♥

♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥ no comment ;-)

teehee :] ♥♥♥♥

How could i possibly like John and Dean's father/son relationship. Don't get me wrong i love John and i know he did his best but the way he treated Dean has led to Dean feeling worthless his whole life - i mean for frak scake he had a hard time admitting that he didn't want to go to hell!

Dean has no selfworth NONE and that is a direct result of the way John treated him when he was younger. I mean Dean's been looking after Sammy his whole life! John was gone alot but the difference between Sam and Dean is that Sam always had someone looking after him...not only did Dean not have this but he had to look after someone else....some times his Dad too...i think it was John that once said when Dean was younger he put his arm on his Dad's shoulder and said "don't worry Dad it's going to be okay..."

And the ep where Sam nearly dies because Dean leaves for a while to play video games, then when he comes back the demons killing Sam....the look John gave Dean, once he had shot the demon away, broke my heart! </3

Dean loved his Dad and followed him blindly and his Dad treated him like Sam's keeper then when Sam was gone, a soldier. He treated Sam better more like an equal in my opinion - but only because Sam actually stood up to him IMO an ability he developed from actually having a MORE normal childhood i.e. someone else took care of him he didn't have to do it himself - anyway Sam stood up to him wouldn't follow blindly and because of that they had a better relationship. John didn't treat Sam like a soldier he treated him like a son.

He always told Dean to take care of Sammy even when Sam was old enough to take care of himself but John never made sure someone was taking care of Dean.

honestly I understand that point of view, and I agree to some extent but I really honestly think John did his best, for both his boys, he knew that the life he lead and the "look after your brother, boy" was going to damage Dean but he HAD to do it, to protect both Dean and Sam.

I also think that over the years he had a certain bond with Dean that no one could ever take away from no matter how hard they tried .... and in the end he sold his soul for him, if that's not love I don't know what is.

^^i agree with sarah..great POV, btw

i agree with SG1-090 as well

to me bobby had been more of a father to dean that john ever was....believe me i love john and i cried like a baby when he died and i would love if he came back but with that said, a lot of dean's selfworth issues came from always haveing to look after sam when no one was really looking after him.

ooo...hot-button issue...my favourite ones to jump into!

I chose John and Dean specifically for those early years of Dean's life when things WERE normal...Sam never had that. I don't understand why people think that John immediately began hunting and left 5-yr.-old Dean to look after infant Sam...HELLOOOO??? John would have had to start slowly...he had a baby and a kindergartner to look after, for God's sake!! He had a lot to learn, he had research to do, and uh, quite possibly he had to keep his JOB for a while so they had food and Sammy had diapers?

Even when Sam and Dean talked to John's former partner at the garage, it seemed to me he indicated that John stuck around for a while. Even Missouri saying that Dean was a "goofy-looking kid" tells me she had to have known them when he was 8 or 9, 'cause he sure was a little cutie in the pilot! Incidentally, I've read fanfics that have John taking Dean and baby Sammy into the woods and leaving them in a tent, with Dean in charge, while he goes off hunting...that is just SO unrealistic, no matter how driven/obsessed/insensitive/uncaring/heart­les­s/b­oor­ish­/id­iot­ic/­bli­nd/­cal­lou­s/m­ean­/an­gry­/se­lfi­sh, et al, ad infinitum, that you think John was. Yes, by the time Dean was 10 or 11, John was leaving them alone, but that would have been hard on BOTH boys. I don't agree at all that Sam had a more 'normal' childhood than Dean!

A good part of Dean's self-worth issues come from losing his mom in the fire, and having to stand there and watch it happen. His safe and secure little world crumbled right then and there. Maybe we should Mary-bash, for making the deal with Azazel in the first place! Sure, John could have sucked it up, denied what he saw with his own eyes and tried to raise his sons normally, but he likely would have ended up drowning it all in alcohol - remember Max? Even Sam and Dean admitted that a little less (hunting?) and a little more tequila, and they would have had Max's childhood. NOT a pretty picture.

And who's to say that John and Sam had a better relationship because Sam was a rebel? Why would anyone think that he loved Sam more than Dean?? God, that bugs me! Unless as a parent you're a complete and total a-hole, which John WASN'T, you love your kids equally - differently, but equally. I never saw anything to indicate that John loved Sam more than Dean, or did I miss something? As Deangirlx pointed out, he DIED and SOLD HIS SOUL for Dean! If he loved Sam even more than that...well, he'd have to come up with something pretty spectacular to beat dying for his child.

My point of all this is that John wasn't some heartless bastard who neglected his responsibilities and forced his elder child to raise the younger one. Dean does not have self-worth issues simply because of that. Sam's childhood suffered as much as Dean's did. Now if you were to say that a tragic string of incidents led to a scary, f'ed-up life for all of them, THAT I wouldn't argue.

Ouch...re-reading this, I sound a little harsh...I didn't intend to attack anyone's POV, and I should have IMHO's scattered all about...I usually take more care than that. ***sheepish expression***

*nods* wow :] I agree with everything you said 67impala!

;)

I'd like to explain my POV a little better, if that's ok! To me, the whole "who loved who and how" issue is based on perception because it really never is spelled out in black and white - not that I can remember, anyway.

I keep thinking back to the first season. With what we are given about John and Sam's relationship, it seems they spent a good part of their time butting heads, right up until the big fight they had before Sam left for college. While they are looking for their dad, Sam is obviously pretty nervous about seeing him again, and he tells Dean he's not sure if their Dad will even want to see him. Not long after they are reunited, John and Sam get into the big argument on their way to fight the vamps, and they're at it again when John and Dean are in the hospital after they get smucked by the semi. Even after his death, Sam says that John probably died thinking that Sam hated him. All this would point to us thinking, holy crap, they had a lousy relationship, all they did was fight! I don't think John ever tells him, 'Sam I loved you so much more because you stood up to me." He never tells Sam at all how he felt/feels. Yet I think we would mostly accept and agree that John did love Sam, despite all their fighting. So Sam's perception that his Dad didn't like him wasn't true.

In "Dream a Little Dream..", Dean's dream self tells him his Dad treated him like a soldier, didn't care whether Dean lived or died, and loved Sam more. At their reunion, John and Dean seemed pretty happy to see each other; that was quite the heart-warming embrace! And of course, John died and went to Hell for him! Obviously he cared a LOT whether or not Dean lived or died, even though he never said it in the show. So it seems as if Dean's perception of the way his Dad felt about him wasn't true, either.

I've even wondered whether or not that was a point the writers were deliberately trying to make; that they were both wrong.

Dean's "real" self in the dream says his father was an obsessed bastard who couldn't take care of his family and let his mom die. I don't think anyone could argue that John did NOT "let Mary die", but is it true just because Dean said it?

I mean, canon is canon, but a good show leaves some things to the viewer's own interpretation. If not, we may as well be robots just processing all the facts and seeing if everything adds up, lol!

IMO, how you feel about the relationship between John/Sam and John/Dean is a matter of perception. Canon just doesn't seem to work in this case...in my opinion! =^^=

I kinda hafta agree with SG1-090. I was thinking of the shtriga when I did this one. I mean, I understand why John is so protective of Sam, but where did he come off laying that kind of a burden on Dean?! He was only a child! Hell, Dean's the one who was arguing with Sam about the Lucky Charms. If John was so damned worried about Sam, why didn't he just have them stay with Pastor Jim, or Bobby, or someone else that he knew he could rely on?