SPN - In My Time of Dying question

[agt_spooky]

So I was watching In My Time of Dying last night (and no matter how many times I've seen it, I still get teary-eyed at John's final scenes with his sons) and I've got a question that I've been wondering about since the episode first aired.

When Sam is in Dean's room for the first time, the doctor comes in and says that John is awake. Next we see John asking Sam what the doctor said about Dean's condition. Sam and John have their conversation and as Sam gets up to leave, John hands him that piece of paper. John says it's items for protection against The YED, but we then find out it's actually items to summon the YED.

Now here's my question - if John didn't know about Dean's condition prior to Sam telling him, why did he have that list already made up? He didn't know Dean was dying. He wouldn't already know he was going to summon the YED to make a deal for Dean's life.

So...why was that list already made up? Are we supposed to think that the doctor told John about Dean's condition before Sam came in and that John was just pretending he didn't know? Because really, why would John want to summon the YED with one son barely hanging on to life, another really beat up and himself in a hospital bed with a gunshot to his leg and his arm in a sling? None of them were in any condition to have what Sam called a "macho showdown" with the YED.

Am I the only one who wondered about that pre-prepared list? Or am I just missing something and it makes perfect sense to all of you? :-)

Any thoughts? Would love to hear them!

Comments

[blacklid.livejournal.com]

I got all the way to the end, nodding my head the whole way, and then I got to the last line.

DAMMIT JOHNNY. You ARE NOT ALLOWED to do that to me TWICE in ONE DAY.

*dies like all over again*

[felonytexas.livejournal.com]

J-O-N-N-Y. No H. The H must die....I alone am best...::cough::

Well, come on tell me you can't tell that Sam is a young John. Every one assumes because Dean and John have so much incommon that Dean is the mirror image of John, no, it's Sam. Why else could they get get along?

Dean and John have a lot in common but they are not father and son, they are superior officer and soldier. They are friends, with one being the subordinant (in this case Dean). They are commrades at arms, have gone to war together and come back with an unshakable bond. A bond that owuld not have been there had they not gone to war. War buddies is how I would describe John and Dean, their commonalities are born directly from their warriors lifestyle, not because they intrinsicly have anything in common. Dean is not independent like his father, he is incapable of that as demonstrated by his willingness to follow every order his father gives, right to the letter.

Now, Sam is crafty. He's intelligent and independent (clearly demonstrated by his blowing off of the family career and striking out on his own - not once but TWICE [please note both times it was Dean who pulled him back...more on this at another itme]). Sam can not be kept. John knew that. John let Sam go, he could have forced him to stay, but he didn't. He let him walk away, and he let him stay away. Because like John, Sam has to make his own way in the world. What we know of John is that he was independent, that he owned his own business, that he made his own way in life. That he hunted and drug his kids along as soldiers, not sons. To Sam who needed and wanted the life they had had before (a life John left but clearly had desired for himself as he left the soldier's life to be a family man with a regular job and regular house), this life was unacceptable. To John it was to, notice how he apologizes for it several times. In Bad Blood it's even discussed how much they have in common, their normal lives were both thrown askew by the same force. It's that same force that drives them both to be hunters.

Sam and John fight the battle for the same reasons, Dean fights because it's what he understands and how he understands the world. While he has desired something closer to normal, Dean didn't leap and grab at a chance to take it, unlike Sam. John lept and grabbed at a chance to take it, if he had never been anything but a solider he'd have never left the Marines to marry Mary and have children and a regular job.

Notice how the YED puts his bet on Sam. This isn't because Sam is the strongest (certainly that fell to metal bending Jake), or has the most useful power (see: Andy). But because Sam was the coyote of the group. He's clever, crafty and a master escape artist. He can not be caged, trapped or stop once he sets his mind to something (ie just like Dad). The YED KNEW with out a doubt Sam would be the one to come through for him, provided he was motivated properlly. Just like the YED knew he'd never catch John, so when John surrendered even though the YED knew it ment making Dean more bothersome than before, he took it. Because Dean would never be the big problem Dad was.

Sam and John are leaders. Dean isn't. Dean is a hero, in the most classical sense, but he isn't the guy that changes the world. Sam is the guy who changes the world, Dean's the right hand who fights to the bitter end, but doesn't walk away from battle (and Dean knows this , better than any one).

The part I find the most interesting about this episode is not that John told Dean to kill Sam if he could not protect him. It's that in saying that John gave Dean the one order he knew his son could not, and would not follow. In essescence...John told Dean to be more like Sam.