Base Breaking Character / Supernatural

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• John Winchester: Bastard!Daddy or Daddy Of The Year? There seems to be a growing consensus among fans (at least on tumblr) that he was an awful human being who abused and neglected his children and pretty much ruined their lives, regardless of how good his intentions might've been. However, other fans remain adamant that John was, if not the best father, a three-dimensional character and a flawed human being who still loved Sam and Dean and really did do his best by them. Even the cast and crew seem divided, with Jensen Ackles wanting him back on the show and Jared Padalecki thinking he was a bad parent. Funny, considering their characters' views on the subject. Jeffrey Dean Morgan himself was frustrated by his character's behavior, but ultimately defended him against criticism and said that John did love his kids. This debate was reignited in 2021, when it was announced that the CW and Jensen Ackles's production company were developing a prequel series that would focus on John and Mary (see below) and likely end before Sam's birth.
• Mary Winchester: Sympathetic hunter raised in the life who just wanted to live a normal life with a family of her own? Or super selfish person who knowingly made a demon deal to bring back her husband but unknowingly sold her infant son's soul and yet, despite being a seasoned hunter from a hunting family, never did anything to warn anybody, leading to the sad life John, Dean, and Sam lived after her death. Also once she is resurrected by Amara in season 12, is her shell-shock and refusal to spend any time with Sam and Dean reasonable since she never asked to be resurrected 30 years in the future? Was she right to try to work with the British Men of Letters to rid the world of monsters, since the original intent was for hunters and Men of Letters to work together, so her sons would finally have the world she wanted for them? Or is she ungrateful, refusing to even spend time with Sam and Dean, the sole reason she's currently alive, especially after all her initial deal has cost them? Was she just being willfully ignorant to work with the same organization that kidnapped and tortured one of her kids just because they promised her another too-good-to-be-true deal? Particularly since pretty much every other active hunter in the states refused.
• Bela, who was The Scrappy for most of her tenure on the show, turned into this after she began to be viewed with more sympathy in "Time is on My Side" after she got ripped apart by hellhounds, and became the subject of a petition to be brought back to the show. Some fans love her and want her back on the show because they enjoyed the humor and the moral ambiguity she brought to the table, other fans are more accepting of her as a character after her last episode and would probably be open to future appearances if she were written right, and still other fans who will readily admit that her past was sad but still hate her guts for the things she did in the present and would prefer she stay in Hell where she belongs, thank you very much. That's in contrast to an overlap of people in the first two categories who would at least like Bela to be gripped tight and raised out of Perdition (along with poor Adam) because both groups tend to feel that, whatever her crimes, she doesn't deserve to be paying for them with an eternity in Hell.
• Sam, starting with his behavior and treatment of Dean in Season 4. Although he tried to make amends in Season 5, his continuing to lay some of the blame at Dean's feet grated some fans the wrong way, and his being the center of many of the more interesting story-lines in comparison to his brother only made it worse. Season 8 saw him become even more divisive with his It's All About Me attitude, which show-runners view as positive Character Development and the majority of the fan-base viewed as incredibly selfish and self-righteous. He won back some sympathy with what Dean did to him in Season 9, but his response to Dean's actions received backlash that poured fuel on an already raging fire.
• The Anviliciously dorky Charlie Bradbury. A sweet, funny character doubling as a wonderful bit of positive representation for gays, geeks, and girls alike who is treated as a hero in her own right instead of the usual treatment of being a sidekick to the brothers, a loser, or an evil bitch, and so needs to stay alive and appear in more episodes? Or an offensive portrayal of aforementioned groups and Self-Insert for Robbie Thompson who usurps any episode she appears in, got way too close to the brothers in way too little time, and should've stayed dead in "Slumber Party"? The opinion you'll get depends on what site you're on. And it doesn't help at all that the way she's written as a Harry Potter fan is quite tone-deaf, seeming to be based far more on the movies than the books. And of course her being a Harry/Hermione shipper. Interestingly, Charlie managed to unite the famously contentious fandom thanks to her gratuitous and unnecessary Bury Your Gays death. It was so egregious that even the many fans who hated the character found her manner of death offensive.
• Even with Sam's controversial reaction in season 9, he continues to top the popularity scale over Dean, so it's no surprise that Dean also has detractors who find him abusive of Sam and resent him for some controversial actions like killing Sam's friend Amy. In short, he's as much a Base-Breaking Character for dedicated Sam fans as the other way.
• Castiel. Some like him for his relationship with the brothers and his character development from serving God and God only to siding with the Winchester's and losing his grace. Others however feel that he's a useless Karma Houdini who does nothing but make messes for the brothers to clean up. The fact that he completely undoes Sam's sacrifice in Season 5 by saying yes to Lucifer in season 11 did not help at all.
• The Leviathans. Quite a few fans found them to be the worst villains in the series for being hyped up as the ultimate enemy due to being so evil they had to be banished by God just to keep humanity safe, only to go down in an extremely disappointing and anti-climactic manner, making all their previous hype look like an Informed Attribute. Not helped by the fact that they're really just evil shapeshifting monsters, which had already been done before, causing some viewers to deem them boring and uninteresting. However, there are some who felt that the Leviathans were a cool concept that just could've been executed better and lament that the show decided to completely throw them away after Season 7.
• Hannah. Some like her because she's essentially a Gender Flip of Castiel. Others hate her because she's essentially a Gender Flip of Castiel... who completely lacks the dorky charm or Character Development that made Castiel so beloved in the first place. It really doesn't help that she keeps tripping through the Heel–Face Revolving Door every chance she gets, or that she sanctions torture against Castiel and dies a Karmic Death shortly after.
• Rowena. Is she a charming, sexy villain who brings some much-needed humility to Crowley and the Winchesters? Or is she a poorly-written, ham-handed attempt at "girl power" who's just as laughable as her schemes? The fact that her plans rely heavily on Crowley and other characters suddenly deciding to carry the Idiot Ball doesn't exactly help with the latter interpretation.

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