This is an excellent summary of why I care about John, even though he was a crap father. I think that, thanks to grief and fear, he made a series of bad decisions that slowly turned him into this shell of a man. And, while the boys never had much of a childhood, John never got to be a "dad." The fact that he did it to himself only makes it all the more compelling to me. And now he's in hell.

Kristen speaks for me (except for the last bit, because, you know, I kinda hope he's not any more).

But I think his final speech to Dean in IMToD really brings home that not even John thought much of the job he did as their Dad, rather than as their drill sergeant.

This. And his talk with Sam in ... Dead Man's Blood? When he admits that he had a college fund set up for a while. John's saving grace, to me, is exactly that -- that he knows how fucked up he is, but loves the boys, too, and wants things for them even if he's not the one who was able to provide them.

And of course there's the fact that Dean and Sam wouldn't be who they are without the shared bond of their childhood, *and* John's love, even if Sam, for one, might have wished he'd expressed it a little differently.

I guess what I appreciate most about all three Winchesters is that they're not one-dimensional.

And now he's in hell.

Kristen speaks for me (except for the last bit, because, you know, I kinda hope he's not any more.

Yeah, my reading of AHBL2 was that he escaped out of hell and went somewhere else that was more glowy.

he envisioned two guys in a muscle car gunning through backroads America

Ha. Kripke has this whole fantasy of masculinity going on, but he turns out not to know the details of the fantasy he's expressing. Like, I spent a little while on Google and know more about muscle cars than he does. How can you not think through your own fantasy like that? How can the car be only generalized symbol, and never brought into the specific in its own creator's mind? Even at this past summer's ComicCon, he couldn't give the specs of the car they film with. WTF, man?

Sometimes I feel like the whole show is an extended game of Quien es mas macho? and Kripke is losing. To his mostly-female audience. It's very weird.

Awesome Dean/Bela story here: [link]

This is what I want to see on screen: Dean being smarter than she is, and not wanting to want her.

As for John, I think he's a better father than even he gives himself credit for, at least in the sense that the boys turned out sane, generous, funny, and loving. You don't get that without good parenting, and it's not like they got their parenting anywhere else.

It's sort of result-oriented reasoning; I have to take the end result and then go back and nudge the canon a bit sideways (and ignore Authorial Intent) in order to make it work.

SuziQ, I'll spare you the whole discussion, but my Great John Winchester Defense Post is here: [link]

There's a lot of good thinky discussion in the comments, as well.

It's sort of result-oriented reasoning; I have to take the end result and then go back and nudge the canon a bit sideways (and ignore Authorial Intent) in order to make it work.

See, I get this too. As I said...confuzzled. Will read your defense post.

Dear Supernatural fandom: San Francisco is not "Frisco". Nor is it a big deal to get from Palo Alto into the city.

Yours, me.

Unfortunately "Frisco" is not just a fandom thing. I keep trying to break my Florida relatives of using it.

And S2....OMG....much love.

Nor is it a big deal to get from Palo Alto into the city.

Well, there are all those beaches in the way.

Heh.