It’s why we suffer because we just take it on the same face value instead of making ridiculous excuses for why it can’t be a thing just because it’s those two.
The “if Dean’s boobs were actually real” clause to interpreting Destiel 😛 Just.. frikkin make him Deanna from the get go and see what happens when Cas swoops in and saves her.
Now there is an interesting idea! I personally think that if Dean had
been female from the get-go, it would not have been her that John had so
persistently trained as the hunter-son (-daughter), but Sam instead,
even if they had kept on with Sam being the younger sibling. Deanna
would have been even more likely to be pressured into the role of
almost-sole-caretaker-for-little-Sammy; probably until Sam is old enough
(in John’s opinion) to start his training as a hunter.I bet Deanna would have been crushed at some point, and maybe John, in all his self-righteousness, might even have gone as far as getting rid of her at some point. And with that I mean letting her stay with a family friend to finish school, or something. I don’t think that even the fact that Mary had been raised in the life herself would have changed John’s point of view that Deanna is “just a girl”. @elizabethrobertajones
TBH I’ve always seen the show as playing out the exact same way with John’s parenting, except some things would be more overt to audience eyes. The stereotype that women should be the caregivers would mean that Deanna’s role to look after her little brother would be a given that she would have a motherly role. But I am imagining this as a take on the show on a meta level, not an AU free range fan fic where we can make enormous changes to the story. If they pitch a monster hunting show with 2 siblings, and the plot is basically identical to the one we get, then Deanna is raised as a competent hunter from childhood to the exact same degree Dean was. I think it works in reverse – if you didn’t think John would teach a girl to fight, then do you really not expect him to have benefited from encouraging Dean’s position as the family nurturer in the canon we got?
(I also don’t think Deanna would dress wildly differently from Dean, except for obvious “need boobs to get through this social situation” moments but for the most part I doubt crop tops or shorts would really make up much of her wardrobe – I mean to the point where the 11×04 short shorts thing may as well happen because WHY NOT 😀 Dean is a massive bundle of anxiety and self-esteem issues after all… Anyway I rarely see art of her all bundled up in the Winchester Layers)
Anyway in the circumstances – with Sam much younger and more direly in need of protection because mytharc nonsense – I think John would have trained his eldest child to fight, regardless, and relied on her in the same way he relied on Dean to become a warrior. In some ways it makes Dean’s resentment clearer because in society it might seem even less like this should have been Deanna’s role, but I think that shouldn’t have happened to our Dean either and he DOES have that resentment.
All the same issues apply but different ones would be in focus in different measures based on the reversed expectations, but by and large they’d have the same upbringing and arrive at the start of the show in essentially the same place, and carry on to do the rest of the show 99.9% the same story 😛 I can see all of that happening and it’s not to say that we wouldn’t analyse Deanna’s issues with femininity from John’s upbringing in the same way we have so much to talk about with toxic masculinity for Dean, but I don’t think the Deanna version of the show would HAVE to be any different.
I think one of the most fascinating things about Dean is that you could switch his sex/gender and the characterization would stay exactly the same. Young Dean was placed in both a warrior ‘masculine’ role and a caretaker ‘feminine’ role at the same time (he was the provider of emotional labor in place of the mother/wife of the family, but he was raised as a soldier because taking care of his brother also meant being able to fight monsters, so). He has tropes referring to both stereotypical gender roles in his characterization. His struggle with fitting in an environment cut for macho males would be pretty much the same (he’s been mocked for being feminine in the show as it is!). The horror at the idea of having his bodily autonomy violated would be the same. That’s what most storylines are already about…
Dean’s story is the story of a man sandwiched between forces that want him to be a macho man and forces who want him to be submissive and available (physically or emotionally), all while he gets shitted on for being not one or not the other.
Two things – I think John wouldn’t have taught “Deanna” about cars as much. I think that would have come from Bobby because Bobby wouldn’t give two shits about gender roles and that girls shouldn’t know cars. I think as Deanna, Dean would have tried even harder to get John’s approval, which leads to my second point. I think Deanna would have dressed as the biggest tomboy ever. I think, as a girl, Dean would have tried to minimize her femininity as much as possible. Partly because she would have felt as lesser as a girl (because John would have treated her differently; still raised her to hunt, but as any female knows, you get treated differently no matter how capable you are when you’re doing something male coded. I also think John wouldn’t have been above using her as bait, which would require her dressing more feminine, so I think that by choice, she would have avoided that whenever possible. Not to mention the risks inherent in being left alone in shady hotels as an obvious girl. She would have rationalized it (for a while at least) as being practical, because if she dressed as a boy, Sammy would be able to wear her hand me downs.
But other than subtle differences, I don’t think Dean as Deanna would change the storyline at all. John would still be a shitty parent, she’d still have to be both mother and father to Sam, and would, eventually, have to come to terms with it all.
John uses Dean as bait in 1×20 so again I don’t even think that’s something unique to “Deanna”’s experience if it were to be overlayed to canon… Since the vampire was coded with the Depraved Bisexual trope they would literally not need to change a line or moment of the action >.>
I am so fascinated by the Deanna concept I have dreamed up countless scenarios in my head as to how they could explore this in the show, but I agree with Lizzy here that Dean has been female coded so much that nothing would actually change. Would Deanna be a tomboy? Hell yes – BUT she would probably indulge in the occasional feminine item – like stealing/splurging on luxury panties. There is every chance that John treated her like a boy anyway because he WANTED her to be tough. He WANTED her to be able to protect herself the way he ‘thought’ Mary couldn’t protect herself. So I DO think he would have taught her all about the car maintenance and the weapons and everything else.
I actually think the only thing different in Deanna vs Dean’s experience would have been Deanna’s treatment by other hunters when she was older, as we all know that John kept the boys well away from other hunters pre series. She probably would have been a bit more like Jo in that respect. But even then Dean got chastised for being “too pretty” soo…. yeah.
Cas however wouldn’t treat Deanna any different from Dean. Can you imagine if the show was indeed EXACTLY the same and we were still at THIS point with ALL THE TROPES in Destiel but Dean was Deanna? Can you IMAGINE the mainstream media reaction?! Imagine the cries for them to FINALLY get together and media calling it a “will they won’t they” trope for the ages even though its NEVER happened… no one would be calling us delusional THAT’S for sure. No one would be saying “Oh why can’t you respect platonic relationships’ then because EVERYONE would see how blatant the love story is. Plus pretty much the entire general audience of the show would ship it.
The sad thing is that if Dean really had been Deanna at the start we never would have got to this point. Deanna would have hooked up with Cas in season 4 instead of Anna. Then we probably would have got a literal supernatural version of Ross and Rachel in Friends for the next 9 years and by this point all be groaning about how repetitive and boring it was and how those bloody heterosexuals ruin everything.
We’d probably be shipping Deanna with Charlie instead and spend most of our time writing fanfiction about Sastiel.
It’s kind of weird how….a man and woman can be told by someone that they likely have a crush on each other and without any context many people who saw this would believe it. Hardly anyone would think, “oh no, this man and woman are just friends.” Replace this with two men and the knee jerk reaction is “They gotta be friends, it’s no way they’re deeply in love.” even with a lot of prior evidence of the two men being very intimate and close. It’s..a shame. It’s why Destiel suffers.
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