Escapade Panel: John: Good Hero, Bad Dad?

[sylvia_bond]

 

Panel: SPN: John: Good Hero, Bad Dad?

 

At Escapade this year, kathyem1 and I ran a fantastic and fun panel called John: Bad Dad. But then we (K'Kathy) changed it a bit to be less provocative, because really, I don't know any fan who thinks that John was totally horrible. So at the end, this was the description about the panel, and points for discussion, in case we ran out of things to say, which, needless to say, didn't happen:

 

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Panel: SPN: John: Good Hero, Bad Dad?

 

Description: Leave your weapons behind but I think it would be interesting to discuss what kind of father John Winchester actually was. He has so many good qualities and so many bad ones....people get so riled about this subject, it might be nice to hear some debate on it.

 

• Telling Sammy to stay gone when all he wants to do is go to college. Most parents would be proud. 
•  Handing a gun to a nine-year-old. WHAT the fuck was he thinking? Was the hope of giving a gun to a nine-yr-old to protect himself worth the risk?  
• Leaving Sam in the charge of another child, Dean. Again, what was he thinking? As a mom, I hope that kids like that are helped by CPS. (Child Protection Services) 
• Uprooting the boys to chase monsters. No family, no friends, just fellow hunters. I’m sure they moved as often to avoid other well-meaning adults trying to help the boys as they did to chase monsters.
• He offered up his kids on the altar of revenge.  
• John = Bad Dad, start with a list of his dubious choices as a father, taken from the series, make a chart He wasn't all good, but he wasn't all bad, either. What did he do right? Where did he screw up? 

***

 

So then, at the panel we had a two-column list. On the left was anything good we felt John did or was, anything positive. On the right, we had all the bad things he'd done or was. On the left hand side, I drew a smiley face. On the right, I drew a frowny face. After a minute of consideration, I added dark eyebrows and a perpetual five o'clock shadow. To be in keeping with the subject of the panel, namely John Winchester.

 

It was a pretty orderly panel, I felt, considering the volatile nature of the subject matter. To sum it up in brief, we were able to fill up the "bad" column twice as fast and three times as long as the "good" column. Thusly, because I love The Dad, I added stuff like "dark," "tall," and "hairy," at which point a fan shouted out "AND he makes beautiful babies," so I added that because it was true.

 

Our final conclusion, based on this discussion, was that John was a bad dad, because of the fact that he basically sacrificed his children for his revenge, played favorites, and all sorts of neglectful behavior. At the same time, he wasn't a failed parent, because he did raise two kids who grew up to be amazing, brave (and a whole bunch of other good qualities) men. So there's that. My conclusions, as I stated above, are general, because I think this was the consensus of the panel, but by no means is it definitive or absolute. Your mileage on John may vary.

 

Below are the columns, I'll put the bad one first, because that's where we focused, and the good one second.

 

(PS It was also interesting to note that an item in the bad column would show up in the good column for very different reasons, for example, training a child to use a gun at a very young age.)
(PPS Some of the items are reasonable conjecture, others come straight from canon.)\
(PPPS We determined not to go to the lowest common denomenator and blame the WHOLE thing on the YED, even though that’s basically true. Besides, John could have made different decisions than he did, so that’s what we focused on.)
(PPPPS Also, we brought up the idea that in the old days, giving a gun to a ten-year old was not necessarily a bad thing, but a potential means of survival. And while this is true, the general concensus seemed to be that while certain behaviors in wartime are warrented, John usually went to the extreme, and the effects on the boys was negative.) 

