Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Chapter 2 - On John the Man
One of the basic tenants of Family Systems Theory is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that the family cannot be fully appreciated by simply examining each of its individual members. Instead, in one sense, a family is its own living, breathing organism. It grows and changes, but is governed by rules over behavior and feedback mechanisms about compliance with those rules that give the family continuity over time.
As such, John is as much a creature of his circumstance as he is the driver of events.
I don't really know what direction the Family Winchester would have taken if the Yellow-Eyed Demon hadn't set his sights on Mary Campbell and her future son. The Winchesters in the alternate universe that the Djinn's influence produced in Dean were never faced with the sudden traumatic loss of its members, so perhaps perhaps it would have grown into the distant constellation of members off living their own lives by themselves that we saw in What Is and What Shall Never Be.
Instead, in "reality," both Mary and John had to cope with the sudden, violent death of the person they loved the most. These were defining moments in the family's life that set the family off on a completely different developmental path and so set the stage for much of who Dean and Sam are and how they relate to one another.
Supernatural Pieta, In the Beginning
John's horror, Pilot
John Winchester weathered what is widely recognized as a pretty horrific war, the Vietnam Conflict, and yet upon his return home he was described by Mary as "sweet, kind… even after everything, after the war, he still believes in happily ever after." I wonder how much he was able to compartmentalize the horror what he experienced in Vietnam. It was "over there," and "over here" was safe and he could put all his fears, hardened outlook, and hypervigilance behind him. Mary's death, then, must have blown apart that boundary between "there" and "here." No place was safe.
My take on him is that John's fears for his family drove him. The world could no longer be counted on to be reasonably safe. After his loss of Mary, he could not tolerate the idea of losing his sons and he had reason to believe that his family was under threat.
So, when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was that you were going be alone, vulnerable.
Dead Man's Blood
December 4, 1983
Last night I was sitting in Sam and Dean's room, in the dark, and I heard these noises...Mike said it was the wind, and okay, maybe it was, but it sounded almost like whispering, like someone was whispering a name under their breath again and again...Like something is out there in the dark, watching us...I stayed up all night, just watching them, protecting them. From what, I don't know. Am I protecting them? Am I hurting them? I haven't let them out of my sight since the fire.
December 11, 1983
Here's the weird part. When I wake up, sweating and panting...I swear there is something there. I can feel it, hovering over me, over my boys. It's watching, it's waiting, I think it's even mocking me...You couldn't stop this. You couldn't keep her safe. You can't keep them safe.
courtesy of slyprentice
And then there's guilt. John was a man of action. He made things happen. Like Dean, John is no armchair philosopher living in the world of his thoughts. He lived "in the world." He fought and survived a war. I don't doubt that seeing his wife murdered in front of him brought out a sense of guilt in him, if not guilt over his "inadequacies," then a sense of survivor guilt.
My father was an obsessed bastard! All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam? That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He's the one who let Mom die, who wasn't there for Sam. I always was.
Dream a Little Dream of Me
November 30, 1983
It's 4AM and I can't fall back asleep. I wake up to the smallest noise now, or maybe it wasn't a noise. It's like my sense are tweaked and I can't shut them off. Everything lately feels like these instances when you remember a dream a few days after had it, but then you can't remember if it was a dream or if it actually happened? I keep going over that night in my head...why did I ever get out of bed? I'm so sorry, Mary, I'm so sorry I let this happen to you. Can you ever forgive me? What can I do to get rid of this pain?
courtesy of slyprentice
The events of In the Beginning, reawakened my curiosity about how much John knew and when he knew it.
DEAN: Well, you sure know something.
In My Time of Dying
The clues we had prior to Season 4 about how much John knew and when were maddeningly vague.
MISSOURI: That boy, he has such powerful abilities, but why he couldn’t sense his own father, I have no idea.
JOHN: Mary’s spirit, do you really think she saved the boys?
MISSOURI: I do. John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why won’t you go talk to your children?
JOHN: I want to. You have no idea how much I want to see them. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I know the truth.
Home
JOHN: So, this is it. This is everything I know. Look, our whole lives we’ve been searching for this demon, right? And not a trace, just nothing, until about a year ago. For the first time, I picked up a trail.
Salvation
AZAEZEL: You know the truth, right? About Sammy and the other children?
JOHN: Yeah. I’ve known for a while.
AZAEZEL: But Sam doesn’t, does he? You’ve been playing dumb.
