нарезкой:
Dean doesn't seem particularly emotionally child-like to me. In some ways, he is immature - but in a way that I'd consider relatively normal immaturity rather than emotional stasis at the age of 5. He is emotionally damaged, obviously, which shows in a myriad of ways. He is extremely, almost ridiculously vulnerable to Sam (John, of course, is in another category altogether). He puts up a fairly ineffective and utterly transparent "tough front" as self-defence. He is tremendously needy, clingy and insecure, not just in his relationship with family members, but also when he falls in love with Cassie, which he does with an inevitable desperation and speed. And so on - but... none of those qualities seem particularly child-like to me
vs.I am certainly not trying to belittle Dean. I love him dearly!
In the case of Dean, there is little doubt that John effectively crushed any self-initiated play or thought after Mary’s death. He was focused on keeping the boys safe and that meant complete obedience to “the rules.” Particularly once John started demon hunting, Dean had to follow John’s orders in order to keep himself and Sam safe. Case in point, in the episode “Something Wicked,” Dean takes the initiative to go out to play a game while John is out demon hunting. As a result of this initiative, Sam is almost killed by the shtriga, and John insures that Dean internalizes that guilt completely. Even though Dean is a much older child by the time of those events, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident. As such, Dean remains trapped in the conflict of initiative vs. guilt. As a result, the Dean that we meet at the beginning of the series is reluctant to initiate any actions without either an order from Dad or an understood, unspoken permission from Dad. This behavior is so prevalent that Sam comments on it in the pilot when he asks Dean about going on a hunt by himself. While Dean has a flippant answer for Sam, in fact, Dean was acting under implicit orders from Dad when he went on the hunt – find the bad thing and kill it.
Thus, despite his chronologic age, Dean Winchester remains stuck in the developmental stages of a toddler as a result of the traumatic death of his mother combined with John’s dysfunctional parenting after Mary’s death However, for now, we will all just continue to enjoy the little boy trapped in that sexy man’s body.
Growing up I guess both brothers thought the other was the favourite
The violent murder of his mother is the axis upon which Dean’s entire persona turns. It is in the emotional context defined by this devastatingly destructive and world-view destabilizing event that John becomes the begin-all and end-all to a child who loses, in a single instant, every other stability in his life. This critical trauma not only strips Dean of his mother, but also of his every expectation that the world can be expected to play by any of the rules by which the world is supposed to play; and it does so at an emotionally vulnerable time when 5-year-old Dean has only just solidified his understanding of these axioms of reality as inflexible … an understanding that means they now shatter rather than bending to accommodate a restructuring of that which he has only newly taken as immutable fact.
So in once singularly violent event, Dean loses every place in the universe he can stand with any measure of confidence it will remain constant save one: His father. John becomes the only defined variable in an existence where every other variable is not only unknown, but also in a constant state of flux. And thus, John becomes Dean’s only touch point to the concepts of reality, or sanity, or safety. It is at that moment, for Dean, that it all became about the Dad.
I believe this is why Dean goes where he goes (emotionally speaking) in Devil’s Trap when he is begging his father not to let the Demon kill him. I do not find those tears to be a designed manipulation to reach his father inside the demon and motivate John to action. Neither do I find those tears to be a manifestation of pain or fear or despair or any other fracture of Dean’s stoic intention to endure. Rather, I find those tears to be one thing: the visual evidence of the internal regression of a 28 year old man to the 5 year old he was when his world changed forever into a world where only one thing could ever be fully trusted: the begin-all, the end-all, the Daddy.
I believe Dean’s way of expressing himself at that particular moment – the word choices, the tears, the expression – are all evidence that underneath all his bravada and courage and demon-hunting prowess he is still, and always will be, a five-year-old who believes with every fiber of his being that his dad can do anything, up to and including, de-possessing himself of a Demon upon request. John is, quite literally, the only God Dean has ever known, ever accepted, ever believed in. And when everything else is stripped away, Dean falls to his emotional knees and begs mercy of his God: Please don’t let the demon kill me, Daddy.
And it works because Jensen totally sells it with every ounce of his considerable acting skill
Just to be clear: I actually have no doubt that Dean loves Sammy more than John. Nor do I doubt that Dean would give up his life in a heartbeat for Sam out of nothing more than this intense brotherly love. However, his obsessive need to protect Sammy at all costs is driven not by that love, but rather by the fact that John’s First Commandment is to Protect Sammy.
а вот это совсем нет "If Dean’s motivation is to protect Sammy, he would have told Sam to shoot John, because they all know the greatest danger to Sam is that Demon. As long as the Demon lives, Sammy can never be truly protected. In choosing to let it live, Dean proves his ultimate motivation is not protecting Sammy, but rather serving the needs of his relationship with John, which requires that he not allow John to die, no matter the cost to let him live.
If Sam’s motivation is anything other than Dean, he would have shot John, because the only reason to not shoot John is because Dean so obviously needs that. Every other need of every other character is served by Sam shooting John. Only what Dean needs is served by not shooting him. For Sam, it is all about the Dean".- т/е/ вот так запросто - надо было убить отца"
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They are certainly not the hallmarks of a well-adjusted and emotionally balanced person - all of them show that Dean is damaged. But for someone of his background, they seem inevitable to me - not indicative of emotional stasis at all, but merely reflecting the circumstances under which he grew up.
For example: His obsessive father and little brother (who was always firmly in the role of the one to be protected and cared for, and perhaps even coddled a bit) could never give him the attention, affection and reassurance that he is loved, no matter what, that he needed - the very attention, affection and reassurance that Sam received from Dean. Ergo, Dean is needy, clingy and starved for affection, and Sam is not
This is what I mean when I say I don't see these qualities as being the result of an emotional stasis at the age of five. To me, they are far more logical as the direct result of all of Dean's experiences - simply the psychological scars he bears in addition to the physical ones
In Dean's tendency to blame himself, I simply see a classic case of low self-esteem, which (sadly) is not restricted to any emotional age. It is not just children who seek the fault in themselves, sometimes taking this to a ridiculous degree - particularly when the alternative involves finding fault with those they love. So to me, this again is not indicative of a 5-year-old state of mind, though certainly of a man with severe emotional problems.