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Note: A lot of my friends have written extensive metas on their characters, and I actually have a lot to say on my personal head canon for Dean and his psychology. However, instead of posting it in one giant chunk, I'm going to write a series of individual essays, and create an index pinned in his journal to all of them. This is the first of those.
Each of these essays are not me saying I know everything about Dean and this is the only way I will ever look at things: rather, I invite people to discuss, question, or argue with me in the comments to each one. There are still episodes of the show I've only seen once or twice, and so I'm bound to have forgotten some things; if you know details of the show that contradict my ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them so that I can amend my personal view of Dean, and play him better. :) Or if you'd simply like to discuss the kinds of things I'll be talking more, I always love talking about Dean.
Daddy Issues & the Batman Complex
Dean’s relationship to John, hero-worshiping issues, and the impact of secret identities.
Each of these essays are not me saying I know everything about Dean and this is the only way I will ever look at things: rather, I invite people to discuss, question, or argue with me in the comments to each one. There are still episodes of the show I've only seen once or twice, and so I'm bound to have forgotten some things; if you know details of the show that contradict my ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them so that I can amend my personal view of Dean, and play him better. :) Or if you'd simply like to discuss the kinds of things I'll be talking more, I always love talking about Dean.
Daddy Issues & the Batman Complex
Dean’s relationship to John, hero-worshiping issues, and the impact of secret identities.
Dean and Sam's differing views on hunting have a lot to do with their respective childhood experiences. Dean remembers what it was like to have a normal life, family, and home, and he's had to watch how losing all that transformed his father. Given that the loss of his mother was something very real to him, unlike it was to Sam, it's hardly surprising that Dean chose the subconscious route of justifying his father's transformation, rather than condemning it, because this allowed him to not also lose his father, so to speak. If he accepted that the path his father was taking was not a healthy one, or chose to be resentful about it, it would put a wall between them that would leave him without any parental figure to look up to, and the loss of his mother hurt him too much to be able to willingly accept that and make that choice. Instead, it was easier, and more conducive to his relative sanity, to simply find reasons to believe that all his father's actions were just.
So how did a very young Dean grow up justifying the questionable actions of a man who ripped his childhood from him, and his chance at a normal, real life or identity? How did he come to practically worship a father who was bent on vengeance, and showed more passion for his obsession than love for his children?
Very easily, actually. He simply applied a child's lens to things.
He believed that his father was a superhero.
( I am vengeance. I am the night. )
