I know you're teasing me a little, but I'm going to answer this seriously. And at length!
"Good intentions" is all anyone has to offer to explain what John did--except that THIS time, Bobby made Dean feel what it must have been like for John when Mary burned, in a way Dean was not able to do before because he wasn't completely, irrevocably in love with Sam and WITH him until now.
Now Dean can imagine what something like that must have felt like. And if it was Sammy that burned on the ceiling? Dean would have become every bit the obsessed man his father was, and we'd be cheering him for it. John deserved to have people FEEL what it must have been like for him, and that actually hasn't been done by anyone, canon or otherwise (that I know of). Mary died in the first episode. We didn't know her at all, and didn't have any investment in her and John. So this scene was important. We can still blame him for what he did and didn't do, and rightly so, but we at least owe the character a moment where we sink into his skin and truly feel the emotional agony and life-altering shock of that moment. Frankly, seeing your wife somehow clinging to the ceiling and burning to death, killed by an actual demon, learning that our world is actually full of evil supernatural creatures, all this would drive most people insane. John actually handled it better than a lot of people would have.
If anyone had a "good cause" for neglecting his kids... well, I think that John's reason comes close.
Let me tell you something from my personal experience, with my own father and the father of my husband: a bad father actually having good intentions means something--it does-- but the father LOVING them and actively TRYING to be better-- that makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between a human being, flawed like we all are, making mistakes and struggling to be a better person and father, and a monster. It's the difference between a child knowing at least that the mistakes of the father don't extend to being a psychopath, incapable of loving, and a child wishing they could boil the DNA of their father out of their body, so they had no part of them left.
Don't get me wrong. My version of John is not being let off the hook here. His boys left him. Because of what he did. Because of what he became in the course of pursuing his desperate obsession with finding the demon that killed his wife. He's already paying a price, and this seemingly little thing is huge. Family is everything to John, even if he doesn't know how to be a father separate from an obsessed Hunter.
And he's going to have to atone. But it is possible.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-05-14 05:53 pm (UTC)"Good intentions" is all anyone has to offer to explain what John did--except that THIS time, Bobby made Dean feel what it must have been like for John when Mary burned, in a way Dean was not able to do before because he wasn't completely, irrevocably in love with Sam and WITH him until now.
Now Dean can imagine what something like that must have felt like. And if it was Sammy that burned on the ceiling? Dean would have become every bit the obsessed man his father was, and we'd be cheering him for it. John deserved to have people FEEL what it must have been like for him, and that actually hasn't been done by anyone, canon or otherwise (that I know of). Mary died in the first episode. We didn't know her at all, and didn't have any investment in her and John. So this scene was important. We can still blame him for what he did and didn't do, and rightly so, but we at least owe the character a moment where we sink into his skin and truly feel the emotional agony and life-altering shock of that moment. Frankly, seeing your wife somehow clinging to the ceiling and burning to death, killed by an actual demon, learning that our world is actually full of evil supernatural creatures, all this would drive most people insane. John actually handled it better than a lot of people would have.
If anyone had a "good cause" for neglecting his kids... well, I think that John's reason comes close.
Let me tell you something from my personal experience, with my own father and the father of my husband: a bad father actually having good intentions means something--it does-- but the father LOVING them and actively TRYING to be better-- that makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between a human being, flawed like we all are, making mistakes and struggling to be a better person and father, and a monster. It's the difference between a child knowing at least that the mistakes of the father don't extend to being a psychopath, incapable of loving, and a child wishing they could boil the DNA of their father out of their body, so they had no part of them left.
Don't get me wrong. My version of John is not being let off the hook here. His boys left him. Because of what he did. Because of what he became in the course of pursuing his desperate obsession with finding the demon that killed his wife. He's already paying a price, and this seemingly little thing is huge. Family is everything to John, even if he doesn't know how to be a father separate from an obsessed Hunter.
And he's going to have to atone. But it is possible.
PS I hope you're feeling better.