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Warning! Only last-season spoilers are marked with #spoilers. Everything else is read at your own risk! Significant S15 spoilers will be noted in the text and tags and hidden behind "Keep Reading." (So if you've made it this far without having the finale spoiled for you, for example, it won't happen here.)
Lastly: This isn't the focus of this blog & I'm not interested in silly shipping wars, but I personally find wincest/weirdcest/gencest compelling (What is Weirdcest?), so I may occasionally reblog poetry or fic recs with that angle. You can easily avoid any mention of shipping by blocking #weirdcest (a tag I'll use for stuff with language that wouldn't get bleeped on a CW show) & #wincest (for anything more explicit than that).
However, I won't post wincest-related visual media here at all (no fan art of them kissing, lookalike GIFs, etc.). So, if you enjoy the insanity of the Winchesters' codependence but aren't comfortable Going There with it, this is a place you can appreciate Winchester-related obsessiveness without having to hide your screen from casual glances. Or, if you're just here for the intellectual analysis of SPN, this is a safe space for you (with only minimal, easy-to-hide shipping). And I guess if you're determined to block me for the stuff I read for fun even if it doesn't impact you... well, here's me outing myself for that. 🤷♀️
DOES NOT APPLY TO LIKES & LINKS. These can & will include explicit media.
okay I’ve been marinating on when the levee breaks and it’s fucking with me so bad because there is just. there’s so much fucking love. so much awful so much pain and so much violation but there is so much love, also, and maybe the episode would hurt less if there was less love but there’s just. there’s just so much. oh my god.
my favorite FAVORITE theme in the world when it comes to toxic relationships is when horrific violations of autonomy are caused by desperation and love. when there’s anger and pain and fear and betrayal but it’s because of the love, because if you loved him less you wouldn’t do this,
BOBBY: All I'm saying is maybe he's here right now instead of on the battlefield because we love him too much.
because if you didn’t love him you’d let him destroy himself for the world and you can’t do that. you can’t,
DEAN: I would die for him in a second, but I won't let him do this to himself. I can't. I guess I found my line.
but god it’s still a betrayal. god if it isn’t killing him. god if he survives this he’ll never be the same, and god if you’d rather he died. Dean hasn’t called him Sammy this much since season 1, season 2. but he’s Sammy in this episode. Dean’s little brother. Dean’s little brother strung out and dead and dying and locked in a fucking tiny room because Dean put him in there, chained to a bed, screaming. screaming. screaming. cutting between hallucination!dean calling Sam a monster and real Dean declaring he won’t let Sam become one. Dean’s own warped ideas of monsters and humanity and the world divided into hunters and hunted.
and Sam’s anguish.
SAM: Don't say that to me. Don't you say that to me.
the way it echoes devil’s trap,
DEAN: Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill me!
but more importantly how it exactly matches the cadence from all hell breaks loose,
DEAN: Don't get mad at me. Don't you do that.
because this sentence structure, this cadence, has always been Dean’s but in this moment it’s Sam’s. it’s Sam’s. this is what Dean sounds like when he’s at the end of his rope. when he’s begging and and desperate and in pain and Sam echoes it, tied down to the bed, facing a hallucination of Dean himself. don’t say that to me. don’t you say that to me.
RUBY: I had no idea that Dean would do that to you.
SAM: You and me both.
betrayal and hurt and violation. the kind of thing you could never fucking get over someone doing to you. the disgust and horror in Dean’s eyes and god the love isn’t enough, or it’s too much, because the same guy who threatened to rip the lungs out of Sam’s bullies just locked the door on him. god. how do you move forward. how do you repair that. the same brother who declared he couldn’t live in this world without you, who locks Sam up not because the demon blood is destroying him but because he thinks his little brother is becoming something he doesn’t recognize, because he’s worried about the sanctity of Sam’s soul over Sam himself and to him this is about saving Sam and to Sam it’s about getting locked up in a goddamn windowless room. god. fuck.
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.
- Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Supernatural and Spiderman share some things in common, as texts. For Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. (Maybe he'd been reading his Swiss philosophy.) But that's in a world with superpowers. In the world of Supernatural superpowers aren't necessary or even particularly useful; what's important is knowing the truth and then what you do once you know that truth.
But that's not fair, right? People should be allowed to live the lives they actually want and pursue any dream, because that's how we tend to understand basic human rights: self-actualization and individuality are important. That's a very American attitude and it wouldn't be surprising from Supernatural, which in a lot of ways is a very American show. But: that isn't the value system we're actually encouraged to understand from the actions of the main characters. Duty is more important than the self; what we owe to each other is to help, even if other lives we could've had are sacrificed.
In the early period in the show, Dean feels like Sam going to Stanford was a betrayal – but it’s not going to college that’s the betrayal, but rather leaving the family. For Dean, the family is the most important thing in the universe. Family supersedes even the family’s mission, as we see from how he stops Sam from going after Azazel in the burning house, and how he stops Sam from killing Azazel when Azazel is possessing John. So, for Sam to ‘betray’ the family by leaving – that’s untenable, for Dean. He can’t see it as Sam wanting to have a safer, happier life, because the only way that Dean understands happiness is when his family is together. However, this attitude of Dean’s has complicated and hardened and softened and shifted over the years, because these characters are dynamic. We see Dean bragging that Sam got into Stanford, and expressing regret that he wasn’t able to get out of the life. Now, he still wouldn’t be able to deal if Sam abruptly announced that he was enrolling at Boston University, see ya later! – it would probably still be seen as a betrayal – but that’s the thing. By his 30s, Sam would never do that.
Now, why wouldn’t Sam do that? The text shows us, over and over again, that Sam – while he sometimes would like a ‘normal’ life – now values the hunting life as a life worth having. Moreover, Sam himself says, multiple times in various ways, that Stanford and the normal life it represented was a dream. He was never really going to get out, because fate won’t let him. He was expertly manipulated into the ‘rebellion’ of leaving for college by various of Lucifer’s agents throughout his childhood, but he was always going to get those powers, he was always going to be Lucifer’s vessel. Sam never really apologizes for going to school or leaving, and the text never says he should. It was an important thing for his personal development.
