postmodernmulticoloredcloak:

dorkilysoulless:

postmodernmulticoloredcloak:

frozen-delight:

In 1989/1990 John Winchester hunts a shtriga in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin. In order to do so, he leaves Sam and Dean alone in a motel room for approximately three days. Child neglect aside, this move would make sense if John were hunting a creature in the woods nearby. A Wendigo, for instance. 

But he’s not. He’s hunting a monster whose hunting ground are urban spaces – because that’s where one has the best access to a whole bunch of children. Judging from his research materials and the fact that he tells Dean what the creature’s called and how to kill it, I’d say John knows from the start that he’s hunting a shtriga.

You’d expect John not to leave his children alone in a town where a creature that preys on young siblings is draining one child of their life force after another. You’d expect him to do what he only did once the hunt went sideways – leave Sam and Dean somewhere far, far away from the shtriga’s hunting grounds and then check them out on his own.

It seems a glaring misjudgement if ever there was one.

But once you add to that the curious fact that since John was hunting something in the very town where his kids were staying there was no reason for him not to return to the motel at odd intervals for a meal or a nap, you can’t help but wonder if it was a mistake at all.

Was John using his children as bait?

The episode doesn’t provide an unequivocal answer.

But to me at least it seems like the most plausible interpretation of events. Especially considering how John magically appears when the shtriga starts feeding on Sam. Accidents don’t just happen accidentally.

If John used his children as bait, then his plan was just as cunning as it was cruel. Because in order for his plan to work out, Dean needs to make a mistake. This would explain why John stayed away from the motel for seemingly no reason – John realistically estimated that only if he was cooped up at the room alone with his little brother for days Dean woul break and go out to take a breather.

John’s plan works out like clockwork. The shtriga attacks, John is there – and then he fails to shoot it, because when Sam’s life is at stake right in front of his eyes it stops being a game of chess and becomes painfully real. We see the same thing in S1 when John doesn’t even bother to call back when he hears that Dean is dying, but having to actually watch Dean die in In My Time of Dying is more than he can bear.

John looking at young Dean with hate afterwards also makes more sense to me in this context – the guilt John feels is so crushing that the only way he can deal with it is by shifting it to Dean. Which would establish another beautiful Sam/John parallel, since most of Sam’s anger at Dean in S1 can be read as misplaced guilt. And it would also explain why playing bait became exclusively a Dean thing in the Winchester family.

The episode makes full sense only if you accept that Dean used his kids as bait, because Dean and Sam in return use a kid as bait, but communicating and negotiating the situation with the kid and managing the thing in the way that provides the most safety, given the situation, for the kid. The narrative asks you to compare the two circumstances, and if you refuse to accept that John used his kids as bait, the parallel breaks and that particular poignancy of Dean’s ethical struggle in the episode (and beyond – see Dean stating that his biggest fear is to become like his own father) disappears.

I personally have zero doubts that John used the kids as bait. No, the episode doesn’t state it out loud but gives you all the pieces to assemble the picture yourself – you can accept or refuse the interpretation, but if you refuse it you’re rejecting what makes the narrative of the episode work. I’d rather focus on in the parallel the episode suggests for the shtriga – on one side, the monster that preys on children is obviously a parallel to the demon that preyed on Sam in his nursery, on the other side the monster who sucks the life essence out of children leaving them vulnerable to sickness… is a parallel for John. At some point they assume the shtriga appears as an elderly woman (what you’d assume a witch-y thing to look like) but the monster is actually a normal-looking adult man in a position of caretaker for children (the pediatrician). Almost like…

Also, the creepy handprint gives me vibes that remind me of posters of awareness campaigns about child abuse (maybe it’s just me, but I can’t shake it). The episode comes a few episodes after Nightmare, anyway… season 1 doesn’t fuck around on that front. Sure, it’s up to you to accept the interpretation or not, but rejecting it makes the narrative make less sense than accepting it. At least this is my opinion on the topic. YMMV, as for all things.

Agreed on both fronts: the episode doesn’t provide a clear textual confirmation that John uses the boys as bait, but the subtext is strong enough that the viewer has to consider it.

And even if John isn’t using them as bait, John still textually neglects and endangers his children.  The episode is only one of several that provide textual confirmation that both Sam and Dean regularly experience neglect while on the road.  He leaves them alone regularly enough that it’s character relevant for both Sam and Dean; the only reason this particular instances is notable is that he did it in a town with a shtriga and left a nine-year-old Dean to keep things together.

And when he fails – like any nine-year-old would – John looks at him differently, treats him differently afterward.  John dumps the responsibility squarely on Dean’s shoulders, and Dean never gets over it. 

There is a possible sympathetic read – as @frozen-delight lays out above – and

textually Sam and Dean sometimes rationalize what they went through as John having done his best, but those are at best an explanation, not a justification. 

To put it another way, “cool motive, still child endangerment and neglect.”  

Of course, the fact that he used them as bait in that circumstance doesn’t really make a huge difference in the picture of his treatment of them. Like, the picture is already pretty bleak even if you take that out. (Plus, John knew there was a shtriga around, so even if he hadn’t planned to use the kids as bait, he still left them alone while a danger greater than a person with a shotgun can handle was around.)

Although I forgot to add that the episode happens a couple episodes before 1×20, where John’s line to Dean “you know what to do” is immediately followed by… Dean playing bait to the vampires whom John then shoots with arrows. The narrative really wants you to do that 2+2…