I think the only thing I'll never change my mind about SPN is that I moderately enjoy Bobby (until he's alive at least, after that I wish they had just stopped but no, I was stuck with the ghost of Bobby past and the ghost of Bobby AU forever) but I'll never agree to see him as the "Good Father Figure" that fandom (heavily fuelled by canon, I have to admit, it's not a fanon thing or something like that) makes him out to be. And I say "fandom" because, while it makes sense for the characters to see Bobby as "Good Father", I'm very limited in my understanding as to why people usually don't question this view and take it at face value.
And I blame "Death's Door" for this because, on one hand, the "death is a door/ the door of death" concept is something that I deeply, deeply ADORE so this ep. is just SOOO enjoyable to watch. And, also, the implications that whatever you didn't deal with in life you'll have to deal with in death? This is my jam, LOooOOOoooVE this. Not only do we get to see Bobby's GIGANTIC trauma but we get to see it via him re-living it? Uhm, yes, more of this, thanks.
On the other hand, the bad: side characters' backstories that become really interesting only before they die is a meh for me. I can't make myself like this type of overly-emotional writing cop-out so this is a me-problem. Well, the other thing is also a me-problem, lol: Bobby's death reframes his life as "worthy" because he was "a good father to two heroes" or whatever he says in the episode and to me this is very boring. It shouldn't be, because it's a noble and wonderful thing, I just find it boring precisely because of what the episode has just showed me, i.e. Bobby's HUUUUGE trauma. As far as I see it, you can't explain trauma away like that. It's a very mediocre view of healing from trauma but still understandable from a writing pov because, well, Bobby is a side character and his death his functional to the main characters' story, sadly. But my point is that it could've been so without the resolution of his, I repeat, BIIIIG trauma thanks to him rejecting his own father's accusations by saying that, after all, he did something good with his life and this something was Sam and Dean. I think Bobby should have had his own moment there, face to face with the fictionalized version of his father but should've engaged with him differently. We had 6 seasons of implied parent-child relationship between Bobby and Sam and Dean, this extra glorification wasn't necessary, imo.
It's this over-explanation that bores me and it's also, I think, a huge factor in how lots of people seem to interpret Bobby as this "Good Father" type which he, let's just say it, isn't. And it's totally okay because that's the core of his character! Like, he was a deeply traumatized man who was aware enough of his own issues to decide that having children wasn't for him and this decision caused him (and Karen, his wife) some big problems. And then, and theeeeen, after tragedy hits him again, he finds out that, yk what? perhaps not only does he LIKE being a father, he'd also make, probably, a good father. But he's not. We think he's good because compared to John anything and anyone are better parents than him. The bar is in hell (lol) and all that. And because the show itself can't really imagine what being a good father actually means. Like, in SPN playing baseball and learning how to drive are portrayed as peak father-son moments but they're definitely not. They can be but, per se and without context, they're not, they're just conventionally accepted images of what a "good father" is supposed to do with his son.
It's, of course, way, waaaaaaaaay more complex than this but, essentially, a "good father" is "just" a parent who Loves his children. But, like, the very first STEP you need to take in order to be able to Love your children is to start working toward loving your inner child, which is another way of saying that you have to give yourself the Love you haven't received or, at least, some grace. Which is WEEEERK, loads and loads and loads of it. And this is impossible on Supernatural, duh, because it's the self-loathing people show where the "work" they have to do is something else entirely and it's more like a "job". But they went SOOOO close to get this in "Death's Door", all they had to do was for adult Bobby not to confront his own, imagined father but to hug himself as the scared little child he was. That was it. That would've been a huuuuuuge first step for the show as a whole.
So, to me, Bobby couldn't actually be a "good" father because he hadn't resolved his deep, deeeeeep, immeeense trauma that he brought to his DEATH. But the interesting thing about him is that he could have been a great father. It's the unexplored potentiality that makes him compelling and quite tragic, frankly. I mean, he's "The One Who Tried To Do The Very, Veeeery Minimum At Least" and that's actually already a lot in that show.
This, thiiiiiiiis I like. So this is the Bobby that I moderately enjoy.
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