In My Time of Dying
The best I could figure on Season 1 and 2's evidence is that the latest point at which John knew the thing that killed Mary was a demon was while Sam was at Stanford. When did he figure out that Sam was involved in something to do with the Yellow-Eyed Demon? "A while" before the events of In My Time of Dying. (*facepalm* Dangit, John, I'm beginning to completely empathize with your sons' frustration with your need to know assessment of things.) At that point, who knew how much earlier in Dean and Sam's life he had been putting the chain of evidence together.
And then we had the events of In the Beginning.
DEAN: My dad wrote down anyone he thought ever came in contact with the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Who, where, and when… 'Cause the more he could learn about the sonofabitch, the more he could learn about why he killed my mom. Look! Whitshire farm. I told you that name sounded familiar… Look at this. Says he's going to hit here tomorrow night.
SAMUEL: Liddy Walsh?
DEAN: Haleyville. That's close
In the Beginning
At some point prior to leaving the journal for Dean to find during the events of the Pilot, John knew the Yellow-Eyed Demon was in the Lawrence area on the very day Mary's parents were killed and he has a period of time that he cannot recall just after Mary's father pulled her from the Impala and John laid hands on him. How did Mary account for her father's death and just what did John think of the events when he looked back on them after learning about the Yellow-Eyed Demon?
This was a man who used statistical modeling to predict the Yellow-Eyed Demon's visit based on weather patterns and cattle mutilations. He went back and ran the calculations for the time periods around Jess' and Mary's deaths. He's very good at seeing patterns in disparate pieces of data and using new information to rework his perception of older, known events. How easy would it have been to connect the dots, to conclude that it was quite possible that Yellow-Eyed Demon was involved in Mary's parents' death.
Wouldn't John, then, have figured out that that black-hole in his memory was related to the events surrounding it, and what that possibly implied? Surely it crossed his mind that Samuel Campbell had been possessed. That knife wound wouldn't have looked too fresh on Samuel, after all. And from there, how easy is it to conclude that The Yellow-Eyed Demon had killed John and Mary made the deal to bring him back.
If John was able to make those connections, can you imagine the survivor guilt?
BOBBY: What is it with you Winchesters, huh? You, your dad, you're both just itching to throw yourselves down the pit.
DEAN: That's my point. Dad brought me back, Bobby. I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way, maybe something good can come out of it, you know? My life could mean something.
All Hell Breaks Loose 2
If John concluded that Mary sold her life in exchange for his own, wouldn't that explain the ferocity of his desire for vengeance? If John's desire for vengeance was fueled by survivor guilt, doesn't that echo Dean's survivor guilt in a haunting fashion and bring the ferocity of Sam's desire for Lilith's head on a platter into even more parallel with his father's life choices?
Regardless, even if John didn't figure out about the Yellow-Eyed Demon and his work toward some mysterious end-game while Sam was young, he would have known from the beginning that something Evil had visited Sam's nursery. Even if Mary was the one who died, surely it occurred to John early on that that Evil Thing may have had designs on his son, as well.
Although we don't have direct evidence of this, that John knew that Sam was linked to whatever Evil Thing killed Mary, I really have to wonder what motivated John to keep Sam and Dean so far away from the hunting world and if the two things were related. It seems John mingled with other hunters. I have to wonder if he kept Dean and Sam separate from the hunting world because of concerns about what hunters would make of Sam.
GORDON: Sam and Dean Winchester! I can’t believe it. You know, I met your old man once, hell of a guy, great hunter. I heard he passed. I’m sorry. It’s big shoes, but, from what I hear, you guys fill them, great trackers, good in a tight spot.
DEAN: You seem to know a lot about our family.
GORDON: Well, word travels fast. You know how hunters talk.
DEAN: No, we don’t, actually.
GORDON: I guess there’s a lot your dad never told you, huh?
Bloodlust
But regardless, if nothing else, here we have a father who likely had, early on in his young son's life, figured out that something supernaturally evil was seeking out or somehow associated with Sam. He'd already lost his wife to it, and I can see how the idea that it might later affect Sam would terrify John.
Something Wicked
{C}
{C}
John's been accused of many people of being a vengeful sonofabitch. Was he? He certainly was a cagey bastard. He kept a lot of information about his fears for Sam close to his chest. The people around him were missing an important piece of information, the lack of which would seriously distort their understanding of what was driving John. Was the desire to protect as much a motivator for John's mission to destroy the thing that killed his wife, the fact that it might be waiting out there for Sam?