What the text does do is point out, over and over again, that attempting to get out of hunting is a fool’s errand. It pulls you back, inexorably, gets into your blood. Not so much with great power comes great responsibility, but more with an ounce of knowledge comes great responsibility. Only the weak leave hunting; when Dean considers staying in the djinn dream, or when Dean keeps his promise and stays with Lisa, or when Sam stays with Amelia, that’s a betrayal of all the innocent people they could have saved by hunting. A betrayal of the family, too (though Sam’s stint with Amelia is coded as this more than anything else), but more pertinently a betrayal of the true calling: to protect those who are too ignorant to protect themselves.
What's most interesting to me about this understanding – duty uber alles, sacrifice of the self for others – is that by the end of the series (s11-on), the Winchesters don't look for exits. They have their life and they have their duty and they don't pretend they're going to have any other worlds but this one. There's a way to interpret that as a misery, but the show doesn't code it as one. They don't want destiny and dealing with God and epic quests crushing them to the ground, of course (who does?), but they are content to just do the job. We see it in the series finale: finally broken from destiny's yoke, and they're still living together in their bunker, still taking jobs, still living the life that duty compels them to -- but it's contented, and calm, and self-actualized, and free. Duty not as cage but as satisfying moral certitude. You can view the family business as a burden if you're determined to, but that's only one perspective; once you know the truth, and you know the incredible good you can do by service to that truth, you can become a superhero.
the way this all folds together in the final seasons is a thing of beauty. because there is a specifically American model of self-sacrificing masculinity in the complicated Western hero, who compromises himself and his place in good society, his access to home and hearth, in defense of the innocent.
but Sam and Dean don't have to leave the hearth. they created their own hearth - they are each others' hearth.
Hello! We are a group re-watch blog dedicated to celebrating Supernatural's 20th anniversary by watching one episode a day, beginning on October 22nd, 2024, until the 20th anniversary on September 13th, 2025.
Our re-watch just finished Kripke Era, so this is a great time to jump in if you've already seen seasons 1-5 a million times. You can follow this link to access our public calendar, and follow this link to access our FAQ.
On this blog, you’ll find daily reminders of which episode is scheduled for the day. If you’re following along with the re-watch and feel inspired to write reviews, make gifs, post screencaps, or share your thoughts, you can join us and tag your posts with #spn20rewatch!
This re-watch is in collaboration with @spn20fest. We hope you'll join us. :)
True. Even if you wanted to, you can't watch season 1 on Netflix, so anybody who's anybody is already ripping that much. (Assuming you haven't just got the DVDs!)
Man's Best Friends with Benefits (08x15) is hilarious and dumb right off the bat and I think it's great.
This is cheating because I've seen the episode before, but after James has his nightmare it cuts to him in bed... with his dog familiar... who can also appear as a human woman. But she sleeps in his bed as a dog. Which they're both okay with even though they're having intimate relations. Okay!!! Interesting dynamic!!!
Dean complaining about going out of their way to help someone who saved their life (apparently; happened off screen, it's real, shut up) is the funniest character growth of all time. Season!One Dean insisted they spend a week in prison for some guy that their dad knew, and now he's inconvenienced by someone they literally owe a life debt to. Amazing.
Sam immediately gets played by a dog doing nothing more than showing her belly. People shouldn't have this much trouble killing the Winchesters, send in a skinwalker and Sam would open the door to it right away and get his face bitten off.
Sam also immediately freaking out when Dean comes back with the food and the dog's in the room. What's Dean gonna do, idiot!! Ground you?? I love you.
Sam and Dean objectifying the dog woman giving them a dressing down two minutes after meeting her. What the actual hell. Dean, I can see it, but Sam, I'm surprised with you.
This is the first episode with good witches (though there's an argument to be made with Cordelia and Spike in Shut Up, Dr. Phil) and right away sets them up as a fancy-pants club with cool powers. The whole witch mythos really starts spiraling here because you can just, a) become a witch, or b) you sell your soul to become a witch, or c) are just naturally a witch which is different from being a psychic... somehow. It's such a mess. Also, this witch club is silly. How many goddamn witches are there in St. Louis that they need a whole-ass club?
The only people James have are the Winchesters? The fact that he's never been in any episode before this makes this whole exchange ridiculous. And kinda sad.
Portia storming away from an argument as a dog is great. I wish I could to that. I wish to be literally that bitchy.
Dean breaks out chains to keep James locked down. I know they have handcuffs! What the hell!!
"Witch killing spell," oh my gaaaawwwd, somebody shoot me. Witches aren't a different fucking species, somebody please explain who felt the need to write this into the lore! Chuck!! I see you!!
Aww, Dean can only trust himself which is a terrible decision.
Why would you choose Dean to go with you to the secret witch club? Ah, yes, so he can call a woman a pet and get a lecture about it so we can get more LOOOOOOOORE (/matpat voice)
You know, considering all the spellwork we see later on in the show, the idea that a witch controlling another via magic is basically unheard of is just silly.
Okay, we finally get to address the the elephant in the room--that a white guy "owns" a black woman that he's sleeping with, whom she calls "master." I just wish I could be a fly on the wall in that writer's room when that finally clicked. "You know, the optics on this aren't great." "Shit, you're right. What if... she chains him up while they're having sex. It's like symbolic of how their relationship is actually equal!" "BRILLIANT!" What a shit-show.
I love that the boys were just going to Molotov James in his bed. While he was awake. Amazing.
Dean awkwardly implying bestiality is great. Dean, they don't fuck when she's a dog, for crissakes. I mean, probably not.
WHY IS DEAN STILL THINKING ABOUT BESTIALITY?? Also, Dean asking a Black woman about her identity... stay classy, Dean.
Why is there a spell specifically for implanting images into a witch's mind? Why is it not for everyone? WHY ARE WITCHES JUST SUDDENLY A DIFFERENT SPECIES?!
But Sam is proud that Dean hasn't made an explicit bestiality joke. Fuck, my fic's gonna be about dog sex, isn't it? But I was saving that for Dog Dean Afternoon!
"What, like phone sex?" Dean. Dean. You're an idiot.
"He was always spineless. Now, literally." B-but there was a cracking sound effect when his neck broke... that very much implies the presence of a spine...
Evil guy chooses to torment the boys with images of the Cage for Sam and Mary dying and being in Hell for Dean. Those are some choices. I approve.
Actual biggest character growth in the series--Dean going from not liking dogs to owning a dog in the last episode.
"I saw Mom, when she died." Waitaminute. Dean never actually witnessed that. He was four and in the hallway. How was that in his head?
Sam coughing up blood at the end?? Like some frail Victorian maiden?? Right after Dean says he trusts him?? Beautiful, no notes.
