Today's blog is brought to you by the letter: Dean Winchester.

[lemanya]

I had been meaning, for a very long while, to do some kind of meta on Dean, ever since 4.16 came around. But I never quite knew how to go about it, mostly because Dean and his fucked up feelings have been discussed so often in the past. And then I had a (rather fantastic) discussion with no_ones_sleep about Dean (with a side of Sam) in the comments of my 6.16 post and realised it was everything I'd wanted to say. So I'm reposting it here (edited, of course, because there was a lot of other talk that went on as well- AND I had a sticky keyboard that day and there were a lot of embarrassing typos made).

So! All italicised indented parts are no_ones_sleep 's comments.

 

I’ll stick with the second option you offered as to why Dean lacked emotions after killing his cousin- there was work to be done, and Dean is always one to do what has to be done. That’s what I love about him- he can be really cruel in that sense, but it is out of necessity. And when it all is done, his feelings burst out in- what did he say?- sudden flashes of anger and alcohol abuse… I wouldn’t love Dean so much if he was just too stupid to care. He knows exactly what he does (and sometimes even why he does it )... And maybe that makes Dean the (slightly!) better hunter.

I would certainly agree, to a extent. Dean learnt from a very early age to sacrifice things for his family, and part of doing that is the need to turn off his emotions for the good of the job. I honestly don't believe he perceives emotions as a weakness (like he appears to every time he mocks Sam for his chick flick moments), I think he just believes there is a time and a place for all the heartfelt stuff, and it's not in the middle of hunting. He needs to not be distracted by his emotions or he runs the risk of missing something, and it could mean life or death for Sam (or anyone else he's hunting with/cares about).

Sam, on the otherhand, is much more open with his feelings, and this is probably because he's alwas had Dean there to look out for him- Sam's never needed to harden up and sacrifice in the way that Dean has. And it's this that lets him down as a hunter. In the earlier seasons, Dean was always in front, taking point and keeping Sam as safe as he could- unless Sam hunted a little by himself, he didn't develop his skills to the same degree that dean would have. Note that when Dean went to hell, and Sam started training with Ruby, he was only able to become a hunter when he shut off the emotional part of himself. He learnt what too much emotion on a job could mean- it's a distraction, and one that nearly cost him his life several times. We've seen Ruby stepping in and finishing the job because Sam couldn't separate his grief from the moment.

Also, while he provides a valuable point of reasoning and morals to counter Dean's shoot-first-questions-later approach (though not so much in recent seasons) Sam doesn't see hunting in the way that Dean does. Even though he no longer sees it as a chore, I don't believe he sees it as his life. While I do think he's given up on Standford and normality, hunting is the way that he can be with his brother, who is his life, and he knows he's good at hunting, so he's content to stay with it.

But it is Sam's soul that makes all the difference. Just seeing how much he had hardened at the beginning of season 4 is enough to say he's a fantastic hunter, knowing how he hunted at the beginning of season six was downright formidable and scary. Makes you wonder what Dean would be like without a soul. *shivers*

I don´t know if you like one of the boys better...
 
 

I admit I'm a Dean girl, but I recognise that ultimately they come as a unit, practically entwined with each other, and Dean wouldn't be Dean without Sam, and Sam wouldn't be Sam without Dean, so yeah.

But anyway.
 

...but I would like to hear what you think about Dean being broken? Is he? And what does that mean to you? The episode that upset me in ways I cannot describe is “My bloody Valentine”, when Famine explains that Dean is already dead...But he still goes on, and now in S6 he is changed again, not healed, but with rejuvenated inner strength...But what does this “brokenness” mean, how does it affect him- or isn´t he broken?

I think he was, but he isn't anymore. I think, and this is particularly concerned with season five and My Bloody Valentine (and so on), that he felt like he was at the end of everything. He's lost his mother, lost his father, lost his brother, been to Hell, he's socially isolated and never saw himself as anything important (which can be attributed to many things, but mainly, I believe, his life as a hunter, because it requires him to be in the background, and he can't get the kind of social validation and sense of being needed that humans strive for) and here he is suddenly pulled from Hell on the orders of God, and they've told him that he's going to win the apocalypse. The angels told him that Sam, the only person who ever saw Dean as something more, and the only person to love him unconditionally (with I suppose, the exception of John)- that Sam is public enemy number one and needs to be left behind. Dean says it himself in season two- his most important job is to keep Sam safe.