Sammy! It’s still alive. It’s inside me. I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son! Do it, now!
Devil's Trap
Aren’t you going to do anything? Aren’t you even going to say anything? I’ve done everything you have ever asked me. Everything. I’ve given everything I’ve ever had. And now you’re just going to sit there, and you’re going to watch me die? I mean, what the hell kind of father are you?
In My Time of Dying
I have a feeling that John would go to any lengths to protect his sons, both of them.
(In an aside: If we're seeing all kinds of parallels between John and Sam of Season 4, then doesn't this beg the question that maybe Sam's desire to find Lilith has more motivating it than vengeance?)
Coping with Loss, Fear and Guilt - The John Winchester Way
There are a lot ways that John could have responded to Mary's death. Max's father is an example of one such alternative.
MAX: He blamed me for everything, for his job, for his life, for my mom’s death.
SAM: Why would he blame you for your mom’s death?
MAX: Because she died in my nursery, while I was asleep in my crib. As if that makes it my fault.
SAM: She died in your nursery?
MAX: Yeah, there was a fire, and he’d get drunk and babble on like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up, pinned to the ceiling.
Nightmare
Fear and guilt have a way of leading to an increased need for control often in the pursuit of a cognitive sense of control achieved through hypervigilance or blaming something that you can control, and/or actions in attempt to actually influence events around you. (A cognitive sense of control basically translates into the perception that you have control over something. You may not actually have control, but you feel like you do.) In Max's father's case, he seemed to have gained a sense of cognitive control by projecting all the guilt onto his son, numbing himself with alcohol, and then beating the heck out of the kid to keep Max within this tightly-drawn box. As long as it was all Max's fault and his father kept Max this creature that was afraid to follow one breath with another, he could probably feel in control.
John, however, was a different man. As tender as he is with Mary in In The Beginning and willing to fight for her, I wonder if his love for his sons and what they represent of Mary translated into a desire to fight for her and them. The question then is, how does one fight?
Fear and Guilt don't paralyze John Winchester, John Winchester fakes Fear and Guilt out with a ringer for The Colt and a $1.35 plastic rosary.
Salvation
December 8, 1983
My sons need me...and my wife's investigation needs me. These two things are all that matter to me now. I've been canvassing the neighborhood, asking questions...I swear a lot of the people conveniently aren't there when I knock. Maybe they don't want to face a grieving widow...or the man they think killed his wife.
A fire doesn't just start. I'm convinced now that someone was in my house that night. It's the only way any of this even start to make sense. I started digging around at the library. I'm collecting old police files, going through microfiche...looking for any fires, arsons, with similar MOs. I'm gonna find this guy, and when I do...God forgive me...
courtesy of slyprentice
John is a man of action. After Mary's death, he chose to take action, to make changes in his life and himself in order to avenge his wife and protect his sons. I don't doubt John's grief for Mary and feelings of guilt/inadequacy in his inability to prevent it shaped who he was as a father. The tasks that he took on included making the family into something that could endure under these new circumstances in which he found himself. If life wasn't going to be safe, then he was damned and determined to make sure he and his sons were up for dealing with it.
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.
Dead Man's Blood
I would argue that, after Mary's death, John not only trained his sons in the overt skills of hunting, but he created a family life that was exquisitely adapted to survive in an unpredictable and hostile world that was specifically targeting his family. He created a family that was:
1) characterized by a relatively impermeable boundary around the three remaining members.
2) was run by rules that demanded a high degree of cohesion (enmeshment) between its members and were very rigidly applied.
3) imbued with the following core values: "Reject all things supernatural" and "Keep Sam Safe."
~*~
And on to Chapter 3: On John the Father
~*~
Chapter 1: On the Siren's Call
Chapter 2: On John the Man
Chapter 3: On John the Father
~*~
Chapter 4: On Dean - The Motherless Child
Chapter 5: On Dean the Heart of the Family
~*~
Chapter 6: On Sam - Born of Love and Loss
Chapter 7: On Sam in the Box
Chapter 8: On Sam out of the Box
Chapter 9 : On Sam Captive on a Carousel of Time
Chapter 10: On Sam Power Can Be Taken, But Not Given
Chapter 11: On Sam From Here Forward
Chapter 12: On Sam Out of the Box Redux
~*~
Chapter 13: On SamnDean Putting Away Childish Things
Chapter 14: On SamnDean Triangles are a Demon's Best Friend
Chapter 15: On SamnDean Stop the Carousel I Want to Get Off
~*~
credit goes to
oxoniensis and marishna of summerskin for the screencaps
As such, John is as much a creature of his circumstance as he is the driver of events.