Okay, look, this episode is certainly... flawed. But I honestly think James & Portia would have made much better spin-off material than that stupid Bloodlines crap they tried to sell us next season. Think about it. You get the forbidden love angle without the tired Romeo and Juliet crap Bloodlines was going for, and James is a cop so you could have them start up a supernatural detective agency or something, which would be a much better way to expand on witch and monster lore without being restricted to the five family politics. Would it be a good show? Probably not, but it's not like Bloodlines was going to be high art either, and at least James & Portia wouldn't have committed the crime of trying to pitch a show that basically already existed on the network (The Originals).
No comment on most of this — it's undeniable that Man's Best Friends with Benefits is, at best, kind of a shitshow — but my take on the "witch-killing spell" (and later bullets) was that it was designed to be unstoppable by the most common types of protection spells. So it wasn't a question of witches being a different species, just an acknowledgement that no sane witch would be walking around without some kind of warding against your standard everyday hazards/weaponry.
the idea that a witch controlling another via magic is basically unheard of is just silly
Yeah, that was pretty bad. If I had to guess, I'd hypothesize that this was shorthand for a more complex idea that they were struggling to flesh out in the dialogue. Like, they were trying to convey that a witch shouldn't be able to break through another witch's basic wardings without the target at least being aware that it was happening or something. But SPN honestly just didn't lend itself well to this complicated "how does magic work" type of lore, so they were screwed the second they decided to even try to go there, frankly.
Ultimately, you can weave all kinds of possible explanations of how these things might work together or what the writers might've meant, I guess, but it's so irrelevant to the heart & soul of Supernatural that it's really not worth the effort.
Fuck, my fic's gonna be about dog sex, isn't it? But I was saving that for Dog Dean Afternoon!
Ah, yes. If I had a nickel for every time a Supernatural episode toyed with the idea of dog sex... 🤣
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
It's really, really, really, really hard to turn off the GenXer in my soul when it comes to labeling things as abusive. And, like, I fully realize that that probably isn't a good thing, I do, but come on... being an asshole doesn't automatically equal being abusive. Having strong negative emotions that they aren't good at filtering, so they end up lashing out at the people close to them, that's not abusive, that's just being a messy, messed up human being. Right? I'm so glad that there is so much more emotional awareness and intelligence in younger generations, I am, but I just don't get it sometimes. Like my own personal concept of boundaries involves too much "whatever"
for me to feel... well, much of anything too negative on a personal level. And yeah, it's a kind of trauma response, a generational trauma response of just not letting shit get to us because we couldn't make any difference about it anyway, so, you know... whatever. But that shit is programmed in there too deep now. And my kneejerk, gut reaction is too often just "walk it off." But I don't like being so callously dismissive of other people's feelings, but folks are just so sensitive and it's exhausting and I think that maybe there's a good midway point that we swung too far past, but where we are careful and courteous towards each other without the constant need for coddling or kid gloves or something. Or maybe not, idk. But every time I see people making those posts about all the insane shit that GenXers grew up with and how that makes us scary and not to be messed with, I'm just sitting here thinking that the real super power my generation has, that also happens to be our achilles' heel, is so perfectly summed up by a dismissive and detached "whatever." Because while we are hard to rattle, we are also hard to engage. So anyway, all that to say that while I'm probably wrong, I do not think that Dean is abusive.
Having strong negative emotions that they aren't good at filtering, so they end up lashing out at the people close to them, that's not abusive, that's just being a messy, messed up human being. Right?
It depends what "lashing out" consists of. And to a certain extent, it also depends on what model of "abuse" one is discussing.
I always feel awkward credentialing myself (beyond just saying "I'm a nurse" when people have medical questions) because I really do believe that on the internet everyone is equal; either you can argue your point and provide sources if indicated or you can't. But I do feel like here it would be useful since I'm mostly interested in relaying a bunch of condensed, oversimplified specialist knowledge in a small amount of space--which means that although I'll provide links too, to a certain extent I need you to trust that I'm not cherry-picking.
I'm retired but was a hospital nurse for 20+ years, and we've screened every patient for domestic violence/intimate partner violence (IPV), in both hospitals I've worked at, for my entire career. I also have a law degree that I got during the 90s, and I was a court appointed advocate for domestic violence victims during law school. I'm behind on the current research but google and Pubmed seem to think the basics haven't changed that much; there's just more precision now and the general growth in a field one would expect over 20-30 years (which is not a huge amount of time in terms of research). I'm by no means an expert; hospital nurses are generalists--we know just enough about a lot of topics to get people out of the hospital alive and with a few more resources than they had going in. But that does still make me more knowledgeable than lay people, especially in an area of special interest.
Theoretical models of IPV were contentious when I was in law school and still are. The most well-known model is the feminist/justice system-oriented "Duluth model". It posits IPV as one means among many of one partner in a relationship attempting to coercively control the life of other. If you go to a random domestic violence hotline's website, the Duluth model is what they are most likely to be using, and if you ask lay people what makes a romantic or partner relationship "abusive", most will be thinking of the Duluth model.
I personally think the Duluth model is historically important, but I don't care for it as a catch-all framework. I think it's too restrictive and focuses on gender and power/control in ways that are often not accurate to people's lived experience and that are unhelpful for people who experience abuse that doesn't fit into the framework. It does work very well for a specific type of abuse that often contains the most severe cases though, and it's also somewhat valuable in helping even out the sociological power imbalances between men and women that exacerbate many of these most severe cases. And since unfortunately "somewhat" is still light years better than anything else available, that's a huge plus.
A more updated version of explaining IPV is Michael Johnson's typology of domestic violence. He separates domestic violence into three categories: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. "Intimate terrorism" is the Duluth model. "Violent resistance" is the victim of intimate terrorism fighting back. And "situational couple violence" is when there is no consistent pattern of attempted coercion and control by one party, just poor conflict management skills and underlying stressors that sometimes lead to arguments "turning physical" as they escalate. This model addresses the fact that not all domestic violence has the same motivation or patterns, but it's still largely a feminist/sociological model, which I like. The video at this link is an hour long, but if you're interested, I highly recommend it.
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And then there's the medical/clinical adaption of these models. Since I ended up staying a nurse rather than become a prosecutor as I had planned when I went to law school, its probably unsurprising that the medical model is the one I think is best (although this is oversimplified as the "medical model" is more a general philosophy of care that adapts the research from the sociological models and focuses more on clinical issues).
