Ramblin' Man
Apr. 9th, 2006 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_skinIn a bid to avoid working on my take home exam some more I present some general thoughts, rambling and questions on Sam, Dean, John and the frequency of the hunting trips. I don't know if this has been discussed before at all or not, I'm just thinking out loud and probably too much. Feel free to tell me so. Spoilers through 1x18 to be safe, but mostly only through 1x14.
I was watching a clip from the pilot and it got me thinking. Sam was very unconcerned that his dad was missing, chalking it up to him being drunk and out on a bender or something of the like. From this I have to wonder just how consistently the boys and John did hunt during their childhood. Fic and fandom sometimes make it out to sound like they were constantly hunting but in the pilot when Dean shows up Sam didn't seem concerned in the least. He mentioned a "Miller Time Shift" which, you know, if you're drunk a lot it doesn't seem likely that you're hunting, and Sam didn't get concerned until Dean mentioned it. If their dad was ALWAYS hunting you would think that he would have gotten more concerned initially because as soon as Dean did say that Sam was all business.
We know they moved around a lot, spent time in motels and whatnot (see 1x18 "Something Wicked"), but it seems unrealistic to think they moved like the boys do now. No matter how smart Sam was he would never have gotten a decent education that way, not enough to graduate from school. Personally, I think they would have had to have settled down for at least a few months each time they moved around, perhaps settling in a new town where they were hunting and then waiting to get a bead on the demon that killed their mom or a particularly bad nasty before uprooting again.
This would have allowed for plenty of time for their father to drink his liver away, waiting for the next clue or sign of the demon and time for Sam to spend in school. I wonder if it has to do with the motivation behind the hunting? The boys now have the freedom to travel where they want, when they want but still depending on their father's instruction. It has always been their father's mission to find the demon that killed their mother, and now Sam and Dean's too, but he's off doing his thing for his mission and the boys are killing other things they come across until John... does whatever needs doing. So while the boys are killing things that need to be dealt with their main priority as of right now isn't the demon, that's what their father is after.
Course, in 1x14 "Nightmare" at the end, after Max has killed himself and Sam is reflecting he says, "Could have gone a whole other way after mom. A little more tequila, a little less demon-hunting... then we would have had Max's childhood." Forget Sam and John's issues with each other for the moment. Does the specific mention of "demon-hunting" indicate that when they were younger they pretty much did only focus on finding Mary's demon? Or is it just semantics and it covers all bases with the things they hunt and kill?
If John's traveling did have mainly to do with hunting the demon that killed Mary how often did he/they go off on hunting trips for other creatures? Did they just stumble across things when following up on leads regarding the demon? Or did they purposefully go out and hunt other creatures? Perhaps as the years went on (and the boys got older) John started taking on more non-demon related jobs, perhaps to keep himself busy or maybe because leads on Mary's case were slim? Would the boys have spent more time at Pastor Jim's (no spoilers but does the mention of this guy mean we'll be meeting him soon?) place while John was out hunting, if it was more frequently than I think it is?
So basically, in my own head, all this ramble boils down to- based on Sam's reaction to Dean's news in the pilot it appears that hunting trips may not have been as frequent in their childhood as fandom sometimes makes them out be. Clearly their father went off on his own for other purposes (ie- benders) seemingly unrelated to hunting. How often were the boys uprooted from wherever they'd made "home"? Taking Sam and his education into account there would have had to have been some stability there, if only for a few months at a time it seems that John wasn't dragging them all over hells half-acre, like they do now. Was the demon the only or the primary driving force behind John's mission? If so, where did the other creatures fit in and did they have much impact on their somewhat nomadic life?
Personally, I think the shtriga case when they were at the motel was in the summer which is why they weren't in school, so that would be easy to get around. Maybe John could only hunt like they do now during the summer and during school they either stayed in one place or only moved infrequently. But in no way do I expect them to have stayed in one place for more than, say, six months at a time.
If you made it through all that, congrats. It's a little on the tl;dr side. Again, I could be over-thinking things, but I'm really curious about what people think on this. Anyone? Beuller?
I was watching a clip from the pilot and it got me thinking. Sam was very unconcerned that his dad was missing, chalking it up to him being drunk and out on a bender or something of the like. From this I have to wonder just how consistently the boys and John did hunt during their childhood. Fic and fandom sometimes make it out to sound like they were constantly hunting but in the pilot when Dean shows up Sam didn't seem concerned in the least. He mentioned a "Miller Time Shift" which, you know, if you're drunk a lot it doesn't seem likely that you're hunting, and Sam didn't get concerned until Dean mentioned it. If their dad was ALWAYS hunting you would think that he would have gotten more concerned initially because as soon as Dean did say that Sam was all business.
We know they moved around a lot, spent time in motels and whatnot (see 1x18 "Something Wicked"), but it seems unrealistic to think they moved like the boys do now. No matter how smart Sam was he would never have gotten a decent education that way, not enough to graduate from school. Personally, I think they would have had to have settled down for at least a few months each time they moved around, perhaps settling in a new town where they were hunting and then waiting to get a bead on the demon that killed their mom or a particularly bad nasty before uprooting again.
This would have allowed for plenty of time for their father to drink his liver away, waiting for the next clue or sign of the demon and time for Sam to spend in school. I wonder if it has to do with the motivation behind the hunting? The boys now have the freedom to travel where they want, when they want but still depending on their father's instruction. It has always been their father's mission to find the demon that killed their mother, and now Sam and Dean's too, but he's off doing his thing for his mission and the boys are killing other things they come across until John... does whatever needs doing. So while the boys are killing things that need to be dealt with their main priority as of right now isn't the demon, that's what their father is after.