Bad

 

• Was absent.
• Did not provide basic care and supervision, which is not an issue for teenagers so much, but it is when you leave children under 10 alone in a motel room, and especially that you leave a 10 year old in charge of a six year old, like, all the time. Which we were sure happened, because Dean is tired of hearing The Dad's instructions, because he's heard it a million times.
• Gave guns at 9 years old/sawed off shotguns for a 10-year-old.
• Never let Dean be a kid.
• Was psychologically screwed up/bent on revenge.
• Was broken
• Created lack of self-worth in Dean. (Helped create.)
• Made a choice not to dig into the trenches until boys were old enough, instead went right to "war," regardless of the effect on his kids. (Not that he didn't care, but he made this choice, which many felt was detrimental to the boys and not the only choice he could have made.Additional comments include the idea that The Dad chose to hunt rather than buckle down and stick it out - evidence of other hunters with a stationary home base were mentioned, ie Bobby, Caleb, Pastor Jim, Elkins, the guy Evil!Sam killed.)
• Made many choices not to inform even when the boys were older.
• Had an explosive temper. (Many mentions of friendships that ended in gunfire might indicate a lack of stability of emotion or temperament. While no one suggested that he abused the boys, there seemed to be enough there about the drinking to indicate that it could have or did get out of hand. One from the Pilot about Sam's easy reference to the fact that The Dad had gone off with "Jim, Jack, and Jose," which I thought, originally, were people, but are actually, the first name basis names of three hard liquors. The second comes from Nightmare, where Sam says, "Well, a little more taquila and a little less hunting and our lives would have been like Max's." Dean says nothing to this. Max, by the way, was beaten for YEARS by his Dad and his uncle. So it seems that to Sam, the leap for John to have been very abusive was not a big one.)
• Kicked his son out when the son won a full ride scholarship to Stanford. Most parents would have been proud. Of course we know WHY John was upset, and naturally so, seeing as how he considered Sam in danger, but to disconnect from his son like that felt extreme to many. It seemed to point out that it was John's way or the highway, which is not very balanced.
• Constantly slammed Dean. (The off-hand comment in Dead Man's Blood about Dean not taking care of the Impala.)
• Had control issues.
• Was a survivalist. (Which doesn’t mean that all survivalists are bad parents, but they have a choice how to raise their kids, and we felt that it was a negative one.)
• Placed too much of a burden on Dean, Dean had to raise Sam.
• Raised Dean as a weapon.
• Never returned phone calls.
• Provided twisted love.
• He isolated his boys from the world, kept them in dangerous situations, and basically created a situation where his boys experienced the Stockholm Syndrome.
• Forced his quest on his children.
• Requested that Dean commit fratricide.
• Was a very bad communicator. 
• Had problem with long term relationships, therefore could not teach his boys how to have good ones.
• Had tunnel vision about his demon hunt.
• Played favorites. (Which is funny because we all felt he favored Sam over Dean, yet Sam is the one who is so angry with him.

 

Good

• 
  He was an idealist.
• Taught his children how to protect themselves.
• He cared for and doted on his boys.
• He protected his boys to the best of his ability.
• Had a policy of “leave no man behind.”
• He produced two amazing men.
• He did not intend to mess up Dean.
• He prepared for war because that’s what he saw, his intentions were good.
• He loved Mary.
• He was an excellent hunter.
• He had the following fabbo qualities: Dark, tall, beautiful, great teeth, sexy voice, sexy stubble, and, he made beautiful babies.

Personally, I feel bad for John. He was between a rock and a hard place, and being a former Marine might have dictated to him the choices he needed to make, regardless of whether they were civilized. I think the worst thing he did was to raise his boys in the isolation that he did. I mean, they didn’t know about other hunters until halfway through season one, yet John knew about them for years. There’s nothing worse than feeling all alone in the world. Even if your world is hard, if you have someone to be there for and who will be there for you, that makes it easier. The boys only had The Dad and each other, which explains Dean’s desperate need to get either or both of them back.

 

Comments

Re: your reply

[sylvia-bond.livejournal.com]

I will look forward to hearing your thoughts! (And any excuse is a good excuse to watch the boys!)

Re: your reply

[pwt-fan.livejournal.com]

The trouble is - I watched it all the way through without taking any more information in other than 'I want to have Jensen Ackles' babies...' lol

It has inspired me to start making a picspam, though, of random pictures of the prettiness; I'll send you a link when I'm done if you like?