In the medical model, we aren't interested in moral culpability and we don't have the power to send people to jail, deprive them of their children, assign alimony etc. So we have the privilege of basing our framework on the part we actually care most about: improving health and easing suffering. What we consider "abuse" is essentially any interpersonal violence that statistically leads to poorer health outcomes than at baseline. Which is almost all of it.
Here are two widely used screening tools for assessment of IPV. I picked these two because they're similar to ones I've used or had used on me as a hospital patient presenting for unrelated problems (cardiac, abdominal pain, etc) but there are others at the links as well.
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Many clinical practitioners try not to throw around the words "abuse" or "abuser" too much, because they are stigmatizing and imprecise. If you end up watching the video above, you might notice that Michael Johnson in the video also only uses the word "abuse" when either referring to things other people have said or in reference to child abuse, which has a more precise definition. But colloquially, if a person who follows the medical model says "abuse", they might mean any of the above, rather than only "domestic terrorism". Even a person who has been hit by their partner once screens positive for survivor-related services.
By the standards of the medical model, both Sam and Dean are IPV ("abuse") survivors and both have at times been the violent party ("abusive"). Sam, for example, pointed a gun at Dean during s7, thinking Dean was Lucifer. In the medical model, we (theoretically, but we're only human) don't care that Sam wasn't "responsible for his actions" in that moment except insofar as we can help him regain competence, because we're (theoretically, but we're only human) not assigning blame anyhow. We just want the guns out of the house and Sam on antipsychotics.
Similarly, around the Gadreel issue, we recognize that people frequently violate their loved ones' autonomy in life or death situations, and try to educate and encourage respect for the patient's dignity rather than cast blame on the family member. We might still colloquially call both of these instances "abuse" though because they are both still violence and can both have (sometimes severe) health consequences. If Sam wouldn't stop waving his gun around, we would involuntarily commit him. If Dean wouldn't stop using nonconsensual treatment on Sam, we would take him to court. (Again with the over-simplified though, in that usually the second example is elder abuse irl since it's usually children violating the autonomy of their parents, and the screening questions here don't cover it).
Part of the reason I went into all this is that I want to emphasize these different conceptualizations aren't about the kids these days being overly sensitive. All of these models were in use in 1991 when I graduated from nursing school, although not all by these names. The difference in expansiveness partly has to do with focus rather than time period and partly with better, more precise ways of categorizing the same phenomena so they are better understood.
I think a lot of the contentiousness around whether or not Dean is "abusive" has to do with the fact that these differences in framework aren't widely known and that most people think only of the Duluth model when discussing IPV. I suspect most Dean fans, if they knew the term, would probably not have a problem agreeing he has a pattern of "situational couple violence" under stress (although they might note that Sam does too), or that he had ever thrown things or threatened or hit Sam. It's the intimate terrorism part that feels unlike him, because we think of that severity and type of IPV as something bad people do on purpose.
From a medical/clinician's standpoint though, there are no bad people and the "on purpose" part is only material in terms of what treatment might work best. Someone who just lashes out because they have poor emotional regulation can still be as severely abusive as someone who fits the domestic terrorism model, and from a medical perspective it doesn't mean in either case that they're a bad person, just that they are highly symptomatic.
And I do think Dean to some extent fits into the Duluth/intimate terrorism model. The turning point, for me, is Levee. If Sam and Dean were in our world, Sam could easily have gotten a protection from abuse court order as early as Metamorphosis, but Levee is on another level.
For me, as a former advocate, Levee was shocking to watch. I can see the episode as the creators saw it--a tragic half right/half wrong situation for both brothers; the culmination of months of manipulation by outside forces vastly more powerful than either of them. But then I can't help also seeing it as we would've seen it irl in court or at the advocacy office: the kind of case that makes you go home and cry because one or the other partner is so likely to end up dead.
From an irl advocacy perspective, Levee looks like this:
Dean doesn't like something about Sam's behavior (the fact that he's on demon heroin and is sleeping with his dealer). So he kidnaps Sam and locks him in the basement and shackles him to a bed and endangers his life to get him to modify his behavior. When Sam escapes, he doesn't attempt to fight back but instead takes measures to go into hiding. Dean is determined though, stalks Sam to his hiding place, assaults Sam's girlfriend, verbally degrades Sam, and threatens Sam's life if Sam doesn't comply with Dean's wishes. It is only then that Sam finally punches Dean and in the ensuing altercation almost chokes Dean to death, but stops himself and again chooses to flee.
From an advocacy perspective, this looks exactly, archetypically like the most severe end of the Duluth model, with the end piece being violent resistance from Sam. It even fits the motivational pattern of ~50% of intimate terrorism: Dean is emotionally dependent on Sam and so terrified of losing him (in this case in two ways; to Ruby and to the demon blood) that he is willing to resort to whatever means necessary to assure himself that Sam is "safely" under his control--even if that paradoxically means Sam's death.
And once you see this pattern so perfectly portrayed in Levee, it's impossible not to notice how much of the violence in Sam and Dean's relationship is predicated on this exact motivation. Dean is afraid Sam will leave him (including by dying) or has, in some capacity, left him already, so he lashes out in various ways, including, when he is most desperate, with violence. S4 and s8-9 are largely about this theme, s2 and s5 are also to some extent, as are various controlling decisions Dean makes in single episodes in other seasons that Sam girls look at and say Dean is "abusive". Is that just Dean being a messy, messed up human being? Yes, of course. Perpetrators of IPV ("abusers") are just messed up, sometimes desperate people, like everyone else.
I can 100% see how exhausting and frustrating this whole situation with Sam girls (gn) bringing up aspects of this pattern must be--especially the parts that seem small or even silly in isolation. Who cares who drives? Who cares who goes to the Apocalypse World and who stays behind? And besides, Dean turns out to be correct a lot of times he's controlling, he just expresses it poorly sometimes.
But of course the answer is that from the perspective of viewing the entirety of the pattern, violence is just the last resort, and the small and silly things are a part of the pattern of control as well. It doesn't matter who drives in a healthy relationship, but it does matter if the car is viewed by both parties as their home but one party owns it and controls it completely and objects to even the most minor "unauthorized" changes and has demonstrated he's willing to enforce his control with violence.
