fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1174 ]

[ SECRET POST #1174 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1174 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

April 1st Submissions Post is open!

Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 185 secrets from Secret Submission Post #168.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I love John, so I automatically hate this secret.

Yes, he made some bad choices, but I'm pretty sure he admitted it! And parents make mistakes. That's when John did when he kicked Sam out. And we still have no clue what went down during the Stanford fight, so we can't take sides here.

Also, I'm definitely sure he's in Heaven.

Exactly. I think John had some major issues as a father, but for one, he didn't disown Sam. He told Sam not to come back in a fit of rage, but then he spent the next several years checking up on him and making sure he was okay and telling the people he saved all about how proud he was of his son. And the first time they saw each other after that, he owned up to having said things he'd regretted and gave his son a hug. Being disowned is more serious to me. *shrug*

Pretty sure he's in Heaven as well, or whatever counts as Heaven in that universe.

Yup. I agree with you.

yeah, i thought that whole thing was more about mutual stubbornness than disowning.

Mutual stubbornness, exactly! I put a bit more fault on John because he was the adult and should have been the one to make the first move, but it wasn't a onesided thing where Sam was tossed out into the rain against his will.

yeah, i agree.

i guess i've just always seen it that way because the same thing happened in my family (fight between a mother and daughter, daughter left & cut off contact. 8 years later, there's still no resolution.)

but i know it only happened because they're both basically the same person, and neither one will back down or forgive. it sucks, but it happens.

I agree with you on the fact that John had major issues as a Father, but (playing the devil's advocate here a bit) Sam thought John had disowned him. Sam thought that John care about him anymore. He even outright said that he didn't think John would want to see him again.

I do put more blame with John than with Sam here. Sam is the one who was much more insecure about the situation and John was the adult. But that said, Sam was at least 18; he wasn't a child. John should have handled things better and I imagine the way Sam left was one of the biggest regrets of his life, but Sam wasn't fully innocent in it either.

I think part of this might be a difference in defining the word "disowned". To me, that implies something much more significant than what happened. Sam and John had a massive, blow out fight and it ended with Sam willingly leaving and John telling him not to come back. Plus the tone of the secret felt incredibly one sided, like John had tossed Sam out on the street against Sam's will. That it was mutual and Sam was content to leave things as they stood until Jessica died make all the difference to me.

Well, from what I saw in the show, Sam wanted to go to college, that's it. Nothing about leaving the family, nothing about not talking to them.

Sam: I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that’s what I’m doing.

That's from the Pilot episode.

Sam flat out says that he just wanted to go to college. I highly doubt that Sam wanted to leave his family like that. Later on, he's shocked that John cared about him to check up on him at Stanford. To me, that implies that Sam thought his father had disowned him. He also says that he doesn't think John would ever want to see him again.

If Jess hadn't died, would Sam have ever found out that his father still loved him?

*sigh* The fact is, we have no idea what that fight was like. It could have been like this

Sam: I'm going to college and your not going to stop me.
John: If you go, never come back.

or it could have been

Sam: I got a full ride to Stanford and I want to go. Can you...
John: You're not going! And if you do, never come back

Something about the whole thing makes me thing that it was a lot closer to the second then the first. Just, from the way things are presented to us in the show.

I still say that eighteen is not exactly the best age to make rational decisions, and John shouldn't have thrown his son out. Because that's basically what he did, cut Sam off. Sam didn't think he could call his family when he was at Stanford, you notice.

Right, that line is from the pilot but it always felt to me like Sam didn't want to call them, not that he didn't think he could. His reaction when Dean showed up in the pilot and how he couldn't seem to wait to show Dean the door at first made me think as much, especially when combined with the line of Dean's about how he hadn't asked for anything in two years. It sounded like a mutual sort of thing to me between Sam and John and I find it telling that while John checked up on Sam, we've had no indication of Sam checking up on them, not even via Bobby or Pastor Jim.

John had many, many issues as a father and I'd never claim otherwise. Plus I do consider him to be more at fault for the situation than Sam. I just don't think the Stanford argument was as entirely onesided as this secret implies.

I always read that line, along with all the other times Sam mentioned the fight in S1 as Sam thinking he couldn't.

Well, Dean had said that he hadn't contacted Sam in two years (and I hate that little plot problem there, btw). Would you want to see your estranged brother if he broke into your house after two years of no contact, asking you to help find your missing father, who you thought hated you?

I think that Sam thought his family had given up on him, why should he try to find out about them?

Now, I think we're just arguing in circles here. Clearly, I feel one way about the text, you feel another way. And, really, I'm enjoying the argument, but we're not going to resolve anything. And that's fine. It's fun, though.

