{"id":127585,"date":"2015-11-11T09:23:16","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T09:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/11\/11\/there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt\/"},"modified":"2015-11-11T09:23:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T09:23:16","slug":"there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/11\/11\/there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"There are two things I believe, without a doubt, about John Winchester. 1) He was a traumatized man who did the best he could. 2) His best was nowhere near good enough."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/burdenedwithgloriousassbutt.tumblr.com\/post\/132840104479\/there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">burdenedwithgloriousassbutt<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com\/post\/115119539378\/there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt\">thevioletcaptain<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I used to think that, too, Nonny. But then\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I remembered how he left his ten year old son to look after his six year old son for three days, without enough food to share between them\u2013<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/134e0091ca04fce509c025429f4e681b\/tumblr_inline_nm2uo4Jb6A1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>\u2013but with a loaded shotgun and instructions to\u00a0\u201cshoot first\u201d should the monster he was hunting turn up.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/07c997155e034485381ebc177d9a4587\/tumblr_inline_nm2uhnRPlx1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>(All of which is bad enough even without the heavy implication in the episode that he left them alone as bait to draw the shtriga out.)<\/p>\n<p>I remembered how even before Mary died, he was neglectful to his family to the point that Dean\u2013who was less than four years old at the time\u2013felt the need to comfort his mother through his absence.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/3f879441f0bbe68b5a0d39a0b3d253fc\/tumblr_inline_nm2we77R071qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I remembered how Dean visibly flinched at the memory of John coming back home after Sam ran away.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/38b9b7f24fa6105b516a27ea1a9301bb\/tumblr_inline_nm2wbisMlU1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I remembered how Sam, at age fifteen, told Amy that she didn\u2019t want to see his dad when he\u2019d been drinking.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/a0c4d50b823e2ef51e61fb5ea3b9640c\/tumblr_inline_nm2v9qN17G1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I remembered how after a sixteen year old Dean was forced to steal food in order to feed himself and his brother because of John\u2019s neglect, John told the police officer who caught Dean to let him rot in jail.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/38101a847237c3f3f6cb227246be70b0\/tumblr_inline_nm2vhb4KzJ1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I remembered how he treated his sons so poorly, offered them so <i>little <\/i>in the way of actual parenting, that the words\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m proud of you\u201d clued Dean in to the fact that his father was possessed.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/12f3425f50f5edc0c82429d6eaa46aae\/tumblr_inline_nm2vvme7Lg1qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I remembered how, when Bobby was looking after the boys in 1989 he took Dean out to the park to play catch, and John tore him a new one over the phone because he dared to suggest that a ten year old child might be better off playing ball than shooting targets for one day of his life.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/efc19f5870f3f6b0a1e415a1069ad27d\/tumblr_inline_nm2x11nmF41qzzrun_540.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>After I thought about all that, and the countless other instances of neglect and abuse, I realized that \u201che did the best he could\u201d is giving John Winchester far too much credit.<\/p>\n<p>[all screencaps taken from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.homeofthenutty.com\/supernatural\/screencaps\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">homeofthenutty<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Bless this post.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>burdenedwithgloriousassbutt: thevioletcaptain: I used to think that, too, Nonny. But then\u2026\u00a0 I remembered how he left his ten year old son to look after his six year old son for three days, without enough food to share between them\u2013 \u2013but with a loaded shotgun and instructions to\u00a0\u201cshoot first\u201d should the monster he was hunting turn &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/11\/11\/there-are-two-things-i-believe-without-a-doubt\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;There are two things I believe, without a doubt, about John Winchester. 1) He was a traumatized man who did the best he could. 2) His best was nowhere near good enough.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13117,1081,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}