#chuck won

[metanaturalsbitch]

The Confession edit.

(Inspired by: Jensen's idea of the edit of Dean's POV, but also what if they remembered Supernatural was a horror and leaned into the Chuck won theory. )

[chuckwon]

THE WINCHESTERS AS DEAN’S STORY: An untraditional video essay showing Dean’s physical and emotional state after the Supernatural finale.

Whether you’ve never seen The Winchesters, haven’t thought about it much in years, or know it inside and out, this should be watchable and understandable to you!

(This project is on AO3 here, as part of my Chuck Won meta series.)

——————

The Winchesters, as a prequel-sequel show, acts as a thematically consistent commentary on Supernatural. It explicitly brought SPN’s depths to the surface by spotlighting themes like found family being vital, cycles of intergenerational trauma needing healing, and real love triumphing over predetermined fate.

From episode one, Dean is framed as the show’s narrator and he has a voiceover in every episode. This means that The Winchesters is a story being told from his point of view. The show is Dean’s story in the sense that he’s telling it to the audience; but also, metatextually, it’s Dean's story in the sense that it’s all about him through mirroring and parallels.

I tend to fondly refer to The Winchesters as “The Dean Hall of Mirrors show” because that’s exactly what it is. While watching the adventures of John, Mary, Carlos, Lata and Ada—and the struggles they face—we can recognize they provide a secondary purpose of being commentary on Dean’s life. Through parallels, we learn more about the struggles Dean’s been facing since episode 15x20 of Supernatural. The Winchesters is a deliberate, repetitive condemnation of the false veneer of Dean’s “happy ending” in Heaven that some audiences took at face value. It tells us that he’s trapped. And the fact that the show’s plot lines culminate in Jack arriving to subtly threaten Dean back into “peace” is no accident.

Consider this a video essay, but in an untraditional format. Clips from the shows are interspersed to showcase their parallels and construct a full story, with no additional narration from me. Everything that I need to explain and everything that you need to understand is conveyed solely through dialogue and visuals from the shows themselves—demonstrating just how clear and cohesive the full picture is.

This video constructs an argument to show you (rather than tell you) this:

Chuck was not entirely defeated. Jack’s not okay. Dean and his family are trapped and fractured. And true freedom can only be achieved for all of them through speaking truths, trusting in real love, healing trauma, and breaking cycles of violence together.

Aside from a short opening and ending, this video has 5 chapters:

DESTIEL

JACK + DEAN

CHUCK WON

THE TRAP

THE PATH TO FREEDOM

The sections are designed to build upon each other.

As a (very optional) primer before you watch, a short breakdown of that is below.

Firstly, with DESTIEL and JACK + DEAN, we begin with Dean’s emotional context. These most obvious relationship parallels “prove” the language of mirroring that The Winchesters operates in, and they give you a frame of reference for where Dean’s head and his grieving heart are after the finale.

Once you’re familiar with the language of the show’s mirroring—and the tragedy of Jack—this carries through to the more physical context. In CHUCK WON, we see how some of the monsters/villains mirror Chuck, and this tells us things about Chuck’s victory and Jack’s tragic corruption.

Then come the consequences. In THE TRAP, we see what the other monsters/villains in The Winchesters can tell us about the literal trap of unreal “Heaven” that Dean is in, and how he is actively trying to escape.

And finally, in THE PATH TO FREEDOM, we see some of the ways in which The Winchesters' gang consistently escaped these traps: through mending relationships, speaking their truths, and healing from trauma. This provides the roadmap for how Dean and his family must find freedom in the future. And hopefully (if I did my job right) maybe it can give a little bit of catharsis for anyone who watches my version of it :)

Despite its length, this video isn’t even comprehensive. Believe it or not, there are way more parallels in The Winchesters than I was able to include here! I had to tell a semi-linear narrative. But this should be enough to bring the main concepts across.

If you take away nothing else from this project, I hope you see this:

The Winchesters’ consistent themes and plot lines were designed to deliberately and loudly critique Supernatural’s finale. Dean’s not at peace and he’s not done. The finale’s falsity was never the real last word for Dean (because SPN was certainly plenty clear on how Chuck won), but it especially isn’t after The Winchesters. And while I don’t know if we’ll ever get any kind of subversion in the future with a true sequel and get to see that path to freedom be properly fulfilled… from a character standpoint, I think it matters to say that the intent and desire was always there in Dean, and it always will be.