I think by the time My Blood Valentine rolled around, Dean was tired and depressed. He broke the first seal and started the apocalypse, he's having trouble building his relationship with Sam back up, Michael and the rest of heaven are after him, the deadline of Detroit is coming closer (where he knows he'll lose Sam- most likely forever) and he's only one little human. But I don't believe that he was dead inside, as Famine suggested. I think he believed he was dead inside. The fact that he kept fighting says it all. He knows that if he tries to kill himself, the angels will just bring him back, but still, he didn't take himself out of the game, didn't try to disappear, which owuldnt hav been all that hard for him. He kept fighting, alongside his brother, and hoping that he could fix things with Sam. I think by that stage, what he gave up on was the apocalypse and the possibility of winning it, gave up on everything but the chance to make peace with Sam before he loses him to Lucifer. And I think this is why Famine couldn't touch him. Dean honestly didn't care about anything else. And what he did care about, he cared about so strongly it was immune to Famine- which is slightly grabbing at straws, I know, but it wouldn't be completely beyond reason. Also, it's a bit of an abstract concept, and I'm not sure that Famine could touch something like that, not like he could feed off Sam's addiction or the sexual gratifcation of the couple at the beginning of the episode. So Famine used the "dead" line in an attempt to mess with Dean, get inside his head and stir up all those thoughts and keep Dean occupied by wallowing in his own misery. Because at that point, with no drive to distract Dean with, Dean was the only person in the room who could attack Famine. Yes, I think Famine was referring to real feelings (or no feelings) that Dean had, but no, I don't believe Dean was "dead" in the way that Famine was saying.

I believe that Dean was most afraid of not making peace with Sam before Detroit. The end of season five was all about Dean saying "I'm sorry, please forgive me, know that I love you" in the only way he knew how, by trusting Sam, and giving Sam that trust, even knowing he would most likely lose him. And when that happened, Dean healed a little bit, could forgive himself. Even with the despair and loss he must have felt at Sam jumping into the cage, he managed to achieve his peace with Sam. And that went a long way in helping his decision to keep living and go back to Lisa. I think, if Dean was truly as broken and depressed as everyone was saying he was, a promise to Sam would not have been enough to stop him from committing suicide. He lost everything with Sam, he lost the last of who he was into Lucifer's cage- the only way he could have survived that was through that little bit of healing he underwent, particularly in the final few episodes of season five. Because in those talks with Sam, working things out, he was able to get back some of what he lost over the course of seasons four and five.

And furthermore, I think his time with Lisa and Ben helped that continue. Being in a situation where he was important for the little reasons and being loved without needing to prove himself allowed him to build back some of that confidence and self-worth that he lost. Lisa and Ben didn't require anything more than he be there for them. A relationship like that is one of the basic needs in human survival. I agree that he didn't heal completely, and unless he has a life like he did with Lisa AND has Sam and hunting, he'll never be a complete and psychologically satisfied person. But he did become stronger, not just emotionally from the trauma that was the apocalypse, but stronger in general, particularly mentally. He was ready to go back to the isolation of the hunting world, because he knows now that there's more to life (and more to his life) than what he had before. He's learnt how to take loss and work with it, keep going despite it, whereas before it consumed him and taunted his sense of self worth and importance.

And finally, I think he missed hunting. It's the one thing he knows he can do, and it's all he's had in his life. His father, his brother, the hunt. Everything else came and went, including Lisa and Ben. Yes, he does use it to escape things, but I don't think that's why he went back to it. After all, he did tell Sam at the beginning of season six that he didn't want to hunt anymore because he liked the life he had with Lisa and Ben. If he was running from that 'normal' life, we never would have seen Lisa and Ben past episode one, and we certainly would not have seen that whole family speech of Ben's in Mannequin 3: The Reckoning, because that just drills home the point that they weren't keeping Dean around for protection, or any other reason other than they loved him. But I think he likes the adrenaline of hunting. And besides, we know he's smart, so the challenge grabs his attention- how to approach it, which strategies to use. And regardless of his lack of self worth, there's still a pride achieved at the end of a successful hunt, knowing you've saved lives and are acting as the protectors of humanity. Even if Dean feels that's all he has to define himself by (that and Sam), it's a pretty powerful definition.

 

Comments

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Part of what this essay makes me think about is the differing degrees that Hunters can be said to "enjoy Hunting."

It seems that most Hunters have a story about what happened to them that turned them into Hunters. Dean and Sam have a unique perspective in that, unlike other Campbells, they were not part of a big Hunting family, because John didn't join the network (or maybe partially because the Campbells shunned them in return for Mary shunning them). I also think that John deliberately meant to keep his boys away from Hunters in general.

We have Dean's own testimony that "saving people, Hunting things" gave him a sense that he was set apart from other people, and that it was hard but worth-while work -- while Sam being younger, was kept out of it for longer and so he could only see Hunting as something that his father had dragged Dean into -- he wanted them to be safe instead of heroes.

For me, what makes Dean so interesting is his development as he recognizes the moral ambiguities of being a Hunter. He was raised to kill monsters without questions, but as we get to know him, he begins to realize that the definition of monster is very, very slippery. Even a demon, the lowest of the low, is something he himself became and was only saved by divine intervention. He watched his brother deliberately drink demon blood to activate demonic power inside himself -- and while his gut instinct told him it was wrong, he couldn't come up with a strong argument as to why, when so much depended on the power Sam was able to access.