A big part of the frustration, I think, is that there often is a large element of judicial system focus in Sam girl arguments. There frequently is a lot of blame. It takes a lot of academic distance to be able to look at someone engaging in a pattern of behavior that-- lets be honest--is truly horrifying when it's at its worst, and that perhaps reminds you of real life for whatever reason, and still be able to say "welp, people be fucked up" and move on without blame. For people who aren't academically focused, I don't think it's necessarily even good for them to do so, depending on where they are in life and a million other individual factors.
But "projecting" implies the thing the person is discussing is entirely about the person's own issues and isn't there in reality. And in this case it very much is. Dean is a habitual perpetrator of domestic violence that attempts to control Sam in order to keep Sam alive and in a condition that minimizes Dean's fear of loss. Sam doesn't treat Dean the same way. There is a qualitative difference in what means they use to attempt to influence the relationship and each other. Sam is occasionally violent in moments of anger or impairment. Dean is more frequently violent and the violence is much more frequently instrumental.
And from the perspective of a Sam girl, it's exhausting and frustrating to keep hearing Dean girls insist Dean isn't abusive, when he, well, it's an imprecise term, but even by the strictest criteria, he is.
I wish I knew what to do about this conflict around perspective, but I don't. I think talking directly helps some, but that's a hard sell because current internet culture encourages either 1) block and move on or 2) exacerbate tension for engagement. I would like to think maybe education on both sides about IPV would help as well. But I'm not sure, because I think the root of the problem is probably Sam girls' anger at and blame of a character Dean girls value deeply, and I don't actually know if it's reasonable or even a good idea to expect either side to be able to put their feelings to the side enough--in a matter that's so central to all of us--to get along.
Idk, if anyone has ideas about this, I welcome them.
So much wonderful information, thank you! Again, I love Tumblr because of insanely well thought out responses to my barely coherent posts that are trying to capture a hard to describe, and at best only an intuitively half understood feeling of a concept which is twofold...
I do not think that we should remove the supernatural element from Sam and Dean's situations when we are examining their actions though, because, in the example of When the Levee Breaks, Sam doesn't just have a drug addiction and Ruby isn't his dealer girlfriend, she's a literal demon intent on corrupting and misleading Sam into freeing Lucifer on the world. This is vitally important information because it put Dean in a situation where there was no normal, healthy, well-adjusted approach to responding to it and in which he never actually had a choice at all. There are no interventions or 12 step programs or medical treatments or therapy for what to do if your brother is consuming demon blood. Like, the fact that these are fictional characters being put through extraordinarily ridiculous supernatural circumstances makes it impossible to reasonably hold them to real world standards of behavior.
But also, and the main focus of my original post, I'm certain that I am not a good or accurate judge of what is or isn't abuse because of a lifetime of being told to just walk off, literally or metaphorically, pretty much any and all types of violence which also leads me to feel like other people are being too sensitive. Please note that I am not and have not said that anyone is actually being too sensitive, merely that this is a gut reaction I have, which is, in fact, a byproduct of growing up being told that certain types of interpersonal violence are unavoidable, normal, and fine.
There are 2 primary issues that make discourse on this issue especially difficult, IMO. The 1st is the question of what level of the story we're discussing: are we talking about the metaphorical level or are we talking about the text? Because both are valid levels for analysis — the text itself has layers upon layers to dissect; it is not "obvious" in all of its particulars & thus somehow dismissible — and talking about the text does not mean being blind to (or negating) the metaphorical level. But they are separate things. Particularities of context that are vitally important at the textual level can be completely irrelevant at the metaphorical level, but understanding the text is still crucial to understanding the character.
The 2nd issue is the question of which metaphor (assuming you're speaking on a metaphorical level) you're choosing to explore. For example: to some extent, the demon blood arc works as a metaphor for drug addiction in modern America, where Sam's relationship to the blood and to Dean and to Ruby in season 4 is the relationship between a guy & a loved one who wants him to get clean & his dealer/girlfriend.
Viewed through that lens, I would agree that Dean's actions should be read as straightforwardly abusive, regardless of what medical or legal model you're examining it through.
But this is a metaphor with significant limitations, the most notable being the complete lack of institutional support available to them (as jinkies points out). There is no demon blood rehab Dean could check Sam into, no demon blood methadone he could stock up on, no 911 able to handle Sam's withdrawal symptoms (including being levitated & flung against the wall by his own powers while seizing), no justice system equipped to deal with it if drinking blood ended in Sam turning his powers against the world.
So, here, the metaphor breaks down. And it becomes clear that, between the stakes (Sam's potential to hurt/kill staggering numbers of people if he's allowed to go down this path) and the lack of options for support, this isn't really analogous to a conflict between 2 people over a simple drug addiction in even the worst neighborhood in the developed world. If you knew someone in America today, where social services are broadly available — if often inadequate — who, instead of seeking external help, chose to lock their loved one in a basement to detox, you'd call them abusive in a heartbeat (and, I hope, call the cops!). We all would. The fact that we're not all onboard with this when it comes to Dean & Sam is not because Dean has somehow charmed us out of any scrap of moral sensibility, but, again, because the metaphor breaks down.
Of course, the fact that this metaphor breaks down doesn't mean that it's not a useful or interesting lens through which to analyze the story or to make art exploring. (Indeed, some of my favorite fan art examines Dean-as-an-abuser from this perspective.) This is a deeply resonant metaphor & it's easy to understand why so many people relate to the story on this level.
But it's not the only metaphor that the storyline lends itself to exploring, and there are real-world analogs that, arguably, better capture important nuances about the characters & their choices.
For example, an alternate reading of season 4 might contextualize Dean and Sam as, rather than civilians living in modern America, leaders of a resistance movement in an active war zone. Dean, who had been captured & tortured by the enemy, comes home and is furious to find out that his brother has seemingly betrayed him: he's literally sleeping with one of the enemy. Sam insists she's actually a sympathizer — that she'd comforted him on the loss of his brother and she's been giving them useful resources & info ever since.
Dean doesn't believe it. Furthermore, the organization that secured his release — which has a reputation for being "one of the good guys" (which he doesn't really trust, but, well, the resistance needs their resources) [this is basically Heaven as an allusion to the U.S. govt/military¹] — insists that the supplies/info Sam's been receiving (his powers) are no good; ergo, Ruby is not a friend. Dean may not fully trust this institution, but he knows that Sam has long idolized them, so he leverages Sam's rosy view to persuade his brother to sever his relationship.
