Mittens, I love you but I think you're being unfair. As far as I've seen no one is trying to "shut down Jack conversations before they begin," except maybe you by writing a long definitive post about how your view is right and anyone else is "shortsighted" or whatever. Not every meta argument has to be defended aggressively with words like is "handwaving" or "naive" or needs all caps. If a civil argument is "pissing you off," maybe you need to take a step back, not try to get the last word?
Hello there! I appreciate your thoughts here, but since authorial intent is being conflated with what I actually wrote (which is, incidentally the disconnect that seems to be happening in the whole discussion surrounding Jack in the first place), I’m gonna grab this by the horns as the meta debacle I’m struggling with here and attempt to explain this seeming disconnect.
(this is the post under consideration here, but be warned, it’s very very long: http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181545164350/while-following-the-whole-jack-discussion-is)
This is the exact same disconnect that we’ve been struggling with for several years now, and no amount of discussing it seems to be getting anywhere. Because I think we are approaching the question from fundamentally different standpoints.
I will start by saying, using all caps not because I am angry about this, but because it is essential to understand here, I DO NOT HAVE ANY DESIRE TO “WIN” OR TO “BE PROVEN RIGHT” OR TO “DEFEND AN ARGUMENT.”
I’m just exhausted that every time this specific discussion is approached, it’s almost immediately shut down with arguments about authorial intent and themes that are being written to. I’m frustrated with every conversation about Jack’s struggles with morality being conflated with an attempt to definitively label him as “good,” instead of approaching the discussion in good faith as the fascinating character study we’re engaging in.
The question of whether Jack is good or evil is entirely irrelevant to the discussions of his understanding and actions in context. And yet every time this conversation comes up, folks pounce on it with dismissals, invoking the “but Jack never manipulated anyone!” argument, which– intentionally or not– shuts down any possible conversation on the subject.
I’m not even here for that particular discussion. I’m not here to suggest that that isn’t a possible potential interpretation for his character. I’m here to suggest that jumping into a conversation based on the understanding that– consciously or not– Jack’s power did exert influence over his environment and the people around him before his birth and demonstrating how the show has already dealt with these issues, as well as how this affects Jack as a character from a watsonian perspective in the ongoing narrative and essentially derailing the ENTIRE conversation by offering the interpretation that Jack never did any of that is… well…
I’m gonna offer a metaphor on what it looks like from *my* perspective. Please don’t take this out of context, but I’m using this as an example that I hope people in this fandom can understand.
When we question Jack’s character, and some of the morally ambiguous things he’s done, we’re not considering these objectively negative choices as flaws in the writing of the show, or inconsistencies in the character of Jack. We’re considering them FEATURES of his character that give us a dumptruck full of meaty meta goodness to explore. We’re enjoying the discussion from that particular perspective.
Does that make sense so far? I hope so, because here’s where I might upset people who are not taking this in context, in the spirit of how this discussion has evolved.
When we’re having this discussion, and exploring his character, invariably someone feels compelled to jump in to say something along the lines of “but that’s not a problem, because he was never written that way! He’s always been GOOD! So there’s nothing to discuss if you just accept this simple fact!”
That’s how it reads to folks who WANT to have this discussion. It reads as a shutdown, rather than an encouragement to continue the character exploration.
I get that this might not even be the intent, but I think this is part of where this disconnect is happening.
And the immediate fandom parallel it pings to me is an anti-destiel person jumping into a discussion of destiel in canon with a comment to the effect of, “you’re delusional, destiel isn’t real, you’re an idiot for even discussing it!”
It’s the same sort of shut-down. And it’s derailed almost every meta discussion about Jack’s evolving morality since s12.
I’m tired of being told there’s nothing in canon to support the read of Jack as morally grey. I’m tired of being told he never did anything that can be interpreted as morally suspect. I’m so tired that I spent 8 hours yesterday compiling 14k words on exactly how canon itself has presented Jack as morally grey.
This wasn’t my attempt to “win” and argument, or to invalidate other interpretations of Jack as a character.
It was my personal justification for even being allowed to discuss him from the standpoint of moral ambiguity versus pure cinnamon roll who has never ever done wrong.
It was me, engraving a personal invitation to MYSELF, to feel justified in even continuing the conversation about Jack’s dubious morality in the first place.
Because I am tired of being shut down every time the conversation starts.
That post serves as a basis for even opening the conversation at all, not the end-all, be-all statement on canon.
Because to ignore THAT MUCH CANON and continue to suggest that Jack is purely good and has never done wrong makes it apparent that there must be some hand-wavery going on, you know?