Sam, to me, developed into a magnificent example of the Byronic hero -- a superior man set apart and cursed by his very superiority. The powers he is given take a heavy toll! yet, how can he sit by without using them??? This kind of moral quandary is riveting to me.

I also liked soulless Sam for his intellectual acuity and his prowess as he honed himself into the ultimate hunting machine. But the problem of moral ambiguity was totally absent for him --so that killing innocent people in the line of duty was nothing more than regrettable -- and he never went the extra mile to try to save anyone. That, to me, defines the difference between Hunters and the monsters they fight -- they struggle to make the most moral choice is every situation, while monsters give in to their own monstrous urges. For Dean to regard himself as "just a killer" is to disregard his own highly developed moral compass that tells him when killing is justified and when it isn't. Maybe it's perfectly obvious or maybe it's very subtle, but that to me has been the message of s6 so far.

So... for Dean, when he meets Famine -- his overarching hunger is, and has always been, two fold - to save and protect Sam, and to save people by Hunting things. So Famine has no power over him. The episode didn't really get me, because Dean is so very far from Dead Inside. In s4, he was healing from an incomprehensible ordeal, and in s5, he was dealing with the gap left between Sam and him -- but he was never dead.

And for Sam, now that he's himself again, what a difference a soul makes! He feels his own culpability -- but his desire to make amends proves his worth.

This Show just continues to astound me with the ways it challenges and grows these two characters. Yay Show!!

[lemanya.livejournal.com]

I was going to reply on every point, and then realised all I would be saying was "yes, THIS, EXACTLY" over and over again. So here's a blanket summary:

YES. THIS EXACTLY.

I agree with everything you said here, and I honestly don't have anything to add to it. Thank you :)

Although, I do think that John never hooked up with the Campbell's because he never knew they existed. We never found out if John ever found out about Mary's past, and though the hunting community isn't a majority, it seems big enough that John might never have run into them- and if he did, they hardly would have sat around talking about their families. But I do think agree that John might have deliberately kept the boys separated from most hunters- they really do come across as a cold and assholey bunch of people, and I do think that John wanted to foster that close-knit trust-and-depend-on-family-only thing he had going.

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

I aagree with your view on the bit of healing that occured between the boys at the end of season 5, that that carried Dean through the early weeks with Lisa and Ben, and that, even though he missed Sam terribly, Lisa's love and acceptance of him as a whole package went a long way toward repairing his sadly broken sense of self-worth.

It is telling to me, however, that when Veritas asks him for the truth, after being with soullessSam for a while, Dean has reclassified himself as nothing more than a killer. Again, he values himself from the way others see him more than having his own sense of self, and to soullessSam that's what Dean was good for, even inferior to Sam.

Thanks for all the thinky thoughts--I feel we could peel Dean like an onion forever and still find layers within. And I love his character's depths and flaws!

[lemanya.livejournal.com]

It is telling to me, however, that when Veritas asks him for the truth, after being with soullessSam for a while, Dean has reclassified himself as nothing more than a killer.
I forgot about this. You're right. But I do think that it's attributed more to the nature of hunting- they face so much darkness on a daily basis, I can imagine the lines would blur as to where they stand on the 'monster' scale. It would be fascinating to see the kind of character Dean (and Sam) would be if they had never been exposed to the Supernatural world (though we wouldn't have a show then, and if we did, it'd be boring and generic). Still.

You're welcome! He really is a most astounding character.

[tabaqui]

I find that i agree with everything you've said here. Thoughtful Dean!meta is so nice to read. He's changed so much and been through so much since the pilot, and i think he's finally settling into being happy with his life and himself.

*here from the newsletter*

[lemanya.livejournal.com]

It's so wonderful to see people agree- I always think that maybe I'm just seeing things that others don't. Even if it's only a few details.

It's amazing to see how far Dean's come, despite all the hardships he's faced along the way. I think it's one of the reasons he's such a strong character in television, he's just constantly developing.

[no-ones-sleep.livejournal.com]

O dear, you are really awesome! I´m so sorry for being so late to reply, I am stuck in the middle of real life. I was so happy when I saw you added me as a friend (feels close to like being honored :-)), and I promise to be a better friend soon.

And you know what- I did exactly what you did here, I put our thoughts together and put them into my (private) diary! :-) Since we´ve talked, my view on Dean has shifted slightly, I see him now as a more grounded adult and not so much as the sociopath anymore. (He is still crazy as hell, but his madness has a reason and always an intention...)

I´ll get back to you as soon as possible as I know now what my subconsciousness has been meaning to tell me. *hugs*