I don't really know what direction the Family Winchester would have taken if the Yellow-Eyed Demon hadn't set his sights on Mary Campbell and her future son. The Winchesters in the alternate universe that the Djinn's influence produced in Dean were never faced with the sudden traumatic loss of its members, so perhaps perhaps it would have grown into the distant constellation of members off living their own lives by themselves that we saw in What Is and What Shall Never Be.
Instead, in "reality," both Mary and John had to cope with the sudden, violent death of the person they loved the most. These were defining moments in the family's life that set the family off on a completely different developmental path and so set the stage for much of who Dean and Sam are and how they relate to one another.
Supernatural Pieta, In the Beginning
John's horror, Pilot
John Winchester weathered what is widely recognized as a pretty horrific war, the Vietnam Conflict, and yet upon his return home he was described by Mary as "sweet, kind… even after everything, after the war, he still believes in happily ever after." I wonder how much he was able to compartmentalize the horror what he experienced in Vietnam. It was "over there," and "over here" was safe and he could put all his fears, hardened outlook, and hypervigilance behind him. Mary's death, then, must have blown apart that boundary between "there" and "here." No place was safe.
My take on him is that John's fears for his family drove him. The world could no longer be counted on to be reasonably safe. After his loss of Mary, he could not tolerate the idea of losing his sons and he had reason to believe that his family was under threat.
So, when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was that you were going be alone, vulnerable.
Dead Man's Blood
December 4, 1983
Last night I was sitting in Sam and Dean's room, in the dark, and I heard these noises...Mike said it was the wind, and okay, maybe it was, but it sounded almost like whispering, like someone was whispering a name under their breath again and again...Like something is out there in the dark, watching us...I stayed up all night, just watching them, protecting them. From what, I don't know. Am I protecting them? Am I hurting them? I haven't let them out of my sight since the fire.
December 11, 1983
Here's the weird part. When I wake up, sweating and panting...I swear there is something there. I can feel it, hovering over me, over my boys. It's watching, it's waiting, I think it's even mocking me...You couldn't stop this. You couldn't keep her safe. You can't keep them safe.
courtesy of slyprentice
And then there's guilt. John was a man of action. He made things happen. Like Dean, John is no armchair philosopher living in the world of his thoughts. He lived "in the world." He fought and survived a war. I don't doubt that seeing his wife murdered in front of him brought out a sense of guilt in him, if not guilt over his "inadequacies," then a sense of survivor guilt.
My father was an obsessed bastard! All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam? That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He's the one who let Mom die, who wasn't there for Sam. I always was.
Dream a Little Dream of Me
November 30, 1983
It's 4AM and I can't fall back asleep. I wake up to the smallest noise now, or maybe it wasn't a noise. It's like my sense are tweaked and I can't shut them off. Everything lately feels like these instances when you remember a dream a few days after had it, but then you can't remember if it was a dream or if it actually happened? I keep going over that night in my head...why did I ever get out of bed? I'm so sorry, Mary, I'm so sorry I let this happen to you. Can you ever forgive me? What can I do to get rid of this pain?
courtesy of slyprentice
The events of In the Beginning, reawakened my curiosity about how much John knew and when he knew it.
DEAN: Well, you sure know something.
In My Time of Dying
The clues we had prior to Season 4 about how much John knew and when were maddeningly vague.
MISSOURI: That boy, he has such powerful abilities, but why he couldn’t sense his own father, I have no idea.
JOHN: Mary’s spirit, do you really think she saved the boys?
MISSOURI: I do. John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why won’t you go talk to your children?
JOHN: I want to. You have no idea how much I want to see them. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I know the truth.
Home
JOHN: So, this is it. This is everything I know. Look, our whole lives we’ve been searching for this demon, right? And not a trace, just nothing, until about a year ago. For the first time, I picked up a trail.
Salvation
AZAEZEL: You know the truth, right? About Sammy and the other children?
JOHN: Yeah. I’ve known for a while.
AZAEZEL: But Sam doesn’t, does he? You’ve been playing dumb.