————

Please feel free to give the video a "like" on YouTube!

Further reading if you want it:

-The Chuck Won meta on AO3 -The short metas I’ve posted here on Tumblr -The Winchesters: Misdirecting the Cycle by Deidre T

[queerilya]

team free will & chuck

an exploration of chuck's control over dean, sam, and cas. and maybe propaganda for the chuck won theory.

song: american teenager by ethel cain

[hoarderheart]

yeah yeah cus like the thing is that New God jack had this whole ass speech about not being hands-on and not directly interfering with life and all that and so one could easily assume that that’s the reason why he didn’t save dean from that rebar, but THEN he brings *cas* back so what is it then? is it a self-imposed rule that he gets to break whenever?? and yeah maybe he’s got a soft spot for cas but then why wasn’t reviving him the first thing he did??? and since when was cas back? is he really back?? because if he was there and he could move freely we know damn well that he would’ve saved dean, “if cas was here…” “he’s not.” HE’S NOT. did jack really wait until dean was dead to bring cas back??? jack is all powerful all present and all knowing now, so he definitely knew that dean was gonna die and how he was gonna die and when it will happen. he was in the rain and in the bunker and in that damn rebar.. does cas even know that dean is dead? if he did, why didn’t he do anything? if he didn’t, why didn’t he know? could he even really do anything about it?? where is he??? WHERE IS HE???

[strawlessandbraless]

Being a demon was the closest Dean ever got to retirement

[sourtimesmachine]

Article Masterlist - Supernatural

Collection of my pieces breaking down the Supernatural finale, its context, and its aftermath.

Reference thread link

"This is about stories, and the intricate ways in which they become part of us and our world– the ways our lives and struggles are reflected, subverted, and reinforced."

Supernatural’s Legacy: The Trauma of Silence

Understanding the unique grief of Supernatural fans, and the power of stories to liberate and to punish. [Warning: spoilers for season fifte

"At the end of Supernatural, the same institutions and cultural powers that have always suppressed stories and voices were still waiting on the other side of the screen. Our gods had not been defeated."

The TV Gods Are Watching: Why Supernatural’s Metanarrative Matters

The importance of how stories are told and who gets to tell them. [Warning: Spoilers for season fifteen of Supernatural.]

"Supernatural was not building toward a tragic end, it was actively commenting on the ultimate uselessness and sin of demanding tragedy in a story about love, self-acceptance, and truth."

Supernatural and the Trap of Queer Tragedy

Reflecting on queer storytelling, representation, and the cost of a failed escape.

"If Supernatural is about the denial of self and breaking cycles of manipulation, anger, and retribution through the truth, our experience in its aftermath has been about what we do when that truth gets fed back into the cycle."

It’s Something I Know I Can’t Have: Supernatural and the Truth

When stories can’t move on from us.

"In Supernatural, the characters got to be real, if just for a moment, and it was this moment of being that revealed how the story would fail without the having. No matter what came after, that is why we are still here."

Spirals All the Way Down: Anxiety and Supernatural’s Queer Paradox

It’s been five years, and here I find myself again. Dwelling on the end of Supernatural.

Bonus:

"Rather than avoiding the narrative burden of Dean’s death and all the circumstances, both in story and out, that led us to it, The Winchesters is breaking it down. It is examining each theme that was regressed by the finale and pointedly reaffirming it. It’s telling us that what happened to Dean was wrong, that there is something to be done about."

The Winchesters: Misdirecting the Cycle

What Supernatural's prequel tells us about healing, trauma, and beginning new endings. [Spoilers for The Winchesters and Supernatural]

[inthatgreatsupernatural]

"The sunrise observed in a puddle-- a great metaphor."

"In That Great River: A Notebook" - Anna Kamienska (tr. Clare Cavanagh)

[worrynoodle]

🥧🍻Contains spoilers for Supernatural ending🍻🥧

I take what I said about the ending back. I've been rewatching and I agree that it wasn't right.

