Can I ask a possibly dumb question about Supernatural?
You see I haven't actually watched the show, I'm just on tumblr and ao3 enjoying people ramble about the good bits of the story and one quite common theme of fix-it fics for the episode that shan't be named is Dean retiring (more or less willingly, usually with Cas) while Sam and Eileen keep hunting. And I've been wondering why is that, considering Dean is generally the hunting guy, meanwhile Sam is the one that wanted to and actually got out (twice?).
My apologies if I'm bothering you about something that should have been obvious (-_-;)
hi! no worries, it's not a bother at all! i always appreciate it when someone sends an ask with a question like this in a genuinely curious and nice way (rather than some i get where people just tell me how im wrong). also apologizing in advance because im pretty sure this is gonna get a little long
now having not watched the show before, i can totally see where you would have gotten this idea that dean is the one who wants to be a hunter and sam is the one who wants to get out. it's a pretty common fanon belief but im honestly not sure why so many people believe it. maybe because in the pilot dean is the one who is hunting and comes to stanford to pull sam out of his "normal" life back into hunting? or it could be because dean says at least a few times that he wants to go out in a blaze of glory? whatever the reasoning, it's simply not true!
one thing we learn over the course of the show is that dean, especially in the earlier seasons, is putting on a performance of who he thinks he supposed to be, who others expect him to be. so i think the only reason that dean is "the hunting guy" is because he has spent a lot of his life being that guy for his father and/or his brother. his dad raised him to be a weapon so dean became a weapon. he was told that his job was to protect sammy so he did everything he could to protect sammy. and as for sam wanting to have a normal life, i think there's a pretty good argument that he at least partly wanted that because it wasn't what his father wanted. and sam spent most of his life right up until john died fighting with him. not hunting and instead going to school was sam's rebellion against their father.
and there's also a lot of people who believe that "dean dragged sam back into hunting" in season 1 but if you watch the pilot you'll see dean wants sam to stay to help him look for their dad. but when sam refuses, dean brings him back to stanford. it isn't until jess is murdered and sam sets off on his quest for revenge that sam leaves stanford for good. and the only times that sam ever actually gets out of hunting after stanford was when he was grieving losing dean in season 8 and post series. i doubt sam would have stopped hunting in either of those instances had dean still been alive.
i could be wrong about this, but i'm not sure we ever see sam express a desire to get out of hunting after season 1? in season 2 he really dedicates himself to hunting out of some mixture of grief over their father's death and guilt at having spent so much of their time together fighting. and in season 4 we see sam say that he doesn't want to go back to their old lives. season 5 we see sam express that the apple pie life isn't what he wants anymore. while in the same episode dean seems to be saying that maybe he does want it (middle two gifs).
and as for dean, as early as 1x06 we see that maybe this isn't really the life he wanted after all. when the shapeshifter becomes dean (and as a result is able to see into his thoughts) he tells sam:
in contrast to sam leaning into hunting after their father dies, in season 2 we really start to see dean show that he wants to get out:
2x09 dean says he's tired of the job/life/weight on his shoulders.
2x10 dean expresses that he's sick of the job and being a hunter wasn't his destiny (because he doesn't believe in destiny).
2x20 dean's djinn dream is a world where he got to have a normal childhood and a life where he never became a hunter. and even though the dream has its issues, he ultimately only leaves because he's figured out it's all a lie:
and throughout the series there are lots of moments where dean says he wants a family/wants to get out but doesn't think he'll ever get to or where he criticizes the way their dad raised them as hunters. and in 13x23 he says that if the world was safe he would want to retire.
i have less examples that come to mind from the later seasons cause it's been a while since i've watched them, but i think there's plenty of evidence throughout the series to support the idea that post series dean would retire with cas and sam would keep hunting with eileen.