I know a million people have already shared their opinions and thoughts on Jensenâs âbrotherâ comment in regards to the confession, so this may be nothing new; but I canât stop thinking about it so I wanted to write it down.
One of the main reasons I love (and kept watching) SPN over the years was because of Deanâs character-growth. He is just so humanâand that is a testament to both Jensenâs acting, as well as Jensenâs age when he started playing Dean.
For fifteen years, we got to observe all those micro and macro changes within Deanâs character; much like a parent watching their child grow up. We noticed how Deanâs face changed, how his voice and confidence and openness morphed and grew ⌠but we also got to see all the ways he stayed the same. We got to see his habits resurface again and again; and we got to see him make the same mistakes over and over. And even though it was frustrating to watch at times ⌠it was also very, very human. It was natural. It felt real ⌠and I think that was both intentional and unintentional on Jensenâs part.
But just like how our growing child canât see all these changes within themselves, I donât think Jensen can see them all within Deanânot like how we can. Heâs too close; but that doesnât mean he hasnât psychoanalyzed Dean Winchester.
I think itâs become obvious in the last couple of years just how much Jensen has thought about Deanâs thought process, both individually as well as in the SPN canonâand he thinks of Dean as a real person. His answer at VanCon proves that. Like @pray4jensen said: itâs clear that Jensen doesnât know where he ends and Dean begins. And how could he know? He started playing/shaping Dean in his late twenties; and science has proven that most peopleâs brains are still malleable at that age. He then went on to grow with that character well into adulthoodâthrough all the formidable and pivotal moments in his own life ⌠marriage, fatherhood, life and death. Dean IS part of him. He wasnât just an âactâ to Jensen. So much of his own development couldnât help but sneak into Deanâs mannerisms, which made Dean feel very, very real on screen.
Think of it this way ⌠so many of us have had difficult/complicated pasts. We have had to code-switch all our lives. Thereâs a version of yourself that you have to display in certain company and in certain environments; and sometimes, that version pops up without warningâwhen triggered by something familiar or traumatic.
Now, Iâm not saying that playing Dean was a âtraumaâ for Jensen (at leastâI hope it wasnât), Iâm just saying that weâve all had experience playing a role in our lives; and even though we know that itâs just a role, we still think of it as a version of ourselves. We still feel like weâre just a moment away from reverting back to that person. Â But can you define all the qualities of that other version of you? Can you explainâin detail, just how and when and why that version pops up? No.
You can identify some things, sure, but not all. Thatâs why we seek out therapy. We need an outside perspective to help us find a way to bridge these versions of ourselves and make them whole again.
This is just human nature. Itâs human psychology.
Dean Winchester is a version of Jensen. He is a real part of Jensenâs life. So, when Jensen answers on Deanâs behalf, he canât help but put himself directly into that characterâs bootsâexactly where they stand, here and now.
And if we flash back to that confessionâJensen knows that Dean Winchester would not have been able to comprehend all the ways Castiel meant âI love youâ because Jensen was Dean in that moment.  And after Cas was taken, Dean still wouldnât have been able to understand, because all the love he has ever known in his lifeâall the true, dependable, reliable love, has come along with the fight.  Jensen knowsâbecause he lived it all with Dean, that any love his character felt was a direct result of his battles to save the world. Sam, Benny, Mary, Charlie, Kevin, and on and on ⌠all of them of course cared for DeanâDean knew that, but since the constant fighting framed every one of those relationships, he couldnât help but view them all the same way: as soldiers, fighters, products of war. They were family, yes ... but they were all still soldiers. Even those he tried to keep out of the war, Dean still knew the reality was ⌠they had to fight in order to stay alive. That was just the way it was. That was the way of the love Dean felt. Any kind of love beyond that was impossible, because war would inevitably take it away too. Thatâs why he ended things with Cassie and Lisa. Thatâs why he only ever pursued shallow flings and one-night stands. And thatâs why, when he saw hunters who actually maintained romantic relationshipsâhe always stared at them in wide-eyed-wonder.
Out of all the impossible things Dean had witnessed in his life, that was the one that consistently shocked him.
Hunters ⌠in love and happy.
It felt unreal, even though it was right there in front of his eyes.
He couldnât understand it. So, even though it apparently was possible for others, he never believed it was possible for him. It had nothing to do with sex ⌠sex wasnât a part of love for Dean. Sex was just a physical movement, like fighting and eating. It kept his body alive and moving forward. This impossible love he saw others maintaining ⌠it had everything to do with heart; and for nearly fifteen years, Dean believed his heart was worthless.
It wasnât until an angel stood in front of him on the brink of death and said: Dean, you are not a weapon to be wielded. You are beautiful. You are a man full of love who deserves to be loved, and I love you, that Dean thought any different.
It wasnât until he heard Castiel say Dean was more than just a soldier, that Dean actually started to believe it. But that realization was still a long way off from what Castiel was actually telling him.
And Castiel knew that Dean wouldnât understandâhe knew that Dean wouldnât be able to fully grasp his words and take them to heart; but he hoped that if he at least said them out loud ⌠if he said them to Deanâs face and saved the manâs life, that Dean would go on to live and grow; and then someday, he would see that someone did actually love him once. Cas truly loved himânot because Dean could protect him in a fight. Not because he was a good hunter or the savior of the world, but because Dean was Dean, and that was enough.
And you know, if Dean got to live to 100, he just mightâve realized that; but he didnât. He died too soon. And so, he never got to truly grasp what his angel was saying, and I feel like thatâs what Jensen understands about Dean the most.
He understands that Dean never got the chance to understand love.
Not in that way. Not in the way Castiel meant it.
Dean was still too naive, too broken, too jaded; so, he did what all humans do, he put the complex into terms he could understand, and that was that Castiel loved him the way that Sam loved him. The way that Benny and Charlie and Kevin loved him, the way that all his found-family love him; and after Cas was gone, he buried his face into his hands and wept because once again, he failed to protect his family. And even worse, he failed to at least let Castiel go knowing that Dean loved him tooâin the only way he knows how to love, he was too broken to say even that.
He let Castiel down in every way possible, so he curled into himself and sobbed.
He should have said it back.
He should have held the angel close and said it back.
Dean realized it too late, and Jensen knows how much that hurt him.
It wasnât about romance.
It was about love and loss, and Dean was all too familiar with bothâbut only in the ways he had seen all his life.
The love of family and the loss of family.
He never had the chance for more.
He never got to see what else his own heart was capable of.
Thatâs what I feel Jensen meant with that answer, and thatâs what I think he understands the most about Dean's character. We may be able to see the bigger picture because we're on the outside looking in; but Jensen was in Deanâs boots every day for fifteen years.
All he could ever see was what was right in front of himâand when Castiel made that confession, Jensen could only see it through Dean's eyes. He could only feel what Dean felt. He knows that when Castiel said those words to him, that was his best and truest friend in the world saying goodbye.
Another brother-in-arms was lost to him; but this time, it felt different. It hurt more, and if Dean just had a little more timeâhe would've been able to understand why.
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