John Winchester

Born in 1954—most likely in Indiana—John Winchester left high school to join the Marine Corps, eventually attaining the rank of corporal. Serving in Vietnam, he received many medals. After leaving the service, he got a job as a mechanic, and fell in love with Mary Campbell, whom he would later marry.[4]

Following the mysterious death of his wife years later, John Winchester investigated the incident and learned of the existence of the supernatural. His desire to find and kill the being that took Mary's life led him to become a hunter of supernatural creatures.[5] He took his sons, Sam and Dean, with him during his travels, but often left them alone in motels for long periods of time during his hunts,[6][7] leaving Dean with instructions to "shoot first and ask questions later" while watching over Sam, who at first was unaware of his exploits.[6] As revealed in the fourth season episode "Jump the Shark", John slept with a nurse named Kate Milligan, whom he met after being brought into a hospital with wounds after killing a ghoul, unknowingly fathering his third son, Adam, with her. John made occasional visits, doing normal father-son things with him that he did not do with Dean and Sam. Wanting to keep Adam from the supernatural world, he hid the truth from him, and never revealed to him the existence of Sam and Dean, nor vice-versa.[8] Meanwhile, John trained Sam and Dean to become hunters. However, Sam later leaves this life to start anew in college, leading to a fallout between John and his son.[5]

Twenty-two years after Mary's death, John disappears while on a hunt, causing Sam and Dean to reunite to find him, though they are unsuccessful. After Azazel, the demon that killed their mother, ends up killing Sam's girlfriend, Sam returns to the life of a hunter to find and kill it.[5] John later tracks his sons in Kansas while they are investigating a poltergeist, but does not reveal his presence while staying with the psychic Missouri Moseley, claiming that he first needs to know the truth.[9] However, he finally makes his presence known to them when he visits the brothers in Chicago, Illinois. Meg, a woman possessed by a demon, reveals that Azazel is after John. After escaping Meg's trap, the brothers split up from their father to keep him from the demons.[10] John later meets back up with his sons when his old mentor, vampire hunter Daniel Elkins, is murdered. It turns out that the vampires that killed him also stole the Colt, a mystical gun that can kill anything. The Winchesters succeed in getting the gun back and decide to go after the demon Azazel together.[10]

Meg soon begins killing the Winchesters' friends, and threatens to kill more unless they deliver the Colt. John tries to give her a fake gun, and is captured.[11] The brothers end up rescuing him, but he becomes possessed by Azazel and attacks. However, John manages to resist, allowing Sam to get the Colt and shoot him in the leg, temporarily subduing the demon. John begs Sam to kill him so that Azazel will die, too, but Sam cannot bring himself to do it. To John's dismay, Azazel then escapes. As the Winchesters later flee the scene in Dean's Impala, a man possessed by a demon hits them with a semi-truck.[12] After the crash, Sam and John awake in hospital with only minor injuries. However, a dying Dean is in a coma. John secretly summons Azazel, and seems to know what the demon wants from Sam and other kids like him. He then makes a deal to save Dean, giving up his life, soul, and the Colt. John then talks with Dean, telling him to take care of Sam.[13] He then whispers something in Dean's ear, later revealed to be orders for Dean to kill Sam should he be unable to stop him from becoming evil.[14] John then leaves Dean and returns to his hospital room, where he gives the Colt to someone. Sam later finds his father unconscious on the floor, and doctors are unable to save him.[13] The fourth season episode "On the Head of a Pin" reveals that the demon Alastair tortured John in Hell for over a century, hoping to have him break the first seal to release Lucifer. However, John never gave in, preferring to be tortured himself than do it to another person.[15]

Sam and Dean burn John's body on a funeral pyre, as is traditional among hunters, at the beginning of "Everybody Loves a Clown". A message on their father's cellphone then leads the brothers to Harvelle's Roadhouse, a waystation for hunters that John often visited. It is revealed that the proprietress, Ellen Harvelle, and her deceased husband Bill were old friends of John's.[16] Ellen reveals in "No Exit" that her husband died while on a hunt with John due to a mistake that John made.[17] In "Born Under a Bad Sign", the demon formerly in possession of Meg takes over Sam's body and claims to Bill and Ellen's daughter Jo that John killed Bill to put him out of his misery.[18] The soul of John later appears in "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2" when a gateway to Hell is opened. He saves Dean from Azazel, and distracts the demon long enough for Dean to grab the Colt and shoot Azazel in the heart, finally killing him. John then gives Sam and Dean a loving smile before becoming engulfed in a white light.[19]

In the fourth season episode "In the Beginning", Dean is sent through time by the angel Castiel. He meets his father's younger self, and ends up convincing John to buy the Impala that he eventually inherits. Dean then watches John go to a diner with Mary, whom he intends to propose to. However, Azazel attacks them and brutally snaps John's neck. Mary makes a deal with Azazel to bring John back to life in exchange for permission to enter her house in ten years, though he does not reveal his intentions of giving demon blood to Sam.[20]

