The more likely you are to kill the underserving again (or for the first time), the closer to the kill side you are.

That's why I don't get why he didn't kill the kid. I suppose I do for meta reasons, but how else is that kid going to survive? So, he either condemned him to slow starvation or killing people to feed himself. The story logic breaks down for me at killing the mother but leaving the kid alive.

I agree, Jen, the story logic doesn't work. Dean essentially ensured that the kid would become a killer. But from a fucked-up Dean pov, does it hold water that he is eliminating a definite risk, someone who has taken lives, and someone he doesn't trust to not kill again, and yet the kid gets a pass in Dean's eyes because so far he's innocent. And if the only one the kid is gunning for is Dean, Dean considers that fair? I'm just trying to make this work, and I think that Dean is not in a logical headspace right now.

I'm just trying to make this work,

Same, and I'm trying very hard to do so without going to a "the writers really didn't think it through" place.

and I'm trying very hard to do so without going to a "the writers really didn't think it through" place.

Also same. It doesn't do me any good to get into where I speculate the writers might be falling down on the job. That's too painful and messy and unproductive. If I just gamely go at it from a "how does this fit with canon, and where does it go from here", at least there's good fic bunnies to be had.

So, I'm sticking with the "something is rotten in the state of Deanmark".

Writers do occasionally make mistakes, though. They're juggling a lot of threads and a lot of balls, and writing episodic TV ain't easy. Once something's filmed, there's no going back to edit.

I don't love what Dean did with the kid, obviously. But I can interpret to fit my fanon, and it's not going to ruin the season for me.

t /kneejerk sympathy for writers under a lot of pressure, especially in this fandom

Yeah, and just to be clear, I'm not overly exercised about it. It doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not tearing my hair out. For me it's just noted, and moving on, with a minor curiosity to see whether it's something they plan to revisit.

I'm a very sheltered SPN fan in that I don't venture out beyond here and my FB feed, which is great by me.

It works for me in the same way the memory wipe was totally not a solution to Lisa's problem--Dean's mistake, more than the writers'.

I think the writers have dropped the ball with meatsuits in general, but this particular scenario strikes me as on Dean.

Also in terms of Dean'character arc, it is totally possible t mild irony that the writers might take Dean places we would not in their place. t /mild irony

He's theirs to do with as they will. It's not a matter of my agreeing with a character arc or not; I don't get a vote. Some things will make sense to me, some won't; some things I'll like, some I may not. It's all part of the ride. My part comes down to watching it, making what I make of it, and talking about it.

Of course, if someone chooses to have a "What would I do if I were a writer?" discussion, have a ball!! I don't have the imagination to write fiction.