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We are Family: the Portrayal of Family in Supernatural
So, I sat down to write some SPN meta, and unfortunately what I came up with reads more like an essay prompt list than an actual essay. *sigh* However, questions are good, right? Loads and loads of unanswerable questions? LOL
One of the things I love most about Supernatural is that it’s foremost a show about family. That seems a fairly obvious comment given that the two main characters are brothers. But I think that Supernatural is more than just a chronicle of the lives of the Winchester family members—I think the show explores fundamental questions of what it means to be a family, how families are made, and what happens when the scariest evil’s tucking you in at night.
Supernatural threats to family
To begin with, almost all the paranormal events that the Winchesters fight against pose a threat to the wellbeing of families. In addition, many of these supernatural phenomena are created by familial injustice or trauma.
1. “Pilot”: A man’s philandering doesn’t just endanger the sanctity of his wedding vows but also the lives of his wife and children. This episode concludes with one of the most truly terrifying images in the entire series—the White Lady’s murdered children literally devouring the mother that had killed them.
2. “Wendigo,” “Dead in the Water,” “Skin,” “Bugs,” “Home,” “Something Wicked,” “Everybody Loves a Clown,” and “Playthings”: In these episodes, Sam and Dean rescue families—a brother lost in the woods (a brother who has extraordinary significance to his fractured family since the sister implies that he fills three roles—child to her, father to the youngest brother, and sibling to them all), mothers whose kids need saving, a sister who needs help exonerating her brother for murder charges, and mom-dad-kids families who are threatened by supernatural forces. Many of these families mimic the dynamics of the Winchester family in some way (single parent, siblings with an exceptional degree of reliance/dependence on each other, etc.).
3. “Bloody Mary” and “Scarecrow”: These episodes reveal that sometimes the greatest threat to family is internal. In “Bloody Mary,” it’s implied that Mary’s initial victim killed his wife (also the mother of his children). In “Scarecrow,” we watch Emily suddenly find herself a stranger to her own family and realize that the most frightening people can also be the ones you love and trust the most. This episode highlights some people’s willingness to sacrifice what the show repeatedly says is a sacred, indissoluble bond that trumps all others (Dean on killing Sam: “I’d rather die first.”). On a related note, the scarecrow’s victims are always couples, again stressing the destruction of family.
4. “Faith,” “In My Time of Dying,” and “Crossroads”: These episodes feature a mother who desperately wants to save her terminally ill daughter, a wife who initially delves into the dark arts in order to save her husband’s life, a father who wants to save his mortally wounded son, and a husband who makes a deal with the devil to cure his ailing wife. The episodes ask us where to draw the line. How far is too far to go for family? Are there no limits to the risks or the moral greyness of an act if family is involved? Even if your motives are initially good, does acquainting yourself with darkness leave you more susceptible to its pull in future? Is everything fair game to keep your family safe (even your soul?), or like Julie Benz’s character says in “Faith,” is acceptance of devastating events preferable?
5. “Route 666”: Here, the very creation of a family—the union of an interracial couple—is the impetus for spectral events.
6. “Nightmare”: Can you turn on your family if it hurts you? Dean has no problem with the idea of killing Gordon in “Hunted” because Gordon threatens Sam. But he and Sam both want to stop Max from murdering the family that has abused him for years. Why? What’s the difference? Is one a matter of survival and the other merely of revenge? Or is Max censured because he’s targeting his family?
7. “Provenance”: Here a child is the seat of evil. She was adopted and is portrayed as an interloper, someone who was not originally part of the family unit that eventually destroyed it from the inside. I think the little girl serves as a mirror for Sam—will he prove to be evil? Will Sam be ultimately responsible for the destruction of his family? Is he an interloper (maybe not actually a Winchester at all) and in some way responsible for his mother’s death?Of course not! Dean won’t let him be evil! He cries too pretty to be evil. *brushes his bangs down over his forehead*
8. “Playthings”: In this episode, we see a family restored, albeit in a very unconventional and creepifying way. Margaret, who was rejected by her sister after her death as a child (forcibly kept away, in fact, by hoodoo rituals) is returned to the fold. Of course, concessions must be made—Grandma Rose dies. Which leads me to ask, what concessions must the Winchesters make to rebuild their family? I feel like throughout the first season, Dean moves farther away from the man he’d grown to be under his dad’s tutelage and that Sam moves closer to fulfilling his father’s ideal for him. However, during the second season, the boys seem to be finding identities for themselves that aren’t largely based on either living up to their father’s ideals or rebelling against them.
Winchesters gone wrong
1. “Benders”: The cannibal family in this episode is eerily like the Winchesters. Both families live on the margins of society and are largely invisible. They’re both families of hunters and keepers of secret knowledge that the world at large would find troublesome, to say the least. Both families are devoted and loyal and are headed by commanding fathers. The cannibals are a perversion of the Winchesters, an extreme and terrifying example of that family dynamic.