I still don't think that John can be said to be a bad father (overall). There are so many factors/circumstances outside of his control (o.k so the giving a nine year old a gun bit is a tad extreme but we also have to remember that Sammy was NOT LIKE OTHER NINE YEAR OLDS - it says in canon that they were brought up like 'warriors' and also that they received weapons training from an early age)...

What do you think?

:o)

p.s can I add you to my FList?

Re: your reply

[sylvia-bond.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to see the picspam when it's done and I meant to say yes, add me to your flist, as you have, and I have added you back!
: D

Re guns at a young age...going to stick to my guns here and saying that giving a 45 to a nine year old so they can shoot whatever is under the bed is a little extreme. Raising a boy as a warrior might indicate that Sam is innured to violence, but by his reaction to it (years later when he tells Dean the story), that's not what Sam needed. Dean? Fine, but not Sam. Not by his telling of it, I think.

Re: your reply

[pwt-fan.livejournal.com]

Just noticed I hadn't replied to your point about Sam being brought up as a warrior; the point I was making wasn't that he would have been innured to violence - it was that he would have had weapons training (i.e safety awareness, correct handling etc.)

Sam obviously wasn't impressed by this (his conversation with Dean in the pilot) but as John spent so much time 'out' hunting during the night - short of asking the demons to play nicely, or maybe getting an adult (who was aware of the reality of demons, who cared enough to put themselves in danger, and was available for all night baby sitting duty) to protect the boys, or putting the sole responsibility for Sam's safety onto Dean's (overly burdened) shoulders, what was he to do? He obviously couldn't tell him it was in his imagination like 'normal' parents would have...at least he didn't risk the boys safety by lying/keeping them in the dark (excuse the pun).

What do you think?

K :o)

Re: your reply

[sylvia-bond.livejournal.com]

I think you're asking me whether or not I agree that John's giving Sam a 45 to protect himself at the age of nine was reasonable. Normally, I'd say no, no child should be given a gun like that. But given that this family was in a bad spot, with supernatural things all around that could kill you, he was a Better Dad to give the child something to protect himself, than to lie and pretend that there were no such thing as spooks. At the same time, I'm not sure a 45 was the right answer to that problem.

Surely there were spells, dreamcatchers, tatoos, charms, herbs, and other means by which The Dad could help his boy protect himself. The gun seems such an overwhelming symbol of the lack of perspective that John had on this whole thing. Yes, teach the child the truth, yes, give him something with which to protect himself. But a 45? No.

Re: your reply

[pwt-fan.livejournal.com]

Surely there were spells, dreamcatchers, tatoos, charms, herbs, and other means by which The Dad could help his boy protect himself.

It's so bloody frustrating to have to just go on snippets of information/conversations but I would say that at the time maybe John was almost completely naive/inexperienced - think of Sam in the pilot telling Dean he was a freak for shooting 'Casper' in the face - and Bobby (when confronted by his 'wife' in 'Dream a little dream of me') telling her that he didn't know back then what he knew now i.e. that he could have saved her...The fact is that a gun would have, in actual fact, been almost totally USELESS when dealing with the Supernatural (although spectacularly handy in the 'child-accidentally-shoots-himself' department *L*) - I don't know...OBVIOUSLY John was between a rock and a hard place, I don't know what the hell I'd do in his position. I don't even know that I'd still be ALIVE if I'd been through what he had been through up until then...I just feel uncomfortable condemning him as a father when he was more than willing to spend an eternity in Hell to bring Dean back...definitely a difficult discussion - it's blatantly apparent that you don't go around giving firearms to children...but then again 'normal' children aren't facing what they were, nor would they have been prepared for it either....I could go on and on *in circles*.

I read one of your reviews (and left a comment) at the other site (pink something...) I really enjoyed it.

Take care, Karen :o)