In My Time of Dying
The best I could figure on Season 1 and 2's evidence is that the latest point at which John knew the thing that killed Mary was a demon was while Sam was at Stanford. When did he figure out that Sam was involved in something to do with the Yellow-Eyed Demon? "A while" before the events of In My Time of Dying. (*facepalm* Dangit, John, I'm beginning to completely empathize with your sons' frustration with your need to know assessment of things.) At that point, who knew how much earlier in Dean and Sam's life he had been putting the chain of evidence together.
And then we had the events of In the Beginning.
DEAN: My dad wrote down anyone he thought ever came in contact with the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Who, where, and when… 'Cause the more he could learn about the sonofabitch, the more he could learn about why he killed my mom. Look! Whitshire farm. I told you that name sounded familiar… Look at this. Says he's going to hit here tomorrow night.
SAMUEL: Liddy Walsh?
DEAN: Haleyville. That's close
In the Beginning
At some point prior to leaving the journal for Dean to find during the events of the Pilot, John knew the Yellow-Eyed Demon was in the Lawrence area on the very day Mary's parents were killed and he has a period of time that he cannot recall just after Mary's father pulled her from the Impala and John laid hands on him. How did Mary account for her father's death and just what did John think of the events when he looked back on them after learning about the Yellow-Eyed Demon?
This was a man who used statistical modeling to predict the Yellow-Eyed Demon's visit based on weather patterns and cattle mutilations. He went back and ran the calculations for the time periods around Jess' and Mary's deaths. He's very good at seeing patterns in disparate pieces of data and using new information to rework his perception of older, known events. How easy would it have been to connect the dots, to conclude that it was quite possible that Yellow-Eyed Demon was involved in Mary's parents' death.
Wouldn't John, then, have figured out that that black-hole in his memory was related to the events surrounding it, and what that possibly implied? Surely it crossed his mind that Samuel Campbell had been possessed. That knife wound wouldn't have looked too fresh on Samuel, after all. And from there, how easy is it to conclude that The Yellow-Eyed Demon had killed John and Mary made the deal to bring him back.
If John was able to make those connections, can you imagine the survivor guilt?
BOBBY: What is it with you Winchesters, huh? You, your dad, you're both just itching to throw yourselves down the pit.
DEAN: That's my point. Dad brought me back, Bobby. I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way, maybe something good can come out of it, you know? My life could mean something.
All Hell Breaks Loose 2
If John concluded that Mary sold her life in exchange for his own, wouldn't that explain the ferocity of his desire for vengeance? If John's desire for vengeance was fueled by survivor guilt, doesn't that echo Dean's survivor guilt in a haunting fashion and bring the ferocity of Sam's desire for Lilith's head on a platter into even more parallel with his father's life choices?
Regardless, even if John didn't figure out about the Yellow-Eyed Demon and his work toward some mysterious end-game while Sam was young, he would have known from the beginning that something Evil had visited Sam's nursery. Even if Mary was the one who died, surely it occurred to John early on that that Evil Thing may have had designs on his son, as well.
Although we don't have direct evidence of this, that John knew that Sam was linked to whatever Evil Thing killed Mary, I really have to wonder what motivated John to keep Sam and Dean so far away from the hunting world and if the two things were related. It seems John mingled with other hunters. I have to wonder if he kept Dean and Sam separate from the hunting world because of concerns about what hunters would make of Sam.
GORDON: Sam and Dean Winchester! I can’t believe it. You know, I met your old man once, hell of a guy, great hunter. I heard he passed. I’m sorry. It’s big shoes, but, from what I hear, you guys fill them, great trackers, good in a tight spot.
DEAN: You seem to know a lot about our family.
GORDON: Well, word travels fast. You know how hunters talk.
DEAN: No, we don’t, actually.
GORDON: I guess there’s a lot your dad never told you, huh?
Bloodlust
But regardless, if nothing else, here we have a father who likely had, early on in his young son's life, figured out that something supernaturally evil was seeking out or somehow associated with Sam. He'd already lost his wife to it, and I can see how the idea that it might later affect Sam would terrify John.
Something Wicked
{C}
{C}
John's been accused of many people of being a vengeful sonofabitch. Was he? He certainly was a cagey bastard. He kept a lot of information about his fears for Sam close to his chest. The people around him were missing an important piece of information, the lack of which would seriously distort their understanding of what was driving John. Was the desire to protect as much a motivator for John's mission to destroy the thing that killed his wife, the fact that it might be waiting out there for Sam?
Sammy! It’s still alive. It’s inside me. I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son! Do it, now!