2. “Simon Says”: In this episode, we’re presented with two brothers who were separated at birth. So we’ve got another adopted child here, echoing “Provenance.” Ansom Weems has been insinuating himself into his long-lost brother’s life for months, learning everything he can about what makes him tick and wanting desperately to be a family again. Of course, his reunion with his brother is somewhat marred by all the murder and attempted rape. What I find really fascinating is that the incestuous overtones to the relationship that Weems seems to want with his brother completely squick me while the incestuous overtones I read into Sam and Dean’s relationship definitely do not. Ansom wants to claim for himself the kind of relationship that Sam and Dean have, but his method involves completely isolating his brother and attempting to be everything for him. While I think you can argue that Sam and Dean are largely isolated and have to derive most of their emotional anything from each other, they each choose that situation. Ansom is trying to force the kind of relationship that took years and years to build and is still fraught with tension at times in the series. Also, you know, he’s evil.
Other families
We also get other representations of family in SPN—the closely knit and devoted vampire families we see in “Dead Man’s Blood” and “Bloodlust;” the YED, Meg, and unnamed son; Ellen, Jo, and the absent Bill; and the network of hunters that can be more loosely defined as a family. I also see the potential for Sam and the other psychic children to form a kind of family—either through the YED’s design or on their own banded against him. Remember, a lot of these people have lost family members, or maybe like Sam and Ava, not been allowed to marry and form families of their own. I still don’t understand why Sam and Dean haven’t set up some safe house for the other psychics to go to, particularly since the boys will presumably have to deal with each of them in some way at some point—either to save them from the YED or battle against them if they choose the YED’s side.
Burn, baby, burn
All of which leads to me to ask the following question: Why does the demon kill some of the children’s moms and Jessica? What is the purpose behind these murders? Why are some of the mothers killed and not others? Why is Jessica killed when she’s not a mother at all? Is she pregnant with Sam’s baby? If she is, what’s the motive in killing her? Wouldn’t the YED want his potential future soldier to be born? Does the YED intend killing the moms to bond the psychic children—my mommy’s dead and so’s yours, let’s play blocks and fry up the neighbor’s cat for a playdate? Does the YED mean to prevent those women from giving birth to any more psychic children—is he limiting the herd available, so to speak? Does he kill the mothers because something about their influence on the child growing up would make his task of turning them evil much more difficult? Ansom Weems kills his birth mother instead of the YED killing her, but she still ends up burned to death. Does this mean there’s some ritual or magical aspect to the mothers’ deaths by fire? Ava’s fiancé is hacked to death rather than burned to death on the ceiling; why?
I pretty much got nothing on these last questions.
One of the things I love most about Supernatural is that it’s foremost a show about family. That seems a fairly obvious comment given that the two main characters are brothers. But I think that Supernatural is more than just a chronicle of the lives of the Winchester family members—I think the show explores fundamental questions of what it means to be a family, how families are made, and what happens when the scariest evil’s tucking you in at night.
Supernatural threats to family
To begin with, almost all the paranormal events that the Winchesters fight against pose a threat to the wellbeing of families. In addition, many of these supernatural phenomena are created by familial injustice or trauma.
1. “Pilot”: A man’s philandering doesn’t just endanger the sanctity of his wedding vows but also the lives of his wife and children. This episode concludes with one of the most truly terrifying images in the entire series—the White Lady’s murdered children literally devouring the mother that had killed them.
2. “Wendigo,” “Dead in the Water,” “Skin,” “Bugs,” “Home,” “Something Wicked,” “Everybody Loves a Clown,” and “Playthings”: In these episodes, Sam and Dean rescue families—a brother lost in the woods (a brother who has extraordinary significance to his fractured family since the sister implies that he fills three roles—child to her, father to the youngest brother, and sibling to them all), mothers whose kids need saving, a sister who needs help exonerating her brother for murder charges, and mom-dad-kids families who are threatened by supernatural forces. Many of these families mimic the dynamics of the Winchester family in some way (single parent, siblings with an exceptional degree of reliance/dependence on each other, etc.).
3. “Bloody Mary” and “Scarecrow”: These episodes reveal that sometimes the greatest threat to family is internal. In “Bloody Mary,” it’s implied that Mary’s initial victim killed his wife (also the mother of his children). In “Scarecrow,” we watch Emily suddenly find herself a stranger to her own family and realize that the most frightening people can also be the ones you love and trust the most. This episode highlights some people’s willingness to sacrifice what the show repeatedly says is a sacred, indissoluble bond that trumps all others (Dean on killing Sam: “I’d rather die first.”). On a related note, the scarecrow’s victims are always couples, again stressing the destruction of family.