[edit] Characterization Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan felt that John was a "tormented soul",[21] motivated by an "equal combination of revenge and protecting his sons".[22] Following the death of their mother, Sam and Dean became secondary to John's quest of killing the demon responsible, although Morgan felt that this aspect changed once John began spending more time with them again.[22] Though he believed that John was not the world's best dad and "definitely made a lot of mistakes", the actor noted that "he did things, even when they were wrong, for the good of his sons".[21] John regrets making Sam and Dean into hunters, and kept his third son Adam in the dark about the supernatural world in an attempt to protect him. Although he loves his first two sons, he tried to be more of a father to Adam by taking him to baseball games and visiting for birthdays in order to have some sort of normalcy in his life, as his relationship with Sam and Dean had changed forever after Mary's death.[8] Because he was often away on hunts, many aspects of John were shrouded in mystery to his sons. At one point, the brothers comment that they keep learning things about their father after his death that they never knew when he was alive.[23]

On the role, Morgan also commented, "I played him with extra angst. I think what was on the page, what I foresaw—not knowing where it was going, because no one would ever tell me anything—there was always a lot more going on in his head than he was going to show anybody, including his sons. Because, indeed, there was a lot more going on."[21] Kripke later confirmed this, stating, "It's our view that John knew everything the producers of the show know. John knew stuff we're not even ready to reveal, that won't come out for a couple of seasons. He was an awesome hunter, and by the time he showed up in 'Dead Man's Blood', he knew it all."[24]

[edit] Development John's storyline for the pilot episode went through several revisions that would have impacted the rest of the series. The first draft of the script had Sam and Dean being raised by their aunt and uncle, though this was changed when Kripke realized that the backstory became much less complicated by having John raise them on the road. Another revision had John dying at the end of the episode instead of Sam's girlfriend Jessica.[25] Though he survives in the final version of the pilot, it was decided halfway through production of the first season that John did have to die,[26] as the writers believed his separation from his sons "split the show" by having him away "doing more interesting things than the boys are doing".[27] Kripke also felt that John kept Sam and Dean away from the "front lines", his death being required to allow the brothers to "explore, investigate and confront the yellow-eyed demon directly". It was originally intended for John to die at the end of the first season, but this was pushed back into the second season premiere, as the writers believed it would have been too dark to kill John after everything else the brothers had gone through in the finale.[28] Following the character's death and eventual escape from Hell, executive producer Ben Edlund stated that they are unsure of where John's soul ended up.[29]

Due to the fact that Morgan's scene in the pilot episode takes place 22 years before the series, he expected to be replaced by an older actor for subsequent episodes.[21] Being only 12 years older than Jensen Ackles, who portrays the eldest son Dean,[30] Morgan was surprised when he was asked to reprise the role.[21] Ackles and Jared Padalecki often teased him about the age difference during filming.[31] Throughout the season, Morgan became frustrated at times due to his character's avoidance of his sons, stating, "It pissed off everybody, it pissed off us as actors, it pissed off the audience watching, because none of us really knew where we were gonna go." However, he reasoned that John's motivation for his actions was due to having knowledge that nobody else had.[22]

During production of Supernatural's first season, Morgan was also working on the shows Weeds and Grey's Anatomy, so he was often traveling back and forth between Los Angeles and Vancouver. This interfered at times with Morgan's acting, as he had trouble getting "Winchester-y enough" after portraying the nice character of Denny Duquette on Grey's Anatomy.[30] Morgan commented, "I was stuck in Denny-land, where I was being too nice. Winchester's harder to find. Denny's more me. He's an intense guy, John is. And Denny, for a guy who's having trouble living, he's just a charming dude."[30] Morgan was at first reluctant to return for Supernatural's second season due to his role on Grey's Anatomy.[32] Future appearances of the character have been hindered due to his busy schedule,[33] although he lent his voice for the third season episode "Long-Distance Call".[34] Morgan feels that John's storyline ended too soon, and wishes to return for the fifth season.[35]

[edit] Reception While critics praised Morgan for his role, their reaction to the character has generally been mixed. Don Williams of BuddyTV felt that John is a "rather divisive character", with some fans not understanding John's motivation for keeping his sons in the dark. However, Williams himself found the character to be "completely fascinating". He chose "In My Time of Dying" as the second best episode of the series, mainly because of John's contributions, stating, "Even if you're not a huge fan of Poppa Winchester, I think it's impossible not to be moved by the final ten minutes of this episode... John's final speech to Dean, where he finally tells his son that he's proud of him, is one hell of a tear-jerker, and both Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jensen Ackles knock that scene out of the park."[36] Williams praised Matt Cohen's performance of a younger version of the character in the time-travel episode "In the Beginning", believing that he "did an excellent job at portraying a more innocent John Winchester than we've ever seen before".[37] Diana Steenbergen of IGN also criticized John for his lack of explanation, feeling that "it is not exactly easy to watch John treat Dean and Sam so dismissively, especially after they have been nearly killing themselves all season to find him".[38] However, Steenbergen praised Morgan for his acting, writing, "Even though he is used sparingly throughout the series, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is always effective as John."[39] She also felt that he brought "emotional weight" to the character, allowing the audience to "feel John's weariness, and his resignation that things will most likely not go well".[40] While Brian Tallerico of UGO enjoyed Morgan's performance, he was happy that the character was killed off, believing that when John was present in the series, Sam and Dean were "followers" that were "merely existing in the wake of their father". With their father gone, the brothers are no longer prevented from "heading up the battle with the other side".[41]