Sam goes along with it at first. But then, after their institutional allies are revealed to be engaging in some pretty shady acts — compounded by a striking lack of communication & accompanied by dragging their feet on providing any kind of material support — he becomes convinced that "the good guys" are just stringing them along and he returns to Ruby (concealing this decision from Dean, after probing enough indirectly to determine that Dean would not agree) for what he deems real help.
Eventually, Dean discovers that Ruby has been giving his brother a drug that will supposedly make him a better soldier.² He immediately latches onto the idea that all of his brother's choices up to this point have been driven solely by addiction. He locks Sam up to prevent him from returning to Ruby for more of the substance in question and, importantly, to stop the flow of critical resources from Sam to enemy forces. In the real world, this would most likely be information, although Sam himself could also be incredibly valuable as a political prisoner if the resistance saw him as innocent/hapless rather than a collaborator; in SPN, Sam's powers are a weapon the enemy can't be allowed to get their hands on.
In this reading, the imprisoned Sam is not a victim pursuing a drug addiction that hurts only himself in the hands of a disturbingly irrational partner but a high-level soldier whose hubris has led him to betray his people in the middle of a war, having made (and deliberately hid) the unilateral decision to contact & work with a suspected enemy agent, and, in doing so, risked a great number of lives.
Dean chooses to blame Sam's betrayal on the substance he's become addicted to & treat this like a simple drug intervention rather than conceptualize it as a "true" act of treason or conversion to the enemy side in part because doing that would conceivably call for an even more extreme response. And Sam is furious at this framing, which excuses his behavior but only by delegitimizing his choices.
Meanwhile, their institutional allies (Heaven/the U.S.) have been pressuring them for certain concessions in return for particular kinds of aid; Sam's addiction becomes the tipping point for Dean to finally agree to their terms because it is necessary now — or so it seems to Dean — to save his brother.³
Then, of course, Sam & Dean are both betrayed by their respective allies. An agent of Heaven takes advantage of Dean's distraction to set Sam free and send him running back to Ruby with resources that they know will enable the enemy to pull off a devastating attack. The attack goes off as planned. Meanwhile, Dean discovers that "the good guys" had wanted the enemy to succeed (in the short term) all along: that massive civilian deaths had been deemed politically expedient to set Heaven up to win the larger war.
Sam is broadly demonized for his part in the attack. Dean, who had aligned himself with "the good guys," is not. Partly this is because people remain largely unaware of — or dismissive of — the role that "the good guys" played in enabling the attack. Partly this is because Sam actually had his hand on the trigger (was directly, physically involved in the actions immediately precipitating the attack). Partly this is because Sam's bad choices involved deception: not just overriding people, but completely & deliberately cutting them out of the decision-making.
Sam is shocked & chastened by Ruby's betrayal. For his part, Dean is bitter about having been betrayed by all sides, but he especially blames Sam, and his trust in their relationship is greatly damaged. Then, in S5:E18 ("Point of No Return"), Sam gets the opportunity to demonstrate his deep faith in & commitment to their relationship/the movement/their shared goals. Sam's faith moves Dean and helps restore his own.
Then, as the situation in the region becomes increasingly dire, Sam realizes that they have the opportunity to attempt an assassination/coup/decapitation of enemy forces that would most likely lead to an end to major hostilities... but it would be a suicide attack, and only someone in his unique political position would be able to pull it off. Learning from his previous mistakes, he brings the plan to Dean and makes it clear that he won't be making any decisions unilaterally. Dean's knee-jerk reaction is to aggressively dismiss the idea, but Sam has learned a certain amount of humility, so he doesn't fight back the way his brother expects. In other words: Sam's lack of defensiveness disarms Dean, leaving him nothing to swing at. After he calms down, and remembering his own mistakes from before, Dean overrides his gut reaction in order to actually engage with the facts that Sam has presented. He's eventually unable to deny that it's by far the best plan they have. He ultimately agrees, and it works.
In this reading — which accounts for the limited institutional support & the stakes involved in Sam's demon-blood drinking in a way that the "civilian drug addiction / abusive attempts to overcome it" reading does not — rather than abusing Sam, Dean repeatedly offers him leniency and makes excuses for Sam's behavior. Of course, he doesn't make these excuses because he's some kind of saint. He makes them because he has difficulty separating himself from Sam, because he struggles to accept Sam as his own person, because he can't stand to think that Sam might choose to go down a different path from him, etc. — none of which are healthy things! Turning Sam's choices into a straightforward drug-addiction thing allows him to avoid coming to terms with Sam's agency, since that doesn't sit well with his control issues, and this is something he has to confront about himself & try to work through repeatedly as the season (and show) progresses.
It's undeniable that Dean's an extremely flawed person who sometimes makes choices that are just straight-up Morally Wrong. I think all but the most starry-eyed fans will admit that. But, IMO, you have to strip the context of their extrajudicial / limited-access-to-institutions / guerilla-warfare-esque environment from his interactions with Sam, Jack, etc., to get a reading of Dean as full-stop abusive. And, while doing that gives you room to explore certain aspects of the story & society in more depth, it also flattens the character, discarding nuance that I personally find to be fascinating.
Ergo: In the text, in the full context of the show, I would argue that Dean is not an abuser. In (at least some) readings of Supernatural as a metaphor for various social ills in modern America, however, Dean is an abuser. Meanwhile, in (at least some) readings of Supernatural as a metaphor for how humanity functions in the midst of war (and/or without strong institutions to rely on), Dean is not an abuser.
So Dean both is and is not an abuser, depending on what assumptions & frameworks you're applying. But, in the absence of those hundreds of qualifying words, and considering what I think is the most comprehensive reading of the character, I would say "no, he is not." Being outside of society in significant ways & having no institutions to turn to for help is not an incidental detail. There's a lot of value to be found in exploring the concept of Dean-as-abuser and the parallels there, I agree with that much. I just don't think "abusive" captures the whole picture.
¹ While folks on the far left might object to the description of the U.S.'s govt/military as being seen as (generally) "the good guys" globally — if not 100% trustable — this is relative. Just like how Heaven has a bunch of dicks, but Hell has demons. Compared to various corrupt & dictatorial regimes (of which the world has many), we are indeed often seen as "the good guys." Not defending (or, for that matter, attacking) that point of view, just noting that it is still a common point of view.