Throughout the entire series, we consistently see Sam and Dean encounter other hunters who usually represent two paths. In this life, you die or go insane ("You either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain" -The Dark Knight). And of the two options, Sam and Dean seem to have decided that dying is at least better than potentially hurting someone. Neither of them actually believe that because they keep bringing each other back.

But this post is mostly about Dean's ending - death, in the line of duty, by rusty rebar.

During my first watchthrough, I could see - very surface level - that yeah, sure, Dean would want to die that way. Going out saving people, Sammy at his side.

But almost every other time (if not every time) Dean is faced with his own death, he decides he doesn't actually want that. He feels he must. He dies so others can live, that's his job, it's expected. But he would live if he could. When he made the demon deal to get Sam back, he confronts his nightmare self and says he doesn't want to die. He doesn't deserve to die. With the mark of Cain, in the confession booth he tells the priest that he knows he doesn't want to die and that he wants to live and experience life differently.

Dean wants to break away from the expectation that hunters die. Maybe he can't have a "normal" life. But he wants something other than what's expected of him. What God expected of him.

This was supposed to be Team Free Will. This was supposed to be about breaking away from God's Plan. Not dying like the little soldier daddy raised him to be but to become more than that. Break away from the narrative.

In the end, though, Dean is forced to have the death that everyone else planned for him. The self-sacrificing version of himself, other hunters, his dad, God. All the people we as the audience wanted Dean to be free of, to live in spite of - he dies like daddy's blunt little instrument. Cas sacrificed himself to the empty, finding peace in the face of never seeing the love of his existence again, in the face of literal eternal nothingness so that Dean could live and be more than [Dean] thought he could be. He was happy to sacrifice his happiness for Dean's. Just for Dean's life to be cut short the same way Cas died to avoid. (Death because of the work. Death like a soldier in battle.)

All of the times Dean and Sam (and Cas) die and come back to life, all of the people they find who live happily, the family they find together, the love they find, defeating literal God - it all felt like it was building to something more substantial. That they BOTH (*) were going to get something more than they expected - or, rather, resigned themselves to.

And on Sam's end - throughout the show, they show us, surface level and parallel to deans death, that him living a "normal" life without dean is what is expected. He left the life. He left Dad and Dean, went to college, had goals and aspirations, and had a serious girlfriend. His life was laid out for him. Just like death was laid out for Dean. But when push comes to shove, Sam doesn't want to live without Dean. Even when Sam thinks he can do it, like when Dean goes to purgatory, he comes the moment Dean calls and gets back into the life. When Dean dies from the mark, he says so. He was wrong, and he'll do anything to get Dean back. Everybody asks him why he would ever come back when was almost out and he tells them that he actually loves this life. That now he isn't forced into it but chooses it. He doesn't want a life without his brother in it. And that is what he was doomed to suffer. By the end of the series, I don't think Sam would have just let go like that.

Chuck said one brother had to kill the other. In other words, one lives, one dies. And that's what happened.

*I wasnt going to but now I am. Let's talk about Cas too! Through the show Cas dies again and again and again. God hates the disobedient angel with a crack in his chassis who fell in love with a man. God kills him. God wants him out of the picture but he won't go. He can't go. The story falls apart without him in it. Dean falls apart without him. But somehow his death is considered a good ending for him (good story telling wise, externally)? That confessing his love was enough? That dying in place of Dean was where he wanted to be? Sure, he was happy but it came at the price of that very happiness. It was had and taken in a moment. He was destined to die by God and that's what happened. (And we are supposed to believe that Dean just... lives on, cuddlin his dog and eatin' pie like he's not wrecked? That every other time Cas dies he falls apart but this time when Cas dies, they defeat God and true happiness is supposedly possible now - Dean would just give up? That he wouldn't try to get him back? Especially after a love confession? That just doesn't make sense to me.

My theory is that there's more to the ending than we know. That they did intentionally wrap it up there, that you can take it or leave it. But it leaves you wanting, leaves just enough questions unanswered that if they were to do a revival there's things they can do with the story.

Tl:dr: for a show about breaking away from the narrative, choosing free will, and not being held back by expectations, the ending really didn't fit well and let us down. IN MY PERSONAL OPINION