…. I think people are being very unnecessarily harsh on Jensen for his answer about WOM. Steve had told everyone previously he took inspiration from the angel storyline in supernatural. Jensen literally just parroted what Steve, the main writer and his good friend, had already said directly to fans. This was also after Jensen completely sat silently during a Misha answer about destiel. Jensen didn’t react at all, so as not to give hellers anything. Jensen said nothing about the ship in his answer. He’s in a ridiculous situation where he’s being held responsible for how hellers twist, manipulate and out and out lie about things. Are we ever going to get a “because it doesn’t exist,” moment again? Probably not. Jensen was crucified for that and things are *way worse* now for actors/actresses that don’t cater to shipper agendas, especially in the lgbtq lane. (I’m part of the community, but my God we have a lot of psychos who are militant and LOUD about bullshit….not to mention the straights who fetishize us.) The guy can’t win. He will never satisfy all the factions. We can’t all jump him if hellers find imagined holes or proof in things he says. They’ll do that no matter what. Jensen has stayed true to who Dean is for 20 years. He still adores Supernatural and wants to be with the fans. Him and Jared are gems and I’m tired of them being lambasted for everything they say- even from NON hellers
I see where you're coming from but I don't entirely agree.
Like, I agree that while hellers are obnoxious and deserve to be shut down hard at any and all attempts to reframe reality and the show, doing that isn't actually in Jensen's best interest. For randos who don't know half the history of hellers badgering him about their ship trying to talk over him and shoving porn in his face? Him going on a vehement rant could easily come off like an actor man being mad at fandom for doing fandom. Not great optics. Also, because the ship is literally not a thing in canon (a one-sided ambiguous queerbait does not a relationship make)? What little is in the show isn't even about his character, and speaking over a coworker on their character also is not great optics (if only Misha got that...). Yes, especially given the LGBT+ angle of it all where fandom loves to try and use representation as a cudgel to enforce their personal entitlement. At the end of the day, giving the ship that much acknowledgement is over-inflating its importance - it literally isn't worth the wasted breath, let alone the tantrum backlash.
Furthermore, Castiel was on the show for a long span of time - if not for a great majority of the hours. He was the main interaction point for heaven once angels came on the scene in the original throughline of the apocalypse across the first seasons. You know, the angels shaping the Winchesters' lives before they were even born and through the events we saw onscreen? He was their main ally once Bobby was no longer around, for a given value of ally. So actually it is reasonable to have thoughts about the character and think about him as a part of the show because he was a figurehead for heaven in the early years and treated by the scripts as the Winchesters' best friend/family in the later ones.
Except Jensen has to know at this point that for those certain, loudest, pushiest fans? Him saying literally anything about Castiel that isn't entirely negative is going to be taken as a hint their ship is totes real. Which was presumably why he hasn't mentioned Misha/Castiel that much in recent years unless the fans brought him up. Is that reasonable or fair to have to tap dance around? Obviously not, but it is what it is.
So it seems pretty clear to me that it would have been better to answer a question that wasn't even about the show differently than he did. Because Steve saying a thing was vaguely about angels and SPN and Jensen agreeing with a fan who asks if it was about Dean and Castiel are not the same when there are fans desperate for Jensen to talk about Castiel/Misha. The two of them having different viewpoints was already put out there by Steve, so something like, 'The show was contextually in the background but personally I was thinking more about X' or 'It was about a lot of things, art is about interpretation, great you see something in there about Y'. Instead he went with 'Yeah, sure, it's partially about Dean and Castiel'. Now anyone who has paid attention to literally anything he's ever said about the show and the relationship between Dean and Castiel within it? Knows that has sweet fuckall to do with romance. Which is not and has never been hellers. So while you are absolutely correct that he did not actually in any way validate their ship and they were going to make up stories about what he REALLY meant regardless of what he said? I do honestly think he set himself up here to get subsequent batshit, "So now that you've admitted you're writing love songs about Castiel..." questions in a way that a different answer would not have to the nearly same extent.
I'm not mad at him over it. I think it's silly to characterize acknowledging Castiel as part of the Winchester's lives and the show's story as pandering. I don't think he deserves to be badgered for it, and he was inevitably going to get weird-ass heller questions again anyway. But I also think that given the way that certain part of the fandom very obviously operates, he actively did himself a disservice with that answer.
