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phantomasDefinitely more of a rant than meta, I'd say...
I don't know how to say this this without pissing off all the die-hard Dean-girls, but hey, my opinion,
With the premise that I am not/have not been in a decent mood for a while now, so possibly there could be a better way to say this, but...
I'm irked by the fact that accepting that maybe, yes, John didn't break in Hell, automatically provokes a knee-jerk reaction in Dean's fans, as if saying it means diminishing Dean's character because he did break.
Demons lie.
But, we are accepting what the Demons say and what Dean says about his stay in Hell...how do we know all of Dean's memories are not just a construct, a hallucination created by Demons, to breake Dean? We know because Castiel confirmed it, right?
He confirmed Dean broke, he confirmed Dean opened the first sygil, that only a Righteous Man in Hell could do that, and Castiel confirmed angels got the word to try and break into Hell to avoid that from happening, but arrived too late...Angels lie too, sometimes, iirc, but taking it all as truth:
Hell needed a Righteous man to break and open the first sygil, and Dean was it, and the Angels didn't arrive in time to avoid it. Dean having been this man means he is also the only one who can all make it go away.
I can't see, and here I have my own knee-jerk reaction, what denying that John didn't break changes for Dean.
It doesn't make Dean any weaker, as a character. (not in my eyes, anyway, but then again, I am not a Dean-girl, so to speak).
Yes, demons lie, we know that, but we also know that demons play with words and poke where it hurts most with the (half) truths we fear, and Dean not coming up to his father's standards is Dean's OWN weak point (in his mind, since John said he was proud of his son loud and clear to his face).
We know John was in Hell for a year. We know he got out. We know he helped the boys/Dean kill Yellow Eyes.
A year, 12 months, 120 years according to Dean.
Was John a Righteous Man? I'd say yes. Too much for his own good, at that, and the good of his boys in some ways. It's pretty much canon, isn't it?
Did Yellow Eyes only wanted John's soul out of petty revenge? Is that what people are saying?
It diminishes the whole narrative/plot Kripke & Co. have been building for two years, now, in my opinion, to dismiss it like that.
Nah, Yellow Eyes only wanted John out of spite, of course. DIdn't have anything better to do. Lilith's plan only came after as an afterthought, and oh, look, Dean is available, so we'll get him instead.
I understand Dean's role and part in the narrative is, alongside Sam's, the principal one.
There is a reason why John had to die at some point, him being the over-whelming character he was (he was written as such in canon, a legend amongst Hunters and so on, all about the Hunting, at all costs..if that isn't rightneousness...), there would have been no space for the boys to grow up and take the lead as they have done (more or less, since now they depend on Bobby/others for research and such more often than not, but anyway...that's another rant, lol)
Let me state it clearly: I like Bobby. I like Dean and Sam. A lot.
However, I have this niggling feeling that the reason why most are denying John not breaking under torture is a misguided wish to deny Dean's being 'weak' in the occasion, as compared to John.
Yes, everyone breaks under torture at some point. We can chose to believe that John didn't break. That he wasn't at all Righteous Enough for the scope. That he would have broken at some point (a couple of hundreds years more, why not? Perhaps just a day more would have been enough, but the Gates opened just in time, alas!)
Me, I chose to believe John, his integrity, his role in the story, the obvious agenda in Yellow Eyes' plans, Castiel's mention of the angels belated intervention, and in NO WAY whatsoever this diminishes Dean's character and role in my eyes. I never saw him weak, and I never will.
I never saw John as weak, either. But the points in their life when those men, Dean and John, went to Hell were utterly different, their motivation utterly different:
Dean went to save Sam, with the guilt of having been the reason for his father's death, with resentment for losing his life, with tiredness and desperation in his soul for all that he hadn't done, all he had sacrificed. Dean went to espiate his feelings of unworthyness.
John went to save his son's life, and to keep fighting the same war he's been fighting for the past 22 years. John went to save all that was dear and left to him in life, and yet, even at that moment, he was still thinking of the overall Good, of what Sam might become, and having no other choice than giving this burden to Dean. John went out still fighting.
To me, that alone, and no consideration of 'betterness' at all, justify the different outcome of those men in Hell. Apart from, you know, Kripke& Co giving something to do to the leads of the show :)
And yes, it is my knee jerk reaction, to defend John in this case, I know and recognise and own that.