It looks like we're interpreting the text differently, that's for sure. But you're right; it's a fun conversation, even if we won't convince each other of our respective POVs! :)

In Dean's case, it depends. I never got the impression that Sam blamed Dean for the fight or that Dean had been much more than a bystander during it. I'm guessing there were several incidents like in Dead Man's Blood where Sam and John were at each other's throats and Dean did what he could to keep the peace, at least until that final argument where Sam finally left. So if my interpretation is correct, then I would want to see my estranged brother because I wouldn't associate him with the negativity that happened with my dad, especially because this is almost years after the fact and the wounds have had a chance to heal.

The two/four year thing drives me batty too! The best way I can explain it is that ~~the writers screwed the pooch~~ Sam was gone for almost four years (he hadn't graduated yet but seemed to be in his senior year, so more than three years) and that he and Dean had last had contact two years prior to the pilot. I'm guessing something happened then that turned the feud somewhat more personal between them, but of course, there's no canon confirmation of any of that.

I kind of agree, but kind of not. For one thing, I think immortal_jedi has a point. For another, he was a shitty father. And he mourned instead of raising his children for eighteen goddamn years. That's absurd.

Oh, he was a shitty father. I'm not gonna deny that. I just don't think that the Stanford argument is enough for this sort of ire. If the OP had put something in about how he'd apparently been drunk far too often, dragged his kids all over the place, kicked one out, abandoned another, and then lied to them about the third, let his rage and grief and sorrow overcome his ability to be a decent man, and allowed his quest for vengence to blind him to the damage he was causing to his kids, I'd understand where they were coming from.

It still wouldn't be enough for me to want to see him burn in Hell forever because John did try even when he failed, but I'd be able to understand their perspective. Limiting it solely to the Stanford argument just seems oddly petty to me.

I don't think they were intentionally limiting it, just calling it up as an example.

But no, I don't think he should go to Hell. In fact, my instinctive reaction to John is to hug him and wail "you were just doing the best you coulllllllld!"

Honestly, I very much got the impression that it was the Stanford argument that was their main beef with John:

"He disowned his own son, just because Sam didn't want to be a hunter...Nothing he can say can make up for that....Any man who'd disown his child just because his son didn't do exactly as he wanted deserves to rot in hell."

No mention of what John did to Dean or to Adam, nor even of the other things John did to Sam. It was all about him deserving to burn in Hell because he "disowned" Sam. And like others have mentioned, even that is an overly simplistic look at the situation because it was never just forcing Sam to be a hunter, it was also concern about Sam being in danger and what Sam was in danger of becoming.

In fact, my instinctive reaction to John is to hug him and wail "you were just doing the best you coulllllllld!"

I KNOW! He DID try, the poor guy. He certainly wasn't perfect and he made a lot of mistakes, but considering how damaged he was, I doubt he could have done much better.

I am... semi-sympathetic with the secret maker.

John was stupid, and yeah, I really do think the Stanford fight is John's fault. He's the adult in the situation. I do agree that no one should kick their child out because the child does something that the parent doesn't want them to do (barring criminal activity, and even then, it's not always the right thing to do. I suppose barring continual, unrepentant criminal activity, maybe? Sorry, tangent).

But, no I don't think John deserves to go to/ stay in Hell for it.

I won't go so far as to say he deserves Hell, but deserves to have simply blinked out of existence rather than have an eternal reward? Probably.

A lot of people do stupid, terrible things while grieving, but to have not snapped out of it in twenty-some years? At best, he's ill. And that's probably giving him too much credit.

I don't think he deserved to burn in hell, but I've never gotten all the love for him either... Yes, he saved people, yes, he loved his boys...

But he was a shitty father. That is NOT the kind of life you raise your kids into. It doesn't matter how desperate for revenge he was, his children should have come first.

John himself said it best: Who the hell does that to a kid? What kind of irresponsible bastard lets a child anywhere near... You know you could have been killed! [...] Your father was supposed to protect you.

Yeah, you can try to justify it any way you like, but John Winchester was NOT a good dad. A good hunter, and even a good man, yes, but he wasn't a good father.

Okay, I get that he made mistakes but why does everyone gloss over the fact that HIS WIFE BURNED TO DEATH SUPERNATURALLY PINNED TO THE CEILING?!?!?!
And I don't mean that in a "oh, poor man, his wife died" way, I mean a "holy shit there are monsters and we could be in a supernatural war!" kind of way.

This isn't like normal circumstances. You can't say it's a simple case of disobedience or that John didn't approve of Sam's dream of going to college as if it was just some family squabble. There were DEMONS involved here.

Under the circumstances, I don't think there was a right or healthy way of dealing with... their lives.

I don't think John's bastard ways should be separated from the fact that he was always supernaturally screwed from the get go.

This! OP, you don't have to like him, but...shit, everybody makes mistakes. He was a shitty father but I'm pretty sure he did the best he could.

Agreed. John was far from perfect, but it's not like he was a complete bastard either, or like he didn't care about Sam. WTF.

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[ SECRET POST #1174 ]

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butthurt anon with daddy issues chiming in

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