Course, in 1x14 "Nightmare" at the end, after Max has killed himself and Sam is reflecting he says, "Could have gone a whole other way after mom. A little more tequila, a little less demon-hunting... then we would have had Max's childhood." Forget Sam and John's issues with each other for the moment. Does the specific mention of "demon-hunting" indicate that when they were younger they pretty much did only focus on finding Mary's demon? Or is it just semantics and it covers all bases with the things they hunt and kill?
If John's traveling did have mainly to do with hunting the demon that killed Mary how often did he/they go off on hunting trips for other creatures? Did they just stumble across things when following up on leads regarding the demon? Or did they purposefully go out and hunt other creatures? Perhaps as the years went on (and the boys got older) John started taking on more non-demon related jobs, perhaps to keep himself busy or maybe because leads on Mary's case were slim? Would the boys have spent more time at Pastor Jim's (no spoilers but does the mention of this guy mean we'll be meeting him soon?) place while John was out hunting, if it was more frequently than I think it is?
So basically, in my own head, all this ramble boils down to- based on Sam's reaction to Dean's news in the pilot it appears that hunting trips may not have been as frequent in their childhood as fandom sometimes makes them out be. Clearly their father went off on his own for other purposes (ie- benders) seemingly unrelated to hunting. How often were the boys uprooted from wherever they'd made "home"? Taking Sam and his education into account there would have had to have been some stability there, if only for a few months at a time it seems that John wasn't dragging them all over hells half-acre, like they do now. Was the demon the only or the primary driving force behind John's mission? If so, where did the other creatures fit in and did they have much impact on their somewhat nomadic life?
Personally, I think the shtriga case when they were at the motel was in the summer which is why they weren't in school, so that would be easy to get around. Maybe John could only hunt like they do now during the summer and during school they either stayed in one place or only moved infrequently. But in no way do I expect them to have stayed in one place for more than, say, six months at a time.
If you made it through all that, congrats. It's a little on the tl;dr side. Again, I could be over-thinking things, but I'm really curious about what people think on this. Anyone? Beuller?
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 04:39 am (UTC)As for the school thing, I always got the impression that they were home-schooled. Sam mentions in the Pilot that John taught them fighting and all that stuff. Picking up some regular textbooks and giving them lessons in the car would be simple enough and would give the kids something to do during the ride. And plenty of home-schooled kids get into college just fine: Actually, an unusually high percentage are at my school. If you ace standardized testing, write good essays, and obviously know your stuff, it's not a deterent. So it's certainly possible.
On the other hand, Papa Winchester must have had the patience of a saint to keep those two boys on the road the whole damn time. I mean, just getting two kids in a car for half an hour is a pain in the ass. On an endless roadtrip? Yikes. And I do think to a certain degree that they must have spent time not in a car. That sort of thing just isn't good for kids. Especially when John was specifically investigating the demon thing, he would have probably stayed in one place for a while. Like, I'm sure he stayed in Kansas for a while at first, because the thing could still be there.
So I also think it's possible that John had something like a home base or a series of home bases. Dean was 4 (I think?) when this all started, so John had two years before Dean started school to get himself up and running in the hunting biz. He could have easily made contacts and met people he trusted during that time, and thus dropped the kids off at a convenient safe-house while he hunted things in the general area. I mean, there has to be some order to the way they hunt. If there's something in California and then in Maine and then in California again, etc., etc., that's got to be the most inefficient way to do things ever. So they must work their way through one region at a time, possibly sticking in one location for a while.
So, er, yeah... I can see it working both ways. Maybe they started out more stationary and, when the boys got older (say, middle-school/high-school) John took them along more and more? Because Sam obviously knows the ins and outs of the business, so he had to have been hunting for a while before he left, which would have been around 18. So he must have had quite a lot of hand's on experience prior to that for it to come back so naturally.
And...yeah. Ha! I can tl;dr too! :P
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 08:42 pm (UTC)I think there are either two answers to this question.
1.) There was consitant hunting because that was their coping mechanism.
2.) Or the hunting came later after the probably very long mourning period in which John Winchester probably was not at his best.
But my best guess would be that no matter what the reason it was definetly what they decided to do to cope with their family tragedy.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-11 05:41 am (UTC)I think it's likely they did probably stay in places for at least a few months at a time while the boys were in school. But that is still alot of moving. John probably didn't hunt every weekend but I'd say he did it frequently enough, because Sam who has been a way at school for 4 years doesn't seem to think living like they do now is all that odd, except in comparison to other people. It's not odd for them.
Also John was already using credit card scams before Sam left for college, because Sam knew about them in the Pilot, which says something about how often he had regular jobs as opposed to hunting and researching the supernatural.
I also think John probably didn't actually drink all the time. I think he probably had a few benders each year around important dates. That's just my own fanwanking I have no canon proof of that, it just seems likely. Maybe around his and Mary's anniversary, the anniversary of Mary's death, Mary's birthday, etc.
For Sam to say "a little more tequila..." means that probably while John did drink too much at times, it wasn't all the time. And he couldn't have hunted if he drank that much, so I doubt he did. I think he probably just had the occassional "lost weekend" so to speak, where he wouldn't show up for few days.