² For those who don't know, drug use by military organizations for performance enhancement has a long history — it isn't just something just dreamed up by Hollywood one day. See, for example, this entry in 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
³ Sam girls may point out that Dean seems more interested in saving Sam from becoming a monster than in saving his life, but those aren't the choices that are on the table. If Sam becomes a monster — an active threat to humanity — Dean will have to kill him, anyway. So the only choice he sees is to force-detox Sam and hope it doesn't kill him (knowing that, either way, it will save him from becoming a monster) or to allow Sam to go down his current path, which seems to involve drinking more & more blood until he becomes a monster & Dean has to kill him.
every week I am faced anew with evidence that a solid quarter of the fandom has elected not to engage with the concept of metaphor. which is an odd way to engage with narrative fiction & a baffling way to engage with fantasy fiction & an absolute dazzler of a way to engage with a specific story that consists almost exclusively of statistically unremarkable problems that have halloween costumes on.
no I think what actually stays with me about this is the like. choice implicit in these arguments. either sam and dean and john are subject to trials never before experienced by man or we might judge them harshly for their failures. okay I mean I would argue that the fact that their trials are extremely thin metaphors for pretty common experiences is exactly why it's worthwhile to have compassion for their failures. although it also makes it pointless to ignore what those failures consist of.
It's really, really, really, really hard to turn off the GenXer in my soul when it comes to labeling things as abusive. And, like, I fully realize that that probably isn't a good thing, I do, but come on... being an asshole doesn't automatically equal being abusive. Having strong negative emotions that they aren't good at filtering, so they end up lashing out at the people close to them, that's not abusive, that's just being a messy, messed up human being. Right? I'm so glad that there is so much more emotional awareness and intelligence in younger generations, I am, but I just don't get it sometimes. Like my own personal concept of boundaries involves too much "whatever"
for me to feel... well, much of anything too negative on a personal level. And yeah, it's a kind of trauma response, a generational trauma response of just not letting shit get to us because we couldn't make any difference about it anyway, so, you know... whatever. But that shit is programmed in there too deep now. And my kneejerk, gut reaction is too often just "walk it off." But I don't like being so callously dismissive of other people's feelings, but folks are just so sensitive and it's exhausting and I think that maybe there's a good midway point that we swung too far past, but where we are careful and courteous towards each other without the constant need for coddling or kid gloves or something. Or maybe not, idk. But every time I see people making those posts about all the insane shit that GenXers grew up with and how that makes us scary and not to be messed with, I'm just sitting here thinking that the real super power my generation has, that also happens to be our achilles' heel, is so perfectly summed up by a dismissive and detached "whatever." Because while we are hard to rattle, we are also hard to engage. So anyway, all that to say that while I'm probably wrong, I do not think that Dean is abusive.
You can be too quick to label things abusive; you can be too slow to label things abusive. But being on the slower end isn't necessarily a sign of detachment or lack of compassion and being on the quick end isn't necessarily a sign of greater emotional awareness.
I think everyone is aware of the dangers involved in being too slow to call out abuse, but there are dangers in both extremes. One of the dangers in being too quick to call something "abuse" is that it strips the conflict of nuance, instantly reframing the clash as being between a victim & an abuser — i.e., a powerless¹ individual & a powerful one.² While this might be true without much need for shades of gray when we're talking about a child vs. an adult, when you're talking about 2 children or 2 adults (or larger groups of people), power dynamics are much more complicated. They're situational; they're dependent on both internal & external factors; they're frequently fluid. There's all sorts of cultural and social aspects at play, some of which are limited to a very particular environment (quite different from what the dynamics would be in society at large).
Sometimes there's a significant power imbalance in a conflict. Sometimes there's not. And sometimes, there is one, but it doesn't swing in the direction that our instinct might tell us it does.
What's the harm in jumping to this kind of language when there isn't a power imbalance at play? While framing one side as "the victim" might feel like a win of the moral high ground for them, it can have serious downsides, too, including reducing their mental/emotional well-being & feelings of empowerment, decreasing their desire to understand/empathize with the other party & work with them to find mutually-agreeable solutions (prolonging or escalating the conflict), and increasing the overall trauma that they experience subjectively (there being a pretty massive difference between feeling like you're caught up in a conflict where you still have agency vs. feeling like you're being abused by an opponent you can't possibly overcome). It's the kind of short-term win that's destructive in the long term.³
This isn't to say that power dynamics are never skewed: just that we should be open to questioning our knee-jerk assumptions about if and when — and how — they are skewed, rather than accepting "victim/abuser" labels too freely. A broader cultural refusal to interrogate these assumptions only perpetuates cycles of violence & injustice, as even those with immense power (either situationally or in society at large) can easily come to see themselves as victims.
In her excellent Conflict is not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair, Sarah Schulman writes:
My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve. [...] Conscious awareness of these political and emotional mechanisms gives us all a chance to face ourselves, to achieve recognition and understanding in order to avoid escalation towards unnecessary pain.⁴
It's easier to see the pitfalls when it's people we don't empathize with doing this. To illustrate, Schulman gives the example of the officer who choked Eric Garner to death with an unsanctioned chokehold. Daniel Pantaleo, who was fired from the NYPD, sued to get his job back, and if you listen to his account of things, he clearly sees himself as the victim. He acted as he felt he needed to. "Conflating discomfort with threat;" "mistaking internal anxiety for external danger" — these are easier to talk about (for those of us on the left) when we can point to factors like racism. And, in the interaction between Garner & Pantaleo, it was indisputably racism that inflated Pantaleo's perception of Garner's power (and thus, his perception of the threat the struggling 43-year-old posed to him). ⁵
It's much harder to talk about when this kind of anxiety & discomfort manifests in folks belonging to historically-disadvantaged groups, or those who have experienced trauma (groups which, notably, frequently overlap). It's not hard to understand why someone who has been badly burned might be haunted by signs of smoke, or see the risk of fire everywhere they go. But can you imagine saying that to someone? That their trauma might not be just informing their perspective but skewing it? How dismissive & insensitive it sounds. In some segments of society, reactions to such a statement might be blasé, but in the progressive mainstream (not to mention most far-left circles), you'd risk being shunned for it.
IMO, jumping too quickly to "victim/abuser" framing is a widespread problem. It's black-and-white thinking that sees compassion as a zero-sum game: you can only "properly" empathize for the party who's suffering the most if you condemn the other party & dismiss their suffering as irrelevant or inconsequential. It increases polarization and encourages people to deride any attempt at understanding or compromising with "the other side" as a despicable attempt at moral equivalence between the innocent & the evil/corrupt.