4. “Faith,” “In My Time of Dying,” and “Crossroads”: These episodes feature a mother who desperately wants to save her terminally ill daughter, a wife who initially delves into the dark arts in order to save her husband’s life, a father who wants to save his mortally wounded son, and a husband who makes a deal with the devil to cure his ailing wife. The episodes ask us where to draw the line. How far is too far to go for family? Are there no limits to the risks or the moral greyness of an act if family is involved? Even if your motives are initially good, does acquainting yourself with darkness leave you more susceptible to its pull in future? Is everything fair game to keep your family safe (even your soul?), or like Julie Benz’s character says in “Faith,” is acceptance of devastating events preferable?
5. “Route 666”: Here, the very creation of a family—the union of an interracial couple—is the impetus for spectral events.
6. “Nightmare”: Can you turn on your family if it hurts you? Dean has no problem with the idea of killing Gordon in “Hunted” because Gordon threatens Sam. But he and Sam both want to stop Max from murdering the family that has abused him for years. Why? What’s the difference? Is one a matter of survival and the other merely of revenge? Or is Max censured because he’s targeting his family?
7. “Provenance”: Here a child is the seat of evil. She was adopted and is portrayed as an interloper, someone who was not originally part of the family unit that eventually destroyed it from the inside. I think the little girl serves as a mirror for Sam—will he prove to be evil? Will Sam be ultimately responsible for the destruction of his family? Is he an interloper (maybe not actually a Winchester at all) and in some way responsible for his mother’s death?
8. “Playthings”: In this episode, we see a family restored, albeit in a very unconventional and creepifying way. Margaret, who was rejected by her sister after her death as a child (forcibly kept away, in fact, by hoodoo rituals) is returned to the fold. Of course, concessions must be made—Grandma Rose dies. Which leads me to ask, what concessions must the Winchesters make to rebuild their family? I feel like throughout the first season, Dean moves farther away from the man he’d grown to be under his dad’s tutelage and that Sam moves closer to fulfilling his father’s ideal for him. However, during the second season, the boys seem to be finding identities for themselves that aren’t largely based on either living up to their father’s ideals or rebelling against them.
Winchesters gone wrong
1. “Benders”: The cannibal family in this episode is eerily like the Winchesters. Both families live on the margins of society and are largely invisible. They’re both families of hunters and keepers of secret knowledge that the world at large would find troublesome, to say the least. Both families are devoted and loyal and are headed by commanding fathers. The cannibals are a perversion of the Winchesters, an extreme and terrifying example of that family dynamic.
2. “Simon Says”: In this episode, we’re presented with two brothers who were separated at birth. So we’ve got another adopted child here, echoing “Provenance.” Ansom Weems has been insinuating himself into his long-lost brother’s life for months, learning everything he can about what makes him tick and wanting desperately to be a family again. Of course, his reunion with his brother is somewhat marred by all the murder and attempted rape. What I find really fascinating is that the incestuous overtones to the relationship that Weems seems to want with his brother completely squick me while the incestuous overtones I read into Sam and Dean’s relationship definitely do not. Ansom wants to claim for himself the kind of relationship that Sam and Dean have, but his method involves completely isolating his brother and attempting to be everything for him. While I think you can argue that Sam and Dean are largely isolated and have to derive most of their emotional anything from each other, they each choose that situation. Ansom is trying to force the kind of relationship that took years and years to build and is still fraught with tension at times in the series. Also, you know, he’s evil.
Other families
We also get other representations of family in SPN—the closely knit and devoted vampire families we see in “Dead Man’s Blood” and “Bloodlust;” the YED, Meg, and unnamed son; Ellen, Jo, and the absent Bill; and the network of hunters that can be more loosely defined as a family. I also see the potential for Sam and the other psychic children to form a kind of family—either through the YED’s design or on their own banded against him. Remember, a lot of these people have lost family members, or maybe like Sam and Ava, not been allowed to marry and form families of their own. I still don’t understand why Sam and Dean haven’t set up some safe house for the other psychics to go to, particularly since the boys will presumably have to deal with each of them in some way at some point—either to save them from the YED or battle against them if they choose the YED’s side.
Burn, baby, burn
All of which leads to me to ask the following question: Why does the demon kill some of the children’s moms and Jessica? What is the purpose behind these murders? Why are some of the mothers killed and not others? Why is Jessica killed when she’s not a mother at all? Is she pregnant with Sam’s baby? If she is, what’s the motive in killing her? Wouldn’t the YED want his potential future soldier to be born? Does the YED intend killing the moms to bond the psychic children—my mommy’s dead and so’s yours, let’s play blocks and fry up the neighbor’s cat for a playdate? Does the YED mean to prevent those women from giving birth to any more psychic children—is he limiting the herd available, so to speak? Does he kill the mothers because something about their influence on the child growing up would make his task of turning them evil much more difficult? Ansom Weems kills his birth mother instead of the YED killing her, but she still ends up burned to death. Does this mean there’s some ritual or magical aspect to the mothers’ deaths by fire? Ava’s fiancé is hacked to death rather than burned to death on the ceiling; why?
I pretty much got nothing on these last questions.
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http://poisontaster.livejournal.com/142712.html
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