What are your thoughts about how Dean's being treated in the narrative this season? I was excited starting out but so far, I've just been disappointed by how he just seems superfluous to the plot. And I don't understand why the writers seem to be taking shots at him in almost every episode. The Achilles' heel thing, putting responsibility for the rift on his shoulders (while Cas' part is handwaved away), Garth's snub in naming his children, his undisputed claim that Sam is better than him (1)
at everything, Fortuna’s insult…it’s just a lot. Maybe it wouldn’t be so jarring if Dean wasn’t the only character being consistently treated like that. To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. I’ve liked some of his character development (although I find his new tendency to not voice his dissenting opinion a little worrisome, given his natural intuition) and there have been some awesome scenes like standing up to Chuck. But I just don’t know…(2)
Thank you for this ask! I think it’s an interesting thing to explore. I have been feeling a little iffy about some things this season, too, so I want to use this opportunity to sort through my own thoughts. It’s gonna get long so I’ll put a read more…
Let’s start from the easy part. 15x11: I don’t think that Fortuna was genuine when she made that comment about Dean, and we’re not supposed to take the beach read comment as a reliable perspective. All she does is a sort of test to read them; she lets both Dean and Sam win a match against her at first, as a sort of test but also as a trick to make her opponent confident and make him play again. Except that Dean’s second match is against a very talented player, and he wins not because he’s lucky, but because he’s genuinely skilled. He proves that his skills at pool - a shorthand for his skills in general, which they had been doubting of, wondering whether it was all Chuck - are real.
Could skills beat luck? Probably not when luck is the goddess of luck herself, but I wonder whether Fortuna picked Sam as her opponent when stakes got high instead of Dean because she wanted to play against the less skilled of the two. I think that she’s playing them on and also off the pool table, and Dean realizes this when she goes “this one could be interesting”, you can tell from his reaction that he’s like “hey that’s a trick to play with the less skilled one of us” but Sam takes the bait. She also pretends to fall for Sam’s trick of distracting her by making her talk, just to reveal she can win whenever she wants to when the stakes are final. From what we’ve seen of her, I think we can infer that her modus operandi is to make people confident, so they’ll play again, higher the stakes, and then lose, not necessarily against her, just against someone, and lose their luck - she plays first with Dean when she doesn’t know who he is, and I assume it’s a common trick - let the newcomer win to stroke his confidence. (In gambling, the idea is to give players smalls wins to make them gamble more, and lose more.)
So, the narrative doesn’t give us any reason to believe that Dean isn’t right when he says that he is better than Sam at pool, and the point of the “beach read” comment is that he is not a beach read. Fortuna is supposed to be an unreliable narrator at that point, because she’s testing them. In fact, at the end, she rewards them on the ground of being “heroes”, which invalidates her previous statement, be it genuine or not.
Also consider that “sexy but skimmable” i.e. a pretty idiot, is the sort of taunt that Dean has received often in his life. If Fortuna is truly skilled at reading people, then she picks exactly something that has a history for Dean, and also something that has a history for Sam, i.e. that he’s more “interesting” (smart, skilled, whatever) than his brother. Coincidence?
That he’s pretty but otherwise worthless is something Dean has internalized by being told, not necessarily in words, over and over in his life. That reminded me of John’s old hunter friend who was like “didn’t you grow up pretty” and “if your father could see you now”. It took Dean a long time (and with plenty of fallbacks) to realize he’s more than a pretty face who follows orders. On the other hand, that he’s a more interesting “read” to Dean’s “beach read” is something Sam’s always had in his mind (he was the one who questioned the orders while Dean acted as John’s faithful little dog…) and it took him a long time, and some big blows to his own ego, to get out of that mindset.
So I don’t think it’s random that Fortuna goes for, you know, down with Dean and up with Sam, so to speak.
Dean’s statement that Sam is better than him at everything except pool - I read that as a very parental thing. It’s a very parent thing: telling your child that they’re proud of them for surpassing you. It should be the goal of a parent, you know, that your child is a better person than you - and a parent being like, you’ve become more skilled than me at my skills (except this one non-fundamental thing I can still kick your ass at :p) and I am proud of you, is a common trope.
So I read that as a small but very strong Dean-as-Sam’s-parent moment. Recently Sam also mentioned out loud that Dean raised him, so the writing team has not dropped this very important piece of characterization.
15x10. I think that the point is that Garth is Dean’s friend first and foremost. He doesn’t name his kids after his friends plural, he names his kids after the most important people for his friend singular. That’s how I read it at least. It’s weird because Dean hears one twin is named after Sam and assumes the two siblings are named after the two siblings, and the dissonance between his expectation and reality is what makes the humor. Also… Garth and Dean are a “who knows maybe in another life” kind of duo, you know…? They have a chemistry. Garth is Dean’s type, once you go past the appearances, and judging from Garth’s choice in wife, Dean’s pretty much his type too. You don’t name a child after that kind of person in your life.