And if anyone read that whole entire 14k and actually thinks that’s what I’m suggesting, that I was attempting to get the last word, or dismissing other interpretations rather than simply stating the facts of canon as presented (without regard to what the writers or showrunners intend, but only what the narrative itself “intends”) has missed the whole entire point of what I wrote.
For anyone who gave up halfway through the 14k, or doesn’t feel like even peeking under the read more cut on it, I’ll copy paste the last few paragraphs here. Consider this a tl;dr for that post:
This post is already Far Too Damn Long, and I’ve written about Jack’s moral crises in s14 elsewhere, as he faced his own imminent mortality and has finally had a chance to bond with Dean the way he had with Sam and Cas before this. He hid his illness from them as long as he could, in another morally grey zone, and attempted to run away from home TWICE in order to avoid dealing with that. We can understand, sympathize, even empathize with his choices, but to dismiss them as Morally Correct in every way is to minimize just how much he was tormented by his choices and their consequences.
This is the sort of evolution that good, well rounded characters go through as they navigate the morally ambiguous world around them. I am personally REVELING in the discussion surrounding these murky issues, because it’s something worth really thinking about in a big picture sort of way. I’m exhausted from this conversation getting shut down with blanket statements that it shouldn’t even be something we bother our pretty little heads over, because Jack will be Good™ in the end, just wait and see! It’s dismissive and frustrating. As someone who is not approaching Jack’s character as a “problem” in the writing or the narrative or the themes, but is instead delighting in analyzing them from a psychological and philosophical perspective, I don’t need to be told to stop talking about this, or that canon doesn’t offer us an ocean of moral ambiguity to ponder here.
I don’t feel the need to definitively “prove” that Jack is “good,” or that he is “bad.” The narrative has demonstrated how laughable a notion that was through Jack’s own character development, when they had him naively putting those labels on EVERYTHING, despite the labels clearly not truly fitting. To me, it’s an irrelevant and futile obsession. I don’t even WANT him to be “good” any more than I want Dean, or Sam, or Cas to be “good.” I want them to be good CHARACTERS, which means they’re gonna fuck up, do the wrong thing, and occasionally back themselves into a corner where there really are no good choices to be made.
That doesn’t make them “bad.” It just makes them human. It makes them worthy of discussion. And really, what more can you ask of a fictional character?
I hope this makes it clear that jumping in with a defense of whether or not Jack is intended to be a “good” or a “bad” character is perceived by everyone else enjoying the discussion as a moot point, and how it functionally shuts down the entire rest of the discussion by dismissing it at its root.
That is what has been “pissing me off,” though that’s a rather strongly worded sentiment, and not an accurate interpretation of my emotional state over this.
And fwiw, the only reason I used all caps for emphasis in that post is because I typed it in gdocs and knew that tumblr would erase bold, italics, and all other formatting, because tumblr is a jerk. So sorry the caps came across as shouty, but I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to go through the entire 14k word post and add back in italics and bolds for emphasis. A lot of the formatting I did put in before that revelation dawned on me was lost when I copy/pasted it here. For reference, anyone who likes, I’m happy to link y’all to the original document, which I admit likely reads as more emphatic and less YELLING IN ANGER or whatever my all-caps were perceived as. Sorry for that…
The thing is, my *personal* interest in even discussing this show at all is to explore exactly this sort of discussion. I don’t give a hoot about being “right.” I have no stake in what future canon might present, or making judgments on characters as avatars for some statement the author is making. I’m here for the discussion, because I like discussing this stuff.
But having a long discussion about this immediately dismissed with the statement that it’s irrelevant because Jack is always and has only ever been good, and has never done a bad thing in his whole blessed little life is dismissive and patronizing, and I had just had enough. So, I set out to explain exactly why I feel like this door to discussion needed to remain open, because canon itself has prompted me to think critically about it.
If, after all of this, anyone still wants to retain the opinion that canon wants us to believe that Jack is Only Ever Good, who has Only Ever Made Good Choices, THAT’S 100% FINE BY ME! Just as it’s 100% fine by me to accept the fact that some people will always only ever believe that Dean is straight, or that Dean and Cas are nothing more than good friends. I’m just kindly asking that anyone with that opinion not continue to shut down all other discussion on the matter. That’s all.
Jumping into a discussion on Jack’s character as morally grey with the insistence that he’s always been good… defeats the entire point of having the conversation in the first place. Just as jumping into a discussion of Dean’s bisexuality with a comment that he’s always only ever been straight defeats the entire point of having THAT conversation, you know?
We’re having two entirely different conversations that just aren’t compatible, and I’m tired of it leading to this sort of misunderstanding and bad feelings in the fandom.