I don't know how to say this this without pissing off all the die-hard Dean-girls, but hey, my opinion,
With the premise that I am not/have not been in a decent mood for a while now, so possibly there could be a better way to say this, but...
I'm irked by the fact that accepting that maybe, yes, John didn't break in Hell, automatically provokes a knee-jerk reaction in Dean's fans, as if saying it means diminishing Dean's character because he did break.
Demons lie.
But, we are accepting what the Demons say and what Dean says about his stay in Hell...how do we know all of Dean's memories are not just a construct, a hallucination created by Demons, to breake Dean? We know because Castiel confirmed it, right?
He confirmed Dean broke, he confirmed Dean opened the first sygil, that only a Righteous Man in Hell could do that, and Castiel confirmed angels got the word to try and break into Hell to avoid that from happening, but arrived too late...Angels lie too, sometimes, iirc, but taking it all as truth:
Hell needed a Righteous man to break and open the first sygil, and Dean was it, and the Angels didn't arrive in time to avoid it. Dean having been this man means he is also the only one who can all make it go away.
I can't see, and here I have my own knee-jerk reaction, what denying that John didn't break changes for Dean.
It doesn't make Dean any weaker, as a character. (not in my eyes, anyway, but then again, I am not a Dean-girl, so to speak).
Yes, demons lie, we know that, but we also know that demons play with words and poke where it hurts most with the (half) truths we fear, and Dean not coming up to his father's standards is Dean's OWN weak point (in his mind, since John said he was proud of his son loud and clear to his face).
We know John was in Hell for a year. We know he got out. We know he helped the boys/Dean kill Yellow Eyes.
A year, 12 months, 120 years according to Dean.
Was John a Righteous Man? I'd say yes. Too much for his own good, at that, and the good of his boys in some ways. It's pretty much canon, isn't it?
Did Yellow Eyes only wanted John's soul out of petty revenge? Is that what people are saying?
It diminishes the whole narrative/plot Kripke & Co. have been building for two years, now, in my opinion, to dismiss it like that.
Nah, Yellow Eyes only wanted John out of spite, of course. DIdn't have anything better to do. Lilith's plan only came after as an afterthought, and oh, look, Dean is available, so we'll get him instead.
I understand Dean's role and part in the narrative is, alongside Sam's, the principal one.
There is a reason why John had to die at some point, him being the over-whelming character he was (he was written as such in canon, a legend amongst Hunters and so on, all about the Hunting, at all costs..if that isn't rightneousness...), there would have been no space for the boys to grow up and take the lead as they have done (more or less, since now they depend on Bobby/others for research and such more often than not, but anyway...that's another rant, lol)
Let me state it clearly: I like Bobby. I like Dean and Sam. A lot.
However, I have this niggling feeling that the reason why most are denying John not breaking under torture is a misguided wish to deny Dean's being 'weak' in the occasion, as compared to John.
Yes, everyone breaks under torture at some point. We can chose to believe that John didn't break. That he wasn't at all Righteous Enough for the scope. That he would have broken at some point (a couple of hundreds years more, why not? Perhaps just a day more would have been enough, but the Gates opened just in time, alas!)
Me, I chose to believe John, his integrity, his role in the story, the obvious agenda in Yellow Eyes' plans, Castiel's mention of the angels belated intervention, and in NO WAY whatsoever this diminishes Dean's character and role in my eyes. I never saw him weak, and I never will.
I never saw John as weak, either. But the points in their life when those men, Dean and John, went to Hell were utterly different, their motivation utterly different:
Dean went to save Sam, with the guilt of having been the reason for his father's death, with resentment for losing his life, with tiredness and desperation in his soul for all that he hadn't done, all he had sacrificed. Dean went to espiate his feelings of unworthyness.
John went to save his son's life, and to keep fighting the same war he's been fighting for the past 22 years. John went to save all that was dear and left to him in life, and yet, even at that moment, he was still thinking of the overall Good, of what Sam might become, and having no other choice than giving this burden to Dean. John went out still fighting.
To me, that alone, and no consideration of 'betterness' at all, justify the different outcome of those men in Hell. Apart from, you know, Kripke& Co giving something to do to the leads of the show :)
And yes, it is my knee jerk reaction, to defend John in this case, I know and recognise and own that.