Also, from a extra-diegetic perspective, Dean’s mirror is Gertie (from the name Gertrude meaning “strong spear/spear of strength”), the girl, because he’s always aligned with the feminine.
15x09. Now, this is the episode I’ve struggled the most with. Not sure if the problem is the episode itself, or the fact that the episode came after a season of the fandom acting a certain way towards Dean and Cas and their conflict, and that colored the episode a certain tint for me.
I’m kind of suspending judgement as I wait to see how the rest of the season goes and how Dean and Cas’ relationship develops, but my fear is that the narrative never really allows Dean to have emotions, so to speak, nor addresses Cas’ side of the issue(s). 15x09 itself is telling of a certain problem - Dean is experiencing certain emotions and going through a certain thing with Cas, but bam something happens that makes him terrified that he’s lost Cas again, and that forces him to scrap what he was going through. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself well here but bear with me.
He doesn’t get to sort through his emotions, he just goes in emergency mode again and the emergency just gives a yank to his emotions. I suppose the intent was “situation makes Dean realize he doesn’t want to lose Cas/he was wrong at making Cas the emotional scapegoat of his anger” but I don’t think it really worked. Dean was grieving and experiencing one of the most severe traumatic things in his life (actually, multiple at the same time). There’s no “right” or “wrong” in his emotions. I’m not saying that grief/trauma gives you a free card to be mean to others but… I mean, it does?? I think we’ve sort of created a culture of yelling “that’s abusive!!” at what are normal human experiences and expect that a person should act “properly” at all times. There’s a refrain of “x experience explains the behavior of y but doesn’t justify it!” which, sure, is valid with certain kinds of behavior, but there’s a whole jumble of normal human experiences in between “good” behavior and unjustifiable behavior.
Maybe I’m just culturally Catholic to the core, but all this pressure on Dean to beg for forgiveness for being harsh to Cas feels… iffy to me.
I guess I see forgiveness a bit differently, too, because I don’t think forgiveness - and especially when and how quickly you get there - is a choice. If Dean wasn’t emotionally ready to forgive Cas and open up emotionally to him again, then making him feel guilty for not being quick enough to get there is not exactly my idea of a healthy process.
Then there’s the “you didn’t stop me”, which, I get the whole thing behind it - Cas’ deepest fear is that Dean doesn’t care if he leaves, Dean’s deepest fear is that Cas is better off if he leaves, so, draaaama~~. But Dean has a history of people leaving him and feeling he can’t (isn’t worth) ask them to stay instead. Sure, it’s good drama. But I’m not sure that the narrative is allowing the space for understanding that Dean needs the emotional security of feeling like he’s worth to ask to stay just like Cas needs the emotional security of feeling like he has a place where he belongs and isn’t just a guest.
Again, I think it would be unfair to draw judgement of a narrative that is ongoing, and I hope that my fears are unfounded and the narrative will address what I wish it addresses! Of course with a little less than half a season still to go, emotional conflicts and character development can’t be wrapped up yet.
Another point you bring up is Dean’s reluctance to express his dissenting opinion. I do not think we have a pattern yet - his acceptance of Sam’s decision not to trap Chuck was intended, I guess, as a moment of growth in the sense that he acknowledged that Sam is a grown adult capable of drawing his judgement and make informed decisions, so he trusts Sam’s judgement and doesn’t drill him with questions. We still have to see how they all react to Jack’s revelation about Billie’s plan, so I would say to wait and see about that. Dean’s face at the end is not a “well this is excellent news” face, nor is Sam’s (who is framed after Jack talks about getting stronger, which is something Sam has a history with). Considering this season brought Lilith back, I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about Sam’s demon blood arc... I do wonder if Dean will avoid getting too confrontational with Cas, though. We’ll see.
Now, you say that he seems “superfluous to the plot”. I would normally say, well of course he’s superfluous to the plot, he’s the protagonist, he’s the one that reacts to the plot that happens around him. But I understand this is not the kind of answer you’re looking for. Honestly, I might be wrong, but I think that the first roughly-half of the season is the Male Part. The second part of the season should be the Female Part. In the first part, Chuck is rampant, Billie’s plan is dormant, Amara is minding her business and not being relevant to the plot, the plot is Sam-heavy, Rowena dies and reverts to playing a game of power, Mary is dead, Eileen is a piece played by Chuck. Now, with Billie’s plan being put in motion (although I don’t believe that’s the endgame or a Good Thing™ in unquestioning terms, but it’s still Death entering the game), I think a new phase should start. Dean confronting Chuck was already a start, and also how they got some support from a female deity that expressed negative opinions about Chuck -- I think that we’ve entered the second part of the season, and things are going to change. I’m looking forward to see what will be Amara’s role in all of this... especially considering that’s inextricably related to Dean’s role.
Feel free to ask for any clarification or addition or argument!!