Devil's Trap
Aren’t you going to do anything? Aren’t you even going to say anything? I’ve done everything you have ever asked me. Everything. I’ve given everything I’ve ever had. And now you’re just going to sit there, and you’re going to watch me die? I mean, what the hell kind of father are you?
In My Time of Dying
I have a feeling that John would go to any lengths to protect his sons, both of them.
(In an aside: If we're seeing all kinds of parallels between John and Sam of Season 4, then doesn't this beg the question that maybe Sam's desire to find Lilith has more motivating it than vengeance?)
Coping with Loss, Fear and Guilt - The John Winchester Way
There are a lot ways that John could have responded to Mary's death. Max's father is an example of one such alternative.
MAX: He blamed me for everything, for his job, for his life, for my mom’s death.
SAM: Why would he blame you for your mom’s death?
MAX: Because she died in my nursery, while I was asleep in my crib. As if that makes it my fault.
SAM: She died in your nursery?
MAX: Yeah, there was a fire, and he’d get drunk and babble on like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up, pinned to the ceiling.
Nightmare
Fear and guilt have a way of leading to an increased need for control often in the pursuit of a cognitive sense of control achieved through hypervigilance or blaming something that you can control, and/or actions in attempt to actually influence events around you. (A cognitive sense of control basically translates into the perception that you have control over something. You may not actually have control, but you feel like you do.) In Max's father's case, he seemed to have gained a sense of cognitive control by projecting all the guilt onto his son, numbing himself with alcohol, and then beating the heck out of the kid to keep Max within this tightly-drawn box. As long as it was all Max's fault and his father kept Max this creature that was afraid to follow one breath with another, he could probably feel in control.
John, however, was a different man. As tender as he is with Mary in In The Beginning and willing to fight for her, I wonder if his love for his sons and what they represent of Mary translated into a desire to fight for her and them. The question then is, how does one fight?
Fear and Guilt don't paralyze John Winchester, John Winchester fakes Fear and Guilt out with a ringer for The Colt and a $1.35 plastic rosary.
Salvation
December 8, 1983
My sons need me...and my wife's investigation needs me. These two things are all that matter to me now. I've been canvassing the neighborhood, asking questions...I swear a lot of the people conveniently aren't there when I knock. Maybe they don't want to face a grieving widow...or the man they think killed his wife.
A fire doesn't just start. I'm convinced now that someone was in my house that night. It's the only way any of this even start to make sense. I started digging around at the library. I'm collecting old police files, going through microfiche...looking for any fires, arsons, with similar MOs. I'm gonna find this guy, and when I do...God forgive me...
courtesy of slyprentice
John is a man of action. After Mary's death, he chose to take action, to make changes in his life and himself in order to avenge his wife and protect his sons. I don't doubt John's grief for Mary and feelings of guilt/inadequacy in his inability to prevent it shaped who he was as a father. The tasks that he took on included making the family into something that could endure under these new circumstances in which he found himself. If life wasn't going to be safe, then he was damned and determined to make sure he and his sons were up for dealing with it.
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.
Dead Man's Blood
I would argue that, after Mary's death, John not only trained his sons in the overt skills of hunting, but he created a family life that was exquisitely adapted to survive in an unpredictable and hostile world that was specifically targeting his family. He created a family that was:
1) characterized by a relatively impermeable boundary around the three remaining members.
2) was run by rules that demanded a high degree of cohesion (enmeshment) between its members and were very rigidly applied.
3) imbued with the following core values: "Reject all things supernatural" and "Keep Sam Safe."
~*~
And on to Chapter 3: On John the Father
~*~
Chapter 1: On the Siren's Call
Chapter 2: On John the Man
Chapter 3: On John the Father
~*~
Chapter 4: On Dean - The Motherless Child
Chapter 5: On Dean the Heart of the Family
~*~
Chapter 6: On Sam - Born of Love and Loss
Chapter 7: On Sam in the Box
Chapter 8: On Sam out of the Box
Chapter 9 : On Sam Captive on a Carousel of Time
Chapter 10: On Sam Power Can Be Taken, But Not Given
Chapter 11: On Sam From Here Forward
Chapter 12: On Sam Out of the Box Redux
~*~
Chapter 13: On SamnDean Putting Away Childish Things
Chapter 14: On SamnDean Triangles are a Demon's Best Friend
Chapter 15: On SamnDean Stop the Carousel I Want to Get Off
~*~
credit goes to
oxoniensis and marishna of summerskin for the screencaps