantly, told them he’d be back whenever if he was still alive, gave them a time to wait and if he was still gone or didn’t call then he was dead. Didn’t even tell them why for the longest time. Then when he’s come home, he’d be blind ass drunk and beat the shit out of Dean. Idek if he hit Sam but I know he was verbally abusive a lot. Always made Dean feel like an idiot, trashed his self confidence like nothing else even though Dean is the smartest of the three. Street smart and book smart when it comes to inventing, building, and hunting, and being a good parent. John told Dean to kill Sam without telling him why and without giving Sam a chance to prove himself once he discovered why. The only thing he ever did to show he was a good person was he sold his soul to bring Dean back to life. That was it. Shit, Alazar or whatever the fuck his name was, Dean knew it was him instead if his dad because the fucking baddest demon of the time was too fucking nice to him! And it was so obviously different when Bobby came into the picture because you get to see Bobby talking to John about the boys and how John didn’t give a shit and Bobby was the one sitting there and convincing him to care about them and be a good father. And even then he still did a piss poor job, which is why Bobby stepped in. Fuck John Winchester. I’m glad he died.-eyeroll-
Sam specifically says back in the Max Miller episode they did NOT have a physically abusive dad. And then in the Bugs episode, Dean said they did not have a verbally abusive dad.You have zero proof that John trashed Dean’s self-confidence and not all of the things that came after John’s death. Stop. Also, John was smart enough to figure out how to track /demons/ by storm patterns, and Ash, the MIT college dropout, the person Dean went to for advice and smarts, was impressed by that. And Sam was smart enough to get a full ride to Stanford despite having had an evidently very erratic education. I don’t see how their smarts are comparable. They’re all brilliant men. Dean may have felt that his job was to focus on protecting Sam, saving people, and hunting things rather than getting an education, but that doesn’t mean John had as much to do with it as you seem to think.
(Also, who the fuck do you think taught Dean those street smarts? You think the man who apparently didn’t even let his kids hunt alone (evidenced from Sam’s disbelieving ‘Dad let you go on a hunt alone?’ to a twenty-six-year-old Dean in the pilot) would leave his oldest to just fend for himself on the streets? No!)
It was Azazel, and may I point out that while Dean didn’t believe that his Dad would have said he was proud of him IN THAT INSTANCE, he believed him unconditionally when John told him he loved him before John died? Dean wasted a bullet, he knew that, and he knew that it was important to his Dad and to Sam that they be able to kill the thing that killed Jess and Mary. I don’t see why this is so awful, especially because we thought it was funny when Kevin found out some demons were Sam and Dean when they were too nice—why is it different for John?
Right…him selling his soul for his son is the only thing he’s done to prove he was a good person. Him spending his entire life trying to protect his sons is obviously a dick move. Him speeding to the side of the woman he didn’t know he had left pregnant with Adam as soon as he found out is a dick move. Him giving Dean a car that meant a lot to him—I mean, it was the car he bought for him and Mary—was a dick move. Him staying under Alistair’s knife for a hundred years without picking up a knife of his own, wow, this guy was a total bastard. Oh, and him killing monsters that were threatening people—awful, AWFUL person that John Winchester.
In season one, Sam is obviously very unfamiliar with Bobby’s house. Same for Dean. Bobby was a weekend parent—like Pastor Jim, and Ellen, and all of the other people John knew he could leave his sons in the care of. Once John was dead, yeah, Bobby stepped in. Doesn’t mean he was involved in their childhood as much as you seem to think he was. Or that he was a good parent. “Suck it up, princess?” “Alcohol is the best medicine?” Bobby is another drunkard hunter and I don’t see any evidence that he was /better/ than John.
And just fyi? People don’t appreciate when you post hate in a character’s tag. You can think whatever the hell you want about John Winchester, but don’t post it in his tag.
John Winchester.
When a demon pretending to be John Winchester says “I’m proud of you” and Dean figures it out it’s not really his Dad, all haters assume automatically it is canon proof that John Winchester was abusive, distant and cold.
But when a demon pretending to be John Winchester says “You’re my boy. I love you” and Dean believes without any kind of doubt it is actually his father no one says it’s canon proof that John Winchester loved his sons and made sure they knew it.
Why?
Thought on the pilot episode
I think it seems pretty symbolic when Mary leaves the nursery, and John’s holding Dean and Mary asks, “You got him?” and John responds, “I’ve got him.” It’s the Winchester’s last moment together as a family. In hindsight, it’s almost like Mary is (unknowingly) passing-on the care of the boys solely to John. Just a thought. A tragic, tragic thought.
How can you judge John’s actions before canon? I don’t understand. Because him and Mary got into one fight that we actually know of? And we don’t even know the context of that fight?
Oh, because we assume John is an ass and Mary is the saint, it was all John’s fault, right?
Ok, fandom.