So, possibly an afterthought or author wank on Kripke's part.

My one question for Kripke (my biggie, anyway) is "What did you mean at the time when you had Mary apologise in 'Home'?" I so want to know.

I believe Dean would be completely different if Mary had raised them. I feel like Sammy's personality is in-born.

Well, we did see that Dean had the protective fixit tendencies displayed while his mother was still alive. Now, his father exacerbated all that with exactly how he raised them, but I think he would have veered on that side anyway.

At the time I thought she was simply apologizing for not being there, for dying and not being a mom to him. And I would be willing bet Kripke intended something like that, since it's not as if we find out she might have been apologizing for the demon deal and her history, etc., anytime real soon after that.

But if she just got killed by some random demon she knew nothing about one night, apologising is kinda weird, no? Especially just to Sam.

I know someone has asked him that question at a con. Why haven't I stumbled upon the answer? I've read so many things I didn't want to read, dammit.

I don't think so. As a mom, there's not a lot worse than knowing you left this helpless infant without you. I think it's entirely natural to want to say "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you" because you are, even if it's not your fault you weren't.

And Dean she got a few years with, at any rate.

I don't have the mom angle on this, so I defer. But I spent a few years wondering what she meant, because apologising for being murdered still doesn't make sense to me.

Other moms should totally weigh in if they want to, but I know I apologize for things that aren't really my fault because I do hurt, to some extent, when my kids do. It's like saying, "I'm sorry you threw up, honey," except a hundredfold, because you left him mom-less.

Also, that was simply *my* reading the first time I saw it, and not necessarily what Kripke had in mind. But it didn't gnaw at me, you know?

I just apologized for something that was not at all my fault because I was sorry it happened.

I'll be Pollyanna and say that when they wrote Mary saying sorry, they knew what they were laying the groundwork for. Because, even if the payoff wasn't for a long long while, our inability to come up with another reasonable explanation lends itself to supporting the explanation we were finally given. --I don't know if that sentence reads sensically or grammatically. I'm le tired.

I think I'd like to see Mary as still the hunter --wait, no, I'd like to see both versions, just to compare. Why do I have to choose?! But my intitial reaction is to see her with her canon history and her vow to never raise her children as hunters, and how that clashes with her desire for revenge and her need to prepare her sons to be able to protect themselves. Extra angst there.

Of course, it'd also be interesting to see her transformation from civilian to, if not full-fledged hunter, but fierce lion mama who learns how to get her and her family ready to lay down a good defensive position before eventually moving into the offensive (after being attacked one too many times).

Nick's wife? Fridged.

Hmm. I wouldn't have though to call her fridged, because she was never really a presence when she wasn't a dream meatsuit. I guess she was, but Nick didn't fare much better, because he was only introduced to provide a meatsuit for Lucifer.

It's true, but they just killed Nick's family in order for him to step aside and bend over for Lucy. So it's not in service of a major character, but it was one of the female deaths that prompted male anguish and action that came to mind.

Madison? Casualty, not fridged. Still trying to think of others.

I guess my takeaway from the Home scene was always that Mary was accepting blame for something, and until now I never considered that she was expressing sadness. Which makes total sense, except I like my way better.