The alternative isn't apathy. The alternative is resilience: the ability to take injuries in stride; to look at the other person & ask, "Are they lashing out from fear or hurt or ignorance?;" to look at yourself & say — not from a place of low self-esteem or self-blame, but from a desire to be objective & fair — "Am I contributing to this conflict? Is there something I might reasonably do to defuse it?" It's the ability to contextualize pain; to understand the adage "hurt people hurt people" and resist the impulse to use your pain to justify continuing the cycle. To accept things and put them aside for the sake of a better tomorrow. And it's the desire to cultivate this resilience in others: to encourage & empower other people to rise above the hurt they've experienced so that we can resolve conflict & move past it, rather than be chained forever to old hurts & wrongs.
[And, also, to rise above the risk of becoming the unwitting abuser: the powerful-but-convinced-he's-powerless bully lashing out.]
Anyway... this is all over the place, sorry! I strayed pretty far from the question of Dean's abusiveness or lack thereof. But whether you're talking about his intentions or his physical/mental/emotional/social position of power (over, say, Sam or Jack or Cas), I would agree that Dean is not an abuser.
¹ Or greatly disempowered
² There's also an implication of intentionality that goes along with the term "abuser," but I won't go into that as much in this post. I talk more about what fuels cycles of violence here & more about the roots of Dean's anger here.
³ And, of course, the downsides of being labeled "the abuser" are obvious.
⁴ A large chunk of the book is available to read online here.
⁵ Because, make no mistake about it: Pantaleo thought that Eric Garner posed a threat that justified his response. He may not have seen Garner as a direct threat to Pantaleo's life, but Pantaleo indisputably saw him as a threat to civil order, to safety in general, to a law-abiding society. He thought that his actions were proportional to the risk that Garner would get away; or that he or another officer could be injured; or simply that treating him any more gently would encourage disrespect — and, ultimately, violence & law-breaking — from others. TO BE CLEAR: I don't say this to defend this line of thought, but merely to show how what might seem like cold, even inhuman, brutality can arise from a universal (if twisted in its foundations) sense of anxiety/fear and an unquestioned framing of one's self as disempowered.
These screenshots are from Shut Up, Dr. Phil (7x05) which aired on Oct 21st, 2011. At that point in time, Trump was just a douchebag low level celebrity business man with a network “reality” show. And Dean is actively trying to keep Don talking while Sam searches around the house. But okay, sure, let’s retroactively spin Dean into a trumper because that makes any fucking sense at all with the rest of his character. Ffs.
I didn't think this even needed to be said... and then I read the tags. C'mon, people. You're not serious, right? This is like thinking someone must be Republican because they said on the record — in 1942 — that they loved Reagan's performance in Kings Row.
Liking some random celebrity before they get into politics ≠ agreeing with their politics after they get into politics... Trump was a B-list celebrity loooonnnngg before he was a politician.
i think kripke's thoughts about them voting are silly and unimportant. him making a stupid tweet about who he thinks his serial killer convicted felon characters would vote for is dumb, because they can't and probably wouldn't vote.
idk what to say if you can't understand how the show heavily leans into right-wing white supremacism. you should maybe think more into it.
i still love supernatural! i obviously love sam, and i love dean too! but there are major issues with the foundation of the show, and throughout the seasons they're worsened and never really addressed in any meaningful way.
but also how the hell did you read those tags to be soooo serious and about me thinking dean is a #trumphead dfgndklbnkfgnb cmon man. you mentioned The Tags and when i was like ? you mentioned one single tag? not particularly compelling
I mean, it's not more or less silly than any other piece of character analysis. You may as well say they wouldn't vote for Trump because they're not real. That's as true to say as it is besides the point.
you mentioned one single tag? not particularly compelling
You already think I'm taking this "way too seriously." I can't imagine I'd've gotten a better reception if I'd replied with a boatload of examples & a full-on thesis analyzing each. I pulled out a representative example. I was hopeful it would be sufficient.
(But also: I realized from the get-go that any analytical response to a piece of humor is basically "you can't win" territory on social media. I only decided to address this when I realized that some portion of your rebloggers likely DON'T have the necessary context for something that aired over a decade ago, and that, regardless of your intentions, the OP could be misleading people. And I hate to see people misled. And yeah, I opened myself up to ridicule by doing so, so I can't really blame you for that, but here we are.)
As to the overall ideological framework / slant of the show, I personally think you're deeply misunderstanding it and it's clear that you think the same of me, and that we're not going to resolve that in one thread. I can assure you, however, that it's not from lack of thought on the issue. (As evidence: the thousands of words I've written on Dean's worldview (shaped as it is by trauma); on his character growth over 15 seasons; on the thoughtful & deliberate depiction of violence as a self-perpetuating cycle; on the remarkably feminist conception of characters such as Lisa Braeden; on the inherent moral ambiguity in what Sam & Dean do; on SPN's creators' worldviews; on the inherent limitations of the show's format & its impact on the storytelling therein, etc.)
I'm sure you weren't trying to be condescending when you described my perspective as a failure to understand & suggested that I should simply "think more into it," and I hope you'll likewise give me the benefit of the doubt when I say that the above is not intended to puff myself up in any way. I don't cite my writing because I think it's impressive in quality or quantity; I merely want it to be clear that I have thought about the show plenty — that my conclusions are just as much the result of careful consideration as yours are.
So, if instead of sloppy, you therefore choose to think of me as stupid or provincial (being someone who has thought about this extensively but has still come to the "wrong" conclusions), I guess that's your right, but I hope you instead conclude that we simply have vastly different perspectives on a show we both love, about which we might agree to disagree.
These screenshots are from Shut Up, Dr. Phil (7x05) which aired on Oct 21st, 2011. At that point in time, Trump was just a douchebag low level celebrity business man with a network “reality” show. And Dean is actively trying to keep Don talking while Sam searches around the house. But okay, sure, let’s retroactively spin Dean into a trumper because that makes any fucking sense at all with the rest of his character. Ffs.
I didn't think this even needed to be said... and then I read the tags. C'mon, people. You're not serious, right? This is like thinking someone must be Republican because they said on the record — in 1942 — that they loved Reagan's performance in Kings Row.
Liking some random celebrity before they get into politics ≠ agreeing with their politics after they get into politics... Trump was a B-list celebrity loooonnnngg before he was a politician.
