More this and that

[feliciakw]

A recent quote by Jeffrey Dean Morgan has touched off, once again, the flashpoint topic of "he was a good father John" vs. "he was an evil, abusive bastard John." I've seen both extremes argued, and it raises blood pressures and tempers, but what I see very little of is fans looking at the "trashing" of John from the same POV I see it in.

I'm sure you'll all be floored with surprise that I see in through the lens not of John as a character, but through the lens of Dean's character development. My "Dean lens" if you will. (Y'all are really surprised by that, aren't you.) So here is a (not so) quick run-down of how I see things. I'm posting this in my own journal so as to avoid drawn out arguments and debates. To that end, I'm not inviting argument or debate. This is a stance on which I've never seen anyone change their minds. So I'm just writing this out to get my own thoughts "on paper." I'm going to take it season by season.

Season 1 - Dean, previous to S1, idolized John, put a lot of stock into what John taught him, what John told him, everything John said or did. "Our dad is a superhero," he told Sam.

But in S1, we see Dean starting to question John's judgement and choices. He still admired him, to be sure, and he faithfully continued the work John set out for them, "saving people, hunting things," because Dean, in spite of his fall-back argument of "because Dad said so," saw the reasoning behind it--the importance of saving people, hunting things and saving other families from the tragedy that the Winchesters had suffered. One of my very favorite speeches from S1 is the speech in "Wendigo" where we hear that phrase for the first time.

So even though Dean still admires his father and still follows orders, he has, by the time we get to S1, started questioning John's choices. We hear that from the shapeshifter who has tapped into Dean's inner thoughts. We hear it in Dean's phone conversation with Sam in "Scarecrow." We hear it when the boys hook up again with John in "Dead Man's Blood." And we see Dean standing up for himself with John in "Salvation." And it is when Dean stands up to John that John realizes that Dean is not only his son, but a man in his own right.

Dean has gone from hero worship to questioning.

Season 2 - S2 is a time of intense questioning for Dean, because John has given Dean the directive to kill Sam if he can't save Sam. The "kill Sam" weighs incredibly on Dean, but that's not all Dean hears. Dean hears the "if you can't save him," which becomes the real challenge to Dean--save his brother. From what, neither Dean nor we really know. Dean goes through the season with this weight on him, doing the very best that he can to save his brother.*

*As an aside, I'll mention the conversation between Gordon and Dean in "Hunted." Gordon mocks Dean, asking Dean if he's not man enough to kill Sam as his father would have been. But it occurs to me, the rebuttal to Gordon's assertion is that John left the job up to Dean because John had the confidence that Dean could do something he himself could not--save Sam.*

Then at the end of S2, it is not the remaining Winchester son who is driven by raw revenge who gets to off YED; it is the remaining son who is driven to save people and protect his family that gets the honor. With the help of a father who loves his sons. The last look between father and sons speaks volumes of the father the boys rarely saw--pure love, pride, and acceptance. This was important for each of the boys, because they each felt that too often missing in their lives and expressed it in their own way--Dean through constantly trying to live up to his father's expectations, and Sam by rebelling and not even trying.

Season 3 - In S3, we get Dean's first acknowledgement to himself of his inner resentment toward everything his father put on him. It's harsh and raw and a wound that Dean has long ignored. It is his own moment of rebellion, of acknowledgement that things could have been different and that he himself did the best he could and that the way he was raised was not his fault.

It does not, however, negate the deep trust he has in his father, as is evidenced by his utter willingness to trust a voice on a phone that sounds exactly like and claims to be his father. This is what makes Dean's development so rich and real--both loving and resenting the man who helped shape him.

Season 4 & 5 - These seasons continue with Dean living with the resentment of his father as distant, whether geographically or emotionally. He has the opportunity to meet his father as a young man, before the demon changed their lives forever. He also has enough perspective now to acknowledge the fact that his father was flawed.

Season 6 - In S6, we see that Dean has finally reached a balance between loving and admiring John as his father and accepting John's faults as a man. He holds onto and values the lessons John taught him of family while resisting emulating John's obsessiveness and paranoia.

Season 7 - What I've seen in S7 is simple acceptance of the way things were. In the end, it is what it is, and Dean has both his father's strengths to hold onto and his father's mistakes to learn from.

I've written about all of this before, and I don't expect that any amount of debate will allow either side to accept the other more readily. It's just that for me, it's "all about Dean," the good, the bad, and everything in between.


Went to a jewelry party last night. This is not your average home party plan jewelry party. This jewelry is all unique and handmade by my former boss's best friend. No two pieces are alike. I bought a garnet piece several years ago, and it's one of my go-to pieces that I absolutely love. Last night I bought a strand of multi-colored pearls and an "energy" piece (for lack of a better name), pearl with a swirling ceramic pendant.

I'm hoping that the next time Former Boss has such a party, that there will be a piece such that I described to Jewelry Maker.


One of my favorite colors is green. Not just any green, but crystal green, glass green, clear water green. I describe it this way: the color of green that you see at Niagara Falls, as you stand at the precipice and watch the water cascade over the edge. That beautiful, clear, crystal green that cannot be captured, and yet I continue to try. The green of sea glass. Light or dark, aqua or emerald. The green of aquamarine or the green of a Mondoro bottle or the green of handblown glass. It's beautiful, and I'm always looking for it, but I know the only place I'll really find its liquid kinetic beauty is at the Falls.



(Luckily, there was no garnet there last night, as my eye is often drawn to that first. I love garnet for reasons that would require a separate post.)


It's a gorgeous day today. And here it is, 2:00pm, and I've frittered away so much of the day that I'm still in my pj's.

Oy.